When we started this bumpy road called Scream Queens, I swore I wasn’t going to let the Ryan Murphy-ness of the show bother me. You know what I mean: the absurd leaps, the crazy plot holes, the ridiculously circular logic. I wanted to enjoy this show for what it is — a fun, stupid romp — and just live with the rest.
I can’t ignore the problems anymore.
There were just too many things in this episode that didn’t make any sense. How are we supposed to care about Zayday and Earl Grey’s relationship (or his death) when he has barely been on screen this entire season? He even acknowledges that they haven’t kissed yet, which is such a classic Ryan Murphy device. By trying to turn the problem into a joke, though, the writers are admitting that they know about it and don’t care enough to fix it.
Also, what the hell was Zayday wearing? She looked like the Chiquita banana woman in a leprechaun costume.
Then Boone fakes being gay, which was also played for a joke. Why did Boone do this? No one knows and it is never explained. He didn’t do it to “gay pledge” Kappa, because that lasted for a hot second before he faked his own death. Maybe he wants to throw us off the scent that he was the Red Devil all along? He admits that he was faking being gay — and, yes, his line about “once you go black you never go back” was sort of worth it — but still. Why?
While we’re asking questions, here are a few more: Why is the Red Devil such a lousy killer? He/she has failed to kill just as many people as he/she has actually slain. Look at how badly he/she messed up with Denise Hemphill in the bathroom. Was that the girl killer? Is she the ineffective one? Or was that Boone, since the girl killer clearly knew how to get rid of him? (R.I.P., Nick Jonas’s arms.) Why would Denise go back into the room while the Red Devil killer was still inside the house? And why did the killer leave instead of, you know, trying to kill Denise or any of the other girls? If the Red Devil really wanted to kill Chanel No. 5, why did he/she go after the truck driver instead?
It’s not just the inconsistencies and logical leaps. Those problems have been around all season. In this episode, Boone’s faux-mosexuality was so glaring, it raises questions about other issues. The questions lead to more and more problems, and then the series falls apart like a game of Jenga on a Chinatown bus to Atlantic City.
Since we’re needling this episode so much, let’s lodge another complaint: The Radwells would not have a cranberry “orchard” because cranberries do not grow on trees. They grow on submersed vines in “bogs.” Chad Radwell is stupid, but if his family owned a giant cranberry bog, he would know that it was not called an orchard. A quick Google search of “cranberry production” reveals that only five states — Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington — produce large crops of cranberries. New York is not one of those states.
While we’re on the topic, nobody owns 150 acres in the Hamptons — much less uses that much land for agriculture. If the show were set in Nantucket, this would all make sense. Nantucket has cranberry bogs and hundreds of preserved acres of land. It’s also full of rich people and has an airport big enough to house jets. See? All that laziness could have been fixed with a couple minutes of research.
This is why it’s a bad idea to closely examine Scream Queens. You notice a few inconsistencies, ask a few questions, then the show immediately careens off a cliff, crashing into the cold surf below.
Speaking of crashes into the surf, let’s talk about Hester the Hamburglar who farts during sex. I was impressed by the explanation for her neck brace, since that fits the season’s character development. From the moment she announces her pregnancy, though, it was obviously fake. Nobody needs pee sticks to know it was a dupe. Still, I love that Chanel Prime pushed her down the stairs. Reason #1: It totally fits with Chanel’s character. Reason #2: Now that Lea Michele is dead, she can’t return next season. Reason #3: It means she’s not the Red Devil, which would have been disappointing.
What really annoyed me, however, is Chanel’s decision to hide Hester’s body in the freezer. Um, isn’t a serial killer on the loose? Why wouldn’t she and her two minions tell the police that the Red Devil did it? If the cops are dumb enough to believe the Red Devil is a ghost, aren’t they dumb enough to believe that Hester was the latest victim? Chanel has the perfect cover-up for her crime and she doesn’t take it. Even she isn’t that stupid.
For an episode filled with so many mistakes, at least “Ghost Stories” solves a lot of mysteries. We learn that Boone was the one who kidnapped Zayday. We also learn more details about the Bathtub Babies: Gigi took them after their mother died, and Dean Munsch confirms they were a boy and a girl. Grace’s ugly hats must be getting to her head, though, because she couldn’t figure out how the babies went from the bathtub to Gigi. Duh! Gigi was one of the girls that was there.
So, who do we think the other Red Devil killer is? It has to be the female Bathtub Baby, right? That only leaves a few possibilities: It can’t be Zayday because Boone wanted to have sex with her, and I don’t think he would be into porking his sister, as Chad Radwell would say. It probably isn’t Chanel No. 5, since the not-Boone Red Devil attacked her while Boone was killing Earl Grey. (Unless Gigi was dressed as the Red Devil, but if that were true, why kill the trucker?) It doesn’t seem like it could be Grace, either. Why would she go through all that trouble to find the killer?
That leaves us with Chanel Number Three — or Chanel Beige, as I like to call her — and Chanel Prime. If Chanel Beige is the killer, wouldn’t she know that Boone wasn’t dead? Chanel Prime is the only suspect left, unless the baby girl was transgender and now lives as a man and is Pete. (I like this theory.) Another possibility is that Chanel Prime doesn’t know she is the other bathtub baby; the Red Devil could be her mother, who didn’t actually die that night in the tub. Or it could be one of the dead Kappas — Chanel Number 2, Predatory Lez, Deaf Taylor Swift, Candle Vlogger — but the faked-your-own-death switcheroo seems played out.
There has to be another twist. That’s why I’m predicting that Trans Pete is the Red Devil.
A Collection of Funny Lines Taken Completely Out of Context:
- “Please don’t kill me. I’m sorta gay now too.”
- “I just spent two hours dressing up as the hag who didn’t know she was the third wheel on Lewis and Clark’s gay camping extravaganza.”
- “I’m going to go look for a salad bowl to squat over under the stairwell.”
- “While you were gone, I banged a few chicks in your bed. I didn’t mean any disrespect. I just wanted that idea of vacation sex.”
- “Denise Hemphill is not going to make it down that crazy, over-dramatic staircase without having a heart attack.”
- “Granted, I’m pretty high on Adderall and I’ve been on the road for 36 hours straight.”
- “If you’re going to get attacked, please get attacked in a fresh, exciting way.”
- “Most of the time, we porked in a way that would not result in pregnancy.”
- “A cautionary tale about what happens to hog-face bitches when they try to steal hotter girl’s boyfriends.”
