Ahead of AHS: Apocalypse’s premiere, here is a guide to Murder House and Coven’s most important plot points.

Seven years ago the Murder House installment of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series introduced the masses to American Horror Story. The series leaned in on jump scares, slow to the point of creepy line delivery, and star-studded call sheets.

When Hotel bluntly addressed the “Everything is connected” tease, it was only a matter of time before a crossover landed on our screens.

The AHS: Apocalypse premise is ambitious. It appears to tie together the loose ends of one season with severed ties of another all while ushering in the end of the world.

Here we offer up the 20 important plot points you need to remember before the world comes crashing down in AHS: Apocalypse.

If you don’t have time to binge both series, we also offer the must-watch episode of each season.

‘AHS: Murder House’ episode guide

  1. Ben (Dylan McDermott) and Vivian Harmon (Connie Britton), along with their daughter Violet (Tessa Farmiga), move into a house that not only looks terrifying, but has so many haunting issues the real estate agent should be given an award for getting it off the market.
  2. A brief breakdown of the issues plaguing this LA home:
    • Former owner Larry (Denis O’Hare), whose family burned alive in the house, still hangs around.
    • The hired help’s connection to the home leads to some unconventional dietary changes.
    • The first owners of the house, Nora and Charles Montgomery, performed illegal abortions in the basement.
    • Oh, and Charles tried to sew his baby back together once, leading Nora to kill herself and the baby.
    • There are ghosts who don’t know they are ghosts, ghosts who act as interior designers, and a Rubber Man who hangs around.
  3. Tate (Evan Peters) is the son of the Harmon’s neighbor Constance (Jessica Lange) who was responsible for a school shooting. Constance hopes that the arrival of the psychiatrist next door, Tate, will be able to move on after attending some sessions.
  4. Tate has a connection to Nora, the former owner of the house and wants to give her a child to care for. Chad and Patrick, a couple who once owned the house, were looking to adopt and Tate saw and opportunity. When they decide to give up on their adoption, Tate kills the couple and stages it as a murder suicide.
  5. The house acts as a holding cell for the spirits killed on the property. Some inhabitants who cannot move on include: Tate, Hayden (Ben’s former student and lover that Larry kills), Chad and Patrick, Moira, Nora, and Violet (who actually died in episode 6 by suicide).
  6. Which leads us to Vivian’s pregnancy. Tate is responsible for impregnating Vivian in the Rubber Man suit and is the father of ONE of the twins she conceives.
  7. Billie Dean (Sarah Paulson) is a medium who reveals that a ghost bringing about a new life is the mark of the beginning of the Apocalypse by the Antichrist.
  8. Everyone dies. Well, pretty much. Vivian dies in labor, and one of the twins is a stillborn. Ben is killed by the ghost of Hayden. And the dead all try to live happily ever after in the Murder House.
  9. Constance, who earlier lost her daughter to a random car accident, takes in the living twin.
  10. Flash forward and Constance finds the boy, now a few years older, having just killed his nanny.

    11. Episode to watch: Episode 10, “Smoldering Children”

    ‘AHS: Coven’ episode guide

  11. Zoe (Tessa Farmiga) is our guide into the world of Miss Robichaux’s Academy for Exceptional Girls after she kills her boyfriend during sex. Unintentionally, of course.
  12. Let’s meet the residents, shall we?
    • Fiona Goode: The Supreme
    • Queenie: A human voodoo doll
    • Nan: Can hear everyone’s thoughts
    • Zoe: As we know, kills people with her vagina
    • Madison: former Hollywood starlet, telekinetic, bad attitude
    • Misty Day: recluse swamp-dweller, who is also a necromancer and Stevie Nicks fan
    • Cordelia Foxx: runs the school, Fiona’s daughter
    • Myrtle Snow: head of the Council
    • Spalding: butler, no tongue
  13. Fiona (Jessica Lange) is the Supreme of this Coven. She is desperately attempting to remain young forever and digs up New Orleans’ own 19th century monster Madame Delphine LaLaurie (Kathy Bates) for intel.
  14. Cheating death is the driver that led Zoe to try to resurrect Kyle (Evan Peters) and Fiona to reignite a war with Marie Laveau, a Voodoo priestess who is rumored to have the elixir of life.
  15. Fiona falls ill and learns that she is going to die, which means only one thing — a new Supreme is rising. The only way to preserve her place is to kill any potential candidates. First up, Madison.
  16. The girls try to reach out to the other side to bring Madison back and inadvertently summon a serial killer, the Axeman, from the dead. But it’s cool because he proves to be a lover for Fiona and a huge help when Fiona and Marie team up to take down some witch hunters.
  17. Stevie Nicks visits! Twirl, twirl, twirl!
  18. Truncated Cordelia timeline: Cordelia loses her sight, Myrtle Snow is burned at the stake after Fiona blames her for this offense. Myrtle is resurrected, Cordelia gains the gift of Second Sight, and eventually gets her sight back.
  19. In order to protect the Coven, Fiona is killed and the witches go through the Seven Wonders to determine the new Supreme. Many of the candidate perish, and Cordelia is named the next Supreme.
  20. In the spirit of openness, Cordelia decides to open the school to the witches of the world. But she does so publicly leaving the AHS universe open to discussing the existence of witches and the supernatural in the open.

    21. Episode to watch: Episode 13, “The Seven Wonders”

    —

    How much of this will make it into the new season? With most of the original two casts dead, others stuck in their versions of hell, or trapped inside a house, what can the end of the world offer us?

    Madison appears to be resurrected once more, the surviving twin of Vivian appears to be fulfilling his role as the Antichrist, and it is possible that the two most prominent buildings of the series — the Academy and the Murder House — serve as fallout shelters for those who survive.

    Regardless of the preview and those predictions, if AHS has taught us one thing, it’s to never get too comfortable with what we think we know.

    AHS: Apocalypse airs Wednesdays at 10:00 p.m. ET on FX.