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Denise
S2 Denise
Biographical Information
Full name: Denise Hemphill
Gender: Female
Hair color: Dark brown
Eye color: Brown
Age: 45
Occupation(s): Best Buy Parking Lot Security Guard (formerly)
Private Security Guard (formerly)
KKT House Mother (formerly)
Chief of Police (formerly)
FBI Special Agent
Status: Alive
Nickname(s): Officer Hemphill (by Chanel)
Mamma Denise;
House Mother;
Chief Denise Hemphill
Super Slueth Denise Hemphill (herself)
Chief D. Hemphill (name tag)
Special Agent Hemphill
Agent Hemphill
Relationship Information
Family: Unnamed mother
Relationships: Chad Radwell (ex-boyfriend; deceased)
Friends: Shondell Washington (deceased)
Cathy Munsch
Grace Gardner
Gigi Caldwell (briefly;deceased)
Enemies: Red Devil
Hester Ulrich
Green Meanie
Ingrid Marie Hoffel
Frenemies: Zayday Williams
The Chanels
Boss: Gigi Caldwell (deceased)
Cathy Munsch (formerly)
Chanel #3 (formerly)
Other Information
Interests: Being Kappa Kappa Tau president (formerly)
Catching the Red Devil (succeed)
Burger Shack
Convicting Zayday Williams of murder
Ghost Stories
Quantico (TV show)
Catching Green Meanie (failed)
Sexual roleplay with Chad Radwell
Daenerys Targaryen (aka Khaleesi, Game of Thrones character)
Game of Thrones (TV show)
Clique: Secure Enforcement Solutions (formerly)
Kappa Kappa Tau (formerly)
FBI
Talent(s): Cooking mozzarella sticks
Vulnerabilities: Horseradish
Weaknesses: Running
Asthma
Education: Wallace University (formerly)
Series Information
Season(s): Season OneTwo
Episode count: 15
First appearance: Hell Week
Latest appearance: Drain the Swamp
Portrayed by: Niecy Nash
SHONDELL, WHY YOU GOT A KNIFE IN YO' THROAT
—Denise Hemphill to Shondell Washington[src]

Denise Hemphill is a recurring character on Scream Queens.

In Season One, Denise was a private security guard hired by Gigi Caldwell to protect the Kappa Kappa Tau sisters. Later on, she undergoes FBI training at Quantico and becomes a high-ranking FBI agent. In Season Two, Denise helps the C.U.R.E. Institute staff solve the Green Meanie murders. In the process, she is electrocuted by one of the killers and is placed in a cryogenic chamber by Cathy Munsch in hopes of harvesting her organs. Eventually, Denise wakes up from her stasis and helps the C.U.R.E. staff disarm the bomb set up by Ingrid and finally put an end to the murders.

She is portrayed by Niecy Nash.

Biography

Hell Week

Denise Hemphill is introduced by Gigi Caldwell to The Chanels after Gigi hires her to protect Kappa Kappa Tau from the Red Devil. Denise says that with her attention, the Kappa girls have nothing to fear about. She clarifies that she is a security guard, not a police officer, so she does not have authorization to carry a firearms. She proceeds to say the Secure Enforcement Solutions three-step program:

1) Scream Denise Hemphill’s name real loud.
2) Call 1-866-KLJ-0199.
3) Get the hell out of there. Run away real fast. And when you get to a place you deem to be safe, call 1-866-KLJ-0199.
Denise Shondell

Denise finds Shondell dead.

Later, Denise is keeping an eye on the Kappa house outside in her car. A fellow security guard, Shondell, who works at the Best Buy parking lot, comes to visit with hamburgers. Subsequently, they are both sleeping in the car and Denise later hears a scream from the Kappa house, so she wakes up, leaves the car, and runs into the house to protect the girls, leaving Shondell alone. When Denise enters the house, Chanel Oberlin explains that a person in a Red Devil costume attacked her upstairs. The girls decide to go upstairs to catch the killer, assuming he or she still there, and Denise tells them that the last thing they should do is go upstairs where the killer presumably is. However, the girls go upstairs anyway. Denise returns to the car for her inhaler and finds Shondell dead with a knife stuck in her throat. Denise screams, starts the car and drives away. However, she stops momentarily to push Shondell's body out of the car, then continues to drive away. At the end of the episode, Denise and Chad Radwell appear at the Kappa house and interrupt the dinner to announce that Shondell has been murdered, her corpse has disappeared, and Boone is dead as well.

