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'Scream Queens' Series Premiere: Recap

Adrianne Ramsey |
September 22, 2015 | 11:34 p.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

Here come the Chanels (FOX)
Here come the Chanels (FOX)
Fans have been waiting months for the premiere of Ryan Murphy’s new series, Scream Queens. The show looks to combine the terror of American Horror Story and the humor of Glee, as well as throwing it back to the slasher films of the 1990’s. The two-hour premiere was a pleasant surprise, and while there were many laughs, it’s clear that this series is not going to be for those with the faint of heart. 

The episode opens with a flashback to 1995, at a Kappa Kappa Tau sorority party at Wallace University. A girl walks down the stairs, and her hands are covered with blood. While her sorority sisters think she’s gotten her period, the girl makes it clear that it is not her blood. They run upstairs and find a Kappa pledge in the bathroom, her yellow dress soaked with blood and a baby in her arms. Apparently, she didn’t know she was pregnant. The girls try and figure out what to do, and the solution ultimately ends up being leaving the new mother in the bathroom while the rest of the girls finish the party because “Waterfalls” is coming on. But when they come back upstairs, they are met with a shock – the girl is dead. 

READ MORE: 'Empire' Season One Recap

The scene then skips to the present time of 2015, and we meet Chanel Oberlin (Emma Roberts), the president of KKT. Chanel is the Queen B*tch and has three minions to prove it – Chanel #2 (Ariana Grande), Chanel #3 (Billie Lourd), and Chanel #5 (Abigail Breslin), all whom Chanel admits not knowing their real names, with little to no remorse. Also in the house is Ms. Bean (Jan Hoag), the sorority’s maid and cook, whom Chanel degradingly refers to as “White Mammy.” Chanel’s perfect world is about to get shattered when she is informed that she has a meeting with Dean Cathy Munsch (Jamie Lee Curtis). 

Dean Munsch is completely fed up with the Greek system and has no qualms in letting Chanel know that she hates KKT, and her as well. We learn from Munsch that KKT has a long history of alcoholism, hazing, and assaults – as well as an incident that Munsch is sure Chanel is behind. The show flashes back to the previous school year, where we see Chanel as a scared member trying to impress the KKT president, who admonishes her efforts and tells her she has no chance at being KKT president. She then demands to be sprayed with tanning oil by one of her minions. There’s just one problem – the oil has been tampered with and her skin is severely damaged. 

Munsch is determined to shut down Wallace’s KKT chapter, but Gigi (Nasim Pedrad), who is the national president of KKT, enters the room. She lets Munsch that while she cannot close down the chapter, she wants to see KKT restored to its former glory. Gigi has terrible fashion sense and a strange personality, but Munsch takes a liking to her.

Meanwhile, Grace Gardner (Skyler Samuels) is being driven to Wallace by her father, Wes (Oliver Hudson). Both are very close, as Grace’s mother died in a fire when she was very young and she is an only child. Wes does not want her to join a sorority, but Grace is determined to rush KKT because her mother was in it and she wants some way to feel close to her. After an emotional goodbye, Grace meets her roommate, Zayday (Keke Palmer), who may be one of the only cool and calm characters on the show. Both agree to rush KKT. 

Later that night during rush activities, Dean Munsch makes a shocking announcement: KKT is now required to accept anyone who wants to become a pledge. Chanel #5 practically breaks out in hysteria as nearly all the girls who were originally interested now leave the house in disgust. All that is left in the pledge class are Zayday, Grace, Hester aka Neckbrace (Lea Michele), Mac aka Predatory Lez (Jeanna Han), Tiffany aka Deaf Taylor Swift (Whitney Meyer), and Jennifer (Breezy Eslin), who likes to eat candle wax and runs a candle v-log. Needless to say, the Chanel’s are absolutely mortified. 

We are then introduced to Chad Radwell (Glen Powell), the president of the Dickie Dollar Scholars fraternity, and Boone (Nick Jonas), who is a member of DDS and obsessed with Chad. Chad is Chanel’s boyfriend, although he makes it clear that he cheats on her all the time. He then condemns her for letting “fatties and losers” into KKT and warns her that if she does not stay popular, he cannot be with her any longer. 

