The Ending Of American Horror Story: NYC Explained

If "American Horror Story: NYC" is successful at anything, it's making audiences understand that great pain, shame, and desire drive drastic actions. Mr. Whitely's (Jeff Hiller) desire to build a Frankenstein's monster out of gay men's body parts in order to protect gay men is deranged, but it makes some sliver of sense when you consider just how bigoted, ignorant, and dismissive the public was during the early days of the AIDS crisis. Whitely thinks he's protecting the greater good the only way his twisted mind knows how: by fighting death with death.

The final episodes of "American Horror Story: NYC" are indeed a festival of death — and not just the slasher kind. The slow, silent march into oblivion is evidenced by countless skull-masked men dropping into an open grave, and Gino living out his final days under Big Daddy's impenetrable, leather-clad gaze. While this imagery is devastating, poetic, and nearly overwhelming, it might also feel a bit confused to some viewers. Why, they might wonder, is the specter of death a leather daddy? What's the real-world meaning of this complicated symbol?

The leather scene is important to the community captured in "American Horror Story: NYC." It's also full of pain. Making Big Daddy the avatar of the AIDS crisis can be seen as underscoring many points: He is a terrible perversion of community joy, a symbol of the public's callousness and cruelty towards gay men, and a complicated mingling of anger and despair. Big Daddy's ending points towards deeper shame still being teased out and resolved in the aftermath of the AIDS crisis. It's up to interpretation, but one thing is clear: Big Daddy is key to the ending's meaning.