Paramount+ School Spirits season three, episode three opens with Simon (Kristian Ventura) insisting that he needs to climb down into the hole. He has to try since a living person saw Mr. Martin when he went down there. Whatever’s in the hole could be the reason they’re all stuck inside the school.
(The following is a recap of season three, episode three and contains spoilers.)
Maddie (Peyton List) asks the ghosts for their opinions, and Wally (Milo Manheim) wonders if Mr. Martin is lying. The ghosts don’t think so since he admitted to killing a busload of students. Wally also reminds them that something grabbed Mr. Martin. Maddie’s concerned that Simon isn’t the right one to go into the hole since he’s actually alive and going into the hole might kill him. Mr. Martin was already a ghost when he crawled into it.
Maddie wants to give Xavier (Spencer MacPherson) time to ask the hospital ghosts if they’ve ever heard of a living person getting stuck in the ghost world.
Maddie makes it home late and her mom’s upset. Sandra believes the school isn’t safe and is busy packing a suitcase for them to leave. She insists she won’t let bad things keep happening to Maddie at that school. But Maddie refuses to leave her friends.
Maddie’s confused about how her mom knows she got splattered with paint but doesn’t ask.
School starts and Nicole (Kiara Pichardo) and Claire (Rainbow Wedell) tell Maddie that Livia saw her (actually it was Janet in Maddy’s body) at the college party. They want Maddie to be careful. And Claire fills Nicole in on the best way to get in good with Livia: convince her she hates Claire and Maddie.
Xavier confirms that Kyle found Maddie’s dad and none of the hospital ghosts have ever heard of a living person getting stuck in the afterlife. Xavier offers to help Maddie talk to her dad that afternoon at the hospital.
Principal Hartman (Alex Zahara) tells the gang that they won’t be allowed to go on the senior trip and instead will pull Saturday detention. When Maddie asks, Hartman says he didn’t tell her mom about the incident during the school pictures.
Charley (Nick Pugliese) gently prompts Yuri (Miles Elliot) to open up about his possible grandson. Yuri reveals that he got a girl named Julie pregnant the summer before his senior year. It wasn’t a serious relationship, but Julie called and told him she was in trouble and wanted to talk. Yuri thinks she wanted to keep it. They were going to meet at a record store, but Yuri went into the greenhouse to think first. He was worried about how he could get out of this situation and his anxiety triggered his asthma-and he died.
Yuri doesn’t know what he would have done if he met her at the store. He isn’t positive she kept the baby but believes she really wanted to. Charley acknowledges it’s a lot to take in and wonders if Yuri’s still into girls and guys. It doesn’t really matter; he just wants to know. Charley confesses he thinks Yuri’s into him because there aren’t many options.
Charley’s really shaken by this. His self-esteem is low anyway, and knowing more about Yuri’s sexual life isn’t helping.
Quinn (Ci Hang Ma) and Rhonda (Sarah Yarkin) chat and Quinn realizes that if Mr. Martin hadn’t appeared in front of the bus, she would have just gone home to her mom and dad. Rhonda suggests that she can take her yearbook photo and that Quinn can pick an outfit that matches her new ‘Quinn’ name.
Livia (Erika Swayze) and her minions invite Nicole to their lunch table to see how the photos turned out. Livia loves them and Nicole offers to send her some. Nicole follows Claire’s advice and trash talks Maddie and Nicole, calling them a**holes – among other things. Livia invites her to a party and Nicole agrees to come.
Wally heads outside and finds Mr. Martin trying to clean up the plaque in memory of the bus crash victims. Wally’s certain Mr. Martin’s still hiding things, but Mr. Martin insists he can’t figure out how to send Simon home. When Wally asks who’s going to figure this place out, Mr. Martin replies, “Maybe I’m looking at him.”
Xavier visits the hospital morgue after school and introduces himself to Maddie’s dad, Dave. Dave confesses that he’s afraid he’ll disappoint Maddie and asks Xavier for details about his daughter who he hasn’t talked to in 10 years.
Meanwhile, Simon’s still pissed that no one will help him get home. He finds Wally in class writing a list of reasons to go down the hole and reasons not to try. On the go side, Wally’s listed that Mr. Martin could be wrong. A reason not to go would be that Simon could die.
Wally thinks he’s the one that needs to try it. Maddie would never forgive him for letting Simon die. Simon’s actually happy for the first time since becoming a ghost and cheers on Wally’s decision.
Rhonda and Quinn look around for just the right outfit for Quinn to wear in her class photo.
Wally and Simon uncover the hole and Wally enters it. He falls hard but is okay, assuring Simon that he can’t see anything because it’s too dark. Wally feels his way around and tells Simon that he’s heading further in.
He finds stairs and thinks it might be a house. He’s beginning to get a little freaked out when he steps in water. Hands reach up and grab him, pulling him under as he screams for Simon. He pops up soaking wet in the library near Rhonda and Quinn, accidentally making a custodian fall off a ladder.
Quinn is furious that Wally and Simon would risk someone’s life. Wally tells the gang that after he was pulled under, he popped up in the library and the custodian briefly saw him, which scared him so much that he fell off the ladder. Fortunately, he didn’t die.
