Warning! This post contains minor SPOILERS for AHStories season 2, episode 4!The season episode of American Horror Story’s spinoff series "Milkmaids" indicates one of the show’s best proposed season themes won’t be used. American Horror Stories season 2, episode 4, “Milkmaids," adapts one of Ryan Murphy’s suggested season themes for AHS. The spinoff anthology sees a new terrifying story every episode rather than every season, with many of the installments either directly connecting to past American Horror Story seasons or using recommended themes.

Ahead of American Horror Story season 10, Ryan Murphy created a poll in which he invited fans to vote on which season theme they would like to see in the future. The six choices included Aliens, Bloody Mary, Sirens, Plague, Christmas Horror, and Piggy Man (an AHS-created urban legend). The final choices in Murphy's 2021 fan poll were Bloody Mary and Sirens, the latter of which seemed to gain the most traction among audiences. However, when AHS season 10 rolled around, the season was split between aliens and vampires, both of which had already been used as American Horror Story themes.

Related: AHS Finally Delivers On Its Best Season Theme (But Not How You Thought)

After already revealing that the Bloody Mary legend would be used as the theme for American Horror Stories season 2, the spinoff series has used yet another of the popular AHS theme options. In American Horror Stories season 2, episode 4, “Milkmaids,” a Puritan New England village discovers disturbing ways to prevent getting smallpox, which is often referred to in the episode as the “plague.” Since American Horror Stories just exhibited a plague-centered episode, it’s highly unlikely that the theme will also be used for an entire season of American Horror Story. The theming had already been criticized for being too on-the-nose considering the COVID-19 pandemic is still spreading around the world, so adapting the AHS Plague theme for just one episode may have been the best choice.

Why American Horror Stories Keeps Using Possible AHS Themes

American Horror Story Future Seasons Bloody Mary Plague Ryan Murphy

While fans were excited by the notion of getting to help pick the theme for an American Horror Story season, the top choices have yet to be implemented in the main show. Since the poll was created before American Horror Stories season 1, Ryan Murphy may have used it as a way to garner interest in episodic themes instead. Some of the legends and subject matter in the proposed American Horror Story themes may not have actually suited a season-long arc, so American Horror Stories offers a way to still use the popular themes without perhaps devoting an entire season to them.

Similar to the way that American Horror Story themes and characters have continued to find their way into American Horror Stories, such as Spalding's Coven origin story, the reverse may be true as well. Just because a theme was used in American Horror Stories first doesn’t necessarily mean that it can’t happen in a season-long AHS affair, but it will likely take on a completely different form in the main series. For instance, American Horror Stories’ season 1 episode “BA’AL” centered around a wife being gaslit by her husband, with this premise being similarly reused in American Horror Story: Red Tide’s incredible episode “Gaslight.” Rather than scrapping the season theme altogether, American Horror Stories’ episodes could actually be setting up certain storylines in future American Horror Story seasons.