Who killed Maddie Nears from Peyton List in School Spirits? Her death explained

Major spoilers ahead before the first season of “School Spirits”.

After decades of TV murder mysteries involving teenage girls, it's almost impossible to come up with a story that hasn't been done before. But Paramount+'s “School Spirits” has done the impossible in its eight-episode first season, which follows high school student Maddie Nears (Peyton List) as she adjusts — or refuses to adjust — to the purgatory school she's been sent to in the afterlife. The show's supernatural premise already makes it unique, but the first season finale also ups the ante by revealing a big truth: Maddie never actually died.

Although this twist was foreshadowed in earlier episodes, the finale of “School Spirits” leaves viewers in awe. It provides enough information to make fans scream “WHAT?!” without going into the dark details about Maddie, a ghost named Janet, and the chemistry teacher turned therapy group leader, Mr. Martin. Below, we've deciphered the finale's most important moments and looked into the crystal ball to see what's next for this metaphysical teen crime series.

Doomed teenager Maddie Nears is played by Peyton Listwho has been acting on screen from an early age. You may know her from the movies “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” or Robert Pattinson's polarizing drama “Remember Me” (yes, This one) or from her teenage years on the Disney Channel shows “Jessie” and “Bunk'd.” She also starred in the Disney body-swap comedy “The Swap.”

List recently appeared in the popular Netflix series The Karate Kid sequel series Cobra Kai and voiced Barbara Gordon in Batman: Hush. Before “School Spirits,” she was a main cast member of another supernatural teen murder mystery series: Hulu's two-season series “Light as a Feather.”

“School Spirits” marks the first time List has been credited as a producer on a TV show she worked on. “I'm more excited than ever to take on new projects because as a producer on the show, I could feel confident that my opinion was heard,” she told the Associated Press last year.

Throughout the season, the teenagers of Split River, Wisconsin (both alive and dead) have been trying to find out who killed Maddie, but it turns out they were asking the wrong question. After her still-living friends come close to discovering the truth about what happened to Maddie, they end up getting too close for comfort to a pickup truck driven by none other than Madzia herself.

While Maddie is undoubtedly relieved to know that her mother, her boyfriend, or another significant other are not responsible for her death, the doppelgänger moment is undoubtedly an isolated experience for her. This also means that while her soul is in purgatory, someone else is using her body. It turns out that the spirit named Janet, whom Maddie's deceased classmates previously thought about, passed away and eventually possessed Maddie, throwing her out of her body and into the afterlife. In the season finale of “School Spirits,” Janet leaves town – with Maddie in her face.

Logistically, it's not entirely clear how Janet ended up in Maddie's body. However, it has to do with Mr. Martin (Josh Zuckerman), the leader of the Milk Toast group and former chemistry teacher who welcomed Maddie to the support group in Purgatory, where she spends most of Season 1. Mr. Martin previously told everyone that he died in a fire in the 1950s. , just like a girl named Janet. Evidence found in the finale suggests that he set the fire himself, and when he appears before Maddie before the end credits of the first season, he looks extremely hostile.

Mr. Martin also advised Janet, and at the last minute it was revealed how she took over Maddie's body. When Maddie was alive, after an argument with her mother, she came to the basement of her school and came across Janet and Mr. Martin arguing. “No, I don't want to,” Janet told the teacher as he urged her to ask for information about a recent experience. “We need to find out exactly what happened. What did you feel?” – he asks her. When Maddie enters and sees the two – Mr. Martin appearing to be human, Janet as just a black outline – the ghost appears scared and either intentionally bumps into Maddie's body or takes over her in an attempt to escape from the teacher. Either way, the effect is the same: when she makes contact with Maddie, she possesses her, apparently displacing Maddie's spirit.

While most of School Spirits kept viewers focused on the hunt for Maddie's killer and the stories of her new friends in the afterlife, there were certainly a few hints about how it all likely played out. At one point, Mr. Martin's therapeutic exercises appear to be a distraction technique intended to keep Maddie from gathering more information, and he also at one point warned Maddie not to perform memory extraction hypnosis. Maddie also had a suspiciously difficult time remembering the circumstances of her death; she finally remembered the truth only after seeing a photo of herself, safe and sound, in the real world.

Janet's perspective was also telegraphed one episode earlier, when a character named Dawn (RaeAnne Boon) resolved her earthly problems and passed on to the ultimate afterlife, leaving the school of purgatory behind. When this happened, she was surrounded by white light, but Mr. Martin points out at the beginning of episode 8 that Janet's transition didn't happen the same way. “There was nothing strange about the day Janet swam,” he told the group. “She was just there one minute and the next minute she was gone.” This isn't a satisfying answer for his stressed-out students, and while they didn't immediately put two and two together, it soon became clear that he was lying. Janet never went to any version of heaven or hell. Instead, she went back into the human world, through Maddie's body.

The Paramount+ series has been renewed for a second season two months after the first season ended. Deadline reporting that Paramount named the show the most-watched young adult program at the time of its broadcast. The same article reported that the series is expected to release its second film season in 2024, and ScreenRant claims that filming for the second season began in June.

According to TV Line, the entire cast of the show is returning for Season 2 (so don't worry too much about Xavier's head injury, I guess), and Mr. Martin Zuckerman's actor is getting a promotion to series regular. Four new teenage cast members are also on board: Zack Calderon (“The Wilds”) will play a character named Diego, and Miles Elliott (“The Amazing Spider-Man”) will be newcomer Yuri and non-binary actor Cihang Ma (“The Amazing Spider-Man” ). Departure) plays someone named Quinn. Jess Gabor, whom you may know from the American version of “Shameless”, or Starz's “Three Women” will give a human shape to the previously largely unseen spirit of Janet Hamilton.

There's no word yet on an exact return date for School Spirits, but when it does arrive, it will be streamed on Paramount+.