Fans Are Comparing 'AHS: 1984' To 'Murder House' For This Spooky Reason

It's hard to believe it was nine years ago that the now-iconic American Horror Story first came into fans' lives with Murder House, a season of age-shifting redheads (before Game of Thrones did it), Jessica Lange's superb acting, and a house full of ghosts. The ghosts terrorized the new residents throughout the season until the owners' death and subsequent "ghostification." Now, for Season 9, Ryan Murphy may have brought that same spooky supernatural element back. After Episode 2 aired, fans all over social media started speculating: Are there ghosts in AHS: 1984? It turns out, viewers may be seeing many specters without realizing it.

The ninth season is set, as the name already suggests, in 1984, and it revives the classic genre that dominated the era: slasher movies, such as Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street. But soon after the season premiere, it became obvious that — as if the name Ryan Murphy didn't already give it away — viewers aren't dealing with a typical slasher show. Right off the bat, fans met a seriously religious Margaret, who's so eerie, fans think she played a role in the massacre that happened at Redwood 14 years prior. Then, there's Brooke's backstory, which includes a deranged fiancé who, in jealous rage, murdered her dad and her suspected lover, and then died by suicide. And who can leave out the reveal that aerobics instructor Xavier was actually being bullied into filming porn films? Truly, there's a lot going on.

But despite all that, it's the mysterious hiker (who the counselors hit with their van in Episode 1) who is at the root of this new fan theory. In Episode 2, it was revealed that the man's name is Jonas, and it seems like he, uh... has an infinite number of lives. In addition to being hit by a moving vehicle, in Episode 2, he was shown to be murdered multiple times. How could he keep reappearing, alive and well, after getting his stomach and neck slashed open, and also getting stabbed in the carotid artery, if he were just a regular human being hiking in California? But it wasn't even the repeated deaths, none of which Jonas seemed to remember upon resurrection, that were the oddest thing about the character. It turns out, Jonas was at Redwood back when the first massacre went down, and according to Margaret, he looks exactly the same as he did all those years ago.

Perhaps even weirder — because that's somehow possible — one of the times when the Night Stalker went to kill him, he shocked everyone with four words: "I don't die here." What does that even mean? It was the biggest gasp moment from the episode, and probably the series so far. How does someone know when they're going to die?

All of this has led fans to believe that 1984 parallels with Murder House's storyline of ghosts. Jonas' spirit may be "trapped" in the camp territory just as the residents of the house were when they died there. And taking the idea a step further, a theory on Reddit suggests that everyone else who has died at the camp could also be ghosts.

This could mean not only that characters such as Rita and Margaret could already be dead, but also that fans may also get to meet the ghosts of those who died during the first Redwood massacre. However, though this theory seems pretty plausible, it's worth noting that the Murder House ghosts were fully aware of their life status (or lack thereof), whereas Jonas, (and most likely other ghosts, if the theory is true) doesn't know he's been murdered.

In this true AHS-style twist, Ryan Murphy is confusing the hell out me, and leaving me on the edge of my seat in restless anticipation of subsequent episodes, which will probably create even more questions than they will answer. Regardless, the season's already got its hook in AHS devotees, and you'd better be sure they'll keep theorizing and combing for easter eggs to figure out what in the (after)world is going on at Camp Redwood.