“‘Stab 2?’ Who’d want to do that? Sequels suck.” – Randy Meeks, “Scream 2”
With all due respect to the legendary Randy Meeks, the sequel season of MTV’s “Scream” gets off to an entertaining start with “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (again, I love that the episodes this year are being named after horror movies). It nicely catches us up on how the “Lakewood Six” are dealing with what they went through while also setting the stage for the carnage ahead.
Like last year, the season opens on a bitchy blonde home alone with her pet named after a foodstuff getting knifed by a killer in black. But in a fun homage to “Scream 2,” it’s actually a slasher movie-within-the-show (the victim is played by Lele Pons, who I guess is some kind of Vine star?) being screened at the theater where – in another nice touch – Audrey (Bex Taylor-Klaus) now works. Real life quickly imitates art when Audrey finds herself terrorized by someone wearing the nuGhostface getup, which turns out to be a prank two kids from her high school are trying to pull on her. I really loved this cold open – it’s clever, exciting, and a great way to start season two.
Being punked is the least of Audrey’s problems, though. She’s started receiving texts from someone claiming to be “a friend of a friend,” who makes clear that he or she knows about Audrey’s connection to Piper Shaw. The later scene where the killer calls Audrey is classic “Scream,” with her first being humorously dismissive (“You too can menace girls for just 99¢ with this nifty voice modulator app!”) and then freaked out when she realizes she’s being watched. Later still, Audrey is directed to a bathroom stall at the movie theater papered with copies of the letters she and Piper exchanged. We only see and hear snippets, but it certainly sounds like Audrey reached out to Piper first and at least somewhat goaded her into action. So Audrey’s fear that she’ll be exposed, and of the consequences she’d face, is not misplaced.
Her desperation to keep this secret interestingly creates some friction between Audrey and BFF Noah (John Karna). Unlike the others, Noah’s way of dealing with his trauma is by diving even deeper into it. He now has his own true crime podcast called The Morgue as well as a massive murder board on his bedroom wall detailing his conspiracy theory that Piper had a partner, an allegation Audrey reeeaaallly doesn’t like. The pals clash when Noah traces the pranksters to The Morgue’s comments section and then when, after he convinces Audrey to report the texts she’s been getting to the town’s new sheriff (Anthony Ruivivar, “Revolution”), she shuts the complaint down on nuGhostface’s orders. Curious to see how this unfolds because I can’t see either character being swayed from their objective.
The other major thread of the episode is Emma’s (Willa Fitzgerald) homecoming. After a meltdown at school (I wonder if there is more to it than the tiny bit she flashes back to), Lakewood’s final girl left town for three months to attend a therapy retreat. Upon her return, Emma wants things to get back to normal, admirably insisting to her worried friends that it’s “enough with the eggshells.” But things aren’t and can’t be the same. There’s some tension between her and her mom Maggie (Tracy Middendorf), tension I’m excited for the show to explore in the weeks to come. And while at first worried that she ruined her reunion with ex Kieran (Amadeus Serafini), a conversation with Brooke (Carlson Young) makes Emma realize that he’s struggling too – living alone in his dead dad’s house with an absentee aunt for a guardian, and let’s not forget his mom died just weeks before the events of season one – and that only by accepting that they’re not okay and talking about it and helping each other can they really, truly move on.
But then, while taping an appearance on Noah’s podcast, she spots something on his murder board – a pig farm that belongs to Troy James (Brandon’s brother! My pet theory that he’s involved somehow lives on!). As Emma later explains to Brooke, she’s been having bloody nightmares about the place since she was little and she’s thoroughly spooked to learn that it’s real, and that it’s connected to the James family. Emma (again, admirably) sets right out to investigate, bringing a nervous Brooke along as backup. She doesn’t find anything in the barn, but a search of the house on the property shows signs of life and some typical serial killer paraphernalia. And the episode ends with Emma’s screams as a figure emerges from the darkness. Very intrigued to see how these plot threads from the past tie into the present day.
Finally, there’s Jake (Tom Maden), the first to lay eyes on the new nuGhostface and the first to die at his hands. Considering I didn’t like him much when the show started and I was shocked he made it out of last season alive, I’m a little sad our douchey court jester has bit the dust. So we quickly learn that Jake and Brooke are an item, having sexy rendezvous all over town (and kudos, makeup department, for remembering to give Jake a scar on his chest from his stabbing last year). They’re keeping their relationship a secret since her dad hates Jake, not that we can blame him. But Jake being Jake, he manages to shove his foot in his mouth, accusing Brooke of getting off on the sneaking around and invoking Mr. Branson. A furious Brooke storms off as Jake brays that he has a way to prove her and her dad wrong about him. But as soon as Jake softly whispered that he loved Brooke once he was alone, I knew he was a goner.
When next we see Jake, he’s putting his mysterious plan into motion (it seems to involve a gas can and what looks like a construction site; I feel like whatever he was up to here will come into play later in the season) when he’s snared by the killer. Literally, as he gets his foot caught in a gnarly bear trap. Playing with his prey, nuGhostface leaves Jake alive for the day, taunting him with the possibility of escape, and recording the scene a la “Scream 4” (the kid who “attacked” Audrey was also using a camera to live stream it) before slicing open Jake’s midsection with a scythe. The pacing was a little rushed (we find out Jake and Brooke are together in their first scene; in their second, they’re already breaking up) and the editing a bit confusing (were we supposed to think the place Jake was being held and the pig farm were the same? Or was that just a fake-out?). But killing off one of last season’s survivors was narratively smart. It lets the audience know that, on “Scream,” nobody is safe.
So that’s my take on “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” What did you think of “Scream’s” season premiere? Were you sad Jake died? Do you have any early theories on who the new nuGhostface is? Scare us with your insights in the comments section.
