Reviews
[TV Review] ‘Scream’ Episode 1.09: “The Dance”
Tonight’s episode of Scream was directed by Ti West, although you probably wouldn’t know that just from watching the episode. I’m a huge Ti West fan, so it was a little disappointing to not see him put much of a stamp on the episode. That being said, it was a decent episode of Scream with enough forward momentum to merit a watch. Although for an episode called “The Dance,” there weren’t many scenes shot at the titular social event (it didn’t even start until the 28-minute mark of this 39-minute episode).
Emma is pretty much back to normal this week. After giving us a dark Emma last week, she seems much less traumatized by the fact that her boyfriend was vertically sliced down the middle in front of her. And without any therapy! Good for you, Emma. Seriously though, it was a little odd to see plucky Emma back so soon after everything that she endured last week, but I digress.
“The Dance” borrowed a lot from I Know What You Did Last Summer. Not that I’m complaining, as I’m a huge fan of that film, but the similarities went just a bit beyond homage and started trickling into pastiche. The visit to Brandon James’ mother was pretty much a replica of the scene where Jennifer Love Hewitt and Sarah Michelle Gellar visit Anne Heche. Piper even showed her a yearbook to point out who visited her just like they did! I halfway expected Cassie to say her visitor’s name was Billy Blue.
The episode actually opens with a “One Year Ago” flashback we see the killer break into the Hall of Records and steal the Brandon James mask and look through some files (which is actually reminiscent of the moment in Scream 3 where Dewey recounts how the police files on Sidney had been ransacked), before we see Sheriff Hudson interrogating Mr. Branson.
I kind of love the fact that Mr. Branson was acting so suspicious during his interrogation. It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s so incredibly over-the-top and soapy that you sort of have to buy into its ridiculousness. Equally ridiculous is the lack of the law enforcement’s ability to, you know, enforce the law. First, they let Emma go into the interrogation room to talk to Branson (there is no way this is legal in any way), then Sheriff Hudson finds the house that all of the calls from Branson’s burner phone for coming home and just walks inside. No warrant. No permission. He just walks in. Scream asks for a lot of suspension of disbelief from its audience, and I’m not fully there yet, but it’s hilariously entertaining.
The dance itself, once we finally get there, does deliver plot twists in spades. Noah and Audrey show Emma Rachel’s raw footage showing Kieran at a Bar with Nina. Piper shows up to tell Emma that it was Kieran who visited Cassie and told her he was Brandon’s son, not Seth. A video of a bloodied Sheriff Hudson tied to a tree is projected on the projection screen for all of the dance attendees to see. Finally, Branson is shown to have escaped jail, leaving behind the body of one of the cops on duty.
That is a lot to happen in the final 10 minutes of the episode, and it sets up what could be a pretty bonkers finale. The reveal that Kieran was actually the one to visit Cassie James was clever, though I hope he doesn’t end up being the killer because he’s had the least screen time out of all the characters. As of now, I really don’t think Mr. Branson or Kieran are the killers. Too many fingers were pointed at them this week so if either of them were the killer it would be a little anticlimactic. My money is either on Jake or Piper. Hell, maybe Scream will pull the rug out from under us and have Brooke be the killer!
There are plenty of questions left for the finale to answer: Will Sheriff Hudson die? Will we find out who the killer is? Will it be a satisfying reveal? Will Maggie ever make her sausage and kale thing again??? I have to know! See you all in a week!
Random Notes
- I’ll just reiterate here that I realize I make fun of Scream a lot. It’s not because I don’t like it. I do like it and find it very entertaining, but it is so, so dumb. The scale I use for scores is 2.5 skulls for entertainment value and 2.5 skulls for quality. The total score is a combination of those two factors (for example, this episode gets 1 skull for quality, and 2 skulls for entertainment)
- Brooke’s having a party in the finale. That can’t bode well for her.
- Bella Thorne’s return to Scream was a big news item at Comic Con few weeks ago. Her presence in this episode felt a bit underwhelming, no?
- Piper reminded me a lot of Debbie Salt/Mrs. Loomis rather than Gale Weathers during the press conference with Sheriff Hudson. Could that be intentional/a clue for fans of the films?
- Noah acknowledges the “Branson” being “Bran’s Son” theory, thereby cementing the fact that Mr. Branson is NOT the killer. Good for you Scream! I’m glad you subverted my expectations with that one!
- “Bicurious and The Virgin are on it!” “And the crime world trembled.” -I have to admit, I laughed at that one.
