The showrunners and the entire team of American Horror Story have had a huge decision to make. With the recent Vegas shootings' trauma still looming around, should they air the upcoming episode or not?
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The episode, which is the sixth one in the 7th season, bears an eerie resemblance to the mass shooting that occurred recently. Shot last month in the O.C., there is no directly ripping off that was done from the real life tragedy, but it does show a group of people being rained down by shots fired out of nowhere.
As first reported by TMZ, the group of people in the episode, are engaged in a political rally where Kai Anderson (Evan Peters) is giving a campaign speech. Out of nowhere, Ally (Sarah Paulson) starts firing. Both Kai and his group of followers get hit in the firing.
About 10 shots can be heard in the two and a half minute scene. When TMZ had reached out to the creators, even though initially they didn't have anything to comment, they have now decided to edit and cut certain bits of the scene off in the wake of the Vegas incident.
It has only been a week since the mass shooting happened at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas that left 59 people dead. They were all concert goers. Airing this episode in all its signature AHS glory would have only triggered victims, as felt by creator Ryan Murphy himself.
Ryan addressed the issue at The New Yorker Festival on Saturday, as was reported by Entertainment Weekly. "I just made the decision that I'm going to have all of that violence be shown for the most part off camera," he revealed, before continuing to discuss the struggle he underwent upon making the decision.
"Should you air it? Should you not air it? How do you be sensitive? My point of view was I believe I have the right to air it, but I also believe in victims' rights, and I believe that now is probably not the week to have something explosive or incendiary in the culture because someone who was affected might watch that and it could trigger something or make them feel upset. So our decision was to re-edit it and I felt that that was the right move," he explained in the interview.
He added, "Nobody ever talks about victims' rights. That's sort of a weird emotional discussion that's never bridged. But I felt great sympathy for people who were affected, certainly, and family members and loved ones and people who are upset about the way the world is."
This season of American Horror Story: Cult revolves around a maniacally obsessive Trump Worshipper and his group of clowns who are unleashing horror around the time of Election Day, 2016.
So far, it's obvious that Kai is the cult leader. But what bigger twists do the creators have in store? Catch the promotional clip here:
American Horror Story: Cult airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on FX.
