 When Scream Queens was first airing in 2015, let's just say I was more than obsessed. I was following every fan theory, watching every panel, watching every episode multiple times trying to find clues towards the killer's identity. Basically, from the months of September to December of 2015, you could not talk to me if you weren't talking Scream Queens. As each year goes by, I become more and more nostalgic for those shows that my teenage self fixated upon. So to satisfy this nostalgia and to just compile all of my useless Scream Queens trivia into one video, I'm going to take you guys on a journey through the production history of the first season of Scream Queens. This video will cover everything from early concepts for the show, crazy fan theories, casting announcements, and shake-ups, the promotional campaign, and basically all of the behind-the-scenes chaos that went into creating this once-in-a-lifetime season of television. To keep this video from being extra long and to lighten my workload just a little bit, this video will mostly be about pre-production and production trivia up to the pilot episode of the series, and if this video does well, I would of course love to continue this over-analyzation of the rest of Scream Queens season one. So with that being said, let's time travel all the way back to the very first time that the world heard about the show Scream Queens October 20th, 2014. Almost an entire year before its first episode would premiere, Fox announced that it had given a series order to Scream Queens, a show from the same creative team that brought Fox Glee, Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan. Now, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk had also created this little show called American Horror Story, I don't know if you've heard of it, but it became clear from the get-go that Scream Queens would combine elements of both Glee and AHS. And just for a bit of added context, this initial announcement of Scream Queens happened just five days after the second episode of AHS. Freak Show had air and Glee was airing its penultimate season. In a press release, Fox announced that Scream Queens got a 15 episode order. The project was also described as a comedy horror anthology series that was intended to focus on two female leads per season. Now, if you compare this early press release to the actual show, you'll notice some key ways that this idea evolved from its early conception. Firstly, while Scream Queens does have anthological elements between its first and second seasons, with the show setting and premise being flipped on its head for a hospital-themed season two, but Scream Queens isn't really anthological in its narrative, as the characters in season two are the same characters that survived the events of the last season and they are fully aware of the events that occurred. Secondly, I would struggle to pick two female leads that would define Scream Queens, so I wouldn't say that the idea of there being two clear female leads in each season translated to the final product. You could argue that it's Chanel and Dean Munch as they were the first two cast, but to me, that diminishes the contributions of the rest of the female cast, most notably Abigail Breslin, Billy Lord, Kiki Palmer, and Skyward Samuels. To me, this idea of two female leads clearly evolved into the show focusing on one strong female ensemble, because one thing that certainly translated between the show's two seasons was these actresses and their incredible chemistry that they have together. You may also notice that Scream Queens' first season only ended up having 13 episodes out of the originally ordered 15. While I couldn't find any concrete answer as to why this is, I do know that it is pretty common for shows to have slightly varied episode counts when compared to what was ordered by the network, and I think it most likely had to do with the show's creators and writers feeling like the story did not warrant 15 episodes or maybe even that the show's budget would be better utilized across 13 episodes. Fast forward about a month and a half to December 8th, 2014. It is on this day, just a couple days before Freak shows Tupperware Party Massacre episode aired, that two major names are announced to be joining Scream Queens, Emma Roberts and Jamie Lee Curtis. With a well-established horror icon joining the likes of a child star-turned-ghost-face-killer, it's hard to imagine two actresses at the time that embodied what a Scream Queen of the past and the present was. In this second press release, Fox already starts to show that the series has started to develop from its original concept. It was said at the time by The Hollywood Reporter that the series would focus on three young women, Jamie Lee Curtis' character and a father character. This is an interesting tidbit because while these character descriptions are starting to track with the show, it's not quite adding up for me. At first, I thought the three young women must be the three Chanel's and Jamie obviously is Dean Munch and the father is Wes Gardner. But if that's the case, then where's Grace? It makes me wonder if maybe there was initially only two Chanel's or maybe there was initially no Grace and the father figure was supposed to be one of the Chanel's fathers. Now, unless we ask Ryan, Brad or Ian, I'm not sure if we will ever know for sure who these three characters were referring to in this press release. But I love to see how shows, movies and scripts develop over long periods of time and after many revisions. So I hope that one day we know the early iterations of these characters and this story. And I would also love to one day get my hands on the actual scripts for this show. But anyway, just one month later on January 17th, 2015, Fox kicked off the new year with a shriek as it announced five humongous names that joined the cast of Scream Queens. Lea Michele, who at the time of this announcement