Scream Queens***

What puzzled me most about the developing episode of Hell Week, as opposed to the Pilot episode, was the subservience accepted by the independent and initially defiant Kappa hopefuls played by Skyler Samuels and Keke Palmer. Skyler is the final girl, the pleasant, dignified, strong protagonist with a solid relationship with her widower father played by Oliver Hudson. Palmer is the take-no-shit, attitudinal friend to Skyler who decides, against her better judgement, to follow her to KKT. Both appear to be set up as antagonists to the old mistreatment through sorority hazing, Kevlar against Chanel and her sock puppet suckups played by the likes of Abigail Breslin, Billie Lourd, and Ariana Grande. Grande put in basically a cameo in Pilot because she is introduced to the devil and meets hell. Skyler as Grace, hoping to bring class and integrity back to KKT, seems like the perfect candidate to valiantly defy and resist the Chanels and proclaim victory. With a tough ally in Palmer's Zayday, you'd think both these gals would instigate change. Instead Zayday is one among the Lea Michelle-in-neckbrace Kappa hopefuls buried up to her neck, standing in bra and panties while Chanel grades their figures, and on the floor scraping up the burnt flesh from the House's maidservant whose face was dunked in cooking grease heated in the kitchen. Skyler also allows humiliation, although she does speak her peace and does grapple with Chanel more often than not. Skyler is the investigative tool for the developing plot...she's the inquisitive curiosity that peeks behind the shades, creaks open the door, shining a flashlight into the dark. Still, I was expecting these two to challenge and subvert the Chanels from onset to conclusion.