[Editor’s note: The following contains major spoilers for Season 2 of School Spirits.]

Summary

In Season 2 of the Paramount+ series ‘School Spirits,’ Maddie discovered that she was not not dead, but stuck in limbo thanks to Janet’s ghost possessing her body.

The Season 2 finale set up new beginnings while leaving questions unanswered for a potential Season 3.

The evolving relationship between Maddie and Wally showcased growth and intimacy, emphasizing openness and acceptance.

In Season 2 of the Paramount+ series School Spirits, Maddie Nears (Peyton List) came to terms with the fact that she wasn’t actually dead, but stuck in limbo, thanks to the ghost of Janet (Jess Gabor), who had taken control of her body. The journey to reclaim her stolen life and future left Maddie torn between her feelings for Wally (Milo Manheim) and not wanting to leave her ghost friends, and the friends she thought she’d never get to be with again, including best friend Simon (Kristian Ventura). And while she ultimately made the decision to reunite her spirit with her body, Maddie doesn’t know what’s next, for her or for any of her friends, living or dead.
With a lot of questions still unanswered, Collider got the opportunity to chat with show creators Megan and Nate Trinrud and showrunner Oliver Goldstick about the Season 2 finale and their hopes for Season 3. During the interview, they talked about the unexpected surprise of Pottery Guy (played by Miles Elliot), creating an ending while also setting up a beginning, the opportunity to expand the mythology, Simon’s cliffhanger, what could be next for Maddie, who they envision as the co-parented child of David Lynch and John Hughes, and the question mark about Wally.

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Collider: So, I have to ask, when did you realize that Random Pottery Guy was the most amazing thing you had this season?
MEGAN TRINRUD: In the writers’ room, we were talking about how to expand our world for Season 2. We’re in a contained space, so it’s an automatically small world. We were thinking, how do we expand a little bit? We had one offhanded mention of Yuri and the pottery studio, and we thought, “I wonder what he’s like.” We built it up from there.
NATE TRINRUD: In Season 1, we had a conversation about how many ghosts were at this school. We needed to build an ecosystem of dead kids, so that there’s a real community and things to explore. Somebody had pitched like, “Okay, what if there’s a dead kid in the pottery room?” And in episode 4, he was mentioned. Even then, there were discussions of that character. When TikTok first came out, there was a big trend of pottery guys would just go on live and make stuff, and it became a big sensation. So, Season 2 was just a fun expansion on stuff we were seeing in culture. We all love the movie Ghost, so there there was a real hunger to be able to have our ghost moment. And then, we got so lucky to find Miles [Elliot], who is just incredible.
That’s definitely the kind of character that depends on finding the perfect actor.
OLIVER GOLDSTICK: Right. We did see multiple actors for that role, and the chemistry with Miles and Nick [Pugliese] was so immediate that the three of us saw it. There were other great contenders for that role, but there was something about Miles. And he was also distinctive in our cast. He felt different. I’m a kid from the ‘70s, so he would have been one of my classmates, quite honestly. I immediately connected with this kid and I knew who he was. I knew I probably would have had a crush on him, too, sitting in my art class. We didn’t want to play a stoner, dazed and confused joke. We wanted to play somebody who was in his own world and content. And it was very important to us that there were people who didn’t want to show up to Mr. Martin’s Traffic School. That was important. Dawn was a breakaway character for us last year. We didn’t expect people to respond to her the way they did, but it was great. It gave us a chance to expand the world in a rich way, in a different era.
MEGAN: The first time we saw him in the costume with the hair and everything was one of those great moments of, “Oh, there he is. That’s Yuri. That’s who we’ve been dreaming about.” Miles perfectly embodied that guy in his own world who thinks his own thoughts and doesn’t need outside influence. I’ll never forget the first time we got the camera test from set with the baseball tee, the jacket and the hair, and we were like, “Oh, my God, there’s Yuri.” It was amazing.
‘School Spirits’ Creators and Showrunner Always Want To Close Chapters While Asking New Questions

“We never know if a show is going to keep going or not.”