was still starring in the final season of Glee, magic mic star Joe Manginello, Abigail Breslin, who let's not forget was nominated for an Oscar at age 10, Kiki Palmer, who had an illustrious career as a child star with roles in projects such as Akilah and the Bee and True Jackson VP, and my personal favorite, Jump In, and Ariana Grande, who was about to embark on her worldwide honeymoon tour at the time. You may notice that one of these people did not end up actually being in Scream Queens, but we'll address that when we get to it. The point is, in these early press releases, it was clear that the showrunners and Fox were aiming for a star-studded mega hit for this show, and these early announcements had people like me more than intrigued about this show. Later that month on January 26th, 2015, Nick Jonas was announced to be a part of the rapidly expanding ensemble of Scream Queens. A child star himself, Jonas joins the likes of Emma Roberts, Abigail Breslin, Ariana Grande, Kiki Palmer, and Skyler Samuels. In a way, all of these actors were brought onto the show to play these awful characters that would challenge the image that they had as child stars. The next casting update would come on February 2nd, 2015. When it was announced that newcomer Billy Lord had joined the cast of Scream Queens, it's kind of crazy to think that just 10 years ago, the world did not know about the wonders of Billy Lord, but that's the world that we lived in. Deadline broke this announcement, and it does know in that article that, while Billy Lord had not yet acted in any released work just yet, she is the daughter of Hollywood legend, Kerry Fisher, who herself is the daughter of Hollywood icon, Debbie Reynolds. The Deadline article also notes that Lord was at the time rumored to be playing a young princess Leia in the then soon to be released, Star Wars, The Force Awakens. This of course turned out to be false, but Billy Lord did play a new character in the film who was named Lieutenant Connix. Star Wars, The Force Awakens would later be released on December 18th, 2015, just 10 days after the finale of Scream Queens, season one aired. And then on February 11th, 2015, Skyler Samuels was announced to be joining the cast of the show. Like I said earlier, Samuels II is a child star who had a run of guest spots on some of my favorite childhood shows, like Drake and Joss. Sweet Life of Zack and Cody, That's So Raven, and The Wizards of Waverly Place. But much like Emma Roberts, Skyler Samuels was beginning to break free of her childhood roles by starring in a handful of horror projects. For Skyler Samuels, it was the 2009 film The Stepfather and a role in American Horror Story Freak Show, which like I keep saying, just finished airing on FX a month prior to this February press release of Skyler Samuels joining Scream Queens. I'll use this to go on a small tangent about Ryan Murphy as you can see, he has a knack for bringing people from his past projects onto his current projects. We've seen it time and time again. Of course, Emma Roberts and Skyler Samuels were plucked right out of Freak Show to do Scream Queens. And Liam Michelle went from the Fox lot to New Orleans right after the final season of Glee to do Scream Queens. And then of course, after Scream Queens, Billy Lord has been in literally every single possible season of American Horror Story since. These frequently collaborated with actors are fairly obvious to pick up on if you watch a small handful of shows produced by Ryan Murphy. But what I wanna talk about here is the crew members that have traveled along with Ryan Murphy in these various shows. Specifically, let's talk about his Fox shows, Glee, Scream Queens, and 9-1-1. Because these three shows will forever be connected by a ton of shared crew members. This is because when Fox canceled Glee, they immediately picked up Scream Queens for the next television season. And then when Fox canceled Scream Queens, they immediately picked up 9-1-1, a comparatively tame procedural from Ryan Murphy. But nonetheless, it was in the very next television season. For starters, there's Joaquin Cedillo, who was a cinematographer on the final three seasons of Glee. Joaquin also directed one episode of Glee, season six, episode 11. And then on Scream Queens, Joaquin returned as the cinematographer for both seasons one and two, minus the first two episodes of season one, which had their cinematography work done by Michael Goy. And then on 9-1-1, Joaquin currently serves as co-producer and cinematographer for the series, along with being responsible for directing five episodes of the show so far. And then there's Lou Irick, who served as costume designer for the first three seasons of Glee. She also served as costume designer for the first season of Scream Queens. And then on 9-1-1, she has served as a producer since the show's first season. She has also been a producer on a large handful of Ryan Murphy's projects since then, like Pose, American Horror Story, and Monster. And then there's Aaron Krueger-McCosh, who was the head of the makeup department on the first two seasons of Glee. She then had that same role, along with the role of makeup designer on the first season of Scream Queens. And then on 9-1-1, she again served as the makeup designer of that show's first season, but she too was promoted to being a producer of the series as well. And she has been serving that role ever since. I could go on and on into the more intricacies of these crews, and I very well just might do that if I end up doing additional parts to this video, but to keep this ball rolling a little bit, I'll cap my tangent with those three crew members for now. Anyways, back to the production timeline. The next big casting update came on February 23rd, 2015, when Nisi Nash was announced to be joining Scream Queens as a security guard named Denise. In the E-News article that reported this news, the writer notes that Nisi had already