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TV Recap: “Scream Queens,” Episode 4

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I find it startling that “Scream Queens” will be a fifteen episode season, especially given the fact that the story is not that interesting and the show is currently being watched by less than three million people. The show is really hit or miss for me, with it either being so mentally damaging that I drool on myself or it’s just barely average. Still, I don’t like to quit on anything and the show heavily features Jamie Lee Curtis, so I’m going to continue forward with my “Scream Queens” TV Recaps. WARNING: As always, this recap will contain massive spoilers. 

When we return, we’re given a very weird inspirational montage of Chanel-O-Ween with Chanel Oberlin sending Halloween presidents to some of her Facebook, Instagram and Twitter followers. As the president of Kappa Kappa Tau says, “Halloween is the one holiday out of the whole year when you can scare children and not be branded a psychopath.” Even though she’s sending presents to people, she still gets all of her sarcastic, condescending digs in there with somewhat humorous partial quotes like, “They put down their hot pockets…,” “…brightens up your trailer park,” and “you are so mind-numbingly average.” Oberlin then encourages the followers she sent presents to put her charity on social media because she’s a “future news anchor who is super class and has no fat on her body,” and she needs the good publicity. It was a really weird opening sequence, probably the weirdest I’ve ever seen…

Back at the Kappa Kappa Tau mansion, GiGi Caldwell and Wes have just survived an attack from The Red Devil and are encouraging the police to question Cathy Munch as a suspect. The lead police officer has one major question for Cathy, “Are you coming to the precinct pig roast?” Cathy grills well and has been a pillar of support in the community for more than three decades, such an upstanding citizen could never be the serial killer. Cathy denies being The Red Devil anyway, although she gives a very detailed, extremely accurate “what if” scenario that is slightly incriminating. She flips the scripts and says that she won’t hold the fact that Wes is accusing her of being the killer against him since he is an overwhelmed single father who just started a new job at a major university. Instead, she invites Wes to the faculty Halloween costume party as her guest. Suddenly, Officer Hemphill shows up and tells them about the Dickie Dollar Scholar who got his limbs hacked off – and somehow survived – and that a chainsaw was left behind at the scene of the crime, which will probably have Zayday’s finger prints on it.

Next, we arrive at a trailer in the middle of a swamp where Pete and Grace have tracked Greenwell down to. They’ve dressed as Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey from How to Loose a Guy in 10 Days and parade around as early trick or treaters. Mandy Greenwell (played by Jennifer Aspen of “Party of Five”) knows they’re there to talk about that 1995 night at Kappa. She’s been dying to tell people about it for years and ushers them in with a lot of hospitality… and a pet squirrel. She says the night was so horrible that she splits her life into two parts – before 1995 and after 1995. She confirms that the rumor is true, a Kappa sister died in that bathtub shortly after giving birth. Ms. Bean wanted to dispose of the body by making it into sausages and feeding it to the sorority sisters, but Cathy Munch decided to go with a proper “hide the body in the woods scenario.” Due to a little thing called negligent homicide, Cathy wasn’t going to let the death of the young girl tarnish her reputation and made the sorority girls put bags over their heads as she drove them out to an undisclosed location. She makes them dig the whole and toss the body inside, telling them that she may seem like a monster now, but when they’re adults she’s going to seem like their guardian angel. Mandy Greenwell says they were forced out of the college, forced to change their names and forced to never speak again. One girl killed herself. One girl had to go to a mental institution. One girl is a Fox News anchor. Mandy then confirms that the baby born in the bathtub was a girl, thus excluding Chad Radwell from the leader-board.

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Then we meet a an attractive, British Dickie Dollar Scholar named Early Grey (played by Lucien Laviscount) who obviously has the hots for Zayday. The duo are talking in the school cafeteria and Zayday drops a bomb that she is going to challenge Chanel Oberlin for presidency of Kappa Kappa Tau as soon as she officially becomes a sister. She has Early Grey’s support of course, who thinks her becoming the queen of Kappa is a good idea because he wants to revamp the Greek system on campus. If he leads the Scholars and Zayday leads Kappa, then it will be a new beginning on and off campus. Their bright idea is to throw a haunted house party to help raise awareness and money for sickle cell anemia. Only problem is, Chanel Oberlin was planning on throwing a Halloween party of her own. She announces this in the kitchen with the pledges and The Chanels, who all feel weird being in the same place where Ms. Bean had her face burned off; although Chanel Oberlin still attests that Ms. Bean is back from the dead and killing people “with her fatness.” Following the rude comments, Zayday formerly announces her candidacy for Kappa president, which causes Chanel Oberlin to lose her mind. Chanel O threatens to spend the rest of her life ruining Zayday with Zayday countering that she’ll just tell the police about Ms. Bean’s “accident.” After the encounter, Chanel O decides to make her party a haunted pumpkin patch party to raise awareness for Black Hairy Tongue disease.

