Scream Queens is over and season two is not been confirmed, so lets have a closing thought… for now!

If you can recall all the way back to my first review of this show(Scream Queens First Review), it did not receive favorable words. So has my mind changed? Yes! Well, kind of.

Lets start with spoiler warnings. YES. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. So, if you have not seen the finale, go watch than come back.

Okay, so we will begin with the Red Devils. Were they good villains? By that, I mean were they memorable? Iconic? Well thought out? Memorable, probably not. Well thought out, yes, surprisingly. I hated on this show for not staying on topic and just jumping all over the place. When, in the end, everything was tied together, I was actually quite surprised. If you remember, I said of the remaining characters alive, Chanel #6 seemed the most likely due to her being the most like Boone. Similar looks, a characteristic that stood out from their brothers and sisters, and seemed to be playing a role. When it was revealed to be her, it came to no surprise. I will say I am bummed it was not Chanel #4. Now, I am college student and do not think highly of fraternities or sororities. I am in no way trying to insult or offend anybody in a fraternity or sorority. I had plenty of friends in my classes and on my hall who were in them and I was never entertained by their stories. This show not only takes those same stories I heard and common stereotypes and brings them to life. So, this show is particularly funny to me. However, this is a satire so obviously they take those stereotypes to the extreme. The funny part to me is by the time it is coming to it’s end, most of the characters at some point seemed to think the Red Devil was doing the world a favor. This was an interesting aspect to me that most of the characters almost seemed to sympathize with them. From Grace to Dean Munch, they all at some point or another said “maybe the Red Devil killer is right”. It is particularly referring to how hazing use to run rampart in the college system resulting in shattered self esteem and sometimes death and suicide. Towards the end the Red Devil is almost painted as a Robin Hood-esque character who was toppling an empire. I think this perspective added some depth to the otherwise boring and formulated mindless murders this show was initially imitating from slashers that came before. I am not a fan of the horror genre. I always felt a well thought out villain you could sympathize with was missing from the genre. Now, albeit, a woman giving birth in a tub at a sorority house while her sisters let her bleed out, is a little out there, but, how the public eye started viewing the sorority house as the more wicked evil is what this show really did right. Murder, of course, is never the answer. At times, though, the show made you believe the the sisters were the real evil here. My big complaint is that the Dickie Dollar Scholars were not bad people, just mindless. I do not exactly see why they were being targeted when you compare them to the Chanels.

The Chanels are a different breed of crazy. They stayed crazy through and through. While I never really liked any of their characters, the asylum scene was one of my favorite scenes in the whole show. It showed maybe what the Red Devil was doing had some legs to it. Chanel #3 was able to accept herself, Chanel #5 mellowed out(albeit, with the help of medicine) and Chanel did not have to try to be superior, though I think weve learned she will always be a tyrant at heart. While this scene is one of my favorites, the ending also makes no sense, but we will get to that later. I do not feel like there is much to say about them more than that. Every time they had a chance to change or apologize for the things they done, they threw them away without a second thought.

Pete and Grace’s relationship and dynamic might have been my favorite aspect of the show. At times it did seem like they were just snooping around and getting nothing done, but the opening scene of the finale was powerful and uncomfortable. I love this scene because any scene that lets me quote one of my favorite movies is a good scene. “You either die the hero, or you live long enough to see yourself turn into the villain”- Harvey Dent. Poor, poor Pete. Pete spun it like it was his and Grace’s mission and he was doing to keep Grace safe, but I think Pete was always kind of crazy. I think he would’ve been all on board if they approached him day 1.  It was clear he always wanted revenge on Chanel but I was quite oblivious to what extent he would take it too. I have not double checked the timeline, but if I am not mistaken, he was content with Dean Munch taking the fall and letting the twins continue their rampage. That does not seem very boy scout like, Pete. The sad part in all of this is Grace. Grace was a genuine saint for most of the series. It was so hypocritical and uncomfortable to watch her berate Pete for working with the Red Devil after A. see tried to kill Dean Munch and B. Said maybe the Red Devil was doing the right thing. It probably was for the best things did not work out. Her and Zayday succeeded in transforming Kappa, which was nice to see.