played a character named Denise on the HBO show, Getting On, which she was nominated for an Emmy for. Another notable Nisi Nash role before she was on Scream Queens was in Reno 9-1-1, a mockumentary show that originally aired on Comedy Central from 2003 to 2009, but then was brought back in 2020 by Quibi and has since aired new episodes on the Roku channel. And then on the same day that Nisi's casting was announced, another cast member was added to the ensemble. That cast member was Lucian Laviscount, a British actor who had previously starred in a handful of British shows, including Coronation Street. His acting career started when he was only 10 years old, so let's add him to the long list of Scream Queens cast members that originated as Child Stars. In 2011, Lucian Laviscount competed on the eighth season of Celebrity Big Brother UK, where he placed fifth. And according to the season's page on Wikipedia, during this series, Lucian developed showmances with reality TV stars Amy Childs and Carrie Katona, which is not relevant at all to what we're talking about, but like I said, I'm giving you all of my useless Scream Queens trivia. Anyway, Scream Queens seem to have been Lucian's first American project, aside from appearing in one episode of Supernatural in 2014. Just two days later on February 25th, 2015, another double casting announcement occurred. This time it was Glenn Powell and Diego Bonetta. The deadline article that broke these two's involvement in the cast described Glenn's character, which of course ended up being Chad Radwell, as a popular guy who dates the hottest girls on campus. And Diego's Pete was described as a bookish yet handsome guy. Another child star, Glenn Powell started his career at age 15 with the iconic role of long-fingered boy in Spy Kids 3D Game Over. From Spy Kids to Scream Queens, Glenn mostly had small roles with a couple of exceptions, like a large-ish role in The Expendables 3. Since Scream Queens, of course, though, Glenn has proven to be a bit of a movie star. For Diego Bonetta, he too started his career at a young age, starting in many Mexican shows, starting when he was 12. In 2010, Diego made his debut in the U.S. with recurring roles in both 90210 and Pretty Little Liars. Then in 2012, he starred alongside Tom Cruise in his film debut Rock of Ages. A couple weeks later on March 11th, 2015, Nassim Pedrat joined the cast of Scream Queens. Nassim is probably most known for her time on Saturday Night Live, which she had just completed her final season of One Year Prior in 2014. One day later, history would be made as on March 12th, 2015, production began on the pilot episode of Scream Queens in New Orleans, Louisiana. This news was revealed by cinematographer of the pilot and Hell Week episodes, Michael Goy. And one day later on March 13th, 2015, it was announced that Joe Manginello had to leave the role of Wes Gardner due to his promotional commitments for his 2015 film, Magic Mike XXL. It was announced this same day that Oliver Hudson had joined the series as Joe's replacement, marking the last major casting announcement for Scream Queens season one. It was around this time that a lot of rumors about the show began to spread, and one is largely thanks to an alleged call sheet from the filming of the pilot episode that made its way online. This call sheet looks legit at first glance, but you'll notice that a lot of the character names do not align with the characters that ended up being in the show. So I think one of two things happened. This call sheet is real, and these character names were originally, were the originally scripted character names, and these names were the originally scripted character names, and a lot of them ended up getting changed either during the production of the pilot episode or during the break that happened between the filming of the pilot in the spring and the filming of the rest of the season that happened in the summer. I've always assumed that these were fake, but in trying to pinpoint the exact source of this call sheet and doing research for this video, I really couldn't be 100% sure as some of this information does look real, but nonetheless, the names were as follows. If we were to take this as legit, Pester's original name was Brittany, Libby Putney, aka Chanel number five, was to be named Sarah, Boone was originally named Brad, which to me gives this a little bit of credence because you know that the writers would have went for the names Chad and Brad for their two main frat guy characters. Kathy Munch was originally going to be named Jennifer, Grace was originally going to be named Stacy, Gigi was going to be Lucy, and finally there was a character by the name of Jack who this call sheet says would be played by TV actor Julian Morris. If this call sheet is real, then it's safe to say that this character was either cut entirely or recast and also renamed. The only reason as to why this is that I can find online comes from a retweet of a Scream Queens news update account, a beloved resource in the Scream Queens fandom during the show's airing and a great resource for this video. And according to them, Julian Morris had to drop out of the show due to scheduling conflicts. I still don't know who Jack was supposed to be, but for all we know, he could have been rewritten into Earl Gray, Roger or Dodger or any one of the Dickie Dollars scholars. It was also around this time that some rumored episode titles began spreading online. And of course with hindsight, these were clearly fake. The fake episode titles were pilot, solitaire, deadly silence, better run, and earthquake. These are just the vaguest possible titles and do not align with the more on-the-nose titles that the Scream Queens episodes went for. But nonetheless, these were the only episode titles that fans had to grasp onto for some amount of time. And then sometime in April, 2015, production wrapped on the pilot episode of Scream Queens. I