Scream Episode 10 “The Vanishing”

With just two episodes left, things are kicking into high gear. Here we have another death, hot on the heels of the Haley Myers stab-a-thon, and some amazing flashbacks to 1994 showing young Miguel and Maggie as angsty teens. Let’s get started.

We begin with the autopsy of Piper Shaw being performed by her own mother, medical examiner Maggie Duval. So that’s pretty messed up. Acosta, standing nearby, tells her he could get somebody else, but Maggie cuts through both his compassion and Piper’s torso. The dead girl was stolen from her grave and kept in a large freezer, which sort of preserved her. She looks like a zombie.

Inside her chest cavity, Maggie finds the heart of a pig.

Emma and Audrey standoffishly hang out in the Jensen house. Emma wants to know everything so she can figure out why she and Audrey are being targeted.

Yes, Audrey knew that Shaw and Emma were biologically related the entire time during the Season One slayings. And yet, she said NOTHING!

The night Rachel (Audrey’s girlfriend) was thrown over her balcony and had her neck broken by a noose, Piper was sitting around with Audrey in her room at the Crescent Palms Motel, doing Brandon James research. What we always suspected is confirmed; Rachel, the only murder made to look like a suicide, was killed by someone else.

But why?

Because Audrey knew that her true crime blogger friend didn’t kill her girlfriend, she didn’t suspect her in any of the other murders, either. Emma brings up the fact that she and Audrey were once best friends who drifted apart, and then later reconnected. Like Jensen’s comment about having felt “Emma’s rejection before” in the last episode, this leads to a very unsurprising reveal later.

She’s certainly feeling rejection now, since Emma pretty much despises her.

In Miguel’s office, he lays his theory out. He thinks Brandon James is back. But how can that be? He’s dead after being fatally shot and falling into Wren Lake 20 years ago. I mean, he is dead, right? Maggie says that Brandon was a good man who wouldn’t hurt Emma like this. He was never the monster the town made him out to be.

Flashback time! A teenage Miguel Acosta listens to music in his bedroom until Maggie knocks on his first floor bedroom window. She looks pretty tormented and needs his help.

Out in the woods, the pair encounters the wounded Brandon James, fresh from the shooting that took his life, according to Lakewood history.

Back at school, Noah calls Zoe and gets her voicemail again. He then gets a text inviting him out to the shore of Wren Lake, where he spent time with Zoe before.

At the lake, Noah finds no Zoe. He texts “Where are you?” and is guided away from the beach and towards the woods. This scene plays out in bright daylight with a cheerful instrumental soundtrack suggesting playfulness that resists the usual horror clichés.

In the sun dappled forest, Noah pauses. He then gets this text:

“Why did you stop? Scared?”

The phone rings and its Zoe. Except, well…it isn’t.

“Hello, Noah.”

“Who’s this?”

“Long time listener, first time caller.”

The voice informs him that because he had sex with Zoe, his immunity from murder is over. He is lured deeper into the woods and finally stabbed in the stomach.

At school, both Audrey and Emma get a video of Noah trapped inside a casket, confused. They are told they will participating in a kind of scavenger hunt, and there is to be no cops or Noah dies.

We cut to the coffin.

It’s light inside by decorative lights and rigged with a camera. Dirt falls through the cracks and Noah realizes he’s buried alive.

Suddenly, he hears a girl scream and begins banging on the coffin lid.

Audrey and Emma head out to follow the killer’s instructions. They get a text.

“Noah thought he had all the answers. Find out where he went wrong.”

Emma sets a course for the place where Noah keeps all his answers: his Murder Board.

Acosta heads back to the James farm and we flash back to 1994. Miguel and Maggie drop off the wounded boy at his brother’s horse farm and bury a knife they find on him.

In present day, Miguel searches the abandoned farm something clatters upstairs. He finds a Murphy bed and pulls it down from the wall, revealing a room beyond. In it are the photos of the child Emma and other signs of habitation. A hooded figure watches from outside.

Emma and Audrey invade Noah’s room and head to the Murder Board. There’s a note on it reading “What’s behind Noah’s obsession?” Emma pulls it down and discovers a letter from Audrey to Piper on the back. In it, Audrey describes being abandoned by Emma for the more popular kids.

And the finally, Emma puts it together.

The Murder Board is Noah’s obsession, so what is literally behind it? It’s a crushed daffodil!

The girls depart for the Old Stables after Audrey recognizes the importance of the flower. Down in the coffin, Noah is visited by a hallucination of Zoe. She tells him:

“It’s okay to be afraid. The only ones who aren’t afraid are the monsters.”

On the drive to the stables, Emma pulls out the letter.

At the police station, Acosta tells Maggie about the secret room. He thinks Brandon James occupies it. Maggie has a special way to tell if he’s back or not.

Audrey explains that Piper wanted to know everything about Emma, including her love of hanging out at the Old Stables. Which means that Piper’s accomplice knows, too.

Miguel gets one of the funniest Ghostface calls of the series:

“I need to report some very suspicious activity, Sheriff.”

“Who’s this?”

“I’d like to remain anonymous. I’d hate for this to get back to me, but something very strange has been going on at the old horse stables on Route 6. You know the place?”

“I do. What do you mean by strange?”

“It’s abandoned but someone’s been going out there to the barn. I’ve heard screams and squeals. It sounds like somebody’s being gutted.”

“How did you hear all this?”

“You better get out there now. Maybe you can make it stop.”

In the stables, the girls find a slaughtered pig. They search for Noah’s burial place and get a video of Jake being scythed to death. This is the barn where Jake died.

Audrey and Emma finally have it out over the rift between them, leading to Audrey admitting that she was in love with Emma all along, and when they drifted apart, she was bitter and angry over it.

As Emma stands in silence, they hear Noah loudly singing below ground. He’s underneath the slaughtered hog. As they pull the teen from his would be resting place, they hear Zoe screaming below the coffin. Beneath the huge wooden box is a smart phone showing video of Zoe trapped in a box filling with water.

Wren Lake, anyone?

Emma and Audrey decide to check the dock, where they killed Piper Shaw.

After they leave, Miguel arrives. He finds the coffin and something much stranger. The bloody pig from the barn floor has been dragged away and….well, you’ll see.

At the lake, the trio finds the coffin laid at the shore but partially submerged. The video on Noah’s phone shows Zoe panicked but alive. They tear off the wooden lid, releasing a huge flood of water. Inside, Zoe Vaughn stares up at them with unseeing eyes.

She’s dead.

The video of her struggling was from earlier in the day.

Maggie examines the bizarre pig display at the barn. It has no heart and Seth Branson’s hand.

At the lake, another call comes in on Emma’s phone.

“We played your game, we followed your rules and you still killed Zoe.”

“I always win.”

“This time you’re gonna lose.”

“Really? Look at the evidence. You’re dead in the water.”

Back home again, Emma feels horrible about Zoe. In flashback, teen Maggie wakes up to find Brandon James standing in her backyard. He flees and she pulls a note from the knot in the tree where he leaves her messages. It reads simply “Don’t forget me.”

In present day Maggie leaves another note in the tree: “Stay away from her.”

As she steps away, Eli steps out of the shadows.