Following the end of the first season of Ryan Murphy’s much-hyper Scream Queens, and the confirmation that the show will be returning for a second season, I’ve started to think about what I want when the show returns.
If you haven’t seen the first season of Scream Queens and want to avoid spoilers, I suggest you stop reading now. If you have seen the season and want to hear my thoughts on the second season then keep reading.
The first season of Scream Queens was not without it’s problems, and unsurprisingly the issues I had with the show are the same ones I have for every show Ryan Murphy is involved with. Despite getting off to a strong start, Scream Queens started to fall to pieces throughout its run with far too much going on to make a cohesive storyline. The show also didn’t really find the right balance between comedy and horror, with very little to actually scare viewers.
The reveal of Hester (Lea Michele) as the third Red Devil was a little obvious and due to the show’s frenetic nature the reveal didn’t have the impact I’m sure that the writers wanted. Add to that a very bland lead character in Grace (Skyler Samuels) and the show just never really lived up to the hype.
As disappointed as I was with the show, there were still some great things about it. Emma Roberts excelled as head bitch Chanel, Keke Palmer’s Zayday was the character I wanted more of (and never got), and Jamie Lee Curtis was wicked as Dean Munsch. The best thing about the whole show for me was Lea Michele’s performance. She managed to completely reinvent herself as Hester and she got all of the best lines.
With season 2 expected in the autumn, I’ve started to think about what I want when the show returns…
1. Lea Michele to return. The second season will be set in a hospital and it’s believed that some of the cast from the first season will return playing the same characters. Whether or not Hester is included, Lea Michele simply has to be part of the cast. She was easily my favourite thing about season 1.
2. Jamie Lee Curtis. No one delivers a killer line like Curtis and as Dean Munsch she was one of the consistently entertaining parts of season 1. It would also be a nice homage to Halloween II, which was also set in a hospital, if Curtis were to reprise her role for the second season.
3. A cohesive storyline. Talk about throwing every idea under the sun into the mix. The storyline for season 1 was sloppy with far too much going on, too many characters and randomly bizarre twists that aimed for kooky but fell way short. I really hoped that Scream Queens was going to fall on the right side of campy horror so maybe season 2 can get it right?
4. Less stunt casting. Did the show really benefit from having big names like Ariana Grande or Nick Jonas? If it did it bypassed me. Both are talented stars but they had very little to do and to be honest their presence was just a bit distracting.
5. More horror. I don’t actually need any fingers to count how many times Scream Queens scared me during season 1. It was too OTT to make me feel even the slightest bit tense. You’d think with the team behind American Horror Story being behind this show, they could inject some of that true creepiness.
6. A smaller cast. Season 1 definitely suffered from having far too many characters. When most of the supporting players died I can’t say I actually cared, as I didn’t feel like we really knew any of them. It was pretty obvious who would make it out of the season alive from the very first episodes.
7. More Keke Palmer. Zayday was one of the best characters in the show and after being kidnapped by the Red Devil it felt like she was pretty much sidelined. Zayday was a much more interesting character than Grace and I’m hoping she’ll play a bigger role in the next season.
8. Less ridiculousness. Some people liked that Scream Queens was ridiculous but it was an uncomfortable hybrid of Glee and American Horror Story but without the best parts of either. I expected to have to not question what was going on too much but when logic began to fail in terms of how the season progressed, the show almost lost me completely.
9. Niecy Nash. Denise Hemphill was a hot mess but at least she was a very funny hot mess. Yes the character was completely inept at her job, but at least she was mightily entertaining. I’d be happy to see Niecy back with a bigger presence on season 2.
10. A real homage to the slasher genre. There is so much material to work with here but Scream Queens never really was the true homage to slasher films that it was claiming to be. With original Scream Queen Jamie Lee Curtis on board, the series could have been so much cleverer, paying lots of nods to the many horror roles Curtis has played in her career.
Scream Queens will return for a second season later this year on FOX in the US and E4 in the UK. Watch the trailer for the show’s first season:
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by Pip Ellwood at Mode
