‘American Horror Story’ Season 5 Spoilers: Is ‘Hotel’ Connected To ‘Freak Show’? John Wayne Gacy/ Twisty The Clown Theory

“American Horror Story” fans will be welcoming John Carroll Lynch back to the screen! The 52-year-old actor, who first joined the FX mini-series during Season 4, “Freak Show,” will be returning to play a new -- yet very familiar --- role.

Those tuning in for episode 4 of “American Horror Story: Hotel” tonight will get to see Lynch playing a real-life serial killer, John Wayne Gacy. Gacy, who became known as “The Killer Clown” due to his side job as Pogo the Clown for children’s parties, killed 33 boys and young men in the suburbs of Chicago throughout the 70s. He was arrested in 1979 after the mother of one of his victims was able to link him to her son’s disappearance. A search warrant resulted in the police discovering the remains of 27 victims underneath his house. Gacy was ultimately indicted for 33 murders and found guilty of the crimes in March 1980. He was sentenced to death and died from lethal injection on May 10, 1994.

As previously reported, Gacy’s introduction will be part of a special Halloween-themed episode of “American Horror Story.” Series co-creator Ryan Murphy revealed that John Carroll Lynch’s character will be one of the guests at a “devil’s night dinner” at Hotel Cortez. Gacy will be joined by Detective John Lowe (Wes Bentley), fellow real-life serial killer Aileen Wurnos (Lily Rabe) and fictional “Hotel” murderer James Patrick March (Evan Peters).

The synopsis for Season 5, episode 4 teases that John will be dining with some of the “biggest serial killers of all time.” Meanwhile, his wife, Alex (Chloë Sevigny), will be trying to figure out what’s wrong with her son after he miraculously reappears. However, the episode might have more to it than that. It’s possible that the latest installment will somehow connect “Hotel” to last season’s “Freak Show.”

Those that watched Season 4 know that Lynch played Twisty the Clown, a psychotic killer who wore grinning mask. Although he initially had good intentions, he was falsely accused of molesting children and unable to find work as a clown. Twisty tried to commit suicide after failing to make a living selling “whirligigs,” but that only resulted in him blowing his lower jaw off. From that point on he wore a mask to cover his disfigurement and went on to kidnap children and murder their parents.

Fans associated Twisty the Clown with John Wayne Gacy. However, Lynch assured viewers during an interview with Cosmopolitan that he never linked his character to the real-life serial killer.

“I really hadn’t considered any [other people or characters],” he explained. “I thought of him as coming from the minds of the writers and particularly from Ryan since he was the first director and the writer of the episode. So I never really prescribed it to any other either real-life sociopath or even fantasy, fictional sociopaths like the character in ‘It’ that Tim Curry plays. That is a classic, amazing performance of a terrifying clown. And I hadn’t seen that since it came out … I didn’t go back and look at any of that stuff. I didn’t really feel like I wanted to go do exhaustive research.”

If Twisty the Clown were to somehow be tied into “Hotel” it wouldn’t be the first connection between past seasons. The premiere of Season 5 linked the Season 1 Murder House to Hotel Cortez via real estate agent Marcy (Christine Estabrook). Marcy was the same real estate agent that sold the Harmon family the “murder house.” She adopted their dog when the whole family died and revealed during the Season 5 premiere that her pet died.

Do you want to see Twisty the Clown return to “American Horror Story”? Do you have other hopes for the Halloween-themed episode? Tweet your thoughts to @AmandaTVScoop.