10 'American Horror Story' Connections to Past Seasons You Definitely Missed
We’re nearly halfway through the sixth season of American Horror Story, and *My Roanoake Nightmare * has us feeling both terrified and confused. We know something crazy is about to go down, but can’t figure out exactly what it’s going to be. This season is rife with references to previous installments of the franchise, which could be clues furthering the plot and the connection between all seasons. Then again, they could just be coincidences. There can be more than one haunted house story, after all.
That being said, some of these references are just a little *too * on the nose to ignore. Here’s what we’ve noticed thus far, though we wouldn’t be surprised more connections pop up in the next few episodes. Which nods to previous seasons have you already caught?
1/10Nurses
In the second episode of *Murder House, * a pair of nurses are tormented and murdered. This is a direct reference to the real-life murders by a man named Richard Speck, who killed eight nurses in 1966. In *My Roanoake Nightmare, * two nurses turn the house into a nursing home and murder their elderly patients in order to spell out “MURDER” on the wall. This story is *also * based on real life; Gwen Graham and Cathy Wood killed five elderly women in the ‘80s, at first attempting to spell out “MURDER.” Yikes.
2/10Croatoan
We first heard of this magic word via Sarah Paulson’s psychic Billie Dean Howard in season one. Violet Harmon tries to use it to banish the spirits tormenting her family. In My Roanoake Nightmare, characters yell “Croatoan!” in attempt to make the murderous Puritan ghosts disappear. The two feral children discovered in Chapter 3 also scream “Croatoan,” so we’ll probably hear it a few more times as that story is woven into the existing one.
3/10Pigs!
Oh, the pigs. Pigs are *everywhere * in *My Roanoke Nightmare. * We’ve seen the Pig Man and various pig parts, and heard piggy gruntings in the night. The Pig Man in the shower was a nod to episode 6 of *Murder House, * in which a patient of Dr. Harmon’s describes his fear of a pig-centric urban legend, and is eventually killed by it. (That episode is titled “Piggy Piggy,” because of course it is.)
4/10Witches, of course
Lady Gaga’s character this season is some sort of witch, and we know *AHS * loves their witches. They devoted all of Season 3 to them, after all.
5/10New England
A *lot * of stuff goes down in New England on *AHS. * It’s where Briarcliff Manor of *Asylum * is. The Harmon family relocated to Los Angeles from Boston in *Murder House. * The Salem Witch trials, referenced in *Coven, * took place in Massachusetts. Though Roanoke Colony is technically in North Carolina, it *was * the first settlement of the “New World.”
6/10Reality TV, which is like, the entire premise of this show
In *Murder House, * we discovered that Billie Dean Howard was shopping a TV show. Was it the show that forms the narrative story of *My Roanoke Nightmare? * She *also * visited Hotel Cortez for an episode.
7/10Haunted houses
Well, duh. The *My Roanoke Nightmare * house is totally haunted, just like the Harmon family’s infamous *Murder House. * There might not be a demon baby in the basement (or maybe there is?) but whatever’s going on is pretty evil. Much like Vivien Harmon, Shelby tries to leave a few times but always ends up right back at home.
8/10Shachath
Lady Gaga’s character this season is named Scathach, which sounds *really * similar to the Angel of Death from *Asylum, * Shachath. Time will tell if these sound-alike names have any sort of thread connecting them.
9/10Creepy children
Otherworldly, eerie children are a mainstay of horror movies, and this season we have Flora Harris. Flora hangs out with the ghostly Priscilla, a 16th century child who was sacrificed by Thomasyn the Butcher. The most notable creepy kids in *AHS * are the vampire children in *Hotel, * but we’ve also seen Troy and Bryan the twins in *Murder House * and that season’s unforgettable Infantata. (Hey, he counts as a kid.)
10/10The "white light of protection"
The psychic who pops into the Miller house, Cricket Marlowe; Billie Dean Howard; and *Coven *’s beloved white witch Misty Day have all talked about a “white light of protection” that they call upon to stay safe when dark forces are at hand. Coincidence? Nothing in *AHS * is a coincidence, guys.
