‘American Horror Stories’: 5 Things You May Have Missed in Season 2’s “Drive”

“Drive” centers around an urban legend you’ve likely heard before. A woman is driving home alone at night when a car behind her starts to flash its headlights and drive wildly, sometimes even rear-ending her depending on the story. Scared, she tries to get the other car to pass her. It’s only when she ditches this reckless driver that the woman realizes what all of the honking and swerving was about: There was a man in the back of her car, and the other driver was trying to warn her.

This particular urban legend can be traced back to the 1960s. Many, including Snopes founder David Mikkelson, have speculated that this legend is based on a real story. In 1964, an escaped murderer was allegedly found in the backseat of a police officer’s car. Even if this story really did happen, the killer in the backseat is still considered to just be a legend. Versions of it have appeared in the movies Nightmares, Mr. Wrong, and Urban Legend. It’s also appeared in TV shows like Homicide and Millennium.  

Eagle-eyed fans probably thought the first man Marci (Bella Thorne) hooked up with looked familiar. That would be Austin Woods, who has appeared in Animal Kingdom and This Is Us. But more importantly for our purposes, Woods also appeared in the “Red Tide” portion of American Horror Story: Double Feature. He played one of the nameless hustlers in the episode “Pale.”

Speaking of recognizable actors, if you’re up-to-date with your streaming shows, then you probably identified Anthony De La Torre. In the American Horror Stories episode, Torre plays Chaz, Marci’s husband. But the actor recently starred on Netflix’s ghostly horror-comedy Boo, Bitch as Mo. He’s also notable for playing young Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. 

A couple times throughout this episode, Marci or Pier (Billie Bodega) surf the web for articles about the nightclub serial killer. And boy, are those websites packed with Easter eggs. Out of the two articles that appear on screen, only the first one is legible, so we’re going to focus on it.

Under recommended articles, there’s an op-ed titled, “Do Aura Doorbell Cameras make you safer?” That’s a direct reference to last episode “Aura”, an installment that posited that spirits can communicate with the living using our electronic doorbells. The podcast section features two more Easter eggs, the first being a barely decipherable deep dive into the mysteries of America’s National Parks. That seems like a reference to Season 1’s “Feral”, which revolved around a secret collection of park-swelling cannibals. Then there’s the podcast “The history of toy making: a dying craft”, which is likely a nod to this season’s “Dollhouse.” It should be noted that all of these episodes were written by Manny Coto.

There is one more article that’s worth noting. Another op-ed questions “Are you being secretly recorded at your workplace?” That seems like the sort of horrific premise this series would love. Be on the lookout for “Facelift” and “Lake” — Coto’s upcoming episodes — taking place in an office.

“Drive” is a gleeful inverse of the killer in the backseat urban legend. Instead of Bella Thorne’s Marci being in danger, the final moments of the episode reveal that she and her husband were the nightclub killers all along. But Throne’s casting makes this episode even more meta than that.

Thorne has had a long history with horror. But more often than not, her characters wind up as victims rather than aggressors. In The Babysitter movie franchise, Allison was killed not once but twice; Amityville: The Awakening shot Belle to death in a dream sequence; and in the Scream series, Nina was murdered in the pilot. Casting Thorne as a possible victim-turned-surprise murderer is a delicious twist on her onscreen history.