Scream
Season 2 Episode 7 “Let the Right One In”
Directed by Rodman Flender
Written by Steve Yockey
Created by Jill E. Blotevogel, Jay Beattie, Dan Dworkin
Starring Willa Fitzgerald, Bex Taylor-Klaus, John Karna, Amadeus Serafini, Carlson Young, Tracy Middendorf, Kiana Lede, Austin Highsmith
MTV
Air date: Tuesday, July 12, 2016, 10pm

Last week on Scream, Audrey (Bex Taylor-Klaus) was identified as the chief suspect by Noah (John Karna). Emma (Willa Fitzgerald) wanted nothing to do with this theory. She continues to see the killer when she is alone, which leads others to wonder if she is seeing anything at all, or having PTSD driven delusions. We know that there is someone stalking the Lakewood 6 and killing people again. Jake (Tom Maden) is dead, his blood drenching his girlfriend Brooke (Carlson Young). Brooke’s former flame, Mr. Branson (Bobby Campo), is the latest victim of the killer, being tied to a bed and having his hand cut off.

Spoilers below for this week’s Scream…

The cops go to Emma and warn her that her IP address has been used by the killer to contact Emma’s dad. When she brings up the barn incident from Episode 1, you can tell there’s some higher level conspiracy afoot. Meanwhile, Audrey and Noah disagree on whether to tell Emma that Audrey was the one who brought Piper to Lakewood. After a “study session” is set up between Noah and Zoe (Kiana Lede), Audrey has to mentor her partner in crime. “If you don’t learn to read the signs, you’ll be a virgin forever,” she tells him. Brooke confesses to Audrey that she fake-seduced Branson and left him tied to a bed. “You went full Hard Candy on him!”

Eli (Sean Grandillo) is being overly supportive of his cousin Kieran (Amadeus Serafini), strange as he has been creeping on Emma for weeks now. Of course this ends with offering to help her have “some fun.” While Noah is off on his study date with Zoe, Audrey goes to the hotel with Brooke to unlock Branson, and sure enough, he is gone. We find out that Ms. Lang (Austin Highsmith) is keeping tabs on the entire Lakewood 6 and has audio recordings of Emma. Before we find out anymore, the killer calls her and lures her into a trap ending with her on death’s door and Branson dead. I like that someone died”¦ but they basically set up possible suspects only to kill them off. It’s like they know they need to up the body count, but don’t want to kill anyone important until much later. It’s a tease-kill.

Audrey comes charging into Noah’s bedroom to tell him the news”¦ and uh oh, Zoe is in there and things were getting hot and heavy. Noah’s response: “Someone better be dead! Wait, is someone dead?” I guess as a Noah fan I have to be happy he didn’t get to consummate or else he’d be on the death list. Emma is following Eli on a trip to have some fun”¦ seriously this girl is box of rocks dumb. She survived a serial killer, is suffering from PTSD, continually sees a killer stalking her, and yet ALWAYS goes and puts herself into these ridiculous unrealistic situations. “Eli, c’mon what are we doing, with everything going on this is getting pretty scary.” OH MY GOD!

The house Eli takes her to is a model home, abandoned”¦ except for the dead bodies in the bathtub. He of course puts the moves to Emma, but the smoke detector goes off and the whole house goes up in flames. Poor Branson was only wounded in the bathtub and watches things burn around him, hopefully to a final death.

The episode was okay, but the show has two potentially fatal flaws. One is that it’s constantly treading water, refusing to kill off any main characters and rarely even putting them in serious danger. Scream 2 had balls! They killed off fan favorite Randy (Jamie Kennedy) midway through and even iced Buffy the damn Vampire Slayer! This second season of Scream wants you to think someone is targeting the Lakewood 6, but only the very least important of them has died and all the other attacks/deaths are on secondary and tertiary characters. Give the show an “OH SH*T!” moment, even if it means killing off a fan fave.

Secondly, and most important, is Emma. I don’t blame Willa Fitzgerald, she does okay with what’s given to her. But the Emma character is so lazily written and she comes off as a total moron. I know she’s theoretically the main character, but I’m way more into Brooke this season, and Noah and Audrey are always my favorites. The writers of Scream need to go watch Neve Campbell’s portrayal of Sidney Prescott in the Scream trilogy and bare witness to a classic horror movie final girl. Emma is supposedly the final girl, but even last season needed Audrey to shoot Piper. So she’s basically some damsel in constant distress who seems to always forget she’s in distress.

MTV’s Scream returns next Tuesday night at 11pm.