Random Things About How All Of American Horror Story Seasons Are Connected (21 items)

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  (#1) Each Season Is A Different Level Of Hell

  One of the most imaginative and comprehensive American Horror Story fan theories posits that each of the seven seasons so far has represented another level of Hell as recounted in Dante's Inferno.

  This theory was originally discussed by writer Jacqueline Bircher back in 2014, but it's since been updated as new seasons have come out. Most adherents to the Dante theory map the seasons this way:

  Murder House: Limbo

  Asylum: Fraud

  Coven: Treachery

  Freak Show: Greed

  Hotel: Gluttony

  Roanoke: Wrath

  Cult: Heresy

  That means there should be two seasons left: Lust and Violence. Can it be a coincidence that AHS has been renewed through Season 9?

  There are many more clues that back this theory up scattered throughout all seven seasons, too. Even more compelling, Ryan Murphy himself coyly referenced this theory in an Instagram post.

  Of course, with any fan theory this widespread, expect some backlash: Reddit is filled with posts debunking the Dante theory, too.
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  (#2) It All Connects At Episode 6

  Early in Season 6, Roanoke, Redditor apple_martini concocted the crazy, genius theory that each Roanoke episode connected to the sixth episode of every former season.

  For example, in Season 6, episode 3: 

  "Roanoke's third outing brought back Leslie Jordan, this time as enigmatic psychic Cricket Marlowe. 'Chapter 3' saw Cricket demanding payment for his services, while trying to communicate with the evil that dwelled inside the house. Cut back to Season 3 and Coven, Episode 6 'The Axeman Cometh' was the one where Zoe and the rest of the junior witches accidentally summon Danny Huston’s villainous Axeman."

  Or what about Season 6, episode 4:

  "'Chapter 4' had the return of another AHS alumni, and Denis O'Hare got some well-deserved screen time. Did anyone else shudder when he mentioned that Edward Phillipe Mott used to own the Roanoke house? The Mott family is comprised of those inbred socialites who spawned Finn Wittrock's psycho Dandy in Freak Show."

  Still with us so far.? Ctuwallet24 complicates it even further:

  "I totally think this is right, because the 6th episode of season 6 will also allude to the 6th episode of Roanoke!

  Ability of episodes 7-10 to predict the theme of the 6th episodes of seasons 7-10 confirmed!

  TEN SEASONS CONFIRMED!!!"

  Okay, that math isn't exactly easy to follow, but everyone loves to speculate about the 10th "secret" season AHS fans have been waiting for.

  Will Episode 6 of Cult continue this pattern? Time will tell.
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  (#3) American Horror Story Is A Documentary Series

  Inspired by the faux reality TV setting of Season 6: Roanoke, MartynLann on Reddit asked, "What if it turns out that all of this seasons have been documentaries and that's why they keep using the same actors and actresses?"

  Other Redditors have also wondered if all of AHS could be a "documentary" series (would that makes Season 6 a meta-documentary?) where all the actors are indeed actors playing different roles. It would explain why the actors keep coming back season after season. You know, unless they're doomed to return to work through their bad karma.
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  (#4) Ally's Fears In Season 7 Replay The First Six Seasons

  In the first two episodes of Season 7, Ally (Sarah Paulson) reminds her psychiatrist (Cheyenne Jackson) that she has many phobias, and lists a few of them: clowns, blood, confined spaces, the dark, and patterns of tiny holes (trypophobia).

  Naturally, Ally's fear of clowns links this season with Season 4's Freak Show, and its marauding clown. But what about blood? Or tiny holes? Redditor ItsNotAPersonDamnIt links Ally's fear of blood to Hotel's vampires. Monalisaaa11 suggests Ally's trypophobia is a reference to the needles and swords imagery from Season 3's Coven (as well as witchcraft and voodoo dolls). Others on Reddit connect tiny holes with the heroin addiction Paulson's character suffered in Hotel.

  But what about the other three seasons? Monalisaaa11 explains, "My theory is that as the season goes on, they might give us six specific fears they want to loosely connect with the past seasons." 
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  (#5) The Even- And Odd-Numbered Seasons Take Place In Different Universes

  What if all of American Horror Story comprised not one connected universe, but two? Zemrazjarr on Reddit argues that the even-numbered seasons (2, 4, and 6; or Asylum, Freak Show, and Roanoke) share one universe, and the odd-numbered seasons (Murder House, Coven, Hotel, and Cult) another.

  Zemrazjarr says:

  "In Freak Show (4) we see that it's unquestionably the same universe as Asylum (2) and then when Roanoke (6) rolls around we also see that it is unquestionably linked to Freak Show and Asylum. Then in Hotel (5) we see that it is definitely set in the same universe as Murder House (1) and Coven (3). But as far as I can see the odd seasons and the even seasons aren't linked at all (unless I'm missing something)."

