School Spirits EPs Answer Our Burning Questions About Season 2!
My mind is still reeling after all the twists, turns, and revelations from School Spirits season 2. Maddie (Peyton List) is finally back in her body, but one mystery solved leave room for more to take its place. Janet (Jess Gabor) foregoes crossing over to learn the true secrets of Split River High from Mr. Martin (Josh Zuckerman), while Xavier (Spencer Macpherson) can see the ghost of Maddie’s father. But what happens after Wally (Milo Manheim) sees his own exit sign to the afterlife? Did he actually go? And how did Simon (Kristian Ventura) end up in Mr. Martin’s scar? Does that mean he’s a ghost now too? Kristen Maldonado spoke with School Spirits showrunner Oliver Goldstick and co-creators Megan Trinrud and Nate Trinrud for Pop Culture Planet about the burning questions we have from season 2.
Pop Culture Planet: I’d love to hear about bringing our living and dead cast together. In the first season, everyone was a suspect, whereas with this season they’re a little Scooby gang. What was it like elevating their bond to the next level?
Oliver Goldstick: We love the idea of unlikely alliances. We talked about that in the room because we had set up a lot of adversarial relationships in the first season because of suspicion. So much of the first season was about trust and the idea that, “Here I thought these people were my friends and now they are suspects in my death,” so the idea of the second season [was] turning that on its head and bringing people together. Simon and Xavier are suddenly having a bromance, and Claire (Rainbow Wedell) and Nicole (Kiara Pichardo) being roommates and suddenly having a friendship. This was, to us, an echo [of] what was happening in the spirit world. Because the spirit world, you're sitting with people you would never open up to and yet, because of your predicament, they have to or you're really an island. We wanted to echo that or have [that] reverberate in both worlds. I think hopefully it was successful because we've got a cast [that] they all love each other. We knew that too, so that would help with the chemistry. We're not lying. This is like summer camp. These guys really do love each other and I think that comes through on screen.
PCP: We need to talk about the romances this season, specifically Wally and Maddie's relationship and then Charley (Nick Pugliese) and Yuri (Miles Elliot) and the journey he goes on to accept himself.
Megan Trinrud: The idea of intimacy is really complicated, especially for young people. I think, with a character like Maddie, intimacy is not something she is really open to giving to other people. It takes a long time for her to open up in that way. So it felt like what goes on in episode seven felt like a culmination of a really beautiful experience of Wally slowly and respectfully letting her open up and feeling like she can be comfortable and intimate with someone. That's a beautiful character moment for her to be able to say I feel safe and comfortable in this relationship and I think that's an important thing to see. To a certain extent, it's the same with both Charley and Yuri who have closed themselves off from other people for a long time. Charley to protect himself, Yuri because he wants to be this lone wolf in his own little bubble. They finally can say to another person, ‘I see you, you see me, and I feel safe and comfortable with you.’ It's really important to show that can be a healthy culmination.
PCP: You see that with so many characters this season. Xavier really opens up. Even Rhonda (Sarah Yarkin) and Quinn’s (Ci Hang Ma) friendship in realizing that even in the afterlife connection is so important.
MT: You're touching on something that's really important to us. We have a lot of people who just didn't tell each other the truth for a long time. Big truths and small truths. It's so easy for people, and this is true of my life, to just hold back the hard stuff or the difficult stuff or the scary stuff because you don't want to open up those doors. But the sooner you start talking about that, the more you start to connect with people. You hear people say, “Oh, I'm going through something like that too. I'm feeling that way too.” If the show can achieve anything and we get people more comfortable talking about when they're hurting when they're scared, when they're lonely, I think that will be a great success.
OG: Raising two teenagers, they want to feel seen and safe. It's a very uncertain time. It just is. […] We just have to say it out loud. It's a very uncertain, anxious world they live in. […] Because the invisibility factor, that metaphor, really does apply for a lot of kids. We've tried really hard too to make sure that things aren’t too facile. That things cost something. It's painful and it costs. […] From the beginning with Maddie's character, it was important that there was a lot of shame in her. There was a lot of shame about her home situation. Part of her cover and wanting to be invisible as a living kid was [she] didn't want people to see too much. There's a beautiful scene in the first season with Mr. Anderson (Patrick Gilmore) where she is seen and [it] flips her the f*** out because he knows she's dealing with alcoholism at home. She's really freaked out by it. It's beautifully acted, it’s beautifully written. It was a really great moment that crystallized a lot about her character. I think all that reverberates back to what Megan just said about she's finally, in the second season, allowing people to see her.
PCP: I’ve got to ask what it was like filming the “Let’s Dance” scene with Wally, Rhonda, Charley, and Quinn. What was that like on set?
Nate Trinrud: What is so funny is that our show works fast. We make this show really quick so our actors have to be really nimble. I'm not kidding. One of my best friends is a Broadway choreographer Katie Spellman and she generated this dance for our actors to learn. We [had] maybe three rehearsals and then they had to go and do it in front of cameras and they nailed it. It was such a joyful day because it's such a fun scene.
MT: It was great to be able to pick that song too because we wanted to have the song chosen and ready to go so that we could really lean into it. It was just so much fun blasting the song on set and getting to watch them. Everybody was having fun. It was a very, very magical day.
PCP: We had been seeing Janet and Mr. Martin as big bads in a sense, but there's so many more layers to all of these characters. I'd love to hear your perspective on showing these like dual sides to these characters.
