TV Review: Scream Queens (Season 1, Episode 11)

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

EPISODE: BLACK FRIDAY

THE APPETIZER: As the Chanels devise a plan to ice Dean Munsch for good, a harrowing revelation about Pete's past shakes things up on campus.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS EPISODE, STOP READING HERE!

THE ENTREE: Well well. With only two weeks of Scream Queens left on the ledger, we now entertain the mystery of the maddening crowd in "Black Friday," a solid rebounder after the overly-safe, antepenultimate "Thanksgiving." And how grateful we all are! The storyline follows, in itself horrific national holiday of overconsumption, the titular mass marketing mania known as Black Friday. Chanel, the paragon of humanitariansim she is, decides to lavish her listless lackeys with a host of cheap, discounted gifts for Christmas. This calls for a trip to the mall for a shopping spree. Only thing, at the wee hours of the night, only the girls are left inside when the remaining Red Devil shows face and, wouldn't you know, shoots an arrow plum through Chanel's clavicle. And just as the Devil pulls another quiver, out comes newly appointed police chief Denise Hemphill. She fumbles and bumbles her way toward the assailant, allows her partner take an arrow to the dome before Red Devil makes a daring escape. Chanel believes the killer to be Dean Munsch, as she always has, and submits the only way to stop the rash of killings is to whack the Dean for good. Grace agrees!

The mode of death? Puffer fish venom, of course. Yup, Chanel and Grace dose the Dean with a tall glass of kill-you-on-the-spot poison spiked inside her apple cider. Ain't doing. Munsch swills that shite back like Bukowski and shows nary a negative response. Total failure. Grace isn't satisfied, so she confides in Pete that she must do the job right. Pete, the shady voice of reason this episode (more on that in a sec), reaffirms that Grace is not the killing type, and no matter what, taking an eye for an eye is never the answer. He tries to dissuade Grace from offing Munsch, which works to the tune of her getting ass booted out of Kappa House for not going along with the plan. Hell, even Zayday thinks it wise to whack Munsch once and for all. But the bitch is un-killable! When the chicks convince Dean to partake in a refreshing cryo-chamber sauna to rejuvenate the skin, the scheme to ice the lady to death completely backfires when Munsch comes out feeling like a hundred bucks. Chick's impervious. Rasputin reincarnated. So what do the girls resort to? Drowning the old crone in a pool, that's what. Only one snag. Chanel is the only one of the girls to show up at the pool, the others too buys berating a store clerk to show up. Munsch eyeballs the prissy snob leader, knowing what she's up to, and again walks away unscathed. Maybe Munsch will bite the big one next week!

Now on to the other major through-line this week, which involved Pete and his ever-shady status on the show. As I submitted last week, I thought Pete was the female baby from the bathtub, Boone's sister, now grown up as a man. Farfetched stuff I know, but it now looks to be somewhat close. See, when Chad Radwell invites Pete to join the Dickie Dollar Scholars golf-frat, he does so only when learning Boone left all of his possessions to Pete in his will. Suspicious right? Well, Pete attributes such to being not a close friend of Boone's, but a journalistic contact. Boone was Pete's source, so claims the latter, going on to reject the fraternal invitation. Later on, Pete sexually advances upon Grace, only to be shot down in virginal reluctance. Good idea, it turns out, on Grace's part. Pete soon takes a phone call, likely from the remaining Red Devil – possibly Boone' sister – and reveals that he's at least in some way involved in the campus killings. Whether that's actually being a THIRD Red Devil, or the transgendered adult of the female bathtub baby, he's definitely in cahoots in some way, shape or form. The show even ends with him telling Grace as much, for when she shows up at his dorm ready to bone down hard, he admits he doesn't want her first time to be with a killer. What a swell fella!

But what does it all mean, exactly? I liked this episode for the way it nicely set up all the deadly ducks to fall in next week's two-hour finale. I just wonder what kind of game the showrunners are playing. For weeks now, we've been led to believe there are 2 Red Devil killers, and now, with Pete's ostensible guilt, we're to believe there were 3 all along? That seems pretty cheap, and an easy way to keep your scent untraced. That said, Pete had long been in my own personal crosshairs of suspicion, yet will have to wait another full week for a chance to feel 100% validation on that front. For that way it is now, Pete isn't a trans-man born a female, but somehow else related to the bathtub babies, Boone and his sister. We know that because he spoke on the phone with the remaining killer, someone we know to be female. A look at the IMDB credits for this episode reveal, perhaps faultily, that an actress named Olga Wilhelmine plays the part of Lady Red Devil. What does it all mean indeed!

Is such a name a planted ruse? Subterfuge? A simple nonspeaking part for a young actress? Or a slipup? Either way it would seem that next week's sure to be show-stopping two-hour finale will likely feature the reveal of a female character we've never actually met before this season. If that's the case, then it's all kind of lame. Why not just render Pete the killer, born a female and killing as a grown man? Too much of a stigma on the trans-community? I could see that. But it would be a lot tidier and more satisfying as a murder whodunit we've all invested in for the last dozen weeks or so. Either that, or make it one of the Chanels. Don't introduce a character we've never seen before and say see…haha…gotcha…it was her all along. Hell no. I can't believe it's going down that way, and instead truly hold hope that the Scream Queens will go out with the kind of twisted, jaw-dropping, grue-slathered bang we all deserve. Tune in next week to see how it all shakes out!