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x-birdsong-x · 1 year ago

Note

can you do that criticism/things youd change about scream queens for s2 alone?

This one's probably going to be messy because I have a LOT to say about S2. Some of it overlaps with others, and I also have some positive things I will never miss a chance to talk about.

As always, when I do things like this, I'm saying it right here: There is not a single SQS character I genuinely dislike. The retcon is not canon.

And a quick note, I've talked about a lot of this stuff with my buddy @sarahpaulsonsclown, so credit to them for something I say about Cassidy later.

The first- and the cause of a lot of other things- problem with S2 is the tone change from S1.

Tell me I'm exaggerating, but S1 blended the comedy and horror in a way that worked and came across naturally as if they weren't doing it on purpose, and it just happened to be 50/50.

Season two writes the comedy in completely on purpose, but it doesn't focus enough on or bring in enough of the horror to balance it out, so it comes across more "artificial," I guess than S1's whole tone did. It just doesn't blend the way S1 did because there's not enough of the horror kept around this time.

And that's a shame! Because when S2 does switch to more of the horror side of things, it WORKS. There are scenes here that carry the horror really well, and had the whole season had more of a tone like this, the comedy could've been balanced out better.

One of my biggest examples of this is when Zayday first confronts (and gets kidnapped by) Jane. The music, the weather part of setting the scene, and the lighting. (Although I really wish they'd not have used Sophia's gold for Jane and Cass so often, given they're the least linked to Gigi in S2. I'll come back to this.)

Even the scenes where the girls first start visiting Hester before she's moved to the hospital can be a good example. Those scenes have their little comedy moments, but they're serious scenes, and the characters are treated seriously in them.

This tone issue starts disrupting things in later episodes though, and I'll come back to this later talking about other things, but Addison's (Chanel Number Nine's) death was so off-tone and so mean-spirited given how we spent half this episode being introduced to her extreme fear of needles, and this was such an awful death for her to be given. She didn't even do anything! S2 carries an issue with not having enough horror to balance out the comedy, and then they just threw in a death like this??? What did she do?? Still not quite comparable to how Maggie was treated in AHS, though.

When it comes to character issues caused by both tone problems and other things, I'm going to start with Brock because he's going to be the simplest to talk about.

A problem with S2 is the pacing in the last few episodes especially and the more I rewatch (S2 gets put on loop a lot when I'm writing for reasons I will talk about later) the more this can be blamed on Brock's silly hand issue.

For one thing, Brock's hand is stupid in itself, and it doesn't fit with SQS's original tone at all. This does not work, and it's not helped by the way they do the stupidest things possible, focusing on it as if Brock wasn't originally introduced as just an off and less-lovable version of Chad.

They spend SO MUCH TIME on Brock's ridiculously inconsistent issues that don't fit with SQS's original tone, including letting him narrate a whole fucking episode and naming multiple episodes after his hand problems and giving the hand a goddamn voice actor that when they finally dropped it the pacing was already SO thrown off that they didn't have any time left to stretch other things out the way they could've/should've.

Munsch's illness plotline (which is also mildly inconsistent but not nearly as much as the hand stuff) was so rushed near the end of the season, and (Thank you to @nocakesformissedith for noticing this too, if I remember correctly) Lovin' The D's ending with that "I'll be dead in a month" line is so oddly sudden because they had to shove a bunch of stuff into the other half of the episode that should've been stretched through the whole season, and then Drain The Swamp spends more time scrambling to wrap up Munsch's plotline so she can leave alive and well by the season-ending narration instead of building up to a climax between the villains (who, this time, are ALL STILL ALIVE) and the girls.

Brock's issues with his hand are inconsistent, even in how it affects him. One minute he's just losing control of it every so often, then it acts up when he's stressed, and then we get to how he treats Chanel.

The first time his hand acts up around her, it's pretty in line with how we are introduced to it without confirmation when Zayday first meets him and Cass, but as the season goes on, not only does he consistently threaten her, but he yells at her each time he does and then in the later episodes- when he already has a new hand, courtesy of Cass's favor- is when he starts using both hands when snapping at her and Hester takes her interest in him. And him yelling when he smashes the table when Munsch questions him about his blood type doesn't work with this either because that is not how his hand is introduced!

