American Horror Story has featured a number of threats and monsters, from ghosts to real life serial killers, and these villains are often revisited in some capacity in later seasons. However, one creature has gotten the short end of the stick in terms of this: the aliens from American Horror Story: Asylum. This may change soon, thanks to a promotional image for American Horror Story: Double Feature.
Asylum was the sophomore season for AHS, and it went hard after the success of American Horror Story: Murder House. Along with dealing with the central storyline about Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson) and Bloody Face (Zachary Quinto), this season also featured Jessica Lange in one of her most iconic roles in the series: Sister Jude Martin. Asylum also included a Nazi scientist, Satanic possession, horrific experimentations, plenty of murder, institutional nightmares and even aliens. Aside from the aliens, the other horrors Asylum dealt with were revisited in later seasons, either directly, like with the brief return of Dr. Arden (James Cromwell) in American Horror Story: Freak Show, or in a reimagined way.
Meanwhile, the aliens were a plot point that took a back seat in Asylum. They were directly connected to Kit's (Evan Peters) story, which was a big one; however, it was not the focus of the season like Lana and Jude's were. Despite this, the aliens were one of the newer elements to AHS, as Murder House primarily dealt with human killers and the supernatural. While it was new, it was not fully explored, with even Kit putting this storyline on the side several times to help Lana with her issues.
Similarly, American Horror Story: Hotel would introduce the concept of vampires to the series, and they also would not be revisited in later entries; however, where the aliens were a side story that was under explored, the vampires were one of the main factors of Hotel. With the little amount of time dedicated to the aliens, as well as the fact that they have not come back in any capacity, it feels like these extraterrestrials were short changed.
This was especially shocking since AHS often pulls from true crime and real life accounts of traumatic events and mysteries, as seen with American Horror Story: Roanoke. There are a number of stories and urban legends about alien sightings and abductions in America, so there was plenty of material for Asylum to reimagine and explore, regardless of if these accounts and stories were true or not.
Plus, it seemed like AHS was entering another subgenre of horror with the aliens: the sci-fi horror. Movies like A Quiet Place, Alien and The Thing are great examples of using extraterrestrials as the monsters, and AHS' aliens could've played a similar role. There are other horror properties that rely on science-fiction to tell their scary stories, like The Twilight Zone or The Fly, so incorporating elements of this genre into AHS would also be precedent.
Unfortunately these possibilities were not explored, but that could soon change. American Horror Story: Double Feature comes out this August, and the promotional poster features an alien kissing a vampire. Not only is this image incorporating the series' most underutilized creature, but it is also including vampires, the other monster to only get one season.
While it could just be good promotional art, past AHS posters often hinted at what the seasons would be about, or they would at least incorporate minor elements from the season that would eventually come up. For instance Freak Show included a clown, alluding to Twisty; Cult had a woman's head turned into a beehive, hinting at Ally Mayfair-Richards' trypophobia; and Asylum included a nun with her eyes bleeding black, with the season featuring a nun as the antagonist and plenty of religious themes.
It wouldn't be surprising for American Horror Story: Double Feature to in some way incorporate the alien or the vampire from the poster into its story. This is hopefully the case, as it could pick up on those loose ends from Asylum, and with American Horror Story: Double Feature starting August 25 on FX, fans eagerly await to see if these extraterrestrials will get their second chance.