After years of predicting/pressuring paid off with the revelation that American Horror Story’s fourth season will take its unusual carnival of crazy crap to an actual carnival, creator Ryan Murphy has revealed its newest, very appropriate subtitle. Next year will be called American Horror Story: Freak Show—a name that, honestly, could have worked for any American Horror Story season, but this time it’s far more literal. As always, details are yet to come, but you can already begin predicting how the show’s repertory cast might be made over as circus freaks. Might this presage the return of Dylan McDermott as Man Ass, the ass who is also a man?
AMERICAN HORROR STORY SEASON FOUR: pic.twitter.com/6OHYzGjPMd
— Ryan Murphy (@MrRPMurphy) March 24, 2014
UPDATE: Entertainment Weekly has added a few more details to flesh out Freak Show, saying it finds Jessica Lange playing a German ex-pat (hence Ryan Murphy calling her a “Marlene Dietrich-type”) “managing one of the last freak shows in the U.S.” Lange will oversee a cadre of freaks—or “unusuals”—that so far includes returning AHS regulars Kathy Bates, Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Angela Bassett, and Frances Conroy, while Dennis O’Hare and Emma Roberts are also in talks.
Furthermore, we now know that it takes place in 1950 in Jupiter, Florida—a city perhaps best known for being the hometown of Burt Reynolds, who overcame having a dead conjoined twin on his upper lip by growing a mustache and becoming a famous actor. As this point, it’s unknown whether AHS: Freak Show will be all about Burt Reynolds’ freakish dead-twin lip, or just partly about it.