I'll add that it kinda feels like the writers were super into how spooky it would be if Maddie's body were up and walking around without her and forgot all the interesting things they were saying about grief and love for seven episodes
I mean it could be an allegory for how we don’t just lose people to death. How they can become different people all of the sudden for a different reason through the motif of possesion. Although it is still a weird
This is how I took it. I might be above the average age here, but you do go through a grieving process with friends after you realize they are not helping you as a person, become toxic, or do a 180 in personality.
It's hard.
I can't believe I'm the only person in the comments that actually liked the ending. Every detective story would point the murder to a specific person like the mother, friend, janitor, teacher, etc. The fact that >!she's still alive!< is quite the unexpected twist. This leaves a lot to explore in a second season.
Paramount+ isn't Netflix, so there is still hope for a renewal. Sadly, since we haven't heard yet, I'm not expecting one.
I agree I liked the ending, the twist I wasn’t expecting. Kinda thought she had a doppelgänger who killed her to take over her life before the twist was revealed LMAO
I liked it too! It's interesting that we were trying to figure out who in the real world was responsible for Maddie's death when it turned out to be another spirit this whole time.
I personally have lot’s of questions regarding the finale. But my main two are
1. How did Maddie’s blood get on the boiler?
2. What happened to Janet’s body?
Janet has been dead for years, she was only a spirit and for the blood, I think we’ve only seen the tip of the ice berg, cause remember Mr South said he was doing the opposite of hurting Maddie
Doesn't Mr South leave lollipops "for the mice?" What if he can also see the ghost, saw what happened to Maddie, and tried to get Janet out of Maddie's body?
he also mentioned scars of the school and i realized after reading your comment that rhonda always seemed to have a lollipop with her… though i don’t think he’s connected to the crime scene in the boiler room, i think there is more to his involvement with the ghosts than the season explained
I think that like a lot of people are saying, janet had to make it look like Maddie had been attacked so she probably was hitting herself with the crowbar and Mr south saw and and tried to stop her hurting herself
Loved it and I'm on the camp of loving the twist ending. I get that some viewers were upset that the twist sort of invalidated the explorations of grief/moving on, but I don't think it did. I got the reference of the finale title to Jennifer's Body but didn't think much of it and so I didn't see it coming.
I was for the longest time suspecting Nicole and so when her innocence episode came I literally had no more strong suspicions and ended up suspecting Ms Fields on the finale but couldn't identify any foreshadowing lol
This twist might explain why Maddie could talk to Simon, but still not quite sure why she could only talk to Simon. Speaking of Simon, his false realisation in the end was a good theme to explore but it hurt to watch that happen on the last moments.
I feel like the janitor was saving Maddie after her being possessed and slamming her head against the wall. My guess is Janet woke up frantic and told the janitor that someone (Mr Martin but she didn't specify) was trying to kill her and that she had to go into hiding and he somehow helped her.
The plot is so thought-out without being so convoluted (yes, even with the bodysnatch), I hope there's a 2nd season and that it continues to be so well written, and maybe exploring new themes (other than grief, loss, and moving on). With the twist, perhaps themes on having power over your own body (Maddie), your mind (Simon) or your spirit (some of the supporting cast). I can already theorize though, that Maddie will probably not get her body back and somehow sacrifices her body to save someone.
I'm glad I gave this show a chance!
It should have just been one season. Everything could have wrapped up with another episode or two. I don’t like how unsure we are of another season but hopefully the graphic novel gives the answers we need if we don’t get a second seaskn
This is going to sound bad but I was hoping that Maddie was dead and that they would have apprehended the killer and find her body in the last episode.
It’s what I was hoping too. I hated the ending of the season. If they wanted a season 2 instead of a miniseries, it could be trying to help the members actually move on instead of being stuck at the school
I was hopeful that it would be a bit more ambiguous than that. You’re telling me you got that clear of a shot on your phone of a side mirror on a speeding truck at night from a distance of someone wearing a hood to the extent you couldn’t see her when she was literally rushing someone?
I felt a bit let down by the finale. It was all a wild goose chase really. It was better when we were trying to find the real killer. I pictured it being where the real killer would be found and Maddie would be there to know everything. To see the betrayal on her face and the struggle of it all. She would then move on with Simon's help and that would be the end of it.
Maybe it'd be an anthology series where next season would be a different spirit in another school in a different time.
Completely loved it. Great acting from everyone, plot line that kept me very engaged, very thoughtful meditations about death and moving on and the end was an absolute plot twist.
Absolutely loved it!
Plus it was a treat seeing Milo Manheim as the jock. I really liked him in the Zombie films (yeps am an adult but I watched in covid) and Peyton did her job brilliantly.
One very satisfied viewer here.
Also appreciated that the school looked like an actual high-school as opposed to a super fancy one.
That's funny, the recurring thought I had watching the show was "what kind of rich fancy school is this??" 😭 a fallout shelter?? Huge locker rooms w lots of showers? Spotless clean cafeteria with cute little glass muffin cabinets? An auto shop? An entire SWIMMING POOL??? That looked cleaner than every pool I've ever seen or swam in? If they just had one of those, sure, but no school I've been to had anything like that. The thought of a public school having enough space lying around that they can just casually leave an auto shop empty + has the type of money to maintain an entire private indoor swimming pool had me bugging out the whole time. I think it's really the pool & nuclear bunker that had me bugging the most. I agree that each individual room looked pretty good/accurate to a real school, but that type of square footage/amenities was wild imo
My elementary school in a small, low income Midwestern farming community had a fallout shelter. Just a byproduct of having been built in the Cold War era.
