Scream Queens: Class

After eight of the longest weeks of my life, recapping a show in which absolutely nothing happened, and it happened loudly with Jersey accents and song/dance/cheers, I can now safely say that I am done capping that crapfest and have moved on to a show I would actually watch without Flipit sending me emails nagging me to get my ass in gear.  Woohoo!  Scream Queens!

Was there a shiny dress sale at Mervyn’s?

Ten skankwhores compete for what VH1 keeps insisting is the “Breakout role of a lifetime” in Saw 3D.  Yeah, cause every single actress that’s ever been in a Saw movie has gone on to wild success in the movie industry.

How’s the success from your breakout role five Saw movies ago treating you?

There was that one girl who was in that other movie that went straight to DVD, and the chick who did those two episodes of CSI, and one girl even got to come full circle and wind up right back on Scream Queens telling girls they were looking at the “Breakout role of a lifetime” and trying to keep from laughing and/or sobbing hysterically while saying it.

Don’t worry shoog, that call from Spielberg is coming any day now

Last season, Tanedra won the right to be in Saw QRXI, and went on to have wild successes being in yet another Saw movie.  Wow.  Way to exceed expectations there, sugar.  We see clips of this years batch of drama club rejects, and get introduced to this year’s judges.  They’re not the same judges from last year cause I guess those guys are all doing Hollywood Squares or stints in rehab or something.  Our new “Industry expert” judge is director Tim Sullivan.  IMDB informs me that his movie credits include Driftwood and 2001 Maniacs.  Yeah… I ran a video store for six years, and I love crappy horror movies, and I’ve never heard of any of his stuff.  He must be really really terrible.

What?  You didn’t see this in theatres?  That’s just crazy talk.

The acting coach from last year is back, and I think I remember him making a lot of girls cry last year, so yay for that.  Replacing the chick from the Saw movies is Jamie King, who used to go by James King, which I thought was way cooler.  She was in My Bloody Valentine in 3D, and I had this horrible crush on her when I was like 19 and saw her in Happy Campers, so I’m looking forward to the eye-candy.  She has that sort of evil fairy/elf look about her, which I think is super hot.  I have issues though.

This is the sort of girl that would sleep with a teddy bear, but also tear its arms off for looking at her funny with his evil little button eyes.

The Moviephone guy narrates that this season the challenges are more challenge-y and the tests are more testy and the bitches are more bitchier and blah blah blah.  Who has the looks?  The talent?  The lack of a gag reflex?  Who’s daddy missed enough of her dance recitals that’s she’s willing to sleep with the guy who directed 2001 Maniacs in order to get a bit part in an overplayed movie franchise?  We’ll find out, this season on Scream Queens.  Let’s meet our contestants, shall we?

First up we have Tai, who is a working actress in Chicago, but who wants to break out of the Chicago market, which is apparantly rather small.   I was trying to be a good recapper and look up bios on these girls for you guys, but VH1.com seems to think that “Meet the cast” means “Look at one photo of each member of the cast.”  They’re not giving me much to work with here.  We’ll have to learn all their backstories as they unravel on the show.

Chicago cannot contain my boobs… I mean acting talent… No, I mean boobs.

Next is Rosanna, who informs us that she is 4’10″, “The same height as Mother Theresa.”  What is up with girls with gigantic fake boobies comparing themselves to Mother Theresa (I’m looking at you, Heidi Pratt).  I already hate her, but I can’t say I’m totally hating staring at the massive helping of cleavage she’s serving up.

Mother Theresa would totally approve of those sweater puppies

Plus, she’s 4′ 10″ which means that even my short ass (I’m 5′ 3″, the same height as Carrie Underwood which means I’m totally a country star y’all) could look down her shirt without being obvious.  Usually I have to stand on my tip-toes and/or a chair to look down girls’ shirts, so I consider this a good thing.  Rosanna is a church secretary by day and a go-go dancer by night.  Hahahaha.  Okay, I hate her a tiny bit less cause that’s funny.  I wonder how many good church members had their nights out at the titty bar wrecked when they saw her on the pole and had to cover their faces and run away.

