It’s the classic murder mystery with a hysterical, modern twist.
Producers Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan somehow managed to concoct a show by taking the teen angst of “Glee” and plots from “American Horror Story” and tossing them into a sorority house.
The show follows the bitchy, racist, stereotypical sorority president, Chanel Oberlin, played by Emma Roberts, as she commands her minions and her new pledges.
Fox has been playing up the all-star cast it built for the show, featuring people we haven’t seen in years, including Abigail Breslin, Keke Palmer and Niecy Nash. It also brought some random faces onto the show like Ariana Grande, Nick Jonas and Lea Michele.
Jamie Lee Curtis, playing Dean Cathy Munsch, stole the show. Her dry humor and role as potential murder accomplice and faculty member sleeping with a student made her intriguing to watch. She almost rivaled Jane Lynch’s character in “Glee.”
“Scream Queens” was loaded with the expected blood and guts from the first scene. It was complete with a modern day murder scene with the victim tweeting as she was killed, a snarky comment on millennial use of social media.
I wanted to hear more from the other characters. They were each given a dynamic back story but Roberts’ character’s never-ending angry monologue didn’t give them a chance. The show’s heroine, Grace Gardner, played by Skyler Samuels, did not have a lot of depth to her character. She plays a mouthpiece against the domineering sorority girl.
Overall, the show crammed a lot of information into two hours. It ended on a serious cliffhanger, that probably left a lot of people gasping and questioning everything they thought they knew about who the killer might be.
Knowing what the actresses can do, there will be plot twists to come and I am excited to see where it leads.
Bari Goldman
