American Horror Story: Apocalypse season 8, episode 1 premiere recap: ‘The End’
By Ariba Bhuvad
The end of the world is all the frightening buzz on the season 8 premiere of the highly-anticipated crossover season of American Horror Story.
American Horror Story is finally back, ladies and gentlemen! And while the season 8 premiere wasn’t fast-paced or insane (except for the beginning), it was far better than some of the recent seasons of the series, and it’s safe to assume that we have one hell of a season ahead of us.
It was super exciting to see some of our favorites back in action including Sarah Paulson, Kathy Bates, and Evan Peters. And to think, it’s not even one half of the cast that is yet to come! Things were off to a crazy start as the end of the world descended upon the world’s inhabitants. Warnings and sirens heeded that something horrible was about to happen and had already happened in other parts of the world.
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Nuclear missiles took out Hong Kong, Russia, and the Baltics and the U.S. was up next. The characters we are first exposed to are based in Los Angeles and it’s interesting to see their reaction to the world ending–almost as if they are invincible to it all. When it comes to Leslie Grossman’s character, Coco St. Pierce, she is.
Her father alerts her that the threat is indeed real and he had made arrangements for their family to have shelter but he, her mother, and brother would not make it. But if she wants to live, she has to rush to the Santa Monica airport so a jet can take her and three other people to safety. Her husband, Brock, (played by Billy Eichner) doesn’t make it there in time and she has no problem calling off their “marital contract” so she can high-tail it out of the chaos.
Credit: FX
Joining her on the jet is her assistant Mallory (Billie Lourd), her hairdresser Mr. Gallant (Evan Peters), and her hairdresser’s grandmother (Joan Collins). They make it out of there in time and watch the missiles strike from the air and devastate the life they used to know.
About 40 minutes prior to the bombs going off, we meet a new character name Timothy (Kyle Allen) who simultaneously finds out he has gotten into UCLA and moments later is taken away by a SWAT team because he has the perfect genetic makeup to ensure the human species survive.
American Horror Story introduces another character as Timothy is taken to an underground facility by the name of Emily (Ashley Santos). Together, the two are whisked away to some foreboding, cryptic underground bunk known as Outpost 3 where they meet caretaker Venable (Sarah Paulson), and boy, is she scary. This place is basically for people like Timothy and Emily and for the extremely wealthy like Coco.
The people within this bunker are all separated by colors (i.e. Grays and Purples), which is an interesting notion and insight into the post-apocalyptic social hierarchy. The two are introduced to Coco and the gang, and together they spend most of the episode making sense of their new accommodations and life. Their food is rationed to a cube of Jello that is said to have all the vitamins they need, but it’s never enough to satisfy their hunger.
Credit: FX
Venable’s right-hand gal, Miriam Mead (Kathy Bates), who by the way is the most frightening character Bates has played out of all the characters she’s done on American Horror Story, is a force to be reckoned with. She believes that someone went above ground and uses a Geiger counter to sniff the person out. Two people of the crowd were tagged as potentially contaminated and are viciously sprayed and scrubbed down.
Miriam ends up killing one of them while Gallant survives. Of course, Miriam’s character is definitely more sinister than she already appears and tweaked the Geiger counter to mess around with the group and punish someone for fun. Yikes, lady.
The entire group basically lives in fear as to what will happen next and it continues to go downhill when they learn they are eating the remains of the man Mead shot and following this Venable announces their cube of Jello will be reduced to half.
Day and night the same song plays on the radio until one day the song switches and everyone takes it to mean something is going to happen and perhaps they are going to be rescued. But 18 months later, nothing has changed and they sit there waiting in agony and boredom.
Many of us were wondering where the OG American Horror Story characters were but have patience because there is an entire season ahead of us and slowly but surely, they will all come. However, the episode did end with Michael Langdon (Cody Fern), the child of Vivien Harmon (Connie Britton) and Tate Langdon (Evan Peters) and also the Antichrist, making an appearance.
Next. American Horror Story: The crossover between Murder House and Coven. dark
The outposts are all going down one by one and Michael has the ability to save everyone or no one to go with him. Who will he take? And what havoc will the upcoming episodes of American Horror Story bring? We cannot WAIT to find out!
American Horror Story airs every Wednesday on FX at 10 PM EST!