Piper Shaw

"Now, I have one more surprise for you before I open you up, and you'll never see it coming..."

- Piper Shaw to Emma Duval Piper Shaw (formerly known as Piper Anderson James) was a recurring character who was revealed to be the main antagonist of the first season of Scream. She was portrayed by Amelia Rose Blaire.

Description
A smart, quirky and Gale Weathers-like host of a wildly popular podcast Autopsy of a Crime, who comes to town to investigate the recent deaths. Similar to Gale, she knows about the protagonist's family. As of her reveal as the Lakewood Slasher, Piper was shown to be an aggressive and very unstable homicidal psychopath.

History
Initially claiming to be a visiting pod-castor investigating the new Lakewood murders, it is revealed she is the daughter of the original killer, Brandon James, and his best friend Maggie Duval. After Brandon's presumed death by the police, Maggie's parents made her give up the baby for adoption, with Maggie never even knowing if the baby was a boy or a girl.

Piper spent the majority of her adolescence at the blessed sister's children home, where she was foster sisters with Kristen Lang. When she found out who her parents were she grew to hate her mother for abandoning her and causing fathers death; she also resented her half-sister Emma for getting the "perfect life" while she was left alone. Piper decided to plan a "reboot" killing spree, targeting Emma's friends in order to make her suffer.

Piper was also a famous podcaster, who documented murders. She used this as her cover to interact with the citizens of Lakewood, and also "bonded" with Emma. Audrey Jensen brought her to Lakewood in order to plan a documentary for Brandon James together, however, Piper was only using Audrey to gather information on Emma, who was Audrey's childhood best-friend. As the Lakewood Slasher, she took great pleasure in making Emma suffer by killing her friends, and making her feel indirectly responsible. Emma grew to trust Piper and would confide in her, unknowingly giving the killer information.

Piper recruited her lover Kieran Wilcox to be her accomplice in the murders; Kieron's father was also Clark Hudson, the Lakewood Sheriff who abandoned Kieran when he was young. Clark was also romantically involved with Maggie, which disgusted Piper and Kieron to see the parents who abandoned them so happy together.

Piper's plan was kill and frame Seth Branson for the murders after she killed Emma and Maggie. After helping Kieran kill his father, Piper was ready to finish her plans and kidnapped her mother, Maggie, so that Emma would be forced to come to the same dock where Brandon was shot. She cruelly revealed herself as the killer and took great pleasure in the pain her betrayal had caused Emma.

Piper managed to severely wound Emma and her mother, slashing Emma's stomach and stabbing Maggie in her side. As she prepared to finish Emma off, saying that she had one final surprise for Emma (presumably revealing Kieran as her accomplice), Audrey, who saw Emma running to the dock, intervenes and shoots Piper in the chest with Kieran's gun, causing her to fall into the water. She emerged a few seconds later and was then shot in the forehead by Emma, killing her instantly. Her corpse fell into the same lake that her father's did, but her body wasn't found. Kieran, who's identity as her accomplice was not revealed, eventually managed to retrieve her corpse from the lake. He kept it refrigerated in the orphanage where Piper grew up until it was eventually found by Emma and Audrey. Kieran also surgically implanted a pig's heart inside her, as her autopsy (done by Maggie) revealed.

Throughout Season 2, Kieran continued Piper's work once Emma returned from a therapy retreat, starting the killing spree all over again in order to avenge Piper's death. He proceeded to terrorize and murder the people that she failed to kill, including Jake Fitzgerald and Seth Branson. He also began stalking and harassing Audrey about her involvement with Piper, made Brooke suffer mentally, manipulated Noah emotionally and continued making Emma suffer by killing her friends. In the end, however, Kieran was defeated by Emma and Audrey and put in jail.

