Will American Horror Story season 9's theme be set in space?

16 November 2018, 14:28

By Katie Louise Smith

Fans of American Horror Story think they've found a hint in 'Apocalypse' that suggests season 9 will be about the aliens that featured in 'Asylum'.

American Horror Story's show-stopping eighth season came to a close earlier this week (Nov 14) with one of the best finales that the series has ever seen. (Not everyone loved it, but isn't that always the case with AHS?) Despite barely being over what went down in the finale, everyone is already desperate to know what season 9 will bring. So far, there's been no announcement or tea on what next season's theme will be but fans think they've spotted a huge clue that featured throughout Apocalypse that might hint at what's to come next.

Any long-time American Horror Story fans will know that Ryan Murphy likes to leave clues and references in seasons that allude to the theme of next season. Sometimes they're obvious, sometimes they're really really subtle. In Cult, there was references to pentagrams and satanic symbols (Apocalypse) and in Roanoke there were references to Helter Skelter and Charles Manson (Cult).

Following the finale of Apocalypse, there's one particular scene with Kathy Bates' Ms Mead that seems to have fans speculating that season 9 might finally delve into the long forgotten 'aliens' storyline that featured in Asylum.

In the finale episode ('Apocalypse Then'), Michael, flanked by robot Mead, faces off against Cordelia and the rest of the witches. Just before all hell breaks loose, Cordelia destroys Mead, knocking Michael to the floor as she blows up. As he turns to look, he sees Meade's malfunctioning decapitated head (a perfect callback to Coven's Madame Lalaurie), leaking white fluid (a reference to Alien) and singing a song.

The song in question? It's 'Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)', which also happens to feature in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

While it's certainly something to speculate about, the inclusion of that song wasn't exactly as random as it seemed. In the film, 'Daisy' is sung by computer HAL9000 and was reportedly the first song ever sung using computer speech synthesis. Given that Meade is a robot, it could have just been a nice easter egg and homage put in place by tech heads Jeff and Mutt.

But now, fans are taking it as reason to believe that season 9 might finally give us some closure on those god damn aliens because, ya know... SPACE Odyssey...

It's a fair theory, right? Especially given that we really thought they were going to go explain the alien sub-plot this season. (There was that one theory that Outpost inhabitants Timothy and Emily were descendants of Kit Walker, who was abducted by aliens in Asylum. And then there was Mallory, who was theorised to be the child of a human and an angel. She appeared to possess the same calming aura and healing powers that Kit's 'angelic' children had in Asylum.)

But just how likely is it to happen? Well, Ryan Murphy is aware of the hype surrounding a season set in space, but he once said in 2014 that he'll never do it because "space is not in America. It’s ‘American Horror Story’ not ‘Intergalactic Horror Story.’" But that doesn't mean we can't explore extra terrestrial stuff on earth...

Some fans are into it, some fans aren't but the alien involvement within the universe is still something that desperately needs to be explored. And besides, Evan Peters really wants a space theme so like, give the man what he wants! WE NEED CLOSURE ON THOSE ALIENS!