Thanks to early hints from American Horror Story stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Matt Bomer, and Sarah Paulson, as well as creator Ryan Murphy himself, we know a big Season 6 twist is coming this week. The trailer for Episode 6 reveals Cheyenne Jackson as, potentially, the filmmaker behind the docu-series, My Roanoke Nightmare. But in a conference call Tuesday morning, Murphy dropped several more clues about the twist that Bomer promises won’t disappoint. He also, intriguingly, teased how Lady Gaga’s witch character provides some connective tissue for the entire series and teased the return of American Horror Story favorites Taissa Farmiga and Finn Wittrock.
“I met the bitch with the real power,” Leslie Jordan’s Cricket said back in Episode 4. He was talking, of course, about Lady Gaga. Murphy later confirmed to TVLine that Gaga’s curiously accented witch is actually “the Original Supreme.” The Supreme, of course, was the name of the head witch in the Coven season of American Horror Story. We should have seen this one coming.
Murphy says he plans to bring Gaga’s wood-witch character back in a future season that will “return to Coven.” And speaking of Coven, young Supreme hopeful Taissa Farmiga will be back later this season. (Something fans had already figured out, thanks to a stunt double listing on IMDB and a mysterious Twitter photo.) Both she and Wittrock, Murphy said, will play unspecified roles. But with the return of Wittrock, could we also see some more glimpses of the demented Mott family?
If we do, it will be post-twist, where, Murphy revealed, the actors we have already seen playing one character will be playing other people entirely. “Half the cast is revealed to be doing something completely different than you’ve seen in the first five [episodes],” Murphy said. “You realize what you’ve been watching with some of the characters is not [who] they are. [The actors] had to do a mad scramble to find new voices and accents. It is a big turn. It’s the biggest plot twist we’ve ever done with the show. And there’s a startling announcement in Act III that resets the season up until Episode 10.”
Well, it’s not too much of a stretch to wonder if actors like Kathy Bates, Sarah Paulson, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Evan Peters will drop their re-enactment characters. Are we about to meet the actors playing the parts of the Butcher, Shelby, Matt, Edward Mott, and more? There are theories that the actors we’ve seen portraying “real-life” characters—Lily Rabe, André Holland, etc.—are also faking it. Rabe, at the very lease, has a stunt double for Episode 8—so even if she is the “real” Shelby, she’s going to have something exciting to do.
If all these double identities and well-kept secrets are giving you a headache, Murphy has some good news: he confirmed that next season of American Horror Story won’t be shrouded in mystery. “We’re going to announce [the premise] in the spring,” Murphy said. “We’re not doing a secrecy thing, but [next season] does have a big hook behind it.” Could this be the Gaga-centric Coven sequel? Tune in to find out.
