On any given evening we each have one hundred billion entertainment options, and quite frankly that is too many. Fortunately over the years we’ve all honed our personal tastes, developed a sort of instinct about whether we’ll enjoy something before it ever even graces our holo-screens or whatever. But the problem with a too-cavalier “this not that” system is it allows for lazy thinking. Many viewers (and worse, critics) tend to write off entire genres seemingly just to save time, and two biggest casualties of this mode of thinking are, of course, comedy and horror. For two of the most popular (and difficult to get right) genres, comedy and horror seem to get zero respect.



Fortunately Ryan Murphy and his tireless team of weirdos aren’t asking for respect and probably never will. Sort of a gay Tarantino, Murphy’s more interested in joyfully mashing together all the things he’s loved about the entertainment of his youth — Heathers! Black Christmas! Jawbreaker! — but without the tyranny of conventional formulae and with a special contempt for things like character development and subtlety. Scream Queens represents the next logical step in Ryan Murphy’s audacity: He’s now mashing up his own shows. It’s like Glee and American Horror Story accidentally traveled through a teleportation device together emerged as a slimy, moaning abomination crawling across the floor — but instead of shooting it with a shotgun I want to HUG IT. (Is this metaphor working?)

While the Coven season of American Horror Story was the single funniest season of television Ryan Murphy’s ever produced, Scream Queens immediately threatens that title by dropping the pretense that it’s even a horror story at all. Sure, there’s tons of murder and a half-hearted whodunnit element, but Scream Queens is discomfort comedy at its blackest. Equal parts hateful and disgusting, Scream Queens is nonetheless NOT unintelligent. It knows full well what it’s doing, namely impressing us with its cast, grossing us out with violence, riling us up with casual bigotry, but mostly just delighting us with its sort of punk rock, TV-show-as-carnival ride ethos. If horror, comedy, or, God forbid, horror-comedy ever got any respect from the critical community, Scream Queens deserves it. If only for the soundtrack alone.

But enough boring generalities… Let’s talk about this week’s two-hour premiere!

We began with a flashback, as many classic slashers do. But this accidental-death-on-sorority-row had a twist: A Kappa Kappa Tau sister died in childbirth! That’s right, it was a Prom Mom scenario in which a secretly pregnant sorority member gave birth in the bathroom during an important party. I knew I was going to love this show when a fellow sister entered wearing an outfit straight out of Heathers and deemed the jelly-covered newborn “amazing” and then alerted everyone that “Waterfalls” was playing downstairs. Whoever these people were, they weren’t human beings, so it should come as no surprise that the new mom bled to death while the rest of them slow-gyrated to TLC’s best song.



Twenty years later we met the main players in this mayhem, all named (or cruelly renamed) Chanel. Chanel No. 1 is played by Emma Roberts — a strangely divisive actress in Coven — who is effortlessly hilarious even when her one-liners are more hateful than a 4chan forum. (In a later scene she screams a line so loud it’s incomprehensible and I’m STILL laughing.)



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Chanels No. 2 and 5 were played Abigail Breslin and some singer from iCarly, and we never get to meet Chanel No. 4, who died of meningitis or whatever. In fact, my favorite running joke in Scream Queens is just how high the fatality rate was BEFORE the slasher-killer even arrives. Sorority life as portrayed here looked like nonstop hell to begin with.

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It can’t be a college romp without a disapproving dean, so here was Dean Munsch, portrayed by the great Jamie Lee Curtis. But rather than being a conservative blowhard, she’s actually just as ambitious and hateful as Chanel and seems eager to destroy a kindred spirit. Through her we learn that there was another tragic sorority death the previous year: Chanel’s mentor and rival. And yes, it involved someone placing acid in a spray tanning machine.

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Honestly that still seems safer than lying in a tanning bed.

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And it’s not a slasher saga without a killer, so meet the Red Devil. Pretty spooky, right? In a clever twist we learn this was actually the SCHOOL MASCOT uniform. So, uh, cool mascot? But also, this meant the killer could freely roam the campus without anybody raising an eyebrow. (This campus is literal hell.)

