Scream
Season 1 Episode 3 “Wanna Play A Game?”
Directed by Scott Speer
Written by Jill E. Blotevogel, Jaime Paglia
Created by Jill E. Blotevogel, Jay Beattie, Dan Dworkin
Starring Willa Fitzgerald, Bex Taylor-Klaus, John Karna, Brianne Tju, Amadeus Serafini, Connor Weil, Carlson Young, Jason Wiles, Tracy Middendorf, Tom Maden, Bobby Campo
MTV
Air date: Tuesday, July 14th, 2015, 10pm

After plenty of texting and YouTube uploading throughout the first two episodes, MTV’s Scream finally got “Scream-ish” at the end last week when an ADT-style security worker turned out to be the killer toying with Emma (Willa Fitzgerald) on the phone. The police are no closer to solving Nina’s murder and Audrey (Bex Taylor-Klaus) is distraught over her closet-girlfriend Rachel’s suicide (which was really a murder). Podcaster and serial killer analyst Piper Shaw (Amelia Rose Blaire) arrived looking into Lakewood’s haunted past, and Noah (John Karna) is having too much of a good time providing background and exposition.

After hearing from her mom that Rachel was indeed murdered, Emma goes to Audrey with the truth about the phone calls. Luckily Emma’s mom is dating the town sheriff, whose son is the new “hottie,” and guess who is paired together for a drama project. Kieran (Amadeus Serafini), just happens to have access to his dad’s files on the 20-years ago mass murderer Brandon James… AND… guess who the object of his desire was? You guessed it, Emma’s mom Maggie (Tracey Middendorf). The plot just comes across as a tad too convenient.

Jake and Will (Tom Maden & Connor Weil) are at odds over some blackmail scheme, and are ready to kill each other. Noah and Riley (Brianne Tju) are heating up as a couple, and Brooke (Carlson Young) spends every waking minute trying to rekindle her student/teacher fling with Mr. Branson (Bobby Campo). Tyler (who we know from episode 1 is dead, but is “missing” to everyone else) keeps texting, as the killer uses his identity. In a neat twist, the killer is using Emma to play a sadistic game, in which he targets her friends and forces her to choose the victims. Emma makes her choice… but that backfires and another of her friends joins the body count.

Here’s my issue. The show is gleefully self referential. Noah, the Randy character, even jokes about a slasher movie not working on TV. And here where he’s right; the slasher sub-genre of horror is predicted on big body counts in a short time span. Producers in the Friday the 13th series had rules for deaths to never be more than 10-minutes apart. After starting with the murders of Nina and Tyler in the opening scene of the pilot, there has been one death in each of the next two. Rachel’s death opened episode 2, and the death here occurred in the last 10 minutes. I’m a HORROR FAN! And I am losing patience. I feel like I’m watching the whitest teen soap opera 90% of the time. This episode felt like watching One Tree Hill for 50 minutes, before it realized it was supposed to be a horror show.

The good news is that the previews for upcoming episodes look actually terrific. If this episode did nothing, it at least exposed to everyone, including the cops, that there’s a violent murderer around, and hopefully we won’t have to sit through boring teen drama much more.

Scream returns with a new episode next Tuesday night at 10:00 pm EST on MTV.

Videos

Scream (TV Series) | Official Sneak Peek #1 (Episode 3) | MTV

In this sneak peek, Emma finds out that Kieran’s dad has some information that might help solve the Brandon James mystery. Don’t miss new episodes of “˜Scream’ every Tuesday at 10/9c on MTV.

Scream (TV Series) | ‘It’s Not Over’ Official Promo (Episode 3) | MTV

It’s not over until the last one SCREAMS. Don’t miss new episodes of “˜Scream’ every Tuesday at 10/9c on MTV.