In the early review, I said Dean Munch was one of the only interesting and in-depth characters. This is still slightly true. The weird part is how her chapter ended. She was left alive. She murdered her husband, got a ghost writer to write her book, and covered up the death of a student on campus. Call me crazy, but she should have been the first character to go.

I know I just said the final scene was one of my favorite scenes of the series, but it was also one of the dumbest. I understand this show is ripping on tropes of the genre, but it gets to a point where it does not have to rip off of them. Which trope am I referring to? The Red Devil appearing at the end. What is the point? Who is this Red Devil? What do we know?

We know Boone and Pete are dead. They were the muscle. We know Hester said she was never going to kill again. So who was in the asylum? Boone did tell Pete there were more killers, so maybe this killer is from another school?  The staff has mentioned if a season two gets picked up it will be a summer camp theme. So how does this tie into the asylum finale? This ending seemed forced and made no sense based what we know at this point in time. I expected the Chanel’s to be plotting their revenge on Hester Gracie and Zayday. Clearly, this is a really simple plot compared to this season’s plot so I doubt it is likely. I do like the idea of summer camp because it gives the writers even more tropes to utterly ruin.

The other thing I did not like is the scene where Hester tells how the Chanels are “guilty”. Everything was so thought out up to this point. The plan was twenty years in the making. Every move was calculated and precise. Every motive was solid and every action meaningful. But this scene just seemed rushed, forced, and intentionally jumbled up and messy. I was following it when she was blaming Chanel #5, but after that it just seemed to drag on without accomplishing much. It would’ve been better if along the way they hinted about Chanel #3 having split personalities or anything like that. With Chanel #5 parents, I thought Gigi set this up 20 years ago and I was actually thinking “dang, that is cold”, but everything was something Hester threw together last minute to help things conveniently go off without a hitch.

Best Episode- Probably Episode 9 Ghost Stories.

Worst Episode- I would not necessarily say to skip any but Episode 7 Before of Young Girls seems borderline filler.

Favorite Character- Chad and Dean Munch are great!

Best line- This show is really quotable. If I were to watch it all over again I probably could find 10 or 20 best lines, but the one freshest on my mind is “You go, Cyclops”- Denise, Episode 13 The Finale. It is my favorite because it sums up the humor of the dialogue and the ignorance of the characters to the magnitude of whats going on around them

Okay here are the positives:
-Dialogue is priceless
-Half the deaths are pretty cool
-The interesting characters are really interesting
-The show overcomes its mind numbing slow start

Here are the cons-
-Characters are super shallow
-The other half of the deaths make you question the budget.
-The dull character are really dull.
-The show crashes under the weight of it’s momentum.

Verdict: My feelings towards the finale are an echoing sentiment of my feelings towards the show as a whole. The last four episodes were building up to such a high. I was fully prepared to apologize for doubting this and give it an 8. However, half of the 2 hour finale felted, rushed, insincere and just an all around waste of time. Having the Red Devil Killer come back was the worst way to end this and had no logical grounds to even occur. The ending was unrewarding and even insulting to the loyal fans who sat by this show despite it’s attempts to see how little it could try. Hester is a walking embodiment of this show. The show makes you think it was all thought out and planned, but it all just felt like they tried so hard on episodes 9-12 that when it got to the finale there was just no gas in the tank to finish. Chad and Zayday were some of the best characters and they were used sparingly towards the end. Do not get me wrong. I do not regret watching. It was quite enjoyable at times. I’d even go as far as to say I am interested in a season 2. All I am saying is you have to reward your audience for sticking to the end of your show, and this series did not.

Score: 5.5 out of 10. It definitely improved since the beginning but it’s legs gave out to early. It does make for a good binge watch.