mentioned earlier that Ariana Grande was about to embark on her honeymoon tour. Well, by the time that the pilot filmed, she was already about a month into it. So I was curious when could Ariana have possibly had time to film her scenes for this pilot episode? And I think the answer lies in these five dates that Ariana had on this tour, all of which take place in the South with at least one day in between them where Ariana feasibly could have flown to New Orleans to film her handful of pilot scenes. Once we get into breaking down the pilot episode, you'll notice that if you look at only Ariana's scenes in the pilot, they are very sporadic and she is absent in scenes that it would make sense for her character to be in. And her crazy tour schedule is definitely the reason why this is the case. Anyways, on April 23rd, 2015, Entertainment Weekly gave fans a first look at Scream Queens and Ryan Murphy described the show as Heather's meets Friday the 13th. Let's now take a moment to dissect some of the teasers that Fox began to release around this time for Scream Queens. There's this bubblegum teaser which features mini characters blowing a CGI bubblegum bubble, but you'll notice that instead of the sororities iconic KKT initials, Chanel's shirt and the letters behind her spell out K and T. Clearly the original name for the sorority was supposed to be a play on the vulgar slang word and this was later changed most likely at the request of the network. There are a couple other teasers of varying quality but one thing to note about all of these teasers is that they were filmed outside of the production blocks of the season and clearly don't use any actual sets or costumes that ended up being in the actual show. On May 13th, 2015, the Scream Queens marketing campaign began in full force as the first promo featuring footage from the series was released. The promo is called Pretty Evil and features exclusively footage from the pilot episode which of course was the only episode that was filmed at that time. There are a couple key differences between this promo and the actual episode that I noticed. For one, the good evening idiot hookers line is shortened to just good evening idiots. I guess Fox wanted to ease viewers into Chanel's bluntness and there also appears to be a deleted scene featured in this promo of Chanel in the Kappa kitchen but we'll speculate where that could have been once we break down the pilot. In June, 2015, production resumed on the rest of Scream Queens at season one starting with episode two Hell Week. It was also around this time on June 24th, 2015, to be exact, that Paparazzi caught glimpses of Ariana Grande shooting her Hell Week scenes in New Orleans. Covered in fake blood, Ariana was clearly shooting the scenes of her dead body either in Hell Week or Haunted House or more likely both. And this concrete date of these Paparazzi photos gives us confirmation that Ariana filmed all of her Hell Week scenes during her 12 day break that she had from tour between her European leg and her second North American leg of the honeymoon tour. It was also just two weeks before her infamous Donut Gate incident and hey, I'm not defending it but if you analyze this woman's insanely packed schedule leading up to Donut Gate, I'd say she deserves to cause just a little bit of chaos as a treat. One day after these onset Paparazzi pics dropped on June 25th, 2015, it was announced that Charisma Carpenter of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame and Roger Bart from Revenge would guest star in the show as the parents of Chanel number two. This guest appearance of course would eventually happen in episode three, Chainsaw. By June 30th, 2015, promotion was ramping up for the premiere of Scream Queens and Fox was releasing teasers, teasers, trailers, interviews, press releases and you name it. One promo which I thought was interesting featured the cast members listing their favorite horror films and it's edited very badly and it's clear that we aren't hearing their full answers, which sucks but there's still a couple of gems in there. Lee Michelle, Emma Roberts and Ariana Grande all list the ring as one of their favorite horror movies and Ariana also adds Halloween. Abigail Breslin claims two very different horror films The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Exorcist. Billy Lord also says The Exorcist. Oliver Hudson goes for Friday the 13th, Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Nassim Pedrad said The Orphanage, which I don't know is either referring to the 2007 Spanish film The Orphanage or she is misremembering the title of the 2009 film Orphan. Kiki Palmer says her favorite horror film is Freddy Krueger. Nick Jonas seconds this with another vote for A Nightmare on Elm Street and finally Lucian Laviscount, Glenn Powell and Jamie B. Curtis do not name a single horror film because they claim to not watch them. Another fun promo video posted to the Scream Queens YouTube channel was a video called Ghost Tours with Kiki and Lucian in which Kiki Palmer and Lucian Laviscount go on a ghost tour of New Orleans visiting many iconic locations including the house of Delphine La La Ri which was also featured in AHS Coven. This video is really fun and nostalgic if you were a fan during this time but then on July 12th, 2015, Ryan Murphy, Jamie Lee Curtis, Emma Roberts, Leah Michelle, Skyler Samuels, Kiki Palmer, Abigail Breslin and Billy Lord attended Comic Con 2015 in a joint panel between Scream Queens and the then upcoming AHS hotel. They don't reveal anything major here but there are a handful of fun or interesting moments. Jamie Lee Curtis tells her favorite joke. How is it you've never been here? Have you never just, you haven't been asked or what's, why are you not coming? I haven't been selling yogurt that makes you shit for six years. Ryan Murphy also says how Scream Queens was birthed from how much he and Brad Falchuk enjoyed writing the