School Spirits is like if Breakfast Club and Scream had a baby and Pretty Little Liars was that baby’s aunt. The 8-episode first season was a fast-paced, trope-subverting show that was pleasantly exciting to watch. The show follows Maddie, a high school senior, who one day wakes up as a spirit without any memory of her death. To solve the mystery of her death, Maddie teams up with the titular group; a bunch of kids and a teacher who all died in the school over the years and haven’t managed to cross over. Also, none of them can leave the school premises. Maddie’s friends include Simon and Nicole, and she’s got a boyfriend, Xavier, who was the first suspect in her disappearance. Maddie is a single child whose dad died young, and Mum’s been a drunk ever since. Maddie’s relationship with her mom wasn’t the best before she disappeared, which is why she and Simon planned to move away to Chicago for university. So, this whole disappearance is very strange, especially since she didn’t say a word to Simon. Let’s dive into a recap of School Spirits for a refresher before season 2.
Spoiler Alert
Why Did Xavier Have Maddie’s Phone?
At the beginning of the show, we learn that some blood was found in the basement of the school, presumably the last place Maddie was seen as well. Turns out the blood is in fact Maddie’s. Xavier’s dad is in the police, and it seems the boy stole Maddie’s phone because he was cheating on her with a cheerleader named Claire. All he wanted to do was delete a message that went to Maddie instead of Claire. Additionally, we learn that Claire and Maddie used to be friends when they were little because they were neighbors. Claire’s mother and stepfather didn’t treat her very well, so she went to Maddie’s one day because she needed a place to hide. Unfortunately, Maddie told her she couldn’t come in because her mom was a drunken mess, and she couldn’t let Claire know. Unfortunately, Claire didn’t know that then or possibly ever, but she moved away to her dad’s, and when she came back a year later, she completely ignored Maddie.
Who Is Helping Maddie?
Maddie meets Charley, Wally, and Rhonda in the Split River “spirits club” (I’ve just made that up) and slowly becomes friends with them. Rhonda’s the rebellious kid who was killed by her guidance counselor, Charley was the gay kid in the 90s who broke his lover’s heart, and Wally was the jock who played football for his mom to live vicariously through him. Charley is the nicest of the lot and is helpful to Maddie from the start. There’s also Dawn, who died in the 70s, so everybody thinks she’s weird and gives off pothead vibes. Then there’s Mr. Martin, who is a leader/mentor of the group, a teacher who died at the school and is now trying to help the dead as best as he can. But this is obviously not true, and he’s really the bad guy of this whole story. But the most interesting thing about Maddie is that Simon can see and hear her, which means they can essentially communicate between worlds. Charley’s the first to learn about this and tells her to keep it a secret from the rest of the spirits. However, Rhonda and Wally soon find out about it. Fortunately, they withhold this information from Mr. Martin.
What Is The Mr. Anderson Mess?
Mr. Anderson is a teacher who was close to Maddie. Their friendship mainly began after Maddie learned that he’d had an alcoholic parent too, his dad. A little before her disappearance, Maddie called Mr. Anderson at night to help her out because her drunk mom had totaled the car. Maddie didn’t want her mom to get in trouble, so she convinced Mr. Anderson to pretend that she drove the car herself. Now, Mr. Anderson needed money to pay off his dad’s debts, so he deceived the school into believing that he was buying new uniforms for the band but instead disguised old uniforms from the storeroom with the new school mascot.
Claire learns about the embezzled money and blackmails him to get an A grade in his class. But Mr. Anderson and Claire then get blackmailed a second time, which they think is Maddie’s doing because she’s the only one with his number, i.e. who else could’ve sent the video to him? So, he destroyed the phone. However, it was actually Nicole who did it, because she wanted to use that money Mr. Anderson had as school funding, so she could be close to Maddie and Simon in Chicago.
How Does Dawn Cross Over?
Throughout the show, Maddie’s trying to get her memory of her last few hours in the land of the living back. This proves to be much harder than she imagined, so when Dawn says they should do an anti-seance, she agrees. However, during this charged spiritual experience, it is Dawn who is reminded of how she died after overhearing her friends making fun of her. Dawn later apologizes to Maddie for not being helpful enough, but Maddie tells her that she’s the one who should apologize because they all treated her like a weirdo. She essentially gives Dawn a loving speech that she needed in order to get closure for what her friends had done, helping her cross over. However, nobody saw this interaction, so they don’t know how she crossed over.
Do Wally and Maddie like each other?
It’s not a teen drama if there isn’t any romance in it. Wally and Maddie slowly get close, and soon enough, just before homecoming, Wally asks Maddie to go to the dance with him, and she agrees. Maddie’s the rebellious anti-prom kind of gal who wants to stay up all night watching Stephen King movies, so this comes as a surprise to Simon, making him feel like he’s losing her. However, this just goes to show that nobody fits into molds. Also yes, they do like each other, which means Maddie’s going to be heartbroken after he crosses over.
What Did Sandra Do?
The big mystery of the story is what happened to Maddie on the day she disappeared. Turns out she was in the basement with her mom, Sandra, because the latter had used Maddie’s college fund to buy a cabin. This was money Maddie’s dad had left behind for her, but her mom didn’t think for a second before burning through it. Maddie finally confesses to her mother that she doesn’t want to live with her, and that’s why she wants to move to Chicago. Maddie says her mom’s never been a responsible mother and looks for reasons to hurt her. This is when Maddie throws away her necklace, telling her mom she can have that too because it’s another token from her dad. This is why Sandra had the necklace.
What Do Xavier, Nicole, and Claire Find At The House?
There’s an empty house where Maddie’s bag is found, and a potential murder weapon too. The police even try to pin a murder case on the janitor, Mr. South, but he wouldn’t so much as hurt a fly. In the final episode, Xavier, Nicole, and Claire go to this house to see who has been going in and out of it. To their shock, this person is Maddie herself, and just before she gets away, she hits Xavier with their car. Xavier falls unconscious because he’s bleeding from his head. So, at the end of the first season, Xavier ends up in the hospital.
How Is Maddie Alive and Dead at the Same Time?
During School Spirits season 1’s ending, we learn that Maddie wasn’t murdered, and neither did she run away, but she was possessed. This is why she can be in two places at once. First, as a spirit in the school, and second, as her physical runaway form. Turns out a girl named Janet has possessed Maddie. Janet and Mr. Martin died in the same fire, but while Martin claims the fire was started by a student, newspaper clippings show that he might’ve been the one to start it. Charley, Rhonda, and Wally get locked in the storage room where they find all this information.
At the same time, Simon gets a video from Nicole, which proves that Maddie was the one in the car. This leaves Simon bitter, and he thinks he’s actually gone crazy and created a version of Maddie in his head to cope with losing her. Maddie tries to convince him that this is not the case, and when she runs after him, she ends up in the basement again. This is when she hears Wally and the rest screaming for help, which is the trigger that takes her back to what happened on the day she disappeared. On that day, Maddie heard Martin and Janet arguing in that storage room and went to check what was going on. When she opened the door, she could only see Martin, but Janet was there too. This is when she hears Martin telling Janet not to move, but by then Janet’s “spirit” enters Maddie’s, leaving the real Maddie a spirit without a body. So this means Maddie’s still alive and can find her way back, but Janet is currently in search of some answers, probably regarding what happened the night she and Martin died back in 1958.
