One of the hypothetical themes considered for American Horror Story season 11 happens to be “Plague,” yet this concept simply wouldn’t work as the primary focus of the upcoming run, and for a good reason. Granted, the FX anthology series has set its roots in the principles of change and rejuvenation each year, but a “Plague” theme for 2022’s season 11 would be destined for failure.
American Horror Story co-creator Ryan Murphy took to Instagram midway through 2021 to give audiences an opportunity to decide the theme they’d like to see the franchise tackle in the future, the options being: aliens, Christmas horror, Bloody Mary, sirens, Piggy Man, and plague. Ultimately, the sirens option won. Despite this victory, potential hints scattered throughout American Horror Story: Double Feature suggest that the infamously indecisive Ryan Murphy already had his mindset on a plague theme for some time.
Ryan Murphy’s motivations for potentially desiring to make season American Horror Story season 11 plague-centric would be clear. The television mogul is a sucker for commentary which capitalizes on fear induced by the current state of the world, a la 2017’s divisively political American Horror Story: Cult, which aired less than one year after Donald Trump became President of the United States. In a similar turn of events, the inspiration behind American Horror Story: Plague would undoubtedly be the all-too-familiar COVID-19 pandemic, despite Murphy promising in 2020 (reported via Twitter) that he wouldn’t center any of his shows around the Coronavirus (which impacted Hollywood). Viewers would be reluctant to tune in to a season slogged down by themes of deadly disease and the passing of characters’ loved ones as it would hit too close to home and thus prove to be an exhausting watch.
Even if American Horror Story: Plague were to adopt a period setting and tell a story about the Great Influenza pandemic, which devastated the world in the early 20th century, for instance, inevitable parallels to COVID-19 would still be drawn. Having not endured major pandemics of the past, writers would without a doubt be forced to rely on inspiration from emotions experienced during the pandemic that the world is currently fighting. Now more than ever, viewers turn to film and television for distraction from real life, and American Horror Story season 11, even being based on a plague or pandemic of the past, would not provide the escapism that the world so desperately craves.
All things considered, it would perhaps be best if Ryan Murphy swallowed his pride and elected to do “sirens” for American Horror Story season 11, which is the theme that the majority want to see come into fruition. It would be a downright shame if the co-showrunner continued to divide and alienate American Horror Story‘s already declining audience by forcing viewers to struggle through another underwhelming season, following the atrocity that was Double Feature. Especially one aiming to provide Murphy-esque commentary on a pandemic that the world is, quite frankly, exhausted by.
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