‘Scream Queens’ Recap: Girl Gang, Interrupted

Warning: This recap of the “Chanel Pour Homme-icide” episode of Scream Queens contains spoilers.

Though Scream Queens continues to be the most disgusting, ludicrous, and insane show in primetime, the most perverse thing about Season 2 has been its air schedule. Before this week, when was the last time a new episode aired? Should we ask our grandparents? Is Scream Queens considered a pre-War show? Fortunately — despite telling a serialized story — we truly do not need to remember anything about previous episodes of Scream Queens to enjoy it! Heck, even a full and clear recall of every detail of this show will not make it any more coherent. All you need to know about this season is, a lot of characters “work” at a hospital and a masked killer recently murdered Scream Queens’ two biggest fan faves. Truly gutsy!

“Chanel Pour Homme-icide” continued the Scream Queens tradition of sidelining all logic and reasonability in favor of true ridiculousness. Like, a major subplot this week involved wacky accents. On the upside? It’s still hilarious as h*ck. Let’s talk about it!

This particular hour of cartoon madness began with a solemn tragedy… The discovery of Agent Denise Hemphill’s body!

Dean Munsch took her pulse and declared Denise real dead, and the rest of the group couldn’t help but mourn what a loss they’d just suffered.

They were so sad, they had to hush a nearby stabbing victim.

This was honestly so dark and made me laugh out loud… The depths of Chanel’s hatred for Chanel No. 5 has been one of the more outrageous elements of this season. Chanel No. 5 was legit bleeding out on the ground from a MACHETE STABBING and Chanel nastily lectured her about making this about her. This show has the blackest heart for sure.

In a very bizarre moment, Dean Munsch then confided in Zayday that Denise wasn’t entirely dead — merely brain dead — and they both placed Denise in a homemade cryogenic freezer Dean Munsch had hidden in the basement. (This show is bordering on avant-garde at this point, like a dream sequence in an Italian horror film. Because WHAT?) But at least this meant Denise could very well return in the future! I’m gonna hold onto that hope with both hands.

The recognizable-comedy-actor-guest-star-with-an-affliction this week was Reno 911‘s Mary Birdsong, playing a U.N. diplomat who suffered a head injury and couldn’t stop switching between foreign accents. Fortunately her accents weren’t TOO problematic or offensive. German, Russian, Australian, all pretty reasonable. But if she’d gotten into, like Chinese Pidgin English or something, I would have passed away right then and there. Admirable restraint, Scream Queens!

Though it’s STILL not entirely clear why the Chanels are employed by this hospital or what their duties even entail, this week they found themselves on bedpan scrubbing duty, which they did not particularly enjoy. Nurse Kirstie Alley even showed up at one point and gave them catheters to clean (some were still “juicy”) and also tasked Chanel with rinsing some stool samples for “fecal transplants.” I truly didn’t need to hear that phrase and now I can’t unhear it. We’re all in this together now, friends!

I had to hand it to Abigail Breslin… She’s always been overshadowed by the comedy pros on this show, but I think she gave by far the most hilarious performance in this episode. I guess sticking her in some pretty severe arm and neck braces just turned her into a total weirdo, so every facial expression and grunt just made me laugh so much. Obviously the joke of her character has always been how she invites abuse from her friends, but this was the first time Chanel No. 5’s patheticness was almost endearing. Credit where credit’s due!

Chanel’s big idea this episode was hilariously reasonable: She needed more “Chanels” so that the Green Meanie would have more options of people to kill before he got to her. But not being in a college sorority really hampered the Chanels’ abilities to recruit. Fortunately their No. 1 fan (a prolific author of Chanel slash-fic) was more than willing to become their first ever male Chanel! He was, of course, christened “Chanel Pour Homme.”

In addition to recruiting two more “odd disease” patients (the TRUE cannon fodder this season), including a woman with Marfan syndrome and another with Moebius syndrome, Chanel also re-recruited a former Chanel… Hester! Obviously this presented a problem, as Hester is an active serial killer who had once tried to murder the Chanels. But as Chanel pointed out, it did present an advantage to have someone on their side who could possibly protect them from the Green Meanie. (Except, we saw that they are kinda in league in the previous episode, so.)

