‘School Spirits’ Cast Preview ‘Scary’ Third Season With ‘A Lot More Twists and Turns’ (Exclusive)

School Spirits is coming back for Season 3, and PopCulture.com chatted with the cast about what’s in store.

The first three episodes of Season 3 of the teen mystery drama premiere on Wednesday on Paramount+.

Set in the fictional town of Split River, Wisconsin, School Spirits follows Maddie (Peyton List), a teen girl stuck in the afterlife, investigating her own mysterious disappearance. Season 3 plunges Maddie and her friends “into a deeper, darker mystery as the veil between worlds grows dangerously thin, delivering twists that challenge everything they thought they knew.”

Season 2 ended with Maddie back in her own body, and Mr. Martin (Josh Zuckerman) revealing to the spirits what really happened with him and Janet (Jess Gabor) in the chemistry lab when they died. Ci Hang Ma, who plays Quinn, admitted that in Season 3, “the tone shifts a little bit” and that the audience “will get to see what Mr. Martin is warning everybody about and delve into that aspect of it.”

“I think we get to see a lot more there and maybe some backstory of these people, and I think that kind of gives a fuller picture of Mr. Martin and Janet,” Rhonda actress Sarah Yarkin added. “I think the writers do such an amazing job of kind of changing the information we get, and at what time, and how we think about someone, and having to kind of adjust that in the moment when you’re finding out this information. So I think we really get to see a lot more of Mr. Martin and kind of who he was. And I’m so excited to see that.”

Between diving deeper into Mr. Martin’s story and everyone else, as well as discovering more about Split River High, there will be “a lot more twists and turns, more than you probably expect,” said Zuckerman. “And things that were hinted at in Season 2, just kind of offhanded comments that I think that a lot of people had questions about, are answered in Season 3, or at least more light is shed on those things. It’s interesting because we have those questions as the actors as well in Season 2 and we didn’t know the answers until we start shooting 3. So, Mr. Martin is very involved, as is everyone, but specifically, Mr. Martin’s story is involved with answering those questions.”

“So, it’s really exciting,” he continued. “We were oohing and aahing and gasping, and our jaws were dropping as we were reading these scripts, and there was a lot of, ‘What? What? I need to talk to someone right now. I can’t. I don’t know.’ So we’re really excited to see people’s reactions.”

New cast member Jennifer Tilly, who plays Dr. Hunter-Price, praised creators Megan and Nate Trinrud, who also write the scripts. “They’re so authentic,” she said. “The writing is phenomenal. And what I love about it is it’s not predictable. You never know where it’s going. And they come up with things that I don’t think anybody in a million years would come up with. It’s very creepy and convoluted, and everything ties together, too. It’s so interesting. Every week when I get my script to read and say, ‘Oh my god, I never expected this.’”

“And it’s nice how these things happen in so many surprising ways, but they’re always tied to the emotional journeys of the characters,” Zuckerman echoed during a joint interview with Tilly. “None of it feels frivolous. It all feels shocking and yet at the same time, just right. And that’s kind of the genius of the writing.”

“I always say, like, in Titanic, nobody would have cared about that ship if it wasn’t for Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet,” added Tilly. “Their emotional connection. And that’s why I think people love this show. There’s crazy supernatural things going on, special effects, insidious evil, but the kids are so likable. They’re wonderful actors who care about everybody in the show. And I think that that’s the key to having a show that people return to again and again.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Martin is not the only character that fans will be learning more about, as Miles Elliot, who joined last season as teen spirit Yuri, said, “I think this is a season that a lot gets revealed about every single character in totally new ways. I think every character goes through a massive change. So I think it’s a lot different in a really, really, really cool way. It’s scary.”

Elliot is not the only one who thinks Season 3 is scary. Charley actor Nick Pugliese said the season is “a lot scarier.” He continued, “So at the end, we see Simon (Kristian Ventura) get stuck in the afterlife, and it’s kind of exploring how did that happen, what does that mean?”

Yarkin pointed out that a question asked in the trailer said, “Why did so many people die in the school?” and that will also be explored. Added Pugliese, “It kind of grows, and so it becomes more than just this little ghost group. It becomes larger than just the people that are originally involved, and it’s scary.”

Rainbow Wedell, who portrays Split River High’s head cheerleader Claire, revealed that Season 3 starts where Season 2 ended. “It’s very horror,” she said. “There’s a lot for every character; it’s dumped even more into them, and everyone is kinda on a separate journey trying to figure out the same thing. There’s a lot of side quests that happen. There’s a lot of new characters. It’s really fun.”

Since Season 2 ended on several cliffhangers, there will be a lot of questions that need to be answered, and it can be assumed that they all won’t be answered in the first few episodes. It’s hard to predict how Season 3 will go, but fans will just have to tune in on Wednesday with the first three episodes dropping on Paramount+, followed by weekly premieres.