NT: A big theme of this show is that no one is defined by the worst thing that ever happens to them or the worst thing they've done, right? Xavier was not great, but he's really redeemed himself. We watch as our characters work through that. We are always very interested in complex characters and really asking the audience to decipher. All season long you have to look at Janet and wonder: is she a villain, is she a victim, is she a survivor? And how do we view that character through those different lenses? How does it change the way that we feel about her, right? Because what she's done is awful, but can you understand where she’s coming from? Every character we try and do that.
OG: With the Marvel Universe — and not to put that down or diminish it because my kids have been raised with it — it's very black and white sometimes. No honestly. And they don't read. Previous generations read and the one thing about literature is characters are nuanced and there's motivation and there's a whole backstory. The person walks in and is fighting their own battles that you don't know about. I think that Nate, Megan, and I felt it was important with these characters that it wasn't going to be cartoonish. […] If I had those circumstances and you're a person raised in the 50s with real limitations, I think it makes viewers go, “What would I have done?” One of my favorite moments of the season was Maddie saying, “Maybe she should have my life because she'll do more with it. This person was so stunted by the era she grew up in. Maybe if she can grow up now, she'll discover a cure for cancer. Let her have my body. I'm not going to do that much with it.” That’s poignant. I just think there's layers to people, which television allows you to do because you're spending real time with them. We've been able to explore more and we're proud of it.
NT: One thing that I think is fascinating is we have these intergenerational characters from different time periods. There have been big advancements in the way that we deal with mental health or shame or guilt or feelings and so I think in a way the story of Mr. Martin is a cautionary tale, right? Like what happens if you suppress dealing with that? […] Megan and I talk about [that] with grandparents or parents, people from different generations. They handle things very differently than we do and there's a cost to that. It can turn into something bad. It can make you act badly and it can put other people in jeopardy.
PCP: As the season ends, Janet passes on crossing over in favor of unfinished business she has. She wants to learn the secrets of this school that supposedly Mr. Martin has the answers to. What can you tease about that?
NT: I love the moment when Janet chooses to stay to help everyone, right? Like, oh my God, actually this confluence of both science and spirituality that leads to the answer they think, still there's more to understand. If she stays behind maybe she can help everyone figure it out, so that we can definitely say is something we're curious to explore.
MT: To me, the dynamic is something that I think will be interesting. This idea of the roles being reversed. Now Janet is in charge. Janet is taking initiative and saying, “You did this the wrong way, but can we do it the right way?” I think that's just a fascinating question for us. Is there a right way? I think back to this idea of no one's truly good or bad. We're all complex and complicated people. What will Mr. Martin do now? Will he change? Is he capable of change, or has he just been in this horrible situation for so long and made so many bad decisions along the way? What happens next? They’re two such incredible actors in those roles, it's wonderful to think: where can we go with that? The power dynamic too. It’s just interesting to look at that power dynamic when we flip it on its head. The student-teacher, a male teacher and a female student. This woman who's saying, “I am brilliant and I can do this. I don't need an instructor to tell me what to do.” I think here's just so much we can mine from that relationship. It's very exciting.
OG: Her’s the keeper of the secrets. The truth is our third season has to explore the legend of Split River and why so many people, so many kids have died in that school. What does Mr. Martin know? [Janet’s] going to get answers now.
PCP: Maddie does manage to get back into her own body. I’m curious, was that always the plan, or did you ever think about not having her make it back? Do you think she’ll still be able to connect to the ghosts since she’s been in the spirit world before?
MT: We honestly talked about so many versions of where this went. I felt like they all had merit in their own way, but we really felt like, after two seasons of putting this character through so much, it felt like a natural progression for her to have some element of closure on that piece of the story. Everyone's been working toward this moment and they deserve a win, but then, of course, that opens so many questions of what's left behind. What can she do now? Can she continue to help them? We want the story to keep going and we want her to continue to be a part of that story so we just have to see how that unfolds as far as what she can and cannot do anymore.
OG: We started the season knowing this was no longer a whodunnit, but a how did it? How and why? So we knew we had to answer a question about a reunion of body and spirit. We did know this was out there, so we hope we provide a satisfying ending, but at the same time open the door with some big questions.
MT: We looked at season one where we had a huge cliffhanger and it was, I mean as writers, a really fun episode to keep people on the edge of their seat guessing what's going to happen next. We did have to say to us, okay, if that was how we ended one, what do we gotta build? We gotta keep moving, so what do we do for season two because there's that expectation? We wanted people to be excited and asking those questions, so we went big. You go big or you go home.
PCP: Now Simon is stuck in Mr. Martin’s ghost scar. This opens up so many questions. Is he dead? Did he switch places with another ghost, like Wally who we saw looking at his exit sigh? Do you think a third season could find Maddie on a journey to help Simon?
OG: You're way ahead of us, how dare you! (laughs)
MT: It's a great question and a great point because the heart of the story is their friendship. If you take away every other element, […] I think at the heart of the story is this friendship that can surpass time, space, death, life, all of those things. There are so many questions we want to ask and we want to try to answer about when you're close to someone and you have that kind of unconditional love, how far will you go for them? We've seen Simon went so far, he literally lost himself in this world, so it's a huge part of the story we're trying to tell overall. We got a lot of big questions to answer that that all go back to this friendship.
All of School Spirits season 2 is streaming now on Paramount+.
