Scream Queens Season 2 Episode 9 Review: Lovin the D
Caralynn Lippo
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Three Green Meanies are better than one... For a little while, anyway.
Somehow, Scream Queens Season 2 Episode 9 is the penultimate installment of the season. Kind of snuck up on us, didn't it? Unfortunately, "Lovin the D" was one of the season's weaker hours.
Heading into next week's season (and possibly series) finale, our Green Meanie count is back down to two, and odds are we'll be left with none by the time it's curtain call for the horror-comedy series' second season.
All Green Meanies were (apparently) revealed as of the end of Scream Queens Season 2 Episode 8 – unless, of course, the show pulls a fast one on us and trots out additional unknown Green Meanies in the eleventh hour (aka, Scream Queens Season 2 Episode 10).
Of the three motives, only Nurse Hoffel's made some amount of sense, and even then, her rationale was a little sketchy.
Hoffel wants to kill the Chanels (and specifically Chanel Oberlin), for her sister Ms. Bean's death.
Yet, she's been killing ancillary Chanels left and right to achieve her goal, becoming increasingly (and hilariously) unhinged every single time one of her plans to murder Chanel is humorously foiled.
Wes, the most recently-revealed Green Meanie, had an even flimsier motive, which was acknowledged by basically everyone at the Green Meanie "Summit" – Grace, having gone insane from the trauma she endured at Wallace, was in an asylum.
Except... the Chanels technically didn't do all that Red Devil mayhem leading to Grace's breakdown. So why is he single-mindedly focused on them? I mean, none of us are here for the sense-making, but still. It's distracting.
Cassidy's (and his mother's) motive was the worst of all, which Chanel #3 rightly pointed out when she demanded that she and Cassidy visit his mother to beseech her to allow Cassidy to end his nonsensical serial killing.
I heard enough. I'm sorry your husband died and it made you sad. But can't you see the major logic fail in closing down a hospital that is actually curing people? Isn't that what you were so upset about in the first place? No one who worked at the hospital back then still works there. You're mad at architecture and geography. It would be like murdering all the guests at a Hilton hotel just because you got bummed out listening to Paris' awful song.
Chanel #3
The gist of it was that Jane was hell-bent on closing down the hospital by killing people, but as #3 said, literally no one who was involved in her husband's murder was still at the hospital and they were curing patients – the very thing she was angry at the hospital for not having done for her dead husband years earlier.
It's a head-scratcher.
While the fraught team-up of the Green Meanies – initiated when Hester called a "Green Meanie Summit" after the Chanels escaped their collective grasps in the late shift melee – was short-lived, it was really quite fun.
Perhaps the best part of it was kooky Hester treating the whole thing like a game show, first playing "Who killed who?" and then "Who gets to kill the Chanels?" like a regular Vanna White.
It was a smart and entertaining way for the writers to clarify which of the Green Meanies killed which of the (many!) victims this season, similar to Pete's conversation with Grace on Scream Queens Season 1 when he admitted to being a Red Devil (sorta).
I'd have liked to see more of Wes and Hester attempting to awkwardly/humorously navigate their father-daughter serial killer bond, but alas.
Hester: Dad! Nurse Hoffel!
Wes: Don't call me that, okay? It's so embarrassing...
The arguments between Wes and Hoffel over who would get the "grand prize" (killing Chanel) were great ("Go suck a hot fart!") and perfectly set the scene for the two later turning against one another.
It also gave us one of the hour's funniest lines and one of Wes' best-ever deliveries: "Four Chanels for the price of one!"
Wes: Look, Hoffel, I will give you #5, #7, #8, and #3.
Cassidy: Whoa, whoa! #3 is mine.
Wes: Hey, can it, Cascade! Look, that's 5, 7, 8, and 3. All I want is Chanel. That's four Chanels for the price of one.
Meanwhile, as the Green Meanies were collectively and individually plotting their next moves, the Chanels were having their best day ever.
Dr. Scarlett Lovin (former Kappa sister/hot TV doctor lady/host of the incredibly-named "Lovin the D"), played by guest star Brooke Shields, invited them to participate in an on-air surgery that Dr. Brock Holt would perform on a patient with an enormous facial tumor.
Hearkening back to Chanel's ultimate goal in agreeing to join the hospital (to become sexy TV doctor-hosts), this storyline made perfect sense.
