The ‘American Horror Story: Freak Show‘ SDCC panel ran this last Saturday and it gave us some fun new details on the upcoming season of one of the best horror shows on television.

While much of the panel was a recap of ‘American Horror Story: Coven,’ we did find out a slew of details for the upcoming ‘Freak Show’ as well. The cast might not have been able to describe their characters or the plot, but we did find out the names of the characters they will be playing and a few other details about this installment of the series:

  • The main roles and their relationships are the following: Evan Peters will play Jimmy Darling and his parents will be played by Kathy Bates as Ethel Darling and Michael Chiklis as strongman Dell Toredo. The two are divorced. Toredo, however, has remarried and is now with Desiree Dupree (who is played by Angela Bassett). Also announced is Emma Roberts as Maggie, and Jessica Lange as Elsa Mars, a German ex-patriate who runs the Freak Show. Finally Sarah Paulson plays the two-headed Bette and Dot.
  • Speaking of the twins, we did find out that Paulson he has come to like Bette a little better.
  • In order for Paulson’s character to have two heads, 22 people were required to work on the effects process on any given shot in order to make it work properly.
  • Executive producer Tim Minear has described the season as “[director] Douglas Sirk meets the movie Zodiac.”
  • Caroll Lynch (‘Fargo’, ‘Zodiac’) has just officially joined the cast. He is set to be “a villain who will rival the rubber man and the Minotaur from previous seasons.” I wonder if that means that he will be the “most terrifying clown ever“?

Sadly no trailer or even a teaser was shown at the panel. I’m sure we won’t have to wait long for it though! I, for one, am extremely excited to see this upcoming season as it looks to be a great combination of camp and horror without leaning far too much to either side of the fence.

‘American Horror Story: Freak Show’ will debut this October and features Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, Frances Conroy, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Evan Peters, Emma Roberts, and Michael Chiklis.

Sources: Screen Crush, Deadline