Paramount+’s School Spirits season two episode seven, the season’s penultimate, opens just minutes after Simon left Janet alone on the dock. Simon, Nicole, and Xavier desperately search for Janet, while Mr. Martin (in Mr. Anderson’s body) and Janet are in a rowboat on the lake.
Mr. Martin claims they both have second chances now, but Janet isn’t convinced. She wants to give Maddie back her body. Frustrated, Mr. Martin insists they need to stick together; they’ve been a team for 66 years. Maybe stealing bodies and getting new lives gives them a chance to make a difference.
Mr. Martin (Josh Zuckerman) reminds Janet (Jess Gabor) that she owes him, but Janet is done listening to him. They struggle over the rowboat’s oar and Janet whacks him in the head with it. He tumbles into the water.
Diego (Zack Calderon) is totally confused when Claire (Rainbow Wedell) explains that a ghost is walking around in Maddie’s body.
Meanwhile, Maddie (Peyton List) describes Dawn’s scar to Wally (Milo Manheim) and that the marigolds were beautiful. They both wonder if walking through the exit is really the way out. Also, why aren’t there any exits in the other scars? Is there a way the ghosts can make them appear?
Maddie apologizes for missing his reunion, and Wally admits he prefers sitting in the dark, showing her travel slides. That’s a much better date. Wally confesses he never went anywhere while he was alive except for an away game in Minnesota. That makes Maddie sad that they could never have gone anywhere together. “What do you mean? We’re here right now,” says Wally.
They kiss, clothes come off … and the scene switches to Charley (Nick Pugliese) and Yuri (Miles Elliot) having a Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze in Ghost moment in the pottery studio. There’s a lot of sex going on at the high school, which is fantastic for Wally/Maddie and Charley/Yuri shippers.
Quinn (Ci Hang Ma) confesses to Rhonda (Sarah Yarkin) that she found her key and went into her scar. It was a horrifying experience, much worse than she expected. Quinn found a game-changing paper inside the bus!
Naked, Maddie admits to being torn between missing her life and being with Wally in the ghost world. Wally knows it’s painful to hear but he wishes she would stay. He even offers to make pancakes for her every morning if she stays. (This is so heartbreaking! If Maddie leaves, Wally will be devastated.)
Rhonda interrupts their pillow talk, demanding they head to the library right now. She’s also fetched Charley and Yuri and shows the group what Quinn discovered in her scar. It’s the missing page from Janet’s journal. Janet and Mr. Martin planned on locking up the ghosts and torturing them while conducting experiments.
Quinn thinks Janet hid it in the bus, believing it would be safe there since the band was in an unbreakable loop until Rhonda woke her up. Janet and Mr. Martin wanted to keep them caged up while they worked on escaping from the school. If Maddie switches back, then they’ll be stuck with Janet the monster for eternity.
Xavier (Spencer Macpherson) is busy blaming Simon (Kristian Ventura) for letting Janet escape when Janet climbs onto the dock and demands to return to the high school. Nicole (Kiara Pichardo) admits she wishes she could keep writing to him on the Weird Wisconsin forum. Xavier reveals he saw Maddie’s dad’s ghost in the hospital waiting room when he flatlined. He also admits he wishes he could keep talking to Nicole on the forum, too.
Simon asks Janet what she was doing on the lake as they drive to the school. She claims she wasn’t doing anything, but Simon gets a weird vibe from her. He makes sure the taser Nicole gave him is ready, just in case.
Maddie’s not sure she wants her body back if it means Janet’s going to lock up the ghosts. Plus, they don’t even know how to get Janet out of her body. Rhonda insists that Maddy must return to the living if the opportunity arises. Rhonda looks to Wally for backup, and Wally hesitates before nodding yes.
Simon gets on the school’s PA system to tell Maddie to go to the cafeteria. He pauses long enough to read a letter in the school’s outbox addressed to his parents. Principal Hartman made good on his promise and is suspending him.
Maddie comes face to face with her body snatcher in the cafeteria, and Janet’s shocked when all the ghosts show up to support Maddie. (Janet can see and hear them since she’s technically a ghost.) Janet won’t say why there’s blood on her hand. But first things first, Maddie confronts her with the journal page and demands an explanation.
The ghosts want to know why she’s been lying about everything, including her death. Janet confesses she started the fire that burned down the chemistry room. She killed Mr. Martin, and that’s why they’re both trapped here. And now she may have just killed him again while he was in Mr. Anderson’s body.
The fire was an accident, and Mr. Martin forgave her for their deaths. They spent years doing research about the afterlife, and Mr. Martin ultimately found their scar. However, they couldn’t make sense of things until five years later when a white light and a feeling of peace came over them. When they opened the classroom door, they saw Rhonda on the day of her death. She looked scared and confused, and Janet and Mr. Martin wanted to help her. Mr. Martin gently broke the news that she died and that they are also dead.
Mr. Martin lied and said he was there first, and that Janet joined him a few years later. He claimed Janet died falling down the stairs.
The flashback to Rhonda’s death day shows Mr. Martin helping her from the room where she died. She dropped her college admittance letter and Janet noticed the red light under the classroom door. She picked up the letter and realized that the items they had on them when they died were the keys to their hellscapes/scars.
Janet tells the ghosts she allowed the lie to stand because Mr. Martin protected her. They concluded that Mr. Martin and Janet shared a key: Mr. Martin’s wristwatch. Mr. Martin convinced Janet to keep all this a secret from the other ghosts.