comedic scenes in American Horror Story Coven specifically surrounding the Madison Montgomery character which of course bears many, many, many similarities to Chanel. Where did you sort of, where did the genesis of Scream Queens come from? I think it happened in, Brad and I were talking around season three of Horror Story when we were doing Coven and we were talking about how much we loved writing some of the comedy of that, particularly Emma Stuck. So we just, we're talking one day and then two years later, we had another conversation about, well, what if we do something that sort of is a little bit more network oriented but keeps that, you know, horror vibe alive and Brad and I both were obsessed with Halloween and so we were talking about, well, what if it's Halloween meets Heather's was sort of, I think the first thing we were talking about. Ryan Murphy also explains to the Comic Con audience the true anthological nature of Scream Queens. The format for Scream Queens, kind of explain to people, it's not going to be the same as American Horror Story, really, like it won't reboot but it will be a different kind of location, right? Yeah, it's similar, but different. I mean, the thing with Horror Story is every year, there's a, you know, there's a new story, there's a new theme, the actors play different characters and on Scream Queens, what happens is there's survivors who go on to a different location but characters that you have grown to hopefully love, many of them will continue and many of them will not, which is sort of part of the fun of the show. Later on, Sarah Paulson, who is on the panel for American Horror Story Hotel is asked whether she would be interested in a Scream Queens role, considering she was also filming American Crime Story and American Horror Story at that same time. Would you do that? Oh, God, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes. I vote yes. But of course, no Scream Queens role ever panned out. Ryan later claims that there is a line spoken in the pilot of Scream Queens that clearly alludes to one of the killer's identities. But more on that once we get around to dissecting the pilot episode itself. We have a two hour premiere and you- September 22nd. Night to night. I am on Fox. And you definitely meet the killer in that premiere and if you go back and watch that episode at the end, I think it's very clear who- It is? Wait, what? I know I'm so nervous now. What? I'm so confused. The cast of Scream Queens then shares some tales from the shooting of the scene in the pilot where the pledges are buried in the backyard of Cap-a-Cap-a-Tow. Were you really buried underground? Yes. Oh, dear. Yes, we were. Well, tell me about that experience. That does not sound pleasant. So we found a really great piece of land and then what we did is we cut, we measured their bodies and we cut these huge, these tubes into the ground. And then we had to put a, it wasn't a cement tube, but it was a heavy duty fiberglass tube into the earth based on their proportions. And then they got in there and then we covered them with a big piece of sod. You know, Leah got it by far the worst. The bugs and ants and spiders came after her. As he's laughing. She was funny about it. She was cute about it. She's a pro. Spiders were crawling over my vase and I would have to scream for Ryan and he would come and whack them off. Yeah. The panel is then asked what their favorite horror films are and weirdly a lot of these cast members changed up their answers based on the last time that they were asked this exact question. The only one who remained consistent in fact was Kiki Palmer who in the promo video said that her favorite horror film was Freddy Krueger and on the panel she says it's Freddy Krueger. Billy changed her answer to Rosemary's baby. Abigail and Emma are apparently now all about the shining. Leah Michelle says her favorite is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Jamie Lee again says that she doesn't watch the genre but she manages to throw out Psycho as one of her favorites as a shout out to her mother who of course is Janet Lee who starts in Psycho. Ryan Murphy also shares his favorite horror films which at the time were Halloween, Misery and Rosemary's baby. And let me just say, yeah, Ryan we can tell you like Rosemary's baby. The AHS cast share some gems as well. Kathy Bates is apparently a big fan of The Conjuring. Evan Peters favorite horror film is Jacob's Ladder and Angela Bassett says she's a fan of JD's Revenge which was a black exploitation horror film released in 1976 which Angela says she was a fan of in college which is really interesting considering how in hotel she is playing a black exploitation film actress of that same era. And that's the gist of everything that they talked about on this Comic-Con panel. Also at this Comic-Con in 2015, Fox decorated a drop ride to be themed around Scream Queens that a few of the cast members took a ride on. I can't believe I got in one more second. I would have thought I'm gonna die. Out of our death, oh my gosh, it's about to be over. And aside from superfluous amounts of teasers and trailers, fans were clearly in the home stretch of the promotional campaign and ramping up for the fast approaching September 22nd premiere date. On August 17th, 2015, Fox released a new one minute TV spot which featured the recently released song Pretty Girls by Britney Spears and Iggy Azalea. Wow, what a time capsule. Now she's probably the worst human being since Hitler. I just met her. Girl, roll up. I'm pledging Kappa. You can't join Kappa. Another part of this promotional campaign were some of these cast videos like the one posted on August 27th, 2015 entitled Ariana Grande Eats Ice Cream with the cast of Scream Queens. Anything with this group of girls in a room together proved to be a trove of awkward moments. Cause I saw the card and pretended like I didn't know. So I know you're not guessing honey out of