Yahoo News How AHS: Apocalypse will resurrect dead Coven witches
When it was announced that American Horror Story would be crossing over Murder House and Coven, it seemed as though the potential for returning characters was pretty slim.
At the end of Murder House, only Constance Langdon (Jessica Lange) was left standing, as she took on the role of looking after Michael, the future Antichrist, to be played in season eight by Cody Fern.
The situation was fairly similar with Coven - that ended with only Cordelia Goode (Sarah Paulson), Zoe Benson (Taissa Farmiga), Queenie (Gabourey Sidibe) and Kyle Spencer (Evan Peters) left alive. (What's more, two seasons later, Queenie had a cameo appearance in Hotel and was swiftly killed off too.)
But then came the news that Emma Roberts would be reprising her role as Madison Montgomery in Apocalypse and then we discovered that Madison wasn't the only one coming back from the dead.
First, Sidibe revealed that Queenie would be resurrected, before a first look at the reunited Coven witches confirmed that Misty Day (Lily Rabe) and Myrtle Snow (Frances Conroy) would be back too.
Some fans have been confused over how so many witches could be alive again for Apocalypse, but we feel the clues are there in Coven as to how they'll return from the dead.
During Coven, we saw a whole host of resurrections, four of them coming from Misty who has the power of Resurgence - the ability to raise people from the dead. She resurrected Myrtle, Madison and Joan Ramsey (Patti LuPone), but most impressively, Misty brought herself back from the dead after she was burned at the stake.
Misty might have to do it again since... *deep breath* she failed during the Seven Wonders test of descensum – the ability to project a soul to the afterlife and return – as she was stuck in her personal hell and disintegrated into ash when she didn't return before sunrise. *exhales*
So Apocalypse could see her resurrect herself again and then perform Resurgence on Madison, Queenie and Myrtle.
However, if Misty doesn't return this way, then all is not lost. During the Coven finale, one of the tests of the Seven Wonders is Vitalum Vitalis, the ability to balance the scales of life and death. (This is not to be confused with Resurgence, as it requires the witch using it to transfer some of their life force into a recently deceased person in order to bring them back to life or, if they so wish, to drain someone else's life force.)
Madison showcased her ability to use Vitalum Vitalis when she helped Zoe (who also has the power) bring back Kyle and, during the Seven Wonders, she also brought back a fly after she refused to use her powers on Zoe, who had fatally impaled herself showcasing transmutation, a.k.a teleportation.
Unfortunately for her, this led to her (second) death as Kyle killed her for not bringing Zoe back. Them's the brakes.
But it turned out that Cordelia successfully managed to complete all of the Seven Wonders, using Vitalum Vitalis to bring Zoe back to life and becoming the new Supreme of the Coven in the process. So with both Cordelia and Zoe having the power, they could all bring the deceased witches back to life, although it might prove trickier with Misty given that she's a pile of ash.
Of course, this is all assuming that Madison, Queenie, Misty and Myrtle will appear in the 2019 timeline of Apocalypse where the season has been confirmed to be set, five years after Coven ended.
One theory about the new season is that we'll see the surviving witches use magic to travel back in time to stop the Antichrist from bringing about the apocalypse. This could mean that the dead witches are still technically dead, but can all appear in the past.
The issue with that idea, though, is that it opens up a whole can of continuity issues. Surely if all the witches had to stop the Antichrist, they would have mentioned it in Coven, as from their perspective it would have already happened?
It makes your head hurt just thinking about it, so we think the safest – and most plausible – option is that they're all resurrected and appear in 2019.
After all, if you're going to stop the Antichrist, you need all the witches you can get.
American Horror Story: Apocalypse debuts on Sunday, September 9 on FX in the US, and on Thursday, September 27 on FOX in the UK. Catch up on series 1-6 on Netflix, with season 7 available to buy on Amazon Prime Video.
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