School Spirits season 3 was a roller coaster ride from start to cliffhanger finish — and Us is here to provide all the answers.
The series, which premiered in 2023, kicked off by following 17-year-old Maddie (Peyton List) as she tried to investigate her own mysterious disappearance from the afterlife alongside fellow ghosts Wally (Milo Manheim), Charley (Nick Pugliese), Rhonda (Sarah Yarkin) and the only living person she could still contact, her best friend Simon (Kristian Ventura).
While season 1 revealed that Maddie had been body-snatched by one of the ghosts, Janet (Jess Gabor), season 2 centered on her trying to get back to the living. Season 3 saw Maddie back in her body, only to realize her school was in imminent danger of being destroyed, she couldn’t touch her own boyfriend and her best friend was now trapped on the same ghost plane she just escaped from.
Warning: Spoilers below for season 3 of School Spirits.
Ed Araquel/Paramount+ School Spirits’ epic season 2 finale was filled with endless twists, turns and surprises — leaving Us with way more questions than answers. The series, which premiered in 2023, follows 17-year-old Maddie (Peyton List) as she tries to investigate her own mysterious disappearance from the afterlife. Stuck in the place her body was […]
While speaking exclusively to Us Weekly, showrunner and executive producer Oliver Goldstick and creators Nate and Megan Trinrud opened up about forming new relationships, reuniting old dynamics and putting Maddie in a place to constantly fight for the ones she loves throughout the show’s third season.
“Maddie is the center of the show, and I think she’s always been the person that we were like, leaning into and trying to look at what decision she’s making,” Nate explained to Us. “We are interested in creating these relationships and making them complicated.”
Keep reading to find out the answer to all of season 3’s most burning questions:
Is ‘School Spirits’ Setting Up a Maddie, Xavier and Wally Love Triangle?
With Maddie back in her living body and Wally still stuck on the ghost plane, much of season 3 revolved around the couple finding new forms of intimacy without the ability to touch or see each other outside certain areas of the school. With their dynamic so limited, Maddie found solace in her friendship with Xavier, and the exes bonded after starting the series fragmented over Xavier’s (Spencer McPherson) infidelity with Claire (Rainbow Wedell).
While things between Maddie and Xavier technically stayed platonic, their amount of shared screen time and some of Xavier’s remarks — like admitting he wished he’d gotten together with Maddie later — caused many fans to wonder if a love triangle is brewing.
“I am now in so much trouble for that f***ing line,” showrunner Oliver Goldstick told Us with a laugh. “It was just supposed to mean because they’ve been through a life-changing experience. It wasn’t a come-on line, OK?! It was truly a profound moment of, if you look at someone across the table and go, ‘Wow, yeah, not the same two people who were in the backseat of a car in the auto shop in season 1.’”
Goldstick said he “never” intended for it to feel like Maddie and Xavier were discussing the possibility of rekindling their romance, but instead was “a true observation of, ‘We’re not who we were.’”
He added that it was “hard” for Xavier to get out of the “proverbial dog house” after cheating on Maddie with Claire in season 1, so it was important for him to tell her, “I hope you can see me now.”
Cocreator Nate Trinrud echoed the sentiment of Maddie having “trust issues” after being “betrayed” by Xavier in season 1, but did point out that they want the relationships between characters to feel “complicated” and complex.
“I think we’ve watched as Xavier’s really crawled out of that hole, in a way, to show up for [Maddie and] to be there for the friends,” Trinrud explained. “He’s good buddies with Simon now, too, in a way that we all are sort of obsessed with. But the reality is, Maddie and Xavier did not know each other in season 1, and they do now. I think Xavier didn’t know Xavier in season 1, and the same with Maddie. So as you grow and change, I think it’s really interesting to explore what those relationships are and could be.”
Trinrud added that while they are not “prescribing romance” into Maddie and Xavier, it’s not entirely off the table, either. “We will see where things go,” he teased.
Megan Trinrud agreed, admitting that Xavier is “there” and “present” for Maddie and “wants to show up” for her — but what that “means” for Maddie is something only “time will tell.”
