American Horror Story Offers Mysterious Clue About Season 10 Theme, But What Does It Mean?

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American Horror Story Season 10 is shrouded is about as much mystery as fans have likely come to expect from Ryan Murphy, but the showrunner has finally dropped a clue about the next season's theme. Although he wasn't so generous as to share a title for the season or any character details for the new and returning cast members, the glimpse of what to expect in Season 10 might be the creepiest thing since the murder clown elephant from a few years back. Take a look:

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American Horror Story hasn’t really done a season set on an island, at the beach, or on a ship so far, so we can probably rule out Season 10 having too many crossovers with past chapters of the anthology series. Of course, it’s possible fans should be focusing more on the hands than the water. Are they just dirty hands, or are they zombie hands? Zombies would be something more or less new for American Horror Story. That said, why not zombies on an island after a shipwreck? That could be a way to tie Season 10 to Roanoke.

Considering Ryan Murphy’s Instagram comment of “Things are beginning to wash up on shore,” I’m guessing that even if part of the season takes place on a ship or the season starts out on a ship, most of the action will take place on dry land. Since this is American Horror Story, it’s probably not going to be a story quite as straightforward as another TV take on Lord of the Flies, unless of course the Lord of the Flies is a real thing and hunts people on AHS! Honestly, I would watch that.

With little known about Season 10 that can fuel speculation for this image, we can always turn to the cast list for who will be part of the horror action. The majority of the cast members announced so far are American Horror Story veterans, with Sarah Paulson fortunately returning after taking 1984 off. The high-profile newcomer to AHS Season 10 is Macaulay Culkin, who of course is best known for his Home Alone work. He hasn't exactly played a shipwrecked zombie on a Lord of the Flies-esque island so far in his career, but I for one will have fun imagining that until Ryan Murphy starts sharing more details of Season 10.

I'm not the only one who is curious, based on the amount of attention Ryan Murphy's post has already attracted! At the time of writing, the image has been up on Instagram for around three hours and accumulated nearly 98,000 likes. Hopefully fans will soon be rewarded with some info about what's in store, or at least the title of Season 10! Neither Murphy nor FX has announced a premiere date for American Horror Story Season 10 at this point, but if Season 10 follows the pattern from the first nine seasons, it will hit the airwaves in September or October 2020.

For now, you can watch and/or rewatch earlier seasons of American Horror Story. Unsurprisingly considering the deal made for 2020, Hulu is the only streaming platform with all nine seasons so far available streaming, but both Netflix and Amazon have the first eight seasons available. For some non-Horror streaming options, check out our 2020 Netflix premiere schedule.

Laura Hurley
Senior Content Producer

Laura turned a lifelong love of television into a valid reason to write and think about TV on a daily basis. She's not a doctor, lawyer, or detective, but watches a lot of them in primetime. CinemaBlend's resident expert and interviewer for One Chicago, the galaxy far, far away, and a variety of other primetime television. Will not time travel and can cite multiple TV shows to explain why. She does, however, want to believe that she can sneak references to The X-Files into daily conversation (and author bios).