your head. Oh my, do you know how much honey I eat? This one looks like horrible. Spoiler alert, it's probably the vegan one. I'm getting you the best bite. I hate it. That's just, I'm sorry, I can't, too much sugar. I'm sorry, no one else is gonna eat that. I hate that. Peanut butter cup. Later, on September 2nd, 2015, Ryan Murphy uploaded the Scream Queens supersized main title sequence on his personal YouTube channel as his first upload and it's also his most viewed one as well, currently with 4.1 million views. The title sequence itself though was shot by Prolog, a production company started by Kyle Cooper, mainly focused in title designs and visual effects. It is the same company that had a hand and still has a hand in every single title sequence of American Horror Story. On their website, Prolog describes the title sequence as follows, drawing inspiration from dozens of classic horror films. The opening establishes a tone that blends violence and humor. The sequence features the youthful cast being confronted by the knife-wielding devil and the occasional wink from the cast as if they are posing and acknowledging the audience a la Ferris Bueller. The breaking of the fourth wall pays homage to the history of situation comedy opening credit sequences reminding us that this is a black comedy. Prolog also created the branding for Scream Queens marketing in conjunction with the main title design. The sequence itself features a couple shots that could be interpreted as hints for certain events that occur in the season. For one, Grace's character has a few shots where she is surrounded by flames which seems to be a reference to Grace's mother who West tells Grace died in a fire. It could also symbolize how Grace is very wrapped up in her mother's death during the events of the season and how her mother drives a lot of her actions in the season. There's a shot of Zayde freeing herself from Saran Wrap which could be hinting towards how Zayde gets kidnapped by the Red Devil in this season and later escapes with no help other than herself. There is of course this shot of Hester and the Red Devil where Hester is screaming and then smiling and the pair hold their thumbs up which could have been hinting towards Hester's Red Devil identity but there is also a similar shot of Chad which makes me think that this one is less of a clue and more of an attempt to pay homage to sitcom opening credits as was described as one of the sequences intentions by Prologue. The title sequence ends with Pete in a coffin and the Red Devil closing the coffin on top of him but not before Pete can wink at the camera. To me this could represent two events in the season. For one, it could be a hint that some deaths within the season may be faked like boons for instance and two it could be a reference to Pete's own ties to the Red Devil as he becomes an accomplice later on in the season which of course leads to his own death. The theme song for Scream Queens is called You Belong to Me and is performed by Heather Haywood and was written by Heather Haywood, Scream Queens composer Matt Quayle and executive producer Alexis Martin Woodall. Now this is another mystery for me because I can't quite pin down who Heather Haywood is. There is a singer by the name of Heather Haywood who is a Scottish folk singer who I believe must be the Heather Haywood that is on this song but there isn't a lot that has been written about where this song came from, how it was written, how exactly it came to be and there's nothing that I can find that concretely says that it is Scottish folk singer Heather Haywood on this track and her own music is pretty different from the song and she also hasn't released music in a long time. The whole existence of this song is a mystery to me and for one I just wanna say I love the song and I wish there was more we knew about how it came to be and if maybe the show creators reached out to this Scottish folk singer for whatever reason but the connection doesn't seem very organic to me. But one thing I do know for certain though is that whoever is responsible for this song and all of the Scream Queens soundtrack not being available on streaming is despicable because I would play the heck out of this song and the score Scream Queens has great music from score to soundtrack. They should have released a soundtrack on streaming. Moving on though, just over a week before the series premiere of Scream Queens Fox released a new promo on September 14th, 2015 which highlighted the praises that the show had received from critics. They also released a similar promo which highlighted the praise that the show was already getting on Twitter and then on September 20th, 2015 Fox released its final promo for the premiere episode called In Two Days. Countdown is on. Then finally on September 22nd, 2015 Scream Queens aired its long awaited two episode premiere of both The Pilot and Hell Week episodes to the tune of 4.04 million viewers with a 1.7 million in the 18 to 49 demographic. On one hand, this number is stronger than any of the episodes from Glee's final season but if you compare it to shows that premiered on the exact same day on other networks Scream Queens was clearly off to a rocky start when it comes to ratings as over on CBS a new comedy drama called Limitless opened to 9.86 million viewers on the same night and over on ABC their mockumentary revamp of the Muppets premiered to an audience of nine million viewers as well. Interestingly though, of these three shows that premiered on September 22nd, 2015 Scream Queens was the only one to secure a season two renewal despite these ratings. Moving on from the ratings though, let's now take a deep dive into the events that unfolded in the pilot episode. The pilot episode opens with a flashback to 1995 where a party is going down at Cap-a-Cap-a-Tow. Upstairs though, Sofia Doyle has just given birth to at least one baby in a bathtub. Of course, the show will later