Tuesday’s episode of American Horror Story will feature a less graphic version of a planned mass shooting after last week’s Las Vegas shooting. Rather than using the planned footage, creator Ryan Murphy has re-edited the episode, which was shot in September, so all the violence will be off-screen.
The violence of the scene was made an “an obvious anti-gun warning about society,” Murphy explained at the New Yorker Festival.
“Should you air it? Should you not air it? How do you be sensitive? My point of view was I believe I have the right to air it, but I also believe in victims’ rights, and I believe that now is probably not the week to have something explosive or incendiary in the culture because someone who was affected might watch that and it could trigger something or make them feel upset,” Murphy said.
“So our decision was to re-edit it and I felt that that was the right move. Nobody ever talks about victims’ rights. That’s sort of a weird emotional discussion that’s never bridged. But I felt great sympathy for people who were affected, certainly, and family members and loved ones and people who are upset about the way the world is.”
At least 58 people died last week when Stephen Paddock fired into a crowd of 22,000 at the Route 91 Harvest festival from his 32nd-floor hotel room.
This season of the show centers around the rise of Kai Anderson’s cult.
