WARNING: The following contains spoilers for American Horror Story: Double Feature Episode 10, "The Future Perfect," which aired Wednesday on FX.
American Horror Story enjoys having fun with historical figures, and its plotlines have involved everyone from Anne Frank to Richard Ramirez. Season 10, Episode 7, “Take Me to Your Leader,” sets up a trio of them, notable not only for their seemingly prominent role in the storyline but for their surprisingly public personas.
As usual, none of it is a mistake. The three figures in “Take Me to Your Leader” all serve a clear purpose in the narrative. Two of them are played by series regulars Sarah Paulson and Lily Rabe, who rarely take cameos, while the third, Neal McDonough, is a respected veteran who similarly wouldn’t be drawn to a single brief appearance. Their standing, and the central role of each of them in the story, speaks volumes about where the remainder of this season is headed. However, they aren't the only familiar face to appear in Double Feature's second segment. Here is a breakdown of each historical figure so far.
AHS Has Eisenhower Take on Aliens
Dwight Eisenhower was President of the United States in 1954, following his orchestration of D-Day and the invasion of Europe during World War II. “Take Me to Your Leader” starts with Eisenhower playing golf in Palm Springs before being informed that an emergency has arisen in the high desert nearby. The moment is an attempted explanation of a longstanding mystery about Ike, as in 1954, he really was whisked away from a golf outing in Palm Springs in the middle of the night for what the public was told was a dental emergency. The details of the incident have never been made clear.
More importantly to the story, he’s depicted as being a decent and forthright man. Eisenhower wasn’t a career politician, but a military hero, and McDonough’s performance echoes with simple values and the quiet courage of a man who legitimately saved the world. That appears not only in overt gestures, such as the instinctive removal of his coat upon spotting a nude Amelia Earhart, but in his negotiations with the aliens, which center entirely on an end to the seemingly senseless killings. That decency is put to the test against the horrors of the aliens' plans, and he's ultimately unable to stop them.
In addition to Eisenhower himself, the series includes Sherman Adams, how was the real-life Ike's Chief of Staff. He's always shown close to the President, and one of the people always in the room when the aliens arrive to present their demands.
AHS Introduces Mamie Eisenhower
The First Lady is depicted in similarly glowing terms as her husband: quiet, sensible and still deeply in love with Ike after so many years. Paulson’s casting lets the actress demonstrate her range, having appeared so memorably in the first half of the season as the tragic cast-off “TB Karen.” She has served as one of the show’s pillars since the beginning, and like McDonough’s Ike, she’s depicted as a decent human being unwilling to suffer any balderdash.
The real-life Mamie was known mostly for a confident and welcoming presence in the White House, and like many First Ladies, her clothing choices set fashion trends throughout the country. “Take Me to Your Leader” emphasizes her unique relationship with her husband, able to perceive his clumsy lies and acting as a confidant and advisor when Ike has no one else to turn to. Season 10, Episode 8, "Inside" reveals a dark secret, however. The aliens have taken control over her, and are using her to work their will.
AHS Solves Amelia Earhart’s Disappearance
Of the episode’s three historic figures, Earhart is the most mysterious and perhaps the most deeply connected to American Horror Story’s alien mythology. She and her navigator Fred Noonan mysteriously disappeared in 1937 while attempting to circumnavigate the globe. The presumption was that their plane went down in the Pacific Ocean. Her destination, Howland Island, was a small speck of land, and if she and Noonan missed their navigation point, they would have likely crashed in the ocean and drowned.
That hasn’t stopped speculation of a more exotic fate for the pair -- including UFO abduction. Indeed, pop culture has visited the idea before, notably in Star Trek: Voyager Season 2, Episode 1, “The 37’s” in which Captain Janeway and her crew discover Earhart and other abductees in stasis on a distant planet. “Take Me to Your Leader” pushes Earhart headlong into UFO mythology. She’s discovered at a crash site in 1954 -- naked, pregnant, marked with strange sigils and still the same age she was on the day she disappeared. "Inside" reveals her ultimate fate, killed by the alien baby that was implanted inside her.
AHS Presents Richard Nixon as a True Villain
Richard Nixon makes his first appearance in "Inside," presented as an enthusiastic supporter of the aliens' deal. He fears what will happen if the visitors go to the Russians next and covets their technology as a means of enhancing America's sovereignty and safety. He ends up working with an alien-possessed Mamie Eisenhower to uncover the deal Eisenhower is contemplating. He gives Ike the full-court press and ultimately succeeds in convincing the president that dealing with aliens is the best way to go. His hold over Eisenhower continues into the Kennedy Administration, where Nixon fears that the "soft" JFK will blow up the deal. He may or may not have played a part in Kennedy's assassination, at least according to the show's timeline.
The real-life Nixon, presumably like his American Horror Story counterpart, was elected president in 1968 and re-elected in 1972, only to resign in disgrace in 1974 on the eve of his impeachment. It is unknown whether American Horror Story will present its own version of those events or not.
AHS Presents John F. Kennedy as Another of the Aliens' Victims
President Kennedy is initially kept out of the loop on Eisenhower's deal with the aliens, a fact that Ike bitterly laments in 1963 when the Kennedys begin sniffing around the black ops funding for the project. He decides to tell Kennedy the truth, prompting the standing president to try revealing the secret to the American people. The episode strongly implies that he’s assassinated to keep him quiet. So much mythology has been built around the actual Kennedy assassination that the inclusion of aliens feels of a kind. It also highlights Eisenhower’s guilt at what he has allowed to happen, as well as cementing the notion that even people as powerful as the president can be victims to evil in this universe.