By Drain The Swamp also, he's having no troubles with his hand at all, and while yes, this is his new hand, it is this hand that continued with his "kill Chanel" stuff.

More of an opinion this one, but if he continued to snap at Chanel, Hester shouldn't have trusted it, and while I'm reaching with this detail, the way she reacts when he grabs her to try calming her down when asking him to kill Munsch during surgery is some good fuel for how they could've gone with Hester's opinion of him. I'll come back to this later because it links into a theory of mine I've had for a very long time.

And no, him reaching for her neck vaguely in Scream Again doesn't entirely count as foreshadowing any of this later behavior because even there, he notices and pulls his hand away with the other. Also, Chanel was clearly a little uncomfortable with the way he was reaching for her there too, but that's a little note/nitpick of mine, given how their relationship goes through the season.

And before I move on to other characters: S2's crack in the timeline.

In Scream Again, when she's narrating to catch us up, Munsch says she hasn't thought about the Chanels for two whole years. S1 canonically stuck firmly in 2015. Later, Brock says Chanel is twenty-four. Chanel was either nineteen or somewhat recently twenty in S1. In Drain The Swamp, when Chanel is narrating the flash-forwards, she says it is canonically 2016. If I'm wrong about this not making sense, then blame it on my dyscalculia, but this is just a nitpick I've had for a while anyway.

Back to problems I have regarding the character writing of some in S2, starting with the ones I have the most to complain about: Jane and Cassidy.

My problem with Cassidy especially comes from how he isn't treated seriously by the writing, and when he is, it doesn't work. I know what they were trying to do because they wanted Cass to be three things:

Boone, through his conflict with Jane, which goes especially and mostly for how he interacts with his mom when we first find out he's her son. The "I'll take care of everything," - "After all you've been through," lines especially.

Pete, given this moment is a direct reference to Black Friday (Yes, I got that moving shot on purpose):

And his own character, which rarely works the way it could have because he isn't taken seriously by the writing!

Cassidy and Sadie are vaguely a play on the Romeo and Juliet trope, but they're not built up enough to warrant her being the one to "change" him. Pete's attachment to Grace worked perfectly because from his very first scene, we are aware of his attachment issues, and we SEE that problem already forming from the minute after he meets her. Again, this part of Cass isn't a play on S1, but it's a comparison fair to make given how Cass's relationship with Sadie is such a big part of both of them in the season.

In Cassidy's first scene- with Zayday- he states that he isn't interested in dating anyone, and I personally think that would've been a more interesting road for him: to have had him get close to Sadie intending to get some better judgment on how to take each of the girls out, only to fall for her through the season. It's still cliche, but it's better than the way S2 expected us to care deeply about this relationship when it started so suddenly and isn't taken seriously anyway.

Even the little details with Cass and Sadie being changed could've helped make this a little better. Throughout the season, Cass ONLY ever calls her Chanel Number Three, and it's too long, it makes the lines that are meant to be big moments for them too clunky.

The best example is when Jane trips him into choosing her over Sadie (which is quickly gone back on by him, which should've been emphasized more), and when he implies that she should leave, he still fully calls her by Chanel Number Three. Having him eventually start calling her Sadie at some point through the season- or hell, even just calling her Number Three like everyone else- would've made those lines come across smoother.

And then, we get to their deaths.

Jane and Cassidy's deaths should have been serious scenes, and they were not. This is partly because S2 had pretty much completely worn out the chance of having these two be seen as serious characters by the time we reach Drain The Swamp and also because, once again, neither of them was written seriously in the first place.

I'll talk a bit about Jane soon, but even Cassidy's dialogue weighs his character down. His lines at the start of the season especially, the "I envy ice" moment especially, are similar to Brock's issues in how completely out of tone they are for SQS itself.

One thing I have to say about Cass being given lines like this is that I get a feeling from them that whoever gave him these lines ran from some of Grace's earlier dialogue and her little speech in Black Friday about killing Munsch, but it doesn't work here because in S1 those lines were not tonally comedic, and they weren't the tone of SQS itself. That was just Grace, it was part of her characterization.

Even Cassidy's "I'm dead" thing was... why? It has the same vibe as Brock's hand problems and makes me wonder if they put it in just so they could have Sadie test for it to give them an extra scene together when they could've done that anyway if they'd written them properly!! It was so random and unnecessary, and much like Brock and Munsch's hand/medical plotlines, it goes nowhere and only comes in at random times.

