‘Scream Queens’ Recap: The Last Red Devil Is Revealed in Two-Hour Season Finale

Lisa Timmons | December 9, 2015 1:04 pm
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The two-hour season finale of the first season of Scream Queens did its best to tie up all the loose ends strewn about in the 13 corpse-filled episodes. By the end, the identity of the killer/remaining bathtub baby is revealed, all the bitchiest girls from Kappa House get their comeuppance and it almost appears as if the sorority has turned over a new, diverse leaf.

We pick up where the last episode left off, with Pete (Diego Boneta) confessing to a distressed Grace (Skyler Samuels) that he was one of the Red Devils but never intended to hurt Grace as her safety was “part of the deal.”

He explains that the night the security guard was killed, he followed the Red Devil to the Dicky Dollars Scholars house to find out it was Boone (Nick Jonas). After Boone explained to Pete how the Kappa House essentially killed his mother and he wanted revenge, Pete realized that his hatred of the on-campus Greek life made him want to team up to help with the killing.

Pete then reveals that it was he who came up through the underground tunnel to kill Roger (Aaron Rhodes). At that revelation, Grace tries to stab Pete with a letter opener, but he won’t let her leave until he’s explained everything. He goes on to say the two Red Devils cornered him and forced him to kill Roger or they would kill him.

For someone with such resolve to turn down Grace’s sexual advances, he sure paints himself in an impressionable light when it comes to suggestions of murder.

He tries to justify his actions with a quick flashback to Grace saying, “Maybe the Red Devil has the right idea.” Their lovers’ quarrel quickly grows tiresome, until he admits that he killed Boone. Apparently, Boone asked Pete to team up with him to kill Gigi (Nassim Pedrad), but it was Pete who killed Boone. He says, after that he decided to stop murdering, save for his antics with Chanel No. 1 (Emma Roberts) with a crossbow at the mall on Black Friday.

Meanwhile, all I can think is that even if her boyfriend is a murderer, at least he answers her texts. Amirite?

The reason he attacked No. 1 was that she led Pete on for months, toying with him until she played a humiliating prank on him that left him quietly furious.

Grace goes cold while Pete asks her to run away with him. “I hate you, Pete,” she says and slaps him before saying, “I never want to see you again.” But before she leaves, he hints that one of her Kappa sisters is the other killer and the other baby in the bathtub, Boone’s twin sister.  Grace is intrigued and Pete tells her he found out this information by collecting DNA samples from the other Kappas.

Before he can reveal the killer, a Red Devil jumps out of his closet and stabs Pete to death. Grace attacks the Red Devil and they tussle. Grace puts up a valiant fight but is knocked out by the masked killer.

No. 1 is booed on campus by protestors because of an email she sent to the other Kappas bitching about the fact that they didn’t show up to the pool to help her kill Dean Munsch (Jamie Lee Curtis). She goes off on an extended rant before essentially threatening to kill the other girls.

The next day, she pops into the local coffee shop to see that the Red Devil leaked her email to the entire campus. To the press, she says, “You can all suck it!” before deciding to kill herself.

Zaday (Keke Palmer) finds Chanel No. 1 moping on her bed, waiting for the asp she ordered online to bite and kill her. Turns out, it’s a garter snake in a sweater. Zayday then gives No 1 a pep talk, but No. 1 is immediately suspicious. Zayday reminds her they are co-presidents and that they should work together to defeat the Red Devil. Just then, the Red Devil shows up to murder them. After Zayday knocks him on the head and rips off his mask to reveal a strange man who screams, “She made me do it!”

The co-presidents run downstairs to find Chanel No. 6 AKA Hester (Lea Michele) claiming to have seen a woman in a shawl with scars on her face in the kitchen earlier. The unmasked Red Devil claims to be a pizza deliveryman who arrived at the door only to be attacked by a woman who then strapped a bomb to his body. The timer on the bomb ends and explodes the pizza guy, but the girls manage to get away in time.

Dean Munsch arrives home to find it filled with candles and rose petals. She pops into her bedroom to see Wes AKA Grace’s dad (Oliver Hudson) waiting in her bed, wearing only his underpants and a goofy expression with Heart playing in the background. She is initially suspicious but ultimately goes for his dad bod. They have some seriously loud sex.

The Chanels all stomp over to the home of the Kappa girl , who was permanently disfigured from the pilot episode’s spray-tanning incident, Melanie Dorkus (Brianne Howey) — all of them, that is but Hester, who apparently said she would meet them there. We cut to her rifling through No. 1’s walk-in closet and stealing jewelry before ultimately fondling a shiny, red high heel.

At Dean Munsch’s house, Zayday and Grace snoop on Dean Munsch’s laptop. Going through the Chanels’ records, each girl appears to be suspicious. However, one stands out as having a totally made-up background. The two girls rush out to alert the other Chanels.

At Melanie’s house, suddenly, No. 5 (Abigail Breslin) gets an alert on her phone and she says she has to bolt. She looks very suspicious while doing so.

