Like most American Horror Story fans, after an episode airs, it is hard for me to "turn off" my brain. Instead, I'm left spending the next week thinking about why things happened the way they did until a new episode of AHS: Hotel airs. Most recently, I've been stuck on why no one seems to age on American Horror Story: Hotel . As a long-time fan of AHS, I had a theory that pertained to Season 1's Murder House. Could it be that no one ages because they're all dead?
In Season 1 of American Horror Story, characters that died in the haunted house were left to haunt said house in the state they were when they died. So, Nora Montgomery died many many years before the Harmon family moved into the Murder House, but she remained the same age (with the same head injury from shooting herself) when she haunted it during the season.
This theory was basically confirmed when we saw Iris shove Sally out of a window, killing her when she hit the pavement. While it might have seemed like Sally just survived the fall and continued to come back to the hotel, it appeared that she was in the exact same form she was when she was killed. She still has blood on her collar bones, and she's still wearing the same outfit that she was wearing when Iris pushed her.
As if it needed more clarification, creator Ryan Murphy told Entertainment Weekly, "The place that you die is the place that you haunt. That’s a rule that harkens back to season one," naming it a "constant rule" throughout the seasons when it comes to ghosts. From this, we can essentially mark off who of the Hotel Cortez residents is dead from the way they haven't aged according to flashbacks.
It was kind of a shocker to see that Lady Gaga's character was the one that has had Holden over the course of the last four years, but what was even more surprising was the fact that he hadn't aged at all. Which probably means Holden was killed when he was abducted. It also appears that Donovan died the same night Sally did when he overdosed. He seems to have remained the same age from the flashbacks to present scenes, as well.
So while it might be a complicated "rule," it is a bit easier to understand why no one ages if you think about it in relation to past seasons. It's also a great way to get the wheels turning thinking about how else the current season my connect to Season 1. Because they have to connect, right?
Images: Suzanne Tenner/FX; Frank Ockenfels/FX
