Dean Munsch becomes a top suspect.
Scream Queens gave a bit more inside intel into the inner workings of the Red Devil Killers in its seventh episode, “Beware of Young Girls.”
Spoilers for Scream Queens continue below.
It’s a turning point for Scream Queens, which spent the first half of Season 1 leaving viewers (mostly) as clueless as its Kappa Kappa Tau victims. But in episode 7, the show finally turned the camera around to Gigi’s revenge plot as she framed Dean Munsch, who she clearly has a grudge against. What it didn’t answer is why Gigi felt the need to push Munsch into center stage.
We want to hear it.
This week we were introduced to Feather (Tavi Gevinson), a former KKT sister who fell for Dean Munsch’s husband, thus causing them to get a divorce. Gigi sends Grace and Pete to Feather, and after they meet her the husband mysteriously gets killed. Police determine Munsch is the killer and commit her to a mental institution that looks a heck of a lot like the American Horror Story asylum if it got a makeover, but Grace and Pete determine the dean isn’t the killer through some bologna logic (literally).
The killer — or should I say “killer” — left a bologna sandwich half-eaten at the crime scene. Overhearing that Munsch has allergic reactions to deli meat leads Grace and Pete to reexamining the evidence and stealing Feather’s toothbrush from the house. The DNA on that toothbrush matches the DNA on the sandwich, and it’s in that moment that it became pretty obvious that Munsch set up the murder. Fortunately that mystery wasn’t dragged out, as she confesses to the audience at the end of the episode that she did murder her husband and set up Feather for the fall — finally, a confession to something!
Even though this shows Munsch is a psychopath, I still don’t buy that she’s in league with the Red Devils and Gigi. If anything, I feel like Gigi took advantage of this opportunity to take the spotlight off of the real killers… but I digress.
We want to hear it.
Meanwhile in the KKT House, the Chanels summon the spirit of Chanel #2, bringing us the long-awaited return of Ariana Grande. Though the scenes where they use a ouija board to communicate with her dragged a bit, Chanel #2’s apology to Chanel from beyond the grave was one of the highest points to the episode. Grande is great in this small role, and it is refreshing that her conversation with Chanel allowed viewers to see Emma Roberts’ character with her guard down.
Chanel #2 uses this opportunity to tell Chanel that the other sisters are planning on murdering her, an after effect of #2 lying via the ouija board and saying Chanel is the killer. It would have been great if she had used this chance to say who the killer was — she knew plenty of other information she wasn’t privy to — but technically Chanel #2 wouldn’t have seen whoever was behind the mask. Whoever that person is, they’re someone who Gigi apparently used to love, but who she also classified as “family” when she was covering to Wes. Is it the missing baby girl, all grown up? Some guy or lady Gigi has on the side? Obviously we aren’t getting an answer to that any time soon.
We want to hear it.
Chanel is able to turn the table on her lackeys before their murder attempt, and hilariously gives them Nancy Drew hats (she starred in the 2007 Nancy Drew movie) to help figure out who the killers are. She determines it’s Grace and Zayday, and for better or worse that’s who the Chanels are going after. Dean Munsch’s loaded comment to “beware of young girls who get whats coming to them” — which was soon followed by an excellent use of Dory Previn’s “Beware of Young Girls” — has implications that reach far beyond the fact that she used murder and revenge to get back at Feather.
These week Scream Queens opted to go heavy on plot over snark, and it showed how weak this show is when its not relying on its strengths: satire, parody and the whodunnit mystery. “Beware of Young Girls” was fairly serious compared to the series’ previous episodes, and it didn’t land as well because of that. It didn’t help that this episode followed a fairly one-off story that at its best developed the Dean Munsch character and at its worst just filled another week until it had to answer who is behind the KKT killings. Maybe getting Denise Hemphill back in next week’s episode will liven things up.
While it was much needed to have an episode that spent more time developing Dean Munsch, “Beware of Young Girls” felt too much like a filler episode that was trying to buy more time until Scream Queens needs to resolve the whodunnit mystery. Ariana Grande’s return as Chanel #2 from beyond the grave and Dean Munsch’s murderous turn were high points, but overall this felt like the weakest episode of the season to date.
