Is The Watcher Season 2 The Next American Horror Story?

On Nov. 7, Netflix announced that it was renewing both The Watcher and Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (another Ryan Murphy joint) for additional seasons, with The Watcher getting a second season and Monster getting at least two more. Since Dahmer is one of Netflix’s biggest hits ever, it understandably received most of the attention in the streamer’s announcement while details on The Watcher‘s renewal were scarce. All Netflix had to say about the latter was:

“Additionally, Netflix has ordered a second season of the Murphy, Brennan and Eric Newman real-estate thriller, The Watcher. Executive producers of season one also include: Alexis Martin Woodall, Eric Kovtun, Bryan Unkeless, Paris Barclay, Naomi Watts, Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost and Scoop Wasserstein.”

The lack of answers about The Watcher season 2 is interesting, given that its mere existence raises questions. Folks who have seen all seven episodes of The Watcher season 1 will know that its ending feels deliberately open-ending, rather than “needs another season open-ended.” Kind of like American Horror Story before it.

In fact, The Watcher is based on a real life case that currently has no conclusion. In real life, we still have no idea who “the watcher” was or why they sent increasingly deranged letters to the inhabitants of 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey. The Watcher‘s first season went out of its way to beef its relatively sparse story up, delving deeper into the identities of several suspects and, in one instance, even introducing an unrelated ’50s murderer into the mix.

By the end of The Watcher, it feels clear that the story is over…frustratingly so, but over all the same. Just like the real life case. Why then, would Murphy and Netflix continue on with a second season (aside from the obviou$$$ answer, of course)? Is it possible that we could have another…surprise anthology on our hands?

If The Watcher season 2 does go the anthology route it would a surprise akin to that initial American Horror Story announcement because Netflix opted not to reveal it in the original announcement. And they had every opportunity to as the streamer went out of its way to note that Dahmer – Monster was an anthology now, with new monstrous real life figures being presented in each season. What if Netflix never clarifies The Watcher season 2’s status and one day it just pops up on its servers, presenting an entirely new dramatized instance of another real life stalker?