Recap: SCREAM QUEENS – Warts and All

Episode 202 “Warts and All”
Written by Brad Falchuk
Directed by Bradley Buecker

[Featured image courtesy of PopCrush.com]

We start this episode, as is customary on Scream Queens, with a missing body and a flurry of accusations. After the bloody end of last episode the detective accuses No. 5 of somehow unlocking herself from her hydrotherapy tub, trailing green slime into and out of the room, murdering Ms. Hobart and hiding her body and then re-locking herself in the tub before Chamberlain Jackson arrived.

Chanel and No. 3 agree with detective crazy pants, positing that No. 5’s murderous rampage was somehow fueled by her jealousy over their dates with hot doctors. They talk about her inability to get a date to an extent that in no way (wink) suggests that this will be a central plot point to the episode (double wink do you get it).

The detective basically immediately gives up on the case because this is Scream Queens and if you want logic from your law enforcement officials, you are watching the WRONG show, my friend.

We are then introduced to C.U.R.E.’s newest patient, Tyler. Tyler likely single-handedly kept a team of special effects artists employed as they turned this…

….into this….

I’m impressed, not gonna lie. We learn that Tyler’s growths first appeared two years ago. Chanel asks if he has tried popping them and Zayday calls her out for being mean. Chanel says she is not being mean and that “if I were being mean I would ask him if he had kissed a toad”. Classy.

Popping them doesn’t work, as Tyler has been diagnosed with neurofibromatosis type 1. Dr. Stamos says there is a laser machine that can shrink and eventually remove his tumors! Yay! The bad news is that they’re hella expensive and C.U.R.E. doesn’t have one. Booo! Tyler definitely can’t afford to buy one, since his only money comes from writing Encyclopedia Brown fanfiction. Zayday loves Encyclopedia Brown. Literally no one is surprised.

Later, Dean Munsch asks Zayday if there are any New Guinean restaurants in town randomly. This is not suspicious at all. (It is.)

Zayday goes to Chamberlain to dish about her suspicions of Dean Munsch. Chamberlain asks if Zayday has changed her mind and wants to go out with him. Zayday has no time for these shenanigans. Zayday questions why Munsch started the hospital and hired her and the Chanels in the first place, since Dean Munsch hates them. Her theory is that Dean Munsch is the swamp monster and is killing the Chanels one by one in revenge.

Chanel and Dr. Stamos go on their rescheduled date. Chanel gets the biggest bucket of popcorn possible and then drops handfuls on the floor to “make the fatties feel bad about themselves”. What a gross person. Dr. Stamos says that she is “the most incredible woman he has ever met”. We question your taste, sir.

Dr. Stamos’ crazy hand gropes Chanel, but she is (predictably) into that. He then manhandles some Twizzlers from the guy behind him. Candy theft is apparently a turn-on and Chanel declares that she now knows that she is ready to move on from Chad Radwell.

Tyler the warts guy comes upon No. 5 looking down and asks why she is sad. She explains that her first boyfriend was named Lance. They dated all throughout high school and then the day before graduation, he dumped her. He was also imaginary. She thought college would be different, but then Chanel ruined that idea. She points out that it’s been two weeks at the hospital and the other Chanels already have boyfriends and no one will even look at her. Tyler comforts her by saying that he “looks like he’s wrapped in infected bubble wrap”. Aww. No. 5 finds out Tyler used to be super hot and is suddenly inspired to find money for that laser.

 

Late at night, while alone in the darkened hospital, Chanel hears screaming. The doors to the elevator open, but no one is there. From around the corner…comes the Red devil! She runs and falls to the floor screaming, only to have the devil remove his mask and reveal he is….Chad! What a jerk. Evidently he did this before in the mental hospital too.

Chad finally mentions that the screaming is his buddy Randall, who needs medical attention. Chad thinks he is going to die, but doesn’t seem that concerned by it. What a bro. Chad wants Chanel back.

Chad says that he and Randall were on a hunting trip with the “Order of Saint Guntington”. Chanel asks some not totally stupid or irrelevant questions. Dr. Stamos approves. Chad questions if they’re hooking up. Stamos admits there was some light groping.

Once these facts are established, without missing a beat, Chad explains that on the annual quail swim, Randall takes aim at some quail just as Liz Cheney pops up, Randall shoots her in the face and hasn’t stopped screaming since. Dr. Stamos says Randall has the Jumping Frenchman of Maine disease (exaggerated startle reflex). Randall says he feels like he is going to die from screaming. Stamos says there is no cure, but Dean Munsch says the point of C.U.R.E. is to find cures.

