American Horror Story – The Future Perfect

By: Kelly Kearney

Perfection can take a long time to create. Fifty years to be exact. that’s how long the alien hybrid breeding program is predicted to take before it creates its first viable, perfect baby specimen. Nixon, who wins the presidency in the early 70’s, is frustrated with the period for this “beat the Russians to the alien tech” deal his former boss Eisenhower signed on to. In true “Tricky Dick” fashion, he uses the media to create a diversion from the rash of missing persons who are all being held captive in that Roswell puppy mill. Speaking of, Mamie has made her way to New Mexico’s Area 51 after she was promised a forever life, which to be honest, can get pretty boring even if you love birthday parties and pink cupcakes. Things go from monotonous to terrifying when our eternal FLOTUS discovers the truth behind this treaty her husband signed, as well as her own complicity in the extinction of the human race. If you were hoping for a link to tie these two half-seasons (Red Tide and Death Valley) together, you won’t find it in “The Future Perfect.” However, what you will find is a campy ride through conspiracies, regret and political power that leads to the genocidal horror you would expect from a Ryan Murphy production. So, let us dive right in and find out what those little grey men have in store for their human neighbors.

Nixon’s Fake News

We begin in 1972 in the middle of Nixon’s failed Presidential term. An angry mob protests outside of the White House while Dick (Craig Sheffer) plots with a reptilian Kissinger (Vince Foster) on how to turn the tides towards a pro-war movement instead of the current public outrage with Vietnam. Apparently, it’s not the prolonged war and death that’s ruining Nixon’s good time in Washington, but it’s the out cries of a nation sick of losing their boys just so he can use a wat like a cold war cash register, which has him concerned. Russia, Russia, Russia! What is it with these Jan Brady men and their obsessions with foreign boogiemen? Speaking of deadly visitors, they should be keeping an eye on Valiant Thor (Cody Fern) shows up to calm Dick’s nerves and tells the President this is all a part of their plan – the war and the hippie outrage – to distract the nation from the five thousand missing Americans they shoved in the Area 51 breeding factory. He reminds Nixon about the treaty and threatens to use other tactics (a certain career ending crime known as Watergate) to keep him in line. Of course, Secretary of Slithery State Kissinger agrees with Thor, but the President has no idea what he’s agreeing to.

We find out more about this alien treaty when we flashback three years to 1969 to a bed ridden Dwight Eisenhower (Neal McDonough) watching television. He spots Henry “reptile eyes” Kissinger’s transformation and points it out to Mamie (Sarah Paulson). She brushes her husband off but admits she does think other types of aliens could be living among them besides Valiant’s species. She’s placating her sick husband but really Mamie is too busy concentrating on her holiday party planning legacy that now includes Evacuation Day – or so she hopes. Mamie is pushing for a designated day to honor the British evacuation from Boston post-tea party. She thinks it could be another calendar holiday in her honor. FLOTUS really needs a hobby because her fudge recipes, the rebooting the color pink, and the Revolutionary War, aren’t big sellers for legendary status. As time passes, Evacuation Day doesn’t catch on, but Ike’s illness does, and his body begins to make its last rotation around the sun. When Valiant arrives to say his goodbyes and let’s be real, give Mamie some eye candy, he offers the ailing President eternal life at Area 51. Mamie is wowed by this idea, and later takes him up on it, but Ike turns her alien boyfriend down. He will die feeling guilty for selling out the American people to Valiant’s species.

When we return to 1972 Nixon is a paranoid mess; rambling on about an alien plot to kill him. He calls in a team to wiretap Valiant Thor’s hotel room in, you guessed it, the Watergate hotel. Thor finds out what Dick is up to when, in a shocking reveal, we see Mamie come out from the shadows of an underground garage to spill Nixon’s tea to journalist Bob Woodward (Marty Dew). Mamie Eisenhower is Deep Throat! Now, that’s a patriotic legacy you can embrace, party girl! If you know a lick about American history then you know what happens next – Nixon is caught red handed with the tapes and is forced to resign the Presidency to avoid a jail cell. The alien part of the story has replaced the real-life truth about Nixon’s spying on his democratic rivals. The nation is outraged because we used to get upset when Presidents broke laws and it was the first time Americans heard the word “impeachment.” Thor was a nice little extraterrestrial twist to one of the darker days in America’s young democracy.

