School Spirits ending explained: Answering the big questions of the season
By Sabrina Reed
School Spirits, Paramount+’s new paranormal series has made its debut! The show revolves around the murder of Maddie Nears, a teen girl who wakes up in a boiler room only to find out that’s the scene of the crime where she was killed for reasons unknown.
Death has introduced her to Split River High’s liminal space, where the living and the dead co-exist but only the dead are aware of the living’s presence. The students who’ve perished on school grounds now live out existence trapped on campus as they try to move on to what’s next in the great here after.
Maddie, however, isn’t interested in passing on to the other side. She wants to find out who killed her and won’t rest until that mystery is solved. We’ll be on this journey with her friends, both dead and alive, for eight episodes. The first three premiered on March 9 and viewers can anticipate weekly releases on Thursday until the season finale on April 13.
Here at Hidden Remote, we’ll be answering season 1’s big questions each week. Stay tuned to this space for updates. Now onto what happened in School Spirits episodes 1-3.
School Spirits episode 1 ending explained: “My So-Called Death”
“My So-Called Death” is our introduction to who Maddie Nears is. Yes, she’s a teen who’s been declared missing though we know she’s actually been murdered. But Maddie is also more than the bare facts of her current situation. She left behind loved ones.
There’s Xavier, her boyfriend who was acting strange in the hours before her death. Her best friends Simon and Nicole who’d made plans with her. The trio love horror movies and are always looking to indulge one together and discuss their futures beyond Split River High. Then, there’s her mom, Sandra, who needs her as she’s a struggling alcoholic.
As the episode progresses, we learn that Maddie is stuck at her high school unless she can come to terms with her death and move on. However, she has no intention on doing that especially when she has to solve the mystery of her murder. We learn three things by the end of “My So-Called Death” which have an impact on episode 2.
The catalyst for this information comes in the form of the items Maddie is missing–her phone, necklace, and backpack. They weren’t in the boiler room with her and that’s where she was killed. The premiere of School Spirits gives us insight into the first item on the list of belongings Maddie is missing, but it doesn’t bode well for Xavier who was already drawing suspicion from Simon and Nicole because of the weirdness surrounding him and the cheerleader, Claire.
What’s Xavier’s connection to Claire?
Unbeknownst to Maddie, Xavier was cheating on her. When she went to check on him after spotting him sitting in his truck, he’d actually been waiting on Claire. He played it off, and Maddie was none the wiser, but then he made a mistake when he was sending a text to Claire to tell her not to come to the parking lot.
Why does Xavier have Maddie’s phone?
He’d accidentally sent Maddie the text he’d intended to send to Claire, so while they were in study hall together he took her phone from her bag when she was distracted. Xavier wanted to delete the text he’d sent so that Maddie wouldn’t find out that he was cheating on her. Once she went missing, he knew holding onto her stolen property looked bad, but he didn’t know what to do.
After Simon fought him over his bag, the phone flew out of it and his secret (at least in terms of having Maddie’s phone) was out. By the end of the episode, we learn Xavier’s dad is the sheriff, and he’s going to help his son navigate the sticky situation he’s gotten himself into.
Maddie also is on her way to receiving much needed help by the time “My So-Called Death” concludes. She’d spent her day trying to get her friends and loved ones to notice her but it was to no avail until minutes before her vigil, Simon seems to see her after he’d been comforted by their teacher.