Going back to how they wanted him to be three things, and this goes for Jane too, S1 introduced the Devils all in mostly or partly comedy-toned scenes, Boone especially, but not once when we find out any of them are villains (mostly excluding Hester given she's not officially revealed until TFGS) do we have to remind ourselves later that they are the villains. Every scene where it comes to them being Devils, not once is it impossible to take them seriously, no matter how the scene started, is going, or ends. Boone and Gigi taking the first height of Ghost Stories doesn't come across suddenly nor does it fall apart because of how they've been written previously and/or when they were introduced!! Gigi's relationship with her kids is clear and absolutely heartbreaking, and even when we don't even know she's a part of it this goes for Hester's relationship with Boone and Gigi too!! Pete goes from how he's written in Hell Week and Pilot to having the darkest, most intense death scene in the show and being the Devil with the MOST close-call attack in the show with how close he gets to killing Chanel in Black Friday!!

This doesn't work the same for Jane and Cassidy because they AREN'T written seriously from the very first scene we meet each of them.

And when it comes to introducing Jane in Scream Again, I do think something about how we start off mimicking S1's party falls somewhat flat.

It's very clear here that Jane loved her husband, and that sticks through the season- and it's also fairly obvious that Jane and her son will be villains considering how S1 went, but I think it may not feel as harsh as S1's opening because it feels almost rushed.

We only get a few seconds of Bill and Jane interacting and talking, and aside from those moments, we don't get any implications about their relationship.

We have no insight into any layers Nurse Thomas or Dr. Mike have, aside from a few (selfishly-reasoned) lines from Nurse Thomas. Seemingly, Dr. Mike is the most heartless one of the two. They are both completely happy once Bill's body is in the swamp, and aside from the one obvious cut to Jane, that's the end of the opening, and we know it all. This does not come back later. This does not get added to. We find out about the first massacre, and Jane tells us about that later, but that is it. It doesn't add any details to these four characters other than one extra detail about the first massacre Chamberlain and Zayday very quickly found out about.

Compare this to S1.

We don't start following Bethany. We follow Amy. We follow Amy because she's the one intending completely to help Sophia and is quickly implied to probably be the closest to Sophia out of the group.

And we're made to sympathize with Amy right away. We're made to sympathize with Sophia right away. We're made to pay attention to the others right away.

Coco doesn't follow immediately, as we get told when she runs in late and comments on the music downstairs. Bethany has silent, expression-given moments of shock and panic before she switches completely to being snappy. She also sets up the attitude of Chanel and the others. Sophia's line here gives us a good look through the delivery itself. It's made fairly clear she was likely the quietest/shyest one in the house. Mandy turns back briefly when she, Beth, and Coco leave before following, so we get a look into her relationship with everyone just in that. She did care for Sophia and Amy, but she'd suck up to Bethany as much as she could. Amy does not budge through this whole scene. She's addressing the others and only interacting with Sophia by holding her hand and glancing at the baby, but it's already been made clear that Amy cares about her, and it is obvious in these looks and little details that Sophia trusts her completely.

When the others come back after Waterfalls, they are shocked. They are panicked that Sophia's dead. They each get reaction shots, Bethany included. Amy has already taken it upon herself to hold the baby, who she still continues looking at when the others are there, which already creates a slight connection between Amy and the baby.

And this is where the scene ends. We don't know what they do with her body. It is left ambiguous until Chanel gives us a little more when she and Grace talk in the basement, and then we get the rest when Mandy tells us episodes later. It's not until Ghost Stories that Munsch confirms to herself that there were two babies confirmed that night, even when we've known about Boone since Hell Week.

I think S2's tone issues make it worse, given it struggles to add real weight to Jane's loss later, even when we do know most details from the start.

S1's opening, to those willing to analyze, anyway, already works to give weight and emotion and depth to every single one of them while still managing to leave a lot of things ambiguous until we are told later. It's immediately made obvious that nobody here is going to be a black-and-white character, and that only continues to go harder and harder through the season. The whole opening and all of the things previously mentioned even add to Gigi once we get the details about her. It adds to Gigi and Boone's relationship, with Boone's conflict over knowing and thinking about what would happen if Sophia were alive. It adds to Hester pre-retcon and how close we know she was to Gigi and the fact she sees Chanel and the others as replicas of Bethany, Mandy, and Coco. It adds to Grace turning out to be Bethany's daughter.

