The following contains spoilers for the first two episodes of American Horror Story: NYC now streaming on Hulu.

American Horror Stories, the spin-off to the original American Horror Story, has a strange relationship with its parent series. Both use an anthology format, with American Horror Story telling a different narrative each season and American Horror Stories changing subjects with each episode. Yet they both inhabit a shared universe, with characters and plots routinely intersecting.

American Horror Stories wrestled with that connection throughout its first season: sticking too close to its parent series for comfort despite its insistence on standing alone. The second season found a better mix with just a single direct reference to American Horror Story in its eight-episode run. That doesn't mean it's abandoned the habit, however; it's simply become more subtle about it. This is mostly evinced by a pair of American Horror Stories episodes in Season 2 that serve as a huge symbolic precursor to the 11th season of American Horror Story.

RELATED: The True Story Behind American Horror Story: Murder House's Nurse Killings

Both AHS Series Cover Serial Killers Stalking Nightclubs

American Horror Stories Season 2 Drive

American Horror Story: NYC opens with a serial killer stalking leather bars of the New York underground scene in 1981. He wears a bondage mask to hide his identity, though a suspect who goes by the handle "Big Daddy" emerges in pictures taken by a Robert Mapplethorpe-style photographer. The story takes heavy cues from 1980's Cruising, a controversial thriller about a similar killer stalking then-contemporary gay bars. AHS: NYC avoids the pitfalls of that earlier film by making gay characters its central protagonists (Cruising centers on a cishet cop working undercover). That shift in perspective places audience sympathies squarely in the hands of prospective targets: gay men concerned for their safety.

American Horror Stories evinces a similar plot line in Season 2, Episode 3, "Drive." Though overtly unrelated, it takes inspiration from a movie of the same era -- 1978's Looking for Mr. Goodbar -- similarly detailing a killer who stalks the singles scene. The setting is contemporary, but "Drive" elicits the same manner of fear as a seemingly reckless young woman tempts fate by aggressively hooking up with a potential murderer. Many of the visual cues are the same, and while AHS: NYC presumably hasn't unveiled its big twists yet, they're apt to mirror "Drive's" final wrinkle in the same way.

RELATED: American Horror Stories Season 2 Episodes, Ranked

The Parent Series Connection Spans More than One Episode

American Horror Story NYC

The real twist, however, is less about content and more about timing. "Drive" was followed by Season 2, Episode 4,"Milkmaids" -- a radically different story centering around a colonial town's ghoulish efforts to stop a lethal plague in their 17th century community. That echoes NYC's overarching threat: the arrival of the AIDS epidemic, which is hinted at in various chilling prophecies throughout the first two episodes. In this case, Dr. Hannah Wells -- a scientist played by Billie Lourd -- diligently tracks the nascent path of HIV while the season's other characters respond to the human killer in their midst.

Taken together, the two episodes make an unsettling harbinger of things to come. NYC openly plays into such foreshadowing, most notably in Season 11, Episode 2, "Thank You for Your Service" when a troubled woman on the subway speaks of impending doom. American Horror Stories signals those developments with the simple schedule placement of two thematically similar episodes. It's worth noting that Our Lady J -- who wrote the script for "Milkmaids" -- shares screenwriting credit on at least four episodes of NYC, along with Manny Coto, who wrote "Drive" and has similar writing credits on NYC.

Whether it’s a direct hint or simply shared space in the creators' heads, the placement and timing of the two American Horror Stories episodes are too elegant to ignore. The spin-off show tends to flounder when it makes overt references to its parent series, though it's admittedly getting better. But as foreshadowing for American Horror Story Season 11, it says a great deal without appearing to say anything at all.

New episodes of American Horror Story: NYC air every Wednesday on FX, with next-day streaming on Hulu.