Things aren’t looking good for Audrey on Scream season 2, but could she really have helped Piper do all those terrible things?
Audrey is undoubtedly a fan-favorite character, so it was a shock when she was revealed to be Piper’s alleged accomplice in last year’s finale. No one wanted to believe she was capable of murder, but there’s plenty of evidence pointing to the contrary.
Still, Audrey is one of our heroes and this year’s tagline, “Trust nothing,” has me wondering if we’ve got it all wrong. Is Audrey Jensen really as guilty as she looks? Let’s break down the evidence.
The video
Remember the video that kicked this whole Scream series off? It showed Audrey and Rachel making out in a car, as filmed by Nina Patterson. She then uploaded it to the web, upending Audrey’s life.
On the one hand, we later saw Audrey reacting to the video and she was anything but calm. She was so furious, in fact, that she she threatened Nina’s life. The video never got into police hands, which is lucky for Audrey because it would’ve painted her as the prime subject in Nina’s murder.
On the other hand, Audrey has an alibi of sorts, albeit one that’s impossible to prove. She claims right after she knocked the video camera out of Rachel’s hands, Rachel took her car keys and threw them into the bushes. It gave Audrey time to cool down before she did something regrettable. Rachel can’t exactly confirm the story, but it’s just as likely to be true as it is not.
Rachel’s death
Speaking of Audrey’s girlfriend, at the beginning of season 1 we saw someone in the Brandon James mask throw a noose around her neck and toss her over the side of the porch. She was later strung up from her ceiling fan, making it look like a suicide.
When Audrey was brought into questioning about her DNA being on the inside of the Brandon James mask, the idea was brought up that she killed Rachel to keep her quiet. Audrey was with Rachel on the night of Nina’s murder, and with her dead, Rachel can’t be questioned as to the exact whereabouts of Audrey during the time of death. Pretty convenient.
But it’s hard to believe Audrey would kill Rachel. She liked her a lot — enough to endure all the horrific comments from the kids at her school and on the internet. It’s one thing to kill someone you hate, but it’s something else entirely to kill a person you care about. Rachel’s death is still a big, fat question mark, and I’m not convinced her death fits in with the others.
Emma’s harassment
Emma and Audrey used to be friends in middle school, but then Emma got pretty and started hanging out with the popular kids. Audrey clearly resents this, but they still have a lot in common and they both miss hanging out with the other.
Emma is a good person at heart, so it’s hard to believe Audrey would take such sick pleasure in seeing her former friend on the receiving end of all those prank phone calls. Emma reached out to Audrey after the video was posted, and she understood that Audrey was experimenting to find her true self.
Then again, Emma was there the night Nina was filming Audrey and Rachel. Her reaching out to Audrey was partially to assuage her guilt over being involved. This truth didn’t come out until later, so it’s likely Audrey wasn’t working with Piper at first, but perhaps this is what sent her over the edge.
Audrey’s injuries
Whenever you’re trying to figure out who the killer is, you take stock of who’s been seriously injured and who’s been lucky enough to escape with a minor concussion. (I’m looking at you, Piper.)
At one point several of our lead suspects came a little too close to losing their life to keep them in the running as the Lakewood Killer. Jacob got a knife to the heart and Will was stabbed in the stomach, meaning they were probably not the killer. Kieran even tragically lost his father, which also makes him less suspicious. Audrey was also attacked by the killer, earning her a slash across the arm and a nasty bump on the head.
That said, she did survive the ordeal and we don’t quite know why. The killer had Audrey in her grasp, and yet she didn’t take another life. Is it because Audrey was Piper’s partner, or was it because Piper got distracted and didn’t have time to kill her?
The final confrontation
When Piper revealed her identity at the docks, it certainly shocked both Emma and her mother. When they finally went toe to toe, Emma held her own for a short while, but soon Piper was on top. Luckily, Audrey came to the rescue and shot Piper, knocking her into the water, where Emma would finish her off for good.
It’s not impossible that Audrey’s story about seeing Emma running into the wood is true. Emma did take off without telling anyone, and we did see Audrey take the gun from Noah. Why no one else saw either of them leaving, I have no idea, but it doesn’t mean there’s some giant conspiracy.
However, Audrey did conveniently shoot Piper right before she was about to reveal this other surprise to Emma. It’s quite likely that Audrey was saving her own skin, but then again, why would it matter if Piper was about to kill Emma and her mother? There would’ve been no witnesses, and Audrey could’ve killed Piper afterwards if she was worried about her partner keeping her mouth shut. Why save Emma if she hated her so much?
The letters
Now we get to the most damning piece of evidence. At the end of Scream season 1, we see that Audrey had been in contact with Piper. She also broke into the police station and stole a mask and several pieces of evidence about the original Brandon James murders. She then burned the notes and the letters.
It’s pretty obvious what they want us to think about Audrey. She was mad about how she was treated as an outcast. She and Piper had devised this plan together to seek vengeance, both for themselves and for Piper’s father. Audrey wanted revenge, plain and simple.
Except I have a feeling it’s not that straightforward. Just because Audrey had been in contact with Piper didn’t mean she knew she was the killer, at least at first. The letters we see in the Scream season 2 premiere show an angry Audrey writing about revenge and revealing the truth, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she wanted all of her friends dead.
Considering we don’t know where her mother is and the fact that Audrey destroyed notes about the original murders makes me wonder if her mom had potentially been one of the victims. Maybe they wanted to prove that the social outcast called Brandon James didn’t kill all those people, but it was actually someone in the inner circle, like Kevin Duvall, perhaps?
Much like the video Rachel shot of Audrey, the letters could be quite a damning piece of evidence, but it doesn’t mean that the picture they’re painting is the whole truth. I see a counter-argument to every piece of “proof” showcasing Audrey as the killer, and the fact that there’s so much mystery surrounding her involvement makes me wonder if we’re only looking at a fraction of the story.