Goosebumps Episode 8 had us scared for a second that this was the end of the story. It may have been a tad bit characteristic of the books, but it would have felt very unfulfilling. Thankfully, this wasn’t the end, and we still have a lot to see. Otherwise, it really wasn’t the most exciting episode of the show. Perhaps there was a bit of comedy about how daily life came in the way of supernatural occurrences, making us wonder how Stephen King would have described this scene. It just lacked the element of being sinister that we usually associate with inescapable horror, but that is merely an opinion for this episode and not the entirety of the show. Here is a recap of it.
Spoiler Alert
How do the kids get out of the scrapbook?
Contrary to what we had thought at the end of the previous episode, the kids don’t fall into an abyss but just into a different page, since the page they are on is soaked in the muddy water. Nathan is struggling against Harold to get out of the car and retrieve the book, but he is finding it tough to do so. When he rolls around in the mud, trying to gain back control over himself, the people around him think he has gone mad and simply leave. If only they had stayed to help, maybe the kids would have been rescued a little bit faster. Either way, Nathan has to bite his own hand to fight Harold, and he manages to take the book out of the puddle.
The kids are safe temporarily, and they stop just in time while confessing their feelings and apologies to each other. But there is a surprise waiting for them in the scrapbook. Harold’s parents are trapped inside it. We are not sure how they got there since it is supposed to be a world of Harold’s creation from when he was completely under the spell of Slappy. Maybe when he turned his parents into puppets, this is where he trapped their souls. It indicates that when Harold’s great-grandfather first turned his manager into a puppet, even that poor man’s soul must have been trapped in some object, and years later, it would haunt someone needlessly. Either way, Harold’s parents tell the kids to tell their son that they forgive him and are waiting for him to move on to the afterlife. At that precise moment, Nathan is able to get the better of Harold, and he draws a door out for the kids to arrive in the real world. The kids take that exit and are safe, though Nathan is pushed back into the trap, and Harold takes over his body once again. Once the kids are out, they have to look for Nora since Nathan told them that Harold was probably following her.
What is Nora doing with Slappy?
Nora’s objective in bringing Slappy to the cabin in the mountains is to make sure to bury him in a way that he is never found by anybody else. They had tried burning him once and knew that it wouldn’t help. Slappy is completely dismantled, perhaps as a way to ensure that he wouldn’t have any power, but the puppet can still talk. A park ranger comes to Nora’s cabin to warn her of the upcoming storm. When he sees Slappy’s hair sticking out of the bag, he thinks that Nora might be there to bury a dead body but is relieved when it is just a puppet. The ranger is a little clueless but a little too diligent with his job. He tells Harold where Nora is when the man clearly says that he is following her. It did not even occur to the ranger that this was a breach of Nora’s privacy and safety. But he makes sure to tell Harold to get chains on his tires as a way to take care of himself during the storm. We couldn’t believe that Harold actually went back for it.
Luckily, the ranger doesn’t run into the kids, who are having issues of their own despite being in a life-and-death situation. Margot wants to know what Isaiah was going to say to her in the scrapbook, but since there is no urgency now, Isaiah decides to act petty about Margot and Lucas. Margot clarifies that she is not yet seeing Lucas, and Isabella gets the drift that these two are texting each other. Lucas, Isaiah, and Margot go to find Nora, while Isabella and James stay back. James tells Isabella that the magic of Isaiah and Margot is in their ‘will they or won’t they’ status and will probably never culminate into anything. But Isabella isn’t happy with that. After all, she has spent her entire life being deeply insecure about not being noticed, and when she finally likes a boy, she simply can’t be his second option. Just then, the rest of the parents arrive there, and they all set off to find Nora and Harold.
Is Slappy dead or alive?
Harold initially tells Nora that he doesn’t want to hurt her. He simply wants Slappy back, but Nora can’t give it to him. After a chase through the snow, Harold manages to snatch Slappy, and Nora is lying unconscious. Luckily, Lucas gets there to check on his mother. Meanwhile, Isaiah is hanging off the edge of a cliff, holding on for dear life, when Harold is there to throw him off. He considers it justice that he saw Ben’s face before dying, and Ben’s son is going to see his face before meeting his end. Luckily for Isaiah, the parents come there at that time and pull Harold back. They apologize to him and try to make him realize that they were never against him, but it was Slappy who kept brainwashing him. Harold doesn’t buy it and is filled with hate, but that is when Margot calls him ‘harebear,’ the term that his parents used to call him. When she tells him that his parents still love him and are waiting for him, Harold realizes that he had indeed been brainwashed by Slappy, who had made him turn them into puppets, saying they didn’t love him when that was far from the truth. With that realization, he pulls up Isaiah and throws Slappy down the valley to be rid of him.
At the end of Goosebumps episode 8, Harold gets out of Nathan’s body and meets his friends once again. He is saying goodbye to them and probably apologizing in silence for everything that went wrong. Harold is finally free of his hate, and he simply moves to the afterlife, preferably with his parents. However, during the final moments of the episode, we see that Slappy has opened his eyes. There is still a lot of fighting left in that puppet, and he will be back to haunt them all.
Final Thoughts
The preview for the next episode tells us that there is another villain in the group who is Slappy’s ally. We have a suspicion that it is Sarah, as she has been called ‘ shady’ by everyone close to her, and we still don’t know why. We must also remember that Harold was in love with her, so it is possible that she knew about Slappy before and had a hand in some of the mess that was created. After all, she was the one to tell Harold the secrets that he revealed during the puppet show in the past, through Slappy. Let’s see if we are right.
