Courtesy of FOX
Is there any worse time to be hunted by a serial killer than on Halloween?
Let’s bitch it out…
Chanel (Emma Roberts) is super excited about Halloween (I mean, Chanel-o-ween) because it’s the one day of the year that you can terrorize people and not get in shit for it. Chanel starts sending “gifts” (i.e. razor apples) to her unfortunate Instagram followers so they can post about how amazing she is. The corresponding video montage is a cross between Taylor Swift, Publisher’s Clearinghouse, and getting a ticket to Vegas on So You Think You Can Dance.
Pete (Diego Boneta) and Grace (Skyler Samuels) hunt down Mandy, the sorority girl from the 1990s who was present when the baby was born. Remember, they were on their way to her house at the end of last episode. So apparently en route they decided it’s close to Halloween so they should dress up early, and thus the two show up as classic rom com couple Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey from How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days (?). Boneta does a surprisingly killer impersonation of McConaughey while the two get the full story about what happened to the poor dead girl in the bathtub: Dean Munsch (Jamie Lee Curtis) made the girls bury her in the woods (which is the best possible outcome considering Ms. Bean wanted to grind her up as sausage and feed her to the house). Munsch then kicked the girls out of school. Mandy also reveals the baby was a girl – dun dun dunnnn.
Meanwhile, Earl Grey (Lucien Laviscount) is helping Zayday (Keke Palmer) to run against Chanel for new Kappa president. The two decide to throw a haunted house to raise money for sickle cell anemia, because everyone likes a candidate with a cause.
This doesn’t sit well with Chanel, who begins sharpening knives in her closet at 3am. #3 (Billie Lourd) and #5 (Abigail Breslin) help her plan her big move: a haunted pumpkin patch fundraiser. But will they find a disease more “heinous” than sickle cell? Yes: black hairy tongue.
Meanwhile, Wes (Oliver Hudson) shows Children of the Corn to his class. Honestly this was the most disturbing part of the episode for me; as soon as I heard “Malachi” I had a PTSD flashback to 6th grade when I watched that movie in my friend Jordan’s basement as her older brother went outside and starts banging on the windows. To this day, there is nothing scarier than a creepy kid in an Amish hat.
Grace confronts her dad, assuming she is the baby that was born in Kappa in 1995. Wes denies it, claiming he was in the delivery room when she was born (“big mistake by the way”). I appreciate that the writers have each character come to obvious conclusions and address their theories quickly. It would have seriously annoyed me if it took Grace two more episodes for the light bulb to go off.
Meanwhile Pete and Grace head to a haunted house on Shady Lane <snicker>, and run into Earl Grey, Zayday, and Denise Hemphill (Niecy Nash). We hear about the legend of the Old Hag that lives on Shady Lane (great nursery rhyme) thanks to both Denise and Pete’s support of their local library resources. Rumor has it there was an old hag that lived in the house stealing baby dolls and lamenting her lost children (I stand corrected: baby dolls may be more creepy than amish-hatted children in corn fields).
In other news, we find out where edgy crosses the line to uncomfortable in Chad (Glen Powell) and Hester’s (Lea Michele) storyline. We learn Chad likes to rub one out to gravestones with hot names, and Hester says lines like “I’ll let you in the back door” and “attack my crack.” Sigh…welcome back to Ryan Murphy-land folks.
Hester wants everything Chanel has, so naturally includes Chad. The pair of them head to Zayday’s haunted house (on Shady Lane) and Hester discovers a wax figurine of Ms. Bean (Jan Hoag) with her face burnt off. Oh wait, it’s her dead body! And everyone else’s dead body, including poor Mandy who has a run in with the Red Devil earlier, is also there! Hester and Chad flee the scene and decide to warn other students not to go to the haunted house. Obviously, everyone runs right over. This is a great nod to the general dumbassness of young adults.
Courtesy of FOX
Over at the cafeteria, the Chanels are trying to keep people away from Zayday’s Haunted House for reasons of their own (the Kappa presidency). They are about to share a lunch of cotton balls (obviously covered in sauce to help ensure they don’t get stuck in the intestinal tract). But you know what? They are women, hear them roar. How come guys can still get action even when they’re fat? They ditch the cotton and go to get some pizza. When they get harassed on their way out, sisterhood prevails as they take down two frat boys (#3: “what are you gonna tell us to smile now, call us sweetheart?”, Frat boy: “yeah that’s actually my signature move.”)
At the haunted house, while most of the drunk partygoers think this the bodies are realistically staged, Zayday calls 911. Obviously the 911 dispatcher dismisses her, in fact he’s on his way over to the ragin’ party as soon as his shift ends. That’s the last we see of Zayday, as the Red Devil descends upon her.
Wait, what’s this? During a final flashback to the Shady Lane house in the 1990s, we discover the Old Hag is none other than Gigi (Nasim Pedrad)!
Body Count: 1-2
- Mandy (who literally walks backwards into the Red Devil after seeing him in the mirror)
- Maaaaybe Zayday, who was missing by the end of the episode.
- Bonus: we get to see all the dead bodies thus far.
Other Observations:
- Your Scream Queens Drinking Game for the week: take a shot every time someone says “the haunted house on shady lane!”
- This is the first episode that really allowed Diego Boneta to flex his comedy chops. His library scene with Niecy Nash was great.
- Is Wes the worst dad ever? For all of his half hearted complaining, wouldn’t a normal dad have packed his daughter up and driven her across country by now?
- The music selection continues to be on point. Excuse me while I go download Taylor Dayne’s “Tell it to my Heart” from the flashback of Denise’s ill-fated attempt to be a Kappa.
Best Lines:
- Hester (to Chad): “I’m sure this house has an amazingly romantic basement.”
- Chanel (complaining about Chad’s disinterest): “I’m as skinny as Karen Carpenter in the morgue” (yikes)
- Chanel (learning that Zayday is pursuing Kappa presidency): “Jennifer, can you hop of the spectrum for a second”
- Denise (to Zayday): “You might be able to get a job with secure enforcement solutions one day, if you stop all your murdering”
- Zayday (to the 911 operator): “There’s a guy in an ice cream cone nailed to the wall, bless his heart.”
What did you think of ‘Haunted House’? Are you excited for three more weeks of Chanel-o-Ween? Sound off below! I hope everyone has a home filled with pottery barn sofas and no integrity!
Scream Queens airs Tuesdays at 9pm EST on FOX