10 Questions We Definitely Still Have About That ‘American Horror Story: 1984’ Finale

Photo credit: Google Images
Photo credit: Google Images

From Cosmopolitan

American Horror Story traditionally pulls out all the stops for its finales. The "Murder House" finale saw Connie Britton give birth to the literal antichrist; "Coven" took viewers on a roller coaster ride with the Test of the Seven Wonders; "Cult" saw a group of empowered women rising up to gain a U.S. Senate seat.

The "1984" finale was also a wild ride. It jumped forward to 2019, when Mr. Jingles' (John Carroll Lynch) grown son Bobby (Finn Wittrock) came to the now-abandoned Camp Redwood to find out more about his father's life and death. And after a lot (a looooot) of bloodshed as part of the ghosts trapping the Night Stalker (Zach Villa) at camp to keep him from killing Jingles’ son, Bobby managed to escape and live happily ever after. Brooke (Emma Roberts) and Donna (Angelica Ross) are also leading pretty good lives.

But the finale definitely didn’t wrap everything up. Here are 10 questions we have after the American Horror Story: 1984 finale.

1. Where Exactly Were Jingles and his family?

In the penultimate episode, after Ben's brother Bobby (Filip Alexander) pulled a total Jason Voorhies and dragged Ben into the lake, Ben was able to reconcile with his mother (Lily Rabe) and brother on the banks of the lake. It seemed at the time like they all got to move on from the camp, maybe to a heaven of sorts? It wasn't made clear.

The finale didn't make it any clearer. They were still at the camp and the other ghosts knew where they were, with Margaret (Leslie Grossman) telling Ben's son Bobby she could take him to his father, but then what was it about the spot by the lake that made them safe? That whole thing was not really explained.

2. What traps the ghosts at camp?

Sure, there were references made to some vague "blood curse," but there was no real information offered about why the souls of people who died at Camp Redwood were trapped there for all eternity. The way Montana (Billie Lourd) was talking in the last few episodes, I really thought they were going to figure out the origin of the curse and a way to break it and set the souls free. But nope. They're just stuck in Camp Redwood for some unknown reason.

Now, American Horror Story has done this before — the same rules applied to the Murder House. But mentioning an actual "curse" made me think there would be more of an explanation offered, and then some kind of resolution. It also felt like Satan/God/heaven/purgatory might come into play, but none of that really did in any meaningful way.

3. Why were some of the ghosts missing?

Not only did the real Rita (Dreama Walker) and Xavier's (Cody Fern) "daddy" Blake (Todd Stashwick) not appear in the finale with the rest of the ghosts, but neither did a whole bunch of no-name ghosts from the 1948 massacre or the 1970 massacre. Where were all of them?

The real-world answer is probably that they couldn't get Walker or Stashwick to return for the finale, and the in-show explanation is probably that they were just off hiding somewhere in the camp. But still, it felt weird all season that we only saw certain ghosts.

4. Why was Bruce introduced?

There were a lot of things this season that seemed to go nowhere and the introduction of Bruce (Dylan McDermott) was one of them. Margaret didn't need him to carry out her plan, he was just some random serial killer dropped into the show in episode seven. Did McDermott need some work to keep his SAG card current?

5. Was there really no twist to the season?

There were early theories that American Horror Story: 1984 was actually a video game (or my theory was that it was a role-playing game) or that all the people were actually just filming a slasher movie. But the "twist" ended up being... well, let's see... what was the twist?

The season was actually pretty straightforward, in that it was about a bunch of different massacres as this one camp. The Satan thing wasn't a twist because we already know AHS operates in a world where Satan is a real thing.

6. Where were all the scares?

Along the same lines as no twist, this season seemed devoid of the usual terrifying things that are a big reason we watch AHS. Some seasons of this show have given me actual nightmares. This season felt more like a season of Scream Queens.

7. What was the point of the weirdly detailed backstories some people had?

The show liked to take diversions into backstories that didn't have much bearing on the main plot. Sure, Margaret's was important because her story was kind of the story of the whole season. But Brooke, Montana and Ray's (DeRon Horton) flashbacks seemed like a lot of filler because they didn't really have a ton of bearing on the thrust of the action.

8. What was up with the Night Stalker?

Again, this is something that felt a little bit like gilding the lily. It would have been one thing if the season had featured a bunch of real-life serial killers. But introducing one real serial killer and having him be at the center of the action despite the fact that it deviated from Richard Ramirez's (Zach Villa) real life in some fairly significant ways felt out of place. This season would have actually worked better for me if the Satan/Night Stalker stuff had been omitted entirely and the show had focused more on the repeat massacres at Camp Redwood and its blood curse.

9. Who put Ray's head in the fridge?

This is a bit of a quibble, but logistically, who put Ray's head in the refrigerator? Jingles? Why would he do that? Was that the best way the writers could come up with to have Brooke figure out he was dead?

10. Will Sarah Paulson and/or Evan Peters be back next year?

No offense to this year's cast, but Paulson's presence was sorely missed. She provides some heft and gravitas to this show and her absence was conspicuous. Peters, meanwhile... well, nobody does crazy killer better than he does, so it would have been fun to have him too.

In fact, I was sure that the show was going to reveal that this was all a bunch of people playing an RPG like Dungeons & Dragons and those people, who would have only needed to film one scene, would be played by the franchise's missing regulars: Paulson, Peters, Jessica Lange, Gabourey Sidibe, Kathy Bates, etc etc.

Okay, one last thing: Has American Horror Story run its course?

This show has turned in some outstanding seasons — and it wasn't like the show was in decline after the first two really strong ones with "Murder House" and "Asylum." "Roanoke" and "Cult" were also both really solid. But "Apocalypse" was hit and miss and this season was a straight-up mess. The show has been renewed for a tenth season and Murphy tells Deadline it might be the last one because that's all they've contracted for with FX. With that in mind, he's reaching out to fan-favorites.

"We're working on an idea for season 10 that I think people will love because it's about reuniting fan-favorite actors to come back," says Murphy.

American Horror Story returns in 2020.







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