American Horror Story: 1984 Season 9 Finale LIVE Recap & Review

FX "American Horror Story: 1984" premieres Wednesday, September 18 at 10/9c on FX.

American Horror Story: 1984 airs tonight at 10/9c on FX. The synopsis for the season 9 finale, titled “Final Girl,” reads, “Camp Redwood draws in a lost soul looking for closure.” Tonight’s episode will see a major showdown between Margaret and Brooke, the return of a former AHS actor and plenty of slasher blood, guts and gore. (WARNING! MAJOR American Horror Story SPOILERS ahead, so turn back now if you’re not caught up!)

Last week’s episode left Mr. Jingles’ story somewhat open-ended; it was clear that every time he died, he struggled to remember his purpose – to kill the Night Stalker before he could attack his son. The last we saw of Mr. Jingles, he was having a nice family lunch with his (also deceased) mom and brother, so it’s unclear at this time if his storyline is completely finished or if he will make a final appearance to face off with the Night Stalker. We also saw Margaret enlist the services of the Ramirez and Bruce, the serial killer-wannabe, to help murder all of the musicians at the concert.

Tonight’s episode will pick right back up where last week’s left off, so we can expect to see a final showdown between Margaret and Brooke, who is on her way to Camp Redwood with Donna in tow. It appears that Trevor dies, as the promo below shows him cut his own throat while he and Montana terrorize an unsuspecting concertgoer (AHS veteran Finn Wittrock!). Meanwhile, the rest of the counselors continue to wreak havoc on the camp, so viewers have plenty to look forward to during tonight’s finale.

This article will explore tonight’s episode of American Horror Story in detail as we do a live recap while it airs. If you aren’t completely caught up to tonight’s episode and don’t want anything spoiled for you, this is your OFFICIAL SPOILER WARNING! Turn back now or proceed at your own risk. Otherwise continue reading for details regarding tonight’s episode as well as a LIVE DEATH RECAP throughout. Don’t forget to refresh the page every few minutes to keep up with the live spoilers.

We will update this story as soon as the episode airs, so stayed tuned and thanks for reading! The episode premieres at 10 p.m. ET on FX. In the meantime, catch up on spoilers for tonight’s episode here, and check back soon for live updates on “Final Girl.” Be sure to check out this author’s page for more weekly AHS coverage, including fan theories, episode details and more.

Keep in mind that this article will be written in real time, so please excuse the casual tone and any minor mistakes that might be made initially. I will go back through and edit the article as soon as the episode ends. Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

The episode kicks off with some ominous shots of Camp Redwood. Some excellent 80s music plays while a car pulls up to the camp, and we get our first shot of Finn Wittrock’s character, who is taking a cab to the camp. The year is 2019, so there is definitely a big time jump.

He walks through the woods looking for Camp Redwood and comes across an old wood chipper, which definitely looks like it was used to dispose of a body or two. He finally comes across the camp while scary slasher music plays in the background. The remnants of the old concert stage with shredded banners is still standing … he walks around and takes some pictures before Montana sneaks up on him. The two talk about his cell phone (which she has never seen) and she reveals that she hasn’t seen anybody new at the camp in several years, and that she and the other campers have been “forgotten” in recent years. Nobody comes to check out the camp anymore, so there has been nobody new for her to talk to or kill recently.

Wittrock’s character reveals his identity – he is Bobby Richter, Mr Jingles’ son! Montana warns him that he’s in danger and needs to leave because everybody he meets will try to kill him, and he says he isn’t leaving without answers. He wants to find out what happened to his father.

Montana takes Bobby to an old cabin where she has apparently been living all these years. He tells her he’s been researching the camp and he recognizes her from her aerobics photo. He has a hard time believing that she is who she says she is because he knows Montana died at the camp, and that if she did survive, she would be in her 50s.

Trevor suddenly makes an appearance and Bobby recognizes him too, as Margaret’s husband. He tells the two that he’s searching for his father and that he found out about the camp after his aunt recently died. Montana tells him that his father is sadly dead, and Bobby questions who he really was. She tells him how Mr. Jingles came back to the camp to protect Bobby but was dragged away by “dark forces,” and that he hasn’t been seen in years. She admits that she and the rest of the campers are dead too, and to prove it to him she shoots herself in the head, right before Trevor slits his own throat to back her up.

