On September 22, 2015 FOX premiered its new show "Scream Queens." From creator Ryan Murphy, known for distinctive and award winning shows ‘Glee’ and ‘American Horror Story’, ‘Scream Queens’ appears, at first glance, to be the obnoxious, attention seeking child of ‘Glee’ and ‘American Horror Story.’ I’m not saying the show is bad in this sense, but if you watched it, as I did, you would know it is a lot to handle.
So let me give you a bit of a run down on what I devoted two hours of my life to the night of September 22. The premise of the show is based on a fictional sorority, Kappa Kappa Tau. In 1995, a party is thrown at the sorority house where one of the sisters has a baby and then mysteriously dies following the birth of her child. Fast-forward 20 years and a college freshman named Grace Gardner, innocently played by Skyler Samuels, comes to campus with intentions to rush the same sorority. Oh, and fun fact, her mother died when she was two and happened to be a Kappa Kappa Tau as well. Coincidence? I doubt it.
As Kappa has a reputation for being superficial, privileged and entitled, the Dean Cathy Munsch, played by everyone’s favorite Activia salesman, Jamie Lee Curits, drops a bomb on the sisters of Kappa: anyone who wants to be a Kappa will become one. This ensues a group of odd girls, including a candle eater/ vlogger, a neck-braced girl obsessed with death, and a deaf girl who loves to sing Taylor Swift at the top of her lungs, among others. As the girls begin hell week, which I assume is their pledge week coupled with a lot of hazing, a lot of characters catch a case of death; the housemaid’s face is fried off, a pledge’s head is mowed off, and a sister is stabbed. Safe to say it is certainly one hell of a week.
Throughout the murders, the fashionable clothing and the off-pudding dialogue, there is so much going on in the premiere. The main story we follow is to answer the question: who is the red devil? While this story line is unfolding, over in subplot land there is a whole lot of questionable plot lines occurring, which include, but aren’t limited to, Grace’s relationship with creepy school reporter Pete, Chanel and Chad’s on and off relationship, Boone’s sexuality, Dean Munsch’s affair with Chad, and the identity of Grace’s mother. This show is doing it's best to keep itself together.
‘Scream Queens’ is the type of show that will have a place on the mantel of shows we hate to love. It’s like candy for our mind; we know how bad it is for us but it tastes so good. On a more technical level, each of the characters seems like an unrealistic caricature of collegiate stereotypes. Chanel and Chad are the privileged king and queen of their respective sorority and fraternity, Grace is the innocent freshman, and Zayday, played by the endlessly fabulous Keke Palmer, is the token and stereotyped African American friend. The language in the show is also quite a colorful basket too. Awkward racial and sexual jokes slide in through the insanely melodramatic scenes. It’s almost as if Murphy is trying to maintain his youthful spunk he had captured in ‘Glee’ while trying to instill a quirky linguistic style pop culture films such as ‘Juno’ were able to take command of without having it seem forced.
Critical outlets such as Indiewire are more so blaming the network for the oddity that is ‘Scream Queens’, saying “And herein lies the true failure of "Scream Queens": It's too safe. The scares are safe. The jokes are safe. The style is safe. It's an issue seen time and again when broadcast networks try to replicate the success of their cable partners, and one that's been plaguing potential anthology offerings, as well. Creative risk has laid the groundwork for successful anthologies, from "True Detective" to Murphy's own "American Horror Story," and the broadcast networks are either too censored or too cautious to allow such a thing.” Whether you agree with the above statement, it is true to say "Scream Queens" does play it too safe. With a C+ rating from the online database "Scream Queens" will be lucky to make it through it’s first season unscathed.
So, all in all, I can’t say that I will stop watching ‘Scream Queens’. It is a show that is the guiltiest of pleasures. It’s all over the place, weird, not very scary but it’s still entertaining. I’m too invested to give up on this relationship now. Catch ‘Scream Queens’ Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. on FOX.