Paramount+’s School Spirits season two episode three ended with Janet/Maddie (Peyton List) showing up outside Maddie’s home and getting pulled into a big hug by her mom, Sandra. Episode four begins minutes later with Sandra thrilled to have her daughter back. Janet is standoffish and wants a bath to avoid dealing with Maddie’s stressed-out mom.
As she’s soaking, Janet has flashbacks of everything that’s happened since she possessed Maddie’s body. Toweling off, she discovers blood from a cut on the back of her head. She barely reacts when Sandra says she was going to call Simon, but decided Maddie would want to do that herself. When Sandra hands over her phone, Janet doesn’t take it. Instead, Janet claims she’s not ready to let people know she’s back.
Rhonda (Sarah Yarkin) tells the ghost gang – Maddie, Charley (Nick Pugliese), and Wally (Milo Manheim) – that she discovered by holding her death item, she can go in and out of the date she died. Their death items are the keys to opening the doors to their own personal hells. Rhonda says the red glow signifies the opening of the “scar.” Wally saw Mr. Martin in a red glow, and when Janet ran into Maddie, there was a red glow in the fallout shelter.
Maddie believes Mr. Martin is hiding inside their scars. The next step would be for Wally and Charley to take their items and explore their own personal hellscapes. Charley refuses to participate.
Meanwhile, Xavier (Spencer MacPherson) and Nicole (Kiara Pichardo) continue to text and flirt, totally unaware of who they’re actually talking to. (They connected on the Weird Wisconsin message board.) Claire (Rainbow Wedell) wants the scoop about this texting guy, but Nicole honestly doesn’t have any details. Nicole confesses she’s ready to believe that Janet took over Maddie’s body. However, Claire’s not. She doesn’t want to consider that Maddie is dead.
Back at the high school, Rhonda’s seriously considering hijacking a “sad skinsuit.” She reminds the gang that emotional pain makes people accessible, so it would be easy to take over someone’s body. Maddy and Wally don’t think it’s a good idea and decide now’s the time to check Wally’s scar.
Maddy’s mom offers to make French toast but doesn’t have any groceries. Mr. Anderson’s knocking on the door interrupts breakfast talk, and he informs Sandra that his plea deal went through. He’ll lose his teacher’s license, but he won’t serve any time.
Xavier and Simon (Kristian Ventura) are waiting in the greenhouse when Maddie rushes in, frantic about what’s happening in the ghost world. She needs to know what’s going on with her body, but before they talk about that, Simon wants her to hear what Xavier has to say. (Xavier even wrote it down so he wouldn’t mess up.)
Xavier chickens out and rushes off to a 10am meeting in the library. Before Simon follows him, he tells Maddie they spotted Janet at a college party but lost her. They don’t have any idea where she is right now. Maddie freaks out, and Simon assures her they’ll find her again.
The library thing is a Senior Togetherness Day to discuss what they’ve all been going through this year. Simon, Xavier, and Nicole want to return to the college to look for Maddie, and Claire agrees to join them. Principal Hartman announces they’re collecting all the phones, and then the seniors will be split up into workshops. He stops the foursome and warns them they can’t leave campus until 6pm. He also warns Simon that if he leaves early, he’ll be suspended. They have no choice but to stay.
Wally holds his football and psyches himself up before stepping onto the field. The second he does, the lighting changes, a red glow emerges, and two teams are on the field. He walks through the players and watches the action until he sees the play that ended his life. Wally approaches his lifeless body on the field, overcome with emotion. He can hardly catch his breath as he makes it to the sidelines and out of his death day scar.
Meanwhile, Janet tells Maddie’s mom she’s not going back to school, and Sandra finally asks what happened. Janet doesn’t respond and turns down an offer to go to the store. She promises to stay home until Sandra gets back.
Wally is still shaken up when he tells Maddie he saw nothing helpful in his scar.
Charley gets an unintentionally erotic pottery lesson from Yuri (Miles Elliot) that has Rhonda asking if she should leave the room. Maddie returns Charley’s death item and admits she couldn’t use it to get into Charley’s scar.
Maddie rushes off to find Wally, worried since he was so upset. Charley realizes that if Maddie had a key, she would use it no matter how painful the resulting experience. Yuri points out that Charley’s already dead. What’s the worst that could happen if Charley uses his key?
Checking in on the living, Simon’s super pissed he has to do stupid trust exercises with Xavier instead of helping Maddie. Nicole and Claire’s session is going slightly better; they’re bonding over what sets them apart from their peers.
Sandra’s loading her car with groceries when Sheriff Baxter, Xavier’s dad, tells her they’re still searching for Maddie. She lets him walk off without telling him Maddie’s back but then seems to reconsider.
Charley holds his death item, the cafeteria glows red, and he steps into it. He heads to a vending machine that only sells peanuts, and suddenly, his throat swells. His allergy kicks in, and kids at the nearby table only point at him and laugh. One homophobic a**hole says, “What did you put in your mouth this time?” as they just laugh while he dies.
