'American Horror Story' has robots now and I'm terrified

This is really, really, really not good.
 By 
Alison Foreman
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Spoilers for 'American Horror Story: Apocalypse' lie ahead.

Rubber men, killer clowns, sadistic nuns, surprise aliens... and now, robots?!

American Horror Story has a history of slowly dragging its viewers from already scary premises into completely deranged nightmares. (For example: Asylum's Chloë Sevigny scared me before she was injected with acid, forcibly amputated, and left for dead at a playground.)

This season, however, there was a weird level of safety in knowing that we started at apocalyptic levels. Nuclear fall out, mass casualties: how much worse can this get? Turns out, a whole lot worse! Especially if Kathy Bates is the freaking Terminator.

Episode 2 of AHS: Apocalypse features surprise snakes, the return of Rubber Man, and some very horny teenagers. But the biggest left turn came in the episode's final minutes.

Instead of a bloody gunshot wound, there is a jagged-edged hole filled with sparking wires and dripping white fluid.

Timothy and Emily, this season's star-crossed lovers, are caught in bed together—a crime that in this dystopian hellscape is punishable by death. Miriam Mead (Bates) takes charge of the prescribed execution and has two guards bring the couple into the decontamination chamber.

Moments before its lights out for our doomsday Romeo and Juliet, Timothy manages to punch a guard in the face and grab his gun. He quickly shoots Mead in the torso before getting knocked out by the other guard.

With our lovers' fates still hanging in the balance, Mead staggers into another room. She removes her hand from her stomach to assess the damage. But instead of a bloody gunshot wound, there is a jagged-edged hole filled with sparking wires and dripping white fluid. Mead looks around panic-stricken and shocked. Roll credits.

Tons of speculation surrounded this season's possible plot lines, but no one could have seen this coming. Bates' character was originally introduced with a very human backstory including details about her father's military history and a whole lot of sexual tension with Sarah Paulson. Now, presumably, that was all programmed by whoever or whatever controls Bates.

The best part of this robot reveal isn't how shocking it is to viewers, but how shocking it is to the robot. Simply put, Kathy Bates looks straight up shook when she realizes she isn't gushing blood. Did Mead not know she was an automaton? Is every member of the collective an unaware robot? Also: How is their battery life and are they iPhone compatible?

Kathy Bates scares me as a regular person—shout out to Misery for making me fear for my ankles at all times—but, as a robot, she terrifies me in a completely unshakable way. Only time will tell what this electric terror is capable of and who she'll be up against.

Here's hoping for a robots vs. witches showdown.

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Alison Foreman

Alison Foreman is one heck of a gal. She's also a writer in Los Angeles, who used to cover movies, TV, video games, and the internet for Mashable. @alfaforeman

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