Scream - Aftermath - Review

“It shouldn’t have been Randy, it should’ve been me.” – Sidney Prescott, “Scream 2”

This week’s episode of “Scream” deals with the “Aftermath” of Riley’s death. It’s also the first in four not to feature a murder, or even an in-person pop-in by the killer. But there’s enough twists and turns to keep things entertaining.

Even as Mayor Maddox (Brooke’s dad, the show establishes) and Sheriff Hudson are hoping to confirm that Tyler was in the crashed car so they can close the case on the masked murders, Audrey and Emma are both skeptical the real killer has been stopped. Audrey now knows that Rachel didn’t hang herself and doesn’t understand the connection between her and Tyler. And Emma’s unsure why Tyler would have been harassing her, or digging into her mom’s history with Brandon James.

So it’s no surprise when a spooky new clue shows up in the mail – a George Washington High School yearbook from 1994, the year of Brandon James’ killing spree. It’s rather analog, as Noah points out, “for a killer who’s been using social media and cell cloning,” but it gets Emma’s attention with its creepiness. The headshots of the slain (the yearbook identifies three more victims besides the two we saw offed in last week’s flashback) have all been sliced out. Emma’s dad’s face has been completely scratched out. And there’s a message in blood red ink – the truth lies where the mask was made.

Naturally, Noah reveals that said place is closed and abandoned Lakewood General Hospital, which is about as classic a horror story setting as you can get. As our Scooby Gang search it for answers, they spy plenty of scary accoutrements – medical files showing there are multiple Brandon James surgical masks, souvenirs from the dead girls, the corpse of the pig whose heart was sent to Maggie, etc. Noah catches on that it’s likely staged (“You see lairs on TV, not in real life,” he metas before taking a swipe at “Pretty Little Liars,” more a spiritual sister than this show probably cares to admit). But they still make a major find in Tyler’s severed head, which forces Sheriff Hudson (who semi-suspiciously shows up at the hospital, saying he got an anonymous tip, and later claims that the cops had swept the hospital already and found nothing) to concede that Tyler’s not the murderer.

The hospital field trip was a fun setpiece with some smart smaller touches. I liked Emma and Audrey teaming up to follow the trail, deciding that being proactive outweighed potentially walking into a trap. I liked that they didn’t need a boy to tag along, even leaving Noah behind (Audrey: “He’d be like a four-year-old at Disneyland, we’d have to put a leash on him”). I liked them arming themselves before heading into the creepy abandoned building, with Emma getting a bright pink stun gun while Audrey went old school with a crowbar. And I liked Emma, a coroner’s daughter, putting on gloves before touching a critical piece of evidence.

There were also some fun nods to the films. Noah references the “You can never have sex” rule from the original “Scream,” opining that if he had lost his virginity to Riley, he might have died in her stead. And while theorizing that the killer could just as easily be a woman, Audrey spooks Emma using a voice-changing app, which reminded me of a similar scene from “Scream 4.”

In subplot news, Brooke in particular isn’t handling Riley’s death too well. She’s feeling guilty that she bailed on her friend during a dangerous situation for a booty call (no Mr. Branson this week; I’m curious to see what happens when Brooke confronts him about the text and the sex games gifts we know were the work of nuGhostface). She finds no comfort in her family – her mom’s MIA and Mayor Maddox is too busy dealing with the situation like a politician instead of like a parent. And her depression only deepens when an online poll among her classmates names her as the member of the popular clique they’d want on the chopping block next (at first I thought this was the killer messing with Brooke, but it seems to have just been teenagers being teenagers). It’s a decent attempt at giving this character some depth. And, random aside – the cinematography in the scene with her and Jake by the lake is really beautiful.

On to Piper. For a self-proclaimed true crime junkie, her podcast about Riley is sickly sweet in its condolences. But we can’t count her out just yet. She spends the episode lurking around, listening in on conversations between Will and Jake, Emma and Audrey. Piper also seems determined to develop a rapport with Emma, for what I’m guessing are less than altruistic purposes. I really just want to see more ambition and ruthlessness emerge from behind her Lisa Loeb glasses and her cutesy coffee obsession.

Finally, after Will laments the cost of college tuition following his acceptance into Duke, it looks like Will and Jake are back in business. But it turns out they’re not selling pervy spy videos; they’re using the videos to blackmail people, including Mayor Maddox, who they text with a demand for $100K. Similar extortion files are found by Emma, Audrey, and Noah when they discover Nina’s laptop in the killer’s lair. Noah manages to decrypt one of them, but it ends up being a mistake when, in the episode’s final moments, he and Audrey accidentally text blast the entire school with a video...of Emma losing her virginity to Will. Talk about karma, huh Audrey?

What are your afterthoughts on “Aftermath?” Were you disappointed no teens were sliced and diced this week? Let me know what you think in the comments section.