In American Horror Stories’ most meta episode yet — the season 1 finale, “Game Over” — suggests American Horror Story exists as a television series within the show’s own universe. American Horror Stories debuted as a spinoff from the original series, where the show would include a new horror plot in each confined episode instead of each new season. The series introduced many new cast members to the Ryan Murphy scene while also using his tactic of bringing back several beloved AHS actors like Billie Lourd and Cody Fern into a few of the episodes.

American Horror Story is notable for having a shared universe across an anthology (which now includes the spinoff series) in which multiple fictional locations, characters, and events overlap. The new American Horror Stories series debuted its premiere two-part episode, “Rubber Woman,” to reveal it would take place in the same universe as AHS. In the first episodes, the series went back to AHS’s roots of Murder House, where a few of the original show’s ghostly characters returned to interact with the home’s new residents. The rest of American Horror Stories’ season introduced new characters and premises until the season finale returned to Murder House as it took the AHS universe rules a step further.

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For the first time in American Horror Story history, Ryan Murphy introduced AHS as a television show within the confines of the series. American HorrorStories episode 7 has two levels, one that exists with an American Horror Story video game and one in the real world, where a single mom is actually designing said AHS video game with the help of her AHS-obsessed teenage son. The episode references every single season of American Horror Story both in the game and in real life, including the appearance of Murder House and characters like Ben Harmon, Asylum’s Bloodface, and Freak Show’s Twisty the Clown. The American Horror Stories episode’s plot is a meta tale of AHS fandom, not simply saying the phrase “American horror story” as a tongue-in-cheek nod to the series’ name, it actually deals with the show as a cultural entity.

As a spinoff to AHS that already featured a continued within-universe Murder House addition for its premiere episodes, American Horror Stories’ season finale ending definitively integrates the original series into its own larger universe. Even though most Murder House events seem to be fake within the episode, it reveals itself as truly connected to the AHS universe when Beau Langdon’s red ball rolls out from under Michelle’s chair in her house. Even when the episode isn’t being explicitly meta by referencing American Horror Story’s past seasons, it features simple connections to the real-life actors of the original show, such as how the video game’s first two characters, Dylan and Connie, are named after AHS: Murder House actors Dylan McDermott (who appears in the episode) and Connie Britton.

The introduction of AHS existing as a series within its own universe may imply that American Horror Story will have two distinct universes, similar to Quentin Tarantino’s two shared universes for his films. With Tarantino, one universe shares fictional characters, events, and locations, while the other is a separate fictional shared universe where the movies exist as entertainment for the first universe. To make it clearer, Tarantino’s second-level universe exists as movies that the first-level universe would go watch in theaters. If AHS is following in Tarantino’s steps, American Horror Stories’ “Game Over” may be part of a continued second tier of the show’s universe where the first level exists as the second’s entertainment.

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Jordan Williams
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Jordan Williams is a Movie/TV Feature Senior Staff Writer for Screen Rant. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Media Studies.

Jordan is based in Seattle, Washington and enjoys exploring the natural beauty the PNW has to offer. She runs on coffee and classic movies, taking pride in having watched every film on AFI’s 100 Greatest Films list and every Best Picture Oscar winner.

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