Ryan Murphy Confirms This Travis Kelce Grotesquerie Scene Is a ‘Nod’ to Taylor Swift

The show’s creator weighed in on a popular Swiftie theory about one of Kelce’s first scenes in the FX series

(L-R) Travis Kelce; Taylor Swift. Photo:  Prashant Gupta/FX; Kevin Mazur/Getty

Shortly after making his debut in episode three of Grotesquerie, Travis Kelce sped off with Niecy Nash-Betts in a getaway car. Naturally, Swifties were immediately on alert.

In the scene, which aired on Oct. 2, Kelce’s character Ed Lachlan helped Nash-Betts’ Lois Tryon break out of the hospital after she crashed her car while drunk driving. The pair left the hospital hand-in-hand in a dream-like sequence before hopping into a red convertible and driving off.

Ryan Murphy, who created the series and created the role specifically for Kelce, told The Hollywood Reporter that the scene is “a little Taylor Swift nod” given that the characters hop “into the red getaway car.”

The reference is, of course, to a song from Swift’s 2017 album Reputation, titled “Getaway Car.”

Travis Kelce as Ed Lachlan and Niecy Nash as Lois Tryon in ‘Grotesquerie’.Prashant Gupta/FX

After the episode premiered earlier this month, fans were quick to point out the reference that was seemingly made to the Swift song on social media.

A fan page for the 35-year-old Kansas City Chiefs tight end posted a clip of the scene on X (formerly Twitter), and several of the replies pointed out that Kelce was having his very own onscreen getaway car moment.

Another fan pointed out the possible connection on TikTok, writing over a clip from the episode, “Does this look familiar Swifties?! 😍😍.”

“This can’t be a coincidence!” the fan wrote in the post’s caption.

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce during the 2024 US Open Tennis Championships.Gotham/GC Images

Since Kelce made his debut as Ed Lachlan on the FX series, the show’s world has come apart. On the Oct. 16 episode, it was revealed that Lois (Nash-Betts) has actually been in a coma the whole time — and the vicious murderer she’s been hunting was all a vision inside her head.

The reveal adds some context to the getaway car scene, too, as Murphy told THR that originally, Kelce and Nash-Betts “drive off to this black limbic space, which makes absolutely no sense. But it does make sense now, because you know [Lois] is in a coma.”

Another layer of that reveal is that all the characters fans have come to know from Lois’ dream-like state are not who they were believed to be.

Her husband, Marshall (Courtney B. Vance) is alive and well; her daughter Merritt (Raven Goodwin) is a doctor working to find a cure for cancer who is married to a downtrodden and disheveled Ed (Kelce). Father Charlie (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) and Sister Megan (Micaela Diamond) are also not who they seem to be.

Charlie is actually Lois’ doctor in the hospital, while Megan is a detective who works with Lois in the police force.

(L-R) Travis Kelce and Raven Goodwin on Grotesquerie.Prashant Gupta/FX

Murphy told THR that it was “fun” getting to play around with the duality of all of the characters.

“It was kind of a fascinating thing to work with all of these actors on that. I think it’s the reason why actors like playing twins, because they can do two things. They all couldn’t wait to play the second character,” he said of the shift after episode 7’s big reveal. “Because they were either very different, or the circumstances were the same but they were still very different.”

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Grotesquerie airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on FX and streams the next day on Hulu.