I've not got an ending point to come to with this one, but it's a big opinion of mine, given how attached I am to S1's characters.

I don't have much to say about Hoffel aside from the fact what more depth she could've had isn't gone through with, and that's unfortunate for her. There's lots of implication that she and Cassidy did genuinely have some sort of bond, but given S2 rushing through everything and/or ignoring it to focus on other things and the ways Cassidy and Jane are written in general, nothing is done with it, and it takes away what weight it seems like there was meant to be in the scenes where they argue over Cass drifting out of the plans. Even the way she reacts genuinely caught off guard when she kills him could've had more weight if it had been a serious scene.

Hoffel and Hester don't get to interact enough, and when they do, there's very little to it, and that's a shame. Hoffel is seeking vengeance for Agatha, who was there when Sophia's death was covered up and likely when Munsch told Amy and Gigi to leave with the babies, and- while I can absolutely partly blame the retcon for this- Hester doesn't get to feel anything about that.

Considering it's fair to assume Hoffel was pretty close with her sister, there's a chance that- given Agatha lived in Kappa- Hoffel might've visited even once or twice when Gigi and Amy and the others were still around, given it's fairly clear she hadn't ever met Chanel directly before.

Then there's the little detail in Hoffel's narration: "I've had my eye on the Chanels since they were released from the asylum."

Chanel was called out for (accidentally, but they didn't know that) killing Agatha far earlier than that. That's why she was first arrested by Chisolm in S1. Since Hoffel and Agatha were direct family, Hoffel would've been informed here. She would've been told her sister was dead once they found her body in Shady Lane and then- if Chisolm wasn't too lazy to do it- updated to know who killed her when Chanel was believed to have done it all.

As odd as it would be for all of them, I don't think it's impossible that maybe Hester alone either sought Hoffel out at some point in between seasons to "tell her what really happened to her sister" because Chisolm's laziness had him never do so, OR since Denise handled the case so heavily when Hester was caught, Hoffel was invited to see Hester face-to-face in a setting akin to an interview as a chance to get some closure over what really happened to her sister, and Hester twisted it then into Chanel purposefully killing her.

And this can also go for what they could've done with her and Cass, going off the last option mentioned, Hoffel- while definitely with rougher edges than Jess and Amy had and seemingly less directly than Hester- seems extremely family-orientated.

The fact she's doing this for Agatha, the fact she's genuinely upset to kill Cass (accidentally), the way she reacts to Wes saying he wants to kill Hester by snapping that's his daughter.

If Hoffel knew Gigi (and Amy, and Sophia, and- given Bethany likely wouldn't have been too friendly, met the others), then Hester would've told her the whole story. About Agatha playing a part in covering up Sophia's murder, about Munsch, about Amy and Gigi, and everything that happened to them. Maybe she'd have even mentioned Boone.

And Hoffel would- in a twisted way- honestly halfway understand that. She'd zone in on the next thing she could- someone who, in her eyes, has nothing to lose, Chanel.

Even the way she reacts when she finds out Wes is Hester's dad in the first place is so outward and odd to me, but had Hoffel met Gigi, it gives something to Hoffel briefly defending Hester when Wes puts forward killing her trying to save his own skin. Just a little way she could've repaid Gigi for what harm Agatha was indirectly involved in. She's after vengeance for her sister, yes, but she can keep Hester safe while she's doing it.

These theories don't have to be connected, but going back to that theory I mentioned earlier:

Hester's urgency over Brock killing Munsch as soon as possible has always made me believe that it was never meant to be her and Brock going to Blood Island. It was meant to be her and Hoffel.

Again, this is a theory, but Hester leaves as soon as Hoffel is ready to kill everybody. She doesn't seem to think once about Brock being caught up in that, and as far as it's implied, he had to find a way to meet her there already on Blood Island. Hoffel is getting ready to leave before the Scooby-Doo chase starts. Hoffel was aware when Brock was going to propose to Munsch, she is the one who goes to fetch Chanel. Hester told her this plan.

It was Hester's idea for him to propose to Munsch anyway. She stood with Hoffel (and Cassidy) during the said proposal and was there to hand Munsch that pen at the wedding. She knew what she was doing. She had something planned that all this was a necessity for.

It's entirely possible to me that her plan was to have Brock kill Munsch and take the money, and once everything was done, it would've been her and Hoffel escaping to Blood Island to just do whatever they want as just partners in crime.

They also put Hoffel in Amy's blue a lot, be it with that one dress or with her nails.

And then we get to... the most pathetic, wet dog of a man in the show.

Wes is stupid. Wes is hilariously stupid. What happened to Grace is more his fault than Chanel's, and he attacks everyone he says he isn't interested in, Munsch included, given that Green Meanie she nearly unmasks at the start of the season is Wes considering Hoffel didn't have the costume by then and Cass was there in the scene with Sadie. He attacks Zayday multiple times, even if during one, he leaves her alone because she was Grace's best friend.

He yells at Hester never to call him dad, and then immediately tries tripping her into taking his side by yelling that he is her dad, and then later that same episode, says he wants to kill her to save his own skin, and this is the writing's fault, but he doesn't even say Grace's name before he dies, he says playlist, which was a running gag in S1, but was not mentioned in S2 up until then.

Wes showing up so randomly this season alone is fuel for my theory that a S3 would've brought the dead villains back (S1 villains at the forefront) because he is here just to tell us what happened to Grace and then fucking die. They could've easily done this through Zayday, but Grace literally does not exist until Wes comes along, she's mentioned like twice- never by the girls- and then she's never mentioned again.

Wes and Zayday never even see each other face to face, and she is NOT MISSING by the time he gets there. This is not acknowledged as her actively avoiding him, and even when she mentions Earl Gray to Jane, her connection to Grace is not acknowledged. I get it, boyfriend is closer to husband, but why would you not have her talk about Grace here? Have her say she lost Grace to the Devil murders!! If Grace as a devil is meant to have the power to possibly have ALREADY killed Chanel then mention her in S2!!!

Although this is also the fault of Wes being hilariously awful since S1, he is also impossible to take seriously as a villain both for that reason and because of how he's re-introduced and is here for like half an hour in total.

Wes this season also has a negative effect on Munsch, given her health issues are put on pause while he's around. This isn't the first time they seem to disappear, but it's the time it lasts the longest. Zayday told Munsch she had less than a year to live, and we get through the implication of her knowing she only has a month that she did her own research and put the timeline together herself, and as emotional as she got telling Zayday (and Chamberlain) about her worries in the first place, this is ignored by her until the last two episodes start rushing to wrap it up.

Even the brief deal he makes with Cass not only goes nowhere, but it's also impossible to take seriously because neither Cass nor Wes are written seriously in general, and by then it's too late to take them as such, especially with, again, how Wes was re-introduced.

Wes also gets his ass kicked whenever he tries physically fighting anyone, which is absolutely hilarious.

I'll mention this here due to the fact I can't say much about her because she's inactive for so long this season, but Denise being the hero of the season is pretty funny, although I do wish they'd have done more with her instead of putting her away before Hester moved back in with the others and Zayday went missing especially.

To move on to more positive things I have to say about S2, and why I rewatch it so often when I'm writing Chanel and Hester especially, season two does have a lot of really great character interactions with the girls.

It's the characterization and dynamic between the girls this season that slips through the intentionally more comedic-toned writing, and I love it.

Brock's inconsistency leads to unnecessary drama between Munsch and Chanel, but pushing that aside, there is something so special about how clear the bond between everyone is in Season Two.

Chanel and Zayday's bond is amazingly done. Chanel starts off purposefully trying to knock Zayday's confidence this season, but it isn't a rehashing of their S1 dynamic; it's a continuation. Where Chanel starts this season makes her possessive of whatever chance there is to be seen as the leader around the hospital, but it doesn't last. She'll be spiteful and snappy occasionally, of course, but within a few weeks, she's already calmed down, and she and Zayday are working alongside each other- and living together- fine.

We see more of Chanel and Sadie this season, too, as much as a lot of Sadie's scenes are pushed to be surrounding her relationship with Cass. They're closer than people would think they are, and the fact Sadie continued testing whether Chanel really wouldn't give in when she tries saying no to letting Hester stay is a huge nod to the kind of dynamic those two have in the dynamic of The Chanels in general.