When you leave on a huge moment, like you do at the end of this season, I’m guessing you do that before knowing whether you’ll have another season. You don’t know if you’ll get to tell us what comes next. How do you weigh that? Do you just tell the story you want to tell with the ending you want to give it, without worrying about leaving all of us on such a big cliffhanger?
NATE: It’s tough because the thing that we’ve always wanted is to make sure we’re closing chapters while still asking new questions and opening doors. For us, the big thing with this season was that streaming is unpredictable. We never know if a show is going to keep going or not. And so, we wanted to make sure that we served our main story with Maddie and really make sure that arc has a destination where it lands, as we find a way to complicate everything, ask bigger questions, and continue to deepen the lore. This season really opened up so many more questions for our ghost world that we can’t wait to keep exploring and that we can really keep letting everyone in on, but it was important that we made sure that Maddie was serviced in a way that was fulfilling.
GOLDSTICK: It has to be satisfying and titillating so that you come back. We wanted to leave that question mark with Wally. That was important for us. The whole episode is about difficult choices. Maddie is leaving people behind who may still be in peril. It’s not clear that these people are going to cross over. It’s not clear that they get a happy ending, even if she does. That Wizard of Oz element to us was really important, in that we wanted to satisfy and yet still leave open the door. What happens in Oz? What happens to those people Dorothy leaves behind? There’s one witch that’s dead, but what else is out there? So, it was wanting to create an ending, but also a beginning, as we always do.
There’s always something inherently tragic about this entire series because if Maddie is back in her body, she won’t see her ghost friends. And Maddie wants to stay with Wally, who she loves, but then she’s giving up an actual life to stay as a spirit. All of that is just so sad and tragic, in so many ways.
GOLDSTICK: We like to cry a lot. What can we tell you? Our tear ducts are in good shape.
Are you guys always trying to find that balance, so that it doesn’t all just break your heart?
NATE: This show has always been a metaphor. There’s a lot going on with Maddie having to make hard decisions, but that’s actually what being young and being alive is. When you leave high school, you leave a lot of friends behind. You change what’s happening in your life and you’ve gotta say goodbye to people. Fans love to talk about who’s gonna be endgame, but life doesn’t really work like that. It’s not about who you’re with forever. It’s about what happens while you’re with the people you are with, when you’re with them. We don’t know the future of what’s going to happen with Maddie and everyone in her life, but what we do know is that she’s had incredible experiences with them and those have changed her and will shape the future. That’s real. I’m not as close with everyone that I grew up with, or even the people I fell in love with when I was young, but they changed me, and that’s the important thing.
MEGAN: Yeah, that’s growing up. It’s about growing up. And we’re growing up our whole lives. It’s not just about when you’re a teenager, or when you’re in your early 20s. That’s true of every moment in your life. It’s so important to talk about that because a lot of times series, to their credit, do a thing where this is a cast of characters that stays together for 10 seasons and they’re best friends forever and they’re going to be best friends forever, but part of what we’re trying to do is say, “Choices are hard sometimes, people leave you, you lose people even when you’re not ready, and those are things that you have to face.” Those are things you have to confront, or else you’ll be stuck in grief or you’ll be stuck in this repetitive motion of never being able to move on your whole life. That’s a very obvious metaphor for moving on, but even if you’re not a spirit, you have to move on sometimes. You have to move onto the next thing.
GOLDSTICK: Senior year is that transitional year where people are going to be leaving and maybe you won’t be close with them anymore.
MEGAN: And I don’t think that we’re always prepared for endings when we’re that age. That’s hard for a lot of people. College was really hard for me because I wasn’t prepared for the huge change and the huge shift and leaving behind everything I knew. They don’t tell you that when you’re 16. They don’t say, “Get ready because in two years, your whole life is going to be upended in a way you can’t comprehend.” My generation, in the early 2000s, it was a different experience than it is for kids now, who have spent half of their time in school at home during Covid. It’s such a fascinating moment to be talking about that.

