American Horror Story season 6: New theme won't be revealed, only one teaser isn't a 'misdirect'

'There is a theme and a setting and a place and time, but we’re not going to reveal it'

Oh, how beautifully we've all been played.

When FX dropped the first teasers for season 6 of American Horror Story, fans could barely hold themselves back from weaving elaborate theories surrounding the new theme; we weren't exactly immune either, considering this marked the first time the anthology show had ever withheld the announcement this close to its season premiere.

Certainly, the short clips provided plenty to speculate over, which would be all a very profitable use of time if it hadn't been for one thing - we have all well and truly been tricked.

FX CEO John Landgraf revealed at the Television Critics Association's summer press tour (via TV Line) that the teasers were a deliberate piece of misdirection; all of them are fake clues, apart from one. Apparently, the team "went out and created many more trailers than you’ve actually seen for hypothetical seasons of American Horror Story, in different genres, different places. One of them is accurate, and the others are all misdirects."

Furthermore, the truth won't be revealed until the season premiere. "We decided, Ryan and I and [marketing president] Stephanie Gibbons, that it would be really fun this year… to keep it a mystery," Landgraf revealed. "There is a theme and a setting and a place and time, but we’re not going to reveal it." Cue plenty more fervent conjecture over which teaser reveals the truth about what's in store.

We're perhaps left now with only one real piece of evidence: TMZ's purported set of photographs of the set, which hint at a storyline connected to the historical mystery of Roanoke, in which a colony of 117 people mysteriously vanished in 1590. The shots reveal a primitive settlement fitting for a colonial setting, the most intriguing facet being a carving of the word, ‘CROATOAN’, which proved to be the only evidence left behind at the Roanoke settlement after the disappearance.

Will this, however, be the overarching theme? Or just a flashback connected to a larger narrative? Or, perhaps, is this just another clever red herring? The mystery deepens.

American Horror Story returns 14 September on FX.