Scream Queens recap: Beware of Young Girls

Now that the World Series of baseball is over, we can return to our regularly scheduled World Series of sorority sleuthing. Except, well, this episode of Scream Queens didn’t bring us much closer to uncovering the identity (or identities) of the Red Devil — despite an amusing detour into the machinations of Dean Munsch’s personal life, co-starring everyone’s favorite rookie Tavi Gevinson in a fun guest turn.

We open with Chanel No. 2’s funeral (you’ll recall her body was found in that gruesome haunted house a few weeks back), and with her parents off on a celebratory cruise, arrangements fall to Chanel, whose eulogy isn’t exactly a sparkling snapshot of No. 2’s time on Earth. “This is what happens when you rub uglies with my man,” she hisses at the open casket.

And though her remains are ostensibly cremated and shot into space (per her wishes), No. 2 isn’t out of this world quite yet. No, the girls use a ouija board to communicate with her spirit. After all, No. 2 must know the identity of her killer, right? All she really reveals, though, is that Chad is cheating on Chanel (which, honestly, doesn’t seem like that much of an after-life epiphany).

Meanwhile, Gigi is at Wes’ house and playing the good girlfriend, yet clearly scheming with her minions over the phone. (I’ll bet a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air-approved jacket that Boone is on the other end of the line.) Anyway, Gigi and Grace decide to do a bit of shop-bonding, each of them with their own motive for the excursion. Grace wants intel from Gigi; Gigi wants to throw Grace off her scent (and on to Dean Munsch’s), so she offers up a sacrificial lamb: Feather McCarthy (played by Gevinson).

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Here’s Feather’s story: She’s a former Kappa who fell in love with the Beatles 101 professor, who just so happened to be Dean Munsch’s husband. “He wasn’t attractive at all,” Feather tells Grace and Pete. “But, I mean, he was the Beatles professor, so we started having sex.” Once or twice a week — he was in his mid-50s, after all! Mr. Munsch eventually left the Dean and moved into KKT to live with Feather. But Dean Munsch started single-white-femaling Feather, finally — allegedly — trying to zap Feather by pushing one of those old iPod things you plug in into her bath. Feather’s story heaps plenty of suspicion on Dean Munsch, and when Grace and Pete ask if the one-time sorority sister will go on the record for their newspaper story, she agrees.

A bad idea, it turns out, because when Feather returns home, she finds a “ketchup” arrow on the foyer floor, pointing upstairs. She follows, uncovering further instructions…and body parts nailed to the walls! She finally pushes open the bedroom door and discovers Mr. Munsch’s head in the fish tank. Yep, he’s sleeping with the fishes.

NEXT: Sugar party

Back on campus, Dean Munsch (sporting a banged-up knee and scratched hands) is entertaining the dim-witted detective in her office. He won’t be fooled by Munsch’s wiles (at least this time) and makes his case plain: He and the boys back at the station think she’s the Red Devil (why else would the killer target her ex-husband?), and she’s carted off in a straight jacket. Which, of all the ridiculous things to happen on this show, somehow feels especially over the top. It’s not like the Dean ate someone’s liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

And so Grace and Pete have their front-page headline: “Cops Finger Dean Munsch.” Except, as they’re making out in celebration, Grace’s phone rings. It’s Munsch calling from the mental hospital, summoning them. Surprisingly, the Dean is thriving in the institution: She’s working on her art therapy and enjoying the little blue pills she’s been popping. She strikes a deal with the two investigative journalists: In exchange for dirt on Feather, she’ll offer up intel on the Bathtub Baby’s identity. “Quid pro quo, Clarice.” Before Grace and Peter leave, they meet the hospital’s resident Picasso. “I paint them all,” she says. Surely a clue for episodes to come.

At the house, the Chanels have gone back to the talking board to once again chat up No. 2 from beyond. And they test her — asking for the number of tampons in No. 6’s bag, which the planchette gets right. (Answer: a staggering nine. Who has that kind of space in her handbag?) And then, finally, they get to the all-important question, which Chanel poses: Who’s killing everybody? No. 2’s response? Simply: “U.” As in Chanel. The other girls now know what they must do — they have to kill Chanel. Their plots, of course, run to the absurd. No. 5 suggests poisoning Chanel’s bra. No. 6 proposes a sugar party, replacing Chanel’s serving with powdered diamonds. Chanel, come for her Prunex, interrupts their scheming but seems none the wiser and retires for the night.

But like something out of a creepy, co-ed Christmas Carol, No. 2 visits Chanel in a Prunex fever dream, informing her that there are no dinosaurs in hell (I definitely don’t want to go there now!) and that the other Chanels are plotting her murder. When she wakes up and confronts the girls about their plot, well, they don’t hold up well under the scrutiny. Their plan failed because they couldn’t decide on a murder method. No leadership! Chanel, surprisingly, seems ready to let bygones be bygones and buys them Nancy Drew-style sleuthing caps and magnifying glasses so they can catch the killer together. And by killer, she means Grace and Zayday.

Grace, for her part, thinks she’s solved at least one murder. She and Pete find DNA evidence linking Feather’s toothbrush and a bologna (bo-loag-na) sandwich found at the crime scene. That, coupled with Feather’s bologna fansite, create an “orgy” of evidence — enough, at least, to spring the Dean from the mental hospital and have Feather take her place. But, as you probably could have guessed, Feather didn’t do it. As the Dean helpfully reminds us: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

Prime Suspects: “Beware of Young Girls” had all the trappings of a filler episode. Sure, we learned a few new things about Dean Munsch (and about Chad’s lactose intolerance), but as far as furthering the Red Devil plot, we really got nowhere. So my prime suspects from the previous episode — ringleader Gigi and Red Devils Boone and Zayday — still stand. What do you think? Leave your own theories in the comments.