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What can you say about where you leave Simon at the end of this and how you handle that? Is he really dead? Is he in some other state? Are we just supposed to be left with all these questions? Because I have so many questions.
NATE: You’ll have to tune in to find out. Ultimately, what we know is that these people have uncovered big new discoveries in the ghost world and things that they don’t fully understand, even the things that are happening. Janet getting into Maddie’s body was a real surprise to both Janet and Mr. Martin. And so, everyone is still trying to figure out the puzzle that is this afterlife school, this afterlife world. One of the most interesting things is that something happens that night. We see it. After that big chase and getting Mr. Martin put in there, that activates something in the school. The living can see it when they’re outside. There’s something going on. So, that’s to be explored. For us, Simon is a person who’s really sacrificed himself in a lot of ways, in two seasons, to help Maddie. One of the really interesting things about the show is, what does it mean if you lose yourself in somebody else? What does it mean if you lose yourself trying to save somebody else? A big thing that we’re really passionate about with this show is talking about how kids have to advocate for themselves and they have to make sure that they take care of themselves, too. It’s that whole oxygen mask thing. Maddie has a savior complex, for sure. And Simon cares so deeply that sometimes he loses himself. It’s an interesting direction to explore. The logistics, you’ll have to wait and see because we have some really exciting ideas.
GOLDSTICK: In the first season, we did introduce that because of his access, the veil had thinned for Simon. He’s the only person who had access to this other world. He had an encounter with the janitor in the first season that was so strange, so he already knew he was not the same as the other kids sitting in that classroom. So, we thought it was very organic, and it was a next step, if he got trapped into that world. If he was lost to that world, what would happen? It felt very much like, if you go in too deep, you can’t go back. You can’t unknow what you know now.
And you also have the ghost of Maddie’s father around and visible by someone other than the people that we know can see these ghosts.
NATE: Something is going on in Split River. We’ve gotta get to the bottom of it.
GOLDSTICK: That’s a preview for Season 3. There is a legacy of that school that we have to explore. It’s gotta be cracked open, and Simon may be able to do it from the inside, so to speak.
NATE: And now we know with the hospital that there are more of these hubs. There are more of these places around town that really have activity, and what does that mean?
‘School Spirits’ Maddie Nears Is the Co-Parented Child of David Lynch and John Hughes

“If those two had gotten together and had to raise a child, it would be Maddie Nears.”

Image via Paramount+

Was the title of the finale, “Fire, Talk to Me,” inspired by the Twin Peaks movie? Were you guys influenced by that and David Lynch, in any way?
NATE: We’re big Lynch fans. The title is an homage to that and the film Talk to Me. Surely, if you’re a Lynch fan, you know the Black Lodge is not so different from what we’ve created. There’s a real inspiration that we’ve pulled from that series, even with Laura Palmer and Maddie missing. There are so many visual references, too. I also think he was trying to tackle a lot of similar themes that we are about having to really look at the things that haunt you and find a way through them.
GOLDSTICK: We love the idea of David Lynch and John Hughes co-parenting. If those two had gotten together and had to raise a child, it would be Maddie Nears.