reveal that Sofia actually birthed twins that night but this flashback does not even begin to allude to a second baby existing. So to me, either the twin twist was conceptualized after they filmed the pilot episode since there was, as we know, a significant break between the filming of the pilot episode and the filming of the rest of the season or it could have just been an intentional misdirect to keep viewers from suspecting more than one killer too early on. This flashback scene features two incredible pieces of soundtrack, What's a Girl to Do by Bat for Lashes and Waterfalls by TLC. Flash forward 20 years to 2015 and we are introduced to the Chanel's. There's Chanel number two, Chanel number three, Chanel number five and of course Chanel herself, Chanel Oberlin. In her narration, Chanel explains what happened to Chanel number four. There was a Chanel number four but she got meningitis. She was like, I'm sick, I have to go home. And I was like, no, stay. But she went home anyway and then she died. So another thing I was right about. Then Chanel number two has a convenient excuse to sit out a few scenes of this episode. I'll see you ladies in bio, have a colonic attend. Soon after we are introduced to Miss Bean, at the same time we are introduced to Chanel's insanely racist sense of humor. I call her white man. I don't know how to call me that. We then get a scene in the office of Dean Cathy Munch where Cathy casts doubt on Chanel's innocence in regards to an incident involving the previous president of Cap-a-Cap-a-Tow, Melanie Dorcas, where her spray tan machine was tampered with leaving her with severe chemical burns. In a flashback though, we can see that this was an early and unsuccessful act of violence by the Red Devil. And in the next scene, we are introduced to Grace Gardner and her father, Wes Gardner. The first words spoken by Wes are, I made a playlist. I made a playlist, right, check it out. Which may not mean much now but the show will really begin to define this character more and more by his love of making playlists. The song Wes plays, of course, a thousand years by Christina Perry. Grace presents her mother's Cap-a-Cap-a-Tow pin and states how it's one of the only physical reminders she has of her mother who she says died in a fire. Honestly, this scene is a really earnest and emotional introduction to these two characters that in the context of the rest of this episode really feels like these are two normal people from the real world who are about to be dropped into a highly saturated world of hate, hazing, and murder. We then get the introduction of Zaday Williams who says that her grandmother had high hopes for her to be the first black female president of the United States. Soon after, Grace asks Zaday if she will join Kappa with her and Zaday is initially apprehensive about that possibility until Grace mentions that becoming president of Kappa would be a great first step to the United States presidency. And just like that, Zaday inexplicably agrees to join Kappa-Cap-a-Tow with Grace. In the next scene, Grace has a spooky encounter with the Red Devil and some ghostly singing women that are later seen just chilling with the rest of the pledges inside the Kappa house. Cathy and Gigi arrive to announce that this year Kappa-Cap-a-Tow will be required to accept all pledges into their sorority. We then get Chanel's narration of this year's pledging class which includes various nicknames. Neck-Grace. I love Taylor Swift. Predatory Lez. Soon after, we are introduced to Jennifer, the candle vlogger. Four stars. In the next scene, we are introduced to Chad Radwell and Boone Clemens. Chad is at first presented as basically the frat guy equivalent to Chanel just as superficial and narcissistic as her. In the following scene, racist Chanel strikes again as she explains an elaborate plan to get rid of the new pledges to Mrs. Bean. She says she will dunk Mrs. Bean's head into the deep fryer, win the fryer is off in order to scare off the other pledges. Grace is also at the coffee shop and we are also introduced to Pete Martinez for the first time. Grace introduces herself to him as Senorita Awesome in one of my least favorite exchanges of the entire series. Pete then warns Senorita Awesome, I mean Grace, about Chanel and the dangers of Kappa House. Then Chanel interrupts the conversation and claims that she had to get a restraining order against Pete because he was quote, obsessed with her. But it's clear that there is more to the story. Cut to the next scene, later that night where Chanel discovers a creepy collage in Mrs. Bean's quarters. And even with barely any lines, Ariana Grande is truly a scene stealer in every one of these scenes that she takes part in. I love creepy collage. Then Miss Agatha Bean, played by Jan Hogue is killed by Chanel Oberlin after Chanel dunks her face into the deep fryer that was later revealed to have been turned on by one of the Red Devil Killers. Chanel persuades the pledges to keep Mrs. Bean's death a secret by promising to fly them to Cancun for spring break. And the new Kappa sisters hide the body together. We get this scene revealing that Chadd is engaging in an affair with Dean Munch and vice versa. And then we get a scene between Grace and Pete where Grace says that she will be Pete's inside girl as she conducts an expose on Kappa Kappa Tao and Chanel. Grace and Pete then break into the freezer where Miss Bean was hidden, but it turns out that Chanel and Chadd are there too. And these four all discover that Miss Bean's body is missing. I mentioned this earlier, but an early promo for the series revealed a deleted scene that would have happened around this point of the episode based on Chanel's outfit. In one of my favorite scenes in the show, the four Chanel's conduct a blood oath to keep their actions a secret. But before the ritual is complete, Chanel number two gets cold feet and says that she's going home. The next