Ryan Murphy says season 13 will be American Horror Story‘s Avengers moment. After twelve seasons of self-contained horror stories, season 13 gathers the franchise’s most memorable characters to deliver some real fan service.
He told Entertainment tonight “Everybody thinks it’s a Coven season and it’s not…It’s all the seasons.” Murphy added that we’ll see “characters we thought would never come back.”
The first season 13 teaser sets the tone. It opens with Twisty the Clown and pulls in Jessica Lange, Evan Peters, and a dozen more returning faces from across the franchise. This isn’t the revival of a single story. It’s every story colliding at once.
The biggest headline is Lange’s return. She’s back in the American Horror Story universe for the first time since she left in 2015, and she’s not playing a single part — she’s reprising all four of her iconic characters. Murphy has said Sarah Paulson takes on six or seven roles, and Evan Peters plays five.
The teaser makes that scope unmistakable. Twisty the Clown from Freak Show opens it, set inside a hotel that nods to season 5’s Hotel Cortez. Peters returns as Cult’s Kai Anderson, Lange as Murder House’s Constance Langdon, and Paulson, Angela Bassett, and Emma Roberts reprise their Coven roles as Cordelia Goode, Marie Laveau, and Madison Montgomery. Even Rubber Man makes an appearance.
There’s a new face threaded into the mix, too: Paul Anthony Kelly, the breakout from Murphy’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, turns up in a bathtub with a snake. Rounding out the sprawling ensemble are Kathy Bates, Billie Lourd, Gabourey Sidibe, Frances Conroy, Mena Suvari, and John Waters.
AHS: 13 runs 13 half-hour episodes and premieres Thursday, September 24 at 9 p.m. ET on FX and Hulu, with the finale set for October 29.
