In the Scream Queens finale recap, the Red Devil is finally unmasked before jumping to the future to see how everything turned out…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
So it was Hester all along.
She seemed like such a red herring when the show first started — a murder enthusiast who was intrigued and turned on by dead bodies while also holding an intimate knowledge about disposing of corpses just seemed too obvious. But then again the obvious choice (in real life) usually is the one who did it.
But in the end Hester got away with it all while the Chanels and their ultimate popularity contest was pushed out so that Kappa Kappa Tau could get back on track to the real purpose of sororities — buying your friends. No wait, sorry — sisterhood!
How did it all unfold? Was it a satisfying ending?
Let’s recap the Scream Queens season finale for ‘Dorkus/The Final Girls’ to find out….
Butcher Pete
So the first part of the two hour finale kicks off right where we left off last week with Pete’s admission that he was actually a killer and he didn’t want Grace’s first time to be with a murderer. Something seemed off a week ago because Pete has been such an unassuming good guy all season long but it appears he was the one hiding his true nature this entire time.
Pete reveals that he was snooping around campus as a reporter when he saw the Red Devil kill Denise’s friend in the car that night and he followed him all the way back to the Dickie Dollar Scholar house and discovered that the man behind the mask was Boone. Pete was ready to turn him over to the cops until Boone revealed his entire twisted history — being born in a bathtub, his mother dying, being raised in an asylum and how this can all be traced back to the awful Greek system that created the monster that is Kappa Kappa Tau. Pete didn’t turn him in but eventually Boone and his sister were going to kill the newspaper reporter to make sure he stayed quiet so he made them a deal.
Pete would follow their orders and kill someone to prove he was on Team Red Devil.
So Pete ended up killing Roger (or Dodger, whichever one got hit with the nail gun). He was also the one stalking Zayday and Chanel in the tunnels beneath the house and he also shot Chanel with the crossbow (thanks to her tormenting him freshman year and embarrassing him with a weird The Clan of the Cave Bear fantasy) and the unsuspecting cop who showed up in the mall on Black Friday. Oh and one final thing — Pete is the one who killed Boone and Gigi.
He decided this entire thing had gone too far and so he turned on Boone when the not-quite-gay-but-prentended-to-be-gay frat boy wanted to take out Gigi thanks to her constant nagging. Pete killed Boone and then turned on Gigi as well thinking this would bring the Red Devil murders to an end.
But Pete underestimated Boone’s sister, who popped out of his closet just when he was about to reveal her identity and she stabbed him to death! Grace ends up in a struggle with the killer, but only gets knocked out and not murdered.
Why would the Red Devil spare her? Because it’s her half-sister perhaps? Or maybe she was just nice to her once upon a time.
Crappa Crappa Cow
After her plan to kill Dean Munsch fell dead at the bottom of a pool last week, Chanel Oberlin wrote the missive to end all missives aimed at her sister and their total incompetence to follow instructions simple enough for an orangutan (this was clearly inspired by the Delta Gamma incident, which was later read by Michael Shannon and you should absolutely watch that). Unfortunately, Chanel’s letter made it outside the walls of Kappa Kappa Tau and now the entire world is calling for her head.
With nowhere else to turn, Chanel decides suicide is her only choice but when the deadly snake she bought online turns out to be a garter snake in a sweater, she can’t even get that part right. Out of nowhere, Zayday offers her a helping hand and says that they should work together to find the real killer. A second later, the Red Devil pops out and sort of goes after both of them, but they get the upper hand and end up knocking him out cold.
Downstairs the girls call a meeting to unmask the Red Devil and it’s none other than — some pizza delivery guy who had dynamite strapped to his body and commanded to go into the house and act like he’s going to kill them or the bomb would go off. Well bad news guy — the bomb goes off anyways and there’s pizza boy all over the Kappa house.
The exploding pizza guy doesn’t get much reaction other than waking Chanel up to what she really has to do to reclaim her status as social media and Greek queen — like all celebrities she needs to go on an apology tour and the first stop is Melanie Dorkus — the Kappa president who got sprayed with acid just before she took over the house.
Of course, Chanel’s apology goes awry after she takes the Chanel No. 3 and Chanel No. 5 with her to videotape the whole thing so they could put it up online and exonerate her from the vicious things people have been saying about her ever since that missive went public.
But Chanel didn’t actually go there for an apology. She goes there with a pair of scissors to try and kill Melanie Dorkus because Chanel is convinced that she’s actually the Red Devil killer!
