Scream Queens Season 2 Premiere Review: Scream Again.

This Scream Queens review contains spoilers.

Scream Queens Season 2 Episode 1

“With the power of the internet, anyone can be an M.D.”

Chanel Oberlin and her former Kappa Kappa Taus would have ever had any intention of setting foot in a hospital that wasn’t also a med-spa offering Botox and complimentary massages. That was before they ended up in an asylum.

Doing the walk of shame in the wake of the Red Devil murders, the Chanels might have been exonerated after Hester conveniently wordvomits a confession on VHS tape and a Netflix documentary tells all, but are now disowned by their families even if they didn’t lose their trust funds (or else how they can still manage to afford half of Neiman Marcus is shrouded in mystery). Med school might as well be a prison sentence to three glittery pink brains that incapable of processing even basic math.

Dean Munsch, now a disciple of (new) New Feminism, buys herself the abandoned and possibly haunted Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering hospital as a saintly move to put a band-aid on the American Healthcare System. The reason the place is a steal might have something to do with the drowning of an unconscious patient into a radioactive-looking swamp on Halloween because one doctor didn’t want to leave the costume party for emergency surgery.

Scandal apparently doesn’t keep Munsch awake at night. She recruits the ex-sorority girls to make amends for the botched conviction that landed them in the mental institution. Her saccharine so-called philanthropy that lands her on the cover of Time magazine is also a convenient cover for the long-buried murder of her husband that ended with his disembodied head at the bottom of a fish tank. Rebranded as the C.U.R.E. institute, the former tuberculosis clinic where the body count used to go up by the minute is now a haven for the bizarre medical cases Munsch finds on creepy online chat rooms at three in the morning.

Scream Queens season 2 adds a new doctor duo to the ranks of McSteamy, McDreamy et. al. with Dr. Brock Holt (John Stamos) and Dr. Cassidy Cascade (Taylor Lautner), probably have the combined IQ of a paperclip but make up for it with muscular physiques and sleazy trust-me-I’m-a-doctor grins. These self-proclaimed specimens of female Viagra are medical mysteries in themselves. Brock is the first successful hand transplant while Cascade’s body temperature could rival a freezer. There’s also a new nurse practicioner on duty (Kirstie Alley) who also happens to be the hospital administrator—with teeth. If Nurse Awful threatens to eat you, take it literally and bolt.

No comment on former Twilight werewolf Lautner treating a patient with Werewolf Syndrome.

What terrifies the Chanels even more than medical biohazards is that they wont’ be paid for working till appletini o’clock. They predictably show up in pink scrubs ranging in hue from cotton candy to coral, which they later bedazzle with faux fur, a frothy pink cape and enough rhinestones to supply an entire chain of craft stores. Pink latex gloves to stand in for No. 3’s earmuffs in the operating room. The only incentive for these powder puffs who think they’re doctors for all of thirty seconds to continue ghosting Dr. Hot and Dr. Cold on their rounds in the second circle of hell is their dream of being the next gazillionaire TV M.D. à la Dr. Oz. Like How to Swallow a Tapeworm with Chanel Oberlin. Never mind the only thing they’re currently qualified to prescribe to a patient slightly hairier than your average Klingon and slightly less so than Chewbacca (whose condition is a throwback to Chanel’s Black Hairy Tongue Disease fundraiser in Season 1) is makeup.

The new monster is on the prowl creeps around in an even more ludicrous costume than the Red Devil, except this time he’s dripping ectoplasmic goo. Think Swamp Thing meets Beelzebub with a machete. While there has always been a whispered legend about the green goblin emerging from the swamp behind the hospital—you know, the same one that swallowed that poor unsuspecting guy with COPD who was gasping his last breath—who is actually underneath all that shiny vinyl. Is it the doctor who tossed the body to go rock out to Sheena Easton all night long back in 1985? He was wearing the same mask sans all that rubber, but as we learned from last season and that very unfortunate kid in the convenience store, costume can be coincidence.

The enigma factor is much higher on this horned villain. There is no pool of randy drunken college students to rule him out of, only a glowing green cesspool. Just know one thing: never lock yourself in a hydrotherapy tank.