“Someone always goes lesbian.”
Full spoilers for Scream Queens’ sixth episode, “Seven Minutes in Hell.”
Scream Queens did its take on a bottle episode in “Seven Minutes in Hell,” which was almost entirely set in the Kappa Kappa Tau home as the girls tried to use Truth or Dare to puzzle out who might have inside intel on the killer. The scheme didn’t entirely go according to plan, with many more characters dying than there were secrets revealed.
This was one of Scream Queen’s bloodiest episodes yet, as Sam (Jeanna Han), Caulfield (Evan Paley) and Roger (Aaron Rhodes) all were victims of the Red Devil Killer. This episode could have confirmed that one of the murderers is a sorority sister, but instead opted for more convoluted storytelling by adding in hidden tunnels, smashed open windows and no one using their common sense.
The writing flourishes in this episode were the best part, from Chanel #3 (Billie Lourd) and Chanel #5’s (Abigail Breslin) heart-to-heart about losing their love interests to the aside about whether people could lie during Truth or Dare to pretty much everything Chad (Glen Powell) did. (Love or hate this show, every line he delivers is hilarious.) Scream Queens struggled with servicing the plot, as it felt like the show was treading water after last week’s much stronger episode Pumpkin Patch.
We want to hear it.
Pumping the brakes on plot development for the sake of exploring the characters is all well and good, but I didn’t feel we learned anything new about the KKT sisters or Dickie Dollar Scholars here. Even the reveal that Chanel #3 had feelings for Sam felt ham-fisted for the show, which seemed torn between whether to play the story beat earnestly or as a joke.
Seven Minutes in Hell also didn’t offer any significant clues as to who the murderer(s) could be, which is the big mystery pushing this series forward. Who are the Red Devil Killers, and why are they so intent on slaughtering KKT and other Wallace University students? And how many of the people who have been “killed” are actually dead?
The biggest acknowledgement of these questions came in the preview for the next episode, which showed Gigi (Nasim Pedrad) on the phone with someone, chastising the person that they’re in a group of killers, not kidnappers. (Maybe is was Zayday’s killer who she meant had to go in last week’s episode after all?)
We want to hear it.
Also, a pet peeve I developed in this episode: I get that this show is subverting a lot of genre tropes, but it also does a great job of highlighting and poking fun at them, and it has not yet acknowledged the fact that multiple people have knocked the Red Devil Killers unconscious and thus far none of them have taken a moment to unmask them. I am impatient! Do some actual detective work, Nancy Drews!
At least the remaining sisters did seem to have bonded in a significant way, as Grace (Skyler Samuels) sentimentally noted at the end of the episode. Of course, they’re all going to be turning on each other soon, as Chanels #3 and #5 have already made a pact to outlive Chanel #1 (Emma Roberts). Though the list of Red Devil Killer suspects isn’t any shorter, it is worth noting that Pete (Diego Boneta), Gigi, Dean Munsch (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Wes (Oliver Hudson) all weren’t in the slumber party scenes, meaning they’re all worth keeping a sharper eye on. My money is on Gigi being the one who killed Sam.
Scream Queens is taking a short hiatus as FOX airs the World Series, and I’m hopeful that the next episode picks up the pace a bit and rights its balance of genre satire and comedic mystery. Seven Minutes in Hell was one of the series’ weaker installments, though it did have several gems like Zayday’s (Keke Palmer) pronouncement that, as co-KKT president, “the biggest change I’d like to implement is for everyone to stop being killed by a serial killer,” and the Dickie Dollar Scholars’ intervention with Chad for having sex with too many old people.