Chainsaw

3still5

Denise working with Zayday and Grace.

Zayday and Grace look for Chanel #2's room, and find her door with a "Do Not Disturb" sign on it. When they find a stain on the floor, Zayday assumes it's blood and Denise pops in and says, "Of course it's blood." She sprays luminal on the stain and confirms that it's definitely blood. Then, she shows Grace and Zayday Chanel #2's last tweet from Pilot, where she stated that the Red Devil was killing her. Grace, unconvinced, then says that #2 is still posting pictures on Instagram and shows one to Denise. Grace and Zayday decide to go visit #2's parents' house in California, with Denise tagging along.

The next day, Denise, Grace and Zayday drive to the house and talk with #2's parents. Grace informs them that a serial killer is loose in the campus and shows them Chanel #2's last Instagram post, to which Denise says isn't a good picture. She also thinks someone might be posting them for her. Her parents then says she was in rehab and became happy when she met Chad, who even had Thanksgiving with her family and wrote her a letter.

That night, Denise asks Zayday to join her in her car. Denise then handcuffs Zayday and claims that she is the killer, showing evidence including a chainsaw under the bed. Zayday retaliates and tells Denise that the chainsaw was given to her by her grandmother for defense against the killer. Denise ends up letting her go and says she got her eyes on her.

Haunted House

Denise rushes into Kappa house and tells Detective Chisolm, Wes and Gigi about the attempted murder of Caulfield and says when they get fingerprints from the chainsaw that they will find Zayday's.

When leaving the university, Grace receives a text from Pete to meet him at 53 Shady Lane. When she arrives, Pete scares her and soon Earl and Zayday scare him. When Grace asks what they are doing there, Zayday says she is having the haunted house charity there. Denise appears, startling them and says the house is haunted and tells them the story of 'The Hag of Shady Lane', the former resident of the abandoned shack, who took care of the bathtub baby in 1995.

Savage denise

Denise - 1988

Assuming Zayday is responsible for the murders, Denise refuses to allow Zayday to throw the party, but later backs off when Zayday reveals that she knows Denise was a former Kappa reject in 1988, and thus a possible suspect.

Pumpkin Patch

In Munsch's office, Cathy and Denise talk about their experience with sleeping with Chad until Grace, Pete, Gigi, and Wes enter the room and urge the two to help find Zayday. Cathy says she hired an investigator from Secure Enforcement Solutions, which is Denise, who is still convinced that Zayday is the killer and faked her own abduction.

Grace, Pete, Wes, Gigi, and Denise find The Red Devil's secret lair, where the Red Devil turns the power off leaving them in total darkness. Gigi, however, manages to taser the Red Devil. When the power turns back on, Denise runs to the others to tell them. When they return, Gigi says the Red Devil got up and hit her in the head with a baseball bat and escaped down a laundry chute.

Seven Minutes in Hell

At Dickie Dollar Scholars, Earl confronts Chad about him sleeping with Dean Munsch and Denise, which he happily confesses to and announces they should have a pantie raid at Kappa.

When the power goes out in Kappa house, Chanel calls Chad with her satellite phone as the phone lines are down and tells him to rescue them. While asking, he tells her he was coming over anyway and confesses about sleeping with Dean Munsch and Denise.

Mommie Dearest

Denise becomes increasingly determined to prove that Zayday is the killer, especially when Chanel #3 offers

Scream-Queens-S1-E8-Denise-Hemphill-Flawless

her 3 million dollars if she accomplishes this. Soon after, she goes to Jennifer to ask if she knows anything that could be used as evidence. Jennifer tells her about Zayday being bullied at school. Zayday, having overheard what Jennifer said, becomes enraged and tells Denise to stay away from her. Later, Denise appears with Chanel #5's clothes and becomes the "Kappa-House-Momma." (her clothes can be seen from Chainsaw, when Hester gets a makeover) That evening, Jennifer is murdered by the Red Devil. As a result, Dean Munsch shuts down all campus operations.

