‘American Horror Story: Cult’ Season 7 Premiere Recap: Hillary Clinton V. Donald Trump

American Horror Story: Cult premiered last night with an entirely new theme from previous season.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: CULT PREMIERE RECAP

The seventh season in the Ryan Murphy created series welcomed back veterans Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters and took on a new and more terrifying reality than past seasons, which focused on alien abductions, haunted houses, and supernatural beings. This time, the focus was on what happens when the amazing becomes the norm – having Donald Trump as the American president.

The show opens with a series of clips from the 2016 elections with Trump and Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, and we see the result. Then we’re taken to Ally’s (Paulson’s) living room with her wife Ivy (Alison Pill), two quintessential liberals shaken up by Trump’s unprecedented victory. Elsewhere in the same town, blue-haired Kai Anderson (Peters) watches the results roll in excitedly, and even throws some Cheetos dust in his face to pay homage to the new president.

The opening credits hit us with a brassy, “Hail to the Chief” -like rendition of the usual AHS theme song, and we see a familiar Twisty the Killer Clown stalk and kill a nice couple at a picnic. Then comes the big reveal – that all of this is really taking place in a comic book being read by Ozzy, Ally and Ivy’s son. Ally walks in on Ozzy reading under the covers and assumes it’s porn until she sees the clown on the cover. Ally has a crippling fear of clowns, as well as small spaces, blood, and anything covered in tiny, close-together holes (which have been featured on all of the AHS: Cult press materials.

Ally’s phobias have been mostly kept in check for years, but since the election, they have come rushing back, and she starts seeing clowns everywhere.

Kai’s sister Winter (Billie Lourd) had volunteered on Clinton’s campaign, and now she’s stuck living with her Trump-supporting brother. The two have a very weird sibling bond, but just how weird is too soon to tell. The pair end up at an interview at the Mayfair-Richards home, just where Ally and Ivy are seeking a new nanny for Ozzy. Why Kai is applying for this is unclear, but he shows himself to be an attention-seeker for all the wrong reasons. He rambles about political fear, spills his latte on Ally on purpose in the street, and then arranges his own on-camera beating after throwing a urine-filled condom at a group of hispanic men.

On Ally and Ivy’s side, hiring a nanny is an attempt to get back some normalcy in their everyday life, during which the couple runs a restaurant. Their attempts, however, are failing, as Ally undergoes a series of hallucinations, including a hole-filled croissant that oozes blood and is surrounded by severed fingers. Looking away, she sees a clown masturbating into a vat of soup.

When Ally returns home, she discovers that the Change have been murdered, and Ozzy, who spent all day watching violent videos with babysitter Kai, informs her that the Change were in fact killed by clowns. It’s unclear if this is a delusion or a team of new clown serial killers, but I’m sure we’ll find out more as the series goes on. The premiere ends with Ally waking up to see (hallucinate) a killer clown in bed with her, which doesn’t help Ivy’s initiative to vamp up their sex life.