The theme of this season has turned out to be no matter who tries to keep Chanel down (or how hard they try), she just keeps "failing upward," as Wes angrily pointed out.
The gal is virtually indestructible, and I love it. She narrowly escaped Wes' poisoned coffee cup when Dr. Lovin randomly and mistakenly grabbed it instead, dying in her place – and not only did Chanel escape death, she was rewarded thanks (indirectly) to Wes' actions!
With Scarlett's death, the Chanels had the chance to step up to the plate and blow away "Lovin the D's" producer with her casual, hokey, inspirational one-liners as Brock carved the tumor out of that dude's face. Chanel's ridiculous comments were great, but I personally loved #3's deadpan tumor commentary the most:
Whoa. That's a lot of tumor. Right, America?
Chanel #3 [into the camera]
Billie Lourd needs to go on to do more comedy after this show ends. PLEASE.
In retaliation for having butted in on killing Chanel, Hoffel and Cassidy prepared to kill Wes via vat of boiling peanut oil – the alliance against Hoffel that Wes had attempted to foist on Cassidy didn't quite take, apparently.
I could have cared less about Wes as a character, but I've gotta say, his willingness to accept his death and his final word ("Playlist," a reference to his very first scene on the Scream Queens Series Premiere with Grace) kind of got me teary.
Grace and Wes were both boring as heck, but Wes really did love his daughter.
Elsewhere, Zayday is still trapped in crazy momma Jane's secret underground dungeon-well – but she's alive!
Of course, Zayday has escaped from certain death (and specifically from pits, per Scream Queens Season 1 Episode 5) before and now she knows that Cassidy is the "baby in the belly," so chances are she'll escape and blow up Cassidy's spot soon enough.
Separately, Dr. Holt was dealing with his own issues. His new not-from-a-serial-killer hand was no longer preventing him from performing surgery, but he still wanted to kill Chanel.
He consulted with Hester (the resident psycho-killer expert), who suggested that, perhaps, the serial killer hand wasn't to blame after all – maybe he actually just wanted to kill and had suppressed the urge.
That led to the most surprising hookup of the season – Brock and Hester, bonding over their shared love of murder, hooking up on top of a fresh corpse. Only on Scream Queens, y'all.
In the end, everyone had been lulled into a false sense of security, just as Cassidy and Hoffel planned, after thinking that Wes was the one and only Green Meanie and had been killed.
Munsch also confessed her terminal illness and her impending death to the group. Will Munsch actually die? Highly doubtful, though I'm not sure how she'll find her way out of it without resident medical wunderkind Zayday.
Best gag of the night: The Chanels all aced the MCAT that they needed to take in order to film for "Lovin the D" – but Chanel and Chanel #3 cheated, while #5 did it legit. Conclusion: Chanel #5 is a secret genius and nobody cares.
Chanel #5 [crying]: I'm a genius and nobody cares.
Chanel: Damn it, Number 5, shut up!
Stray thoughts:
- I'd totally forgotten that Hester has only technically killed one person – Grace's lame-o boyfriend, Pete. Hester is the least murder-y psychopath of the bunch.
- Wes only killed three people, but having cheerily admitted to killing my beloved Chad Radwell, he quickly landed on my 2016's Most Despicable Characters list, right down there with The Walking Dead's Negan and Game of Thrones' Ramsey Snow. I am so serious.
- Cassidy is still admirably dedicated to not killing #3, but his mother flat out told him that he had to now that #3 challenged Jane's authority over her son. Will Cassidy end up offing his love on the season finale, or will love prevail? Or, the third and most likely option – will Cassidy sacrifice himself to protect #3? I'm gonna go ahead and give Option 3 a 99% likelihood.
- Fair thee well Chanel #7 aka Marfan aka Marguerite Honeywell. Wes killed you via strangulation, but I'll never forget your adorable willingness to be a human shield.
- In terms of death predictions, I'm thinking that Cassidy and Nurse Hoffel are definitely both goners. I have a feeling that Hester and Dr. Brock Holt will walk away, a pair of killers. I don't think any of the major characters will be killed. Well, fingers crossed, anyway.
- The season finale promo shows Denise Hemphill (ALIVE! AWAKE!) asking what she missed, and I'm so excited to see her again!
What did you think of "Lovin the D"? Leave me a comment below and watch Scream Queens online anytime here at TV Fanatic!
Caralynn Lippo is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.
