If you enjoyed the first season of MTV’s Scream: The TV Series, you should undoubtedly enjoy what the show has to offer in the Season 2 premiere, as not only do we get another murder mystery to dig deep into, but we also get a few new major storylines, more flushed-out characters, and a viciously blunt killing to kick things off in grand, gory style.
As far as the story goes, Scream: S2 picks back up with the Lakewood Six several months after the murder spree that uprooted their lives and changed their small community forever. It’s revealed that Emma (Willa Fitzgerald) had been away receiving deep therapy for the trauma she had undergone after being nearly filleted by last season’s killer and it has left her relationship with Kieran (Amadeus Serafini) strained to say the very least. When Emma returns, she’s greeted awkwardly with a surprise party thrown by Kieran, and the gang is all there: resident mean girl Brooke (Carlson Young) who has been sneaking around with the lunkheaded Jake (Tom Maden), movie geek Noah (John Karna) who hasn’t given up his obsession with the murder spree they all barely survived and Audrey, who was revealed to the be the killer’s accomplice (in what manner we don’t know just yet, though) in the conclusion of last season’s finale. It’s a bittersweet moment for all the characters, as we see how they’ve all individually coped but also have banded together over time as well.
But the joy of Emma’s return is short-lived once we learn that there is a new killer lurking in Lakewood, and while this first episode doesn’t reveal too much, what we do know is that it is someone with a vested interest in the events of Scream’s first season and Emma is once again squarely in the middle of the whole murderous enchilada.
Scream surprisingly won me over throughout its first nine episodes. Being a huge fan of the original film quadrilogy, I was rather skeptical about how a slasher mystery would translate in the world of television, but overall the show did a solid job of creating characters I enjoyed, giving those characters some real stakes that mattered, and also delivered some unique and fun kills as well (the farm kill in the first season is still one of my favorite moments from all those episodes). It wasn’t always a perfect ride with Scream but when the story clicked, it just really fired on all cylinders and I appreciated that the first season ended on an incredibly strong note (Ti West lending his directorial talents truly added so much value to that finale).
It’s hard to judge just what we can expect for this second season but if this first episode, entitled “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” is any indication, I’m enjoying the fact that we’re getting a new mystery that somehow ties into the events of the previous season. I'm also excited that a few more of the secondary characters are getting more of a focus as well, particularly Audrey who has easily become one of the MVPs for Scream: The TV Series (right alongside Young who plays Brooke). I’m really interested in seeing what gets revealed about her involvement with last season’s killer and I enjoyed seeing Taylor-Klaus bring a whole new dynamic to Audrey as we see her get repeatedly tormented by a new killer and her own nagging conscience.
My one gripe is that “I Know What You Did Last Summer” was pretty light on the Brooke side of things, but I’m guessing that will hopefully get resolved rather quickly by episode two based on what we see here and what is teased at the end of the episode.
The opening scene of “I Know What You Did Last Summer” was also a fun moment for me as a fan of the original Scream films, as it felt like a great homage to the opening from Scream 2, but with a bit of a twist. It’s not a moment that’s really all that surprising, but I did appreciate that it felt like a wonderful hat-tip to Wes Craven’s bold efforts as a genre storyteller and proved that this series knows exactly how to respect its roots while trying to establish their own rules at the same time.
If you weren’t a fan of the first season of MTV’s Scream, then there’s probably not a lot that will win you over here. But, for those of you who discovered this gem of a show that only got better as its first season wore on, you’ll definitely want to tune in for Scream: Season Two, as it looks like things are about to get fiendishly complicated for the survivors of last year’s Lakewood Massacre. I don’t know what to expect in terms of the story, but what I’ve seen so far has me hooked already.
Heather A. Wixson was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, until she followed her dreams and moved to Los Angeles in 2009. A 14-year veteran in the world of horror entertainment journalism, Wixson fell in love with genre films at a very early age, and has spent more than a decade as a writer and supporter of preserving the history of horror and science fiction cinema. Throughout her career, Wixson has contributed to several notable websites, including Fangoria, Dread Central, Terror Tube, and FEARnet, and she currently serves as the Managing Editor for Daily Dead, which has been her home since 2013. She's also written for both Fangoria Magazine & ReMind Magazine, and her latest book project, Monsters, Makeup & Effects: Volume One will be released on October 20, 2021.
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