  To be fair, this theory somewhat falls apart at the odd-numbered Season 7: Cult, which shares Twisty the clown with the even-numbered Season 4. Other Redditors raised other doubts, but it's an interesting theory all the same.
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  (#6) Journalist Lana Winters Visits Both Asylum And Roanoke

  In Asylum in 1964, journalist Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson) attempts to investigate the mysterious Briarcliff Manor and winds up trapped inside, where she is tortured with conversion therapy supposedly intended to "cure" her homosexuality before being raped and nearly murdered by the serial killer Bloody Face.

  Winters eventually escapes and rises to prominence as an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker. In 2017, Winters interviews survivor Lee Harris (Adina Porter) about her ordeals in Roanoke. So we know that Seasons 2 and 6 definitely take place in the same universe.
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  (#7) Freak Show's Mott Family Built The Roanoke House

  The wealthy Mott family is to blame for more than just psychopath Dandy (Finn Wittrock), the deranged young heir who murders out of boredom and petulance in Season 4's Freak Show.

  Dandy's mother Gloria Mott (Frances Conroy) warns her son that madness runs in their (very inbred) family and she's right: Dandy's ancestor Edward Phillipe Mott built the Roanoke house from Season 6 in 1792 and later disappeared there.
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  (#8) Roanoke's Witch Scáthach Was The Original Supreme

  Show creator Ryan Murphy confirmed a connection between Season 3's Coven and Season 6's Roanoke in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, saying that Scáthach (Lady Gaga) was the original Supreme, the most powerful witch and head of the coven.

  The plot of Season 3, of course, revolved around present-day witches vying to see who would become the next Supreme, carrying on Scáthach's legacy.
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  (#9) Pepper Performed In Freak Show Before Landing In Asylum

  As an infant, Pepper (Naomi Grossman) was abandoned by her family because she suffered from microcephaly, a condition that gave her an unusually small head and a range of other disabilities. She grew up in an orphanage until she was 18, when Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange) adopted her into Fräulein Elsa's Cabinet of Curiosities in Season 4's Freak Show.

  After her companion and fellow microcephaly sufferer Salty dies, she becomes too depressed to perform with the freak show and is sent to live with her sister Rita.

  But this was not the first time Pepper appeared on American Horror Story. Pepper first appeared in Season 2 as an inmate of the Briarcliff asylum, where she was sent after supposedly murdering her disabled infant nephew. It turns out that Rita and her husband murdered the baby themselves and framed Pepper, who lacked the cognitive capacities to defend herself.

  So it seems certain that both Seasons 2 and 4 take place in the same world and on the same timeline.
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  (#10) There's Something About Florida

  Season 4, Freak Show, takes place in Jupiter, Florida, but this isn't the series' only connection to that benighted state. Back in Season 1, Murder House, Vivien Harmon (Connie Britton) mentions she has relatives in Florida.

  By Season 7, Cult, creepy babysitter Winter Anderson (Billie Lourd) mentions that she was in Florida, too, canvassing for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
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  (#11) Jack Colquitt Is A Time-Traveling Detective

  It's only a small callback, but many AHS fans noted that Detective Jack Colquitt (Geoffrey Rivas) appeared in Season 1 to investigate the disappearance of Sally Freeman (Adina Porter). But in Season 4, Freak Show, which takes place six decades before Season 1, another Detective Jack Colquitt (P.J. Marshall) shows up to investigate the many murders and disappearances taking place in Jupiter, Florida.

  Is this a subtle clue, or does Ryan Murphy just a fan of The X-Files?
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  (#12) Asylum's Nazi Madman Dr. Arden Got His Start Experimenting On Freak Show's Elsa Mars

  In Season 2, Asylum, Dr. Arthur Arden (James Cromwell) is a former Nazi concentration camp commander who becomes Briarcliff Manor's mad scientist in residence, subjecting the asylum's patients to torture while trying to create a new master race - and succeeding only in creating terrifying, zombie-like creatures called "raspers."

  In Season 4, Freak Show, we learn that freak show owner and frustrated chanteuse Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange) met Dr. Arden years before, in a brothel in 1930s Germany. The Nazi doctor and scientist (then going by the name Hans Grüper) amputated her legs while making a snuff film.

  More proof that Seasons 2 and 4 are tied together.
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  (#13) The Montgomery Family Gets Around

  Another case of Ryan Murphy reusing last names, or something more? In Season 1, surgeon Charles Montgomery (Matt Ross) was the original owner of the "murder house," which he used to perform twisted Frankenstein-like experiments while high on ether - and that's before things got really ugly.

  In Season 3, Coven, we're introduced to telekinetic starlet Madison Montgomery (Emma Roberts).

  Finally, in Season 5, Hotel, Charles Montgomery reappears to perform an abortion on the Countess (Lady Gaga) - without any luck, as the fetus not only lives, but murders Montgomery's nurse.
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  (#14) Murder House's Real Estate Agent Checked In To Hotel

  Back in Season 1, despicable real estate agent Marcy (Christine Estabrook) sells the titular Murder House to Patrick and Chad Warwick (Teddy Sears and Zachary Quinto), then after their brutal murder, sells it again to the Harmon family without fully disclosing the home's grisly past.

