Scream: Ghosts Recap

Synopsis: Emma is shaken by another death; and uncovers a secret from the past.

Rating: ★★★★☆

I’m having a little trouble swallowing the final sequence of this episode.

Noah and Audrey finally discovered Mr. Branson’s former identity, including how he disappeared from his former life after a suspicious murder, and then they found a bloody knife and a phone with texts the killer had sent in an air vent in his classroom. He’d also been conveniently out of town during the bowling alley massacre.

After learning this, we see him in the school’s auditorium with Brooke. He goes to check out a noise, and she is attacked by the killer. He shows back up at the same time the police do and is arrested immediately.

Everyone is thrilled! The killer is caught (and he sure was acting awfully ghostface-like in next week’s promo)!

Except that there’s no way Mr. Branson was the one who attacked Brooke. There just wasn’t time. She gets her arm slashed by the killer, she pushes past him and runs onto the stage right into Mr. Branson’s arms. How could he have lost the costume and gotten around the stage that quickly, without anyone seeing?

Now, anyone who’s familiar with the Scream movies will tell you that there are almost always two killers. So from a viewer’s perspective, Mr. Branson isn’t absolved at all, but the police are only looking for one suspect, and this one couldn’t have attacked Brooke. And it’s even addressed that the evidence in his classroom could have been planted, just like the malware.

So I don’t know what everyone’s so relieved about.

Emma meanwhile, ends up hospitalized after she begins hallucinating following the trauma of Will’s death. She sees his dead body several times, and then hallucinates an entire conversation with her father. Which is ironic, since we know her father’s credit card had just been used at a gas station right outside of town. If it was because he was coming into town to see her, that makes sense. But since he wasn’t actually there – what is he doing?

Based on details from these hallucinations, Emma finds a sonogram in the video from the bowling alley. She finally gets her mother to confess that she had a baby with Brandon James, that she gave up in a closed adoption. She doesn’t even know if it was a boy or a girl.

That baby would probably be around Mr. Branson’s age, though.

In her grief and confusion Emma has also grown even closer with Piper, who has declared herself ‘involved’ now that she’s also been targeted. She says it’s not just a story anymore and that she’s a part of it.

I’m suspicious of the way she’s ingratiated herself with the only character who has healthy skepticism. I am also suspicious of Jake, who was left unattended in the hospital with a knife wound that – miraculously – missed all major organs and arteries.

On the bright side, Brooke’s mom is alive! Shout-out to the heartwrenching one-sided scene where Brooke finally talks to her on the phone.

But with the killer supposedly caught, and three episodes to go, anything could happen.

Body Count: 6