In this episode of Scream Queens, “Thanksgiving,” Chanel endures a series of humiliations when she attends Thanksgiving with Chad’s family. After everyone’s Thanksgiving plans go bust, they gather at the Kappa Kappa Tau house for a big dinner and a lot of finger pointing. And several big secrets are revealed.
Chanel breaks the news to Chad that not only is he not going to be a father, but she pushed Hester down the steps, resulting in her demise. Chanel isn’t taking full credit for Hester’s death; gravity did most of the work.
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The Dead Kappa Who isn’t Really Dead
Not only is Chad thrilled at this turn of events, but he’s also completely turned on. When he discovers that Chanel has stashed Number Six in the meat locker (where they keep all the dead bodies), he’s suggests a little three-way action. If Chanel really wants Chad to take her home to meet his family, she needs to prove to him she can meet his needs.
Chanel agrees to show him Hester’s body, but not so he can violate it. She’ll show it to him so they can share a dangerous secret that will strengthen their relationship.
When they go to the meat locker, Hester is missing. Yes, the Kappas keep putting dead bodies on ice, but you’d think Chanel would have learned by now that the bodies never stay put. Chanel questions if the freezer is actually a wormhole leading to an alternate dimension.
Chad suggests that perhaps Hester wasn’t really dead. Chanel did fail to check the girl’s pulse. Chad is convinced that Hester is still alive, and Chanel should consider bringing a security detail with her to the Hamptons since Hester is all kinds of crazy, probably hell-bent on revenge and will stop at nothing until Chanel is dead.
The First Kappa Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving festivities aren’t going as planned for Chanel #3 either. She arrives home to engage in the Swenson family tradition of eating frozen dinners served on TV trays and with her ambivalent, boozy parents. Disgusted by her family’s lack of interest in the recent string of grisly murders on her college campus, Chanel #3 decides to ditch her family and head back to the Kappa house.
She arrives to find Dean Munsch slaughtering a turkey in the kitchen. Munsch was dis-invited to her in-laws, since they still think she killed their son (which she did). And since the Kappas have an A-mazing kitchen they never use, she figured she’d celebrate alone.
Chanel #3 isn’t one for eating, much less cooking, but she’s down for hanging out with Munsch.
Also at Kappa house are Zayday and Grace, who have decided to have an orphans Thanksgiving with Munsch and Number Three instead of going to Oakland. Wes calls, and since Gigi failed to show up, Grace invites him to spend Thanksgiving with her.
The Kappas Who Go to the Hamptons
Chanel sits down to dinner with the Radwell family: Bunny (mother), Tad (father), brothers Thad and Brad, and Brad’s wife, Muffy. The family is as vile as you could possibly imagine, and Chad’s mother has not taken a shine to Chanel, even with Chanel’s attempts to impress the matriarch by trying to prove her family’s pedigree by revealing that her great-great-great-great-grandfather, Ichabod Oberlin, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. It’s only a little-known fact because he was forced to sign the back.
After being slighted by Bunny one time too many, Chanel behaves with her usual grace by trying to attack Chad’s mother. But the dysfunctional family dinner takes an unexpected turn when Hester arrives.
Hester’s neck brace saved her life after the nasty tumble she took down the stairs, and the cold floor of the meat locker curbed the swelling in her spinal column. When Hester regained consciousness, she felt better than ever.
Hester decides to announce to Chad’s family that she’s carrying Chad’s child. Chanel accuses Hester of lying, citing the fact that she watched with her own eyes as Hester ate soft cheese and sushi and imbibed in alcohol, all no-nos for a preggo. That, and eating lunch meat and frozen yogurt.
Bunny is mortified that Chad has tarnished the Radwell family Thanksgiving by bringing home not one, but two “gold-digging hoochies.” Hester’s ill-conceived fantasy of being embraced by the Radwells crumbles when Bunny says that the family employs a team of lawyers whose sole purpose is to make spurious paternity claims go away.
The Kappas Play a Game
At Kappa house, while they wait for the turkey to cook, Munsch finds a way to kill the time. Each person will have the opportunity to argue who they think the remaining Red Devil killer is.
Dean Munsch starts and sets her sights on Chanel #3. Number Three dismisses the accusation by pointing out that she’s never killed anyone that she knows of. Munsch brings up the fact that Number Three’s daddy is Charles Manson. Munsch isn’t basing her entire theory on Number Three’s dark genetic secret. The night of the chainsaw attack at the Kappa house, the dean saw Number Three running up the back staircase, covered in sweat, obviously trying to sneak back into her room undetected.
Chanel #3’s alibi is plausible. She prefers to go number two alone, late at night and undisturbed in a small powder room downstairs. She has bathroom shame issues, and since she waits a week between “movements, ” the event itself can be quite a workout.
Grace argues that because Charles Manson is Number Three’s father, that absolves her from the crimes since the killers are definitely the Kappa bathtub babies. Dean Munsch questions whether Chanel #3 has used the Charles Manson story as a cover-up. After all, what proof do they have that Number Three didn’t just make up the story?
Number Three decides she wants to play, and she believes Dean Munsch is the killer. Who else do they know with a more clear and obvious motive for killing Kappas more than Dean Munsch?
Grace takes Number Three’s theory and builds upon it. Nobody knows what happened to those babies, so who’s to say that Dean Munsch didn’t take them and raise the twins as her killer pawns in service of getting revenge on a place she considers to be evil? And what better time to execute this plan than when the daughter of the ringleader of the crime perpetuated 20 years ago arrived on campus?