Oh hi Pastor Dave. How’s the wife?

If she was smart (which she’s clearly not) she would have blackmailed those guys and been able to give up one or both of her jobs and live off the hush money.

Next up is Sarah.  VH1 is not being kind enough to actually flash these girls names across the screen or anything, so if I’m spelling them wrong then I’m sorry.  Anyway, Sarah is GORGEOUS in her photos.  Like, stunningly beautiful.  Then you see her in the interview room and she’s like her own ugly sister or something.  It’s weird.

From this…

To this.  (Bangs:  You need em)

She’s our token unwed teenage mother for the season.  She got pregnant at 19 and I’m sure we’re gonna hear all about how hard it is being a mom right up until she gets booted off in week four.  I’d lay money down now that every single challenge she participates in, she will somehow relate to parenting.  “Oh, I have to swim around in blood?  That’s okay because my kid gets bloody noses and I’m totally used to it.”  Blah blah blah.  You’re not special because you didn’t know how to make your skeazy boyfriend wear a condom, okay?

Next we have Christine.  She dresses up in costumes and does children’s birthday parties.  She’s kind of adorable and I like her the best so far, but I’m really confused as to her occupation.  She’s not a clown or a magician.  She kinda looks like the PG version of a stripper, if such a thing exists.

I hear someone’s turning 8!  And has been a bad, bad boy…

She does some annoying fairy voice to show us how she entertains the children, and my like for her starts to fade away.  If my parents had hired her to do my birthday party as a small child I would have hid in the corner until the scary lady with the weird voice went the fuck away.  Or until the cake came out, because my love of cake overrules my fear of creepy bitches.

Our next contestant is Allison.  She a professional dancer and actress (see: stripper who auditions for things on occasion).  She’s best known for her work as a dancing silhouette in one of the iPod commercials.  She seems kind of upset that her greatest success thus far in life is being in a commercial where you can’t see her face, but by my estimation she’s already more successful than most former cast members of the Saw series.

Someday more than the outline of my dancing body will be on the big screen

The girls are all congregated around the judges inside the mansion.  Jamie tells all the girls that they’re competing for the (let’s hear it again) “Breakout role of a lifetime” in Saw 3D, and all the girls scream with excitement like this is news to them.  Was that the first acting challenge?  Pretending you didn’t know why you were on the show?  Cause, you all fail.  Miserably.

A movie role, you say?  I thought we were competing for the love of Ray J.

Tai, whom we met earlier, is so excited because not only is it Saw, but it’s also in 3D!  Also, she’s there.  So… Yeah, I have no idea where she was going with that train of thought.  Let’s just stare at her boobs and ignore her words like everyone else does, okay?

No, VH1!!!  Put the bar over her stupid mouth!

Jamie goes on to tell the girls that they’ll have to be panicked and vulnerable while also strong and seductive, and is anyone else noticing that she’s talking in this super weird, clippy sorta way?  It almost sounds like they edited together a bunch of takes of her giving this speech and didn’t quite sync everything up right.  It’s kinda weirding me out.

Oh, hey, we’re back to intros.  Sierra has been acting since she was little and she loves horror and wants to be one (a whore I guess?).  That’s all we get for Sierra.  Oh, and she wears more make-up than Ronald McDonald.

Are those halogen lights?  Cause halogen totally makes my face melt off.

Jamie introduces the asshole acting coach who makes girls cry, and says he helped launch the career of Evan Rachel Wood.  Seriously?  That’s your fault, dude?  I don’t like you nearly as much anymore.  That bitch and her heinous overacting are ruining full minutes of my True Blood experience every week.  Also, her crappy singing takes away from my enjoyment of the Across the Universe soundtrack.  She sucks.

I suck!  Get it?  Cause I’m a Vaaahmpyah! Ha ha ha ha ha!

Next contestant is Gabby, who has been acting in L.A. for a few years, but then had to go back to New Mexico cause she couldn’t buy groceries or something.  She’s crying during her whole five seconds of screen-time, so I think we’ve found our token emotional train-wreck for the season.