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The fantastic Nasim Pedrad plays Gigi, a former Kappa Kappa Tau sister but current president of the national chapter. She arrives to, I guess, keep the current sisters from losing their charter. Her main joke is that something traumatic happened to her in the ‘90s so she still dresses in '90s gear, but the funny part is how chipper she sounds when she mentions it.

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So, our heroes and audience surrogates are Grace and Zayday, two freshman with different reasons for wanting to join the Kappas, even though the Kappas are obviously terrible people. Grace wants to follow in the footsteps of her deceased mother (an alumnus) while Zayday wants to become the female President Obama and feels that this would be a good networking opportunity. Are either of these reasons good enough to justify the torment they endure during the hazing process? Not really, but go with it!

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In a clever development, Dean Munsch and Gigi decide that the best way to keep the Kappas in good standing is to force them to accept anyone who wants to pledge. This served the purpose of (a) scaring off most of the possible pledges, who don’t want to join non-exclusive clubs, and (b) introducing us to these four outliers (helpfully nicknamed with cruel onscreen captions). The sight of Chanel watching the candle vlogger’s YouTube channel while paralyzed in horror made me laugh out loud. So did this:

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ALWAYS knock before entering Chanel’s walk-in closet, even when there’s a possible stalker in the house.

So things really began getting interesting when Chanel accidentally murdered the maid in front of the pledges. It happens to the best of us: You decide to prank your friends by dunking the maid’s head in a deep fryer in front of them, but whoops! Somebody had turned it on for real!

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This death was truly stomach churning, not going to lie. So yeah, the killer didn’t even really have to do all that much in order to claim its newest victim. Next thing we knew Chanel was openly bribing her sisters to help hide the body in the freezer. Turns out, if you want to get away with accidental murder, you only need to promise someone a popular boyfriend and a private plane ride to Cancun! Who among us wouldn’t take that offer?

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If I have one nitpick with Scream Queens, it’s this: Grace is allegedly the one we’re supposed to root for, yet she wears plaid paperboy caps? Anyway, in this scene we met Pete, the hunky barista who frequently finds himself on the receiving end of Chanel’s pumpkin spice latté rages. But like every single other character in this saga, he has both a past and a motive to want to bring harm to the sorority. But isn’t he cute?

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The guy on the left is named Chad Radwell (is there any Emmy category for names?) and he’s the self-professed hottest guy at school. After he dumps Chanel for becoming uncool when her sorority began accepting riff-raff, we find out he’s secretly sleeping with Jamie Lee Curtis in order to not fail out of school. Also we find out that she loves sparking a nice J. while naked frat dudes hang out in her bed beside her. In other words, Dean Munsch is very relatable sometimes.

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Alas, there had to be a watercooler-worthy death in the first hour, and this was it:

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After exchanging a few face-to-face texts with the killer (which, the fact that he or she can text with gloves on is absolutely terrifying), Chanel No. 2 got stabbed! Fortunately she was able to kick the killer away, but UNfortunately she was a dummy and tried to call for help by tweeting from her laptop?

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So yeah, she got killed. Farewell, Ariana Grande! I was bummed that she got killed so quickly, but girl’s gotta tour.

But the body count wasn’t done rising. While Chanel and Grace were off trying to build mutual respect at the coffee house, the remaining pledges were hazed by the remaining Chanels. The worst part about getting buried neck-deep in the lawn is that it makes it easier for psycho killers to drive sitting-lawnmowers over their heads.

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It was hard to know if we were supposed to be amused or offended by the sight of “Deaf Taylor Swift” misinterpreting her sisters’ screams as singing, then singing “Shake It Off” at the top of her lungs before having her head obliterated. But I will say that I don’t think I’ve ever seen that particular scenario on network television before, so kudos? Truly a memorable moment, in a time when pretty much nothing is memorable.