Ghost Stories

After Chanel #3 tells Denise and the Chanels that she saw Boone's ghost, "Momma" Denise tells a Japanese ghost story by the fireplace, which is about a Japanese schoolgirl sitting on the toilet and being pulled into the toilet by a monster. The Chanels tell her that it makes the situation worse. She tells another one about a Japanese schoolgirl sitting on the toilet in a stall seeing red toilet paper on her left and blue on her right. Picking red will get your throat slit and blue will get you strangled until your face turns blue.

200 (5)
After telling the story, Denise enters a stall in the house and sees red toilet paper on her left and blue on her right. The Red Devil's hands appear at the top of the other stall, Denise looks up and sees the killer peeking over, she screams as the killer climbs over. There's a struggle as the killer grabs Denise by her hair and tries to dunk her head in the toilet, but she manages to fight back, causing the killer to bang their head and Denise to escape.

She rushes to the Chanels and locks the doors with her handcuffs. Hester tells them another ghost story similar to "The Killer in the Backseat." After telling the story, Chanel #5 then decides to leave.

Black Friday

When the Chanels are attacked by the Red Devil in the mall, they run down the escalator and see the Red Devil and see a half closed shutter and run towards it and go under, but Chanel stays behind thinking the killer is Dean Munsch. When face to face, she gets shot in the shoulder with a crossbow, when the killer reloads and aims, Denise and two cops appear. It's revealed that Denise is now chief of police after the homicide department were all fired due to no leads in the Red Devil killings. While Denise talks too much, the killer shoots one of the cops and escapes.

The Final Girl(s)

Denise has the Chanels arrested after Hester frames them for being the Red Devil killers.

Scream Again

Denise only appears once in the premiere in footage from the Chanels' Netflix documentary series. In the documentary, it is shown that Denise, now a Special FBI Agent, assists in the Chanels' defense by coming to the stand and testifying for their innocence. She explains that she was a security guard for Secure Enforcement Solutions during the time of the murders at Wallace University, along with her dear friend Shondell, who was murdered by the Red Devil. She also announces that the killer confessed, and she has the confession on VHS tape.

Footage from the tape shows Denise interviewing Hester in a locked room. Hester admits that she orchestrated the entire Red Devil conspiracy, but tells Denise that she can't convict her, because it's double jeopardy, and you can't be tried for the same crime twice. Denise argues with her that she's never even been tried before, since the Chanels were tried the first time. Being a special agent, Denise now has the power to arrest Hester and subsequently oversees her arrest.

Warts and All

Denise is contacted by Cathy after her attack by the Green Meanie. Denise tells Cathy from what she learned from Quantico, if they want to catch a killer they have to get inside the mind of a killer and she knows just the right person to go to.

Denise along with Cathy, Chanel, and Chanel #3 visit an incarcerated Hester to see what she knows about the new killer. Denise asks Hester how does she know about the attacks that took place at the hospital but gets no direct response. Denise yells at Hester when she refuses to tell more about the new killer unless she gets her high-end beauty products and offers her chapstick instead, to which Hester turns down.

Handidates

Denise is brought by Cathy Munsch along with The Chanels and Zayday to investigate Lynn Johnstone's involvement in the 1986 massacre. Before the group enters the Johnstone house, Denise sarcastically compliments Zayday on her super-sleuthing skills and adds how suspicious it is that she knew so much. Inside the house, after investigating Lynn, Denise takes a bottle of Esrun lotion claiming that she was just taking potential evidence while she was actually stealing it for herself.

Later, Denise and Zayday bring Hester to the basement of the C.U.R.E Institute Hospital. There, Hester thanks them and begins laughing. When Denise tells her to stop laughing and tell them the identity of the killer, Hester continues to laugh as she tells them it's too late. Denise finds out who dies later when she attends Chanel and Chad's wedding and watches as Chad's body falls from the ceiling, crashing the wedding.