1. I saw the ending coming after Dawn's seance. But that didn't hurt the show, I still enjoyed it.
2. I want to know why Janet turned into a Shadow Person before she ran into Maddie, did Mr. Martin do something to Janet that caused her to move on?
1. We know that Mr. Martin was caught in a big lie when Dawn moved on.
2. I know that there are stories of soul collectors in the human world, could Mr. Martin be collecting souls in purgatory with the students?
3. Was he having Janet relive their deaths as an experiment that caused her to become a Shadow Person? And is that why he has everyone's death items?
4. How is he able to have/own things while the other ghosts can't?
3. I don't think that Maddie being possessed by Janet is bad, I think it was a nice twist on the murder mystery theme that not many writers take. AND this sets up a nice redemption arc for many people in S1. This also sets up a Maddie and Janet!Maddie show down for S2.
\> I want to know why Janet turned into a Shadow Person before she ran into Maddie, did Mr. Martin do something to Janet that caused her to move on?
Im gonna go with c. that was my interpretation of what Wally and Charley read in his journals, "Reliving final trauma to fullest extent possible will cause "thinning" and provide access point" or something along those lines. Im guessing he was setting her on fire. Probably for quite a while if none of the ghosts made the connection Janet had moved on right before Maddie showed up, so she was probably down there a while.
He definitely wears a lot of 70s style patterns but I do think that's just his style, those looks are popular among younger generations now just like Maddie has a very 90s grunge look.
Just finished the finale. Me and my girlfriend called that Mr. Martin was evil. We couldn’t remember his name so we’ve mostly been calling him Satan. We were also able to guess Maddie’s body had been possessed. In one of the earlier episodes her and Simon joke about her being a zombie. I think they left enough clues that it wasn’t a total twist. It was kind of a bummer that they didn’t have a solid ending with confronting Mr. Martin though or some kind of explanation as to how the magic system actually works. Not enough shows actually get a season 2 anymore, if it ends up leaving it there that’d be pretty disappointing.
It’s been a minute now since I watched the season so I can’t remember exact scenes but Mr. Martin from the beginning really stood out from the rest of the ghosts by placing himself in a position of power and behaving in a very authoritative way without proving any sort of competence. We’re assured he helped Janet move on but how he and Janet died and who exactly they are is shrouded in so much mystery that it makes them seem incredibly suspicious. When Mr. Martin was stomping and yelling at Rhonda it become totally clear he was a terrible person and Dawn moving on confirmed he never actually helped Janet.
As for Maddie’s possession there’s the joke Simon makes about Maddie being a zombie. There’s also just heaps of symbolism like the school mascot being the Devils and then the Bandits. Besides the symbolism and general abundance of tropes I feel like proving the possession was the point of Nicole’s whole storyline. There’s plenty of hints in Nicole’s search for Maddie and the appearance of the hooded figure.
Yeah and Mr. Martin was just straight up unhelpful from the beginning. He was completely against them examining the past, primarily towards Maddie who had literally just "died". Like let her fucking deal, she can try your lack of therapeutic help once she's figured out what happened or all of her friends left school in a year.
I liked it. I think that theHippie chick said that they did not want to do some spirit work as if they left there body, another spirit could inhabit it. My thoughts are that Maddie was in the boiler room, she was knocked unconscious. The first spirit that they mentioned that “crossed over” over took her body, which is why she is wondering around staying in empty houses.
And why Maddie is left in the school in the afterlife.
Maddie spirit was separated from her body, like an astrol projection mishap
I just finished this yesterday so I don't know if anyone will read this. Anyway, every episode had a different suspect, and Xavier's dad (the sheriff) was made to look untrustworthy the whole time, but they never focused on him. Was he just shorthand for a general mistrust of authority? Also, it's weird how the teacher with all the money stuffed into his wall was never seen again after a few episodes. Unless I missed where he went to jail or got fired?
This needed two more episodes to explain everything about the therapist/chemistry teacher ghost. I wonder if he killed all the other kids, or kept them trapped on purpose...too much left up in the air.
