American Horror Story Apocalypse: Who fired the nukes?

American Horror Story Apocalypse started out with a bang as nuclear missiles destroyed a large segment of the population … but who fired them?

The world fell apart in the span of an hour on the season premiere of American Horror Story. Season 8’s Apocalypse delivered on the suspense and destroyed the world before the opening credits. The rest of the season will be focused on what happened and how life moves forward from this point. One of the many questions lingering after the season premiere is who fired the nuclear weapons that destroyed the world as we know it … and why?

In order to understand who might be responsible for the nuclear attack, it’s important to examine the evidence. There are a few things that showrunner Ryan Murphy made very clear from the start: The text messages said missiles were incoming, Coco’s father called from Hong Kong and said the missiles were real and the news anchor said that several targets had already been destroyed, including London, Hong Kong and a few areas within the Baltic region and Russia. One of the most important clues came when he said, “we actually did it.”

The United States isn’t just the first country to use nuclear weapons (the US dropped nuclear bombs in Japan to end the Pacific front of World War II), but it’s considered a nuclear superpower because of second strike capability. Countries that have nuclear weapons can fire them, but only certain countries can fire back after being attacked with nuclear weapons. That’s second strike capability. And what’s more terrifying is that there was a point during the Cold War where the proliferation of nuclear weapons was a priority so that if there was a nuclear attack, it would lead to mutually assured destruction, appropriately referred to as MAD. In short, if you fire nukes at us, we’re blowing you away even if it takes us out in the process.

In the case of American Horror Story Apocalypse, someone fired missiles at international targets, but someone also fired nuclear ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) at the United States. As far as the audience knows, Los Angeles was a target, but it’s not immediately clear which other cities were impacted. Wilhemina Venable wants everyone to believe that everyone is gone save for the survivors at the outposts, but that’s what she says.

This leads to the million dollar question: Who fired the missiles?

Clearly, the news anchor wants the audience to believe that “we” fired the missiles. By “we” there’s a reasonable assumption that he’s talking about the United States. After the events of season 7’s American Horror Story Cult, which chronicled the days following the 2016 presidential election, and given that season 8 takes place about 18 months from now, there’s a good chance that Murphy wants the audience to believe that the President fired the missiles and Los Angeles is on the receiving end of another country’s second strike capabilities.

On the other hand, given that the Collective has determined a group of survivors to be saved, and with the shelters at the ready, it’s quite possible that the Collective is responsible for the attacks. After all, these days countries aren’t the only ones with nuclear capabilities. Terrorist groups can also access nuclear weapons, and so the Collective could be operating on its own.

There’s a third possibility, and it’s that Michael Langdon is behind it all. While it looks like he’s a member of the Collective, according to Billie Jean Howard’s prophecies from season 1’s Murder House Michael Langdon is also the Antichrist. Perhaps the Collective is just a fence for Satan himself, and it was Langdon who put all of this into motion.

No matter the source, the world has been cast into the depths of a cold, dark nuclear winter. Survival is key, at all costs.

American Horror Story Apocalypse airs Wednesdays at 10:00 p.m. on FX.