As he’s watching them, he spots Mr. Martin in the back of the cafeteria and tries to chase him. The room holds him back as Mr. Martin escapes. Charley tells Wally, Rhonda, and Maddie what he saw and that he chased Mr. Martin all the way to the football field. He saw a red light on the scoreboard before Mr. Martin disappeared, which means Mr. Martin can pop in and out of their scars.
Why does Mr. Martin have access to all their scars while they can only get into their own?
Wally decides to go back into his, even though it’s incredibly painful.
Janet’s looking through Maddie’s closet when Sandra returns home with the news that she told Sheriff Baxter that Maddie’s back. She couldn’t keep the police looking for her murderer. Sheriff Baxter is coming by to take a statement. Before he gets there, Sandra wants Maddie to tell her what happened.
Claire and Nicole’s group session deteriorates when fellow cheerleader Chloe accuses Claire of using people and icing out those she doesn’t need. Chloe adds that Claire slept with another girl’s boyfriend behind her back. Claire runs off and refuses to allow Nicole to comfort her.
Principal Hartman escorts Mr. Anderson in to pack up his things, and Mr. Anderson admits he stole the money to help his dad. Maddie and Wally watch this, and Maddie blames herself for Mr. Anderson getting fired.
Maddie catches up with Wally before he goes back into his scar. It’s obvious that Wally is traumatized by what he saw, and he’s pissed that Mr. Martin let him go back on that field, knowing what was actually there in the red glow. Wally finally admits that when he died, he felt nothing. But in the scar, he felt all the disappointment of the coach, his mom, and everyone who expected anything from him.
He wants to confront Mr. Martin and get the answers he deserves.
Xavier’s dad calls the school to speak with his son, and Xavier learns that Maddie’s returned home before anyone else. He tells Nicole that Janet’s at Maddie’s house in Maddie’s body and they need to go there right now. He doesn’t tell Simon because he doesn’t want him to get kicked out of school.
Xavier will do whatever it takes to bring Janet back to school with them, including kidnapping her.
Sheriff Baxter questions Janet/Maddie, but Maddie refuses to provide any details. She claims she doesn’t remember how her blood got in the boiler room. Sheriff Baxter’s worried there’s someone dangerous on the streets. Janet stops the questioning and goes to Maddie’s room.
It’s not quite 6pm and Simon can’t find Xavier or Nicole anywhere on campus. He finds Claire, and she confesses that her mom hasn’t answered the phone in three days. Claire thinks Chloe was right and that she’s a horrible person who ices people out when she doesn’t need them.
Maddie listens in as Claire apologizes for everything she’s ever done wrong to her and that she deserved better. Maddie tells Simon to say “Lola” to Claire–it’s the name of the stuffed dog Claire gave her when her dad died. Simon says, “I know you don’t believe me but that person that you saw last night at that college party, that was not Maddie. That wasn’t Maddie. The real Maddie is sitting right next to me and she says, ‘Lola says hi.’”
Claire looks shocked and then confesses that it’s not that she doesn’t believe him, she just doesn’t want it to be true. She doesn’t want Maddie to be gone.
Maddie hears a weird humming sound and the lights go on and off at the stadium (in the ghost world). Rhonda sees and hears the same thing in the library, and Charley and Yuri also share the experience in the pottery class. Maddie tells Simon that the other ghosts told her this is what happens at the school when someone dies.
Maddie runs off and Simon follows her, with Claire tagging along, although she doesn’t know why. Simon reveals they’re looking for people they can’t see. They run into Xavier and Nicole, and Principal Hartman spots them, upset they left half an hour early. Nicole blurts out that Maddie’s back to keep them from getting in trouble. (This is news to Simon, Claire, and Hartman.)
Nicole explains that Maddie returned last night and is at her mom’s house. The real Maddie runs to tell Wally, Charley, and Rhonda the news and finds Wally nearly passed out, exhausted after searching everywhere for Mr. Martin. Charley confirms that no ambulances have come to the school, nor is there a dead body on campus.
The only time the humming and lights went off without a dead body was when Janet jumped into Maddie’s body. They think it’s possible Mr. Martin jumped into someone’s body and just walked off campus. But whose body?
Maddie and Sandra prepare to watch the incredibly fitting Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Maddie walks to the window and looks out. Xavier, Simon, Nicole, and Claire are parked outside, staring at the house. Maddie doesn’t look their way and closes the curtains.
- Season 1 Episode 8 “Maddie’s Body” Finale Recap
- Season 2 Episode 1 “Whatever Happened to Maddie Nears” Recap
- Season 2 Episode 2 “Field of Screams” Recap
- Season 2 Episode 3 “Can’t Hauntly Wait” Recap
- Season 2 Episode 5 “Ghost Who’s Coming to Dinner” Recap
- School Spirits Season 2 Episode 6 “Ghosts Pointe Blank” Recap
- School Spirits Season 2 Episode 7 “Anatomy of a Fallout Shelter
- School Spirits Season 2 Episode 8 “Fire, Talk to Me” Recap
This post was last modified on March 6, 2025 11:32 am