Scream season 2, episode 10, “The Vanishing,” just finished airing, and this week Noah got the pointy end of the knife — but did he survive it?

First, let’s start off with what the parents got up to in this episode, as their story is accompanied by a series of flashbacks, though it still doesn’t truly tell us what happened with Brandon James way back when.

The first thing we see is Piper’s body on a slab in the morgue. Maggie says she was removed from a grave and preserved to prevent dehydration. There’s a fresh incision along the sternum, and when Maggie cuts her open, she finds a pig’s heart in the chest cavity.

On his way to talk to Maggie, Sheriff Acosta tells one of his officers that if anyone sees his son, they’re to bring him in immediately. Stavo is surprisingly absent this week, which seems to be a theme for both him and Eli every couple of episodes. Is this just MTV’s budget in the works, or is there a greater significance?

Acosta tells Maggie that the pig’s heart is clearly meant for them. He also thinks Brandon James is alive and well — who else would be digging up the past like this and who else knew about the pigs? Maggie doesn’t believe Brandon could’ve survived his injuries, and even if he did, would he really be going after Emma like this?

Then again, Acosta goes to the farmhouse and finds a secret room where someone has clearly been hanging out and thinking long and hard about Emma Duval. Could it really be Brandon James, or is someone just channeling his spirit? There are enough crazies in this town that I wouldn’t put it past one of them to do exactly that.

The flashback is broken up by events in the present, but the trip back in time remains fairly succinct. A young Acosta and Maggie go out into the woods to find an injured Brandon James. Presumably this is Brandon after he was shot and fell into the lake, where no one could find his body.

Maggie finds a knife Brandon dropped onto the backseat of the car, and she and Acosta bury it in the yard. Later, when Maggie is trying to sleep, she sees Brandon outside her window. When she sneaks out to their tree, he’s gone, but there’s a note that simply reads, “Don’t forget about me.”

Brandon very well could’ve succumbed to his injuries out in those woods, but it’s just as likely that he survived. He could be mad at Maggie is he believes she’s forgotten him, but she’s been his champion since season 1, where she explained that Brandon was never the monster everyone thought he was. I find it hard to believe that he’d be the true villain of season 2.

All of this is mere background noise compared to the main conflict this episode, however. Emma and Audrey are trying to work through their broken trust, with Audrey offering her own personal face-to-face AMA and Emma pelting her with questions. It turns out that Audrey knew Piper was Emma’s half-sister the whole time, but she didn’t say anything because she didn’t think Piper could possibly be the killer. Not only did Piper tell Audrey she was innocent, Audrey incorrectly believed they were actually friends.

Besides, the night Rachel died, Audrey was with Piper, which means someone else joined the game early on. What is someone Piper knew about, or a completely different entity? What was the point of killing Rachel? Could Audrey be slick enough that she placed the answer right in front of Emma? Just because Audrey was with Piper doesn’t mean they both weren’t there when Rachel was killed.

It’s hard to believe Audrey would want to do anything to Rachel, even given her temper. There’s a huge difference between getting pissed off and actually killing someone. Audrey is also adamant that bringing Piper to Lakewood wasn’t about Emma, but rather it was about the Brandon James documentary she wanted to make.

Emma still doesn’t believe Audrey, but she’s forced to work with her anyway when the killer sends them a video of a wounded Noah struggling for breath in a coffin. To discover his location, they must follow the clues to one of their childhood spots, a horse stable where they first met and subsequently kept returning to. It was the only good place left for Audrey after her mother got sick. (Am I the only one grasping at this information about Audrey’s mother? I’ve wanted to know more about her since her obvious absence in season 1.)

It’s a touching moment, but Emma isn’t feeling as nostalgic as Audrey. She whips out the letter she found, left for her by the killer, which shows how angry Audrey was with her. Despite all of Audrey’s pleas that bringing Piper to Lakewood had nothing to do with Emma, the letter clearly shows that she wanted to exact some revenge on her former BFF.

Audrey tries to explain, but is shot down, and so she focuses on the task at hand: Who is the killer? They were clearly working with Piper since the beginning because Audrey told the reporter everything about Emma, and especially about the significance of the horse stables. Could Piper have passed the information on to Ms. Lang? If so, perhaps she circulated it further. Who knows how wide of a web Piper had weaved.

In the barn, the girls find a slaughtered pig — of which, I would like to point out, we still don’t know the significance. They see a GIF of Jake’s death, but when Audrey returns back to Noah’s livestream, the video cuts out and she goes into panic mode.

This is definitely not the time to have a discussion about why Audrey hated Emma so much, but it does provide for a touching moment while the clock is ticking down for Noah. Audrey admits that she loved Emma, and when Emma dumped her old best friend for some new ones, it broke Audrey’s heart. Maybe I’m more clueless than I’d care to admit, but this genuinely took me by surprise in a delightful way, and I’m glad Audrey’s curiosity about the same sex has not been swept under the rug.

Meanwhile, Noah really is running out of air, and he begins to hallucinate that Zoe is in the box with him. She’s trying to keep him alive and awake, and while she sings, “Hush, Little Baby,” to him, he sings along and the girls figure out he’s buried underneath the pig. They dig him up just in time, and beneath his coffin they find a phone livestreaming Zoe, who’s trapped in a coffin off the dock where they killed Piper.

The trio race to the lake, despite Noah’s desperate need for a hospital, but it is all in vain. Zoe’s video was delayed, and when they pull her from the water, she is already dead.

For the most part I liked Zoe, though some of her shady antics made me question her true loyalties. I guess those suspicions can be put to rest alongside her body. My true concern now is Noah’s mental health. Two of his girlfriends have been brutally and cruelly slaughtered in a way that rendered him helpless to stop their demise. Will he fall into a depression or lose his mind? He’s holding up better than Emma after she witnessed Will’s death, but it’s only a matter of time before he must express his pain.

Interestingly, as Noah is taken to the hospital, the girls get a call from the killer, who says they’ve already lost. Emma won’t — can’t — believe this, but he says, “Look at the evidence. You’re dead in the water.” Doesn’t that sound oddly cryptic and prophetic to you?

At the end of the day, Emma continues to blame herself for everything that’s happened, even though, as she said earlier in the episode, Audrey initiated Piper’s trip to Lakewood. What really makes me angry, though, is the fact that even though her daughter is being torn up inside by her guilt, Maggie can’t bring herself to tell Emma the truth about her past. What is she hiding that she’d rather Emma think she was at fault for all these deaths than tell her what really happened all those years ago?

Once Emma is asleep, Maggie goes to the tree she shared with Brandon James and, feeling as though all of this is personally directed at her, leaves a note for whoever is stalking her child: “Stay away from her.”

And who happens to show up just in time to see Mrs. Duval walk away? None other than Eli Hudson.

Killer potential

Half the fun of Scream is trying to figure out who the killer is. Let’s sees who’s most suspicious this week.

1. Stavo Acosta: He may not have been in this week’s episode, but after Scream 2×09, he’s not coming off our list any time soon.
2. Eli Hudson: He has a penchant for breaking into bedrooms in the dead of night, and he’s been circling this whole mystery for quite some time. Not to mention he showed up at the tree just as Maggie walked away from leaving a note for Brandon.
3. Brandon James: It seems too easy, too obvious, but we can’t cross off the original (alleged) Lakewood killer. Is he mad at Maggie for forgetting him, for raising Emma and letting go of Piper? He could also just be pissed that he’s stayed wrongfully accused this whole time. Though going on a murder-spree feels a little counterproductive.

Who’s your biggest suspect after ‘Scream’ 2×10, ‘The Vanishing’?