Unfortunately for Maddie, the video of her sitting by herself and laughing is getting tons of views and comments as Paramount+’s School Spirits season three, episode two begins. Claire (Rainbow Wedell) and Nicole (Kiara Pichardo) are doing their best to figure out who posted it. Claire believes it was Livia since it makes Maddie look crazy.
(The following is a recap of season three, episode two and contains spoilers.)
Xavier (Spencer MacPherson) and Kyle the ghost discuss the bus crash that killed the marching band. He lived through the crash but died at the hospital and wants to know if his friend, flute player Tracy, made it out alive. Kyle reveals the bus crashed because someone jumped in front of it, not because of black ice. He doesn’t know who it was, but there was definitely someone who was almost roadkill.
Mr. Martin (Josh Zuckerman) is haunted by a vision of a young boy who demands to know what happened to him. (This kid pops up again later in the episode.)
Maddie (Peyton List) believes she’s near the boiler room at school, but when her mom finally gets her attention, she’s actually standing in the kitchen.
Simon (Kristian Ventura) saw snow in Mr. Martin’s scar, but the ghost gang doesn’t understand its significance. Mr. Martin was flipping out, and Simon thinks they need to let him out. Since Janet went through her door, Simon doesn’t seem to have any way to get back to the living. Mr. Martin might be the only one who can send him back.
The conversation turns to all the other ghosts around town, including the ghosts at the hospital. Wally (Milo Manheim) thinks maybe they should round up everyone at school and ask them to go through their scars. That could possibly help Simon get home.
Nicole picks up Maddie for school, and Maddie admits she’s seen the video. They’re going to stop by Simon’s and pick up his iPad before school. Meanwhile, the ghost gang divvy up all the other school ghosts to talk them into going into their scars. Quinn refuses to handle the marching band. It’s a weird reaction, and no one’s sure why she’d refuse.
Claire confronts Livia about the video, and Livia claims she had nothing to do with it. Livia blames Claire’s friends for turning the school into a fortress. She reveals she saw Maddie at a college party and Claire tries to convince her she didn’t. It doesn’t work. Livia saw what she saw.
Maddie retrieves Simon’s iPad from his car and watches as messages from his parents flood the screen. They miss him and want to talk when he has a chance.
Xavier tells Maddie about Kyle and says that he’s recruited him to help to find Maddie’s dad. He also fills her in on the new bus crash info, and Maddie seems to brush it off.
Wally and Simon catch up on the other ghosts’ status, and they haven’t been able to convince anyone. They watch as Livia and her friends look at the video of Maddie on the football field, and Wally follows them into the bathroom. Rhonda (Sarah Yarkin) joins Wally to listen in, and one girl confesses she feels bad for Maddie. Her friends don’t, and Livia even admits she shot the video.
Wally walks into Maddie’s classroom to tell her what he saw, and she does her best to try not to call attention to herself but accidentally says, “Who?” out loud. Maddie writes down “evidence?” and Wally tells her to steal Livia’s phone to prove it.
Charley (Nick Pugliese) and Yuri (Miles Elliot) discuss scars, but Yuri’s distracted and keeps looking at a student.
Maddie heads to the boiler room to meet with Simon, with Nicole and Claire guarding the door.
Xavier visits the hospital morgue where Kyle’s hanging out, and Kyle explains a lot of ghosts like to hang there to play cards or do the dead people’s hair. (Ghosts can visit the morgue because a mortician died there.) Kyle hasn’t found Maddie’s dad yet, and Xavier hasn’t had time to research Tracy.
Xavier brings up the band, explaining that they’re convinced it was ice that caused the crash. Quinn confirmed it, but when Xavier brings up her name, Kyle doesn’t recognize it. There wasn’t a Quinn in the marching band, and Kyle thinks maybe it was Quinn who jumped in front of the bus.
Simon’s upset that the ghosts won’t let Mr. Martin out when Mr. Martin’s probably the only one who can get him home. Maddie reminds him that Mr. Martin is evil. The topic changes to Sabrina—a name his dad mentioned in his texts. Simon’s dad thinks he’s with her, and Simon reveals she’s his older half-sister. They’re both adopted and share the same mother. Maddie’s excited that he has a sister, and Simon confesses he didn’t mention it because he was busy helping the family he already has.
Maddie pauses for a minute and then admits she’s having trouble sleeping and is seeing stuff. But she doesn’t want Simon to be worried about her. Before they part, Simon tells her Janet took her door and is gone.
Principal Hartman finds Maddie in the boiler room and brings her into the office. Charley joins her there, but even though she can’t hear him, he confesses he’s worried about a studly water polo player. He stops talking and listens when Xavier calls Maddie to tell her that Quinn wasn’t in the marching band. Xavier warns her that the ghosts might not be telling the truth.
All the ghosts, except Quinn, gather to discuss what Xavier told Maddie. Charley’s worried she’s on the dark side and is trying to manipulate them, just like Mr. Martin. Rhonda vehemently defends her, refusing to believe she’s lying to them. Wally reminds them that no one has seen her play an instrument.
Quinn’s been missing since breakfast, and Simon thinks maybe she’s hiding in her scar. Rhonda heads out, angry, to find Quinn and get the truth once and for all.
Principal Hartman promises Maddie that he’ll get to the bottom of the video. When he’s ready to call her mom, Maddie lies and says she posted it as a joke because everyone thinks she’s crazy anyway. The principal doesn’t take that well and wonders if the blood in the boiler room was also a stunt. Maddie says it wasn’t and that she still doesn’t remember anything about that.
