It’s been about a year and a half since the Season 1 finale of “School Spirits,” so you might want a refresher before you watch the first three episodes of Season 2, which premiere on Thursday on Paramount+.
Peyton List stars in the series as Madison “Maddie” Nears, who suddenly finds herself haunting the halls of Split River high school along with several other students who died on campus over the past 60 years.
As she tries to piece together her last few days before she was (apparently) killed, we follow both her own investigation and that of the police. Meanwhile, her living friends suspect foul play when they discover her blood on some pipes in the school’s basement.
While it appears that several people, including her boyfriend and her own mother, might have had a motive to kill her, Maddie herself doesn’t remember exactly what happened that night. Here are some of the key events from Season 1:
Maddie meets the other ghosts
Split River High is home to some colorful ghosts of students past, who, like, Maddie, can never leave the school grounds. The group is led by Mr. Martin (Josh Zuckerman), a chemistry teacher who died in a fire in 1958. Another student, Janet Hamilton, was also killed in the fire, but has apparently become the only ghost to successfully cross over to the afterlife.
Next is Rhonda (Sarah Yarkin), a bitter beatnik who was strangled by her guidance counselor in 1965; followed by Wally (Milo Manheim), a friendly jock who died on the field during the 1983 homecoming game; and Charley (Nick Pugliese), a gay student from the ’90s who died of anaphylactic shock after being accidentally exposed to peanut oil.
As the authority figure of the group, Mr. Martin holds a daily therapy session with all the ghosts and urges Maddie to accept the fact that she’s dead instead of trying to solve what happened to her.
Who might have wanted to kill Maddie?
Her own mother Sandra (Maria Dizzia) was a suspect at one point: The two were estranged and had a huge fight when Maddie learned that her alcoholic mom spent Maddie’s college fund.
Maddie’s boyfriend Xavier (Spencer MacPherson) was secretly seeing her cheerleader friend Claire (Rainbow Wedell), which means either one of them could have wanted Maddie out of the way. Xavier’s dad is a cop, but that didn’t stop him from becoming the prime suspect in Maddie’s disappearance.
One of her teachers, Derek Anderson (Patrick Gilmore), was also a likely culprit. As a recovering alcoholic himself, he gave Maddie his phone number if she ever needed help with her mother. We also learn that Maddie knew about his extracurricular activities of selling drugs and embezzling school funds, which he went to great pains to hide.
Maddie’s friend Simon can still see and talk to her
Maddie’s investigation is helped enormously when she realizes that her living friend Simon (Kristian Ventura) can still see her and talk to her, but only in locations where a student previously died. It’s a secret they both keep from their friends, old and new while they try to figure out who they can trust.
The big twist: Maddie’s not actually dead
In a twist that no one — including series star List — saw coming, we learned in the Season 1 finale that Maddie isn’t actually dead: Her body was hijacked by one of the school’s other ghosts, Janet. That leaves Maddie in a ghost-like limbo while Janet-as-Maddie is still out there in the real world.
The first three episodes of Season 2 of “School Spirits” premiere on Paramount+ on Thursday, with new episodes through March 6.
