2015 has been a pretty horrorshow year for horror television. Between the high-profile, high-production-value extended Slasher Flick of MTV’s Scream: The Series and Fox’s frankly hilarious horror/comedy Scream Queens, 2015 stands to be remembered as a gold standard year for the format, helping us all to move on from the mostly underwhelming snorefest that was True Detective Season 2 and the uncertainty in our hearts towards Fear The Walking Dead.
This is good news for horror lovers, as there are great opportunities available to the long-form format, allowing more time for the tension to build, and an expanded ensemble giving more options to answer the “Whodunnit?” mystery that is at the core of so much slasher fare.

This works particularly well in the third episode of Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk’s most recent collaboration. The killer could be absolutely anybody, as nearly everybody has a reason to hate Kappa Kappa Tau.

First, let’s discuss what happens, then we’ll weigh in with our thoughts.

First, our (hopefully) Final Girls Grace (Skyler Samuels) and Zayday (Keke Williams) are playing private detective, tracing the disappearance of Chanel #2 (Ariana Grande). Grace and Zayday are unconvinced that Chanel #2’s run afoul of foul play, despite the “Help, I’m being murdered by the Red Devil” tweet #2 sent out. The pair are doing some sleuthing in #2’s room, wondering if the giant red stain on the carpet might be blood. “Chainsaw”’s first hilarious moment comes from the consistently side-splitting Security Expert Denise Hemphill (Niecy Nash) dropping science on the Slasher Rules:

“99% of the time, if someone’s looking at a giant red stain wondering, “Is that blood?”, it turns out to be blood.” – Denise Hemphill

Hemphill is breaking the fourth wall, bringing in the rules of the genre in a less-obvious way than either Scream or Fear The Walking Dead.

The trio magically teleport to Beverly Hills to check up on #2, after tazing a freshman wearing a Red Devil suit in the scrotum on a late night munchies run. Chanel #2 hasn’t been home, and has a drinking problem. Her lovely parents encourage Grace and Zayday to find #2, to tell her to never come back home.

We begin to see where the Chanel’s get their attitudes from.

Meanwhile, the head Chanel, Chanel Oberlin (Emma Roberts) tries to get Chad Radwell (Glen Powell) back, with her minions dropping like flies, only to have Chad rebuke her for having ugly pledges. Then he has to excuse himself to avenge the death of fallen brother Boone last episode.

Radwell convenes the Dicky Dollar Scholars to get ‘roided up and form a vigilante mob. In Radwell’s words, “When you walk around a town with baseball bats calling someone’s name, they have to come out and fight you. It’s ghetto rules.”

His words, not mine.

Despite the offensive vocabulary, the Dickey Dollar Scholar’s vigilante rampage is guttingly hilarious, coming off as a mixture of A Clockwork Orange and a Backstreet Boys video. Turns out Radwell was right, as not only one, but two Red Devils accept their challenge.

Big surprise, baseball bats are not much match for chainsaws (go figure).

“Disarm me with a smile.”

While the DDS’ are busy being disfigured, Chanel #1 decides she needs a public opinion makeover. She finds Neckbrace in her closet, an intrusion she refers to as “violating her closet vag”, and decides to give her a makeover, transforming her into Chanel #6.

And last but not least, Dean Munsch (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Gigi Caldwell (Nasim Pedrad) move in KKT house for a week, as a last ditch effort to save the school’s reputation, after unveiling the school’s new mascot: Coney.

Things don’t go well for Coney, culminating in the most hilarious chainsaw beheading you’re likely to see on TV this week.

Scream Queens is succeeding in transforming VERY unlikable characters into sympathetic ones. I personally have despised Emma Roberts in almost every role I’ve seen her in, particularly the spiteful, spoiled glamorous ones Ryan Murphy likes to cast her in. And yet, with “Chainsaw” I found myself nearly liking Chanel #1, despite the fact that she’s said something offensive to nearly every living human during the series so far.

And, three episodes in, it is more confusing and vague who the killer is than ever. Is it the new pledge who always earmuffs, who reveals that she’s the bastard offspring of Charles Manson? Or Wes Gardner (Oliver Hudson), who shows his Intro To Film Analysis class The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as “the greatest movie of all time”?

These questions, along with the non-stop laughs and to-do-for fashion, is enough to tune in every Tuesday. For now, anyway.

Afterthought
I desperately need one of Dean Munsch’s white noise machines, with the slasher movie setting!

Greatest Regret

What might have been, playing “Cocaine Or Dildo”.