Taking One For the Team
Following her encounter with Pete, Grace is questioning just about everything but her dad is trying to instill in her the confidence she had when she first showed up on campus. He tells her to trust her instincts and so Grace is resigned to finding out who is the real killer but with Pete dead all she knows is that the other bathtub baby is one of her Kappa sisters.
There’s only one way to find out who it is — and despite her father’s suggestions of water boarding or just allowing them to kill each other until only one is left — Grace has another idea entirely. She asks her dad to take one for the team and sleep with Dean Munsch, which will distract her long enough so Grace and Zayday can break in and look at her files on all the Chanels.
Wes does his part and he ends up in bed with Dean Munsch where they have very loud sex with his daughter just a couple of rooms over. When it’s over Wes decides he wants to be with her permanently but she can’t get into a serious relationship unless his daughter is out of the picture. She is unbelievably annoying — according to Dean Munsch.
Meanwhile in the other room, Grace and Zayday find the smoking gun they’ve been looking for all year long. The killer has to be Hester!
Apparently, Hester provided fake transcripts as well as graduating from Sweet Valley High and living on Sesame Street growing up so she could get into Wallace University. Grace and Zayday now have the proof they need and they make it to Melanie Dorkus’ house in the nick of time to stop Chanel from killing her dead by accident.
The group rushes back to Kappa house where Chanel No. 5 is already waiting after she had a Tinder date gone wrong and there’s a scream from upstairs. When they get to Chanel’s room, they find Hester on the ground with a shoe driven into her eye. Hester isn’t dead because she wakes up and points the finger at Chanel No. 5 as the real Red Devil killer!
Winter Initiation
When the show picks up for the second episode in the two hour special, we are in January 2016 and Kappa Kappa Tau is a much different sorority. The Dean is allowing them to hold a second rush — considering nearly all of the original pledge class was murdered — and the house is presided over by president Zayday, vice president Grace and treasurer Hester.
Wait what?
We flashback to Hester’s earliest days growing up in the asylum with her brother Boone and her caretaker Gigi. The trio began plotting murderous revenge early on as Gigi wanted to get back at those who caused her sister to kill herself while Boone and Hester were going after the very heart of the organization that allowed their mother to bleed out in a bathtub just minutes after they were born.
Hester explains how she got into school and even wormed her way into Kappa Kappa Tau — while meeting Zayday and Grace on the first day and they were nice to her, which she replies back and says being nice could save your life one day. Hester was the one who turned on the deep fryer that ultimately led to the end of Miss Bean. Hester also secretly set up all the evidence in the murders to point back to the Chanels and her case was pretty convincing.
She found out that Chanel No. 5’s parents never really liked her so she convinced them to confess that she was the bathtub baby and was actually adopted. Hester also hired prostate commercial actors to play her parents, who were actually deep cover CIA operatives and that’s why they weren’t around for most of her life. She also casts doubt on Chanel No. 3, who is not only Charles Manson’s daughter, but in fact also has a split personality named Dirty Helen, who helped to conspire in the murders. Finally, the finger is pointed at Chanel Oberlin — thanks to Hester dressing up in all of Chanel’s clothing (remember the time she was dressing up in her closet earlier this season?) and she went to the hardware store and used her credit card to buy axes, chainsaws, crossbows and all the other weapons that the Red Devil used on his/her rampage.
As much as Chief of Police Denise Hemphill still wanted to believe Zayday was behind it all she had no choice but to arrest all three Chanels and put them in jail. Grace and Zayday weren’t convinced and they believed deep down inside that it was Hester all along, but justice was still served. Right?
Kappa Kappa Now
Fast forward a few more months and Wallace University is thriving after the campus exorcised Chanel Oberlin and her catty kind from the school.
Chad Radwell is leading the Dickie Dollar Scholars in a new direction where he’s taking all the funds collected from Wet T-Shirt night and the keggers they throw with the money going to charity. What charity? Just charity, all right?!? He’s also been involved in a torrid love affair with Denise Hemphill, but they are forced to break it off thanks to her acceptance into Quantico where she will now become a member of the FBI (and undoubtedly pop up in season two I’d imagine).
Dean Munsch is a best selling author for her book called “New New Feminism” and while it was ghost written (by who she never says), it’s made her a national celebrity. She’s still dating Wes and they are about to embark on a two week trip to Napa Valley filled with red wine and lots of hot sex.
