- Emma Roberts as Chanel Oberlin
- Ariana Grande as Katherine (Chanel #2)
- Billie Lourd as Chanel #3
- Abigail Breslin as Sarah Tourse (Chanel #5)
- Jamie Lee Curtis as Dean Cathy Munsch
- Lea Michele as Hester
- Keke Palmer as Zayday
- Skyler Samuels as Grace
- Niecy Nash as Denise
- Nasim Pedrad as Gigi
- Oliver Hudson as Wes
- Diego Boneta as Pete Diller
- Glen Powell as Chad
- Lucien Laviscount as Earl
- Nick Jonas as Boone
Season 1
Scream Queens [Season 1, Episode 1]
Pilot
Shown 22 Sep 15
Chanel ( Emma Roberts ) is the boss of a cliquish US College Sorority. Like her role in the previous show by Ryan Murphy – American Horror Story: Coven , in other words. However, the bossy Dean ( Jamie Lee Curtis ) changes the rules and insists the Sorority must drop all standards and accept anyone who applies. The result is a female version of Revenge of the Nerds , with new pledges who include Lea Michele in a neck-brace.
There is a more serious side to the show. Yes, it is a light-hearted look at a specific sub-genre of Hollywood movie. However, it becomes apparent that it is the teen slasher genre when the sisters start to get bumped off by a serial killer clad in a red devil Halloween costume.
There are lots of suspects, as the killer’s motive is implied to be linked to a pledge sister who died in childbirth twenty years previously.
Scream Queens [Season 1, Episode 2]
Hell Week
Shown 22 Sep 15
Chanel ( Emma Roberts ) is stuck with the problem of disposing of a body. Luckily the new pledges include Hester ( Lea Michele in a neck-brace), who knows a lot more about disposing of a corpse than an average person ought to.
The smart thing to do would be to shut down the entire college campus to prevent further deaths. However, the bossy Dean ( Jamie Lee Curtis ) does not want the bad publicity so she keeps things going as usual. A security guard, Denise Hempfield, is hired to protect the sorority house. She is a woman of colour - how long before the killer targets her?
Scream Queens [Season 1, Episode 3]
Chainsaw
Shown 29 Sep 15
Chanel ( Emma Roberts ) tries to get back together with her high-status boyfriend. He is vulnerable because his gay buddy is dead, although nobody seems to have noticed that ALL the bodies are missing. Yes, individuals notice that one or two bodies are gone, but nobody puts it all together. Instead they all care about status - so Chanel agrees to give Hester ( Lea Michele ) a makeover, making her more recognisable to her fans. Once again, Emma Roberts is the Mean Girl and Lea Michele is the class reject. This is uninspired and unoriginal casting – would it have been better if they switched roles? Perhaps the show will allow the characters the opportunity to develop, and thus the actresses would be able to do some actual acting!
The Dean ( Jamie Lee Curtis ) holds a public meeting at the Take Back The Night rally. The students do not care about stopping the killer, they just want to announce that they are not associated with the sorority so they will not be on the hit-list. It does not help that the killer's disguise is the costume of the college's official mascot. A new mascot costume is unveilled.
The Final Girl, her Token Black Girl room-mate Zayday, and the feisty African-American Security guard lady Denise Hempfield visit the parents of one victim - Roger Bart (Revenge) and Charisma Carpenter . Another parent visits the campus - specifically the Final Girl's father, who is now the teacher of Intro to Film Analysis. He has chosen Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) as the class's first movie to analyse. Naturally, the serial killer chooses the chainsaw as his new weapon of preference. This comes in particularly unseful when taking on the golf club and their wooden baseball bats. And finally, someone realises there may be more than one killer!
Scream Queens [Season 1, Episode 4]
Haunted House
Shown 06 Oct 15
This episode focuses of Chanel ( Emma Roberts ). In a great parody of the MTV celebrity-meets-her-fans shows, she spreads Halloween cheer to average-looking girls – they all have brunette hair and a healthy body-weight. Later she boots her popularity in the student community – first by sexually objectifying herself in the cafeteria (unfair, perhaps – she always objectifies herself) but more importantly by indulging in a gender-biased hate-crime, namely Hetero-bashing. What is most disturbing about this glorification of gender terrorism is the fact that Ms Roberts was charged with domestic violence once herself against her then partner, the actor Evan Peters (her co-star in American Horror Story ).
The supposed protagonist of the show, the Final Girl, gets much less screen time. The Final Girl’s token black friend, Zayday Williams, decides to run for Sorority President against Chanel. Naturally the Final Girl takes her side, and Hester ( Lea Michelle ) plans to further herself by supporting both sides. The plan is to boost her popularity by running a haunted house party as a charity fund-raiser. She wants to wipe out sickle cell aenemia, evidently unaware that it is a side-effect of the genetic trait that grants total immunity to malaria. The only way to prevent it being passed on is to stop African people from breeding – and this would leave the survivors vulnerable to malaria!
The house they choose for the party is infamous as the site of a supposed haunting. Apparently a crazy hag lived there, obsessing about (and possibly caring for) a baby. And it all started a few weeks after the birth of the mystery baby!
Scream Queens [Season 1, Episode 5]
Pumpkin Patch
Shown 13 Oct 15
The show has a new intro sequence, complete with title credits and theme music. It is a parody of the excellent Teen Wolf Credit sequence, with the characters being menaced by the Red Devil.
