Scream Queens took on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on episode 3, and while it had its moments, the show is still struggling to find its tone.

Following last week’s 2-hour series premiere, and mediocre-ratings-turned-success-story, Scream Queens returned this week for episode 3, “Chainsaw.” This week’s episode featured slightly less gore and a tad more plot. In fact, it opens with Grace tasering a Red Devil in the balls. Turns out that was one of Zayday’s friends, and not someone with whom we should be concerned.

Munsch has a Rally for Sanity and Calm, which is a pretty forgettable scene overall except for the introduction of another school mascot, Coney, an ice cream cone. Later in the episode, the ice cream cone gets sawed in half. There’s no real explanation as to what the mascot has to do with anything, but maybe we will find out later.

In an actually interesting plot development, Grace’s Dad Wes has become her Film Analysis professor. Grace finds out and storms out of class, while Wes creepily introduces the class to his favorite movie: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This sets up the tone for the rest of the episode, as the Red Devil uses a chainsaw to take out his or her victims the same way. The obsession with the movie might be interesting to fans who think he may be the killer, but it just seems a little too obvious.

Munsch tells Gigi they are moving into the Kappa house to keep a close, protective eye on the girls who live there. She warns Gigi to stay away from Wes because she has called “dibs” on him. Bookmark this sentiment for a later scene that may point in a certain direction.

In another scene that left us wondering what its purpose was, Chanel #3 confesses that her biological father is actually Charles Manson and that she can’t tell anyone this because if she does they will think that she is automatically the killer. Okay, cool, moving on.

Meanwhile the group of golf bros decide that Boone didn’t kill himself, he was murdered. They insist on heading out in to the streets to call on the Red Devil to come find them. Sure enough they do this, set to the soundtrack of the Backstreet Boys’ “Everybody,” and not one but two Red Devils appear in the streets with chainsaws. One of the guys gets knocked out while another gets both of his arms cut off. It’s not certain whether he actually died from the chainsaw injuries or not, but surely we’ll find out in a future episode. Right?

Security guard Denise has done some detective work and confronts Zayday about a couple of pieces of evidence she has found that point to her being the killer. The last piece of evidence, of course, is a chainsaw that Zayday has kept under her bed. Zayday insists that her grandmother sent it to her but not before she gives a look of being caught when confronted by Denise. Again, this does look suspicious to those of us at home, but it just seems too obvious. Could Zayday’s grandmother actually be one of the killers!?

Related: Read the recap from last week’s Scream Queens series premiere!

At the end of the episode, Gigi and Munsch go to sleep but Gigi is forced to sleep downstairs due to Munsch’s annoying sound machine. As expected, Gigi gets attacked by the chainsaw wielding Red Devil, while Munsch is upstairs. Wes comes running in in the midst of the fight and stands face-to-face with the Red Devil. But instead of cutting off Wes’ head or slicing him in half, he just gets a quick little knick in the side of the arm. Could this mean the Red Devil might have a thing for Wes? Does the Red Devil care too much about him to actually kill him? These questions cold lead toward Munsch indeed being the killer given her romantic interest in him. In fact, Munsch comes running down from her bedroom wondering what happened, with Wes and Gigi giving curious looks and accusing her of being the one they just fought off.

Overall, three episodes in, the tone of Scream Queens is still confusing. Yes, it’s campy and fun in some ways, but we’re not sure it’s actually hitting that target. It feels unfamiliar in a way that may find viewers becoming annoyed or disinterested over the course of an entire season. Exactly how much belief in reality do we have to suspend to appreciate the show? What exactly is at stake here? And though the hook of the show of trying to figure out who the killer is (or who they are) will bring most people back every week, the enormous amount of characters we have to recall is a problem Ryan Murphy and company should have learned to fix after the latter seasons of Glee.

We’ll be back next week and likely the rest of October — Ryan Murphy has three Halloween-centric episodes planned for Scream Queens, and no matter how bad a show is, we always love a good Halloween episode.

Death Count, episode 3, ‘Chainsaw’

Coney
Caulfield

What are your thoughts on episode 3 of Scream Queens? Do you have any clear ideas as to who the Red Devil might be?