“I do think he has regrets,” she continued. “I think that it’s really important to see a person who goes, ‘I really messed up, and I’m really acknowledging it, and everything I do from now on is going to be in service and making it up to the people who I’ve hurt.’”
Megan added that Xavier is “so much fun to write” because instead of shrugging off criticism, he actually faces his mistakes and wants to improve.
“Everybody is constantly telling him how flawed he is. And rather than being like, ‘Whatever, I don’t care,’ he’s like, ‘You know what? You’re right. I’m trying. I’m doing my best,’” she said.
McPherson also makes it a more exciting endeavor, with all three EPs agreeing he can “do it all.”
“So it’s such a fun journey to go on with Xavier,” Megan said. “You never really know where it’s gonna go with him. But as the characters change, and with what the actors bring to each scene, we’re like, ‘OK, this is it feels like it’s going in a direction,’ we just kind of follow the lead.”
Where Do the Doors Lead in ‘School Spirits’?
Milo Manheim Paramount+
Since School Spirits premiered in 2023, fans have theorized that the mysterious doors appearing in ghosts’ scars — a horrific replaying of the way they died — were gateways to cross over to some version of peace. Yet the season 3 finale revealed that the doors actually go somewhere else entirely — a hazy forest where spirits wander while trying to avoid getting stuck in “reflections” of their best memories.
Nate Trinrud explained that the show has never been “interested in making grand statements about heaven or hell or the traditional idea that could be there.” Instead, the doors were simply used to provide a new plane of existence for the dead (and sometimes living).
“I think we definitely think that [heaven or hell] could be a part of this world, but we’re not commenting on it,” he said. “So for us, the doors had always been a moment of clarity or a personal breakthrough or something where these characters are no longer tethered to this place [where] there’s stuff to learn lessons.”
Trinrud noted that the doors are not meant to represent someone being entirely “healed,” but a reminder that their “journey continues.”
“I think the beauty of the concept is you can get a door to open and you can take it, but you’re not done,” he said. “The work isn’t over.”
The writers were also focused on giving Maddie a “third world” after she had been “straddling” two for the entire season. “That there was something else … to make our soup that much more delicious,” showrunner Oliver Goldstick added. “There’s something, another plane of existence, and it may not be what you expected, and it may be purgatory. It might be a waiting room. We don’t know what this is, but we do know it’s not what we’ve seen.”
Will ‘School Spirits’ See Wally, Janet and Dawn Again?
School Spirits fans were thrown for a loop during the season 3 finale, when Maddie took her door to find Wally and Simon and ended up running into Dawn (RaeAnne Boon) and Janet, who had previously crossed over. When Maddie and Simon stepped back through their door to get back to the living plane, Wally, Janet, Dawn and Maddie’s dad were seemingly trapped and left behind.
While speaking to Us, cocreator Nate Trinrud promised that no character is gone for good.
“Now we know that this world exists; those characters, for us, are not going anywhere,” he said. As for Maddie trying to find her way back to her loved ones, Trinrud added that “the question just becomes, ‘What is the risk of tapping back into that?’”
He continued, “If Maddie has a pathway, if we revealed now that Maddie has access to kind of move between, what does that cost her? Is that good for her? And where could that lead? So I think it is this new conflict of what happens when a lot of us lose people, which is like, ‘What would you do if you could have somebody back?’ But also, ‘Is that healthy?’”
Cocreator Megan Trinrud pointed out that there is still “a lot” to “learn” about the new world before anyone goes jumping back in headfirst. “I think that we’ve only just started to look at what’s beyond the door and what’s the purpose of that place,” she said. “I think that that always kind of has to be their motivating question, is, ‘OK, so what’s next?’ And that will be an exciting question to answer.”
What Does It Mean That Wally and Maddie Can Touch Each Other Again?
Fans of Wally and Maddie rejoiced when, after a season of not being able to connect physically, the season 3 finale saw them leaping into each other’s arms after realizing they could touch in the new world behind their doors. The EPs all agreed that it was a “very important” moment for viewers, the cast and crew to experience.
