AHS: 1984‘s Finale Gave Everyone What They Deserved, Including the Audience

American Horror Story : 1984 twine up its nine - instalment season last night with “ Final Girl , ” which — despite some spectacular bit of battue — pulled the ultimateAHS decoy - and - switchand gave its delightfully entertaining slasher story a most unexpected closing .

A felicitous ending ! A teardrop - jerk , totally solemn , unapologetically happy end , set to 1988 cheeseball classic “ The Living Years ” by Mike + the Mechanics ! Sure , most of the characters in the episode are actually dead — the victims of Camp Redwood , constantly frozen in the eighties ( or whatever decennary in which they were massacred)—but irony is dead , too . American Horror Story just adore doing the precise opposite of what you expect , and the earnest “ Final Girl ” might be the ultimate example so far .

Over nine episodes — though it was the short AHS time of year to appointment , it was the staring amount of clock time to distinguish its story , so kudos toRyan Murphy and FX for resisting the urge to tot up any padding—1984 morphed from note - perfect summertime - camp slasher homage ( complete with totally tubular eighties kit , pilus , cultural source , and nostalgic tunes ) into something that also encompass genuine crime and the survey of consecutive killers , a spiritual mystery , two Death Row jailbreaks , multiple redemption stories , and one of the cold villains AHS has ever interpret in Margaret Booth ( Leslie Grossman ) .

Angelica Ross as Donna, who briefly pretended to be a nurse on AHS: 1984.

Angelica Ross as Donna, who briefly pretended to be a nurse on AHS: 1984.Image: Kurt Iswarienko (FX)

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As the claim hint , the mass of 1984 ingest lieu in 1984 , but the season also gave us plenty of context of use - supplying flashbacks ( including a glance at Camp Redwood , circa 1948 ) and flash - forwards . The conclusion takes us all the way up to 2019 , as Bobby ( Finn Wittrock)—the long - lose son of falsely convicted Camp Redwood booger Mr. Jingles ( John Carroll Lynch)—shows up looking for answers about the father who disappear when he was a baby . Fortunately , the first ghost he foregather is Montana ( Billie Lourd ) , who ’s mellow out a hatful in the retiring three tenner , and has become a much more compassionate person in her hereafter . The same is n’t true for the Satan - power Richard Ramirez ( Zach Villa ) , who still has zero pall , to the point where the ghosts ( include Chef Bertie ! ) take twist killing him and waiting for him to come to so they can kill him again .

This is a lot for Bobby to take in , specially when he realise that he ’s Ramirez ’s act one aim , but he catches on fast enough to realize that some of the blockage he seek actually lies outside of Camp Redwood ’s perimeter . In the acres of the living , he track down Donna ( Angelica Ross ) , who ’s now bleed the institution where she help Mr. Jingles escape all those years ago ; together , they find out that Brooke ( Emma Roberts ) managed to hold up her wounds after trying to kill Margaret in 1989 , and has been living a restfully well-fixed life in Oregon ever since . She ’s also been sending money anonymously to Bobby , hoping to help oneself him build a biography aside from the cycle of Camp Redwood ferocity that claimed his grandmother ( Lily Rabe ) , namesake uncle , and father .

Graphic: Jim Cooke

Emma Roberts as Brooke Thompson.Image: Kurt Iswarienko (FX

For all the sequence ’s talk of the town about “ final girls”—as slasher lover well acknowledge , that ’s the term used to describethe solitary female survivor in films like Halloween , Friday the 13th , etc.—1984 actually decide on a final guy , as Bobby makes his fashion back to the camp for the 2d time , hoping to finally make middleman with his Father-God . Though Margaret Booth , who ’s reassembled her Ivana Trump bouffant in purgatory after a dramatic wood - chipper death in 1989 — tries to get in the way , there ’s no stopping this weird reunion from beyond the grave . The ‘ 80s will never choke !

As for what ’s next for AHS , show creator Murphy would n’t divulge anypotential themesin a recent Deadline interview , but he did note that since it “ might be our last season . ” And his idea revolves around “ reuniting buff - best-loved actor to hail back … the multitude who helped progress this show into what it is , who conceive in it from the beginning , have been meet [ for roles on the show ] and are concerned . ”

sound like good intelligence forthe Sarah Paulson congregation .

Image: Kurt Iswarienko (FX