It’s cold in here so I wore a scarf but then I got hot so I took off my shirt. I’m confused by basic concepts. ***sob***

And next is Jessica who says she’s been acting for a long time but has a hard time getting roles because she’s Hispanic.  Really?  REALLY?  That’s just… Wow.  I’ve heard people pull the race card for a lot of stupid shit before, but that is beyond ridiculous.  First of all, there are tons of roles for Hispanic women out there.  Second, bitch doesn’t even look all that Hispanic.  I’m betting her lack of success has more to do with lack of talent than lack of whiteness, but that’s just me.

Throwing out the race card in the first round:  A risky move by our newest competitor.

Jamie tells the girls that the competition starts now, and then a dude in a Freddy Krueger outfit drops through some sugar-glass in the ceiling and the girls all scream like little banshees.  He slashes around with his Krueger knife hands all half-heartedly, and the girls go from screams to laughter.  Tai tells us that some guy fell from the ceiling and he was, “Like, the boogeyman.”  Oh no, honey, no.  That’s one of the most famous horror villains of all time (or a dime-store knock-off of him anyway).  You should know who he is if you want to be in horror movies.  You know what, never mind.  You’re very pretty.  You just… You just be pretty.  There ya go.

Shhhhhhhhhh…. Pretty.

Once the lame Krueger steps aside, Jamie tells the girls they will all need to be able to convey total terror, and then a bed rolls out into the room.  Hahahahahaha.  You know half those bitches are suddenly filled with terror at the thought of having to blow Mr. Crankypants acting coach.  That was my first thought, anyway.  Jamie informs the ladies that their first skill test will be waking up from a nightmare, realizing something is wrong, and then having the Krueger dude scare the hell out of them and ohmigod what the hell is Jamie wearing?  Are those… Are those skants?

Jamie’s outfit…

Skants, courtesy of Regretsy. If you don’t know Regretsy, you should. Google it!  Now!

So, blah blah, if you win you won’t be going home this week (duh! you won, why would you go home?) and they jump right into it.  Jessica, our “I can’t get a job cause I look kinda tan” girl volunteers to go first.  She talks about showing fear in her eyes, and then rather amateurishly delivers some ad-libbed dialogue, but does a totally decent job once the boogeyman jumps out and she just has to scream a lot.

Sierra says she’s going for sexiness mixed with fear.  She moans in her sleep a lot but mostly looks like she’s auditioning for a porno instead of a slasher flick.  Little more fear, little less sexy, hon.

Terror!  Or orgasm… It’s hard to tell

Tai endears herself to me a bit by commenting, “Bow chicka bow wow” in the confessional.  Glad we’re on the same page, Tai. No honey, not literally.  Stop flipping through the script.  It’s just a figure of speech.  You know what… You’re very pretty.  There ya go… Pretty.

Next to hop into the bed is Karlie, who we’ve yet to meet so the producers clearly don’t think much of her.  She looks a bit like Diana Ross and Angelina Jolie’s love child, only not at hot as that sounds when you say it.

Do ya see it?  Like they had a baby but with the mediocre genes

We only see a tiny portion of her audition, and then little clips of a bunch more girls that VH1 didn’t deem interesting enough to allot the full 20 seconds of screen time that the challenge took.

Gabby gets the full screen time so she’s either gonna be great or this is gonna be the suck.  She’s good, actually.  I mean, for a girl who needs to go on a reality show in order to get a part that most actors would leave off their resumes, she’s pretty good.

Last (and quite possibly least) is Lana, whom we also have not met yet.  Her daddy directed Tremors and City Slickers, so you know if she had even a tiny smidgen of talent she’d already be famous. Her parents didn’t want her to act, which probably means that they noticed she was a talentless hack and tried to pretend they didn’t like the industry in order to spare her feelings.  Her audition sucks shit.  Like, it’s terrible.  I’ve heard more convincing dialogue delivered by third graders in bunny outfits doing easter pageants.