Halloween Blues

DeniseHemphillDeath

Denise was attending the wedding in which her lover Chad died and attended Chanel's mourning of the body later. But, after ushering the staff out of the room Chad's body was kept, she had a moment alone with him in which she recalled the time they did a southern-style role play session. She said goodbye to him soon after, not forgetting to touch his body one last time.

While setting up for the Halloween party soon to come, Denise was attacked by the Green Meanie. She avoided its blows for the most part and at the last moment, she pulled out her gun and shot at it. Even though she missed, she escaped death. Later, before the party started, Chanel confronted Denise, claiming Denise killed Chad out of jealousy. Denise denied it and agreed to talk to Chad through an ouija board to see who he loved more.

Finally, when the party started Chanel brought a board to a table and Denise began the seance. During the seance, Denise's body was possessed by Chad's ghost and talked to Chanel. Before he could tell Chanel who the killer was, Zayday interrupted their session to call them back to the lobby. Later, Denise finds Chanel #5 stabbed in the back on the floor of the hospital. The Green Meanie shows up again and confronts Denise.

Denise starts ranting as the Green Meanie picks up a bowl of punch and throws it onto Denise. Denise continues ranting that she will shoot him for ruining her dress. Ignoring her rants, the Green Meanie then picks up a defibrillator and begins electrocuting Denise with it several times until she dies.

Chanel Pour Homme-Icide

Cathy, Chanel, Chanel #3, and Zayday are all seen rushing out of the elevator after hearing screams in the distance. As they run down the hallway, they come across Denise's dead body, laying there in a pool of fruit punch, along with a severely injured #5. Completely ignoring #5, Cathy immediately tends to Denise's body and takes her pulse, deeming her deceased. Chanel #3 points out that if the killer can take out a Special FBI Agent, no one is safe. Cathy suggests they throw Denise's body in the swamp, and Zayday angrily shuts that idea down, claiming they cannot treat their friend like that. Cathy admits that she loved Denise as much as the rest of them, which probably wasn't that much, but she cannot let Denise's death have a negative impact on all the great work being done at the hospital. If word got out that an FBI Agent was murdered there, C.U.R.E. would immediately be shut down. Zayday argues that even if she wanted to dump Denise in the swamp, the Feds would just come looking for her, and Cathy claims that she'll say Denise just took off on a secret mission for a top secret shadow organization within the FBI.

Cathy and Zayday are then seen in the elevator with Denise's body strapped to a gurney. Zayday is still adamant on not dumping Denise into the swamp, but just then Cathy confesses that Denise is actually still alive. She clarifies that when she took Denise's pulse, she had the faintest heartbeat, but not enough to resuscitate her, as she is basically brain dead. Cathy completely goes back on her idea to dump Denise's body, since the authorities could possibly drain the swamp during their investigation, and instead takes Denise to the basement and confesses to Zayday that Denise will play an integral part in potentially saving Cathy's life. Cathy explains her plan to place Denise into a cryogenic chamber as a test round, just in case Cathy's condition proves fatal before a cure is found. Zayday seems apprehensive, but Cathy explains that this is a much better option than hooking Denise up to a feeding tube and watching her slowly deteriorate. Zayday reluctantly consents, and the pair push Denise into the chamber before shutting the door and turning the nozzle to activate the liquid nitrogen.

The Hand

After Slade Hornborn is invited to C.U.R.E. by Cathy to do a news report on the hospital, he begins noticing suspicious things. He is seen speaking on the phone with one of his colleagues as he walks around the hospital's basement, and eventually stumbles upon the cryogenic freezer with Denise still inside, telling his colleague that they could be in the middle of a major ethics scandal.

Lovin the D

Hester decides to call a Green Meanie summit, inviting Ingrid, Cassidy, and Wes to come together to discuss the past and future plans for murder. To get everyone on the same page, Hester plans a game called "Who Killed Who?" and reveals a board filled with pictures of each of the various murder victims. Wes then proudly takes credit for attacking Denise, explaining that she deserved it for trying to shoot at him. However, Hester clarifies that Denise isn't dead, to which Wes gets upset and asks her if she's kidding.