Post-coitus, Dean Munsch and Wes enjoy some pillow talk. He tells her that was the best sex of his life with Michael Bolton crooning in the background. He supposes they were meant to be together. She seems dubious and tells him that she needs for him to send Grace away if their relationship will work. He appears to seriously consider this.

Chanels No. 3 (Billie Lourd) and No. 1 approach Melanie, who reveals her scarred face. After some awkward small talk, Chanel prepares to “apologize” but then pulls out some scissors and starts stabbing to try to kill Melanie. Zayday stops No. 1 just in time to save Melanie and tell them that Hester is the remaining Red Devil and Boone’s twin sister.

Back at Kappa house, the girls grab weapons to try and find Hester. No. 5 is in the bathroom claiming that her Tinder match (the reason she left) stood her up. They all then go to Chanel’s bedroom to find Hester apparently dead with a stiletto to the skull, through her eye socket. Suddenly, Hester wakes up and points at No. 5 as the Red Devil.

Jumping forward to January 2016, a new diverse group of pledges are welcomed by the only remaining Kappa house members: Grace, Zayday and Hester, wearing a bedazzled eye patch.

In a voiceover, Hester admits that she stabbed herself in the eye and got away with her years-long plan of revenge through murder. She talks of her upbringing in the asylum with her twin brother Boone and how Gigi taught them how to murder.

Boone’s fake persona was him pretending to be gay, so Hester decided to steal another patient’s neck brace for hers. A chance encounter with the school mascot inspired the Red Devil killer costume idea. Their first victim was the school mascot. After that, they broke into Kappa house and put the acid in the spray tan contraption. Boone just started hanging with the Dicky Dollar Scholars while Hester enrolled under some kind of “special needs” opportunity.

We then return back to December, where Hester’s being whisked out of Chanel’s closet with the stiletto in her eye socket. Her voiceover explains how she researched exactly how to inflict the wound without killing herself. As she’s wheeled to the hospital, she points at No. 5 again and says, “Red Devil.”

In the midst of the interrogation, Chief of Police Denise Henfield (Niecy Nash) shows up to say that they found Boone’s body — old news by this point. Grace and Zayday insist Hester is the killer. Suddenly, Hester returns up with a bandage on her eye. She explains that she falsified her high school transcripts because she was home-schooled and embarrassed. Hester again points at Chanel No. 5. Grace is not convinced.

The door rings and her “parents” Clark (Steven Culp) and Delight (Jean Louisa Kelly) show up. Hester claims they worked for the CIA, but clearly they’re just actors she hired to pretend to be her real parents.

The door rings again and it’s No. 5’s parents. They say that Gigi dropped her off to be raised by them and they’re done with her, much to No. 5’s horror. Turns out two weeks ago, Hester convinced No. 5’s parents to corroborate her story. For some reason, Denise still believes Zayday is the killer but arrests No. 5.

Hester then fingers No. 3 as another killer. No. 3 has no alibi for the night Tiffany AKA Deaf Taylor Swift (Whitney Meyer) died. Hester also says she killed her lesbian crush, Sam (Jeanna Han). Hester offers up the fact that No. 3 is pen pals with her biological father, Charles Manson, who writes about how to murder her sisters. Hester also provides a note from some doctor who says No. 3 has a split personality, Dirty Helen, who committed the murders. It’s a serious stretch, but Denise goes for it and then arrests No. 3.

The final accusation from Hester is that No. 1 is also a killer. She shows security footage of Hester in a blonde wig pretending to buy weapons from a hardware store as Chanel. Hester explains that No. 1 murdered the pledges she didn’t want in the house. Again, this is enough for Denise and she arrests No. 1.

Chanel makes a run for it, followed by No. 3. It’s then that deputized former strippers show up and arrest the girls, who are sent to jail and denied bail.

Dean Munsch strolls the campus happily and explains how Chad Radwell (Glen Powell) continued dating Denise until she dumped him to go off to the F.B.I. by using TLC “Waterfalls” lyrics. Denise leaves for Quantico and he’s devastated but offers up an emotional farewell. He holds a press conference to announce the formation of some vaguely-defined charity.

Dean Munsch becomes a best-selling feminist author. She leaves a book-signing to find Grace, Zayday and Hester polishing the memorial to the victims of the Red Devils. Grace and Zayday skip away to some cheerful sorority function, leaving Dean Munsch alone with Hester.

Dean Munsch says she knows what Hester did and threatens to turn her in. However, Hester says she’ll do the same to Munsch for covering up the murder of Hester’s mother and for killing her ex-husband. After a brief standoff, they agree to keep each other’s secrets.

The three Chanels get convicted for all 47 counts of gruesome crimes and are sent to an asylum, which they actually enjoy. No. 1 is voted house president and we see them eating real food. All seems to be right with the world until one night, Chanel heads off to bed. As she prepares to go to sleep, she sees a Red Devil with a knife standing over her for a season one cliffhanger.

I’m already exhausted.