'Scream' Season 3 Is Officially Happening

If the thrills and chills of Season 2 of Scream left you begging for more, then you're absolutely in luck. As well as the great surprise that a two-hour Halloween special of Scream is to air on Oct 18, on Friday, it was also confirmed that Scream has been renewed for a third season. What is less great, however, is the news that Season 3 of Scream will be only half the length of Season 1 and Season 2, containing just six episodes. Such a small amount of time in which to tell a slasher story seems very interesting and deliberate to me, somehow. I mean, what will happen in Season 3 of Scream that could only require six episodes?

Well, I actually have a specific theory that I believe would play out perfectly within six episodes. But, before I get to it, I need to talk about the trailer for the upcoming Scream Halloween special. It looks like wondrous, slasher territory, with the Lakewood gang (and some new faces) jumping out of the fire of Season 2's bloodbath and into the frying pan of the haunted house of the Halloween special.

So far, so very I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, right? The Scream Halloween special definitely looks as though it's going to answer questions (and reveal secrets) just as the trailer boasts. And the end of Season 2 — spoilers ahead — which saw Kieran being revealed as the killer, going to prison, and taking a phone call from someone claiming to be the real killer certainly left viewers with questions to be answered. So where could the Scream story be venturing to with all of this?

Well, judging from the Halloween special trailer, we're definitely going to be seeing (and hopefully learning) more about Brandon James (who is shown in the final clip booking into a hotel in Lakewood). But could this be the actual person or yet another character simply posing as him? The Halloween special certainly seems as though it could unravel more of the legacy of the character and whether or not he actually could well still be alive.

You may remember that, toward the end of Season 2, Emma's mom, Maggie, had left a note in a tree for Brandon (the tree being a spot that she used to regularly use to leave notes for him in), asking him to leave her daughter alone. Later on, we see Maggie discovering that the note is gone, and that, in its place, is a heart-shaped necklace with Emma's name on it. This could possibly be taken to assume that James is not the killer, or involved with the killings, but is actually trying to protect Emma instead.

Which brings me back to the Halloween special trailer. It feels very telling to me that there are two references to Jason Voorhees in it. The first comes when Noah suggests that the gang may well be in "Freddy Vs Jason territory" and the second is in the representation of the Halloween special killer, who is wearing a burlap sack over their head in a very similar manner to the one Jason wore in Friday The 13th: Part Two.

Though the burlap sack costume could be there to make us think that it may be simply another mask to disguise James' deformities (or to remind us of them by making the parallels to the similarly deformed Jason), I have a theory that it's actually to remind us of the story of Friday The 13th. As you might remember, the first installment of the horror movie franchise had Mrs. Voorhies as the original killer, murdering campers in revenge for the death of her son Jason. So, how could this relate to Scream?

Well, what if Casi James, Brandon's mother who we saw briefly in the first season of the show, has been one of the (if not the main) killer the entire time? Perhaps she was even responsible for the original killing spree (for which Brandon got the blame), and was targeting the teenagers who had bullied her son.

And in present day? Like Mrs. Voorhies, Casi may be enacting more revenge on the overall town for failing to protect her son. And, yes, I remember that Casi barely even seemed capable of speech when we were first introduced to her, but that could also play out as being a tremendous cover for her true agenda. Why, exactly, Kieran could be working with her if she is the killer, however, is a mystery that I'd love to see figured out.

Whether or not this, or a similar twist, will play out within the Halloween special or in Season 3 will be anyone's guess, but it would certainly make for a show-changing twist (that nobody has so far seen coming). And it would definitely also be one that has the potential to play out perfectly within six episodes — after all, we've already met Casi, but we might just need to be reintroduced to her. Possibly in a manner that no-one has anticipated.

Images: Giphy.com; MTV (2); ParamountPictures