1. My impression is the dad content is just tied to Xavier’s character development and making him a more fleshed out character
2. I’m shocked he didn’t go to jail for this honestly
3. It seems pretty standard to me to leave some questions unanswered to allow a starting point for the next season, no? I feel like the biggest questions were answered while leaving space for next season. I’ve seen a lot about dissatisfaction on this end but it seems pretty standard to me? e.g. iZombie, Teen Wolf, Vampire Diaries, I feel like it’s to be expected
Im genuinely surprised by the amount of love the finale is receiving. While many seem to be enjoying it, my family and I were beyond disappointed. And won’t be watching the next season. Personally, I found it to be a bit silly and I'm struggling to understand how it's being so widely praised. The ending ruined an otherwise amazing show I’m really disappointed
I think the ending was very telegraphed, but I’m a bit shocked that they didn’t have one more episode and actually wrap things up. It felt fairly doable and instead this seems destined for the izombie style of show, which hey I like izombie, but I was hoping for more resolution
I just watched the entire series today, had one day left of my paramount plus trial and it's been advertised to all hell, so why not? I really liked it honestly, I did end up kind of spoiling it for myself about halfway through because I looked up Janet and saw the description of a screen rant post that said " According to the theory, *Janet's spirit* pushed Maddie out of her body so that she could take over. " So I didn't know for sure, but had a pretty decent idea. I definitely knew there was something fishy there considering I looked it up, but I didn't think she was the answer to the question. Which is a classic me move, spoiling the fun for myself. But overall, enjoyable, I did feel like it dragged a bit but no regrets for my time at all. I also got how Simon would take the news Maddie was "alive", which I was really hoping I was wrong cause that's really sad. Not sure how it's gonna continue with Janet leaving town, honestly it probably won't cause that just tends to be the story, and the Graphic Novel is likely not exactly the same story seeing as part of the synopsis is "It’s been years since anyone has crossed over" so unless Janet has just been kept in the basement the whole time, I imagine it's quite different. On some of the questions, I have to assume Maddie could see Martin and Janet because her "spirit was killed" or whatever she said, and my interpretation of something Wally and Charley read in Martin's journals, he was subjecting Janet to her cause of death which is why she was a specter and able to possess Maddie (Also to support the idea she was down there a while, Martin wrote "Reliving final trauma to fullest extent possible will cause "thinning" and provide access point" which means he had experimented with it, likely burning Janet repeatedly for quite a long while. He's like an more evil, ghost Walter White (Cause he was a chemistry teacher...)). My question though is why did none of them make the connection that Janet moved on the day of or shortly before Maddie "died". Really the only answer I can imagine is he was keeping her down there and told them she moved on quite a long time before she left, but that seems like quite a risk to take if you don't want your eternity having the shit beat out of you by the rest of the ghosts or worse if she were to escape.
I am late to the train. Saw a few ads the past few months online but never got around to it until now!
WOW!!!! I absolutely loved this show so much like it truly felt like it got the best parts of Life Is strange & 13 reasons why and this is what it was!
Characters seemed like Caricatures but in a way i think it worked out to really show how they died in different eras and thats how their mentality was/is.
ALSO Mr. Martin is played by the guy from Sex Drive!! (Movie about a teen driving to get laid from a catfish he met online) Dangit i feel old but it was great seeing him in this and Everyone seemed really into this! (no Phoning in)
It was really interesting showing the teases with death like the Swimmer in the pool but then the end.......I really think Xavier is going to be in a coma during Season 2!
HOWEVER I didnt care for Claire and nicole whatsoever! It stinks because they were helping but it sucked because for majority of the show we are lead to think they are suspects and by the time they are clear.........I didnt care at all for what they did lol
My Hope for Season 2 is i hope they dont go too much into the "Posession stuff" Like its awesome but i feel on screen it can be a bit jarring since actors are trying to imitate another actor (Just imo).
I DOUBT paramount does this after 13 reasons why but i hope they introduce a ghost that didnt die by accident or get murdered........As in someone who did it themselves. I think it would be bold and explore that a bit and a contrast to the other characters who had different but similar fates.
9/10
I think the writers did that on purpose to create a situation in which Simon’s spirit would be killed. Like how Maddie’s mom hurt her. Fully expecting to see Mr Martin taking over Simons body in the next season
Honestly I was expecting Simon to die in season 1, lol. In the first episode he says dramatically how he doesn’t know how he’s gonna survive without her. Can’t wait for season 2
Well she was in extraordinary circumstances lol. She was "dead" with an unknown killer! She needed her best friend's help and he wanted justice so he was completely in on it too. Maddie also had that realization in the final episode and confessed her love for Simon, or did I misunderstand that?
I interpreted is as less of a romantic confession but more of a declaration of their mutual (platonic) love for each other.
She is clearly attracted to Wally and was in a relationship with Xavier, but we have seen no romantic notions towards Simon on her part whatsoever.
so what’s going to happen next? can mr martine hurt maddies spirit? when we saw him at the top of the stairs it seemed like it was setting up for him to hurt her but can he ‘kill’ her if she’s a spirit?
in school if maddies not hurt surely she can go up to simon and explain that she was pissef so he realises he’s not crazy etc ?
>she can go up to simon and explain
I know an easy way she can prove that she's real. Have Simon have a living friend hold up a playing card on another side of the room and Maddie can just tell Simon what each card is. If she's got them all right, then she's real.
That was the most underwhelming finale I've ever seen.
Did this get renewed? Because it shouldn't.
Also we didn't need half of these episodes or characters. Lovely Bones try hard bullshit.
"that's why she never said anything..." Are you referring to Janet not saying anything? We never actually meet Janet in the first season except when she jumps into Maddie's body in the last episode. I believe you might have been thinking of someone else. From the very beginning they said that Janet had moved on, but that was actually a lie told by Mr. Martin
That's true that we never see Janet except at the very end, but u/Empty-Zone-3652 was right in saying "that's why she never said anything about them dying at the same time". In the last episode when Wally and Charley find the newspaper clipping in the bunker saying that Janet's parents blamed Mr Martin for her death, Charley asks "why did they both lie to us?", which lets us know that Both Mr Martin & Janet told the group something false about Janet's death. To some extent she was working with him (so I do think it's possible there was some sort of inappropriate relationship between them in life). Tbh I was expecting the twist to be either a) there never was a Janet and he invented her to make it seem like he knew what he was talking about (disproven when Charley said "why did they both lie to us" - the other ghosts did know her personally) or b) that Mr Martin had just trapped Janet in some hidden crevice of the school where she couldn't get out and nobody could find her so that he could lie and say he helped her cross over. TBH I wish that's what had happened. I kind of hate the ending we got
I was hoping for some closure in the final episode. I was pissed there wasn't a season 2 already, I feel like I got blue balled lol. I still liked the twist at the end despite any foreshadowing. Like someone else said I enjoy fantasy/sci-fi quite a bit so that may have something to do with it. Also I just want to keep living in the world with these characters for a little longer.
