“Haunted House,” kicked off the first of three Halloween centric episodes on Scream Queens.

This week’s episode kicks off with egomaniac Chanel doing her best Taylor Swift impression by surprising her “fans” and minions with Halloween gag gifts in celebration of “Chanel-o-ween.” The pop culture spoof, in case you missed it, is a play off of the Christmas event Taylor Swift participated in last year, surprising her fans. It was funny to see fans freaking out over personalized cards from Chanel, but we again asked ourselves: what is the point of this scene? While we sometimes welcome these pop culture nods in Ryan Murphy’s productions (we saw this in almost every scene over six seasons of Glee), we wonder how much more fans will tolerate when it comes to Scream Queens.

Pete and Grace start investigating the incident from the ’90s by heading out to a secluded trailer in the woods (of course they do!) to interview one of the women that was there that night. And so begins the actual investigation and discovery of what went down that night at just the right time. It has felt like the mysteries of these shows have just been sitting there without any real action to discover. Luckily, this episode feels like the plot and story can finally move along.

SCREAM QUEENS: Pictured L-R: Billie Lourd as Chanel #3, Lea Michele as Hester, Emma Roberts as Chanel Oberlin and Jeanna Han as Sam in the “Haunted House” episode of SCREAM QUEENS airing Tuesday, Oct. 6 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2015 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Hilary Gayle/FOX.

Later, Zayday announces that she is running for president of the Kappa house which as you might expect sets Chanel off. “If I do murder someone it’s going to be you,” Chanel says furiously as she learns of the news. Keep that line in your back pocket. For now, we’re going to go out on a limb and say that there’s no way Chanel is one of the Red Devils. This line made us feel like she is the Draco Malfoy of the group. Talks a lot of talk, but is ultimately too cowardly or frankly, dumb, to pull off any sort of real killing. Her angst is buried in her insecurities just like Malfoy’s.

We flash back to the trailer in one of the actually most scary scenes of the season thus far. The woman who lives in the trailer (with her pet squirrel no less), gets a knock at the door. She flings open the door and of course no one is there. That’s followed by repeated knockings around the outside of the trailer, before realizing that not one but two Red Devils were inside the entire time. As expected, she’s murdered. Giving credit where credit was due, this scene left us on the edge of our seats!

After Film Analysis class, Grace confronts her Dad about what she learned from the woman in the trailer, demanding that he tell her that she was the baby that was born in the bath tub in the ’90s. He insists that she isn’t. “I watched you come out of your mother,” he says somewhat crudely. Grace storms off, but seeing the dynamic of the two of them may help tell the story later on in the season.

At the haunted house, located at Shady Lane, Pete and Grace meet up with Zayday and some others. Denise, the security guard, (who’s getting a lot of screen time for being a security guard), confronts Zayday yet again saying that she thinks she’s the killer. Zayday drops a bomb and we find out that Denise rushed Kappa back in the ’90s but wasn’t invited because she was black. It’s starting to look more and more like Denise may have a role to play in the killings, especially now that we know she has a motive.

Just when everything started to feel like it was going well for Scream Queens, they throw in a social justice scene that really didn’t make any sense for the plot of the story. In the cafeteria, the Chanels took on two guys who were hitting on them saying that they shouldn’t have to be forced to respond, to smile or even interact with them. The Chanels beat them up, and the scene was over, leaving some of us puzzled as to its purpose.

SCREAM QUEENS: Pictured L-R: Emma Roberts as Chanel Oberlin, Lea Michele as Hester, Abigail Breslin as Chanel #5 and Billie Lourd as Chanel #3 in the “Haunted House” episode of SCREAM QUEENS airing Tuesday, Oct. 6 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2015 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Hilary Gayle/FOX.

After Hester runs in to Chad at the cemetery we find out they’re both very turned on by cemeteries for some reason. Hester, who is trying to take Chad away from Chanel, says that he has to come to the haunted house because it would be the best place for them to hook up given their interest in scary places. “So are you man enough to take me into that house and attack my crack?” asks Lea Michele. Oh, Lea, you’ve come a long way from Lima, Ohio!

They get to the house where Hester points out a “wax figure” of Bean, who was killed by a fryer. Except, Hester presses a little too hard on the leg, and puss comes out, noting that it is in fact the dead corpse of Bean. She and Chad absolutely freak out but not before running in to every single other person who has been killed thus far (except Boone, because he’s not actually dead). Whether Chad realizes he didn’t run into Boone remains to be seen.

At the coffee shop later, Chad warns everyone not go to to the haunted house, which obviously entices everyone to leave the coffee shop and go to the haunted house. When Zayday gets there, she realizes that they are actually dead bodies and calls 911, but the responder insists that she just go and have some fun and not worry about it. At the last moment, Zayday is kidnapped by a Red Devil who was standing there amidst the chaos and fun of the haunted house party.

SCREAM QUEENS: Pictured L-R: Glen Powell as Chad and Lea Michele as Hester in the “Haunted House” episode of SCREAM QUEENS airing Tuesday, Oct. 6 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2015 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Skip Bolen/FOX.

Finally, at the end of the episode, Wes and Grace realize that after some investigation, the woman who owned this haunted house may have also taken care of the baby that was born in the ’90s. In the final scene of the episode, the camera zooms up the steps of the house to the woman in black and reveals that it is in fact Gigi who is the hag woman in black!

Overall this episode definitely made up for the mixed tone and jumpy scenes from the first three episodes. For the first time, it felt like the humor and the mystery of the story struck a perfect balance. There’s plenty of reason to believe that Gigi may not only be one of the killers, but at
the very least, know a lot more than she is putting on. And seeing that she is Munsch’s right hand woman, there’s also reason to believe she may have something to do with it too. But we’re only four episodes in, so it really feels like anything could happen!

Death Count, episode 4, ‘Haunted House’

Mandy Greenwell

Update: We found out Caulfield survived his dismemberment, so he was not killed in last week’s episode.

What are your thoughts on episode 4 of Scream Queens? Are we any closer to figuring out the identity of the Red Devils?