Warning: SPOILERS ahead of AHS: 1984 episode “Slashdance”.
American Horror Story: 1984 just paid tribute to one of Netflix’s most popular crime dramas with a Mindhunter-esque subplot. Rather than focus on Mr. Jingles’ latest killing spree, the series started to shift focus into the brain of the madman. The one asking the important questions was Nurse Rita (Angelica Ross), who actually turned out to be a psychologist named Donna Chambers.
Donna must have taken a page out of Holden Ford’s (Jonathan Groff) playbook because the sequence mirrored the character’s tactics in Mindhunter, which debuted in 2017. Holden and his partner, Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), worked as special agents for the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit. The pair traveled the country to talk to known serial killers for the purpose of studying their motives and behavior. The information they gathered was then used to help solve other open cases involving repeat offenders.
In AHS: 1984’s latest episode, “Slashdance,” Donna arrived at the facility that was holding Benjamin Richter with the hope of speaking directly to him. Dr. Hopple explained that the man was pure evil and doesn’t communicate with anyone. Due to Donna’s background in psychology, the doctor allowed her to experiment with the methods. The scene featuring Donna’s attempt at talking to Benjamin looked like it was right out of Mindhunter, down to the tape recorder on the table. Unlike Holden and Bill, however, Donna wanted to take the experiment outside of the facility in a dark twist.
Donna believed that people were not born evil and they needed to be activated by something. She wanted to know how Mr. Jingles was awoken within Benjamin. The man shockingly began to talk and revealed that he didn’t even remember killing the kids in 1970. Donna had the idea that Benjamin suffered from a psychotic break but in order to study him, she wanted to see him in his natural habitat. In order for that to happen, Benjamin had to get out of the institution so she set up his escape so he could return to Camp Redwood. Donna figured that if she could study Benjamin, she could find out why he turned into a killer and learn how to stop similar cases in the future.
In order for Donna to be in proximity to Benjamin, she needed to find a way into Camp Redwood. She managed to find the newly-hired nurse, Rita, heading to the camp. Donna then kidnapped the unsuspecting woman and took her identity. Unfortunately, Montana, Xavier, and Trevor found the real Rita before she was impaled by Mr. Jingles. They now suspect that the Rita they met in the first episode of American Horror Story: 1984 is hiding something. Brooke also has her suspicions after the woman injected her with horse tranquilizers to stop her from getting help. Donna may have wanted to observe Mr. Jingles in his natural habitat but she seems to be feeding him easy targets.
Next: American Horror Story: 1984 Cast & Character Guide
