Headscratchers / Scream Queens (2015)

As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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• How did the police never find Chanel #2's body? Not only were they there to investigate Tiffany's murder, and would likely have investigated the rest of the KKT house looking for clues, but Chanel #2 managed to fire off one last tweet begging for help before she was killed, and now she's missing. Police Are Useless, indeed.
  • This is addressed in episode three when Denise points out the tweet Chanel #2 made. However it's mentioned that Chanel #2 is still posting pictures on her instagram so most people think she has just run away.
  • Evidently while one Red Devil was killing Tiffany, the other was taking #2's body out of the meat locker.
• Why does Chanel refer to Hester by her name, and not Chanel #6?
  • She states in the pilot, she only does that cause she can't be bothered to learn their names. As she already knows Hester's, what would be the point?
• What happened to the opening titles of this show? They only used it for one episode (episode 4), and now it is totally forgotten about.
  • Maybe they weren't used to give more screentime to the actual plot of the show?
  • Agreed on them skipping it for more plot. Or Fox just wanted more time to devote to their tediously long commercial breaks.
• Why does a killer that's after the KKT kill mostly people not actually in KKT (as of episode 10, the only KKT victims are Tiffany aka DTS, Sam, Chanel #2 and Jennifer)? The sad thing is that her and her accomplices have actually enacted a better revenge on the Dickie Deltas, who are as of episode 10, only Chad.
  • Well, it's been established that the killers aren't that competent and usually get their victims out of sheer dumb luck. Also, one of the unspoken rules of revenge is to destroy the people closest to your target before you strike at your target. Example: Why kill Chanel #5 when you can just screw with her and make the kill that much sweeter?
    • That sounds way too much like an Ass Pull.
    • Really? I always thought that part about revenge went without saying. I mean, look at most slasher films like A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy's original goal was kill the kids whose parents had burned him to death. After the fourth film (I think) he had no reason to hang around except that he not only enjoyed killing but he also wanted revenge on the entire town.
    • It's like 'but it's a PARODY!', one of the biggest excuses for the main cast not being killed until it's really, REALLY late (as of episode 11, only Earl and Gi Gi are dead in the main cast, and they were 1) killed in episodes NINE AND TEN and 2) only regulars because their actors' names were in the opening credits, since they contributed VERY little) in the game, and the show going all cheap Chinese knockoff of Mean Girls. Plus, it's Ryan Murphy, and you never go wrong with thinking bad of Ryan Murphy.
    • I'm not excusing it, I'm just pointing out that motivations change when writing a show. Maybe they wanted to kill off as many major characters as possible, but saw a downside to it if they wanted to do a mystery. It's hard to really do a mystery if too many suspects are dead. Speaking as a writer, I know this from experience. However, I think there is something to be said in my earlier post about the killers being kind of incompetent. They have tried to kill the main characters and have failed every time, catching the minor ones in the crossfire. Plus, Ryan Murphy does have a history of wanting to kill off characters and than not doing it because he loves how utterly vile they are. Marcy from American Horror Story is a good example.
    • Does that mean her parents didn't go on vacation?!
    • The D Ds actively challenged the Red Devil to a fight, and frequently hung around the KK Ts (since many of them were romantically involved). They kept getting killed, because they kept putting themselves in the line of fire.
• Why does Denise insist that Zayday is the killer? The characters know the Red Devils are the Bathtub Babies, and that they were the children of a Kappa sister, who is white! Zayday would be at the bottom of a suspect list!
  • Rule of Funny. Denise even suggests she thinks Zayday did it while arresting the Chanels for the murders.
    • Zayday calls her out on this at one point. She reveals that Denise resents Zayday because she was kicked out of Kappa in the 80s for being black and at that point a black girl was running for president. Plus Denise wasn't all that smart, she just hated Zayday.
• Who actually killed Gigi? Hester claimed to have only killed Pete, but Gigi wasn't among the people that Pete admitted to killing, and he would've had a perfect chance to do so earlier when he killed Boone, especially since backstabbing him like that earned Gigi's trust. And both Boone's dialogue before getting killed and Gigi's after it happened suggested that both believed Hester to be the other Red Devil in the room rather than Pete, suggesting that the two of them had planned to kill Gigi and that the "sudden change of plans" was a result of the wrong Red Devil being there. So most evidence points to Hester in spite of that claim.
