Kai's Backstory Was Finally Revealed On 'AHS: Cult'

Though Kai Anderson was a mysterious figure for the first few episodes of American Horror Story: Cult, his backstory was finally explored in "Holes." But who are the people who are responsible for bringing this blue-haired cult leader into the world? Who are Kai's parents on AHS: Cult? Viewers probably expected Kai to have a dark history because of his predilection for stalking and murder (and because this is AHS), but the story of the Anderson family was still brutally creepy.

Kai had lied about his family to most of the members of his cult, but when Beverly reminded him that secrets make you weak, he relented and gave her the truth. Both of Kai's parents died three years before the events of the series but tension was brewing between them long before that. Kai's father Scott had been a lawyer with a love for motorcycles, but an accident on the road ended up paralyzing him. It also filled him with rage that he directed at his wife and son. He accused his wife of an affair and relentlessly abused her until she just couldn't take it anymore. One day she shot him and then herself, claiming it was the only way out. Kai witnessed all of it.

Instead of doing the normal thing and calling the police, Kai phoned his brother, who turned out to be none other than Dr. Rudy Vincent, Ally's therapist. Rudy's plan was to put both of their parents in bed and cover them with lye for the smell, then lock up the bedroom and allow them to naturally decompose within it. According to Rudy, this would be just like a mausoleum — ignoring the fact that mausoleums are usually found in cemeteries, not on the second floor of suburban Michigan homes.

According to Rudy, the risk of alerting the police was just too high. The murder-suicide would be splashed all over the news, ruining his new practice and destroying the family financially. The government would take back some of Scott's settlement from his accident and the brothers would stop receiving their dad's disability checks and mom's pension. In a now-familiar gesture, Rudy made Kai pinky swear that he would never tell anyone about what happened. Together, they put their parents in bed and locked the door.

Their sister Winter didn't find out the truth until she returned home for Thanksgiving break, but she was also convinced to uphold the lie so that she could use their parents' money to keep paying for Vassar. As Kai showed her the makeshift mausoleum and Winter wept, he explained to her that the death of their parents was both the end and beginning of something. They were now free. Though Kai had made it seem like things were fine in the Anderson house before the accident, the warped reactions of each of the children to their parents' murder-suicide proved something had been wrong for a very long time.

And that set Kai off on the path he is currently on. The bodies of his mom and dad are still in the house he lived in with Winter, and he even visits them sometimes. He tells his mother that he loves her, and promises to make something of himself so that she would be proud of him. But Kai still hates his father and is happy to see him rot.

Kai's backstory may not have explained everything about who he was now, but it did explain a lot. He saw how his father's directionless fury ultimately destroyed the family and decided to find a way to utilized the anger of the masses for a greater purpose — a purpose that benefitted him, specifically. It's a dramatic way to work through childhood issues, but murder and mayhem seem to be Kai's coping mechanism.

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