American Horror Story: Cult has certainly delivered on creator Ryan Murphy’s promise to deal with the fallout of the 2016 election, mostly by heightening our fears with some more scary clowns until they’re past the point of relatability. But an upcoming episode of Cult was also set to touch on the gun violence in this country with a scene that, depressingly enough, ripped from what have become the all-too-frequent headlines. In the wake of last week’s Las Vegas shooting, which left 59 people dead, FX has announced that the opening scene for Cult’s “Mid-Western Assassin” has undergone “substantial edits.”
Per a network press release, the scene in question, which was filmed over the summer, “portrays an occurrence of gun violence that has sadly become all too common in our country, contains a sequence that some viewers might find traumatic.” FX will broadcast only the edited version of the episode, with the unedited version available on VOD including FX’s own streaming platforms FX+ and FXNOW.