My daddy makes movies but he won’t put me in any of them cause he’s a meanyhead.

Captain Cranky Pants, the acting coach, says they all had good moments and terrible moments.  Hack director guy tells Sierra she looked more like she was having a wet dream than a nightmare.  I’m not sure when the last time this hack director actually had a girl in his bed was, but girls don’t have wet dreams.  We have REALLY REALLY good dreams sometimes, but we don’t generally have to change the sheets afterward.  Sierra almost cries off her pound of mascara at the criticism.  No one else gets called out for sucking, which seems unfair since most of them sucked.  And the winner is… Gabby.  No surprise there.  Jamie says some nonsense about how she can tell that Gabby has experienced life and Gabby starts crying about having to move home and sob sob sob I want this so bad.

She weeps this hard when she wins.  I can’t wait to see her lose.

Allison seems angered by the fact that Gabby’s only been trying for four and half years, and I’m sorry, have we met Allison?  These interchangable blonde tramps are already starting to run together.  Excuse me while I scroll up and check….  Oh, okay, she’s the iPod girl.  Way to leave an impression on me, iPod girl.  Maybe you should try and be more interesting.

I’m not memorable!  I’m also not 26!

The ladies all go off to see their room, and the house is kinda awesome.  I’d live there.

I must have this table

Lana, Gabby, and the church-stripper are sitting around talking and Lana is already whipping out the back-handed compliments about how the judges were impressed by Gabby’s essense but didn’t say much about her acting skills.  Oh, Lana Lana Lana, if you want to be the bitchy evil girl you have to at least be in the top half so far as talent goes.  You, my dear, are cannon-fodder.  No one likes a cunty piece of cannon-fodder.  Gabby calls her out on it without being a bitch, which I respect, and all the other girls come rushing over to get involved in the throwdown.  Tai chips in that Gabby won cause of how she looks.  Tai is a bitch, and on top of that she’s way prettier than Gabby (which I’m sure she knows), so that’s a really dumb thing to say.

Must… Make it… 30 seconds… without… crying

The next morning it’s acting lessons with Captain Cranky Pants.  Today’s lesson is Rage.  Woot!  The girls all have to shout, “I know what you are! I’m not afraid! You won’t break me!”  and they have to do it as rage-ily as possible.  Sierra is up first, and she saunters onto the stage all trampskankily.  Yeah kids, your word of the day is “Trampskankily.”  Try and use it in a sentence.

Ho Rage

Captain Cranky Pants doesn’t even let her finish.  Mostly the girls suck, but churchstripper can’t even get a word out.  CCP pulls out a baseball bat and some pumpkins and beats the hell outta one while screaming “You will not break me!”  and then tells the girls, “That’s rage.”  Umm.. Yeah… You’re an angry dude.  We know.  You wanna impress us?  Show me nice and patient.  Now be a tree.  Now be a sad tree.  Ah, to hell with it, let’s smash some pumpkins.

Not you Billy Corgan.  Your time is done.

Sarah, the mommy, is up first.  She sucks and cries and can’t even put a dent in the pumpkin with the damn bat and then outta nowhere just channels her inner bitch and starts dropping ‘F’ bombs left and right.  This pleases CCP.

Sierra smashes the living crap out of her pumpkin.

She’s like a slutty Gallagher.

Churchstripper cries and ineffectually swats at her pumpkin and when she can’t break it she just starts tossing random squash around.

Pumpkin: 1.  Godstripper: 0.

Hispanic girl does decent, Karlie goes full-on hulk,

Rage stripping.

Christine smashes the damn stool the pumpkin is sitting on, profanities are spewed left and right and for the most part everyone does pretty well. And then Lana sucks shit.  Again.  iPod girl nails it in confessional, calling Lana’s performance more of a temper tantrum than rage.