Grace and Zayday are leading Kappa Kappa Tau in a much more positive direction where all pledges are accepted and there’s no more hazing in the sorority.
Hester is even a productive member of society and while Dean Munsch realizes that she’s actually the bathtub baby, they ultimately decide since they have enough blackmail footage on each other (Hester is actually the Red Devil while Dean Munsch was the one who covered up the girl’s death back in 1995 not to mention killing her husband), they decide to go on living their separate lives like nothing ever happened.
And finally the Chanels are convicted and sent to a mental institution for the rest of their lives.
It turns out the crazy house is exactly what these three girls needed. With no more social media or a need to look pretty and skinny, the Chanels can be themselves. Chanel No. 3 (real name Sadie Swinson) is now officially involved in a lesbian relationship with one of the guards. Chanel No. 5 (real name Libby Putney) is on medication that actually makes her tolerable to be around now! And Chanel Oberlin has been voted asylum president and she’s actually able to eat real food now since there are no more boys to impress with her ridiculously hot bod.
The final scene sees Chanel laying down in bed and the Red Devil killer standing over top of her with a knife as she screams in terror and fade to black. It seems the Red Devil just couldn’t be satisfied knowing that Chanel Oberlin still lived.
Overall, Scream Queens was definitely one of my favorite new shows of the year and some of the performances were really great. Emma Roberts, Lea Michele and Billie Lourd all did a fantastic job and Diego Boneta’s Matthew McConaughey impression was so spot on I want him to do car commercials!
The ending left a little bit to be desired, however, as the Red Devil was ‘unmasked’ but really nothing happened. Maybe the show was meant to be more about social commentary than a slasher film brought to TV, but it certainly wasn’t presented that way when the series started. Also it was teased all year long that there would be three or four survivors who would then go on to star in Scream Queens season 2. But basically everyone with a name survived the killer’s final blow. Yes, all the Chanels are in prison and it was intimated that Chanel Oberlin was killed at the end, but there’s almost no chance Emma Roberts isn’t coming back. Jamie Lee Curtis would have been a huge person to off during the course of the season considering her horror movie fame is built on being the girl who always survived. And she did again.
Minor quibbles for a fun season and a solid finale and here’s hoping idiot hookers that we get more Scream Queens for season two next year!
PRIME SUSPECT:
Just to review — Gigi was the mastermind and the original killer (when she offed the Red Devil mascot to steal his uniform). Boone and Hester were the bathtub babies and Pete was the third Red Devil pulled into help them execute the plan.
BEST LINES:
“Your app is broken! I’ve got zero swipes on my profile!”
“I’m literally asking if your tiny slut brains have the power to process any of my super simple orangutan level instructions?”
“If we don’t want him to kill us we just have to avoid places where gay people go. So like behind every Bennigan’s.”
“Like celebrities. When they say something offensive they go on TV and apologize and everyone forgives them even though they don’t mean it at all!”
“Dad, get ready to make the most important playlist of your life. We’re going to need you to take one for the team.”
“Seeing as you remained celibate for a full 18 years and then decided to re-pop your cherry with the most mentally ill woman on campus, I’m going to take that with a grain of salt.”
“Toxic Avenger, that’s who I was thinking of.”
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go disinvite Jerry Seinfeld from speaking at commencement. He told a joke about a woman once — allegedly.”
“Easily cuts through muscle and bone and has the added advantage of making sure your victim’s final emotion is terror.”
“Even though I only ate asylum food and never really exercised, I was blessed with a super tight bod. My butt could launch a thousand ships and my boobs were remarkably perky and even. Couple that with my BJ lips and I was going to need something pretty spectacular to keep everyone from wanting to get all up in this.”
“You’re saying you would have been OK if it was the guy from Nickelback?”
“I lost my virginity to a Nickelback song.”
“She just sucks. Our daughter sucks.”
“There was no way I was going to lay down some pipe in there.”
“Is Diner’s Club still even a thing?”
“What do you mean what charity? Just charity. All proceeds will go to charity.”
“To our fellow students we are super sorry that you are dead. We didn’t know all of you that well. But some of you were hot. I always wanted to have sex with a deaf girl. Thank you.”
SOUNDTRACK
“Listen to Your Heart” by Roxette
“Crazy on You” by Heart
“Toy Soldiers” by Martika
“Waterfalls” by TLC
“Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds
