Scream: In The Trenches Recap

Synopsis: Emma and her friends are lured into danger in order to rescue Will.

Rating: ★★★★☆

So this episode gets serious points for upping the splatter-movie game, in what was probably the biggest twist ending yet.

And I honestly did not see it coming.

Most of this week’s episode takes place in a super awesome abandoned bowling alley, where the killer leads our heroes in an effort to rescue Will, kidnapped last week.

After many false scares and misadventures, they finally find him. The killer chooses that moment to make a move though, and, thanks to Audrey’s quick thinking, the police show up just in time to run the killer off.

This also marks Emma’s first physical confrontation with the killer. So far she’s been the playing piece in the killer’s unknowable game. He or she has been manipulating Emma into making unfortunate decisions and losing loved ones as part of some elaborate revenge scheme.

But Emma herself has never been a target. This week though, the killer chased her through the bowling alley and would have killed her if Will hadn’t intervened.

Why now? Why, after all this time dangling bait, and going through increasingly convoluted plans, has the killer finally decided to target Emma directly?

Interestingly, Emma also found a tape that revealed her father was in therapy for his inability to deal with, not the killings themselves, but the fact that his wife had apparently slept with the ‘monster’ Brandon James. This, coupled with Emma’s last phone call from the killer, makes me think her conveniently absent father may have masterminded the whole thing.

In the original movie, it was heavily implied that Sidney’s father was the killer, so for the show to do it straight up is kind of a nice homage.

As everyone recovers from their night in the bowling alley of doom, Emma goes to visit Will. Walking up to the house, she gets a phone call from him teasing her about being late, when the voice suddenly becomes that of the killer. The game isn’t over. He wants her to be responsible for Will’s death.

Emma runs into the backyard to find Will tied up underneath a whirring chainsaw.

When she rushes forward to help, she hits a trip wire that drops the thing right on his head, covering her in a spray of blood and guts that is absolutely the best and the most gore the show has ever done.

It was pretty intense.

I would also like to know how Jake was apparently stabbed right in the heart (which we didn’t see), left to bleed for at least ten minutes, had the knife yanked out of him, and still walked out of the bowling alley under his own power.

It makes me think of Bill and Stu in the original movie stabbing each other in order to make themselves look innocent when the police arrive.

But the killer attacked while Jake was there. If he is involved, he’s not working alone.

Body Count: 6