American Horror Story: Apocalypse - What Does The Ending Really Mean?

Contains major spoilers from American Horror Story Season 8, Episode 10.

American Horror Story's post-apocalyptic season promised big things when it premiered back in September - what with it being the heavily-anticipated crossover season between the Murder House and Coven seasons of the show - and for the most part, it delivered.

Last week's penultimate instalment, Fire and Reign, wrapped up all the loose ends from the flashback narrative, as this week's episode, Apocalypse Then, brought the over-all season to a jaw-dropping close.

Apocalypse Then returns the story to the present day, and we finally have the opportunity to see Supreme witch Cordelia Goode and Anti-Christ Michael Langdon face off, as the ultimate battle between good and evil finally commences.

For a while, it looks like Michael is going to succeed, but the leader of Miss Robichaux's Academy has a cunning plan. Cordelia sacrifices herself so that fellow witch Mallory can gain her power. With that, Mallory is able to travel back in time so that she may attempt to prevent the apocalypse ever occurring the first place.

She makes use of this rare opportunity to re-write history by running down an unsuspecting adolescent Michael, killing him before he embraces his true identity. With this plan succeeding, the American Horror Story landscape has been changed forever.

While American Horror Story is very much grounded in the horror genre - as it should be - the show occasionally ventures into foreign territory. For example, Asylum remains one of the show's most realistic seasons, largely because is dealt with psychological horror as opposed to the supernatural sort, but that didn't stop Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk from throwing aliens into the mix.

Well, aliens aren't the only sci-fi elements that Murphy and Falchuk have incorporated into their work, because Apocalypse Then makes use of another: time travel. While it may seem like a bit of plot convenience at first - and to be fair, it is - don't let that diminish the importance of such a tool.

Time travel may not be anything new in literature, but it's new to the world of American Horror Story. Up until recently, we've accepted every event in the series' shared universe as unchangeable, but by bringing time travel to the table, Murphy and Falchuk have effectively changed things forever.

While present-day seasons such as Cult and Hotel are able to be revisited, it's seasons like Freak Show and Asylum that have been - until now - off the cards, due to the fact that almost everyone in both respective seasons is dead. This is no longer the case.

With time travel now an option, there's nothing stopping Murphy from using the Mallory character to go back in time and changing the events of both seasons. For example, time travel could be employed in a future season to prevent Oliver Thredson from raping Lana Winters, or to stop Bloody Face from going on a murderous rampage.

While we'd rather the writers left well enough alone, there's no denying that by introducing time-travel into the world of American Horror Story, they've opened up a whole new can of worms.