Everything We Know About American Horror Story Season 6 and Our Final Predictions on What the Heck the Theme Is

This season is still a big mystery and we are loving every second of it

By Lauren Piester, E! TV Team Sep 14, 2016 1:50 PMTags
American Horror Story teaserFX

Behold, everything we know about American Horror Story season 6: 

 

 

 

 

 

Just kidding! Sort of!

The newest season of American Horror Story debuts tonight, and for once, we know almost nothing about it. Normally, this close to the premiere, we'd know the cast, the theme, and would have probably seen some pictures of the set. We might even have been sent a screener or two to prep coverage of the show beforehand. 

This time, the journalists are just as in the dark as the general public, and there's not even a night light to calm our fears. We'll be going into tonight's much anticipated season six premiere more blind than we've possibly ever gone into any show, and it's both terrifying and exhilarating. 

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By the time we go to sleep tonight (if we even can), we'll know at least a little more about what we're in for this season. Until then, here's what we've got to go off of: 

Angela Bassett is confirmed to return. Ryan Murphy revealed after the Golden Globes in January that he had already drunkenly informed her of who she was playing. 

Lady Gaga will also be back. Murphy had tweeted that he asked her to return back in October of last year, and she waited until March to confirm that it was happening, before adding, "I can't promise you how or when, or anything like that."

Sarah Paulson will be there (duh). A season of AHS without Paulson would simply not be a season of AHS, so when she confirmed her involvement at the Television Critics' Association summer press tour, we all breathed a sigh of relief. 

Glee star Jacob Artist will also appear...or will he? Artist instagrammed a picture of a script for the show with the caption "Day 1," but then deleted the post a few hours later. Did he get in trouble, or is it all just a part of the mystery?! 

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American Horror Story Season 6's Theme Is "The Mist," According to the Internet
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The Teasers: There is one accurate teaser trailer out there. Out of the 24 short teases that have been released, only one portrays season six's actual theme, according to FX CEO John Landgraf. Here's the full list of teasers: 

1. False Eyelashes: Please tell us we're not going to have to face this woman with SPIDERS. IN. HER. EYES. on a weekly basis. Not sure we could handle it. 
2. Bite Me: It's a spider with a snake-like jaw and all we have to say to that is NOPE. 
3. Tide: We couldn't get more than a couple seconds into this but it involves a wounded leg on a beach. 
4. Baby Face: Contrary to the title, this has nothing to do with singer and current Dancing with the Stars contestant Babyface, and everything to do with a man-eating doll.

5. Backtrack: Just a bunch of bugs crawling into someone's spine. If this season doesn't have something to do with bugs, then this is all especially cruel and unusual punishment. 
6. Bathing Beauty: Don't you just hate it when your hair gets stuck in the drain and also you have no face? 
7. Pitch a Fit: Just a girl dragging a bloody pitchfork across the floor, nothing to see here. 
8. The Lesson: The children of the corn demand a better education! 
9. Blink: A classic case of eye-in-mouth disease. 
10. Self-Preservation: It's like a classier, scarier version of of the Scream mask. 
11. Bite-Sized: This lady really needs to get control of her face full of spiders.
12. The Visitors: Crop circles, and not a bug in sight. 
13. The Harvest: Monsters made of straw? And that murderous little girl is back...

14. Blind Date: That thing where your Tinder date turns out to be a B-movie sea monster...
15. Camp Sight: When alien abductions go wrong...
16. The Shadow: A shadow tries to pull a woman down the stairs by her hair. 
17. Wind Chimes: Apparently the tooth fairy has been turning our teeth into wind chimes. 
18. Post Op: So much nope we can't even tell you. (It's a guy getting his head stapled together if you must know.) 
19. Milli Crossing: A millipede—yet another bug—crawls down a person's face, and we're just about done with this.
20. Lullaby: That ain't no baby in that bassinet. 

21. Descent: Nightmares like this are the reason we refuse to go barefoot or down into the basement after dark, just in case the monsters under the floor boards decide to grab us.
22. What's Cooking: Smoke arises from a lone house, along with someone screaming... 
23: Sunset Stroll: The first promo that was released featured a glowing-eyed family of three emerging through the glare of a sunset. 
24: The Mist: The internet's current frontrunner is this creepy spot that features a terrifying creature making its way down some train tracks in the mist. Not the most interesting teaser of the bunch, but there are definitely some possibilities there, and American Horror Story: The Mist is apparently how the show is listed on official schedules, like TV Guide Magazine and Rotten Tomatoes.

