The Ryan Murphy Cinematic Universe Just Got More Complicated
Whether you love it or hate it, the work of Ryan Murphy has been something to behold. The mega-producer has been responsible for some major cultural touchstones over the past few decades of television, from Glee to American Horror Story to 9-1-1.
Amid the musical numbers and body horror and bee-nados, fans have had fun theorizing about the connectivity between Murphy’s shows. While Murphy himself has previously argued that the disparate seasons of his anthology American Horror Story are connected, the debate has now spread out into whether or not any of Murphy’s other shows exist in the same shared universe. The conversation still persists to this day… and two recent episodes of television just added even more layers to it.
First was the pilot episode of FX’s The Beauty, Murphy’s loose adaptation of Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley’s comic series of the same name. The scope of the series, and the fact that it’s based on an existing source material, would probably lead some to assume that it wasn’t connected to any of Murphy’s other shows. But one line of dialogue, between Jeremy (Jaquel Spivey) and Dr. Dilegre (Jon Jon Briones) put the nail in the coffin for anyone theorizing otherwise.
As Dr. Dilegre talks about the culture’s fascination with looks and beauty, the name Glen Powell comes up. Powell, of course, famously played Chad Radwell in Murphy’s Scream Queens series (and also auditioned for a role on Glee, but that’s a whole separate conversation). The reference does make sense in our modern moment, especially given the actor’s recent meteoric rise to fame, but it still shuts the door on any connectivity between those two shows. Which, honestly, is probably for the best, because I can not imagine the Chanels surviving long in the grotesque world of The Beauty.
Ryan Murphy Is MCU Canon?!
The second episode in question isn’t even from Murphy himself: the premiere episode of the newest Marvel Cinematic Universe series, Wonder Man. In one of the show’s first scenes, protagonist Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) gets ready to film a role on none other than American Horror Story. After getting way too particular about his character’s motivation in his scene, in which he is supposed to be killed by Twilight star Ashley Greene (playing herself) wearing corny monster prosthetics, a crew member makes a call to “Ryan.” She then approaches Simon and tells him that “the showrunner” is cutting his character’s scenes entirely, and the fact that he got fired from the gig becomes a plot point for much of the rest of the season.
We don’t even have time to unpack the ramifications of the Twilight saga being MCU canon, especially given the weird pop culture domino effect that it is a major part of. But Murphy and American Horror Story fully being canon is wild enough. Not just because it means that Glee was (probably) canonically airing concurrently to The Battle of New York, but because there are a number of AHS actors who have appeared in the MCU. Black Panther‘s Angela Bassett, Captain America: The First Avenger‘s Neal McDonough, Agatha All Along‘s Patti Lupone, and you could expand it out even further to stars of MCU-adjacent movies like Fantastic Four‘s Michael Chiklis and Madame Web‘s Emma Roberts. Hell, Evan Peters has appeared in nine seasons of the series… does that mean that ordinary man Ralph Bohner just happens to look like him?
Honestly, a lot of the pop culture references in Wonder Man break your brain. The show name-drops multiple actors who famously auditioned for MCU roles, and what happens to Josh Gad needs to be seen to be believed. But Murphy’s connection to the show is something else altogether.
(featured image: Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)
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