How 'Scream Queens' Season 2's Location Changed

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Scream Queens Season 1. Let's review: we already knew that Scream Queens Season 2 would be set in a hospital, not a campus, but up until this point, we had no idea how showrunner Ryan Murphy would pull off such a gymnastic feat, plot-wise. The Scream Queens posse were all unlikely frenemies brought together by the very specific circumstance of a serial killer on campus. By what out-there plot arcs would explain them all ending up at a hospital? But worry not, the cast were all at San Diego Comic-Con, and have now explained the Scream Queens Season 2 hospital setting.

For a start, it's not the mental hospital where we last saw Scream Queens ' Chanels, finally happy and able to stuff themselves with food thanks to the distinct lack of males in the vicinity. Nope, during the cast interview, Jamie Lee Curtis (who plays Dean Munsch) explained that "Dean doctor Munch has opened a hospital and it's three years later...and she's opened a hospital of her own. And she hires doctors...to work at her hospital, she hires an old ally to be a young medical student." At this point, Curtis puts her arm round Keke Palmer (Zayday Williams) — so presumably Zayday is the medical student she means.

"And then she brings the Chanels back as extra help and then poor Hester... just ends up visiting us." Not bad, Ryan Murphy, not bad. This turn of events is made extra delicious by just how Dean Munsch has found the funds to start her own hospital — namely, with the money she made from her New York Times' bestselling book, New New Feminism, which, despite being ghostwritten, made her an internationally famous feminist adorning the covers of magazines like Time, Newsweek and Men's Health. Executive producer Ian Brennan confirmed that Munsch's reasons for purchasing the hospital remain murky, stating, “It’s unclear what her reasoning is...There’s a bit of a grey area there.”

This is, of course, intrinsic to Scream Queens' charm. In the video above, the cast outline how Murphy doesn't let any of them know what the ending is or who the murderer is until they receive the last script, leading them to rip into it with as much enthusiasm as you probably had tuning into the Season 1 finale. In Ryan Murphy's universe, grey areas are never unintentional — so I'm calling it now: Munsch's purchase of a former asylum, current hospital won't be a fun, throwaway plot detail. It will be key to the whole mystery.

Images: 20th Century Fox Television (2); Entertainment Weekly