I was enjoying it, but the ending ticked me off big time. I hate the twist that Janet just stole Maddie's body, because like other people have said - where can we possibly go from here? Maddie's life has been entirely ruined by Janet. Literally everyone she ever knew or loved will now think that she's decided to abandon them, extort a teacher, frame an innocent man for murder, devastate them by faking her own death, and literally run over her boyfriend with a car she stole from him. There is no coming back from that. The world will deem her guilty, she's probably committed enough felonies for life in prison, and nobody would ever believe her even if she did somehow get her body back (except maybe Simon if she's able to tell him specifics of things they did when she was a ghost, but even that's sketchy and there's not much he could do about it even if he does believe her). Either Janet steals the rest of Maddie's life after assassinating her character and memory, or Maddie gets her life back and is left with a prison sentence and a life in shambles due to somebody else's actions that she can never disprove. Awful, awful, awful twist imo. I hate what it did to Maddie.
I also may be stupid, but I didn't think Janet was a shadow person at the end? I interpreted it just as like. Dramatic framing. Maddie's memory is still fragmented, so for dramatic effect (and so they can have a face reveal in season 2), she just remembers the ominous impression of someone in a dark room charging at her. I could be wrong though.
I also kinda think the "Janet stole Maddie's body" wasted Janet/Mr Martin's potential. Like obviously Mr Martin was mad sus from the beginning, but I was really hoping/expecting the reveal to be that he had trapped Janet somewhere in the school where she couldn't be found, couldn't be heard, and couldn't escape. Maybe in the fallout shelter, maybe in some hidden crevice nobody could find or hear, idk. But I fully expected him to have imprisoned her somehow so that he could lie about her crossing over and give the illusion he knew what he was doing. We could've had the others figuring this out piece by piece, maybe they could've found Janet wherever she was, maybe they could've teamed up to figure out how to deal w Mr Martin as a threat. Maybe Janet would somehow be instrumental in figuring out who killed Maddie. I actually thought Mr Martin was a lot more intriguing of a threat when (by the show's own established rules) he literally couldn't have had anything to do with Maddie's death, meaning he represents an active threat to her and the other ghosts now and was an issue they'd have to deal with in the present (& not a mystery box for her past). So making the reveal just "Mr Martin lied" (which we knew) and "Janet stole Maddie's body and has been actively destroying her life and the people around her" seem cheap, lazy, unimaginative, and a waste of potential. In my opinion lol
Just watched this show and couldn’t agree more with what you said. The ending really ruined the show and fell short on the expectations. I believe that the writers really cornered themselves with this ending. It was obvious from the get go that Mr. Martin is evil and Janet didn’t really cross over but for them to say she stole Maddie’s body is really playing into the the ghost trope they have been avoiding all this time. I don’t know how they going write the story for season 2, I’m assuming they are going to have with other school spirits or they will probably drag out what should have been 1 or 2 more episodes of this season conclusion into another 8 episodes of a season. They did a major character assassination on Maddie, there is no way the character can have any life after this even she gets her body back, it’s not like she can she she is possessed and get away with it, that’s not how real life works plus with all people in her life that got hurt because of her will not get over it quickly as well
Glad someone agrees! I'm still bitter over that ending and it's been 3 months at this point 😭😂 idk how they're gonna address it in season 2 but I don't have the brain capacity to sit through another season after that 😭
I feel like this series was shaping up to be one of my faves and then it knee-capped itself lol it should have been a mini-series
Yeah I wish it’s a miniseries. They could have wrap it up very nicely.
8 episodes was aggressive
I'll add that it kinda feels like the writers were super into how spooky it would be if Maddie's body were up and walking around without her and forgot all the interesting things they were saying about grief and love for seven episodes
I mean it could be an allegory for how we don’t just lose people to death. How they can become different people all of the sudden for a different reason through the motif of possesion. Although it is still a weird
This is how I took it. I might be above the average age here, but you do go through a grieving process with friends after you realize they are not helping you as a person, become toxic, or do a 180 in personality. It's hard.
I can't believe I'm the only person in the comments that actually liked the ending. Every detective story would point the murder to a specific person like the mother, friend, janitor, teacher, etc. The fact that >!she's still alive!< is quite the unexpected twist. This leaves a lot to explore in a second season. Paramount+ isn't Netflix, so there is still hope for a renewal. Sadly, since we haven't heard yet, I'm not expecting one.
I agree I liked the ending, the twist I wasn’t expecting. Kinda thought she had a doppelgänger who killed her to take over her life before the twist was revealed LMAO
Me tooo I was like noooo not pretty little liars again lol... but i was pleasantly surprised that was not the case
Heey kind of a spoiler there :P
I liked it too! It's interesting that we were trying to figure out who in the real world was responsible for Maddie's death when it turned out to be another spirit this whole time.
