American Horror Story Season 10 The Science Behind The Black Pills Explained

American Horror Story Season 10: The Science Behind The Black Pills Explained

Contents

AHS season 10’s black pills turn users into bloodsucking vampires, and episode 4 explains the actual science behind this mysterious transformation.

You Are Reading :[thien_display_title]

American Horror Story Season 10 The Science Behind The Black Pills Explained

The black pills have been a mysterious substance in American Horror Story season 10, and Red Tide finally explains the science behind their vampiric effects. Red Tide begins with Harry Gardner (Finn Wittrock), a struggling screenwriter, moving to Provincetown for the winter with his pregnant wife and talented violinist daughter in hopes of curing his writer’s block. When they get there, the family discovers something sinister about the town, specifically how some of the residents are aggressive, pale, almost unhuman people and others are highly talented individuals, apparently thriving off of the inspiration of the town.

Once Harry gets a closer look at the town, he discovers the murders, Pale People, and talented bloodsuckers are the product of mysterious black pills made by The Chemist (Angelica Ross). Harry becomes friends with Ptown’s other famously talented residents Belle Noir (Frances Conroy), a best-selling romance author, and Austin Sommers (Evan Peters), an award-winning playwright. They introduce him to the black pill, which quickly unlocks his creative mind and frees him of writer’s block, allowing him to write multiple high-quality scripts in a short amount of time. Unfortunately, taking the black pills have a few unwanted side effects, such as turning users into bloodsucking vampiric individuals.

Although American Horror Story’s black pills are a godsend for talented creatives, they have adverse effects on users who are untalented, turning them into Pale People. When someone untalented takes the black pill, they lose their hair, cognitive abilities, grow increasingly pale in complexion, and develop substantial aggression that leads them to only focus on quenching their thirst for blood. In a series of flashbacks in American Horror Story: Red Tide episode 4, The Chemist’s backstory and the science behind the black pills are finally explained.

The Military’s Ape Experiments

American Horror Story Season 10 The Science Behind The Black Pills Explained

When The Chemist first moves to town and meets with Mickey (Macaulay Culkin), she reveals that she worked for the military as a biochemical engineer for the past 9 years where she helped conduct experiments. The government wanted to find a way to chemically alter brains and make more efficient soldiers, and the way they intended to accomplish this was by figuring out how to inhibit creativity in soldiers’ brains. The Chemist says that before they can figure out how to lock creativity, they first have to figure out to unlock it, which means they have to test where within the brain creativity comes from.

See also  Amber Heard Fired From Aquaman 2 Rumors Debunked

The actual ingredients within the black pills aren’t quite explained, though one ingredient is sure: blood, though what species’ blood is up for debate. Before the military decided to try out the black pills on human subjects, they (non-ethically) tested it on a group of apes. Red Tide’s Chemist reveals that first, they measured statistics for the creative parts of the brain and how highly neurons fired—high neuron firing/activity signals higher cognitive ability and creativity—before giving the pills. Next, they analyzed how the apes reacted to the pills, specifically the differences between creatively enhanced and non-creative apes. It appears that once The Chemist moved to American Horror Story’s Provincetown, the residents were the research study’s first human subjects.

How The Pills Work Within The Brain

American Horror Story Season 10 The Science Behind The Black Pills Explained

According to her studies on the apes, the pills interact with the brain’s occipital lobe, which, according to The Chemist, is responsible for housing the brain’s highest levels of creativity. This isn’t quite accurate to real-life scientific studies, where creativity or talent are seen to come from multiple brain areas interacting, but at the end of the day, there’s also not a pill that can turn people like Ryan Murphy into vampires (that we know of). American Horror Story’s Chemist explains that once a talented user takes the pill, the chemical exponentially increases the firing rates of neurons in the areas of the brain associated with creativity and cognitive skills, increasing the quickness and frequency of the brain activity by even 1000 times the normal rate—explaining why the talented users are able to produce at such a fast, intense, more high-quality rale when taking the pill.

Why Black Pill Users Need Blood

American Horror Story Season 10 The Science Behind The Black Pills Explained

The first time The Chemist finds out that humans develop a thirst for blood after taking the black pills is when the singer from The Muse shows up at her house after killing someone. She then explains that when the military was testing them on apes, the untalented subjects that become so enraged at perceiving their lack of talent would kill the others, then mysteriously drink the blood of their kills. From before Red Tide, The Chemist’s findings in her previous studies revealed the need for blood comes from the chemical in the black pills, which highly depletes the levels of sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium in their blood. In order for the black pill user to replace the levels of such minerals back to normal in their bloodstreams, they have an intense urge to drink others’ blood, especially after a fit of rage.

See also  American Idol What Gabby Barrett From Season 16 Is Up To In 2021

Why The Pills Only Enhance Talented People’s Creativity

American Horror Story Season 10 The Science Behind The Black Pills Explained

The Chemist explains that the pills only have a positive effect on subjects who already had higher cognitive skills and dense neuron activity in creative skills and areas before taking them. American Horror Story’s black pills don’t technically make someone more creative, they increase the levels of their creative firing and tap into the creative ideas they already harbor, simply bringing them out faster and with intense clarity. AHS season 10 hasn’t yet shown what happens when the black pills stop working, though it appears that may be happening with Austin. For the past 2 years, Austin has been taking the pills and writing plenty of award-winning plays, though he now seems to be writing less and becoming increasingly pale. It’s possible that his creativity has run dry or his cognitive abilities are already seeing a sharp decline, which would suggest that he has lost his talent for writing and that the black pills are now turning Austin into a Pale Person. If Austin’s cognitive neurons have stopped naturally firing at higher rates, the black pills will also stop working.

Why Both Positive And Negative Users Have Rage

Although the black pills have different neurological effects for talented and untalented American Horror Story characters, some of the behavioral reactions end up being the same, such as intense rage. While they both have a vampiric craving for blood for the same reason, the explanation for both showing aggression and rage is different. The Chemist says that aggression is much more common and animalistic in Pale People because they’re coming to terms with the fact that they’re untalented. She says that while the Pale People could passively tolerate their lack of talent beforehand, being confronted with it face-on by the black pills not working causes anger with the world and themselves. Once the untalented residents of American Horror Story’s Provincetown take the pills, they begin to hate everyone because they know they’re untalented, and their Pale Person transformation proves it to others.

The talented black pill takers’ rage response is for a different reason, namely because they become highly arrogant upon finding out how talented they truly are. One it’s revealed by know-all chemical that they are in fact highly talented, they develop aggression toward others because they feel better than everyone else, such as how Harry and Alma begin to put down Doris once they’ve begun taking the pills, even cruelly telling Doris she’s not talented like them so she doesn’t understand. With so many talented individuals taking the black pill in American Horror Story’s town, it’s surprising there haven’t been more arrogance-induced fights between the now-vampiric residents.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/ahs-red-tide-black-pills-science-apes-vampires-explained/

Reviews -