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The friendship between Maddie and Simon is so beautiful. When I spoke to Peyton List about that relationship, she said that every person needs a Simon because he’s the best friend you could have, and that really feels true as you watch the show. What was it like for you guys to create that relationship, see how it evolved, and continue writing it, as you see what those actors have brought to that and how they brought that to life?
GOLDSTICK: We were in the writers’ room for the first season and we had to figure out why he could see her because the audience was going to ask that. My kids, when they watched the pilot, thought for sure that he killed her and that it was his guilt. Megan was the one who said it’s an unconditional love, which all of us want in a friendship and a partner. When she says that in the finale of Season 1, it really clicked that that’s why he was still able to connect and communicate with her.
MEGAN: In Season 2, we got a chance to dig into that even a little deeper. And we realized that these two people, who are very young, have already experienced really difficult, hard things together. The fact that Simon was there when Maddie lost her dad, and the fact that Simon has been her friend through this entire time that her mom has been absent or drinking or not necessarily there for her, Simon is her family. We would love to explore his side of it too and where he comes from, eventually. To a certain extent, I would say that the relationship between Simon and Maddie comes a lot from my relationship with Nate. He and I put a lot of our friendship, which we call forged in fire, into it. When you’ve been through something hugely traumatic with someone, especially at a young age, it’s just a different kind of bond because you’re like, “I survived this. You survived this. We survived this. We can survive anything.” That helps us define what the relationship is. That doesn’t mean that there’s not tension. That doesn’t mean that there are not moments when you’re disconnected or you’re not on the same page, but the beauty of an unconditional love is that you find your way back to each other, whatever that means because you have a bond that you can’t really break.
NATE: It’s also just so interesting to talk about platonic male female relationships. Audiences love to ship people or try to put people together with labels, but a lot of these relationships are much more complicated than that. Maybe those ideas are entertained and maybe those feelings are felt in moments, but what is much more enduring than a romantic relationship is just the strongest of friendships. What I like is that we are not afraid to explore the stickiness of that and the complexity of what it means for those people to be this close and care that deeply for one another. For everyone, it is confusing and it is complicated.
GOLDSTICK: There’s that fear of, if it does change into romance, losing the most important friend you’ve ever had.
NATE: And is that worth it?
GOLDSTICK: We tried in the early episodes of the first season to really illustrate that Maddie did not let people in. Even her boyfriend had not been to her house. Maddie had a lot to hide. And Simon was allowed entry. We really wanted to make it clear that he was the only person. Even more than Nicole, Simon had seen the messiness of Maddie’s life and knew how she was the caretaker and playing the mother to her mother. That was an important element to us at the beginning with these characters.
There Was a Carpe Diem Feeling to Maddie and Wally’s Relationship in ‘School Spirits’ Season 2

“You have to act on impulse because you’re going to lose this person.”

Image via Paramount+

Wally is the character that’s probably evolved the most from who he was when he was alive. How did you want to approach the relationship between Maddie and Wally, especially in Season 2? What made you decide to have them fully share an intimate moment together and not just keep them pining for each other forever?
GOLDSTICK: From the first episode of the second season, when he finds out that she’s not dead, that’s a game-changer. Maddie is not dead and they’re trying to help her, which is at cross purposes with what he really wants. There’s a carpe diem to that. You have to act on impulse because you’re going to lose this person.
NATE: It creates a potential ticking clock.
GOLDSTICK: If she is going to go back, why am I not saying something? Why am I not acting on something? Why am I not kissing this person who I want to kiss before it’s too late? For a lot of kids, it’s a really powerful message to say, “What are you waiting for?”
NATE: We’ve seen in Season 1 and Season 2 that Wally has this deep need to please other people. He played football for his mother. He did all these things for other people. Wally isn’t great at saying what he wants and standing by what he actually wants. That’s why it’s such a big deal in episode 7 when he tells Maddie that he wants her to stay. Whether he knows she can or not, Wally is finally actually saying the thing that he needs and wants and is putting himself first. That’s really a big breakthrough moment for him. Wally had to learn how to let people know what he really wanted.
MEGAN: Something I’m really happy about, as far as how it turned out throughout the series, is that Maddie does let him in little by little. The more she shows him and the more he shows he’s not afraid of those dark, complicated, and angry parts of her, he’s never turned off by that and never judges her. That’s what she’s needed all along. With Xavier, they had fun together, but he was holding back from her and she was holding back from him. With Wally, it’s all on the table. He was so open and willing to see the hard parts of her, and he kept coming back. He gave her the time and the space to be able to say, “I do want to open up to this person.” That’s the beauty of their relationship. It was not rushed. It was this really nice progression of intimacy. It was great to let it culminate in that actual moment of intimacy where it was, “I’m ready to be fully myself with you.”
NATE: Xavier was a person that Maddie could care for and try to fix, which is exactly the relationship she had with her mother. That’s what she understood love to be. It’s about, “I have to take care of you, I’ve gotta fix all your problems, and I’ve gotta be in charge.” Wally upends all that. She finds somebody that doesn’t need those things. Even though there’s a question mark about where they go next, what Maddie has learned from Wally is that that’s the kind of person she should be with. I think that’s really beautiful.

School Spirits

Release Date

March 9, 2023

Writers

Nate Trinrud, Megan Trinrud, Oliver Goldstick

School Spirits is available to stream on Paramount+. Check out the Season 2 trailer: