Monday, July 27, 2015

My Review of Scream's 1x02: "Hello, Emma"


Written by Jill E. Blotevogel
Directed by Tim Hunter

Ghostface: "You're gonna try a little batting practice on me?"
Emma: "You're damn right I will."
Ghostface: "You'll have to find me first. I could be anywhere."

Second episode in and things opened up with a nice character being killed off. Yes, this show killed off one half of the lesbian couple with poor Rachael being hung within the first five minutes as she foolishly believed that Audrey was prank calling her. It also didn't help that we learned Rachael was a cutter and that she couldn't handle the mean girl comments being posted about her as well.

Rachael's death however did serve to highlight Emma's own guilt about uploading that video but there were times where I felt like someone should've told Emma that it wasn't really about her. Then the last scene happened where Ghostface made it pretty damn clear that it was about Emma and that past sins were going to be paid via her at some point.

For me, I'm liking the phone calls between Emma and Ghostface but two episodes in (and I'm aware that this is MTV), this show is feeling rather tame though. Rachael's death is effective due to her being likeable but none of the deaths we've had so far on the show have matched even the tamer of deaths in the movies as of yet. In that regard this show needs to up it's game and get a bit more creative.

I do appreciate that because the show is ten episodes that the writers are being realistic enough by not going overkill on the bloodbaths just yet. It's also helping that we're getting bits and bobs of information about Brandon James and his past with Maggie/Daisy (Emma's father was also a survivor of that previous massacre). It's a good thing because the teen stuff is utterly boring.

With Audrey/Rachael's relationship cut too short, only Noah and Riley's budding one seems to have some marginal interest to it. I couldn't care less about Emma and Will as a couple (though Kieran deliberately causing trouble between them is slightly amusing) and Brooke sleeping with her English teacher, Seth is also dull to watch. Also the less said about Jake the better. He's by far the worst character on the show and hopefully an imminent death too.

- Tyler's body hasn't been found and they seem to have him as a suspect.
- The show has it's own version of Gale Weathers with Piper Shaw - a podcaster. We also met the mayor as well during this episode.
- Noah was actually vandalising Jake's car rather than doing any killings. Glad they cleared that one up rather quickly.
- Murder selfies, anyone?

Like the opening episode, it isn't bad but "Hello, Emma" felt just as safe as the first one. I know there are restrictions on what they can get away with but considering that this show seems to reference so many shows, perhaps it could try to take some of the risks as they do as well.

Rating: 6 out of 10

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