AHS Shows Marilyn Monroe as a President’s Mistress
The late Marilyn Monroe became an international sex symbol in the 1950s only to die suddenly and mysteriously in 1962 at the age of 36. Rumors constantly swirled about an affair with President Kennedy, never confirmed but becoming an enduring urban legend in the wake of both figures’ untimely passingS. “Inside” depicts Monroe as Kennedy’s lover, the pair actively committed to each other and Kennedy able to discuss things with her that he never could with his wife. She urges him to go to the public with news of the alien deal, citing his good heart and desire to tell the truth. The notion of saying such to a man engaged in active infidelity is one of Double Feature’s quieter jokes. In addition, the timeline seems to be out of place, since “Inside” depicts a tryst between Monroe and Kennedy a year after she supposedly died. Subsequent developments suggest that she not only faked her death, but that she too may be in league with the aliens.
AHS Shows Depicts Steve Jobs Alive and Well
In a throwaway joke toward the episode's end, “Inside” shows Apple co-founder and notable businessman living in an alien-controlled facility in 2021. His presence connects to “Inside’s” revelation that much of humanity's technological advancement in the last 65 years has come as a result of the deal Eisenhower made with the extraterrestrials, which presumably included many of Apple’s innovations attributed to Jobs. He also lends credence to the theory that Marilyn’s tryst with Kennedy in 1963 wasn’t a continuity error but rather a confirmation that more humans are in league with the aliens than first appears.
AHS Reveals That Lyndon B. Johnson Isn't Ready for the Truth
The real-life Lyndon B. Johnson was John F. Kennedy’s vice president, becoming president following his superior’s assassination in 1963. As president, he’s largely remembered for signing the Civil Rights Act into law, as well as entangling the United States in the morass of the Vietnam war. Despite winning election handily in 1964, he declined to run in 1968, and Richard Nixon was elected instead.
American Horror Story Season 10, Episode 9, “Blue Moon,” ties in the assassination by showing Eisenhower and Nixon revealing the existence of the aliens’ horrifying experiments to Johnson upon his ascent to the presidency. Given Nixon’s prominence in the storyline -- including his fervent desire to become president -- and Johnson’s eventual historic fate, American Horror Story may provide an alternate (fictional) explanation for Johnson’s decision not to run for a second term.
AHS' Version of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin Are Frauds
Armstrong and Aldrin were the first two human beings to walk on the moon during NASA’s Apollo 11 mission in 1969. The moment is considered the greatest triumph of the U.S. space program until this point, and lionized as one of the most profound events in human history. In “Blue Moon,” however, the lunar landing was faked in an effort to convince Americans that the fantastic leaps forward in technology provided by the aliens are not only possible, but normal. Calico spots the pair drinking at the Las Vegas lounge where she works when they are supposed to be flying through outer space. She plies them with liquor and gets the “truth” out of them, only to find herself abducted and sent to Area 51 as an alien breeding subject.
AHS' Stanley Kubrick Faked the Lunar Landing
The real Stanley Kubrick was one of the most influential filmmakers in history, directing such classics as Dr. Strangelove, 2001, A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. He was known for the fastidious details in his movies (among other innovations) but had a personal reputation as a recluse. In addition, rumors have swirled around the circumstances surrounding his death in 1999 while completing his final film, Eyes Wide Shut. “Blue Moon” doesn’t go into those details, but it does explore another urban legend surrounding Kubrick: he filmed a fake lunar landing at the behest of the U.S. government. Calico catches him with the “astronauts” as they are preparing to set up a shot on the phony lunar surface.
AHS Reveals Henry Kissinger to be a Lizard Person
Kissinger was Richard Nixon’s National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. He remains a highly controversial figure, lauded for opening up détente with the Soviet Bloc and facilitating Nixon’s famous visit to China, while condemned for the bombing of Cambodia and providing U.S. support for multiple coups against legitimate foreign governments. He was reportedly one of the last people Nixon spoke with before making the decision to resign, which American Horror Story presents as part of its narrative. Naturally, the show takes him into an outlandish territory, presenting him as the secret member of an extraterrestrial race of lizard people secretly controlling governments around the world.
AHS Shows G. Gordon Liddy as Even More of a Bungler
G. Gordon Liddy was the leader of Nixon’s infamous “plumbers” who broke into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in the Watergate building in May and June of 1972 to plant bugs and photocopy documents. He was arrested and served just over four years’ worth of jail time before then-president Jimmy Carter commuted the sentence. Liddy went on to find success as a far-right radio host before his death in March 2021 (which interestingly aligns with the show’s timetable for creating a viable hybrid). The show has him in just one scene, promising to break into Watergate not for the Democrats’ secrets but for the aliens’.
AHS Presents Bob Woodward as Mamie Eisenhower’s Useful Dupe
Along with Carl Bernstein, Woodward famously broke the Watergate scandal as a reporter for the Washington Post. His contact in the Nixon Administration was codenamed “Deep Throat,” and the results brought down the Nixon presidency. The real-life Woodward continues to have an influential hand in presidential politics, while Deep Throat was eventually revealed to be William Mark Felt, Deputy Director of the FBI under Nixon. In American Horror Story, Woodward is presented ever so briefly meeting Deep Throat in a shadowed car lot. The show’s bonkers universe reveals an entirely different Deep Throat: Mamie Eisenhower, acting at the behest of the alien conspiracy to bring down Nixon before he can reveal their presence to the public.
See these historical figures in American Horror Story: Double Feature's second segment, "Death Valley," as new episodes air each Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on FX.