Spoilers ahead…
A lot has been made of self-described YouTube comedian Nicole Arbour, who went viral recently thanks to her “Dear Fat People” video. While Arbour claims her videos are for comedic value, most correctly argue that just being mean for mean’s sake is not funny. That’s the main problem I had with Glee and American Horror Story mastermind Ryan Murphy’s Scream Queens. I went into the series expecting camp and fun, but I mostly only got one of those things.
I have to wonder if the dialogue in Scream Queens might have been pulled off better with a more competent actress at the helm than Emma Roberts, who delivers every line in the same flat, disinterestedly bitchy tone. In the premiere episode — in just the first 10 minutes — her character Chanel Oberlin (Chanel #1) refers to the sorority house maid as “White Mammy,” asks Jamie Lee Curtis’ Dean Munsch if she “likes to munch box because your name is Munsch, or if that’s just a coincidence,” and makes a blumpkin joke at the expense of a character wearing a neck brace for scoliosis. (Although kudos to Murphy for sneaking a blumpkin joke into a network television show). Then again, selling lines like these would be difficult for any actress.
The premise of Scream Queens revolves around a scandal-plagued sorority, Kappa Kappa Tau. In typical Murphy fashion, the opening scene takes us to a flashback from 1995, when a freshman pledge who didn’t know she was pregnant gives birth in one of the sorority bathtubs. Rather than feign concern for the girl, the head sorority queen flips out at the thought of having to put a damper on the party, in lieu of attending to more pressing issues at hand, as she says: “I am not missing ‘Waterfalls’ for this. ‘Waterfalls’ is my jam.” When they return to check on the girl however, they find her dead with another sister cradling the now orphaned baby. This sets in motion the first mystery of Scream Queens.
Present day, the sorority is run by Roberts’ Chanel #1. In fact, the entire sorority inexplicably only seems to consist of Chanel and three other young women, her minions — whose names she has not bothered to learn — Chanel #2 (Ariana Grande), Chanel #3 (Billie Lourd), and Chanel #5 (Abigail Breslin). (Chanel #4 had to leave school due to meningitis and eventually died… Oh well.) Chanel #1 soon clashes heads with the aforementioned Dean Munsch, who has some mysterious revenge boner for the Kappas (which is partially revealed later) and attempts to shut down the sorority. National Kappa president Gigi Caldwell (Nasim Pedrad, who brings much needed comic relief to the premiere) steps in as legal representation to mediate the situation, telling Chanel to run home to prepare for rush week. This begins with a “sideboob mixer” and includes a White Party “where everyone is encouraged to dress slash be white.”
This is where our main protagonist comes in. Grace Gardner (Skyler Samuels, who played the kidnapped blonde teen in American Horror Story: Freak Show) has just enrolled in the fictional Wallace University, wanting to follow in the footsteps of her mother who died when Grace was just two-years-old, by pledging to be Kappa sister. Fortunately for Grace, the compromise Gigi and Dean Munsch reach allows Kappa to proceed with their pledge week — if they accept any girl who wants to join. This includes Grace and her African-American roommate, Zayday (Keke Palmer), the neck brace-wearing scoliosis girl Hester Ulrich (Lea Michele), a deaf Taylor Swift fan, a militant lesbian they nickname “Predatory Lez,” and a frumpy candle vlogger.
This does not bode well for the future of the sorority, and after Chanel #1 is dumped by her preening boyfriend, Chad Radwell (Glen Powell), she concocts an elaborate ruse to scare away the pledges that accidentally results in her dunking the head of White Mammy, a.k.a. Ms. Bean, into a hot-deep fryer and possibly killing her — triggering the current day mystery. After Ms. Bean’s body disappears from the walk-in freezer they dumped her in, Chanel and her sisters naturally assume that the maid is still alive and hell-bent on revenge. However once a murder spree begins at the hands of the masked Red Devil, viewers realize that the killer could be anyone, from the plotting dean, to the creepy reporter kid who works in the coffee shop, Chanel #1 herself, murder-obsessed Hester, or whoever the bathtub baby is. At the conclusion of the double episode, it becomes clear that the killer is also not working on his own.
The mystery might be enough to hook viewers, but unfortunately the characters are all extremely one-dimensional and the series already also seems to be suffering from Murphy’s habit of trying to cram too much in without working with what he has. This leads to several confusing and seemingly unnecessary plot devices, such as Grace’s dad moving to school to watch over her, and then abandoning post to go running off to go on a date with the national president of the Kappas while a serial killer lurks.
At it’s best, Scream Queens wryly makes fun of millennials. Hands down the best moment of the pilot is Chanel #2’s (Ariana Grande) death scene, in which she silently communicates with the masked serial killer via text before she’s stabbed, remaining just barely able to tweet for help before her untimely demise. It’s a scene that suggests Scream Queens might be onto something — if it can improve on its mean-spirited and often flat first episode.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misidentified the sorority on the show as Kappa Kappa Gamma. It is actually Kappa Kappa Tau.
