I had hope. Anyone who knows me knows that “Scream Queens” has historically been what’s pushed me through the week. Season one was everything I could hope for, so of course I was elated when FOX announced a second. I was so pumped for the premiere that I set up a countdown on my phone. But long story short, the premiere episode was absolute garbage.

Similar to the first season, the episode opened with a ’80s party scene. Nurses and doctors paraded around, clad in Halloween costumes. The celebration was interrupted by a woman with a very sick husband. True to “Scream Queens” signature ludicrous humor, instead of being treated as promised, the husband was drugged and dropped in a mysterious green swamp behind the hospital, allegedly home to the town’s monster: The Green Meanie.

We jumped back to 2016, where Dean Munsch is now a worldwide sensation. She’s a published author and famed entrepreneur. Munsch is now a feminist icon. She decided to use her new fortune to found a hospital set on curing diseases deemed incurable by the medical community. This was where it gets interesting.

My theory is that producer Ryan Murphy somehow knew this season was going to be trash, so he pulled out all the stops and hired two of Hollywood’s hottest men. John Stamos and Taylor Lautner play doctors in Munsch’s hospital.  Unfortunately, no amount of Stamos/Lautner realness could balance the messiness of this episode. Props to you, Mr. Murphy. It was a good try but not quite good enough.

By the middle of the show, I was getting antsy to see the show’s lead clique: The Chanels. Chanel Oberlin is my lord and savior. Two years after being kicked out of Kappa Kappa Tau and disowned by their rich families following a scandalous Netflix documentary, the Chanels live in a run-down apartment working low wage jobs trying to make ends meet. Dean Munsch seeks the three girls out and asks them to work at her hospital.

Ties to the first season become clear when the Green Meanie makes his appearance in the hospital and tries to pick the Chanels off one by one. It reminded me a little too much of the first season. I’m worried that season two will be a redo of season one with a different setting and monster. I think that’s the biggest issue I had with this premiere. There was no real new substance. The first episode gets a D-. Perhaps it will get better as the season progresses, but I’ve learned to not get my hopes up.