In its premiere episode, which aired this past Wednesday, American Horror Story: 1984 feels like it’s trying to shed away the show’s previous expectations and shape itself into something new.
Ryan Murphy’s horror series is set up to be an anthology, with each new season diving into a new horror genre/trope. But ever since the revelation that all the seasons were set in the same shared universe, fans have expected connections, crossovers, and cameos galore.
Last year’s American Horror Story, Apocalypse was the culmination of all these crossovers. The season dove into the mythology of the series, indulging in fan favorite appearances and theories. Jessica Lange was back! The witches from Coven returned! No one really cared about the convoluted plot, so long as they could see their faves back for five minutes.
But after the lore-heavy Apocalypse, 1984 is a deep breath, a step away from the tangled web of mythology that creator Ryan Murphy accidentally spun. With the absence of mainstay series regulars, particularly Evan Peters, who said in April he was “sitting this one out,” AHS is using 1984 as an excuse to reinvent itself in a way it hasn’t in ages.
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the first episode of American Horror Story: 1984]
Let’s get this out of the way: There technically is a connection to previous seasons, but it comes in the form of real life serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka the Night Stalker. Played by Anthony Ruivivar, Ramirez appeared in the show’s fifth season, Hotel, at a gathering of notorious serial killers that assembles at the Hotel Cortez every Devil’s Night. In 1984, he’s portrayed by Zach Villa, younger, alive, and well. It’s his presence in the city that prompts our group of rowdy adolescents to seek refuge at Camp Redwood.
But other than the presence of Ramirez, there isn’t really anything tying AHS to the baggage of its preexisting lore. There isn’t a mention of the Hotel Cortez, or any of the other AHS staples in California (the Murder House, for instance). It’s not just the absence of name drops, however, but a tonal shift that marks a difference. After the Friday the 13th-esque opening, where a masked killer decimates an entire cabin, the first episode opens on an upbeat aerobics class. Each member of the main cast is introduced with their name in tubular ’80s font. Each of the five characters is an almost cartoonish representation of a slasher flick stock victim.
We have the dumb jock Chet, promiscuous party girl Montana, the tokenized black friend Ray, mysterious group leader Xavier, and virginal newcomer Brooke — with hints that the latter two know more than they’re letting on. The other characters are also caricatures: Trevor the horny activities director with a very prominent pornstache; Margaret the uptight, conservative camp director who claims she survived the Camp Redwood killings by the grace of God; and Rita, the no-nonsense nurse who doesn’t have time for anyone’s bullshit.
The rest of the first episode plays on this self-awareness. In two separate instances, Montana and Ray — whose character tropes usually mean they get picked off first — end up in vulnerable situations, where they’d likely meet their end were this a movie and not the first episode of a season. The gang ends up at a lone gas station, where the grizzled attendant speaks cryptically to them about staying away from the camp. A dehydrated hiker warns Brooke about bad things happening.
A sense of self-awareness along with the absence of AHS mainstayers sets 1984 up to finally be the season unburdened from the show’s past, one that uses connections as more of an homage than a crutch. Cult and Roanoke, the show’s sixth and seventh seasons, both tried to slip into a new format, but Cult’s too-on-the-nose politicalness, Roanoke’s bewildering second half, and the fact that Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters were main characters never really allowed either to totally be something different.
So long as 1984 doesn’t start summoning the ghosts of the Tate family or referencing one of Jessica Lange’s characters, it could very well be the campy, breath of redwood-tinged air that American Horror Story needs.