AHS 1984: Season Finale
TV Series: American Horror Story
Season: 1984 (2019)
Directors: Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk
SEASON FINALE
Spoilers ahead!
Okay, so we made it through the latest season of American Horror Story and my goodness, did this season take us for a ride! (And not just back in time.) Not only did AHS 1984 successfully mimic the ’80s, but it took its viewers through a spiral of twists and turns, filled with slashers, ghosts, serial killers and the Devil himself.
After being so intrigued by the first episode, I was worried if the writers had given too much away or if the momentum of the series could keep up. If I’ve learned anything from watching the American Horror Story collection, it’s that you should never doubt nor guess what’s going to happen next. Most of the time you end up wrong and/or completely shocked with the actual outcome. Which is exactly what happened here.
“The energy of the pressing episodes might as well have been like any ’80s hair band song—it was fast, loud and heavy.”
Like all traditional AHS seasons, we get some pretty intense background stories from our main characters. However, each of them either gives us answers about themselves or connects them with another character. Unfortunately, some of these were a little far-fetched.
For example, Brooke’s about-to-be husband kills his own best man because he thinks she cheated on him with the guy the night before their wedding; however, his best man was Montana’s brother. She was at the wedding, but apparently she and Brooke never met or saw one another. Weird, but okay.
Even weirder, Montana ends up “dating” Richard Ramirez and even convinces him to come to Camp Redwood to kill Brooke for her. Xavier was on the road to being a porn star, Mr. Jingles is set loose by the camp’s nurse, Rita–who really isn’t a nurse, but has been studying serial killers ever since her father murdered her mother, and Margaret was the biggest killer all along!
I’m not even a quarter of the way through of all the strange interconnections or troubled backstories, but I don’t want to give everything away. Plus, I think you get the picture.
Had these kinds of ill-fitting pieces or simple stories been in any other season, I might have been mad. But I think the real charm of AHS 1984 was that it mimicked the ’80s slasher films in this sense too. You know the rules:
Don’t go upstairs.
Don’t look back.
Don’t go alone.
Need I say more?
Luckily, there weren’t any stairs to run up, but there were multiple slashers and real serial killers, even aspiring serial killers, out to bring everyone to their death. Although, if you died in Camp Redwood, you never got to rest because you were trapped there forever.
I think I’ll cut past all the stabby action and blood spilt that happened at Camp Redwood and cut straight to the chase: the end of season nine.
In the final two episodes, viewers are brought full circle and transported back to the current year, 2019. Only now we see Mr. Jingles’ son, Bobby. named after Mr. Jingles’ deceased brother. We also see that like all angsty teens, Bobby desires to know more about his father.
He’s discovered the old tabloids, the first massacre at Camp Redwood, the second and even about the failed music festival that was meant to take place on the grounds. (There are some great Fyre Festival references if you’re really just looking for a laugh.)
He ventures to the abandoned camp for answers from the supernatural he didn’t even know existed. I won’t say what all goes down, but the ending to this season was so wholesome. In past seasons, I’ve felt like I had some questions that were left unanswered or that a character didn’t get a pleasant ending.
This was different, and maybe it was the ‘80s touch in a modern world, but the season’s end gives a sense of completion and harmony. As much as you’re going to get for a slasher turned ghost story, anyway. I mean, once you’re stuck in a camp eternally with, like, 20-something other ghosts, is it really that bad?
article written by Destiny Johnson
Destiny writes about true crime and thrillers. She likes movies that make you question the world around you, that keep you wondering, curious and even fearful.
Throughout the decades, slasher film villains have had their fair share of bizarre motivations for committing violence. In Jamie Langlands’s The R.I.P Man, killer Alden Pick gathers the teeth of his victims to put in his own toothless mouth in deference to an obscure medieval Italian clan of misfits.