And then daddy wouldn’t buy me a pony and he wouldn’t let me be in City Slickers

Gabby and Sierra are walking through the hallway when they happen upon a monster hand pointing at a bowl of gumballs. They gather the other girls, and Sierra sticks her hand in the bowl. Another moster hand pops out with a note that says “Scripts in the parlor.”  and all the girls scream cause fake hands with notes are so so terrifying.

Terrifying shit there, folks.

Jamie is waiting for them in the afore-mentioned parlor and tells them they’re about to have their first director’s challenge.  They’re all shooting teasers for some movie about a sorority girl who falls in love with the devil.  She tells them they need to “Sell themselves” and I think Sierra and Churchstripper might both already have a bit of experience in that department.  She tells them to bring a piece of themself to the role, and Tai immediately starts trying to decide which piece she should bring.

My right boob is bigger but my left boob is perkier…

The ladies get their scripts, and Hispanic and TeenMom get all judgey because some of the girls are practicing their screaming and having fun instead of studying their scripts.  It’s a 30 second teaser, ladies.  I don’t imagine that it should be an all night job to memorize that shit.

I’m totally practicing my heinous bitch face right now…

Onto the director’s challenge.  Lana reminds us that her dad is a director, not quite understanding that it makes her look worse, not better.  It’s off to hair and make-up, and VH1 shows that they know what makes people schedule their Tivo’s for this shit by having everyone’s “Costume” be a bra and panties.  Thanks, VH1.  We can always count on you to take a look at what would be tasteful and classy, and then tell it to go fuck itself because Brett Michaels needs someone new to keep his dick warm.  Classy is for A&E.

Hispanic is up first.  She’s doing a scene on a phone, apparently telling the devil she’s ready to get busy with him or something.  If I didn’t know what I was watching I would be 100% convinced that I was tuned to a commercial for one of those 900-numbers that some hapless shmucks who’ve never heard of the internet are still giving their hard earned money to.  Poor poor schmucks.

I’m just a phone call and a major credit card away!

Hack director calls her out on being a bad actress, and her second take is a little better.  Her next scene for the teaser is her popping out of sweater while realizing her boy-toy is the Morningstar.  She does okay.  The last scene she’s back in her undies and screaming while waving around a pentagram with which to… Fight… The Devil…?  I’m confused.  Should she maybe like, have a cross?  A bible?  Some holy water?  Isn’t that like walking into a vampire battle and having your weapon of choice be a bloodmobile?

Yeah, demons hate that shit

Christine is boring, Sierra still thinks she’s on the set of a porn, and on top of that she’s got a muffin top.

Sit-ups are your friend.  Especially when you have no talent.  Just ask Megan Fox.

She also looks for her demon-boyfriend in the ceiling, and yeah, she sucks.  She sucks so hard she may have created a riff in the space-time continuum.

Tai looks damn good in her undies and does a pretty kick-ass job in her screamy rage part.  I’m so pulling for Tai.  Her stupidity amuses me, her shit-talking is funny, and she’s awfully nice to look at.  Plus I’m pretty sure she’s gonna be the one bringing the bitchcrazy once Lana gets sent home either this week or next.  Someone’s gotta bring the bitchcrazy, okay?  Otherwise we might as well flip over to A&E for some of that classy shit.

See, porno girl?  Sit ups.

Oh, speaking of Lana, it’s her turn.  She’s just so awful.  I can’t imagine a scenario in which she’d not get the axe this week, unless Churchstripper chokes and forgets how to talk again.  Churchstripper isn’t getting much airtime though, so my money’s on Lana.  Granted, she’s doing a better job than Evan Rachel Wood does on True Blood, but that’s really not saying much.  I would compare her performance to what it’s like when athletes do guest spots on sitcoms and have to deliver that one line of dialogue and you cringe in embarrassment for them the whole time.  Only worse.

I am so terrified of the devil. Because he is scary. That is why I am scared.

Quick clips of the girls the producers don’t give a crap about, and then it’s Gabby’s turn.  Gabby screamed herself horse doing rehearsals the night before, but she’s got immunity so who gives a shit.  She has an insanely difficult time figuring out how to wait for the word “Action” before delivering her lines.  She actually does worse than Lana, which I didn’t think was really possible.