Number Three also observed Dean Munsch as she recently grabbed lunch at a local eatery. Her entree? A bologna sandwich. The same processed meat Munsch claimed to be allergic to.
Chanel #5, who arrives back at the house after learning that her parents are spending Thanksgiving in the Maldives without telling her, points out that people allergic to lunch meat are that way because of the sulfates, the same sulfates in the Spam she included in her stuffing and in the glass of red wine she’s drinking.
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The Kappa Whose Dad Thinks She’s a Killer
Wes interjects. He’s got something on his mind. He doesn’t know for sure who the killer is, but he wants to talk it through. Wes believes it’s possible that Grace is the killer. He’s gone through all the suspects in his mind, and he can explain away all of his suspicions except when it comes to his daughter.
Number Three and Number Five believe Grace’s obsession with her mom is her motivation. Because Grace’s mom was responsible for Kappa’s greatest shame, the death of the girl in the bathtub, they say she swore to come to Wallace University and create an even bigger, even worse boogeyman to represent Kappa, the Red Devil — anything to redeem Grace’s beloved, dead mother.
Pete arrives. It seems he also stayed behind and had been following Zayday’s live tweets of the night’s events. He can prove that Grace is innocent, but Wes insists on building the case against his beloved daughter first.
Wes points out some other damning evidence. Grace was the only pledge not buried up to her neck the night Deaf Taylor Swift was decapitated. Nobody knew anything about Melanie, the missing Kappa pledge involved in the bathtub cover-up, but after Grace found the woman, Mandy, she wound up dead in Zayday’s haunted house. And Grace visited the campus on March 24-26. On the 25th, former Kappa president Melanie Dorkus was horribly disfigured when someone put acid in place of her spray tan.
Chanel #3 and Chanel #5 recall seeing Grace in the Kappa Kappa Tau house that day. Grace claims she stopped by out of curiosity, and the Chanels booted her out.
Finally, Wes followed Grace one night, doing his due diligence as an overprotective father. He spotted Grace talking to someone in a Red Devil costume. Grace says it was Pete. They had a plan to pass out flyers, and since Pete had the costume (he was the mascot), they thought it might be a good idea for everyone to see exactly what the killer looked like but decided at the last minute not to go through with it.
Munsch finds it interesting how Pete has proven to be Grace’s alibi for so many of the murders, and she now discounts her previous theory of Chanel #3 as being the killer and decides all signs point to Grace.
The Kappa Whose Dad was a Man Slut
Pete has his own theory, and it’s a bit of a touchy situation since he’s dating Grace and would like the man’s approval, but he believes Wes is the murderer. Wes has said time and time again that he wants to protect Grace, and the most dangerous thing in Grace’s life is Kappa Kappa Tau. What better way than to bump off Kappas until Dean Munsch shut down the house?
Wes also had knowledge of the secret tunnels from back in his days as a student, therefore enabling him to gain access to the house the night the girls were all locked inside.
Pete also couldn’t figure out how all of the bodies were disappearing from the meat locker, so he watched the footage from the video surveillance cameras Chanel had installed all over the house. Pete saw Wes in the meat locker just before he blacked out the camera lens with spray paint.
Wes’ excuse is that he had just started the Paleo diet but couldn’t afford the meat on a teacher’s salary. The Kappas’ freezer was stocked with all kinds of goodies, and since the girls subsist on cotton balls, he saw no harm in helping himself.
Through highly questionable means, Pete got a sample of Boone’s hair and, after sneaking into Wes’ apartment to get some hair from his brush, had a friend at the Maury show run a DNA test. Wes is Boone’s father.
Wes swears that he had no idea, having been a man slut back in the day. And in the ’90s, nobody wore condoms. So if Wes is Boone’s father, the logical conclusion is that he’s the father of the other bathtub baby as well.
Wes and Grace adjourn to her room. Grace believes her father is innocent, and the fact that the killers are his offspring makes it that much more imperative that he and Grace find and stop them.
The Kappa Who Didn’t Really Kill Her Sister
Chanel’s dream Thanksgiving with the Radwell clan has turned into a full-blown nightmare. Tad offers her $50,000 to leave and never come back, and when Chanel runs to Chad for comfort, he suggests that she consider taking his dad up on his offer. The family is about to engage in a game of Pictionary, and as it stands, having Hester and Chanel present will make the game totally awkward.
Chanel decides to stand her ground and finds herself and Hester being ganged up on by the Radwells during a nasty game of Pictionary. It’s becomes obvious that the cards have been tampered with when Brad draws ‘neck brace whore’ as a clue.
Chanel apologizes to Hester for trying to kill her, even though she feels her motivations were airtight and her conscience clear. The bond of sisterhood is stronger than a silly attempt on Hester’s life. Nobody deserves the treatment they have received, especially from the most awful family in America. Chanel proceeds to eviscerate the entire Radwell clan and then storms out with Number Six in tow.
The De-Kappa-tated Kappa
After accusing each other of horrible misdeeds and airing all of their dirty laundry, like any normal family, heavy Chanel and Esther sit down to enjoy a nice Thanksgiving dinner. Too bad the turkey has been replaced by Gigi’s severed head.
Happy Thanksgiving, gashes. See you next time.
Scream Queens airs Tuesdays at 9pm on FOX.
(Image courtesy of FOX)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
Jennifer has worked as a freelance writer in the entertainment field since 2012. In addition to currently writing feature articles for Screen Rant, Jennifer has contributed content ranging from recaps to listicles to reviews for BuddyTV, PopMatters, TVRage, TVOvermind, and Tell-Tale TV. Links to some of Jennifer’s reviews can be found on Rotten Tomatoes.
