**Spoiler Alert** The following recap contains major spoilers from the American Horror Story: Apocalypse season 8, episode 1 “The End.” Proceed with caution.
Last Wednesday night, American Horror Story’s highly anticipated season eight finally emerged from its shroud of secrecy when the first episode was premiered. It’s safe to say that it was well worth the wait. Episode one “The End,” began quite literally with a bang. To set the premise, nuclear missiles have annihilated the Baltics, Hong Kong and Russia. The United States is next in line. If there’s one thing fans should’ve been questioning at this point, it would be—where is Murder House or Coven? This season promised a crossover and so far, many of the fan-favorite actors are back, but they’re all playing fresh personas.
Back in AHS land, Beverly Hills seems to be experiencing a normal day with Instagram influencer Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt, who’s getting a fresh trim from her charming hair stylist, Mr. Gallant (a bleach blonde Evan Peters.) Coco is then alerted of the soon-to-be fate of the world when her trillionaire father video calls her from Hong Kong. One second Hong Kong is alive and well and the next second it’s gone. Lucky for Coco, her father planned for a disaster of this caliber and he arranged for a jet to allow her to escape from the Santa Monica Airport. Coco frantically calls her boyfriend Brock, who is painfully unaware of the situation at hand. Coco, her assistant Mallory, Gallant and his Nanna fight their way through traffic and falling bodies to get to the airport only to realize that Brock won’t make it. In another phone call to her beloved husband, Coco seals his fate by telling him that he can see other people, which leaves Brock yelling “don’t leave me in Santa Monica!” as missiles begin to tear across the sky. The jet makes its way into the air, despite a few stragglers fighting desperately to join the privileged that are on board and the four survivors watch the mushroom cloud decimate their home below. This all happens prior to them realizing that their jet has no pilot. Could it get any worse?
By the second act of the episode, which takes place 40 minutes prior to the bombing, viewers meet Timothy Campell, a hopeful high school senior who just received his acceptance letter into UCLA, go Bruins right? Moments later, he and his family learn of the nuclear war and suddenly, federal agents and a SWAT team, the cooperative, are there to collect Timothy. Apparently, he has the superior genetic makeup to survive “the end.” Timothy is taken captive to an underground bunker where he meets a fellow prisoner, Emily. Both are transported to “Outpost 3,” an underground apocalyptic haven for the well-to-do folks that is headed by Ms. Wilhemina Venable. Timothy and Emily are informed of the Cooperative, which is a force made up of the 12 greatest minds known as the “visionaries.” Then they’re both instructed to dress in purple, “the color worthy of those who can survive.” The servants, on the other hand, dress in gray.
By act three, viewers find out that Timothy and Emily are among the elite company of Coco, Mr. Gallant and his Nanna all donned in purple attire, while Coco’s assistant Mallory, unhappily sports a gray maid-like getup. Their new home is lavishly decorated with looming bookcases, candle-lit walls and extravagant marble flooring. Food rations are meager, and the guests are only given three vitamin-filled Jello cubes each day. Once seated for dinner, Ms. Venable’s right-hand, Ms. Miriam Mead, suspects that someone has left the compound and contaminated Outpost 3 with radiation. She hauls away the suspected traitors, Mr. Gallant and another unnamed survivor. Mr. Gallant, post-painful scrub down, escapes death by the skin of his teeth while Mead mercilessly makes an example of the other suspect by shooting him in the head on the shower floor.
Once act four rolls around, viewers find Venable and Mead cackling over drinks and a card game while discussing how they’re the two most important people at Outpost 3. They giggle some more about the joy they feel from torturing their guests who paid $100 million per ticket to stay there. All the while, their guests are being mocked by loud music, their starving stomachs and the constant fear of being shot to death by their hosts. At this point, viewers also learn that Timothy and Emily have taken an interest in each other despite Ms. Venable’s warning against copulation between guests.
All of this is great and sickly unnerving in classic AHS fashion, but at this point, viewers are probably wondering (if it hadn’t slipped their minds throughout all the chaos) where’s Murder House or Coven? But finally, Michael Langdon appears (a revival of a past character) at Outpost 3 in a horse-drawn carriage to inform Ms. Venable that there’s an additional Outpost that’s alive and well. Michael is there to choose who’s worthy of making the journey there. “Those who make it live, those that don’t end up like my horses”—cut to Ms. Mead murdering said horses.
Unfortunately, that’s all we’re left with to hold us over until the following Wednesday. It’s sick and twisted for sure, but they did warn us “viewer discretion advised.”