TV Review: Scream Queens (Season 1, Episode 9)

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

EPISODE: GHOST STORIES

THE APPETIZER: Now that Boone has been positively identified as one of the Red Devils, the gals share Ghost Stories in order to keep their fears under control.

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

THE ENTREE: Ah yeah, things are getting good! A week after the cruel punishment of "Mommie Dearest," Scream Queens caps the third quarter of its inaugural run with the even spookier "Ghost Stories." The ninth episode clocks in with a visit to campus from Boone, whose Joaquin Phoenix getup slips off just in time for Chanel #3 to recognize him. Alas, she's so dim and pilled-out she thinks he's actually a walking-talking phantom…the ghost of Boone back from the grave. After a valiant attempt to stay quiet, she snaps and tells the other Chanels about what she saw. Of course, they laugh her out of the room, and it isn't until a ridiculously Couture adorned Denise shows sympathy and divulges a few of her own ghastly tales of terror. By her logic, combating fear with fear helps calm the nerves. She rounds the gormless material girls into a circle and starts with The Kappa – a Japanese ghost story about a toilet-dwelling ghoul that waits for you to sit down before unceremoniously sucking your body under and crushing it into a mound of sewage. Nice! Then there's The Red Cloak, a story about another sadistic jinni that waits for you to run out of toilet paper before presenting either a blue or red roll. If blue is chosen, you get strangled. If red, you get slashed in left to bleed off in a red-cloak of gore!

Soon art imitates life. Denise hits the head and is presented with the very red and blue rolls she spoke of prior. Worse yet, one of the Red Devil's suddenly appears and attacks Hemphill right there in the stall. Somehow she manages to escape, and as a way to calm down, she stupidly goes back into the room and demands more ghost stories be told. This gives way to Hester recounting an infamous meat-hook slasher from the 50s…you know, the one where a motorist is terrorized by someone following, only to pull over and be told someone is hiding in the backseat. Yeah, that one. Again a mirrored haunting takes hold when Chanel #5, scared out of her wits, flees the scene, only to get flagged down by another driver and told someone is lurking in her backseat. The Red Devil pops out and hacks the driver to death. Hilariously, Chanel #5 turns around and heads back to Wallace University. It's there that a row between Chanel and Hester over Chad Radwell escalates to the point of murder. See, when Hester tricks Chad into thinking she's pregnant, thereby supplanting Chanel as his would be bride, Chanel flat out tosses Neckbrace down a gaudy flight of stairs. #6 is 86ed!

As for Boone, we now know definitively he's at least one of the Red Devil killers. We also know it was he who harbored, and still does, a romantic flame for Zayday. He even has the fork-scars to prove it. Boone pays a visit to Chad Radwell, who's also too damn dumb to believe he's anything other than a ghost. Chad lets Boone borrow his date shirt, and when Boone makes a play for Zayday's affection, she's smart enough to know he faked his death and has been alive all along. Grace stumbles on this advance as well. So now it's out in the open. Boone is clearly one of the Red Devils, and Grace and Zayday are now fully aware of it. You know who else is abreast? Poor Earl Grey, Zayday's boyfriend manqué. Yup, just as he returns for a romantic date, Boone creeps up and stabs the sucker hard and deep above the shoulder-blade and unmasks to watch him die, eye to eye. And that's just the beginning of this week's exorbitant death toll! Later, after rendezvousing with Gigi and his cloaked-sibling-accomplice, the order that Boone put out last week to take out Gigi is suddenly reversed and it's he instead who's undone by the hungry blade. Yup, one of our killers gets whacked right in front of Gigi by his so-called sister. But who, pray tell, could that be?

Man, I liked this episode a lot. What it lacked in outright gore, it more than made up with in its body count and moving narrative pieces. Four laid souls, all told, two marginal and two quite consequential…with a sick assortment of death-styles punctuating each. Earl Grey got spilled good, a cranked-out trucker got mercilessly butchered. Hell, I even liked how key characters on both sides of the ledger – Hester a good guy (relative) and Boone a baddie – suffered equally insidious deaths…by so called sisters no less. More than that though, you can really start to feel the stakes rising, the tension mounting, the time waning. I also really dug the clarity finally offered up in terms of the homicidal tandem in question. With Boone now out of the picture and knowing we're only left with his sadistic sister to unmask and identify, we can now concentrate on a clear cut objective. No more confusion, no more subterfuge. With three quarters of Scream Queens Season 1 in the books, we now look to dine on the gory cornucopia next week's "Thanksgiving" brings!

KILL OF THE WEEK: It's a tough call between Chanel #6 and Boone. But for purposes of killing moving forward, let's say Boone's was the most important kill of the week. Especially the way it was framed to look like Gigi was about to catch the blade just before. Nice misdirection!

BLOOD & GORE: Despite the high body count (4), not a whole lot of red stuff was on display this week.

MOST PLAUSIBLE SUSPECTS: Since we're quite certain now that the remaining killer is female, that puts every one of the Chanels under the hot interrogation lamp. Chanel #3 seem the least likely, knowing her pops was Charles Manson. Chanel #5 seems implausible given how often she's been attacked. Chanel #6 is now dead as Dillinger. Could Chanel #2 also be alive after a faked death? Never mind plausible, the only possible gals remaining are Grace and Zayday. Oh please don't tell me that means we've yet to meet Boone's sister!