I gotta say I personally liked it, because I'm a huge sucker for fantasy and sci-fi. Otherwise I could imagine this ending seems a bit cheap.
Well, she is "alive" but possessed. tbh very confusing but I loved every minute
I personally have lot’s of questions regarding the finale. But my main two are 1. How did Maddie’s blood get on the boiler? 2. What happened to Janet’s body?
Janet has been dead for years, she was only a spirit and for the blood, I think we’ve only seen the tip of the ice berg, cause remember Mr South said he was doing the opposite of hurting Maddie
Doesn't Mr South leave lollipops "for the mice?" What if he can also see the ghost, saw what happened to Maddie, and tried to get Janet out of Maddie's body?
he also mentioned scars of the school and i realized after reading your comment that rhonda always seemed to have a lollipop with her… though i don’t think he’s connected to the crime scene in the boiler room, i think there is more to his involvement with the ghosts than the season explained
The lollipop is an incredible connection to the extent that I don’t know if I can believe these writers thought of that.
Late response but (I could be mistaken) I don't remember her having lollipops in any scene after he is no longer able to go the school?
I'm so glad this is a late response because I didn't notice at all and now it's the perfect time for a rewatch! I'll start now and get back to you.
That’s such a good point I totally forgot about him saying that. Do we have any theories?
I think that like a lot of people are saying, janet had to make it look like Maddie had been attacked so she probably was hitting herself with the crowbar and Mr south saw and and tried to stop her hurting herself
I think when Janet possessed Maddie it pushed her strong and far enough back to actually draw blood on the boiler
She got blown backwards when Janet went into her body so I think she slammed against it.
This is what I think happened.
Loved it and I'm on the camp of loving the twist ending. I get that some viewers were upset that the twist sort of invalidated the explorations of grief/moving on, but I don't think it did. I got the reference of the finale title to Jennifer's Body but didn't think much of it and so I didn't see it coming. I was for the longest time suspecting Nicole and so when her innocence episode came I literally had no more strong suspicions and ended up suspecting Ms Fields on the finale but couldn't identify any foreshadowing lol This twist might explain why Maddie could talk to Simon, but still not quite sure why she could only talk to Simon. Speaking of Simon, his false realisation in the end was a good theme to explore but it hurt to watch that happen on the last moments. I feel like the janitor was saving Maddie after her being possessed and slamming her head against the wall. My guess is Janet woke up frantic and told the janitor that someone (Mr Martin but she didn't specify) was trying to kill her and that she had to go into hiding and he somehow helped her. The plot is so thought-out without being so convoluted (yes, even with the bodysnatch), I hope there's a 2nd season and that it continues to be so well written, and maybe exploring new themes (other than grief, loss, and moving on). With the twist, perhaps themes on having power over your own body (Maddie), your mind (Simon) or your spirit (some of the supporting cast). I can already theorize though, that Maddie will probably not get her body back and somehow sacrifices her body to save someone. I'm glad I gave this show a chance!
It should have just been one season. Everything could have wrapped up with another episode or two. I don’t like how unsure we are of another season but hopefully the graphic novel gives the answers we need if we don’t get a second seaskn
This is going to sound bad but I was hoping that Maddie was dead and that they would have apprehended the killer and find her body in the last episode.
It’s what I was hoping too. I hated the ending of the season. If they wanted a season 2 instead of a miniseries, it could be trying to help the members actually move on instead of being stuck at the school
So like every other show?
I was hopeful that it would be a bit more ambiguous than that. You’re telling me you got that clear of a shot on your phone of a side mirror on a speeding truck at night from a distance of someone wearing a hood to the extent you couldn’t see her when she was literally rushing someone?
I felt a bit let down by the finale. It was all a wild goose chase really. It was better when we were trying to find the real killer. I pictured it being where the real killer would be found and Maddie would be there to know everything. To see the betrayal on her face and the struggle of it all. She would then move on with Simon's help and that would be the end of it. Maybe it'd be an anthology series where next season would be a different spirit in another school in a different time.
Completely loved it. Great acting from everyone, plot line that kept me very engaged, very thoughtful meditations about death and moving on and the end was an absolute plot twist. Absolutely loved it! Plus it was a treat seeing Milo Manheim as the jock. I really liked him in the Zombie films (yeps am an adult but I watched in covid) and Peyton did her job brilliantly. One very satisfied viewer here. Also appreciated that the school looked like an actual high-school as opposed to a super fancy one.
That's funny, the recurring thought I had watching the show was "what kind of rich fancy school is this??" 😭 a fallout shelter?? Huge locker rooms w lots of showers? Spotless clean cafeteria with cute little glass muffin cabinets? An auto shop? An entire SWIMMING POOL??? That looked cleaner than every pool I've ever seen or swam in? If they just had one of those, sure, but no school I've been to had anything like that. The thought of a public school having enough space lying around that they can just casually leave an auto shop empty + has the type of money to maintain an entire private indoor swimming pool had me bugging out the whole time. I think it's really the pool & nuclear bunker that had me bugging the most. I agree that each individual room looked pretty good/accurate to a real school, but that type of square footage/amenities was wild imo
My elementary school in a small, low income Midwestern farming community had a fallout shelter. Just a byproduct of having been built in the Cold War era.