Go after “Action.”  Oh my god.  AFTER action.  It’s not string theory, princess.

This whole show is painful to watch, but painful in a fun way because none of these girls seem like decent human beings, and watching their delusions of gradeur get crushed is totally rewarding.  Haha. No one told you that you suck because you’re pretty and now you get to realize you suck on national television.  I live for this shit.

So it’s later that night and the list of girls summoned for judgement is hanging on a hook in the hallway.  Scream Queens does a top three/bottom three thing like Project Runway, so none of the girls know if hearing their name is a good thing or not.  The girls going to judgement are Hispanic, Sierra (the porn star), Tai, Lana, and Gabby. Well, we know Gabby isn’t going home, so they clearly just have her on the list to chew her ass out.  The girls all seem to think that everyone on the list is on the bottom, so either I’m confused or they are.  My guess is that they’re confused, because come on… Look at them.

Not the faces of rocket scientists

Jamie, CCP, and Hack director tell the girls that Hispanic and Tai are the two strongest for the week.  See?  It was the dumb girls that were confused, not me.  They get praised for being in the zone and basically for not sucking, since everyone else did.  The Leading Lady (i.e. winner) for the week is…. Hispanic!  We get to see her whole teaser and it’s hilarious.  Like, the sort of shit that’s on Sci-Fi channel originals at 3am.

Gabby gets called down and told that if she didn’t have immunity she’d be going home.  Because how hard is it to wait for the word “Action.”  I mean really.  Gabby cries, because Gabby seems to cry a LOT.  Gabby better watch out or I’m gonna start calling her Weepy.  Oh no, too late, her name is Weepy now.  But only because Sniffles was already taken by Brendum on Big Brother.

Oh look, you’re crying.  How interesting and out of character for you

Sierra and Lana get called out at the worst of the worst, and one of them will be getting the axe.  God, please let it be Lana.  Sierra’s insistence on turning everything into a USA Up All Night movie is super entertaining and I want at least one more week of it.  Lana gets told she’s very pretty, but that Hack director kept trying to peel past the surface layers and he just couldn’t do it.  Pssst!  Hey Hack Director!  You DID peel away the layers.  There’s just nothing there.  She says she’s been studying acting her whole life, and once again, that’s just sad.  Jamie tells her to let go and just say, “Screw the world!”  Lana wanders off looking for the first warm human she can find to get started, but Jamie pulls her back in and lets her know she just needs to say, “Screw the world.”  She doesn’t actually have to screw the world.  Although with her level of acting talent it might be a good start if she wants to be in movies.

Sierra gets told by Hack that she overacts and basically delivers all of her lines like a porn star.  He tells her she needs to tone down both her look and her acting.  Jamie tells her she has a very specific look, and studios will maybe cast her as the slutty friend, but that’s it. I wonder if any of this information is permeating through the six inches of foundation Sierra has on and sinking into her skull.  Just in case the nuances were too subtle, let me help spell it out.

You look like a hooker-bot!  Strippers would mock you for the amount of make-up you wear!  The girls that work the Mac counter at Macy’s would tell you you’re overdoing it.  Drag Queens are more tasteful!  Jeebus!

So Sierra overacts and Lana, well, doesn’t act.  At all.  The girl going home is…. Drumroll please… Lana!  Yay!  She says she’s sad she didn’t get the opportunity to show the world who she really is as an actress.  Oh honey, you showed the world.  Trust me.  We all know exactly who you are as an actress. Maybe if you’re real nice daddy will let you hold a boom mic on the set of his next big movie.  Maybe that should be your goal instead.    Oh, but she says that she’s gonna keep trying.  Well you enjoy that honey.  I’m gonna keep trying to perfect cold-fusion in my garage.  We’ll see who succeeds first, huh?

Next week there’s bugs and vampires and crying.  Woot!  So what do you guys think?  Was there anyone you thought for a second would go home instead of Lana?  Do you like the new cast?  Do you miss the old judges?  Comment away!