scene is another one of my favorite scenes of the entire series. It's so good that I am inducting it into the Scream Queens scene hall of fame. The first inductee of many, if I continue to make these analyses of Scream Queens. That scene, of course, is Chanel number two's death scene. In what is perhaps the most infamous death scene of the series, Chanel number two is killed by the Red Devil while she is packing her bags. In an incredibly stupid but hilarious scene where the Red Devil and number two only communicate through text messages, Chanel number two is eventually taken out at the blade of the Red Devil. Before she dies though, she sends a tweet that reads, he's killing me, the Red Devil is killing me, I let him into my room, now I'm being stabbed to death. Somebody please help me, please. Which she is able to send right before she dies. Playing over this incredible scene is Hold Me Now by Eden XO. Later, the rest of the Chanel's find number two's body and Chanel theorizes that Miss Bean must be alive and now killing the Chanel's. In a later scene, Chanel gets coffee with Grace where Chanel offers the title of Chanel number six to Grace. Grace declines and instead tries to crack Chanel. And this is the first of very few times where we get to see some humanity in the character of Chanel. We won't get it again for a while, but the show is starting to hint that there are reasons why Chanel is the way she is. In the final scene of the pilot, Tiffany DeSalle, aka Deaf Taylor Swift, played by Whitney Meyer, is killed when the Red Devil runs her head over with a lawnmower after being buried alongside the other pledges as a part of Chanel's Hell Week initiation. And that is how the pilot episode ends. Remember when Ryan Murphy stated that there was a line of dialogue in the pilot episode that clearly identifies who one of the killers is? Well, my best guess is that it's Gigi's line. Psyche, forever trapped in the 90s. But I'm like, uh, I'll take it. Obviously, Gigi does end up being one of the killers alongside Hester, Boone, and their somewhat willing accomplice Pete. But I remember rewatching the pilot tons of times trying to find this line that in crimson trying to find this line that incriminated someone. And back then I landed on this line of graces because I was dead set that Grace was the killer. But honestly, Ryan, Ian and Brad did a great job, including a ton of lines said by different characters that could just have easily hinted towards them being the killer, like this line of Kathy's. Then of course, Pete's intense history with Chanel being laid out in this episode brings up an obvious motive that he would have to plot the downfall of Cap-Cap-Tau. If you haven't figured it out by now, a lot of Scream Queens relies on a satirical take on the fraternity and sorority systems in the United States, specifically the ones who have made headlines for their inhumane hazing, racism, and much, much worse. In the year of 2024, Scream Queens co-creator gave an interview where he sort of blames the quote unquote failure of Scream Queens on people's inability to detect the show's satire. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter on January 4th, Brad Falchuk stated, I mean, it wasn't working. People weren't watching it, but I've never had more fun. Fox might not have been the right place for it and I think it was a little ahead of its time. It probably belonged on a streamer. We were hitting on narcissism. That's what the show is about. And a few years later, people would have recognized it a little bit more. It was hard because viewers were like, why are all these people all so terrible? They were all terrible. That's what we were trying to say, end quote. And sure, that might be part of the reason, but I think for the most part, people understood the satire when it originally aired. I mean, this is a line that is spoken within the first 10 minutes of the pilot. This is exactly what I'm talking about. You see, out in the real world, people just don't talk. But I do agree that this message is much more palatable to today's television audience or even the television audience five years ago versus nine years ago. Back to the pilot, performance wise, Emma, Jamie, Billy, Abigail, Glenn, really everybody seems like they're just having a great time delivering these lines of dialogue. Ariana as Chanel number two, like I said, is a true scene stealer of the pilot episode along with both Nassim Padrat and Leah Michelle as Gigi and Hester. This episode does a great job of introducing us to a very colorful cast of characters and setting up a gripping mystery. But I think later episodes in the season nail the tone a lot better. And of course, some of these characters start to truly come into their own as more time passes. Namely, Chanel number three, Chanel number five, and Hester. I think a big reason for this is because the writers began to incorporate more of the actress' own personalities into the characters. Something that Abigail Breslin mentioned during the Comic-Con panel. That's what I think of the pilot, but what did fans and critics think? Well, on Rotten Tomatoes, the episode has a 90% approval rating from critics and on IMDb, the pilot episode has an average rating by audiences of 7.5 stars out of 10. And with that, this is where I will leave you. Like I said before, if this video does well, I am more than prepared to continue this style of video to cover the remainder of Scream Queen season one. But if not, then this video will at least stand as a historical record of the buildup to this once in a lifetime season of television. And if you like this video, give this video a like and consider checking out a similar video series I did about AHS last year called The Death of American Horror Story if you haven't checked that out already. Consider becoming a member if you want early access to videos. And yeah, thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time.