  • For that matter, how can Hester even wear the Red Devil costume properly? Pete claims to have trouble seeing in the costume, which makes sense since Riley Schmidt, the actor who portrays the Red Devil when costumed, is 6'0" and Diego Boneta is only 5'8"; fellow male Red Devil Nick Jonas is 5'7". But Lea Michele is only 5'2"! For it not to immediately be obvious when it's her in the costume, they'd have to all be wearing the same size costume which apparently adds ten inches to her height.
  • Lifts. Plus, she did mention that she learned to sow, so she could've taken the costume in so she could use it. Considering that they had more than one costume and everyone knew there were two, it's not that far out of the realm that she just used one she made for herself.
• How was Boone able to get into the Dickie Dollar Scholars?
  • That is actually a pretty easy question to answer: I'm pretty they only accepted rowdy doofuses into the group and Boone struck me as the type who fits that bill. Considering that he's just pretending to be a student and those guys are not very smart, he could easily join.
  • When Pete tries to join, he's rejected because he's not into golf or physical fitness. Boone's clearly in good shape, so he may have just gotten his way in because of that and learned enough about golf to bluff his way in.
• How did the killer get into the room to kill Pete? In the third last episode Pete is talking to the killer on the phone telling them they should get out of town. He then opens the closet to and the camera pans across to the empty Red Devil costume. Then Grace arrives and asked why is he all packed and the episode ends. The very next episode begins with Pete detailing the murders in his room. At no point do they leave the room until Grace leaves disgusted and Pete tempts her back telling her she'll never find out that the remaining killer is one of her sorority sisters. Just before the reveal, the killer bursts from the same closet that Pete opened earlier and stabs him. So, was Hester in the closet the whole time while on the phone to Pete from earlier?
• I'm confused about the timeline. Chanel repeatedly talks about the events of season 1 taking place two years ago. But season 1 takes place in 2015 (as stated by her first Chanel-o-ween video) and season 2 takes place in 2016 (as stated by her second Chanel-o-ween video.) So less than a year has passed at this point.
  • A retcon, maybe? Or the writers just accidentally messing up the timeline...
  • Yep they messed up the timeline. The premiere introduced a Time Skip, but then they started including references to 2016's events - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Donald Trump being elected etc.
• There are numerous references on this site to Chad supposedly keeping his promise to Chanel to remain faithful. However, the episode in which Chanel has him make that promise, "Seven Minutes in Hell," it's specifically mentioned (earlier in that episode) that Chad and Hester have not yet had sex. So, why do so many people insist that he remained faithful after it's explicitly stated that he and Hester have been having sex AFTER this- is this Troper missing something, or are fans just wanting to make Chad look better?
  • The latter, I guess. Chanel #2 slept with Chad, and I believe 3 and 5 were at least implied to have slept with him as well.
  • Is it possible that Hester made up some story about how she got pregnant without sex, and Chad being the Dumb Jock he is, believed it?
• In season one, Chanel's minions work for her because she pays them and because being a Chanel/Kappa boosts their popularity. Okay, works well enough to explain why they stick around and put up with her bitchiness, I guess. But in season two, where Chanel is too broke to pay them, and where they are pariahs because of their horrible personalities, why on earth do Chanel 3 and (''especially'') Chanel 5 stick around? What exactly do they get out of dealing with Chanel? Especially considering that Chanel 1 is objectively the Worst of the Chanels, so associating with her would only make regaining their popularity even harder.
  • All of them are doomed pariahs with nothing else left but each other. They have no friends, family, money or notable skills. They need to stay together out of necessity, especially since it's incredibly hard for people like them to survive out on their own. #5 particularly needs them, because as much as Chanel abuses her, the world hates her and very few people want to put up with her. For what it's worth, though, Chanel and #3 are at least on good terms with each other, Chanel's bossiness aside.
    • Okay, thank you that helps me make sense of it. I still think it'a ridiculous but hey, this is Scream Queens.
• Anyone else finding Hester to be a massive Creator's Pet???? I mean, it was bad enough in season one (where the entire finale all but dropped the "horror-comedy" in favor of forty minutes of 'Look at how cool Lea- er, Hester is') but it's even worse now in season two. While Wes not holding Hester's involvement in the S1 murders is a stretch, her being hi daughter at least helps it make sense. Hoffel, who wants to kill all three Chanels for something only Chanel O did, and on accident, to the point of murdering completely innocent people, is for some reason perfectly fine working with/for Hester, the girl who PLANNED Miss Bean's death and turned the fryer on?? And Chanel Oberlin- you know, the girl who tried to drown a woman for an insulting photo collage- complimenting Hester for framing her for murder?! As well as Chanel- C H A N E L- congratulating Hester for being the smartest of all the Chanels?? I mean, is anyone else tired of the show morphing characters and forsaking humor just for the sake of trying to convince us how awesome Hester is??
