Why Wasn’t Kyle in ‘American Horror Story: Apocalypse’?
It’s been a year since Season 8 of American Horror Story, the most blatant and ambitious crossover to ever happen on the series. The two most popular seasons among fans, Murder House and Coven, came together to reverse and stop the end of the world. Because who better to fight Michael Langdon, the Anti-Christ, then witches?
But one character was noticeably absent from not only Season 8, but also from any mention at all. Kyle Spencer, the kind-hearted frat boy on a scholarship from Season 3, was nowhere in sight or mind by Season 8.
Zoe entranced Kyle from the start of ‘Coven’
Audiences met Kyle in Coven, and automatically he was fascinated by Zoe at a frat party she goes to with Madison. Zoe is also interested, but she knows she has an uncontrollable black widow power when it comes to men, so she has to stay away. However, when he goes after his frat brothers to discipline them for sexually assaulting Madison, they all end up in the bus Madison flips to enact revenge on them. Kyle dies, but that doesn’t stop Madison and Zoe from bringing him back as a Frankenkyle of sorts.
Season 8 combined two seasons Evan Peters had prominent roles in
Evan Peters’ character in Season 1 was more significant than his role in Coven. However, Kyle was still a major part of Zoe’s storyline, and then Madison’s. By the end of Season 3, he’s a servant-like figure at the Robichaux Academy but still very much with Zoe. For her not to mention him, even in passing, was odd in Season 8 and a plot hole.
Kyle might have gotten kicked out of the academy
There isn’t an answer to this in canon, since (again) he wasn’t mentioned or alluded to. In the last moments of Coven, Kyle chokes Madison to death for refusing to bring back Zoe and supposedly buries her off-screen. Because of this, fans think he might have been exiled from the coven. One deleted user wrote,
He wasn’t really relevant to the plot, nor would he have been able to protect the Coven against Michael and Meade. Many believe he was removed from the academy after they found out about Madison. Cordelia was in no way going to let someone who killed a fellow witch (even Madison) stay in the academy.
Maybe he was executed
Another Reddit user, u/posterwhat, agreed and noted that there was “extra weight” on Zoe’s “cold response” of “We knew,” to Madison when she asked if anyone even realized she was dead. They interpreted that he was executed and Zoe’s “still carrying some pain over Kyle’s death.”
Those are pretty convincing. However, there are also clues that the coven didn’t execute Kyle. For one, burning a witch at the stake for killing other witches is, well, for witches. They, of course, could have killed him another way, so moving on.
In another thread, user u/das_hexe rebutted a similar answer to those above. “Even if the others did know about him killing Madison, who attempted to kill Misty and left Zoe for dead, they probably would’ve just patted him on the back and gave him a cookie or something.”
While no one particularly liked Madison, Cordelia probably wouldn’t have celebrated her death. However, they did know she was dead by Apocalypse, meaning that Kyle ended up confessing, even though Spalding’s ghost told him to just burry it. Or the witches could have also stumbled on her body. Either way, considering they had the power to resurrect Madison, with Cordelia as the Supreme, they never did until Michael comes along and wants to prove he can fetch her, and the others, from hell. This further signals that they didn’t have remorse for Madison’s death meaning that Kyle is still “alive” and was either kicked out, let go, or was just off-screen the whole time.
He might have just been off-screen
Reddit user, u/bilscal, also agreed that they wouldn’t execute Kyle. “I reckon he just was in the background, I mean Zoe [six] didn’t get a huge amount of screen time and when she did it was outside Academy or with other witches teaching. He is probably at the Academy, but we just didn’t seem him.”
This is a good point too. A lot of the returning cast from Seasons 1 and 3 — Taissa Farmiga, Gabourey Sidibe, and even Peters’ role of Tate — weren’t in Season 8 a ton. Since Kyle was already a lesser character, they probably just opted to leave him out. This helped Peters since he had four other roles, two of them reoccurring from previous seasons already. It’s just so odd that Zoe didn’t even mention him. Maybe when the witches return, fans will get some answers.