Charley and Yuri go through the yearbooks and don’t find Quinn’s photo with the band. Rhonda joins them and starts to help but then slams a yearbook shut. She refuses to be part of this because it hurts too much to think Quinn is lying to them.
Wally walks in with Quinn’s instrument case and points out the label’s been removed. Charley and Yuri decide to check the band room for more clues while Wally keeps searching the yearbooks for Quinn’s photo.
Yuri thinks Quinn was a ghost before she was a ghost.
Simon takes the watch to the bus stop and it lights up red. He waves it around to see if anything opens up, but it’s not until he takes a seat on the bench that he’s transported to the day of the bus crash. The dead marching band members are in their seats, and he walks through the bus calling out for Quinn. The dead become ghosts and Simon freaks out and runs away.
Claire and Nicole discuss why Maddie would tell the principal she did the video. (Someone overheard and posted Maddie’s confession.) Nicole’s worried that whoever actually did it might have more video of Maddie. Xavier thinks they should chill out.
Simon tells Wally about the bus crash and that Quinn wasn’t there, describing the aftermath as brutal. Wally grabs the watch and reminds Simon that he promised to keep him safe. He hands him some research to do that’ll keep him away from scars. Simon can’t focus after seeing a drummer with a stop sign staked through his heart.
Simon really wants to free Mr. Martin, making the point that they’re treating Mr. Martin as badly as he treated them.
Maddie’s seated in the library, posing for her senior picture when someone splashes her with red paint. She refuses to go clean herself up and demands the photographer shoot the photo.
Livia couldn’t have done it because she’s standing right next to Maddie.
Nicole’s sure whoever’s behind this won’t stop until Maddie confesses to everything Janet did while in her body. Claire knows it’s not Livia and Nicole insists she’s going to go inside Claire’s old clique to find out who’s responsible. She’s been tortured by these girls forever and knows how to handle them.
Wally finds Maddie in the bathroom and she’s in tears. She confesses she doesn’t know how to live in two worlds; she can’t unsee what she’s seen. Wally wonders if being with him is making it worse and offers to call it quits to help her.
“Wally, nothing about you makes my life worse. Nothing,” says Maddie. She wants him to put a copy of the charm from her necklace on his chain.
Charley finally confronts Yuri, asking who he really is. He quotes New Age poems and keeps staring at the same student. Charley’s jealous because he thinks Yuri’s got a crush on the student. But it turns out Yuri thinks the kid could be his actual grandson. Yuri walks off before offering any details.
Simon visits Mr. Martin to tell him the group has questions.
The ghosts assemble in auto shop and it turns out that’s where Quinn’s been hiding. She says Maddie has given her the courage to be herself. Her real name is Jacqueline, which didn’t fit her personality, and she was always missing on picture day. When Rhonda pulled her from the band, she decided to call herself Quinn—because Quinn’s not a she or a he. Quinn didn’t mean to lie to anyone and thought that for once she was being honest about herself.
Nicole takes photos of the cheerleaders on the field, saying she’s snapping candid shots for the yearbook. She plays into Livia’s ego, requesting that she stay front and center.
The ghosts and Maddie are upset that Simon let Mr. Martin out, but Simon wants answers. Maddie wonders if this has something to do with the bus accident and asks Quinn about it. Quinn doesn’t remember much because she was in the back of the bus, and Simon asks if it was snowing that night.
Rhonda remembers Mr. Martin was the first one on the scene, and Mr. Martin confesses he didn’t move here to teach. He grew up here and used to play with his two best friends, Joe and Ralph, during the summer. Then one day they cut through the graveyard and it got unnaturally dark. Ralph stopped following and they discovered him on the ground, the earth around him burned. Joe left to get help, telling Everett (Mr. Martin) to stay and keep Ralph safe. But right after Joe left, Ralph started humming a song and wouldn’t respond.
Everett ran off. Ralph’s parents and the doctor rushed to the scene and Ralph was gone. No one knew where he went. It’s possible he wandered to the river, but no one knows. Even years later, everyone told Mr. Martin that it wasn’t his fault.
Mr. Martin confesses that years after he died, he heard the song Ralph had been humming. It was coming from underneath the floorboards at the school. He discovered a hole and climbed down into it.
Yuri asks where the hole leads, and Mr. Martin says there are others in this school but they’re not like them. He doesn’t know what was down there and he couldn’t find his way out. Something clawed at his ankle and pulled him underwater. When he finally got loose and came up for air, he was blinded by headlights and caused the bus to crash.
“I followed the music,” says Mr. Martin. Eight students died because of that.
Simon points out that the driver saw him, which means a barrier broke down and made him visible. Mr. Martin apologizes to Quinn for the deaths. He believes that whatever it was that grabbed him might be why so many people die at this school and why Simon got sucked in.
Episode two ends with Simon asking, “How do I get down there?”
- School Spirits Season 2 Finale Recap
- School Spirits Season 3 Episode 1 “It’s A Wonderful Afterlife?” Recap
- School Spirits Season 3 Episode 3 “The Halls Have Eyes” Recap
- School Spirits Season 3 Episode 4 “The Bereftest Club” Recap
- School Spirits Season 3 Episode 5 “Raiders of the Lost Scar” Recap
- School Spirits Season 3 Episode 6 “Children of the Scorned” Recap
- School Spirits Season 3 Episode 7 “Midsomester” Recap
- School Spirits Season 3 Finale Recap
