Scream season 2 just clued everyone in on the very real existence of a new Lakewood murderer, but how much of what Emma is seeing is in her head?
We know Emma has had issues in the past with hallucinations. After Will was murdered, she saw his bloody corpse walking around town, handing her key chains with hearts on them. This was very much a result of seeing him brutally murdered right before her eyes, and it eventually led to her staying a night in the psych ward. After Piper was killed, Emma went away for treatment because her panic attacks and delusions were getting worse.
It doesn’t seem like it’s getting better for Emma in season 2, though. She’s home and things are supposed to be better, but her paranoia is just as high as it was in the midst of last season. Throw in the fact she was drugged and swears she came across the killer in the woods, despite no one else being witness to the encounter, and the show is once again setting Emma up to be an unreliable narrator.
In all fairness, we know for a fact there is another masked murderer running around Lakewood, so while Emma is correct about that, it doesn’t mean that everything she’s seeing is real.
Take the encounter in the woods, for example. She was definitely drugged, and everyone was having hallucinations at that point. How could the killer possibly know she’d wander out into the woods where he could find her? Her father showed up and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, and no one else heard or saw anything, either.
Then again, Emma’s experience compared to Brooke’s or Audrey’s was pretty realistic. She was definitely having auditory hallucinations, but that doesn’t mean she was having visual ones as well. As we were told, everyone reacts to the drug differently, so it’s possible Emma really did see the killer that night.
What about in this week’s episode, “Dawn of the Dead,” when Emma saw the killer outside the office window? She smashed it open with a chair, only to crawl out and see no evidence that he was really there. Did she actually get a phone call from the killer, or did her heightened emotions cause her to hallucinate that as well? The cut on Emma’s arm seems significant in that she was injured by the window and not the person in the Brandon James mask, as though it’s further proof he wasn’t actually there.
Emma is certainly unstable at the moment, and knowing that Jake is dead and another killer is on the loose will not make her paranoia go away anytime soon. Then again, the fact that Emma is so worried about going crazy makes me think she’s not crazy. There really is someone out there murdering residents of Lakewood again, and we’ve got proof with Jake’s body. Nobody is denying that now.
My main concern is how far Emma will go to stop this second killer. She already slapped Haley in the face, and however deserved that was, even Emma was shocked by her actions. She’s usually the quiet, reserved one. I’d be much less surprised if it had been Audrey who had slapped the other girl.
As the story picks up, and the Lakewood Six start dwindling in number, I have to wonder if Emma’s hallucinations will continue to become more real and if they’ll end up affecting her actions. If she thinks she sees the killer around every corner, will she accidentally hurt someone or herself in the process? If they lock her up to keep an eye on her, will she become an easier target? If we can believe the phone call Emma had with the killer, then he’s got his sights on her next.