Trivia

 * Piper's character has many similarities with Gale Weathers.
 * Piper's name was originally named "Piper Shay".
 * She had a podcast called "Autopsy of a Crime".
 * Noah took over the show after her death in Revelations and re-branded it to "The Morgue" in I Know What You Did Last Summer.
 * She is the first killer in the whole entire franchise not to withheld possession of firearm during her reveal.
 * She has a love of coffee, even promising to respect Emma's privacy for the sake of it.
 * Piper was the main antagonist in Season 1.
 * Piper was the final character to be killed in Season 1.
 * She was shot once in the chest by Audrey and then once more in her forehead by Emma.
 * In Revelations, Piper revealed herself to be the killer, and her motivations has many similarities with Roman Bridger and Jill Roberts.
 * Similar to Roman Bridger and Jill Roberts were related to Sidney, Piper is related to Emma and is the long lost half-sister Emma didn't know existed until she saw her mother's ultrasound and found out Maggie had slept with Brandon James. Subsequently, she shared a hatred of her younger sibling for having a family just like Roman did to Sidney.
 * Like Nancy Loomis, Piper had a helper. Her helper went on to be the New Killer of Season 2.
 * Both Piper Shaw and Jill Roberts filmed most of their murders with their partners.
 * Piper was also the first lost long half sibling exacting revenge in the TV series, who would later be succeeded by Jamal Elliot in Season 3.
 * Piper has various similarities to the movie killers: she's related to the final girl (Emma) like Roman and Jill were to Sidney. She worked as a reporter (like Nancy Loomis) and just like Jill Roberts, she had a completely different personality when revealed as the killer.
 * The story about her motivation for her current job is fake.
 * In Exposed, she told Emma that Audrey tried to force Rachel Murray to do things that made Rachel uncomfortable.
 * Piper is the first killer in the franchise to be in an inappropriate relationship with her accomplice, Kieran Wilcox, seeing as she was an adult while he was a teenager.
 * They would later be succeeded by Jamal Elliot and Beth in Season 3, and the first in the films by Richie Kirsch and Amber Freeman from Scream (2022) as the second and third inappropriate killer couples with each adult (Piper, Jamal, and Richie) dating a teenager (Kieran, Beth, and Amber).
 * Piper died just like her father; she was shot on the dock at Wren Lake and fell into the lake. The only difference is Piper was shot twice.
 * However, it was later confirmed in The Vanishing that Brandon James, Piper's father had survived the shooting.
 * Initially, it was assumed that Piper was unaware of the fact that her father, survived his shooting when she was still alive.
 * However, according to an interview with the former showrunners, Richard Register and Michael Gans, it was confirmed that she and Kieran believed that Brandon survived the event.
 * Emma shooting Piper in the forehead is reminiscent of how Sidney killed Billy and Nancy Loomis.
 * She shares the same amount of murders as her father.
 * She appeared as a hallucination to Emma in Psycho.
 * It was revealed in Jeepers Creepers that Audrey is the main reason Piper was in town, as Audrey had invited and exchanged letters with Piper, asking her to come and investigate about Brandon James and Lakewood's bloody history.
 * Prior to The Orphanage, Piper's body was never been found. In The Orphanage, it was revealed that her corpse was kept by her accomplice.
 * It was revealed in The Orphanage that her and Kristen Lang, were foster sisters at the Blessed Sisters Children's Home.
 * In The Vanishing, Piper's autopsy, which was done by Maggie Duval, revealed the killer had refrigerated her corpse and surgically implanted a pig's heart inside.
 * In The Vanishing is stated that Piper died on March 21st, 2015 at 1:31 AM.
 * This is considered to be false, due to the fact that the events of Season 1 happened on fall 2015.
 * It is also stated that Piper was in her mid 20s when she died, however this is considered to be false since she was born sometime after the 1994 Lakewood murders, so she would have to have been around 20 or 21.
 * In When a Stranger Calls, it has been revealed that Piper had a secret relationship with Kieran Wilcox, her accomplice, long before they came to Lakewood.
 * It is shown Piper is willing to betray her accomplice so she can get away with murder. She told Emma that Kieran was her half brother while the killings were happening. Kieran was unaware of this.