Libby gets a whole relationship with Zayday this season, and it's adorable. It's so well-written, and I don't know why. We see them care about each other. Zayday brings Libby down to earth. Libby notices when Zayday goes missing. I don't know whose idea this was, but I don't think anyone can look me in the eye and tell me that a S3 wouldn't have continued with these two's relationship. They're running the hospital together by post-finale. They're practically married by the end of S2.

And pausing going from character to character for a second, S2's moments of building/emphasizing bonds between everyone makes me wonder if it was their way of setting up for a S3 being more character-focused and bringing in both the S1 villains and Grace as the Devil, and Zayday and Libby are my biggest example.

Zayday this season takes Grace's role, and with Chamberlain gone, she'd need someone else to investigate alongside her in a S3- where Grace is undoubtedly the Devil. Having Zayday and Libby investigate/visit Jane together seems like their way of testing whether that would work using Libby as Zayday's partner in investigating, and with these two being given such a nice dynamic, it did.

Even Munsch's wonky way of caring for the girls works oddly well this season. There's the unnecessary romance triangle that covers it more than other things I'm talking about here, but it's there through the whole season, even through the more in-character-conflict moments of threatening Chanel over Hester's whereabouts. Smaller things like her friendship with Denise coming back! And the way she is when they first visit Hester in the asylum this season is so interesting. She's so spiteful, and it just makes me wonder if it comes from the fact that part of her does know that it's partly her fault any of S1 (Wording it this way because the retcon's not canon) happened at all. She is partly at fault for the Devil Murders happening in the first place, and she's still too prideful to admit it to herself- especially when they first go to Hester, pushing aside the problems with the plotline, Munsch is under the impression she is dying.

Chad's big moment before he dies is so fucking sweet. I know it seems like I give him too much credit just off his word for this scene, but it's owing to Glen's phenomenal delivery of the little moments Chad gets even in S1 (his line in Ghost Stories when he asks if Chanel is the killer). He's so genuine in this whole scene, and it's just nice to have him admit that he does care for Chanel. Saying he just wants Chanel to enjoy her wedding? I am ugly crying.

I have some opinions on Chad's death. It's really stupid that Wes was the one to kill him, and killing him off so soon was a very bold move, but that scene was a sweet sendoff for him.

This one's going to be very long, have quite a bit of an old S1 analysis of mine, and have shots slotted in, so bear with me.

Chanel and Hester's dynamic this season is perfect. It's honestly quite surprising because when doing S1 to S2 right after the other, aside from Thanksgiving, all of their moments in S1 are coming from Chanel's clear bias, and then little things like Chanel's reactions to Hester being hurt in Dorkus/TFGS and then her reactions to when Hester is framing her, which may very well have not even been scripted.

In S2, their moments seem mostly intentional. There are a lot of little details again, but even the obviously scripted things like everything Chanel does when it comes to moving Hester in and refusing to tell Munsch anything about her whereabouts genuinely do make me think that a S3 would've continued developing these two's dynamic.

Looking back on Chanel's reactions in Dorkus/TFGS, first when they find Hester with the heel through her eye:

This is before Hester wakes up. When Zayday struggles to feel a pulse, and it's quickly being concluded she must be dead. From some of the others, this wouldn't look like much, but this is Chanel. In front of the others. In front of Grace.

It's implied at least one of them stepped away to call an ambulance because TFGS picking the timeline back up starts when Hester's already being wheeled out. And Chanel is there, running alongside her and telling her over and over that it'll be okay, she'll be alright, destabilized with the "Can we save the shoe?" line similar to how Pete messing around in Kappa was used as a destabilizer in his last scene. That's an in-character destabilizer, but it doesn't take away from how she's acting otherwise. This is Chanel running alongside and trying to comfort the girl she pushed down the stairs a few days ago. This is Chanel running alongside and trying to comfort the girl Zayday and Grace JUST CALLED THE LAST DEVIL. And Chanel believed them. She knew they were right. Everyone knew those two wouldn't have gotten it wrong, especially not then, especially given what Grace went through literally the night before.