Simon insists that, although it was bad, it at least proved that whatever was down there was powerful enough to lift the veil twice. They need to be smart, but they need to try again. Quinn grabs the watch from Simon and Rhonda warns him that he’ll have to go through them first.
Maddie and Xavier head to the morgue, and Xavier says her dad’s caught up on her and Simon. Dave’s waiting for them and Maddie says hi. Dave, through Xavier as the intermediary, says she looks beautiful. Maddie cries, recalling their final day together and that she should have hugged him goodbye. Dave says he loves her and will do everything he can to help Simon get back into the world of the living.
Their talk is cut short when Maddie’s mom texts telling her to come home.
Xavier apologizes for being the one who was the intermediary, thinking it should have been Nicole or Simon. Maddie hugs him, thanking him for making it possible. She’s hugging him when her mom interrupts, demanding that she go home.
Claire helps Nicole get ready for the party, reminding her to keep trash talking her and Maddie. Also, if she gets stuck, she should talk about boys. “Do not under any circumstances talk to Jason,” says Claire.
Nicole’s brother, Diego, wonders what’s up when she’s getting ready for the party and they give him a brief rundown of what’s going on and why Nicole’s going to Livia’s party. After she leaves, Claire and Diego hang out and eat dinner.
Nicole downs a few drinks to get up her courage. Livia and her minions pull her into the house, insisting there’s better drinks inside. She’s kept drinking and now she’s having a rough time following their conversation and remembering what she’s supposed to say. They want all the secrets of what happened to Maddie, and Nicole changes the subject to a boy. She says she’s interested in Jason, which is definitely not what she was supposed to say.
Nicole calls Claire from Livia’s mom’s office, confessing she just screwed up. Claire warns her she needs to leave right now, but Nicole can’t; she’s had three Long Island iced teas. Claire insists she get an Uber and leave.
Nicole’s drunk but not so far gone that she doesn’t realize the paperwork on the desk about the school could be super important. (She didn’t know that Livia’s mom is Superintendent Hunter-Price.) She accidentally wakes up the superintendent’s laptop, and it shows a live stream of different areas of the high school.
Wally finds Simon and wonders what’s in the heavy bag he’s carrying. Simon insists he’s not safe there and doesn’t have time to figure things out. Quinn and Rhonda eavesdrop as Simon says he’s not like the rest of them and doesn’t belong. Quinn tells him he’s wrong, none of them belong there, but she’s not going to stop him. She hands over the watch.
Maddie returns home, finds her mom’s phone, and discovers her mom’s been tracking her movements and reading her texts. Nicole pounds on the door and Maddie steps outside, surprised Nicole’s dressed up. There’s no time to get into that because Nicole has big news. Superintendent Hunter-Price is working with Claire’s stepdad’s company to bulldoze Split River High and build a fancy high-rise. Also, there are cameras all over the school and maybe even all the neighborhoods.
Back at the school, Quinn takes a seat next to Mr. Martin on the bus bench. Quinn assures Mr. Martin the bus accident wasn’t his fault; sometimes bad things just happen. Mr. Martin takes a deep breath…maybe his first in decades.
Quinn finds Rhonda and confesses she forgave Mr. Martin. Also, she doesn’t want to change her outfit. She’s okay with what she’s wearing and just wants to be herself. Rhonda explains that in her day, girls could get into trouble for wearing pants. Clothing was a statement, and for the longest time she didn’t even know what statement she was trying to make. But then she found a club with poets and interesting people and felt like she’d found her place.
She remembers sitting by this woman (special guest star Lizzy McAlpine, a big fan of the series) who offered her a cigarette and made her feel welcome. The woman introduced herself as Joyce and revealed she attends UC Berkeley. Joyce thought Rhonda would fit in there and advised her not to let anyone trick her into thinking she doesn’t have a say.
Joyce took the stage and performed “House of the Rising Sun,” and Rhonda couldn’t take her eyes off her. Rhonda explains it was at that exact moment that she discovered who she could be if she was brave enough.
Rhonda wants that feeling for Quinn, too. They take a photo and of course they don’t appear on the Polaroid.
Simon’s bag is full of ropes, and he promises Wally they’ll walk out of Mr. Martin’s scar together.
Maddie’s mom confesses she got the app to track Maddie because she hasn’t been honest in weeks. Maddie goes through all the drawers and cabinets, looking for alcohol, telling her mom this is how it feels to be spied on. Sandra claims she hasn’t been drinking, but Maddie finds bottles in a box.
Maddie claims it was her mom’s drinking that hurt her and made her want to disappear.
Charley admits that hearing all the people Yuri could be with got to him, and he realizes he made what Yuri’s going through about him. Yuri confesses he never went into his scar and is not sure he’ll ever be ready.
Maddie’s mom packs her bag and announces she’s going to a treatment center.
Simon’s tied to the rope as Wally lowers him down. He’s wearing a light on his head and looks around before heading down the same stairs Wally went down. Simon calls for more rope as he avoids the water and keeps looking around. Simon hears the song Ralph was humming before he disappeared. Suddenly the rope breaks and Simon’s light goes out. A wind kicks up out of nowhere and he sees someone or something in the distance.
Episode three ends with Simon saying, “Oh sh*t.”
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