School Spirits Season 3 Episode 6 Review: Children of the Scorned

Maddie and her friends’ journeys keep taking darker and darker turns. School Spirits Season 3 Episode 6, “Children of the Scorned,” takes many confusing directions. However, it fits within this season’s darkness.

Season 3 may be the series’s most haunting and horror-filled outing. It works because the aura of the show has always been dark, but it has so many light moments that you sometimes forget the genre.

This season wants you to know that this Paramount+ show can do horror well. The overall arc mixes humanity with horror elements. Van Heidt is a terrifying villain, but moments like learning that White Eyes is really a grieving pastor give the series its heart.

It’s moments like seeing Maddie cope with returning from the afterlife to have to readjust to teenage life and high school that make School Spirits such a compelling show. This isn’t just a horror show or a teen drama.

It walks the line of both. It does them justice because it understands that monster stories are also just human tales. They’re stories of loss, grief, imbalanced power dynamics, lost love. and so much more.

This show has been doing the human side well and is now working on improving the horror side, because this has been a fun journey, but not one expected. Each episode feels darker than the first and makes us wonder how things can wrap up in a few episodes.

School Spirits Season 3 has dealt a lot with Maddie’s anxiety and trauma from existing in two different worlds. The last few episodes have been working to perfect the horror with this very dark storyline of dead children and a very evil man who snatches bodies.

The Van Heidt aspect of it has been fascinating. However, the verdict remains inconclusive on whether he’s a captivating, scary villain. There is just so much confusion so far with him.

We need more of his backstory, motives, and whether he’s some higher being of evil. Right now, too many questions and not enough answers. This makes Van Heidt more of a complicated piece of a puzzle.

A puzzle that we aren’t fully understanding just yet. Things will probably start to take full form in the next two episodes, but for now, more questions than answers.

Additionally, “Children of the Scorned” showcases how some of the human characters and their dynamics have been sacrificed to focus on the ghosts, new characters, and the mystery of the season.

Claire and Nicole have a very fun relationship this season. We enjoy their constant shading of Xavier. But they almost feel like an afterthought this season.

Occasionally, we see their interactions and contributions to the main plot of the season, but there is significantly less focus on them in favor of the ghosts, Simon, and Xavier. School Spirits has an entire cast of fascinating characters.

However, it may have been nicer to see some better development and storyline for Nicole and Claire in Season 3. Storylines have been started but not fully explored involving them. They aren’t even completely involved in the gang shenanigans.

They have to force themselves into the mystery by going against instructions. If Paramount+ renews School Spirits for  Season 4 (crossing fingers), we want to see more focus on Nicole and Claire’s lives. 

“Children of the Scorned” works because it highlights how School Spirits is becoming a great horror series, along with a great teen drama. However, the overall mystery remains a bit hard to follow.

Stray Thoughts

• School Spirits seems like this could be the last season or setting itself up for maybe one more outing. Mentioning them graduating soon seems telling.
• The twist with White Eyes being alive and not Van Heidt works well. You don’t see it coming.
• It’s funny how just growing a beard makes Kyle work as an older adult. The power of the beard.
• Maddie and Wally are such a cute couple, but the sexy car moments made me uncomfortable. Just felt a little too intimate and a bit awkward – as it should be between teens. That’s maybe why it works
• I still like the idea of Nicole and Xavier, but I could watch a whole show about her roasting him. It’s so funny.

What did you think of this episode of School Spirits? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and don’t forget to leave your own rating!

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School Spirits streams Wednesdays on Paramount+. 

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