Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Scream Season 2 Episode 1

I’m going to try to do these on Tuesdays. I can’t watch ‘Scream’ live on MTV because I don’t have cable but I can watch it the next morning on Amazon.
SPOILER ADVISORY: I’m not going to spoil episodes week to week BUT, at this point, it’s pretty hard to talk about the show without spoiling Season 1, so if you haven’t finished the first season yet, you may want to wait until you have before reading on.
Continue at your own risk ...
Following the harrowing events during the first season of “Scream,” our protagonist Emma went off to get some counseling while the rest of the “Lakewood Six” tried to get on with their lives. Nerdy Noah started a podcast and continues to obsess over the crimes that give him and his friends a degree of infamy that he clearly seems to enjoy, Brooke and Jake are trying to be a couple, Audrey is working at the movie theater and living with a few secrets of her own and smoky-eyed Kieran is left wondering if he and Emma are going to live happily ever after or not.
Of course, Emma’s return starts to kick events into motion and before the end of the first episode one of the Lakewood Six has been eviscerated. There are a couple new kids in town, the creepy son of the new sheriff who is keeping with the tradition of sheriff’s sons obsessing over Emma, although his seems a bit less romantic and Zoe, a nice girl who seems to be all good intentions, some of them even aimed at Noah,
(And a quick kudos to the writers for NOT making all the new faces new students. Yes, it’s entirely possible that the lead characters new other people than each other in their years in school together. Also kudos for adding a female teacher for Noah to crush on who doesn’t look like something out of a porn. She’s pretty and absolutely crush-worthy but not to the point of distraction. Well, except maybe for Noah.)
“Scream” Season 1 ended with a bit of a bombshell as we learned one of our heroic teens may have dirtier hands than we suspected. It’s that character’s mystery and increasing paranoia that is fueling the first episode of season 2. While the easy solution is to start finding answers, that doesn’t seem to be what that character wants. Too many crossed ‘t’s may lead to some questions that are better left unanswered.
There are a lot of dangers in doing a second season of a show like “Scream.” Too much happily ever after may seem false; not enough may seem to undercut the catharsis of the first season finale. While the writers find a pretty good balance, there’s still an issue with Emma, our heroine, being too much angst and blue balling heartbreak. She’s always in danger of being outshined by straight-shooting Brooke and making them besties so far is already tipping the scales toward Brooke. She may be a bitch about it, but she’s usually right.
The big wrench in things already is the violent death of one of the main characters. That character was up to something when the new Ghostface found them. We don’t know if it was good or bad, which is what makes it intriguing. Every member of The Lakewood Six has a dark secret. How the show lets them bubble up again is what is going to make or break Season 2.
New mysteries are already starting to pile up too. The one way to hide the red herrings is to make the pile of them as deep as possible. Everyone has a motive to do something, even characters who haven’t even shown back up yet.
Or, as the saying goes, everyone’s a suspect.
Season Two of “Scream” is off to a good start.