Wally wants to know the purpose of the support group and if it was all a lie, too. Charley figures out it was a control group and just part of the experiment. Janet confirms that’s true and that more rooms appeared as more students died. However, they still couldn’t figure out how to get out of the school – even with all these ghosts and scars to study.
Janet remembers Dawn comforting her when she was crying. Dawn revealed that she knew how to enter her scar and that the room was exactly as she remembered. She wonders why the electricity goes crazy when someone enters their scar. Although the scar was scary, she recalled her mom telling her to picture herself in a field of flowers. She always pictures marigolds.
Janet tells the ghosts she figured out trauma fuels the rooms; that’s what makes them exist. That’s why the items don’t reset. Charley asks how she went from that to wanting to lock up her friends and experiment on them. Maddie wonders why, if she was trying to get them all out, she didn’t tell them. Yuri points out that they change their behavior once you tell a subject what’s going on.
At the cabin, Xavier takes out the trash and notices wet shoe prints on the porch. He’s grabbed from behind before he can yell.
Claire and Diego return to the cabin and no one’s there. They begin to panic when suddenly Nicole rushes in. She’s been searching for Xavier after he didn’t return from taking out the trash. Claire reveals she saw Mr. Anderson while they were at the store. It’s possible he did something to Xavier.
Xavier is tied up and screaming in the rowboat, floating on the lake. Xavier, Claire, Diego, and Nicole search the area, calling out his name. Mr. Anderson enters the cabin and grabs a fireplace poker.
Meanwhile, back at school, another flashback shows all the ghosts sitting around celebrating Christmas. Every year they talk about their families and traditions, and that just makes them sad. Janet and Mr. Martin went to the lounge to steal cookies and discuss Janet’s theory that trauma is energy. He agrees it makes sense. Janet hypothesized they could overwhelm the barrier around the school with an electromagnetic surge if they activated all the scars simultaneously. Mr. Martin thought it was a brilliant idea and suggested they lock all the ghosts in their scars. Janet protested it would be incredibly cruel to lock them up. Mr. Martin insisted it would be worth it if they could move beyond the school’s barrier. He reminds her he promised to get her out of there.
Back to current events, Janet admits she didn’t think it through when she wrote it. She lost herself in her partnership with Mr. Martin, which totally surprised her.
Simon’s been listening to this and leaves the room without saying where he’s going. Rhonda notices Quinn’s also gone and finds her out marching with her band buddies. Quinn thinks all of this is her fault since she found the page. She also confesses everyone in the band hated her and she died knowing everyone was mad at her. Quinn hoped she’d connect with the ghosts in death, but now she feels alone again.
Rhonda confesses she also feels like she never connects. However, she connected to Quinn and doesn’t want her to leave now.
Maddie follows Simon outside, and he’s mad because Maddie hasn’t returned to her body. Her living friends could be in danger and Maddie doesn’t seem to be in a rush to get back to her life.
Maddie explains she wants to protect her ghost friends. Simon asks if she’s decided she doesn’t want to come back because of Wally. Maddie doesn’t respond, and Simon confesses he misses their normal life. “Stupid, f**king, simple real life,” says Simon.
Maddie assures him she knows it’s been hard, but she has to think about the ghosts’ future. They argue over their future and that Simon has basically thrown away his to help her. Simon reacts by calling the college admittance office and leaving a message saying he wants a do-over on his interview.
Claire swims out and rescues Xavier. Once they’re on shore, Mr. Anderson appears, holding the poker against Diego’s neck. He pushes Diego away after getting his car keys.
Once more to school we go, and Yuri reminds Wally that Maddie’s only thinking of staying with them through eternity because of him. They return to the table to question Janet, and Charley asks what happened the night of her birthday.
Janet recalls that Mr. Martin gave her a gift to remind her of their years of hard work. It was a threat. She convinced Mr. Martin not to put all the ghosts in their scars and instead start out by keeping her in her scar for increasingly longer periods of time. Mr. Martin told them she crossed over so they wouldn’t look for her.
She felt like a prisoner after a while and begged to stop. But then, one day, the lights flickered, and Mr. Martin believed it thinned the veil between the living and the dead. He realized the janitor could briefly see him. From that moment on, Mr. Martin was obsessed with the experiment.
Janet cries while explaining that she endured being kept in her scar because it meant the other ghosts were safe. But then Maddy showed up, and she was so desperate to get out that she jumped into her body. She didn’t mean to hurt anyone.
Maddie places Mr. Martin’s watch on the table so Janet can get into her scar after the swap. Janet wonders if she’ll be able to cross over, and Maddie confesses that she knows how bad the scar is. She describes Janet’s scar, including the charred walls and a woman who kept pointing out the watch. Janet’s confused. Her scar didn’t have charred walls or a woman. Maddie suddenly realizes she’s been visiting Mr. Martin’s scar, not Janet’s!
They realize the watch is only Mr. Martin’s key. Yuri wonders if a key can be a person.
Xavier and the group finally make it to where there’s cell service, and he calls Simon at the school. He tells Simon that Mr. Anderson took Diego’s car, but Simon says he can’t come get them since now he needs to be on the lookout for Anderson/Martin. Simon needs them to get to school right now. Maddie still hasn’t swapped bodies.
Simon rushes to the cafeteria and before he can tell Maddie they lost Mr. Martin, Maddie says he was right about Wally. But it’s not just Wally; it’s everything. Maddie needs Mr. Martin to come to the school because he’s Janet’s key. Janet can’t swap bodies and cross over until Mr. Martin returns.
Simon replies, “It may be too late.”
Episode seven ends with Mr. Anderson taking off in Diego’s car.
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