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‘Thanksgiving’: Horror Holiday Something to be Thankful For

By Joey Click

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Pretty Evil

“Drunk Off Wine Is Still Drunk, Mother.” -Chanel

THE REVIEW:

Michael Lehmann directs Thanksgiving with confidence and immaculate style. Upon pressing play on Scream Queens’ 10th outing, appropriately titled Thanksgiving, Lehmann’s skills behind the camera is immediately obvious. Not since the Fox’s freshman season’s one-two punch, The Pilot and Hell Week, has the sorority-slaughter parody been this solidly directed. Just look at the segment where Chanel #3 goes home for turkey day. It’s amazingly helmed and features great composition and camerawork. Scream Queens’ latest episode features a slew of realization shots as well.

Thanksgiving’s script is also as sharp as a kitchen knife. Featuring a strictly focused AB storylines, Scream Queen’s most recent outing expertly juggles both aspects of what the series’ is ultimately attempting: comedy and narrative.

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What works most in Thanksgiving, in what is arguably the best episode of Scream Queens to date, is its ability to dish out the narrative and the comedy in equal proportions. The A storyline is our core group of Kappa crazies, along with Dean Munch and Grace’s old daddy, Wes Gardner, and the B storyline has Chanel finally meeting Chad Radwell’s insanely rich-and more insanely pretentious- family.

Whereas Scream Queens has struggled with too much parody and keeping the story stagnated, both the comedy and the narrative are executing their agendas with ease in Thanksgiving. I laughed and found myself highly intrigued as the characters accused each other of being “The Red Devil” with known and unknown facts from the series. The proceedings are insanely delicious.

Then there’s the performers. While the episode is lacking the Scream Queen classic Denise Hemphill, there is still much on display to chew on.

First off, Emma Roberts again shines as the devilishly dramatic Chanel. While she often goes from important to backseat players, the actress is front and center in the B storyline (the Radwell Thanksgiving). Not only is Roberts as hilarious as ever, shedding dialog like a mad word-chirping word chipper, the actress also give one hell of a monologue that so both comedy gold and evolves Chanel in extremely interesting ways.

Jamie Lee Curtis is also stellar in Thanksgiving, playing the loud-mouthed sass machine Dean Munch. While the legendary actress is often used then forgotten like the mystery-meat McRib, she’s amazingly used in the newest Fox episode. She simply kills it in every second of the episode. It’s entirely obvious the True Lies actress loves being a part of Scream Queens; I absolutely love it as well.

Look for an awesome Alan Thicke cameo as well. I suppose one come call the episode Thickesgiving.

THE VERDICT:

Thanksgiving is a masterful episode in the canon of Scream Queens. Unlike some episodes of the freshman Fox series, Thanksgiving wastes zero screen time as it executes its intentions confidently. While it’s not the best episode of television I’ve ever seen, the 10th episode of Scream Queens continues the recent trend of turning the horror series from a passive experience to a must-watch piece of entertainment.

THE GRADE: A-

Join 1428 next week as I take a look at Scream Queens’ next episode, Black Friday, only on Fox. Check out the preview of Black Friday below, courtesy of Fox.

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