Scream Season 2 FINALE

Well, I’m not going to tell you who the killer is. You’ll have to watch. Or ask privately.

I will spoil the most important part of the story: Brooke lived.

I’ll say this: the reveal worked as mystery reveals should, what seemed convoluted and complicated and unpredictable ended up making sense and being fairly simple and straight-forward. There were some twists, most of which worked and made sense. Yes, there are still things that could have been solved earlier if people just would have told each other what they knew and what was going on but, hey, that’s showbiz.

Was every plot thread cleaned up neatly? Not really. Some questions didn’t really get answered. It happens. Still, the finale pulled the focus back on the main characters and the central storyline.

The focus was on Emma and Audrey, where it all began. Noah and Brooke were there at their friends’ sides but were a bit on the sidelines. That was a touch of a disappointment. After so much they’d been through because of all the other nonsense, it would have been nice to see them get their hands a little dirtier. After all, this sick game cost Noah two girls he may have loved, and cost Brooke a boyfriend and a father. They had cause to draw some blood of their own, I’d say.

If I have a criticism of Season 2 is that it didn’t give the characters the depth of circumstance they had in Season 1. One thing that made the first season work so well was that the murderer on the loose revealed a lot of dark secrets hidden in the main characters. This season had a lot less of that, it was a lot of clean up from season one’s mess. It wasn’t quite as dynamic or dark.

Still, Season 2 of “Scream” was a lot of fun. And they left just enough dangling out there that should there be a third season there’s still more story to tell.

Scream Season 2 Episode 10

As we get near to the end of this season of “Scream,” it seems everyone decided to circle the wagons this week. The killer is being about as subtle as death metal as he points his focus directly at Audrey and Emma and anyone they care about.

At the same time, the sheriff and Emma’s mom are getting closer and closer to the conclusion that Brandon James may still be alive after all these years. It’s getting so serious that they’re even using flashbacks to show more of the lost history of Brandon James, Maggie and Sheriff Acosta. You know it’s serious when flashbacks are involved!

The real focus this episode though is on Noah in peril. Using Zoe’s phone, the killer lures Noah back to the beach and stabs him, then buries him alive, setting up a couple clues for Emma and Audrey to come find Noah, maybe in time, maybe not.

Sure, the killer could just kill Noah, but that’s not his point. The “Scream” stories are always about making the protagonists suffer, by making them fail to save the ones they love. Finding Noah dead would be traumatic, sure, but failing to save him would be even worse.

Emma and Audrey are hardly a united front. Emma still can’t forgive Audrey for bringing Piper to Lakewood, no matter how much Audrey professes ignorance of what Piper was doing.

There’s a big reveal though: over the course of their arguing, Audrey drops that she and Piper were together the night Audrey’s girlfriend from the previous season died. So if Piper didn’t kill her and Audrey didn’t kill her ... who killed her?

Audrey and Emma continued their personal squabbles while looking for Noah. If the goal was to tear them apart, it didn’t really work. The girls found Noah in the nick of time (of course) but then it was revealed that Zoe was trapped in a similar scenario.

While they were in time to save Noah, they weren’t in time to save Noah. While the killer live fed Noah’s struggles to the girls, the videos of Zoe’s struggles were on tape delay, she was gone before they found her at the lake. Brutal.

The killer also took a swing for the fences by calling Sheriff Acosta directly and sending him to the farmhouse where he’d left a mess of dead pigs and human body parts, notably Branson’s missing hand.

At the end, Emma ended up back at home where creepy Eli emerged from the darkness and watched her house. What was he up to? I guess we’ll find out next week.