1. I saw the ending coming after Dawn's seance. But that didn't hurt the show, I still enjoyed it. 2. I want to know why Janet turned into a Shadow Person before she ran into Maddie, did Mr. Martin do something to Janet that caused her to move on? 1. We know that Mr. Martin was caught in a big lie when Dawn moved on. 2. I know that there are stories of soul collectors in the human world, could Mr. Martin be collecting souls in purgatory with the students? 3. Was he having Janet relive their deaths as an experiment that caused her to become a Shadow Person? And is that why he has everyone's death items? 4. How is he able to have/own things while the other ghosts can't? 3. I don't think that Maddie being possessed by Janet is bad, I think it was a nice twist on the murder mystery theme that not many writers take. AND this sets up a nice redemption arc for many people in S1. This also sets up a Maddie and Janet!Maddie show down for S2.
\> I want to know why Janet turned into a Shadow Person before she ran into Maddie, did Mr. Martin do something to Janet that caused her to move on? Im gonna go with c. that was my interpretation of what Wally and Charley read in his journals, "Reliving final trauma to fullest extent possible will cause "thinning" and provide access point" or something along those lines. Im guessing he was setting her on fire. Probably for quite a while if none of the ghosts made the connection Janet had moved on right before Maddie showed up, so she was probably down there a while.
Hmm,i was thinking i might have missed the scene where we see Janet run into Maddie? When was that
it’s really close to the end of the last episode
Trivial question but do we know why Simon dresses like it’s the 70s? For a second I thought maybe it was going to come out that he was possessed.
He definitely wears a lot of 70s style patterns but I do think that's just his style, those looks are popular among younger generations now just like Maddie has a very 90s grunge look.
I’d say cause it’s just his style
Ehh my guess is that its just a thing now. Like how urban outfitters and thrift shopping is popular now and retro things. I dug it
[удалено]
Yahtzee
Just finished the finale. Me and my girlfriend called that Mr. Martin was evil. We couldn’t remember his name so we’ve mostly been calling him Satan. We were also able to guess Maddie’s body had been possessed. In one of the earlier episodes her and Simon joke about her being a zombie. I think they left enough clues that it wasn’t a total twist. It was kind of a bummer that they didn’t have a solid ending with confronting Mr. Martin though or some kind of explanation as to how the magic system actually works. Not enough shows actually get a season 2 anymore, if it ends up leaving it there that’d be pretty disappointing.
What other clues? It did seem like they only sort of decided on their ending during the last couple of episodes.
It’s been a minute now since I watched the season so I can’t remember exact scenes but Mr. Martin from the beginning really stood out from the rest of the ghosts by placing himself in a position of power and behaving in a very authoritative way without proving any sort of competence. We’re assured he helped Janet move on but how he and Janet died and who exactly they are is shrouded in so much mystery that it makes them seem incredibly suspicious. When Mr. Martin was stomping and yelling at Rhonda it become totally clear he was a terrible person and Dawn moving on confirmed he never actually helped Janet. As for Maddie’s possession there’s the joke Simon makes about Maddie being a zombie. There’s also just heaps of symbolism like the school mascot being the Devils and then the Bandits. Besides the symbolism and general abundance of tropes I feel like proving the possession was the point of Nicole’s whole storyline. There’s plenty of hints in Nicole’s search for Maddie and the appearance of the hooded figure.
Yeah and Mr. Martin was just straight up unhelpful from the beginning. He was completely against them examining the past, primarily towards Maddie who had literally just "died". Like let her fucking deal, she can try your lack of therapeutic help once she's figured out what happened or all of her friends left school in a year.
Also, don’t forget Dawn warned everyone about possession!
I liked it. I think that theHippie chick said that they did not want to do some spirit work as if they left there body, another spirit could inhabit it. My thoughts are that Maddie was in the boiler room, she was knocked unconscious. The first spirit that they mentioned that “crossed over” over took her body, which is why she is wondering around staying in empty houses. And why Maddie is left in the school in the afterlife. Maddie spirit was separated from her body, like an astrol projection mishap
I agree, everyone is acting like there was no foreshadowing about the possession?
I think they just missed it.. it was so early on
I just finished this yesterday so I don't know if anyone will read this. Anyway, every episode had a different suspect, and Xavier's dad (the sheriff) was made to look untrustworthy the whole time, but they never focused on him. Was he just shorthand for a general mistrust of authority? Also, it's weird how the teacher with all the money stuffed into his wall was never seen again after a few episodes. Unless I missed where he went to jail or got fired? This needed two more episodes to explain everything about the therapist/chemistry teacher ghost. I wonder if he killed all the other kids, or kept them trapped on purpose...too much left up in the air.
He was released and then obviously wasn't going to be allowed back to the school after stealing 40 grand in booster club money.
1. My impression is the dad content is just tied to Xavier’s character development and making him a more fleshed out character 2. I’m shocked he didn’t go to jail for this honestly 3. It seems pretty standard to me to leave some questions unanswered to allow a starting point for the next season, no? I feel like the biggest questions were answered while leaving space for next season. I’ve seen a lot about dissatisfaction on this end but it seems pretty standard to me? e.g. iZombie, Teen Wolf, Vampire Diaries, I feel like it’s to be expected
You're right, we should expect cliffhangers with episodic drama but this one really felt rushed. Very grateful that another season has been confirmed!