Drain the Swamp

Denise comes back to life when Ingrid unplugs the freezer that Denise was kept in until they found a cure for the shock she was in. When she discovers the Chanels, Cathy, the doctors, Zayday, and Daria in the cage, she asks them what she missed, inquiring about the result of the 2016 presidential election, assuming that Hilary Clinton had won. When she realizes there is a bomb in the room, she cries out and tells the group that she knows nothing about defusing bombs, but she did watch the hit TV show Quantico so she saw special agent Alex Parrish defuse a bomb. She cuts a curly yellow wire at the top of the bomb, and nothing happens as the timer stops. She unloads the captives from the cage and lead them to Ingrid's office where they chase her out into the swamp. On the way, Cassidy is killed, and she comically remarks to him that stepping in front of Chanel #3 was the third choice as to how to catch #3 alive. And when Cathy proposes a vote to save Ingrid from drwoning in quicksand, Denise votes for killing her. Denise is the only character out of the survivors whose future has not been told.

Profile

Denise is determined, sassy and investigative. She is a very strong feisty determined woman who will try her best to solve any crime that she currently has an agenda on and will keep investigating and interrogating until she gets big answers, like when Denise's best friend Shondell was murdered by the Red Devil, Denise was then determined to avenge Shondell's death and to do anything to stop and beat down the Red Devil. Although she may come across as a threat and nosy, Denise can sometimes be a bit clueless and distracted when still trying to solve a murder case, like when she randomly decided to be the Kappa Kappa Tau house mother and everytime Denise gets a bit of evidence she immediately pins all the murders to prove that Zayday did them. Denise doesn't hate Zayday but she doesn't trust her either, and even when convinced by Hester that The Chanels did all the murders, Denise said that she still has her eyes on Zayday and will always have her eyes on her. But Denise in general tries to have good intentions, she befriends Cathy and the two get a long well and Denise even trusts and admires Grace for also trying to solve the murders, and Denise also has a hook up with Chad who she loves very much and was sad to leave him the most to do FBI training in Quantico.

Denise mostly wears her slim uniform, she has wavy dark brown hair and wears black officer boots.

Appearances

Season One (8/13)

Season Two (7/10)

Quotes

Denise is my name, security is my game. Gotta watch these white girls so I can get paid... (Hell Week)

Every time someone asks if it's blood, it's almost always blood. Do you know how much of the time it's, like, ketchup? Zero percent of the time. (Chainsaw)

You tweeted, '@ShondaRhimes If Annalise Keating really wanted to get away with murder, she'd have a partner and they'd work as a team. Hashtag cahoots!' (Chainsaw)

I feel like angels are flossing my buttcrack! (Mommie Dearest)


Trivia

  • Denise was the first character of the series announced.
  • Denise loves a good double cheeseburger.
  • Running causes her to lose her breath, which she treats with an inhaler.
  • Denise was a pledge of Kappa Kappa Tau in 1988, but she was rejected because of her race.
  • In Mommie Dearest, Denise becomes the New Kappa House mom, taking care of all the girls and temporarily living in the house.
    • She wears the same size clothes as Chanel #5.
  • In Black Friday, she was promoted to Chief of Police after the entire homicide department was fired for not finding any leads on the Red Devil, and for spending the month's budget on ghost hunting supplies.
  • It was revealed in The Final Girl(s) that she had to go to Quantico to do FBI Training.
    • This is the reason why she broke up with Chad.
  • She is one of the 10 survivors of the first season, and the only one to be a recurring character.
  • In the episode Scream Again, she claims Shondell was stabbed in the face even though she was stabbed in the neck.
  • She seems to be the only one Chad revealed any real information about himself to, as she was the only one who knew he was really 30.
  • She was apparently killed in "Halloween Blues" by Wes Gardner; however, it turned out later that she survived the electrocution.
  • In Drain the Swamp, Denise says she needs glasses to see clearly; however, she has not been seen wearing glasses since she first appeared. It is possible that the cryogenic chamber damaged her eyesight, and caused her to lose some of her memory, making her think that she needs glasses.
  • She is one of the 9 survivors of Season Two.
    • Denise and Daria Janssen are the only surviving recurring characters of the second season.
    • She is also one of seven people to survive both seasons.

Gallery

Gallery pic
Denise Hemphill has a photo gallery.

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