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Does This American Horror Story: Cult Theory Reveal How the Season Ends?

Bebe Babbitt may hold the key

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Sadie Gennis

With only two episodes left in American Horror Story: Cult, the end is nigh, and one savvy fan thinks they might know how the brewing war between Ally (Sarah Paulson) and Kai (Evan Peters) will come to a head.

Reddit user Supreme000 shared their theory earlier this week, and we have to admit, it makes a lot of sense! According to the post, the real person pulling the strings of Kai's cult is actually Bebe Babbitt (Frances Conroy), and she's potentially been playing this game for decades.

During Winter and Kai's trip to the Judgement House, the surveillance camera timers don't all match up. Two of the five cameras' timestamps are approximately 15 minutes behind the other three, hinting that maybe there are two people monitoring the events from two different locations. The Reddit user suggests that the second person who was working with Pastor Charles was Bebe, who we know has a history of attaching herself to ambitious, radicals.

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As we saw in "Valerie Solanas Died for Your Sins: Scumbag," when Bebe met Valerie (Lena Dunham), she thought she was destined for greatness and would help revolutionize the world. Unfortunately, that plan fell apart when Valerie's mental illness took hold and she was unable to keep the SCUM collective together.

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We know Bebe's relationship with Valerie lasted from 1967 to approximately 1973, when Valerie was released from prison and began spiraling. We also know that Tuesday's upcoming episode will feature Evan Peters as the notorious cult leader Charles Manson. It's entirely possible that Manson will factor into the episode not as part of a wild story Kai tells his followers (as is what happened with Jim Jones and Jesus), but as another flashback that connects to the present-day storyline through Bebe.

Manson formed the Manson family around the same time that Bebe took up with Solanas. Based on Ryan Murphy logic, it's highly probable that these two cults crossed paths at some point and the Reddit user suggests that when Bebe first began to doubt Valerie's ability to take down the patriarchy, she may have begun throwing some of her support behind Manson. But when Manson, too, began going off the rails, the user posits that Bebe rallied some of his female followers against him to help take Manson down.

This would allegedly become Bebe's pattern over the years: attach herself to a rising radical leader, manipulate and pull all the strings, tear them down when they stop serving her purpose and then repeat the whole process with a new leader. Valerie. Manson. Pastor Charles. Kai. And now, Ally?

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After meeting Dark Ally in "Winter of Our Discontent," we can definitely see how Bebe could groom her to fill the role Kai is currently playing. She has the rage and the lack of morals down pat already. Plus, the role reversal would provide a nice symmetry to the season as a whole (albeit, be a bit predictable). But more importantly, this twist would bring all the horrific bee imagery into play in a major way.

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In the promotional materials leading up to the season, bees were everywhere. Yet, during the actual season, we only get one quick bee mention by Harrison (Billy Eichner) as he explains the culty concept of the hive, whose members all work towards one goal to serve their queen bee. Or in this case, their Queen Bebe?!

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As another Reddit user, Deb_LA, pointed out, one of the interesting things about queen bees is that they are eventually killed by the worker bees when they are unable to reproduce. The old queen bee is then replaced by a newer, younger one. And with all the fuss Kai is making over the need to produce an heir -- or as he calls it, a "messiah baby" -- it appears as though this concept will play a key role in the season's conclusion.

If Bebe is the current queen bee, she would be looking for a successor whom she could rely on to continue their work. If Kai, who is proving to be more unstable by the day, can't produce a worthy heir, biological or otherwise, it would make sense for Bebe to see Ally as the perfect next target. Bebe could groom Ally and Ally, in turn, could groom her young son Oz to take over afterwards, ensuring that their legacy would extend generations.

So will the season end with Ally announcing her own nefarious run for City Council, with poor Oz along for the ride? We have no idea, but it'd definitely be one hell of a way to end the season.

American Horror Story: Cult airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on FX.