Scream season 2 episode 7 review: Let The Right One In

This review contains spoilers.

2.7 Let The Right One In

Let The Right One In is a wonderful Swedish movie about the relationship between a beautiful vampire girl and a human boy. (This is an oversimplification, of course–just watch it if you haven’t.) Part of vampire lore, of course, is that they have to be invited into a place before they can enter, which is a big part of what the movie title implies, and which brings us to this week’s episode of Scream. No, vampires haven’t come to Lakewood, but reasons abound for our remaining Five to be wary of who they “let in.”

Eli very much tops the list this week of non-vampires who should regardless be kept at a healthy distance on the metaphorical doorstep. His cousin Kieran is losing points by the day with Emma, whose problems he keeps exacerbating in the name of protecting her. The jury’s still out on what Kieran’s motives really are in continuing to inform on her, but Eli is ready to step in with both a sob story on Kieran’s behalf and an enticing escape plan for an evening away from Emma’s current reality. We get a glimpse into Eli’s past this week in both flashback and exposition form. As it turns out, he likes to imagine other lives for himself, which sometimes involves “Goldilocksing,” or breaking into people’s houses. He tells Emma this, in fact, as they sit in an abandoned model unit house they’ve Goldilocksed into.

We haven’t actually seen Eli in a while–he’s been MIA for at least a couple of episodes–and honestly, his absence hasn’t been a conspicuous one. He was introduced early on as a shady part of Kieran’s family and past, but hasn’t done much since besides creep closer to Emma with his nice-guy act. It’s hard, then, to be too intrigued by his character, with the exception of this episode’s opening sequence, which is a fun flashback to one of his Goldilocks expeditions that includes a super menacing shot of his standing in a doorway lurking over an unidentified sleeping middle-aged couple. He’s gone by the time the woman wakes up and sees her curtains rustling in the breeze. Considering what happens to end his and Emma’s date, maybe his advice that “sometimes it’s better to just walk away” should apply to their new relationship.

Noah, too, is quickly letting someone in who may or may not be the right one. Zoe is a fun character–kind of a nerdy pixie dream girl–and it’s definitely time Noah had…a fun time. As she reveals this week, though, she was conveniently out of town during the murders last fall because of some personal issues. We also see her being sneaky around Noah’s back, first with his phone, then with his computer. And, now she has her own copy of Audrey’s confession. With the tension between her and Audrey, as well as the growing intensity of her and Noah’s relationship, it looks like it’s just a matter of time until at least a few secrets aren’t secret anymore–and until there is some significant fallout.

Speaking of Audrey, her unlikely partnership with Brooke yields some answers, more questions, and a nice zinger or two (“you went full Hard Candy on Benson and then left him chained to a bed?”). But, their zany caper ends up with serious consequences–orchestrated, of course, by the masked killer. So now, Branson has survived two near-death experiences and is in the middle of a third, Ms. Lang is at death’s door, and the killer now has her files and information on the Lakewood Six–which we don’t know why she had in the first place.

Finally, we’re learning that there are yet more secrets being kept, and not just among the remaining Lakewood Five. At least we know that Emma is not completely cracking up–Sheriff Acosta, on investigating her farmhouse claims, finds a picture left over from the shrine to her that she came across earlier this season. Not only that, we find out that he and Maggie have some sort of past, and it’s a past that is apparently now causing a situation that must be handled.

I’ve talked about how much darker this season is than the first season. The show still has its flaws, but I think delving deeper into the characters’ psychological damage as well as the lives they keep hidden is proving effective in keeping up the suspense. Now that we’re entering the second half of this season, though, it’s important that the show starts answering some of its questions–or else we’ll all end up as frustrated as Emma…and no one wants that.

Read Holly’s review of the previous episode, Jeepers Creepers, here.