So, I have spent the last few weeks binging shows and a friend turned me on to Scream. Yes, the MTV series is on Netflix to watch and I have put it off for years it seems but finally caved. If you have yet to watch the show and don’t want spoilers, this article is not for you because #spoileralert. Season 1 starts off with the Lakewood killer and our final girl, Emma. From episode 1, I had my killers pegged. However, in season 1 only one of the killers, because in true Scream fashion there was an accomplice, was revealed. Emma’s half-sister her mother put up for adoption, Piper, turned out to be the killer of the season, and one of my guesses for who the killer was (odd she just showed up out of nowhere to podcast the town). Police close the case saying Piper was the sole killer.
However, we all know that from the episode that Will is kidnapped when he met with the mayor with Piper standing beside him, that there was obviously another killer aside from Piper. It’s horror not supernaturally geared so its not some body swap crap. Season 2 starts up and it takes a only few minutes to realize, ding ding ding, there is another killer. Jake is killed within the first 15 minutes of the show. Now, the other killer that I had pegged in season 1 turned out to be the killer of season 2. Kieran, the late sheriff’s son and Emma’s boyfriend.
Kieran is put on trial for the murders and is in prison when he receives a strange phone call that legitimately frightens him. Using the same voice changer he and Piper had used on their victims, the caller asks him, “Who said you could wear my mask?” And there, the third killer is brought to light. The last episode shows Kieran being rescued from his jail cell as a person in a Brandon James costume kills the guard guarding his holding cell and begins to unlock the cell. Kieran says, “All right, you kept your word. So you going to tell me who you are?” The killer slits his throat and then stabs him in the spine. Kieran dies from his wounds.
Yea, yea, we all know that there are rumors who the third killer could be with the three most prominent being Kevin Duvall (Emma’s dad), Troy James (Brandon James’s brother), and Brandon James himself (I’m leaning hard on it was Emma’s dad and he was the original 1994 Lakewood killer and framed Brandon). So with all of those factors, people didn’t get the answers they wanted when the season ended and the show was totally rebooted with a new storyline. Viewers were left with a gaping question of who was to return to Lakewood for the season that had been set up with the cliffhanging ending of the Lakewood Murders. Kevin Duvall is seen standing over Kieran’s grave smugly. A Mr. James is checking into a motel, unknown if it is Troy or if Brandon DID survive his gunshot wound and he’s returning for revenge. So many questions we don’t have answers to.
If you are one of those people, I am about to leave you with more questions than answers by providing answers to questions not even asked. Noah kept saying the new killer had an accomplice as well. We see how Audrey is being framed into being that accomplice as the killer starts setting her up with come scenes as well as calling her a killer. We learn that she was the one that drew Piper here to get even with the town for marking Brandon James as the serial killer who she thinks was also framed. As the drama unfolds, we learn that she actually wanted to get even with Emma for “breaking her heart.” As the season unfolds, we see Audrey being visibly framed but we also see Audrey being very much an accomplice. Episode 13 shows her being abducted by the killer while they are in the movie theater and the killer stabbing Brooke nearly killing her. Kieran shows up and goes with Brooke to the hospital while Emma runs from the police. While Kieran is on the phone with Emma after Brooke is taken back to the operating room, we see that he is very visibly in the hospital and hasn’t left Brooke or Noah’s side. As soon as they hang up, Emma receives video of a tied up Audrey at the abandoned children’s home. When she gets there, she is attacked by someone in costume and then Kieran shows up. This is when it is revealed that Kieran is the killer.
There was no time for Kieran to abduct Audrey and tie her up in the children’s hospital if he was with Brooke and Noah the entire time. So, if the caller on the phone wasn’t someone he knew, but the person who abducted Audrey is his accomplice, then there is a 4th killer in the show. But who is it? Well, the person who Noah accused of being the accomplice, Audrey.
In the episode where the party for Kieran’s birthday takes place, a drug was slipped into the alcohol that caused hallucinations. Audrey sees Rachel, her girlfriend that was killed in season one (suspect Kieran), during her hallucination and apologizes while taking full responsibility, “I’m sorry for what I did.” Seems like guilt over bringing Piper into town right? When they find Tyler’s severed head, the mask that he was wearing had her DNA in it. This was the same mask that Audrey is seen stealing out of inventory as well as case notes in one episode when she sneaks into the police station. The mask was Audrey’s mask. Audrey was the one that killed Rachel. She would have been the only one to know to make it look like a suicide. The next kill that was Audrey was when Will was murdered. Will was nearly dead when they found him. Kieran and Piper were the ones that took him to lure Emma out there. Kieran is revealed to be the one that attacks them in the abandoned bowling alley the 1994 murders took place. Will saves Emma by knocking the killer out of tract as he ran at her ready to cut her. The next day, Kieran and Emma have a spat about her going back to Will and the killer tells her no matter how they show her how awful he is, she will keep going back to him (much how her mother was with Brandon James). Will is then killed as punishment to Emma. The note left behind by the killer says “You chose wrong again.” You think it was Kieran because minutes before the scene of Will’s death, her and Kieran have a heart to heart over her feelings for Will. As pointed out earlier, Audrey tells Emma she broke her heart and that was why she wanted to get even. Audrey didn’t want to hang out with her new friends and the only reason Emma became their friends is because Will started dating her (under false pretenses at that). What better way to get back at Emma than to kill the very friends one by one, and the love her life, she ditched Audrey to be with.
Audrey was attacked by one of the killers and screams at them to do it after they hesitate for a moment in which they knock her out and then cut her arm after, not before, hitting her in the head. Audrey didn’t watch Emma walk off into the woods and magically know she was going to end up at the dock where Piper was trying to murder her. Audrey already knew what the end game was. Audrey changed her mind in the end of the season and shot Piper, betraying both Piper and Kieran. So Kieran begins to drag her back in by framing her for murders she isn’t doing as payback for killing Piper. That’s why he makes it a point to call her partner in the texts and killer.
After having fun trying to get people to turn on Audrey, Kieran takes Noah and buries him alive. The only person that would have known about the girls playing at the horse barn would have been Audrey because they were little girls and she was the one that recognized the flower from the field. Noah was never in the agreement to be murdered and this was Kieran lashing out at Audrey as a warning to do her part and finish what he and Piper came to Lakewood to do: Kill Emma.
Now remember how Audrey is kidnapped at the movie theatre but Kieran couldn’t have done it? Well, Audrey could have just walked out the door and tied herself up. We already know she knows how to tie herself up convincingly from when she kidnapped Noah earlier in the season. Audrey draws Emma out away from Kieran. Kieran then uses Audrey as leverage with Emma. At any time, he could have just shot her like he did poor Eli. Audrey helps Emma take him down and begs her to shoot him in the head, but Audrey prefers to put him in prison to rot.
Whether my theory of Audrey being the killer is the evidence you need to make your own conclusions on who the killer is or not and you disagree, the evidence still stands that there was a fourth killer in the show. Just exactly who kidnapped Audrey while Kieran was busy slicing and dicing?. Or was Kieran clean of the attack on Brooke and it was the other killer that kidnapped Audrey that also attacked Brooke? The world of Scream fans will never know, but at one point, Noah had the evidence he needed to mark Audrey as one of the killers…