American Horror Story: 1984 – Final Girl

By: Kelly Kearney

“American Horror Story: 1984” wrapped up its slasher season with a bloody epic ending that left fans stunned by an ending nobody thought was possible. In the shortest season of the series to date, we time jump to 2019 and tie up some loose ends in a surprisingly happy fashion.

2019

When we last left Camp Redwood the counselors were still stuck in summer purgatory and trying to make the most of their hell on earth with murder games to pass the time. When Margaret (Leslie Grossman) decided to reopen the camp for a killer concert the body toll was as high as the prospected profits. With two serial killers chasing each other down and Margaret murdering her way through the musical line up, it’s no wonder Camp Redwood remained deserted until 2019 – the year Bobby Richter (Finn Wittrock) arrived to dig deeper into his family’s sorted history.

As the now grown son of the infamous and wrongly convicted serial killer Mr. Jingles (John Carroll Lynch) arrived at the dilapidated camp he’s met by 80’s aerobics goddess, Montana (Billie Lourd), and both are equally confused by the time jump. Montana is shocked so many years have passed but after she spots Bobby’s cell phone she knows it must be true. Besides the tech upgrade, Montana admits she hasn’t seen anyone at the camp since “that sh*t-show in ’89.” She’s obviously referring to Margaret’s version of Coachella for killers and all those body bags must’ve kept even the biggest true crime nerds away. Now, after all these years, Bobby is there and looking for answers as to why his father vanished when he was a baby. The unusually chill Montana has some of the information he needs. First, we learn that decades alone in the camp has really changed her. She’s no longer the blood-thirsty girl desperate for revenge but a far more compassionate woman who worries that Bobby’s safety could be in jeopardy at the camp. “Everyone you see here is likely to kill you,” she tells the young Richter, but Bobby isn’t scared. He wants to get to know his father and this was the last place anyone saw him.

Montana decides to be Bobby’s guide and introduces him to her boyfriend Trevor (Matthew Morrison), who is heartbroken to learn that aerobics is as dead as he is. While the era is making a neon spandex fashion comeback, the workout fad didn’t make the cut. As depressing as that is for the mustached fitness king, his news for Bobby is even worse. He tells him that his father is dead and that while he was a good person, the evil that is seeped into Redwood’s soil was too much for him to overcome. This shocks Bobby because for his entire life he’s been receiving anonymous checks from someone he assumed was his dad. Added to the fact that he is getting this news from two very obvious ghosts, it is almost beyond the young Richter’s understanding.

Back to 1989…

While Bobby is questioning two ghosts about his missing father, we jump back to 1989 where Courtney (Leslie Jordan) is sucking up to Margaret by spilling the beans on her husband, Trevor, who has been meddling with her concert attendance. Apparently, Trevor was turning people away at the gates after he found out one of the bands wound up dead on their tour bus. Trevor doesn’t want to see anyone else die and since that was his wife’s entire idea for the festival she is livid. So angry, in fact, that she winds up shooting Courtney for telling her the bad news. She literally shot the messenger! Margaret has no shame. Then, blinded by rage, she turns her gun on her husband and shoots him in his jumbo sized package, sending him over the camp’s line and gasping for his last breath. As we know, anyone who dies in Camp Redwood remains a ghost, but anyone who dies outside of the border just dies. As Trevor struggles to crawl back to the entrance, Montana (or as Margaret calls her “your truck stop Cyndi Lauper”) screams knowing this is the end of their romance…and it would have been if Brooke (Emma Roberts) hadn’t shown up in the nick of time to help get Trevor over the boundary line! No matter the issues between her and Montana, Brooke is a good person and wants to do right by her old arch nemesis. She inadvertently took her brother from her and she won’t let her lose Trevor.

Back to the present and Montana admits this one selfless act changed her and the camp forever. The counselors decided to stop the violence, but not before they took care of Bruce (Dylan McDermott) the thumbless killer, outside of the camp, and then slaughtered Richard (Zach Villa) inside just so they could keep him from hurting anyone else. Brooke didn’t just give Montana the gift of forever with her boo, she put the camp’s dark history to rest.

What, or who, didn’t changed over the years was Richard Ramirez. The Satanic killer is still as dangerous as ever but now he’s the counselor’s problem. After his partnership with Benjamin turned sour, Richard swore he would find Jingles’ son and make him pay for his father’s betrayal. Fortunately for everyone but the trapped counselors, he never got to leave the camp to kill again and now he’s being guarded by all of the ghosts. Well, guarded might be the wrong word, more like tied up and killed daily. Every time he resurrects back into his evil form. For decades each of the counselors, and even Chef Bertie (Tara Karsian), took turns playing, “WAKE UP, RICHARD! TIME TO DIE!” So, why have they spent their entire time stuck in camp torturing a maniacal killer? They did it for Benjamin Richter and his son. Only now Bobby is on the campgrounds and thanks to a very amorous Bertie and Chet (Gus Kenworthy) we see that Richard managed to break free from his daily deaths and is on the hunt for the young Richter.

Red Meadows Asylum

With Richard on the loose at camp and his father having a picnic in Hell with his mother and brother Bobby realizes there isn’t much more he can learn from the ghosts. Instead, he heads to Red Meadows Asylum – the hospital that kept his father under lock and key after the first camp massacre. Once he arrives, Bobby meets the new doctor in charge and it’s none other than Donna Chambers (Angelica Ross)! Dr. Chambers fills Bobby in on what went down in 1989 and how she became this slasher show’s final girl. According to Donna it seems that Brooke died taking on Margaret, who in turn was chopped up into pieces and fed to a woodchipper. Her victims got the last laugh but her gruesome death happened inside the camp, trapping Margaret with the rest of them forever.

Once Donna finishes filling in the blanks, Bobby thanks her for sending him checks his entire life and that confuses Donna. She never sent Bobby checks and she’s the final girl! Someone else must’ve escaped that camp!

We soon find out that Donna isn’t the last survivor, thanks to Brooke, who escaped camp and has been living a posh life with her doctor husband in Oregon! Bobby and Donna track her down and learn that after her fight with Margaret that Ray (DeRon Horton) found Brooke, patched up her wounds and sent her over the camp line hoping someone would find her. The plan worked because someone did find her and Brooke woke up in a hospital with a new identity and lease on life. She tells Bobby that after this whole ordeal she “needed to believe that a normal life was possible,” so she sent Benjamin’s son checks in hopes it would free him from his “awful legacy.” Then, she and Donna agree to both be the final girls and the two make peace with their pasts.

A Twist of Happiness

After learning about his father’s death and what Brooke did for him Bobby returns to Camp Redwood one final time to search for the ghost of his father. When he gets there Margaret is waiting and she is just itching to kill him. And she almost succeeds until Benjamin and his mother save the day! As Margaret attempts to do what Richard couldn’t, Lavinia (Lily Rabe) emerges and screams, “Leave him alone!” She then puts the Ivana Trump wannabe back in her place. It’s an ending with a family reunion as Bobby hugs his father and says goodbye to his grandmother, uncle and the camp that haunted his family for three generations. Montana reminds him to tell their story to his children so the 80’s can live on forever. His smile is his promise that these people will be remembered in campfire stories for years to come. Camp Redwood will be remembered as a place that turned nightmares into memories and as Mike and the Mechanics’ song Living Years” plays in the background Bobby leaves the ghosts behind for a future that, hopefully, doesn’t end in bloodshed.