Van Heit Possesses Maddie’s Mom

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from the season finale of “School Spirits” now streaming on Paramount+.

The ghosts of Split River High finally found a way out. It just wasn’t the one they’d been waiting for.

The Season 3 finale of the Paramount+ supernatural drama ends not with the long-promised crossing over, but with a door to something stranger and scarier: a sprawling, mirror-riddled forest where, it turns out, Dawn (RaeAnne Boon) has been stranded since she “crossed over” in Season 1, and where Janet (Jess Garbor) has been since earlier this season. When Wally (Milo Manheim) finally goes through his scar door, Maddie (Peyton List) follows — and the two reunite in a place neither of them understands. The forest has a rule: look into any mirror and you get trapped. It’s a brutal new obstacle in what is becoming a very long journey.

Just when a breakthrough feels within reach, the ground shifts. As “School Spirits” executive producer Nate Trinrud puts it: “We never really thought that one epiphany led to you being fixed. The doors are always that — these characters have had a breakthrough, but it doesn’t mean the journey is over.” Ultimately, Maddie’s father, Mr. Anderson (Patrick Gilmore), pulls her and Simon (Kristian Ventura) out of the forest as Simon begins to forget himself. Maddie once again leaves Wally behind.

Back in Split River, things are no less chaotic. Kyle (Ari Dalbert) reclaims his body from Van Heit, who promptly jumps into the school superintendent and attempts to burn the campus to the ground. The ghosts stop it. When the smoke clears, the barrier that has kept them trapped on campus for decades is gone. Mr. Martin’s (Josh Zuckerman) whereabouts remain pointedly unresolved. And then the finale lands its final shock: Van Heit, having slipped out of the burning building, is now inside Maddie’s mother.

Season 4, should “School Spirits” be renewed, will find the Split River ghosts free to wander a world that has moved on without them — while Wally, Dawn, Janet and Mr. Anderson remain stuck in whatever that forest actually is. 

Below, executive producers Megan Trinrud, Nate Trinrud and Oliver Goldstick break down the season’s biggest swings, the mythology behind the scar doors and what lies ahead for our favorite “school spirits.”

Season 3 leans harder into horror than the first two seasons. How did that creative shift come about?

Oliver Goldstick: People kept asking the obvious question: Why have so many kids died on this campus? Is there something tainted or cursed about this place? The graphic novel always wanted to explore those origins, and Season 3 gave us the platform to go backward, and answer what happened here. We wanted audiences to take that journey alongside the ghosts, all of us going in scared and not knowing what we’d find.

Megan Trinrud: We’ve always played with a slight genre shift each season. Season 1 was true-crime murder mystery, Season 2 went sci-fi and supernatural. For Season 3 we thought, what about horror? We have ghosts, and we’ve always played them very grounded. The fun idea was: put them in the genre where ghosts typically belong, but make them the ones who are scared.

So many threads from Season 1 — Ralph, the history of Split River — pay off this season. Was that always mapped out?

Nate Trinrud: A lot of it was gestating since the beginning. Eight episodes is a specific kind of beast, especially with intricate, interwoven narratives. We’d often have ideas from the Season 1 writers’ room that never made it into the show — a thought, a feeling, a character. Kyle came up early in Season 2. So we’d laid groundwork in our minds for where elements could come into play.

Megan Trinrud: We knew we eventually wanted to get to this place where the big question is: What is wrong with Split River? We were planting smaller pieces of that as we went.

The scar doors don’t lead to crossing over — they lead to a forest. What is that place?

Megan Trinrud: We’ve always agreed we don’t want to define what the afterlife is. We don’t know, so we want to leave it open. But we felt there had to be levels to closure and finding peace. The next level is that the characters are just leveling up — confronted with a new challenge, a new kind of afterlife they have to figure out.

Nate Trinrud: These are big themes — facing trauma, healing grief. We never thought one epiphany meant you were fixed. Just because you solved one thing doesn’t mean the work is done. The doors are always that. The characters have had a breakthrough and gained access to move forward, but the journey isn’t over.

Oliver Goldstick: The whole season was about Maddie straddling two worlds. Now we’re pushing her into a third. Can she ever return? Is she going to be stuck? That’s a question mark we want hanging over everything going forward.

We learn Dawn has been in this forest since Season 1 — she never actually crossed over. Is this third world a step forward or backward for characters like her?

Oliver Goldstick: We saw her scar. We didn’t see her go through it. The purgatory question is all over this — is this a waiting station until you get to whatever is next? Or is this the place where you have to sort through everything that needed answering before you can have any peace at all? We haven’t clearly defined it. We just know that may be what’s behind the door.

Nate Trinrud: Clear answers sometimes just bring on more questions. That’s the fun of a mystery, but it’s also the fun of looking inward. It can be really frustrating, but it’s part of the journey.

We see this season that Wally never really wanted to leave, and Quinn and Rhonda find something meaningful together. Is crossing over still the ultimate goal for these characters?

