Story by Abigail Miller / Contributing Writer | Photo courtesy of Fox
One of the most talked-about shows of fall 2015 was FOX’s Scream Queens. The highly anticipated campy horror/comedy from AHS creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuck had fans glued to their screens every week with new murders, twists and crazy antics from the bizarre characters.
By the time the series reached the first season finale, it seemed as though everything had been wrapped up – the Red Devil had been caught, the mystery of the sorority party baby had been solved, the Chanels were placed in an asylum and a number of people had suffered gruesome deaths at the hands of the school’s serial killer. What was left for season two? What’s next?
According to Dean Munsch, reforming America’s healthcare system is next.
To set the story, this season begins much like season one with a flashback to someone doing something horrible to avoid missing a party.
On Halloween of 1985, a pregnant woman interrupted the Our Lady Of Perpetual Suffering faculty Halloween party because her husband needed medical help. After promising to help, a doctor (dressed in a sort of green reptilian demon costume) and a nurse instead drug the man and toss him into the toxic swamp conveniently located behind the hospital.
Out of fear of recognition, the doctor flings his cape and demonic mask onto the sinking body, then heads back to the party with the partner-in-crime nurse on his arm.
Flash forward about thirty years, and Dean Munsch is reveling in her post-Wallace success.
After the Red Devil killings, the crafty ex-Dean has used her experience to get book deals, magazine covers, and even a few TED Talks. This leads her to announcing that she plans to open a teaching hospital called C.U.R.E. – Caregivers United in Restorative Etiology.
This hospital, which is located in the old Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering building, exists to treat the most bizarre, uncurable cases that Doctor Dean Munsch can find in sketchy online chat rooms.
While this may seem like a way to give back, Dean Munsch seems to be hiding something, implying that she may have a far more sinister plan.
Her carefully put-together team of experts and students is made up of both crazy new characters and wacky favorites from season one.
John Stamos plays Dr. Holt, the attractive head surgeon who happens to be the recipient of the first successful hand transplant. He is accompanied by Twilight alum Taylor Lautner as Dr. Cassidy, an often bleak, (literally) ice-cold mirror of Chanel #3’s darkness.
Munsch’s first student recruit is none other than season one’s Zayday, who has been working three jobs to pay for medical school since escaping the Red Devil. While Zayday agrees to work with Munsch, she eventually asks that more women be recruited– it is the feminist thing to do, after all.
At this point, the Chanels, who have been exonerated of any involvement with the Red Devil murder spree, are possibly the most hated people in America.
After a Netflix documentary revealed the truth about everything that went on with Kappa Kappa Tau, even their own rich families disowned them. This left them on their own, with only minor jobs to help them get by – #5 is a receptionist at a dentists’ office, #3 cleans bathrooms at a men’s fertility clinic, and Chanel is a certified phlebotomist.
This puts them in a perfect position for Dean– excuse me, Doctor – Munsch to sweep in and recruit them, which proves to be an unexpectedly successful decision, since Chanel manages to come up with a plan that rescues their first patient, a girl suffering from extreme hair growth, from a lobotomy
So far, this season seems like it will be just as gloriously campy, gory, and hilarious as the first one.
The guest stars – Niecy Nash, who briefly appears as Special Agent Denise Hemphill and hilariously reminds us of her deceased friend Shondell, and Kirstie Alley, who appears as Ingrid Hoffel, a nurse who already seems to be the Chanels’ arch-nemesis of this season – shine as bright as the regular stars. The jokes are killer (the debate about the definition of “ghosting” was genius), and the new killer already seems just as scary as the Red Devil.
Without completely giving away the ending, this episode eventually delivers on the horror side of its satirical comedy/horror genre in a terrifying way. The episode also ends on a cliffhanger, leaving fans to speculate who will survive to the next episode.
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