  Marcy's homophobic and racist comments, as well as her dishonesty in dealing with her clients, make it hard to feel sorry for her when she tries to broker a deal at the Hotel Cortez from Season 5 and falls prey to famished vampires.
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  (#15) Coven's Queenie Meets Her End At Hotel Cortez

  Queenie, the voodoo witch played by Gabourey Sidibe in Season 3, Coven, possesses powerful magic, including the ability to inflict pain on herself that then transfers to her victims, essentially turning her own body into a voodoo doll.

  Unfortunately, while Queenie can defeat any mortal, she's powerless against ghosts, which is how she winds up trapped in Season 5's Hotel Cortez. The vampiric Ramona Royale (Angela Bassett) attacks Queenie, who nearly defeats her before the ghost of James March comes to Ramona's aid and Queenie is doomed.
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  (#16) The Psychic Billie Dean Howard Appears In Seasons 1 And 5

  Sarah Paulson's psychic Billie Dean Howard appears in American Horror Story's first season, where she tries to exorcise the Murder House of its many demons.

  Paulson reprised the role in Season 5's Hotel when Billie Dean Howard interviews John Lowe's ghost (Wes Bentley) for her paranormal TV show. Marsh swears her to secrecy and she makes it out of the hotel alive, which means she might just make it back for a future season....

  What's more, in Season 1, Billie Dean tells the story of a historic exorcism in - where else? Roanoke.
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  (#17) Pig Men Run Wild Throughout American Horror Story

  The Pig Man (also called Piggy Man) made his first appearance in Season 1, when psychiatrist Ben Harmon (Dylan McDermott) attempts to help his patient, Derrick (Eric Stonestreet). Derrick has become obsessed with an urban legend about Piggy Man, a hog butcher-turned-supernatural-killer, but his attempts to confront his fears lead to his death.

  Flash-forward to Season 6, Roanoke, and we meet another Pig Man. This horrifying apparition earned his pig's head in the original 16th-century Roanoke colony, when he stole food from the colony's supply stores. The enraged colonists punished his piggy greed by forcing him to wear a pig's head, then roasting him alive on a spit. No wonder his restless ghost now haunts the area.

  Are these the same Pig Man? Or did Murphy just reuse a very creepy concept?

  And if that isn't enough, there's a reference to a Pig Man in Season 7, Cult, when Sarah Paulson's phobic Ally sees a butcher's tray of pig snouts moments before having a hallucinatory panic attack.
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  (#18) Who Is The Antichrist?

  AHS is replete with contenders to the title. In Season 1, psychic Billie Dean Howard (Sarah Paulson) explains that "a child born of human and spirit will usher in the end of times.” Vivien Harmon (Connie Britton) gives birth to just such a baby, Michael, a murderous toddler adopted by Constance Langdon (Jessica Lange).

  But this is far from the only time that spirit-human sex takes place. In Roanoke, the immortal witch Scáthach (Lady Gaga) has sex with human Matt Miller (André Holland and Cuba Gooding, Jr.). In Hotel, the Countess (Lady Gaga) and James March have their own demon baby, Bartholomew, who commits his first murder when still a fetus. Any one of these babies might be the one true Antichrist.

  And whatever happened to little Michael from Season One? Some fans think he might now be going under the name of Oz in Season 7: Cult.
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  (#19) Twisty The Clown Returns To Terrorize Season 7

  Everyone loved Twisty the Clown in Season 4, Freak Show, portrayed by John Carroll Lynch as a terrifying yet oddly sympathetic children's entertainer-turned-serial killer. Once a kind, mentally disabled circus clown, Twisty was falsely accused of pedophilia and driven out of the community. He attempted to commit suicide with a shotgun, only to blow off his lower jaw instead.

  The "real" Twisty died at the end of Season 4, summoned by the ghost of Edward Mordrake (Wes Bentley). But in Season 7, he's back! Sort of. Twisty only appears as a fictional comic book character, though the lines between real and imagined are certainly iffy.
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  (#20) Season 5 Puts Campfire Coffee To A New Use

  This may qualify as more of a running joke than a deep connection, but Campfire Gold instant coffee is a quirky constant in the AHS universe. Redditor gh0stgall3ry noticed that in Season 5, Iris (Kathy Bates) stores her son's ashes in a Campfire coffee can. This is the same brand of coffee that Season 4's Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange) did commercials for back in the 1930s.
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  (#21) Several Freak Show Characters Are Immortalized In Comic Book Form In Cult

  In a blink-or-you'll-miss-it moment in Season 7 a character holds up the comic book that young Oz likes to read much to his caulrophobic mother's disapproval. The comic book features Twisty the Clown, who shows up a few times in Season 7. What a closer observation reveals is that Pepper (Naomi Grossman), Jimmy (Peter Evans), and Meep (Ben Woolf) also appear on the comic's cover as characters.

  Are they meant to be historical characters or are they fictional characters in AHS: Cult's world? It's unsure, but yet another way Freak Show and Cult overlap.

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