Ryan Murphy announced that, with the birth of the Antichrist and everything else that happened in the final episode of season 1, America will be saying goodbye to the Harmon family. American Horror Story is officially an anthology series. Each season, a new story will be told based on the concept of American horror. The idea excites me as much as it upsets those who really want to know what happens to the Antichrist. I have a feeling that there are a good number of people watching American Horror Story who don't typically watch horror. That's great. That also means that they have a different set of expectations than a horror fan. Essentially, the season wrapped up its narrative by focusing on the central characters even while a more unfathomably horror arising in the world. That's par for the course in modern horror. The killer isn't always caught and the protagonist doesn't always get a happily ever after.

Knowing that season 2 will feature a new cast, new location, and new story, I find myself wondering what could work for the crossover audience this show gathered.

Monsters Next Door

From what I've dug out of message boards, blogs, and reviews, a lot of viewers really responded to Jessica Lange's character Constance. Constance, a kleptomaniac with a sharp tongue and a desire to trap anyone and everyone in the death house forever, was not a character people would typically root for. Yet there she was, front and center in any discussion of American Horror Story.

Why not prey off this desire to support the nasty and make season 2 all about a monster living next door. It could be a vampire, a werewolf, or even a serial killer. The important thing is to take a character that in another show would be the lovable neighbor and completely destroy it. This could allow for an isolationist effect on the show, where the stars in the main household go from being outwardly social to hermits afraid to leave their own home. It's a brand of horror that's tried and true in American culture and could work well serialized if enough characters are developed in the town. You have to care about the people before they start to disappear.

Mad Scientist

Since so many people like Constance for being an insane character, why not focus on that category of horror star? Go after that Invisible Man or Cabinet of Dr. Caligari dream. Create a mad scientist character that is extremely charismatic caught up in something incredibly disturbing. Tell the tale from her perspective and you have a lesser-explored genre of horror to traipse through.

Just imagine us rooting for the bad guy because she's so charismatic. Oh wait. We were already doing that. Since Murphy said some actors would return in brand new roles, this would be the perfect opportunity to cast Jessica Lange as the anti-Constance and really play with audience expectations.

The Dark Secret

If we're really going for an American flavor of horror, it would be hard to beat the horror of a deep dark secret in a nuclear family. Set the second season 30+ years in the past and play off the horror of a family doing something terrible that could arouse suspicion during the Red Scare. It could be a teenager sent off to live with grandma and grandpa on the farm or junior discovering something very wrong in the attic. Whatever the set-up, the pay-off will be golden.

This kind of horror would allow the story to focus on a wider area than just the one house. Sure, season 1 did leave the house occasionally, but the horror was the house. A deep dark secret within a family follows them everywhere they go, threatening to destroy them at any turn.

Psycho-Biddy

Ryan Murphy knows pop culture. Surely he's familiar with this style of post-Baby Jane horror. Psycho-biddy horror never grew much beyond a dull roar beneath the grindhouse/zombie/rising slasher genres. That leaves a whole lot of unexplored territory. With the first generation of baby boomers starting to collect social security benefits, the time is ripe to revisit the elders in peril genre.

I could see riffs on some of the same themes as Bubba Ho-Tep being very successful. Make the central location a retirement community and see what kind of horror could come from there. Proper psycho-biddy horror comes from someone putting an elderly person with a troubled past in danger. There's no shortage of room to play around with here: government paranoia, economic/health care hot button topics, the looming threat of death at any turn. I could go on. I think there's something quite promising in this concept. I can't see F/X, of all networks, allowing a cast of senior citizens to carry the second season of a hit show, but I could see a decision like this cementing American Horror Story as must see TV.

What do you think? Sound off below.