American Horror Story: Coven has finally been given an official premiere date.
The third installment in the TV horror series will premiere Wednesday, October 9 , and will run through January 2014. The season will consists of 13 episodes.
FX has also provided a description of the upcoming season:
“Over 300 years have passed since the turbulent days of the Salem witch trials and those who managed to escape are now facing extinction. Mysterious attacks have been escalating against their kind and young girls are being sent away to a special school in New Orleans to learn how to protect themselves. Wrapped up in the turmoil is new arrival, Zoe (Taissa Farmiga), who is harboring a terrifying secret of her own. Alarmed by the recent aggression, Fiona (Jessica Lange), the long-absent Supreme, sweeps back into town, determined to protect the Coven and hell-bent on decimating anyone who gets in her way.”
In addition to Lange and Farmiga, who returns after being absent in American Horror Story: Asylum , Coven also features series veterans Lily Rabe, Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson, Frances Conroy, Alexandra Breckenridge, and Denis O’Hare (who are also returning after being absent in season 2).
Newcomers include Angela Bassett as Marie Laveau and Kathy Bates as Madame Delphine LaLaurie. Patti LuPone, Emma Roberts, and Gabourey Sidibe will also appear this season.
“It’s been interesting being in New Orleans because there’s such a regard and respect for who [Marie Laveau] was,” Bassett said. “She was a very influential person in the city.” Bassett said she read Robert Tallant’s novel The Voodoo Queen , and is trying to “sense who she was and her power in the 1800s as this black Creole woman.”
Executive producer Tim Minear said it was Jessica Lange’s idea to have season 3 set in New Orleans .
“We talked about what we wanted to do this year, we talked about witches… Jessica had talked about New Orleans, and it made sense to set this show there,” he said. “We’re taking this idea of Salem and those witches fleeing to the south at some point.”
Unlike Asylum , Coven will be more comedic, while still being tackling serious themes.
“Some of the bigger themes this year are oppression of minorities of all kinds, and within that idea, minority groups going after each other and doing the work of the larger culture,” Minear said. “While there is a strong feminist theme that runs throughout Coven , there are themes of race and themes of oppression, and themes of family — especially mothers and daughters.”