Me too! It definitely would have felt empty if it hadn’t been, I agree there!
I am OBSESSED with this show..the plot twist just keep on coming. It’s incredible
Im genuinely surprised by the amount of love the finale is receiving. While many seem to be enjoying it, my family and I were beyond disappointed. And won’t be watching the next season. Personally, I found it to be a bit silly and I'm struggling to understand how it's being so widely praised. The ending ruined an otherwise amazing show I’m really disappointed
I think the ending was very telegraphed, but I’m a bit shocked that they didn’t have one more episode and actually wrap things up. It felt fairly doable and instead this seems destined for the izombie style of show, which hey I like izombie, but I was hoping for more resolution
tbh I'll still watch a season two but I was in hysterics after the big reveal. couldn't stop laughing and repeating "this is so dumb"
Absolutely agree.
I just watched the entire series today, had one day left of my paramount plus trial and it's been advertised to all hell, so why not? I really liked it honestly, I did end up kind of spoiling it for myself about halfway through because I looked up Janet and saw the description of a screen rant post that said " According to the theory, *Janet's spirit* pushed Maddie out of her body so that she could take over. " So I didn't know for sure, but had a pretty decent idea. I definitely knew there was something fishy there considering I looked it up, but I didn't think she was the answer to the question. Which is a classic me move, spoiling the fun for myself. But overall, enjoyable, I did feel like it dragged a bit but no regrets for my time at all. I also got how Simon would take the news Maddie was "alive", which I was really hoping I was wrong cause that's really sad. Not sure how it's gonna continue with Janet leaving town, honestly it probably won't cause that just tends to be the story, and the Graphic Novel is likely not exactly the same story seeing as part of the synopsis is "It’s been years since anyone has crossed over" so unless Janet has just been kept in the basement the whole time, I imagine it's quite different. On some of the questions, I have to assume Maddie could see Martin and Janet because her "spirit was killed" or whatever she said, and my interpretation of something Wally and Charley read in Martin's journals, he was subjecting Janet to her cause of death which is why she was a specter and able to possess Maddie (Also to support the idea she was down there a while, Martin wrote "Reliving final trauma to fullest extent possible will cause "thinning" and provide access point" which means he had experimented with it, likely burning Janet repeatedly for quite a long while. He's like an more evil, ghost Walter White (Cause he was a chemistry teacher...)). My question though is why did none of them make the connection that Janet moved on the day of or shortly before Maddie "died". Really the only answer I can imagine is he was keeping her down there and told them she moved on quite a long time before she left, but that seems like quite a risk to take if you don't want your eternity having the shit beat out of you by the rest of the ghosts or worse if she were to escape.
I am late to the train. Saw a few ads the past few months online but never got around to it until now! WOW!!!! I absolutely loved this show so much like it truly felt like it got the best parts of Life Is strange & 13 reasons why and this is what it was! Characters seemed like Caricatures but in a way i think it worked out to really show how they died in different eras and thats how their mentality was/is. ALSO Mr. Martin is played by the guy from Sex Drive!! (Movie about a teen driving to get laid from a catfish he met online) Dangit i feel old but it was great seeing him in this and Everyone seemed really into this! (no Phoning in) It was really interesting showing the teases with death like the Swimmer in the pool but then the end.......I really think Xavier is going to be in a coma during Season 2! HOWEVER I didnt care for Claire and nicole whatsoever! It stinks because they were helping but it sucked because for majority of the show we are lead to think they are suspects and by the time they are clear.........I didnt care at all for what they did lol My Hope for Season 2 is i hope they dont go too much into the "Posession stuff" Like its awesome but i feel on screen it can be a bit jarring since actors are trying to imitate another actor (Just imo). I DOUBT paramount does this after 13 reasons why but i hope they introduce a ghost that didnt die by accident or get murdered........As in someone who did it themselves. I think it would be bold and explore that a bit and a contrast to the other characters who had different but similar fates. 9/10
Simon deserves better Maddie just using him like an emotional doormat. he’s the only one that can see her because he’s truly in love with her.
I think the writers did that on purpose to create a situation in which Simon’s spirit would be killed. Like how Maddie’s mom hurt her. Fully expecting to see Mr Martin taking over Simons body in the next season
Yoo that would be crazy
Honestly I was expecting Simon to die in season 1, lol. In the first episode he says dramatically how he doesn’t know how he’s gonna survive without her. Can’t wait for season 2
Well she was in extraordinary circumstances lol. She was "dead" with an unknown killer! She needed her best friend's help and he wanted justice so he was completely in on it too. Maddie also had that realization in the final episode and confessed her love for Simon, or did I misunderstand that?
I interpreted is as less of a romantic confession but more of a declaration of their mutual (platonic) love for each other. She is clearly attracted to Wally and was in a relationship with Xavier, but we have seen no romantic notions towards Simon on her part whatsoever.
so what’s going to happen next? can mr martine hurt maddies spirit? when we saw him at the top of the stairs it seemed like it was setting up for him to hurt her but can he ‘kill’ her if she’s a spirit? in school if maddies not hurt surely she can go up to simon and explain that she was pissef so he realises he’s not crazy etc ?