- Maggie is ordering pizza for dinner, but it’s not her sausage/kale thing. What does this mean????
- It’s been a few years since I’ve seen Pulp Fiction, so I went back and re-watched the dance scene. You’d think they would have just cloned the scene shot by shot to pay tribute to Pulp Fiction, but it’s just Emma and Kieran busting out random moves (out of order, I might add) from the dance. It seems like a missed opportunity for Ti West, but I guess they couldn’t devote two full minutes of screen time to two characters dancing.
- “Kieran was leaving a bar with Nina. Then Nina got dead.” -Audrey was really the voice of reason for this entire episode. Go Audrey!
- “You’re a lot smarter than you look.” -Random slutty girl to Jake. Oh girl, you are dumb.
- Tom Maden’s acting actually wasn’t terrible tonight, but don’t think I’ve forgotten to post a GIF of one of his bad face acting moments:
I am a sucker for tales of small communities beset by shadowy occult influence, particularly those that blend real esotericism with fictional worlds and people. There’s a trick to it, though, and it’s not just about the atmospheric power of the occult imagery and lore. The community, the people on whom the darkness is preying, has to feel lived-in, real, strange, and singular even before the magic and the terror set in.
Shannon Morgan‘s latest novel, A Penance for Crows, gets that right from the opening pages. Set on a secluded Irish island and told from the perspective of an outsider who’s learned to coexist with a theocratic community, it’s immediately immersive, which helps make it one of those books fans of folk and occult horror absolutely shouldn’t miss.
Grizela is a painter, living in relative seclusion in a cottage on the island of Beanna Dubh. She moved here from Scotland long ago, sells her paintings under pseudonyms, and in general kind of likes that the rest of the islanders see her as an oddball at best and a bad influence at worst. She spends her days painting, reading, and mentoring local girls Nessa, Una, Enya, and Maeve, hoping that they’ll one day find freedom beyond the island.
Beanna Dubh, you see, is tightly controlled by the Catholic Church, particularly the aging Father Murphy, who runs the local parish and keeps a tight grip on the reins of the community.
So when one of Father Murphy’s underlings turns up dead on Beanna Dubh’s shores, it sends ripples of terror through the community. Grizela, as the person who finds the body, is the subject of particular suspicion, and the local superstitions about the flocks of crows who live on the island and supposedly warn of impending doom flare up all over again. A mystery is afoot, one marked by ancient sigils and strange happenings, and if Grizela doesn’t solve it, it just might consume her.
What jumped out at me first about this book is how good Morgan is at balancing initial jolts of exposition with atmospheric worldbuilding and, of course, sound character work. Grizela is inherently fascinating, an outsider who nevertheless has spent enough time on the island to know it in and out. She’s up on all the gossip, knows where the chief tension lies, and sees paths to deeper connections through fellow misfits and expats. Or at least…she thinks she does.
Morgan does not waste a moment in diving straight into the plot, knocking Grizela back on her heels and leaving her scrambling for answers as the town moves closer and closer to something like a full-blown Satanic panic. This leaves her looking for footholds, whether they lay in the past or the present, and sets up very clear avenues of antagonism for characters like Father Murphy. It’s all beautifully arranged, and the ways of the island people – from their own peculiar way of greeting each other to the significance of local landmarks – stand out with a vividness that recalls folk horror classics like The Wicker Man.
This careful arrangement of story elements emerges so Morgan can spend the back half of the book not just upsetting the balance of life on Beanna Dubh, but blurring it, giving it depth and shade like a painter might blend colors. Grizela’s present starts to echo her past, sending her into corners of her mind she’d rather not go.
The line between what seems like accidental deaths and superstitions of diabolical influence practically disappears, as it no longer seems to matter whether the Devil is afoot or it just feels like he is. The church, the town’s protective and guiding influence, takes on more shades of malevolence, and even though they feel predictable, they fit right in to the larger tapestry.
The result is a book that delivers folk horror in the classic sense, calling to mind the novels of Dennis Wheatley and Thomas Tryon as well as films like Blood on Satan’s Claw and Witchfinder General, with an added sense of timelessness that really sings. If I have any major complaint, it’s that the pieces of evidence building to a solution start to get a little too convenient at times, losing some of the book’s well-earned ambiguity on its course toward explaining everything that’s happened.
That’s more personal preference than a question of good craft, however. If you love folk horror, occult horror, or just atmospheric, Gothic chills mixed with old, dark magic, you will love A Penance for Crows.
A Penance for Crows is out now wherever books are sold.
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