Back at the trailer, Grace and Pete have left and Mandy Greenwell is watching Leprechaun with her pet squirrel. There’s a knock at the door and when she answers it, there’s no one there. Suddenly there’s thumping and banging all around the perimeter of the trailer, which makes Mandy grab her baseball bat in self defense. She checks outside again and sees nothing, but upon re-entering the trailer she discovers that two Red Devils have already broken into the trailer and they proceed to stab her to death. Meanwhile, Chad Radwell is walking about a cemetery by himself because he gets the hots for dead bodies and wants to rub one out on the graves. He’s about to and is unfortunately interrupted by Chanel #6 aka Hester. She says she gets turned on by dead bodies, too, and she knows and understands him more than anyone else. She announces that she wants everything that Chanel Oberlin has, including Chad, and she’ll do anything to get it…including pushing Zayday down the stairs once she becomes president, that way a Chanel can have the throne back. Chanel #6 says that she’ll text Chad later in the week to meet her in another scary place so they can have anal sex.

The next day on campus Wes has turned film appreciation class into horror film appreciation. Jesus, I wish that was an actual class when I was in film school. He still tries to make horror films metaphorical and thematic. After the class files out, Grace storms in and confronts her dad about why he never talks about her mom and why there is no record of her mom anywhere. She asks why all of this is happening when she arrives on campus before finally asking her father if she is the Kappa Kappa Tau bathtub baby. Wes says no, he was there when she was born and watched her come out… which was a really big mistake. Grace storms off again saying that she’ll never talk to him again if she finds out he’s the killer. Um, really?

Zayday and Earl Grey are inside an abandoned house which they hope will be the setting for their haunted house party fundraiser. Just then Grace and Pete show up, followed by Officer Hemphill. We get to hear the backstory of the abandoned house. It used to belong to a haggard woman who wailed and wailed every night. Kids would see her dressed in all black, standing in the windows, but none of the parents ever gave it attention. Not too long after the wailing started, all the milk and dolls around town started going missing. Eventually, the wailing stopped and when kids snuck into the house, they found hundreds of dolls stockpiled in a bedroom…which Earl Grey, Grace, Officer Hemphill, Pete and Zayday find upstairs. Officer Hemphill drags Zayday away from the rest of the group and once again accuses her of being the killer because she just so happened to skip class the night the Dickie Dollar Scholar got his arms hacked off. Zayday counters that Officer Hemphill is the killer and divulges that Hemphill pledged Kappa long ago, but was kicked out for being black and now wants revenge. Right now, they’re even with evidence.

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Chanel Oberlin is handing out invitations to her haunted pumpkin patch party and is extremely happy because she feels closer to Chanel #3 and Chanel #5 again. Chanel #6 is there, too. The girls take a break to eat lunch, cotton balls, before Chanel Oberlin decides to make change in life and decides they’re having pizza instead. As they head to the pizzeria they’re accosted by two misogynistic men who are sexually harassing them. The Chanels further bond by kicking the shit out of the two men for their cat calling and disrespect, which earns them a round of applause from the cafeteria. Later, Chanel #6 meets Chad Radwell at the Wailing House because that’s the scariest place she knows of to have sex in. They make their way up to a bedroom and discover Ms. Bean’s body. When they realize it’s real, they freak out and run through the house… finding Mandy Greenwell hanging from a balcony, Coney nailed to a wall, Officer Hemphill stashed in a closet and Chanel #2 propped against a wall. It’s all like a long, bad remake of the infamous scene in Halloween. Chad and Chanel #6 escape to the cafeteria where they try to keep their composure, but then they lose it and start screaming, alerting their fellow students who start running in separate directions.

As it turns out, the students were running to the haunted house party fundraiser to check out the “life like” decorations that Chad and Chanel #6 were yelling about. When Zayday arrives, the place is packed and no one seems to notice the bodies aren’t props. Zayday, Early Grey, Pete and Grace know the bodies are real, though, and Zayday flees the house so she can get good service to call the police. The police think she’s prank calling them, but the call is interrupted when The Red Devil sneaks behind her and attacks. The next day the pledges and The Chanels are doing a missing person report at the Kappa Kappa Tau mansion and Chanel Oberlin seems happy that her presidency is safe because “it’s insane to vote for a girl who’s already dead.” Cathy deduces that the murders are two separate killers because half of the victims aren’t even students. The police aren’t doing a good job of questioning suspects again and Wes threatens to go to the police. Pete tries to introduce himself to Wes as Grace’s boyfriend, but she stops him because “he won’t like you.” The pledges agree to form a search party to find Zayday while The Chanels go to their party.

Grace and Pete talk about the woman of Wailing house and deduce that the woman who was stealing milk and diapers had to have the Kappa baby from 1995. They have to find her if they want answers. The episode ends with a shot of Wailing House, with the hag rocking back and forth in the doll room. The Wailing Lady is revealed to be… GiGi Caldwell.

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Michael DeFellipo

(Senior Editor)

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