  • You're not alone - the subreddit despises her. I feel like the writers glorify her a lot because they want to justify why characters don't just straight-up off her, and let her weirdness, awkwardness and unlikability be the source of her humor.
• As of episode 9, the hospital is still hiding bodies in the swamp. Why though? It's been established at least twice that the public knows that there's a murder going around, and they treat it just as casually as the others do. Dumping them in the swamp would just raise questions.
• Why does Cassidy complain that killing the staff was too hard? He had #5 trapped in a bathtub during his first kill. Why go for Catherine? Especially given his backstory, you'd think he'd go for a staff member in that situation.
  • I think he killed Catherine because the plan was to discredit the hospital. It's worse for them if the patients die rather than the staff.
• Why, exactly, is Grace in a mental institution? The way Wes described her change of behavior, it didn't sound any worse than her just being depressed, which- as someone who is depressed- doesn't sound extreme enough to warrant her being sent to a mental ward. I would dismiss it as part of the joke, but the show seems to take that pretty seriously, so...
  • Grace sent three innocent girls to prison for crimes they didn't commit. I'd say that was the final straw in what was already a really testing year for her. Besides seeing her fellow sorority sisters being horribly murdered, the boy she liked turned out to be a killer, she had the image of her mother destroyed and learned the dark side of sorority life.
    • You're misinterpreting the question. I wasn't confused as to what CAUSED Grace's supposed mental break, but what in Grace's BEHAVIOR warrented being committed to a mental asylum. As I said, she hadn't been said to have done or said anything extreme or alarming enough to justify it, at worst sounding mildly depressive.
  • Some people react to trauma differently. And we never see exactly what she's like now, so it seems that she got so bad she had to be committed for treatment. Some people get committed because they're a danger to themselves, or else they can enter voluntarily to seek treatment. Given the list of traumas above, Grace may have needed to enter a facility if Wes wasn't able to take good enough care of her at home.
• What's with so many fans seeming to think Chanel #3 being- well, a bitch, to Chanel #5 is a new thing that started in season two? In season one, they had maybe two peaceful interactions- clinking their drinks together when Chanel was getting her white eyeliner, and of course them comforting each other after the loss of Sam and Rodger- the latter of which was followed by Chanel #3 joining Chanel in bullying Chanel #5 away from dancing with them. Is it a case of fans forgetting that this was already a thing in season one or am I overlooking something?
• Brock's character seems to change from episode to episode. In the early episodes, he adores Chanel's bitchy attitude and works very hard to keep his hand from killing or hurting people. Then after the first few episodes, he starts getting annoyed with Chanel's immaturity and lack of carnal passion and becomes sexually obsessive over Dean Munsch, and proposes an affair between them, but he still has some regrets about hurting Chanel. Then, in the last two episodes he is "seduced" by Hester into embracing his "killer instincts" and beginning a relationship with her, after which he is suddenly disgusted at the thought of being intimate with Munsch and thoroughly enthused to recreationally murder and eat people with Hester. Is there an explanation for this that This Troper missed? Because it all seemed to happen without cause?
  • Brock's serial killer hand probably started poisoning his mind the more he started to accept it. As for him losing interest in Chanel, it makes sense: as time went on, he's seeing her less appealing sides, realizing that they don't really click in a lot of ways, and that Chanel regularly gets on his nerves.
• Cathy was just about to shut down the KKT sorority in the first episode, but Gigi stepped in and prevented it. But why? If the sorority shuts down, her mission is complete without her having to do anything.
  • Gigi spent so long planning her revenge scheme that maybe she couldn't deviate from the plan. Or maybe she wanted KKT to be ruined on a much larger scale. And she was crazy, so the logical solution might not have been a solution to her.
• Why did Gigi not simply give the Bathtub Babies up for adoption after her sister Amy committed suicide out of guilt for being complicit in Sophia's death? Gigi wasn't responsible for what happened to their mother and thus wouldn't have felt responsible for taking care of them either, but instead she ruins her life, goes insane and raises Boone and Hester to be killers, when things could have gone so much better for all three of them if she'd just given the babies to people more equipped to take care of them.