“I think we felt it as a team. Obviously, we hope that the viewers will want this too, but it was so difficult, but also kind of fun to see them try to be together in a long-distance relationship where they couldn’t touch each other,” Nate Trinrud said. “So it was, like, this very cathartic moment to be able to see them, even on set, run into each other’s arms. It felt like, ‘Oh, I missed this.’”
As for whether being able to embrace her love will motivate Maddie to head back through her door even more, the trio admitted it will be “tempting.”
Could Maddie and Simon Spark a Romance on ‘School Spirits’?
Some fans are hoping for Wally and Maddie to walk off into the sunset, while others are curious about a potential Maddie and Xavier reconciliation. A third group of fans, however, are rooting for BFFs Maddie and Simon to turn their relationship romantic — particularly after they each fought so hard to save one another throughout the first three seasons.
“It’s not always the most common thing to have somebody that close to you in your life, right? They are, in a lot of ways, soulmates, and I mean that as far as they always show up for each other,” Nate Trinrud agreed when asked about a potential future romance between the two, referencing their “deep history.”
Nate admitted, however, that he and sister Megan Trinrud often tap into their sibling relationship when it comes to writing Maddie and Simon’s dynamic. Then again, a friendship can eventually turn romantic.
“A lot of people end up dating or being with their best friends; that happens in life, so who knows, as far as story, where we might go,” he teased. “But the reality is, just to get to have a friend that close and to also have romantic partners — what a beautiful thing. How lucky to be somebody who can have someone whose love is not conditional on romance? There’s something sacred about that.”
Megan added, “There’s also something about this idea of a friendship being a person who’s going to be there forever. And everybody considers, ‘Is this more?’ But you run the risk of, ‘If it doesn’t work out, and we really were just friends, are we fracturing this thing that is so special and important?’ Which, I think in some relationships, that’s not worth the risk. I think that’s something that is sort of at the heart, too, of Maddie and Simon — that their friendship means everything.”
How Will Things Change Now That the Ghosts Can Leave School?
In a last-minute finale twist, Yuri realized that the school ghosts had broken down the barrier and could now seemingly roam around the town of Split River. Exactly how that will affect the story going forward remains to be seen, but Nate Trinrud hinted that the revelation will “open up the world in a really exciting way.”
“These ghosts just learned about looking inward when Maddie showed up — that is a new idea for them. To get to go into town and encounter people they’ve lost, encounter things that they left behind, I can only imagine what that could mean for them,” Nate confessed.
Megan said that when Nick Pugliese, who portrays Charlie, found out about the reveal while reading the script, he pointed out that his character is going to “get to a plane to France” only to “never” be seen again, highlighting that the ghosts may not be forced to stay together any longer — it would be a choice.
What’s Next for Maddie and Sandra Now That Van Heidt Has Possessed Her?
After three seasons of a fractured relationship, Maddie and her mother, Sandra (Maria Dizzia), had a huge breakthrough when Maddie confessed the truth of what had been happening to her — from dying to getting her body snatched by Janet. Sandra, newly home from rehab, believed her daughter, and the pair shared an emotional embrace.
But just as things were seemingly all better, the final moments of the season 3 finale revealed that Van Heidt (Michael Adamthwaite) — the evil ghost responsible for murdering eight children in a church below the school — had secretly taken over Sandra’s body. Van Heidt is clearly out for revenge, as Maddie and her friends put a stop to his plan to destroy Split River High forever.
Nate Trinrud, who shared that Maddie and Sandra’s dynamic is “connected” to his and sister Megan Trinrud’s own relationship with their father, who battled “addiction issues,” noted that Maddie ultimately died in season 1 because her mother “crushed her spirit.”
“So now, what does it mean to finally be in a good place with that person, and then have to realize that you may need to save the person who killed you?” Nate wondered when asked what may lie ahead for the mother-daughter duo.
Nate added that he and Megan struggled with season 3 due to their father passing away during production, something that made them both realize how much someone will do “even for the people who’ve hurt you in your life if you could bring them back or keep them safe.”
“I think we’re really excited to get to explore what it means for Maddie to have to move heaven and earth to see if she can bring back the person who ultimately caused her a lot of the trauma that got her here,” he said.
School Spirits is now streaming on Paramount+.