Chanel is clearly upset, and vents to Ms. Bean, trying to figure out demonic ways to push the new pledges out without making it too obvious what she is doing. While giving an incredibly complicated pumpkin spice latte order, we are introduced to Pete (Diego Boneta), a barista and investigative reporter for the school paper. He and Chanel have a complicated history, as Chanel claims that he stalked her the previous year, while he claims that he was an excited freshman that had a crush on her and she, in response, led him on. After pissing Chanel off, he meets Grace, who he is immediately infatuated with and warns not to rush KKT because it is, in his words, “truly dangerous.”

Later that night, the Chanel’s discover that Ms. Bean has a disturbing Chanel shrine in her room. At that same time, the pledges arrive. Furious, Chanel leads the rest of the girls into the kitchen and confronts Ms. Bean. After screaming at her, she grabs Ms. Bean and thrusts her into frying oil – they had previously planned this “prank” earlier in the episode, but there’s a small issue…the frying oil is hot, not cold. The rest of the girls scream in terror and Ms. Bean’s face is completely burned off – she then drops to the floor. Dead. Grace wants to go to the police, but Chanel is able to bribe the other girls, except Zayday, into framing Grace if she goes to the police. Angered, Grace agrees to hide the body in a meat cabinet and keep it a secret, as do the other girls…with Pete secretly watching the whole time.

READ MORE: 'Bad Girls Club' Has Run Its Course And Needs To End

In other worlds, it turns out that Dean Munsch is sleeping with none other than resident sleazeball Chad. She smokes weed, resents the fact that her husband has left her for a much younger woman, and misses her days of being a hardcore activist. But she is more horrified when Chad claims to be in love with her, and kicks him out. Now we have seen a different side of Munsch’s character. 

Grace and Pete decide to investigate KKT, as Grace agrees to become a spy because she wants to expose the Chanel’s. They go to see Ms. Bean’s body, only to be interrupted by Chanel and Chad, who find that Ms. Bean’s body has mysteriously disappeared. Back at the KKT house, the Chanel’s hold a failed blood oath, where all that comes out of it is that Chanel #3 has HPV and Chanel #2 is terrified of being found out as an accomplice to murder and decides to go home. Nobody tries to stop her.

Everyone wants to be a KKT...? (FOX)
Everyone wants to be a KKT...? (FOX)
Chanel #2 heads back to her room, and while packing, begins to receive suspicious text messages from an unknown phone number. She opens the door and is confronted by the Red Devil. After a strange yet funny in-person text conversation, the Red Devil pulls out a butcher knife and stabs #2 in the neck. She falls to the ground but is able to regain consciousness and knock the Red Devil backwards. She then hurriedly scrambles to her computer, where she begins to write a tweet requesting for help. However, the Red Devil gets up and stabs her in the back, killing her – bye-bye, #2. 

The Chanel’s find the body, and Chanel is convinced that Ms. Bean is still alive and killed #2. The only one who is concerned is #3, who wants to call the police, but Chanel refuses to let her. There isn’t much time to talk, as the pledges have now arrived for the first night of Hell Week – let the hazing begin! Grace refutes this, and Chanel sees this as a chance to take Grace out for coffee and offer her a chance to be Chanel #6. Grace declines and tries to learn more about Chanel, and while the two do have a breakthrough at one point, the conversation just ends in another argument, with Grace storming off.

Back at the KKT house, the pledges are subjected to what #5 refers to as the “Sexy Golf Hole Whore Challenge”. The girls are buried to their heads in the front lawn and told to stay there overnight. After some hours, the Red Devil appears on a lawn mower – all the girls scream for their lives, except for Tiffany, who is too busy belting out “Shake it Off” before she gets her head mowed off. 

What a jam-packed episode. There were so many storylines, hilarious lines, shocking comments, and horror introduced. The only question that I have is why Grande’s character was on the show in the first place – she was the bulk of many of the ads and interviews about the show, so it was disappointing to only see her in one episode. 

Reach Staff Reporter Adrianne Ramsey here



 

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