I’d forgotten that the major mystery of this season was what became of the baby who’d been born to the widow back in the ’80s. Zayday and Chanel No. 5 decided to investigate, and they tracked down the actual lady from the flashback! Though, considering she was supposed to be 30 years older now, I feel like her “old age” makeup was the most suspicious thing about her. Yes, she definitely looked mid-50s. But Zayday and Chanel No. 5 bizarrely did not ask her for a picture of her son? Real great detective work, ladies.

So, remember the patient with the crazy foreign accents? Apparently her illness was CONTAGIOUS. Because the next thing we knew, Dr. Taylor Lautner, Chanel No. 3, and Dr. Brock started bantering in basically every accent possible. The whole thing was so ridiculous but I really enjoyed it. (Billie Lourd was nailing ’em!)

This show.

Zayday came to suspect that perhaps Chamberlain the candy striper was a possible candidate for Green Meanie, especially when she discovered that the mystery baby was mixed race. Chamberlain seemed even shadier when everyone realized he wasn’t even technically employed at the hospital and had been candy striping pro bono for years. But as he explained to Zayday (while holding a very trustworthy-looking kitten), he liked to help people and the hospital was on his bus route. No further questions!

For some reason Dean Munsch decided she had HAD IT with Kirstie Alley, so she up and fired her! Even more baffling, the reason she cited was that Kirstie Alley had been too mean to the Chanels. Because Dean Munsch was now a friend and protector of the Chanels? Just go with it.

But unfortunately Kirstie Alley had a trick up her sleeve: BLACKMAIL. She threatened to out Dean Munsch for having a cannibalism-derived terminal illness if she fired her, so obviously Dean Munsch did not fire her. That’s sort of how this hospital runs, on a steady stream of blackmail and murder cover-ups. Just like any good business.

Because the Chanels wanted to keep themselves safe, they needed to get the Green Meanie to go after their newly recruited Chanels. This meant they needed to have a slumber party ASAP (complete with makeovers!) and then send one of the Chanels off on an errand all by her lonesome. Surely this would attract the Green Meanie, right? Right. Because within minutes Chanel Pour Homme was bisected on a slab! As Chanel No. 3 later pointed out, their plan was all baiting and no actual catching of the killer. Better luck next time.

Also out of nowhere, Dean Munsch punished the girls for recruiting new Chanels by… Recruiting more Chanels? So these three poor souls suddenly got roped into getting verbally abused and potentially murdered by a killer. And in exchange for what? They weren’t even sure! Much like we the viewers, they were just going to have to go with it.

Except, as expected, within seconds the Green Meanie showed up and started murderin’! When confronted with the first girl, he discovered that her medical abnormality was she had 11 fingers. And it was a gruesome bit of comedy when he thoughtfully sliced off the extra one, and the girl was GRATEFUL.

But before she could give the Green Meanie an appreciative hug, he stabbed her with both machetes. Some people just can’t accept gratitude!

Our final reveal was a relatively big one (for this show)… That mystery baby from 30 years ago? Was Dr. Taylor Lautner! Or at least he shares the same mother as the mystery baby. Was he a revenge-minded psychopath looking to slice and dice his way through the local population? And what’s the deal with him being an actual corpse again? Remember that? How do these things tie together? We got a bunch more episodes left to explain it, I guess.

“Chanel Pour Homme-icide” was a frivolous and ridiculous hour of television, but it was never boring. If you like these characters (and actors) and don’t want to have to get overly analytical with “plots” or “logic,” then Scream Queens remains a delight. Fingers crossed we’ll get another new episode next week, can’t always be sure these days.

What did YOU think of “Chanel Pour Homme-icide”?

Scream Queens airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on Fox. Watch clips and full episodes of Scream Queens for free on Yahoo View.