Megan Trinrud: I think they’re asking themselves that. That’s what’s weighing on them.

Nate Trinrud: We saw with Janet and Wally that you have to choose to take the door — there’s a choice aspect, it doesn’t just magically happen. Because we all have to choose if we want to move forward, if we want to leave things behind. There are so many things about growth that require change. That’s the confrontation we’re really giving them: Do they want to stay where they are, or do they want to move forward?

Mr. Martin goes through a redemption arc this season and then vanishes entirely. Should audiences trust him? Where did he go?

Nate Trinrud: That’s up to the viewer to decide. We’re trying to write three-dimensional characters who aren’t perfect, who have failed, who are trying to find redemption. You can choose whether you forgive him. Quinn forgiving him early in the season was pretty profound. Other characters maybe haven’t gotten there yet. As for where he is — you’re going to have to tune in.

Oliver Goldstick: Megan and I always felt no one is a villain. This person has a past, and ultimately he’s looking for some kind of healing — he just went about it in a very misguided way.

Simon is stuck in the ghost world this season. How does Simon’s experience there compare to what Maddie went through, and what kind of person comes back out?

Megan Trinrud: There’s a similarity in that neither truly died for good. But they’re very different. Maddie’s body was out in the world while she was gone. Simon was in that space with his body, somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. His healing process coming out is going to look very different from hers. And she didn’t really have one — she just charged straight ahead. They have a lot in common, but they’re also just different people, and that’s going to show.

Nate Trinrud: Death changes you — whether it’s someone you know who passes or, in our story, if it’s you. Both Simon and White Eyes were deeply affected by loss, so much so they each kind of lost themselves trying to fix it. Going to the ghost world and coming back has already changed Maddie. Of course Simon will be changed. I’m really excited for people to see how.

Oliver Goldstick: There’s a moment when Mr. Anderson says to Maddie in Episode 7 that he doesn’t really talk about that period anymore, doesn’t fully understand it. The idea is most people wouldn’t understand it anyway, so what’s the point of bringing it up? Only a select few have been there. Simon now has that in common with Maddie.

The barrier keeping the ghosts on campus disappears in the finale. What does that freedom actually look like for them in a potential Season 4?

Megan Trinrud: What I find genuinely interesting is being stuck somewhere for so long and then being released into the world — only to realize how hard it is to exist in that huge space again. The world has changed. Split River as a school is a very tight little environment. What’s out there is very different, and I think it will be a real shock. Also, there’s something so real about imagining: if I could only talk to that person, I’d say everything. And then you’re presented with the opportunity and suddenly it’s the last thing you want to do.

Oliver Goldstick: They could be interacting with people they haven’t seen in 40 or 50 years. Charley alludes to a brother. We talked about Wally’s sister — an adult woman in her 50s, selling off his things. Those ideas didn’t make it into this season but they may go into the next.

Nate Trinrud: And it’s a real question of how that freedom could help them heal. All of them have histories waiting out there beyond those school borders.

Maddie and Wally reunite in the finale, but she has to leave him behind in the forest. Is there any version of a happy outcome for them?

Nate Trinrud: We can’t give you spoilers. What we can say is all of us believe that when people die, they don’t ever really leave you — whether that’s through memory, or the ways we keep people alive in our own ways, or literally. There’s a lot to navigating what it means to lose somebody and the lengths you’d go to have them back, whether that’s healthy or not. When is the right time to let go versus fight for it? I can’t tell you there’s a perfect answer. Because there isn’t.

Oliver Goldstick: In Season 1, this is someone Maddie would never have spoken to had they gone to high school together. They would have gotten through four years and never said a word to each other. The journey has been so unexpected — the most unlikely person becomes the love of your life. That’s what jumping into the unknown really means. You don’t know where it’s going to take you. Your heart has to be open.

The finale ends with Van Heit inside Maddie’s mother. Xavier’s arc this season also ties into Maddie’s relationship with her mom. How do those threads connect going forward?

Nate Trinrud: Season 1, we learned Maddie got into all of this because of her mother — a moment where her mother crushed her spirit. We’ve been tracking this idea: What does it mean to fight to save the spirit of someone who helped kill yours? For people who deal with a parent with addiction issues, that can be really confusing and painful. What does it mean to try and save someone who has hurt you, and how does that heal you — or not?

Megan Trinrud: It is relentless for Maddie. But she’s not alone anymore. Xavier, Claire, Nicole, the ghosts. She’s allowing herself to be open and vulnerable and say: I need you, I can’t do this alone. She’s surrounded by people who love her. Whatever gets thrown at her, she’s infinitely stronger going into it because of that.

Oliver Goldstick: Xavier is a really important stepping stone to all of that. If you are a child of an alcoholic, trust issues are genuinely difficult. The fact that Maddie could let Xavier back in slowly, over time — that will actually help her relationship with her mother, help her get to the honesty she reached with her in Episode 7 this season. It also just means people can change.

This interview has been edited and condensed.