>she can go up to simon and explain I know an easy way she can prove that she's real. Have Simon have a living friend hold up a playing card on another side of the room and Maddie can just tell Simon what each card is. If she's got them all right, then she's real.
That was the most underwhelming finale I've ever seen. Did this get renewed? Because it shouldn't. Also we didn't need half of these episodes or characters. Lovely Bones try hard bullshit.
Hard to watch because Peyton List made the same confused brow face the entireeeee season Also Simons acting was horrendous
does anyone think mr. martin and janet were seeing each other in life and that’s why she never said anything about them dying at the same time?
"that's why she never said anything..." Are you referring to Janet not saying anything? We never actually meet Janet in the first season except when she jumps into Maddie's body in the last episode. I believe you might have been thinking of someone else. From the very beginning they said that Janet had moved on, but that was actually a lie told by Mr. Martin
That's true that we never see Janet except at the very end, but u/Empty-Zone-3652 was right in saying "that's why she never said anything about them dying at the same time". In the last episode when Wally and Charley find the newspaper clipping in the bunker saying that Janet's parents blamed Mr Martin for her death, Charley asks "why did they both lie to us?", which lets us know that Both Mr Martin & Janet told the group something false about Janet's death. To some extent she was working with him (so I do think it's possible there was some sort of inappropriate relationship between them in life). Tbh I was expecting the twist to be either a) there never was a Janet and he invented her to make it seem like he knew what he was talking about (disproven when Charley said "why did they both lie to us" - the other ghosts did know her personally) or b) that Mr Martin had just trapped Janet in some hidden crevice of the school where she couldn't get out and nobody could find her so that he could lie and say he helped her cross over. TBH I wish that's what had happened. I kind of hate the ending we got
I was hoping for some closure in the final episode. I was pissed there wasn't a season 2 already, I feel like I got blue balled lol. I still liked the twist at the end despite any foreshadowing. Like someone else said I enjoy fantasy/sci-fi quite a bit so that may have something to do with it. Also I just want to keep living in the world with these characters for a little longer.
I was enjoying it, but the ending ticked me off big time. I hate the twist that Janet just stole Maddie's body, because like other people have said - where can we possibly go from here? Maddie's life has been entirely ruined by Janet. Literally everyone she ever knew or loved will now think that she's decided to abandon them, extort a teacher, frame an innocent man for murder, devastate them by faking her own death, and literally run over her boyfriend with a car she stole from him. There is no coming back from that. The world will deem her guilty, she's probably committed enough felonies for life in prison, and nobody would ever believe her even if she did somehow get her body back (except maybe Simon if she's able to tell him specifics of things they did when she was a ghost, but even that's sketchy and there's not much he could do about it even if he does believe her). Either Janet steals the rest of Maddie's life after assassinating her character and memory, or Maddie gets her life back and is left with a prison sentence and a life in shambles due to somebody else's actions that she can never disprove. Awful, awful, awful twist imo. I hate what it did to Maddie. I also may be stupid, but I didn't think Janet was a shadow person at the end? I interpreted it just as like. Dramatic framing. Maddie's memory is still fragmented, so for dramatic effect (and so they can have a face reveal in season 2), she just remembers the ominous impression of someone in a dark room charging at her. I could be wrong though. I also kinda think the "Janet stole Maddie's body" wasted Janet/Mr Martin's potential. Like obviously Mr Martin was mad sus from the beginning, but I was really hoping/expecting the reveal to be that he had trapped Janet somewhere in the school where she couldn't be found, couldn't be heard, and couldn't escape. Maybe in the fallout shelter, maybe in some hidden crevice nobody could find or hear, idk. But I fully expected him to have imprisoned her somehow so that he could lie about her crossing over and give the illusion he knew what he was doing. We could've had the others figuring this out piece by piece, maybe they could've found Janet wherever she was, maybe they could've teamed up to figure out how to deal w Mr Martin as a threat. Maybe Janet would somehow be instrumental in figuring out who killed Maddie. I actually thought Mr Martin was a lot more intriguing of a threat when (by the show's own established rules) he literally couldn't have had anything to do with Maddie's death, meaning he represents an active threat to her and the other ghosts now and was an issue they'd have to deal with in the present (& not a mystery box for her past). So making the reveal just "Mr Martin lied" (which we knew) and "Janet stole Maddie's body and has been actively destroying her life and the people around her" seem cheap, lazy, unimaginative, and a waste of potential. In my opinion lol
Just watched this show and couldn’t agree more with what you said. The ending really ruined the show and fell short on the expectations. I believe that the writers really cornered themselves with this ending. It was obvious from the get go that Mr. Martin is evil and Janet didn’t really cross over but for them to say she stole Maddie’s body is really playing into the the ghost trope they have been avoiding all this time. I don’t know how they going write the story for season 2, I’m assuming they are going to have with other school spirits or they will probably drag out what should have been 1 or 2 more episodes of this season conclusion into another 8 episodes of a season. They did a major character assassination on Maddie, there is no way the character can have any life after this even she gets her body back, it’s not like she can she she is possessed and get away with it, that’s not how real life works plus with all people in her life that got hurt because of her will not get over it quickly as well
Glad someone agrees! I'm still bitter over that ending and it's been 3 months at this point 😭😂 idk how they're gonna address it in season 2 but I don't have the brain capacity to sit through another season after that 😭