American Horror Story: Everything We Know About Season 7, and Beyond

It's a beautiful new year for American Horror Story fans, thanks to the official announcement that the anthology series has been renewed through 2019. Ryan Murphy's creepshow of camp is on tap to add at least three more seasons to its existing six -- with the tantalizingly open-ended possibility of endless, additional horror-storying to come just as long as the showrunners can keep thinking up new ways to make us scream, cringe, gasp, and/or discreetly vomit into our Balenciaga handbags.

Few major details have been released yet as to theme of the next three seasons, but the chatter surrounding the show has included enough exciting information that fans have good reason to be get stoked well in advance.

Season 7 will tackle the recent election

We've known since January that Season 7 will take place in the shadow of the 2016 presidential election with the premiere episode taking place on election night. Before you start imagining returning stars Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters as President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Murphy has stated that the candidates will only appear in archive video footage.

Scream Queensstar Billie Lourd and Billy Eichner have joined Paulson and Peters as the only announced cast members

Lourd is making the jump from Fox to FX, but staying in the Murphy televisual universe. Funny man Eichner, who stars in Hulu's Difficult People, will play a mystery role connected to Paulson's character and -- in one of the rare tidbits of actual info we have -- wear "mysterious tank tops." The Scream Queens star and man-on-the-street comedian are the only other announced members of the Season 7 cast along with AHS regulars Paulson and Peters.

Season 7 might be about the election, but it's still going to be creepy

If the first teaser image shared by Murphy on Instagram is any indication, AHS fans don't have to worry about the election storyline disrupting the franchise's consistently twisted vision.

From our vantage point, this looks like a particularly warped representation of an elephant, which is of course the iconic logo of the Republican party. And while Murphy has said Season 7 may include a character based on Donald Trump, we didn't think it could be a grotesque beast that's the product of a Trump-pachyderm cross-breeding experiment gone awry.

The Season 8 theme is a mystery as deep as the ocean

We don't know what the theme for Season 8 will be, but as always, Season 6's finale included a couple of hints at where the show could go next -- which in this case took the form of a dusty model ship glimpsed in the Roanoke mansion, followed by a creepy little clip posted to the show's Instagram.

Is there a future American Horror Story: Ghost Ship lurking under those undulating waves?

And now that the mythology is fully fleshed out, there will be blood

One of the most important accomplishments of American Horror Story: Roanoke (apart from introducing us to the delights of Sarah Paulson with an English accent) was filling in the last remaining blanks as to how each season connects to the others. And now that the pieces are all in place? It's time to blow 'em up. Or as Murphy told Vanity Fair last year: "We lay a lot of pipe, and you'll see it explode in seasons seven and eight."

A crossover is in the cards.

Of all the beans that Murphy has spilled about his plans for AHS, the most exciting by far is that we're finally going to revisit two of the show's best storylines, in one season, at the same time. A crossover between seasons one (Murder House) and three (Coven) is confirmed to be in the pipeline, although it won't be happening until Season 8 at the earliest.

And yes, some of your long-absent faves might just make a comeback.

That sound you hear is every superfan of Jessica Lange screaming in anticipation at once, while a contingent of Connie Britton lovers howl along in glorious harmony. Although Murphy hasn't explicitly said their names, he did confirm that he's already calling around to secure the involvement of his prior casts (Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters are already locks) -- which suggests that there's a pretty good chance of seeing American Horror Story's original grande dames back in action.

Of course, that also means there's a pretty good chance of seeing Dylan McDermott crysturbating over a changing table a second time, which is definitely two times too many, but it's a risk we're willing to accept.

American Horror Story Season 7 does not yet have a premiere date.