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While apparently only one teaser is real, we wouldn't be surprised if more than one of them hinted at something real, since a lot of the trailers share some interesting and terrifying motifs. 

The Music: It sounds like the same young girl is humming the same creepy tune, multiple times, like in Lullaby. 
The Bugs: So many bugs crawling on so many faces! 
The Farm: Cornfields, crop circles, pitch forks, and those creepy monsters in that field are just a few of the many farm-related vibes we got from these teasers. 
That girl with the long hair: Could the girl who gets pulled down the stairs by the shadow be the same girl with no face in the bathtub?

There are also a couple of teasers that don't really share much of anything with any others, like Blind Date and Camp Sight, but should we be paying attention to what's similar or what's different?! We literally have no clue. 

The Anthology Teaser: FX also released two other teasers—one set to Lady Gaga's "Perfect Illusion," featuring all the promos, and one featuring each of the previous seasons. We've heard many times over that all the seasons are connected, so is this the season that will do the most connecting? 

The Time Periods: Landgraf told reporters during the Television Critics' Association press tour that the season would be set in two different time periods, mainly set in the present with "echoes of the past" mixed in. 

The TMZ Photos: In August, TMZ posted several set photos that appear to show a colonial-style farm and a tree with the word "Croatoan" carved into it, and reported that cast members were seen dressed like pilgrims. All of that would seem to indicate that the show is exploring the lost colony of Roanoke, which disappeared in 1590, but the photos also look just perfect enough to be yet another set of misdirects. 

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Now, based on all of that information, here's what the E! News TV team thinks might be happening this season: 

Tierney Bricker: OK, so it's a little crazy, but isn't that was the fun of AHS is all about? Pulling from all the clues and hints we've been given (which, granted, is not a lot), I would love to see season six tackle the Mystery of Roanoke aka the Lost Colony, the North Carolina colony that seemingly disappeared in 1590, with 117 people vanishing.

The only clue was the word "Croatoan," the name of a nearby Native tribe (and a pretty stellar Supernatural episode!), carved into a tree. Can you imagine if the 117 people just mysteriously showed up in present-day?! Or the season being set in two timelines: with one telling the story of what happened via flashbacks, and the other set in the present-day, focusing on a house or building built on that land? Ryan Murphy, feel free to hire me at any time.

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Jean Bentley: Although the approximately 500 season six promos have not been the least bit informative about what to expect this year, they've been fun to watch. I've mostly left the theorizing to the internet, but there is one premise in particular I'm totally into: Charles Manson.

Ryan Murphy has said he'd wanted to do a cult-focused season of AHS before, and I'm sold on the clues some super sleuths have found: "pig" spelled out over the baby's crib, Manson's obsession with spiders, the fact that at least part of the season will be taking place in a different time period—it could all work! But let's be honest—I'm watching either way.

Billy Nilles: I can't deny that I've heard the theories that this season will deal with the lost colony of Roanoke, which fits with John Landgraf's comments about this season dealing with two time periods.

Those photos purportedly from the set with the word "Croatoan" carved into trees have only led me to believe this theory is the one. Unless those set photos are just another misdirect from the FX publicity, along with the 83,657 fake promos they've shown us.

I'm no closer to feeling certain about anything (which I secretly love—remember when mystery TV was actually a mystery?), but as long as it has nothing to do with that one promo with a guy getting his head stapled together, I'm good.

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Lauren Piester: First of all, I love everything about this mystery. My only gripe is that some of these teasers are really well done, and I'm sad that only one is apparently real. 

While I would love a season (or a whole series, really) about Roanoke, something about it feels too perfect, like those set photos were leaked on purpose. Plus, Roanoke is very specific, unlike previous seasons, and that doesn't leave a lot of room for building on this apparently shared universe. 

I could see The Mist working, since pretty much anything could emerge from some mist, but The Mist is already a movie, and unless they're paying homage to the actual movie, that theme almost seems too broad. 

I got kind of an In Cold Blood, creepy murderous farm family feel from the teasers (similar to the farm family from Cabin in the Woods), and I could really get into a season focused on that. (Is it weird that I want this after growing up on a former farm?) But again...that seems obvious based on how many teasers gave me that vibe. So I have no idea and my brain hurts! 

The mystery will finally be solved when American Horror Story: ???? premieres tonight at 10 p.m. on FX.