WARNING **SPOILERS AHEAD**
Well I was dead wrong, pardon the pun, on who was behind the killings in Lakewood this season. Although the connection to the first season seemed a little thin, it did make it a more personal betrayal than even the first season reveal of Piper being the half-sister of Emma and the killer. So let’s do the reveal first and then go over the details of how we got here.
And the killer this season is… excuse me a moment, these envelopes are a little tricky to open sometimes. Ok, the killer is, drum roll please. Kieran Wilcox. How you may ask? Simple answer is daddy issues. Kieran and Piper came together over their mutual parental abandonment. Piper was abandoned by Maggie and Kieran was abandoned by his dad, the departed Sheriff Wilcox. And Kieran even admits that these issues could be solved with some good ole therapy but he says that Piper showed him that killing is way more fun than therapy. So the master plan for last season was to destroy the people that abandoned them. Piper and Kieran were going to ruin the lives of Maggie, Emma and Sheriff Wilcox and then kill them. But the fly in the ointment turned out to be Audrey. Because of her involvement Piper ended up dying which in turn led Kieran to seek revenge for Piper because he was in love with her.
So let’s dissect this reveal and what it means for the rest of the characters. First this clears Audrey as the legitimate accomplice of Piper. She wasn’t the actual accomplice because she didn’t contribute in the murders last season she was only the middle woman that brought Piper and Kieran to Lakewood. Kieran was framing her as a murderous accomplice from last season as punishment for killing Piper.
Emma gets one more hit from Piper from beyond the grave. In this sense Piper’s long game was really good. Her plan to destroy Emma’s life was very thorough. She not only broke Emma’s mind leaving her with a serious case of PTSD but she also broke her heart. Emma lost Will and she fell in love with Kieran who ended up being a psychotic killer who was partnered up with her murderous half-sister. So Piper’s plan partially worked because even though she never got to kill Emma she did leave her life in tatters again. Score one for Piper from beyond the grave.
The rest of the Lakewood gang came out with the same wounds as last season so it should be a walk in the park for them at this point. Noah lost his girlfriend again but he continues his crusade for justice. Brooke got stabbed again but pulled through like last season but this time around I believe she suffered the most, not only did she lose Jake but she lost her dad as well and like Brooke herself says even though he wasn’t father of the year at least he was around. But she does get her own pseudo happy ending. She’s last seen having dinner with Stavo and Sheriff Acosta. It’s not clear though if that means Sheriff Acosta has taken her in or she’s just welcome to stay there whenever she wants.
Which brings us to the new characters of the series, Stavo and Eli, my main suspects that weren’t. The ending of their story arcs seems like a wasted opportunity unless they’re going to be used for the next season, which so far there has been no word yet on whether the series has been renewed for a third season. We’ll start with Stavo. His relationship with Brooke became serious real fast in these final episodes. In the middle of the episode a final showdown is setup by Emma and Audrey at the old theatre where Audrey works at. The gang rallies around them and they arm themselves to confront the killer. Noah and Brooke are in charge of covering the entrance. While on guard Stavo shows up claiming he got a text from Brooke to meet at the theatre. At this point I thought Stavo was going to get a knife in the gut but nothing happens. Stavo just storms off after Brooke doesn’t let him because she suspects him for a hot minute that he could be involved because how else would he know she was at the theatre. Once he leaves Noah and Brooke hear a commotion from inside one of the theatre rooms and when they go to investigate they find a video playing that shows the death of their friends from last season and this season. The killer somehow got in even though the gang was covering all the exits and here is where Brooke gets attacked. We see Stavo again at the hospital looking very distraught because of Brooke. Noah tries to reassure him that she’s a fighter and she was stabbed and locked in a freezer last time and she survived. When Sheriff Acosta arrives they share a touching moment where Acosta comforts Stavo. It turns the creepy artist does have feelings. His story arc ends with the aforementioned dinner with Brooke and his dad. When they sit down to eat we get a glimpse at his iPad one last time and instead of a gory death portrait its a nice drawing of the surviving Lakewood gang on the pier at the lake with the sun shining. So it seems all his creepiness was just for the sake of being creepy and to double as a red herring it seems. Again, seems like wasted potential for his character unless he’s going to be used as a Kieran double agent for next season, which I’ll address in full in my season review of Scream coming soon.
Now on to Eli. Poor Eli. The short of it with Eli is that he dies during the reveal of the killer. The real final showdown happens at the Sacred Hearts orphanage, the genesis of Piper. The way Emma figures out Kieran is the killer is by a typical horror movie slip up. The killer is impeccable throughout the story, having mapped out every step and having back up plans and back up plans for his back up plans, only to have one key piece of information slip out just when he’s on the cusp of ultimate victory. When Emma is in the orphanage she has one final killer call and during this conversation the killer tells her that she’ll never feel safe again. When Kieran shows up out of nowhere he says that Noah pinged the cellphone Emma has and thats how he knew her location. Eli shows up out nowhere too but he’s stabbed and holding the Brandon James knife. Eli starts telling Emma that the reason he had a restraining order in Florida was because Kieran had framed him to look like he was obsessed with the girl when in fact it was Kieran who was after her. Kieran starts saying that Eli is the one behind everything and that he twists things around. Emma ends up shooting Eli and he goes down. Kieran then gets ahold of the gun and in his attempt to stay in the clear mentions that he’s going to make sure that Emma feels safe again. This is what triggers Emma to put two and two together. Why would Kieran say that specific expression unless he was the killer. That’s when Kieran turns from concerned boyfriend to serial killer mode and I have to say his turn was pretty good. While Kieran is doing his villain monologue Eli comes to and attempts to rush him but Kieran pretty much empties the gun into Eli’s chest. Farewell Eli, it was nice knowing you. But again, why the buildup of his character and emphasizing his creepiness just so that he dies at the final stage without any indication that he was involved in the killings.
Which brings us to the closing of the episode and the wrap up of the season. The surviving members get their relative happy ending. Brooke is with Stavo and Sheriff Acosta. Noah is continuing his The Morgue podcast. Audrey and Emma are now moving on from Piper and Kieran is in jail. Ms. Lang makes a brief reappearance and is seen starting to write a book about Piper and Emma. The threads that are left hanging to make us come back for more are Maggie going back to the Brandon James tree and finding her note pinned to the tree with a knife. And the last scene is Kieran being called to the phone to speak to his lawyer. When he picks up the receiver the trademark killer voice comes over the line and tells Kieran, “Who told you you could wear my mask.” Dun dun dun. That last scene did make me excited for what they will do for the next season.
The season finale finally gave us answers and left doors open for the story to continue next season. The final scene is what salvaged this season but didn’t quite validate it. The last episode went through stereotypical horror movie tropes but not all seemed like the send ups that the series was founded on in the first season. Seems like the writers just gave in and instead of poking fun at the horror movie genre they fully embraced it and went head first into the same cliches we’ve seen before. The final scene was a good payoff for sticking with the series to the end and makes the possibilities intriguing for next season if they don’t waste it like they did with some characters in this season.
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