But the next time we see her, she's following what Hester said when she was awake and yelling at Libby to confess that she's the last Devil. And added detail, to the others, it probably should've been thought that Hester wasn't entirely in the right mind when yelling about Libby, the girl was half-blind, had just regained consciousness, bleeding, and in a lot of pain. They don't know she did that herself.

And then when Hester moves to her during TFGS- with their completely parallel colors too- she snaps about it at first, but when Hester starts backing her toward Sadie and Libby:

Hester is the only person to pull this type of genuine reaction from Chanel. To pull reactions like this from Chanel that aren't faked or dramatized purposefully by her in the moment, and this continues into S2 in ways that, again, seem to be completely on purpose.

This isn't to do with Chanel, but I just want to point out that Amy, Sophia, and Gigi all get their own bits of reference in Chanel Pour Homme-Icide when Chanel and Hester first meet back up. Amy and Sophia get their colors in the lighting that follows Chanel through the scene- blue and gold respectively- and Hester faking ghostly sounds is directly taken from Gigi even if the retcon would never allow that to be acknowledged.

I had to bring those S1 moments up because I'm pairing them a bit with how Chanel continues to react toward Hester through the rest of the scene in CPH-I. She snaps at her- barely, for her standards- twice. And then it's implied that she listens to what Hester says mostly in silence because the scene cuts away to the apartment, and Chanel announces that Hester's moving in with them.

Even the things Libby and Sadie seem to start noticing and actively start pushing back against.

Libby's reaction wouldn't have done much to Chanel anyway, sure, but the way Sadie doesn't start a direct argument over it when she also refuses makes me wonder if she didn't give in as soon as Chanel said they'd have better luck with Hester there just to see if Chanel really wouldn't go back on her word, and she doesn't.

All it takes is this look, and Sadie lets it go.

This is all after Halloween Blues.

Chanel assumed when she was attacked there that it was Libby and was later directly proven wrong. She also says herself when Zayday's helping with her leg, she doesn't know why she wasn't followed. It's never brought back up, but there is very little chance that she didn't piece together that it must've been Hester.

Even things like barely snapping when she wakes up to Hester standing over her bed (The fact Hester ended up rooming with Chanel is a whole thing on its own) she's scared for a few moments, but she fully listens to what Hester asks for. She's bored, she feels caged up here, and she's just got out of one, she wants something to do, or she'll kill someone for the hell of it.

Before this, and before Chanel confesses and gets Hester free-roam, Munsch threatens her over Hester's whereabouts, where she stays completely silent and refuses to say so much as a word.

Hester's characterization in S2 is something I actually really like for her. The retcon's still present (and patchy), but there's actually quite a bit of her depth that slips between the cracks this season.

Although nearly all of what I'm going to say here is not confirmed directly, her calling the Green Meanie summit when she did is a nice little detail. She sees them arguing, and it's fair to assume through her, "We're here to divvy out the remaining murders so that no one's feelings get hurt," line that she worked to settle things as soon as she noticed the infighting because of what happened between Gigi and Boone.

I've talked about her and Chanel already, but on Hester's end specifically, we have some of it pretty intertwined with her characterization here in general.

She takes the chance to tease Chanel by stealing her blood in Blood Drive, but it comes with her actively trying to keep her promise not to kill anybody so she doesn't have to be locked up again, which is something about her character that I've always really liked given her past in Palmer. It's fitting for her to hate being locked up as much as she does, and S2 goes really hard with it.

Going back to Chanel, there's also a lot to S2's cliffhanger. There is a 50/50 chance here that Chanel is either badly hurt or canonically dead, with how few ways there were for her to have gotten out of it. Sadie would've most likely been the one to find her, and Hester (and Munsch) wouldn't be there to know about it. The cliffhanger this season also brings me back to what I said about a S3 possibly being more character-driven, both with Grace as the Devil and the fact that if she'd been hurt here, Chanel would've had Zayday and Libby especially keeping an eye on her given they're canonically leading the hospital by the end of the season. This could've pushed a lot between Chanel and Hester too, looking back at the fact Hester and Boone constantly spared Grace in S1 and did see her as their little sister.

I won't say anymore because I'll probably just end up repeating myself, and this is already far too long, but there you go, anon. Told you I had a lot to say.

Bonus for S2 being very adamant either on purpose or not on purpose that Chanel is asexual.

#SQS #Scream Queens #THIS TOOK FOREVER

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