American Horror Storyhas been a popular TV show, gracing our screens for the past 13 years, yet one ending twist from the show’s past has seriously impacted its later seasons. The first few years of the show saw original, interesting ideas for new storylines, witheveryAmerican Horror Storyseasonhaving a stand-alone story, such as a haunted house or a coven of witches. Unfortunately, recent years have proven the show to lack this sense of originality and shocking twists, especially the 2023/24 season,“Delicate”, an adaptation of a book by Danielle Valentine. This trend began six years ago.
The main weakness ofAmerican Horror Storypast few seasons, has been the way the show has chosen to end its self-contained narratives. The first main instance of this was in season 8, “Apocalypse”.Apocalypsewas actually a great season, merging elements fromMurder House,Coven,andHoteltogether to create a new season along with new characters surviving the apocalypse. However, the ending of the season not only compromised the current story, but retrospectively worsened previousAmerican Horror Storyseasons – a mistake from which the series is yet to recover.
Apocalypse’s Disappointing Ending Made Audiences Lose Hope In The Show
The Ending Of Apocalypse Suggests That The Season Doesn’t Matter
The “it was all a dream” plot device is notoriously contentious, but the eighth season ofAmerican Horror Storysomehow was able to think of something worse. The season itself was made engaging and intriguing by bringing back audience favorite characters from earlier seasons of the show. However,all of this was ruined by the way the season ended.By the last few scenes of the final episode, everything looked bleak for the legacy characters, with Madison, Cordelia and other characters meeting their demise in brutal death scenes at the hands of the Anti-Christ, Michael Langdon.
…it was a waste of time as the whole season was irrelevant and didn’t really happen in theAmerican Horror Storyuniverse.
However, rather than letting these characters die, the show decided to go back in time to kill Michael before he caused any problems. This means thateverything that happened in the season was reversed and didn’t really happen. Only one character, Mallory, remembers the events of the season as she was the one to go back in time. This ending was unfair for the loyal viewers of the show who had been watching on a week-by-week basis, since it was a waste of time as the whole season was irrelevant and didn’t really happen in theAmerican Horror Storyuniverse.
Apocalypse’s Ending Ruined Multiple Character Arcs
Any Character Development Was Undone Due To Time Travel
American Horror Story: Apocalypsedid such a great job with developing characters from previous seasons, it’s just a shame that all of this was undone by the end of the season. Audiences got to see Madison Montgomery’s redemption story arc, and Cordelia’s selfless sacrifice as she broke away from her fears of ending up like Fiona.
The best piece of character development in the season was seen in the episode “Return To Murder House”, where the ghost maid of the house,Moria O’Hara, finally got her well-deserved happy ending. She’s finally able to leave the house and reunite with her mother in the afterlife. However, this ending for the character was undone because Mallory went back in time, meaning that Moria is still trapped in the four walls of the murder house. All of this character development seems like the show gave the audience false hope for strong character development, just to have it taken away.
Later American Horror Story Seasons Haven’t Fixed Apocalypse’s Ending
Apocalypse’s Ending Has Led To A Run Of Poor Season Finale Episodes
Despite Ryan Murphy promisinga return to the witches inCovenat some point, they have not been seen in the main show sinceApocalypse. In fact, this season finale has led to a string of poor, underdeveloped season finales in recent years. For example, adding the supernatural and family drama to1984made for a weak ending, especially as the whole episode took place in 2019, a total of 35 years after the events of the rest of the season. This is just one example of how the show’s attempts at inventive endings have fallen flat asAmerican Horror Storystruggles to grapple with the precedent set byApocalypse.
As well as this, bothRed TideandDeath Valleyboth killed off most of their ensemble cast, leaving just two main characters alive in each season. The fact that these two stories were released one after another made it feel quite structured and repetitive, taking away the shock factor thatAmerican Horror Storyonce had. While it’s difficult to say what would have happened hadApocalypseended differently, it’s difficult to ignore the show’s subsequent downhill trajectory.
American Horror Story
Cast
American Horror Story is a Horror Anthology series created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. The franchise has seen stars like Connie Britton, Jessica Lange, Denis O’Hare, Zachary Quinto, Evan Peters, and Dylan McDermott. Each season follows a new premise and spans an array of horror genres like witches, ghosts, serial killers, and more.