In the next scene, a montage of No. 5 appears with Sarah MacLachlan playing in the background. She and Tyler explain that he used to be really hot but needs money for the laser to cure him. Later, the other Chanels criticize this funding video. The Chanels say Tyler won’t want to date her when he’s hot, so she should start dating him now, despite the tumors, so he feels obligated to date her after and will never leave.

Meanwhile, Zayday’s sleuthing continues. She finds out that virtually no digital records of the hospital exist from before Dean Munsch purchased it. Using the power of microfilm, she discovers that all of the visitors to the hospital were murdered on Halloween night in 1986…taking us to the land of historic flashbacks! Wheee!

We see a gruesome montage of a man costumed in a green devil mask attacking people….including a blonde woman who clearly recognizes the mask. She begins protesting that she didn’t tell anybody, before he kills her.

Back in the present, Nurse Hoeffel finds Zayday and Chamberlain snooping. She asks Zayday, who lives with the Chanels, for inside information on them. Zayday finds this request fishy as hell and refuses to help. Atta girl!

In a scene gratuitously geared towards a certain subsection of the viewing audience, Chad and Dr. Stamos have a snarky back and forth while showering next to each other. They both want to date Chanel. Chad proposes a squash game for the right to date her. Dr. Stamos finds this misogynistic and awesome.

Chanel No. 5 lays a severe beatdown on some jerks who are mean to Tyler. Get it, girl.

Then Zayday, with all the subtlety of a herd of elephants playing death metal, reveals her evidence and accuses Dean Munsch of being the killer. Dean Munsch breaks down and admits she’s developed mysterious symptoms no doctor can seem to cure and opened the hospital to save herself. She begs Zayday for help as Nurse Hoeffel drops some serious eaves.

Later, Munsch is walking alone in the dark (which, seriously, hello people, do we see a pattern here????). She is attacked by the green meanie and unleashes the fury of a thousands suns upon the meanie with her fists. She is only interrupted from unmasking the villain by the arrival of Dr. Lautner and No. 3.

Later, we see the medical team putting Chad’s screaming friend in a sensory deprivation chamber while Dr. Stamos’ wiggy hand scribbles something mysterious.

Denise Henfield arrives to finally start seriously investigating the green meanie attacks.

The boys have an angry squash match where Chad notices Stamos is REALLY good at squash.

The girls, Musnch, and Denise all go to visit Hester in the asylum. Despite being behind bars, Hester seemingly knows all the details. SUSPICIOUS. To reveal the killer, she demands a transfer to Munsch’s hospital and high end beauty products that were discontinued ten years ago! This show couldn’t be weirder if it tried.

After arriving home from their date, Tyler and No. 5 share a kiss. Awww. The other Chanels throw a spotlight on them and blast confetti, congratulating Tyler on being able to look beyond No. 5’s obviously hideous appearance. Chanel says they now have the laser, which she convinced Chad was a high end hair removal laser that she wanted.

Meanwhile, Chad figures out that Dr. Stamos’ hand may have in fact come from Marshall Winthrop, Olympic medalist in squash and prolific serial killer. His last meal before being arrested was fois gras rillettes, cabernet franc, and rocket salad….which is exactly what Dr. Stamos’ wiggy hand was writing earlier! His hand is obviously a serial killer. Chad confronts Dr. Stamos with this evidence.

Zayday, being the beautiful angel/future president that she is, figures out that Munsch’s mystery disease is actually kuru, which she contracted by accidentally eating infected human brains. There is no cure. She promises not to tell the board as Hoeffel snoops.

No. 5 is cheerfully talking to her boyfriend Tyler on the phone, happy to finally have someone to talk to who isn’t godawful. Tyler used his Encyclopedia Brown sleuthing skills to uncover some things about the Green Meanie….but before he can reveal his evidence, he is wheeled into surgery. The girls think this is odd, since Holt and Cascade went home to “have a handsome contest”. Sure enough, the girls sprint to the hospital only to find the Green Meanie has lasered Tyler to death. They officially have another serial killer!

I’m not gonna lie, dear readers, this episode was choppier than an episode of Top Chef. There were so many moving plotlines and abrupt scene switches that it was a bit hard to follow while watching it, much less writing about it. There were some elements of repetition. Did we reeeally need to see the Halloween murder spree again? Probably not.

That being said, there is a lot of the frankly ridiculous plotlines that make this show great. Accidental cannibalism? A murderous hand? Check and check. If they can keep the weird but find more of a rhythm, I think this show could live up to its zany first season.

 

Scream Queens airs Tuesday nights at 9/8c on Fox.