Then the two reappear in the doorway, and begin explaining what actually happened back in 1989. Flashback to the night of the concert, and the musicians aren’t showing up for the show; her assistant reveal that Trevor is blocking the road and turning them away in an attempt to stop Margaret’s plan. Margaret shoots and kills her assistant and then heads over to confront Trevor, who is telling all of the concertgoers that the show has been canceled for various reasons.

Trevor tells Margaret that she is “true evil” and he is shutting her down and filing for divorce. She then pulls a gun on him and shoots him several times, including once in the crotch. She reminds him that he’s outside of Camp Redwood lines and that if he dies outside of the camp he will “stay dead.” Montana sees him dying and starts screaming for him to get up and drag himself over to the entrance of the camp.

He attempts to drag himself across the pavement to the camp line and doesn’t make it. Just as he is about to die, Brooke walks around the corner and sees Montana sobbing. Although Montana starts screaming at Brook to leave him alone, Brooke decides to help Trevor walk to the camp so he can die with Montana. She asks Brooke why she helped her, and she responds “because I’m not like you,” before walking away to find Margaret. Because of Brooke, Trevor is able to die in Montana’s arms, inside the campgrounds.

Jumping back forward to 2019, Montana admits that Brooke’s act of kindness changed her forever. She decided to quit murdering everybody who wandered through Camp Redwood and she and Trevor started talking to the other ghosts and convinced them to stop killing as well. They just had to figure out how to deal with the Night Stalker and Bruce (Dylan McDermott’s character), who were still helping Margaret murder unsuspecting concert stragglers. Trevor kills Bruce pretty quickly, but the Night Stalker is a lot harder to kill, so they start to hatch a plan.

Once Montana finds Ramirez, she convinces him that Billy Idol wants to meet him and lures him to an old shack in the woods, where all the other ghosts are waiting. She stabs him through the back, and the rest of the ghosts jump in to help. The scene is pretty brutal, with 15+ people violently hacking him to bits, but all-in-all, it’s a pretty satisfying death for his character.

As he lays dying a pool of his own blood, he tells them all that he’ll be back, and Montana tells him she is “counting on it.” Flash forward to 2019, Bobby asks why they didn’t make sure he died outside of the camp. Montana tells him they worried the devil would resurrect him once again, so they decided to keep him under supervision for 30 straight years. All of the ghosts take turns torturing and killing him every time he comes back, to make sure Satan can’t return him to his full form.

Montana tells Bobby that they did everything to the Night Stalker to keep him safe, so Ramirez couldn’t come after him. He questions why they’ve been working so hard to save his life, and they say that they did it for Mr. Jingles. Montana and Trevor tell him he needs to get out of Camp Redwood, and he says he won’t leave without his dad. Montana explains that he’s been MIA for 30 years, but Bobby is determined … he won’t leave without talking to him.

While a few of the ghosts continue watching Ramirez, they decide to play a weird game of Pictionary. Chet and the older lady cook (I believe her name was Birdie?) start flirting and talking about sex; meanwhile, Satan brings Ramirez back to life while the two are making out on the couch.

The Night Stalker walks up to the cabin just as Bobby tells Montana and Trevor that he won’t leave until he finds Mr. Jingles. The Night Stalker breaks into the room and attacks them, and Montana helps Bobby escape. All of the ghosts try to contain Ramirez while Bobby takes off running. Unfortunately, Ramirez escapes the ghosts and stabs Bobby in the back. The two start fighting and it looks like Bobby is losing pretty badly. Just as Ramirez is about to land the killing blow, the ghosts come back out and help Bobby escape once again. Montana screams at him to find the medical director of the mental institution where Mr. Jingles lived for so many years and he takes off running.

Donna turns out to be the medical director of the hospital, and stops some nurses from institutionalizing Bobby  when she realizes who he is. Donna tells Bobby that his father was innocent, and that Margaret Booth was the real killer, and that she planted evidence to frame his father. Donna then explains that Halloween night of 1989 was Margret’s downfall.