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Probably my favorite thing that happened during this whole premiere was the introduction of Niecy Nash as security guard Denise Hemphill. Essentially a reprise of Reno 911!’s Deputy Raineesha Williams, Denise Hemphill was THE BEST. Hired by Gigi to keep the sorority safe following Deaf Taylor Swift’s decapitation, Denise sat the girls down and gave a truly amazing monologue on what to do should they encounter the killer again. The three-step process involves either calling Denise’s name, calling Denise’s 866 number, or RUNNING AWAY. Guys, I immediately rewound and rewatched this scene again several times. Niecy Nash is a national treasure.

Things weren’t going great at the sorority house in general. First, the girls discovered that their dead maid’s body had disappeared. Then, they discovered that Chanel No. 2 had been murdered, and tried to hide her body in the same freezer. (Lea Michele’s scene, in which she gave creepily specific suggestions on body disposal while also fretting about Chanel No. 2’s soul escaping, was funnier than anything she ever did on Glee.) AND Chad kept making creepy death jokes while having sex with Chanel so she had to dump him. Fortunately he had a roommate back at the frat house who was eager to cuddle…

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That’s right, “special guest star” Nick Jonas plays Boone, a not-so-closeted frat brother who just wanted to cuddle with Chad sometimes, no big deal. But since this is a comedy, of course Chanel walked in on them doing this and Chad had to dump HER for overreacting. Oh, college.



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Speaking of overreacting, just when Grace and Pete had begun to fall in love over their common love of snooping in dark rooms (Grace discovered the old bloody bathtub in the Kappa basement; Pete discovered a hit list in Dean Munsch’s office), Grace went and found a Red Devil costume in Pete’s closet while he was trying to seduce her via stripping down to his underwear! Now, despite being a total dreamboat, Pete HAD been acting kind of shady. Hiding in bushes, stalking the sorority, being bad at cutting circles in glass doors, and most of all, leering creepily before commercial breaks. But it seems too easy for him to be the killer at this point? Plus, look how cute he is!

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Did I mention there was a shirtless Nick Jonas workout montage? Because there was. It’s almost as though this show knows that television is a visual medium and wants to entertain us? How dare Ryan Murphy. Anyway, following this classic TV moment, the Red Devil arrived at Nick Jonas’ bedroom door and the next thing we knew, Nick Jonas was lying on the dining room table with his throat slashed! Poor Nick Jonas!

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Also, Denise Hemphill’s security guard friend decided to take a snooze in the patrol car while Denise investigated some screams. That ended up being a bad idea. Meanwhile in the house, Chanel had had a run-in with the Red Devil and fought him off with a drawer full of cosmetics, but that was followed by a hilarious moment when the other sisters insisted on running up the stairs to find the killer while Denise stood flabbergasted at why they’d do that. I also loved when Denise attempted to run back to the car but got too winded, and then when she noticed her friend was dead, demanded to know why she had a knife in her throat. Then she drove off, only to stop and push her friend’s corpse out of the car before continuing on. Denise Hemphill is absolutely the best.

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Back at the house, the killer had left an ominous warning to the rest of the girls. Even though they were still dealing with this terror by continuing to haze each other for some reason (ugh, French lemon soup?) by now it was clear that the sorority was in danger. And in an added twist? The dead bodies were all disappearing! But who was taking them and why? And who was the killer? It wasn’t clear yet, but we suddenly knew at least one person who was involved in all this:

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Yep, after, I guess, playing dead for several hours and lying motionless in a morgue drawer, Nick Jonas woke up and pulled off his wound prosthetic and sat up menacingly! That’s right, the gay guy is a villain. In any other show that would be a retrograde backslide into homophobic tropes. But on Scream Queens? Sure, why not. Everyone is suspect in this dizzying, ridiculous cartoon.

Scream Queens may very well follow the usual Ryan Murphy trajectory of losing inspiration halfway through, but for the next 13 or so episodes, I know I’ll be tuning in. It may not all work all of the time, but one thing is true: Nobody is making shows like this. At almost every turn Scream Queens dares us to turn it off in disgust, but I’m not taking that dare. Let’s dance, devil!

What did YOU think of the Scream Queens premiere?

Scream Queens airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on Fox.