Zayday Williams, the Token Black Student, is being held in a pit by a killer who has a small dog for company. Yes, this episode is a play on Silence of the Lambs just as a previous one did Texas Chainsaw Massacre . When the rescue team arrive, the killer stalks them with night-vision goggles!
The Dean ( Jamie Lee Curtis ) cancels Halloween, so Chanel ( Emma Roberts ) has to make other plans. Unfortunately for Chanel, Hester ( Lea Michelle ) is secretly stirring the sorority’s politics. Chanel gets arrested for killing Miss Bean, although the only evidence against her is an anonymous tip-off and the body from the previous episode. A combination of Chanel-o-ween and the loyalty of Number Three (daughter of Carrie Fisher in real life, apparently) gets her back in time to hold the vote. Poor old Number Five ( Abigail Breslin ) is lumbered with the worst Halloween costume, framed by Hester, and then gets stalked by the Red Devil in the maze from The Shining that Chanel bought for her Halloween party.
Scream Queens [Season 1, Episode 6]
Seven Minutes in Hell
Shown 20 Oct 15
The show's new intro sequence, complete with title credits and theme music, has disappeared.
Chanel ( Emma Roberts ) holds the election, and it turns out to be a draw. The Pledges get to vote, and one of them is actually standing for election, so this is a Sorority with a strange set of rules. Anyway, Chanel must accept Zayday as co-President.
Zayday's plan to expose the killer is to get the Sorority sisters to play a game of Truth or Dare. This means conducting a slumber party. Naturally, this attracts the attention of the Red Devils. The security guard is missing, so the killers go on a spree. This time the movie references include The Toolbox Murders (a kill with a nailgun) and Hellraiser (the victim looks like Pinhead).
The killer is meant to be targeting the Sorority members, but so far their boyfriends in the male Golfing club are more likely to get killed. This episode is no exception - one Sister is killed, but two Frat-boys get murdered.
Scream Queens [Season 1, Episode 7]
Beware of Young Girls
Shown 03 Nov 15
Chanel ( Emma Roberts ) holds a seance for Number Two ( Ariande Grande ). The answers on the ouiji board implicate Chanel, so the others secretly plan to murder her before she kills them first.
Dean Munch ( Jamie Lee Curtis ) is in the frame as well, especially considering what happened to her ex-husband. She summons the Final Girl and her boy friday, and gives them clues as to who the real killer is. Naturally they do what she wants, without ever questioning the fact that she gave too much info.
Scream Queens [Season 1, Episode 8]
Mommie Dearest
Shown 10 Nov 15
Dean Munch ( Jamie Lee Curtis ) is attacked by BOTH Red Devils - and someone in a Supreme Justice Scalia costume. Luckily, she has seen Psycho fifty times so she knows how to survive a slasher attack.
Chanel ( Emma Roberts ) hires a couple of British cops to investigate the suspects. They claim to be Scotland Yard detectives, although they are in uniform complete with the Victorian pith helmets. However, they manage to dig up info on the Final Girl's mother.
The Final Girl gets the Hag's portrait from the asylum. They discover her identity - and the gender of the baby.
Scream Queens [Season 1, Episode 9]
Ghost Stories
Shown 17 Nov 15
The girls have a sleep-in at the sorority house. They exchange scary stories about urban legends - reminiscent of the slasher movie Urban Legend .
Scream Queens [Season 1, Episode 10]
Thanksgiving
Shown 24 Nov 15
Chanel ( Emma Roberts ) goes to her boyfriend's home for the Thanksgiving holiday, where she meets his utterly horrible family. She blames his douchebag brother, a Hollywood type, for giving young women body image problems. That is a recurring theme in this show - Chanel blaming everyone else for her poor choices. Worse, it was the Producers' choice to cast a woman with a naturally slender body type for her role. Emma Roberts is slender in real life, not because she only eats cotton balls but because she has a naturally slim body type. She lost her role in the movie Spring Breakers because in a bikini she looked skeletal compared to the other girls, and her natural body type made it impossible to gain weight.
Elsewhere, the other cast members all congregate at the the Sorrority House. Despite it being the epicentre of the murders, everyone is happy enough to stay there. Even when they start to accuse each other of being one of the killers.
Scream Queens [Season 1, Episode 11]
Black Friday
Shown 01 Dec 15
Chanel ( Emma Roberts ) takes her clique shopping to celebrate her favourite non-Chaneloween holiday - Black Friday! Most of the Police department have been sacked for incompetence. But since they were hiring, Denise Hempfield has a new job - as Police Chief!
Chanel plans to kill her main suspect - the Dean ( Jamie Lee Curtis ). This is of course insane, because the Dean has been exhonerated.
Scream Queens [Season 1, Episode 12]
Dorkus
Shown 08 Dec 15
Chanel ( Emma Roberts ) is angry at her clique for not backing her up when she needed them. She sends them an angry email, but one of them forwards it to the rest of the campus. Yes, the secret is out that she is a colossal narcissistic bitch! How nobody knew this until now is not revealed, but it turns out that the rest of the students are willing to risk the wrath of the serial killer just to harass Chanel, an infamous Mean Girl who is the killer's main target.
Scream Queens [Season 1, Episode 13]
The Final Girl(s)
Shown 08 Dec 15
The killer's identity is revealed, but the final play is made. Rather than slaying more victims, the killer seeks to frame them. After all, she cannot make her getaway without a patsy or three.
Scream Queens [Season 2, Episode 1]
Scream Again