The opening scene of Fox’s new series, “Scream Queens,” shows a pair of bloody hands.
Those bloody hands belong to a Kappa Kappa Tau sorority member in the year 1995. The KKT house is having a party when one of the girls gives birth to a baby she didn’t know she was pregnant with in the bathtub upstairs. Everyone decides that helping her can wait until after “Waterfalls” by TLC is over because that is their song. When they return — she is dead.
Flash forward to 2015 and the glamorous Chanel Oberlin (Emma Roberts) rises from her bed as she greets her “minions” with a “Good morning sluts.” There is Chanel Number Two (Ariana Grande), Chanel Number Three (Billie Lourde), and Chanel Number Five (Abigail Breslin). Chanel Number Four got Meningitis and died.
Chanel’s used to be a minion herself, but was kicked out and not even allowed to give the current president her spray tan like she was supposed to. The girl that did ended up killing her because the spray tan was filled with Hydrochloric acid. We are still not sure if that was Chanel’s doing or not. We see our first glimpse of the Red Devil enter the room before she dies.
The KKT house’s maid, Chanel refers to her as “White Mammy”, informed her that Dean Munsch (Jamie Lee Curtis) needs to see her. Chanel and Munsch could not hate each other any more. Munsch blames KKT for the way young girls see themselves. As a way to punish Chanel, Munsch tried to end their chapter of KKT. Gigi (Nasim Pedrad), the president of the sorority organization, intercepts and makes a deal. The sorority must accept anyone who wants to be a pledge.
“What fresh hell is this?” says Chanel.
All of the “normal” girls leave, deciding that only losers would stay.
The new pledges include “neckbrace girl”, “predatory lesbian” and a “deaf Taylor Swift” according to Chanel. Grace (Skyler Samuels), the show’s moral compass at the time, and her roommate Zayday (Keke Palmer) are also included in the pledges.
Grace’s father, Wes (Oliver Hudson), dropped her off at campus and they had an emotional parting. The two are close because Grace’s mother died when she was young. She wants to join KKT because she knows her mother was a member.
Grace immediately hits it off with Pete (Diego Boneta) who sends Chanel over the edge because he can’t heat her pumpkin spice latte with no foam to several degrees below boiling. When he finds out Grace is rushing for KKT, he warns her that the house has a dark past. Pete says that he has been investigating the house.
Chanel and Miss Bean (white mammy’s real name) devise a plan to scare the new pledges away from being in KKT. Chanel is going yell at Miss Bean and shove her face into the fryer. Miss Bean freaks out, but agrees when Chanel points out that they won’t turn the fryer on.
Later that night, one of the girls finds a shrine of Chanel’s face scratched out in Miss Bean’s room. They all confront Miss Bean and Chanel outs her plan to scare the girls and insists she is going to do it anyway. You guessed it — the fryer was on. Miss Bean now lies dead on the kitchen floor. Grace decides to go to police, but Chanel threatens to blame it on her if she does. They all hide the body.
Grace goes to Pete to tell him what happened, but he already knows because he was watching. Grace offers to supply Pete with information about KKT so he can write a paper to out them and return KKT back to normal.
When the two go to examine the body, they are almost caught by Chanel and her boyfriend, Chad (Glen Powell). They discover that the body is missing and Miss Bean could be alive.
Also, Chad is sleeping with Dean Munsch and professed his love for her. In a previous scene he tells her to get out or she’ll barf on his face. Chad and Chanel have their own problems because Chad isn’t happy that KKT is accepting “losers.”
The Chanels decide to take a blood oath of silence, but Chanel Number Two freaks out and decides that she is going home. As she’s packing, the red devil enters her room and they have a quick text conversation while standing in front of each other. She dances with the devil and the he stabs her.
“Hell week” begins and when the hazing begins, Grace says she isn’t going to allow it.
Chanel and Grace have a private coffee meeting where Chanel offers her a spot as Chanel Number Six. Grace refuses. We see a brief second of Chanel being a normal human being, but the she’s back to being a mean girl. The other pledges are buried underground, apart from their heads, for the entire night as a way to get acquainted. The red devil stops by and chops the head off of Deaf Taylor Swift.
Grace snoops in the basement and finds the bloody bathtub and the mix tape including “Waterfalls”. Chanel admits that Dean Munsch and Miss Bean helped cover up the death and baby.
Meanwhile, Chad and his roommate, Boon (Nick Jonas), cuddle in bed together because Boon is scared of the killer. Chad knows he’s gay, but allows the cuddling as long as Boon keeps his hands to himself. Chanel walks in and sees them together.
While Pete is snooping in the dean’s office, he finds a list of names from the party in 1995. He is knocked out by the red devil and hung up on the side of a building with “MYOB” (My Your Own Business) pinned to his shirt. Pete and Grace are sharing their findings in Pete’s dorm room when she discovers the red devil costume in his closet. He admits that he is the school mascot, but Grace is freaked out and leaves.
Boon meets with the Chanels and offers to come out of the closet as long as they accept him into the sorority. Chanel thinks it’s a great publicity stunt, but Chanel Number Five disagrees.
Later on, Chanel is attacked in her room. She escapes and one of the two security guards comes to “help”. Her advice is to run. The girls go upstairs to investigate. “SLUTS WILL DIE” was written on the wall and all the girls share a dramatic scream. As the security guard makes it back to her partner, she discovers that she has a knife in her neck.
Boon is shown working out in his room when the red devil appears. He is found some time later surrounded by candles, his throat slit.
The girls have a hazing dinner that turns into a discussion of who the killer might be. The security guard and Chad burst in and spill that the other guard and Boon were killed.
The closing scene shows the red devil enter the morgue and pull out Boon’s body. His eyes pop open and he peels off the patch on his neck that made it look like it was slit.
“What took you so long?” Boon asks.