‘Scream Queens’ Recap: Murder Plots and Door Buster Deals

It's officially Christmas season, and the remaining characters will be lucky to survive the holidays. For a show with little-to-no emotional depth, Scream Queens has won my heart and I'm sad that this run's nearly over. Warning: Scream Queens spoilers ahead. 

Chanel’s preparing for Black Friday, aka when she buys cheap gifts for her friends that’ll make them insecure and thus more pliable (black toilet paper? They love colored toilet paper on this show). She heads to the mall for a “door buster,” where maniac shoppers are swarming Dawn of the Dead style, and she bribes her way in early to torture them by scooping up coveted gadgets before their hungry eyes. She’s done worse things, to less deserving people, frankly.

Zayday’s with the Dean back at Kappa House, trying to cope with the fact that Gigi’s roast head “smelled kind of delicious.” Munsch tries to stop the Chanels from heading out to door-bust, but Chanel laughs off her attempt at a “time out” and tells the Dean she’s both ineffectual and definitely the killer. They leave her seething.

Grace, Pete and Wes are at the police station to report Gigi’s murder, and Useless Detective is like “oh cool, anyway I’m fired, all the cops are.” They’re really setting the stage for a bloodbath, huh?

The Mall. The Chanels tell Chanel that they bought her a Chanel purse (Chanel, Chanel, CHANEL) and she’s perplexed, but then touched by their kindness. She marches them out to buy them all matching pink jeeps, only to discover they’re locked in…and the Red Devil’s waiting outside with a crossbow. Nos. 3, 5 and 6 hide in a store while Chanel goes off to face the Red Devil, who she’s sure is Munsch (and it might be — at this point it’s safe to assume a fourth or fifth killer may slip on the Red Devil suit to mask their own motives). Chanel’s thanked for her bravery with a crossbow shot to the shoulder, but she’s saved by Denise…who’s the new chief of police, of course. Denise gets to gabbin’ as Red Devil shoots her partner and fells the enormous mall Christmas tree, which is so satisfying to watch.

Kappa House. Chanel, in her feathered arm sling, tells the sisters that Dean Munsch is the Red Devil and she must be killed for the good of all. Zayday is horrified, but Grace steps up to agree that it’s time for a girl-bonding group muder sesh. Grace, what has gotten into you?!

Meanwhile, Chad’s at Dickie Dollar Scholars house calling a meeting to order, but Pete’s the only attendee. Turns out they’re here to read Boone’s will…where he’s left everything — his Johnny Cash poster, his Xbox, the butt plug he may have only owned for show — to Pete! Chad thinks they must’ve been lovers, but nope: Boone was Pete’s source on all things Kappa. Aw, they were secret friends, kind of. Chad flashes back to Pete’s past attempt to be a Dickie Dollar Scholar, and says he knows Pete once had a crush on Chanel. But given Pete’s low-key Boone friendship, Chad says he’s earned a place in DDS. Pete says he’d never, and that Greek system may be the very reason for the Red Devil murders. Chad says any rejection of DDS membership results in a mandatory duel — Pete refuses, and Chad says that means Pete’s gonna get murdered tonight. Thought: Is Pete a cop?

Grace and Chanel visit Dean Munsch’s house to kiss her ass and feed her poison. They bait Munsch with a request to guide them out of their “Taylor Swift-style millennial feminism.” They’ve masked the puffer fish poison as harmless apple cider, which they learned the Dean loves from social media. She guzzles it down mid-story (“That woman was Susan Sontag. And that band? Was Bachman Turner Overdrive”), she totally doesn’t die and assigns them both a paper.

Back at Kappa, Pete tells Grace he’s surprised at her willingness to kill Munsch. Same. He also says admires the Red Devil’s campus clean-up skills (uhhhrrr) but says he’s too into the school paper and Grace to kill like that. Pete then tries to seal the deal with Grace, but she’s all “Let’s Wait Awhile,” because it’s super murder-y right now and its killing her vibe. He restates his very solid "don't kill the Dean" advice and leaves.

Kappa House roundtable meeting about the failed poisoning. Grace says she’s decided killing the Dean isn’t right, and promptly gets booted from Kappa. Zayday says she’s sticking around to finish the assassination. Zayday, what’s gotten into you?!

Grace heads over to Wes’s house, only to find Pete already there. He’s been doing some inter-generational sleuthing with her dad, and the two dudes with similar hairstyles figured out that Gigi wasn’t the fourth sorority girl. She was actually that girl’s sister, Jess. “Gigi”’s sister killed herself after the traumatizing events of the Kappa bathroom in 1995, which is why Gigi/Jess raised the twins to be vengeful murderers. Pete leaves, Grace consoles Wes about the Gigi situation and then awkwardly asks for some advice on sleeping with Pete. Dad Wes says true love waits.

The Chanels are taking Dean Munsch to cryotherapy to freeze her to death. Unfortunately this was recently deadly in real life, but Ryan Murphy stuck real-life murderers in AHS: Hotel too, so I don't think victim sensitivity is his chief concern. The sisters leave Munsch in the below-zero chamber for 30 minutes, puzzling over her silence — is she a popsicle? NOPE. She’s like Rasputin: Unkillable.

Pete gets a call in his dorm room. He tells the mystery person he’s leaving campus just like they should: “The point has been made. Why do you want to take this any further?” He says he feels guilty, and then gets scary-serious for a second, telling them not to call again. Then he opens the closet to his Red Devil mascot outfit, looking very conflicted. Ok, so he's probably not a cop.

Kappa House brainstorming session on why the Dean is immortal. No. 3 wonders if she’s like Teen Wolf, who is very resilient. Hester says she’s probably like Rasputin (that’s what I said!!!). After regaling the girls with a fascinating Russian history lesson, Chanel gifts them all with new Samsung phones. They’ll use them for a plan in which they all head to the pool when the phones all buzz red, and then they’ll drown Dean Munsch Rasputin-style.

Unfortunately, the sisters miss Chanel’s literal call to action, as they’re too busy group-harassing a lingerie clerk at the mall. That means it’s just the Dean and Chanel at the awesomely creepy pool, and the Dean rattles Chanel’s cage in yet another scene that proves Jamie Lee Curtis is the absolute best. Incensed, Chanel storms home to write a harshly-worded letter to her distracted Kappa sisters.

Grace knocks on Pete’s door, catching him mid-getaway. She’s suddenly frisky (aren't we all, when someone suddenly seems unavailable?) and says she’s ready to lose her v-card to Pete Martinez. He says no, because "I don't want your first time to be with a murderer." Maybe he means it like, “I straight MURDERED that term paper?”

The two-hour finale is next week! Share your thoughts on the last killer's identity in the comments.

Order of Suspicion, From Highest to Lowest:
Gigi
Boone
Chanel No. 5
Pete
Dean Munsch
Hester
Chanel No. 3
Grace’s dad, Wes
Chanel
Zayday
Grace
Chad
Denise
Feather McCarthy 

Songs:
The Go-Go’s, “Hazy Shade of Winter”
The Waitresses, “Christmas Wrapping”
Chumbawumba, “Tubthumping”

Child Stars, Then and Now