Another flashback shows Margaret surrounded by all of the dead campers, who are standing outside her cabin with torches. She starts loading her gun when Donna comes out of nowhere and starts swinging a knife at her. She cuts her once or twice, but fights back and knocks Donna on the ground. Brooke comes out of nowhere and smashes Margaret into a mirror, and the two start fighting. Brooke gets shot in the process and falls to the ground, apparently dead.

The ghosts all rush in and take Margaret out of the cabin. They cut her arms off and throw them through the woodchipper. Everybody starts chopping her to pieces, and just as she starts dying on the property, they cut her head off, throw her torso and her head through the woodchipper and end it. It’s unclear if they sent her remains outside of the camp property, or if she is still stuck at Camp Redwood with the rest of them, but it looks like they faced the woodchipper off the property so she wouldn’t survive the afterlife of the camp.

Donna explains to Bobby that Brooke did die at the camp and that Donna turned out to be the “final girl” that she and Brooke discussed during last week’s episode. Bobby then thanks Donna for the money he’s been receiving, but she says she wasn’t the one sending it. The two try to figure out who it was that made it out of the camp alive and was sending him money, and find a way to track the checks to Oregon. (Well, we know Ramirez came back to life and dies in 2013 because he appears in Hotel, but it’s unlikely that he’s the one sending money …)

Donna and Bobby are now sitting in a car in the rain and watching a house through binoculars (they are likely at the address of the sender). A truck pulls up to the garage and Donna can’t believe it … Brooke is driving the truck.

So, Brooke clearly didn’t die. Bobby and Donna show up at her house and as the two are catching up, Brooke explains that she attempted to leave behind a life of killing and pain. She’s got a husband and a few kids and her life looks great. Donna asks why she didn’t tell her she was alive, and why she didn’t get in contact before now and Brooke says she tried, but she couldn’t face the memories of Redwood again.

Donna says she watched Brooke die and doesn’t understand how she got out. Another flashback shows Ray walking into the room where Brooke was dying, and she is apparently still alive because the bullet went right through her. Ray runs for bandages and helps patch her up while the rest of the ghosts are killing Margaret. She tells Ray she doesn’t want to die here and he tells her she deserves better so he helps her to the gate of the camp.

Back in 2019, Brooke tells Donna that somebody must have called an ambulance after she passed the gate, and that she woke up in a hospital. Once she healed she took off to Oregon and began a new life. Bobby asks her why she’s been sending him money, and she tells him that she wanted to give him a chance to be free of Camp Redwood so that his father didn’t die in vain. She and Donna embrace and note that they are both the “final girl” before parting ways.

Bobby tells Donna that he is going back to the camp to find his father, because he felt like somebody was watching over him while he was there. She tells him Brooke was right, that the Camp will always draw him back in until he finds what he’s looking for; the two say goodbye.

Bobby makes his way back to Camp Redwood and peers out across the lake. I was wrong earlier when I said Margaret didn’t die on the campground because she walks up to Bobby and tells him that she can take him to Mr. Jingles. He follows her into the woods and she tells him that she died just a split second before the chipper spit her out on the other side, so she was able to survive the afterlife and come back to Camp Redwood.

Bobby asks her why she’s been hiding from the other ghosts, and she admits that she’s been waiting for the right time … to kill him! She turns around and tries to stab him in the face, but Mr. Jingles jumps out of nowhere and stabs her in the neck to save Bobby. The two have a really sweet reunion, and Bobby embraces his father; they talks about how Mr. Jingles made the ultimate sacrifice to protect his son, and how it was worth it to make sure Bobby was safe.

However, Margaret quickly comes back to life, and out of nowhere, she stabs Mr. Jingles in the back and starts screaming about how she’s the final girl, and always will be. She chases Bobby through the woods, but he is rescued by his grandmother, Mr. Jingles’ mother, who slits Margaret’s throat.

As Bobby runs off of the property, Mr. Jingles, his grandmother and his uncle Bobby appear at the gate to say goodbye. It’s a shockingly happy ending for the bloody slasher season of AHS, but it’s actually kind of satisfying, and definitely a welcoming surprise.