Now that her husband has passed, Nixon is gone and Ford is in the White House, Mamie’s work in Washington is done and she’s ready to retire to an eternity in Area 51. Thor helps to fake her death and when she arrives at the alien breeding facility she immediately makes friends with Calico (Leslie Grossman), who is dazzled by the First Lady.

“The Truth is Out there” and Mamie finds it

Flash forward fifty years to 2021: the year of the predicted perfect. When Valiant told Nixon their human alien hybrid breeding program would take five decades to produce the perfect infant specimen, they weren’t kidding. Every “pup” born since the fifties has been destroyed due their abnormalities, but this is the year of their savior’s birth, so every single baby counts. When we last saw the four pregnant friends Troy (Isaac Powell) was removing Cal’s (Nico Greetham) not-so-perfect baby in secret. The boyfriends had hoped to escape the facility and raise the child as their own, but things didn’t go as plan and the baby was born with tentacles it wrapped around Cal’s face. The attack sets off a serious of “unauthorized” deaths turning the moon landing set into a total slaughter house. Theta (Angelica Ross) had no other choice but to order everyone on set to be executed – meaning both men, their baby and the guards who rushed the scene.

Back in the cafeteria Jamie (Rachel Hilson) and Kendall (Kaia Gerber) notice their friends are missing and start to worry if they were the deaths everyone is talking about. Eventually, they find their bodies on the moon set and the trauma forces them into labor. Theta knocks the women out and they wake up in the delivery room. One of them is fated to deliver the alien species’ perfect being. Unfortunately for Jamie, it wasn’t hers. When the baby comes out less than divine Theta kills the newborn and it’s mother. Kendall watches on in horror as her best friend is executed knowing that she is the mother of their perfect hybrid. In total, it took 60 years from the day Eisenhower signed away American lives for a microwave and cell phone to the day their perfect being was born, so does this mean the horrors of the human experiments will stop? Not for Kendall, whose head Theta cuts off and replaces with a giant metal orb to preserve her body for their “breeding vessel.”

Back in the cafeteria Mamie is having another one of her pink birthday cupcakes and she doesn’t seem too thrilled with that particular part of her legacy. What’s another year older when you never age? Her pity party with her one-woman cheering squad, Calico, is overshadowed by the news of the perfect child. Concerned with what comes next, Mamie goes to Valiant and asks him what’s going to happen and to her terror he confirms her husband’s worst fear – a total replacement of the human race. Thor makes a point to mention Mamie is safe from the annihilation of her species thanks to her contributions to the alien’s cause, but she questions why humans and not the reptilians secretly living among them have to die. Thor is honest with her and says the reptiles can stay because unlike humans, they are useful. Mamie is devastated because her husband was right, and she played a major role in forcing him to sign onto this nightmare.

She heads back to the cafeteria where she tells Calico all she learned and the two friends start hatching a plan to stop the alien takeover. If they kill the host mother, Kendall, then the aliens would have no choice but to continue on with their search for perfection making the takeover out of reach, at least for a while. We find out Theta was also kept in the dark about Valiant’s plans and Mamie manages to convert her to the human’s side. That is until Mamie tries to kill the perfect baby. Theta uses her mind control to stop the FLOTUS from the final infanticidal blow and tells her the alien species will restore order to the planet, not the humans who helped destroy it. I guess killing the savior was a step to far for Theta, who then offers Calico a choice to either be team Mamie or be the den mother to all the hybrids. Calico chooses the mommy role and Theta explodes Mamie’s head. RIP, eternal party-girl FLOTUS. Now that the meddling Mamie is dead, Calico helps Theta deliver the second perfect child, which we learn will now be birthed every hour of every day. Poor Kendall! An innocent pays the price for a country’s fear of others, its need for power, its debilitating quest to acquire wealth and all the things that make humans problematic to planet they live on.