Though Halloween may still be a few days away, the Scream Halloween Special aired last week and is currently available for streaming on UK & Ireland Netflix.
The Halloween Special, though connected to the main storyline of the show, took a brief segue from its usual path. Instead of continuing on the story of the Brandon James murders, the Halloween episode has the Lakewood Six (now four, I guess!) whisked away to Shallow Grove island where a historic series of murders took place.
Noah and Stavo, who are now bestselling authors from the Brandon James story, are attempting to investigate the story of Anna Hobbs, the rumoured murderer of Shallow Grove island. They ask the gang along for a Halloween outing, conveniently leaving out that they’re leaving murder town for murder island.
There were many things that were pretty brilliant about the Halloween Special episode. For one, as a two-episode special it worked almost perfectly in creating an isolated story of its own that was fun and easy to follow. There was enough suspense and the setting of murder island was interesting. The Anna Hobbs story also held enough intrigue to draw you in. Noah’s doubt about the story, and his interest in delving into the real truths of it, also gave it much leverage.
There was also the brilliance of Emma’s character development. After the first season of Scream, we learned about Emma’s PTSD leading her to suffer from panic attacks, as one is often prone to after having her half-sister murder all her friends and then try to murder her. The second season also hinged on Emma’s struggles in understanding her own mind, and second-guessing herself, as others also second-guessed her.
The Halloween special used this as a springboard to show Emma’s own insecurity with herself as a final girl; the girl whose boyfriend tried to kill her. She’s happy to simply be Emma for once, without a Duval there that makes her associated to Brandon James and the murders around Lakewood. However, by the end of the episode, Emma is anything but insecure. Instead, the special shows us that though Emma has struggled with her identity and her associations, she recognises that there’s nothing there for her to be insecure about. As she, in kick-ass fashion, saves herself whilst her friends are off somewhere behind a hidden bookshelf, she cries, “I don’t need a hero! I’m Emma Duval.” By the end of the episode, she’s sporting a tattoo that declares her identity loud and clear to the world around her. I’m excited to see Emma’s character further grow and develop in the third season of the show.
For all the things that the Halloween special gets right, however, for me, there was almost too much that it got wrong. Sure, it was a fun hour and a half horror show. There was an intriguing plot line, but everything that should have made it a Scream Halloween special was missing from it. The beginning of the episode shows Kieran getting murdered by ghostface in prison, and while this is obviously a set-up for the third season, it feels like a cheap cliff-hanger. More than that, it felt strangely jammed into the Halloween story, as if to give it some inkling of being Scream at all.
Even more disappointing than that was that all the “answers” that we were promised from this Halloween special was glaringly missing. Whatever was left unanswered from the third season, is still unanswered. And other than Emma Duval, the other characters were pretty lackluster for me in the Halloween special.
Perhaps the most disappointing development for me was the character of Gina, who seemed to be added onto the Halloween special as an odd way to veer shippers of Emma/Audrey away. Considering that Audrey all-out confessed love for Emma in the second season, I expected the showrunners to actually address this. Instead, the showrunners gave fans of the show a strange “friend” film date at the finale of season two, that could have easily been mistaken for a blossoming romance between the two best friends. Obviously, this was little more than queerbaiting as the showrunners have added in Gina, Audrey’s new love interest. It’s strange that showrunners think that Audrey’s role in Piper’s murders isn’t important to discuss. Nor is it apparently important to discuss that Audrey’s feelings of rejection from Emma led her to literally seek out the help and comfort of a potential murderer.
Though the Halloween Special continues to draw on the strength of Emma and Audrey’s relationship, it almost feels faux to me when the show has left so much unresolved tension between the two characters, and I’m left to wonder if the show is simply afraid of giving attention to a potential queer relationship between the two girls. The addition of the character of Gina seems to lack a point. She adds little to the show, other than allowing Audrey to encourage Emma to become romantically involved in whatever guy comes her way. During the Halloween Special, Gina acts as little more than a jealous girlfriend and worked to diminish the importance of both Audrey’s character, and her friendship with Emma.
The “reveal” of the episode was also slightly disappointing as it was essentially the same reveal that we had been served in season two, with Emma’s love interest turning out to be the killer. We might ask ourselves the question, how many times can Emma date a disturbed serial killer? But maybe the showrunners should be asking themselves, how many times can we get away with making the reveal Emma’s love interest and expect audiences to be surprised?
What was also disappointing was the “reveal” of the Anna Hobbs story, if it can be called that. It was interesting that Noah came to the conclusion that the murders in the Anna Hobbs story were less about a “crazy” girl out on a killing spree and more about a girl subjected to horrific things. However, the fact that this is all speculation with essentially nothing to back up Noah’s assertion was a disappointing end to the story.
The Halloween special did set up the show’s third season, which will hopefully explore the Brandon James story and the original murders. Perhaps the Anna Hobbs story will serve as some sort of foreshadowing to what happened to Brandon James all those years back. After all, continuity is key.
There were certainly good aspects to the Halloween special. As a Halloween episode, it achieved a lot. There was horror, suspense, some gruesome murders. As Scream, maybe it suffered slightly. All in all, it was a fun two hours to watch, especially in lieu of Halloween, and set up some sort of a precedence for the third season.
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