During the broadcast run of American Horror Story: 1984, an interesting fan theory emerged that suggested the character of Brooke Thompson was actually Madison Montgomery from the show’s previous installments. Actress Emma Roberts portrayed both characters in the anthology series by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. The series is currently gearing up for its tenth season and there are at least three more installments on the way. Here’s a breakdown of the crossover theory and why it never tracked.
Roberts made her American Horror Story debut in 2013 when she portrayed the entitled witch, Madison, in season 3, Coven. Madison was a Hollywood star before joining Miss Robichaux’s Academy. After losing out on becoming the next Supreme, Madison wound up in her own personal hell after being murdered (a second time). Roberts portrayed a handful of other characters before reprising her role as Madison in season 8, Apocalypse. While stuck in her personal hell, she was resurrected by Michael Langdon. When she and her fellow coven members realized that Michael was the Antichrist, they tried to fight back for all of humanity. The only way to defeat him was to travel back in time to change the timeline which presumably sent Madison back to hell. By the time Roberts returned to the series, she played a brand new character named Brooke.
1984 served as an ode to the slasher genre by focusing on a group of early twenty-somethings working at a summer camp with a very dark past. Among them was Brooke, a timid newcomer with her own secrets. She and the rest of the camp counselors became the target of a serial killer, but before the season introduced its big twists, many viewers predicted that the Camp Redwood plot was a movie within the show. As was the case with Roanoke, there was a belief that Madison and the rest of the camp employees were actually actors in present-day working on an over-the-top slasher movie set in the ’80s. To deepen the theory, a segment of fans theorized that Madison was the actress portraying Brooke in 1984. She even mentioned that she was up for the lead in a horror movie before Michael rescued her from hell, but the evidence stopped there.
How The Brooke/Madison Theory Was Debunked In AHS: 1984
For the theory to play out, Madison would have had to escape from hell a second time or there would need to be an explanation into how her timeline changed in Apocalypse. Though it would have been fun to see a 1984 connection with Madison, it never came to be. The theory was debunked considering there was no legitimate evidence that the characters were in a movie. Instead, Brooke was convicted for the serial killings before she was saved from lethal injection. She returned back to Camp Redwood and was thought to have been murdered but decades later, Brooke revealed herself under a new identity, cementing herself as a true final girl. She didn’t transform into Madison or have any connection to the Antichrist, proving that the theory had no legs to stand on.
Even though Brooke wasn’t secretly Madison, it’s not impossible to imagine Roberts reprising either of the roles in the future. American Horror Story effectively intertwines the seasons, especially when it comes to returning characters. Since Roberts has been one of Murphy’s go-to actresses, it’s likely that she will return down the line and it could involve the portrayal of a familiar face. If not, there’s always the slim chance of a crossover with Madison on The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which was interestingly teased.
