Each season of American Horror Story has been unique from the rest, but there are still
some major common threads running throughout the anthology installments that definitely
tie this hit thriller series together.
Between recurring characters, locations, and clever references scattered throughout, there
are plenty of Easter eggs that connect all six chapters of American Horror Story together.
Familiar faces
The vast majority of the show's characters have appeared in just one season each.
But there have been a handful who've popped back in later seasons.
The first character to bridge the divide was Pepper, who made her debut in Asylum as a
patient of Briarcliff Manor, who was committed for killing her own child.
In Freak Show, we got to see what transpired before those events.
We found out that poor Pepper was actually a member of the Cabinet of Curiosities before
she was framed by her sister and brother-in-law for the murder of their disfigured infant
Lucas.
Sister Mary Eunice followed suit, which revealed that there was more to her than the devilish
possession we saw in Asylum.
Her return to Freak Show was much more pleasant and subdued.
Dr. Arden, Marcy the realtor, Dr. Charles Montgomery, and Queenie are some of the others
who've come back for another brief round of nefarious fun.
But actress Sarah Paulson is the MVP of comebacks.
Her celebrity psychic persona Billie Dean Howard debuted in the first season, Murder
House, and returned for Season five's Hotel, and her TV journalist alter ego Lana Winters
connected Asylum with the most recent season, Roanoke.
Not just a name
There've also been several winks to characters to link the stories together.
Coven's Madison Montgomery, for example, may have been related to the Murder House's original
owners, Charles and Nora Montgomery, if their shared last name holds any significance.
And attorney Harry Goodman from Season one was probably related to Asylum's Sam Goodman,
especially since they were both investigators.
It's also probably no coincidence that there were two characters named Jack Colquitt who
were both detectives in different generations.
In Roanoke, Edward Mott was the ancestor to Freak Show's Dandy and Gloria Mott.
Plus, those killer nurses from Murder House came back into play in Roanoke as well.
Chances are, the hunky Uber driver Rhett Snow might have also had some kind of connection
to Coven character Myrtle Snow … unless his name was actually a nod to Game of Thrones'
undead hero.
But that'd just be crazy, right?
Theoretical throwbacks
Even where names and actual role reprisals fail to appear, there are still some characters
that draw us back to something familiar from the past.
For example, Roanoke's Woods Witch is rumored to be the original Supreme from Coven.
And let's not forget that Cricket said he was trained in New Orleans, which is where
the actor's other American Horror Story persona spent some time during Coven.
Plus, Billie Dean made a direct mention of the Roanoke colony all the way back in Murder
House.
Meanwhile, it's widely believed that Oliver Thredson from Asylum was actually the faceless
therapist that treated Dandy Mott in Freak Show.
And it's probably no coincidence that the new season included all the pig masks after
Season one's Derrick harped on his pigman fears so hard.
Running rules
Another common thread found throughout all six seasons lies in the supernatural rules
in play.
Ghosts, for example, continually exist as haunting, visible presences that appear to
be confined to the locations of their death — but can have physical, and sometimes deadly,
interactions with the living around them.
Spirit mediums are also regularly brought into play, and witchcraft is obviously a very
real practice throughout the series.
Demonic possessions run rampant throughout the show, and multiple installments feature
vampires' thirst for blood.
All together, these shared mythologies make up the sinister backbone of the whole body
of the show, and every season relies on them.
Thematic threads
That's not all that bleeds together about American Horror Story's seasons.
There's also the common themes behind the various characters' motives and actions.
Mommy issues seem to loom large for a lot of the men on the show, and there have been
several women who killed off their husbands along the way as well.
Bigamy is another big one — just how many girlfriends did Evan Peters' characters have
anyway?
And let's not forget how pop culture-obsessed so many of Sarah Paulson's characters have
been.
Speaking of which ...
Visual cues
It's no mistake that some seasons of American Horror Story have given fans a sense of deja
vu.
Several of the camera angles throughout have been set up as direct references to stories
past — like the repeat opening scenes from Murder House and Roanoke, and all that time
the cameras spent looking at staircases.
Eagle-eyed fans might have also spotted the Roanoke Butcher's cleaver and some other throwback
weapons among those that were laid out in Hotel.
And even the element of literally two-faced characters — like Bette and Dot from Freak
Show and Edward Mordrake — seem to have foreshadowed what would later come for the
cast members portraying them.
After all, Sarah Paulson's appearance in multiple roles in the subsequent seasons Hotel and
Roanoke could be a tribute to her ability to double up.
And Wes Bentley's Hotel character certainly had two minds pushing and pulling his behaviors,
right?
Sinful significance
One of the biggest takeaways that seems to come through with American Horror Story is
its grander statement on the concept of sin.
A lot of fans think the individual seasons represent the layers of hell in Dante's Inferno,
while others think they're each playing on the seven deadly sins.
Both sides seem to have some basis in the show's reality.
Murder House, for example, involved a lot of bedroom behavior by its characters, so
it might fall under the "lust" category, and Asylum was filled with fraud and false witness.
Coven had heresy written all over it, and Freak Show dealt a lot with the concept of
pride.
Hotel, meanwhile, was all about wrath and gluttony, and Roanoke had more than one instance
of adultery and coveting…not to mention, tons of violence.
The fact that Hotel included an actual Ten Commandments Killer even seemed like a giant
nod to these longheld theories.
Whether or not the future seasons continue to correspond to these wicked markers remains
to be seen.
But one thing's for sure, there's a bigger picture here that's only beginning to reveal
itself…
Thanks for watching!
Click the Looper icon to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Plus check out all this cool stuff we know you'll love, too!