The Ghost and Molly McGee

“The End”, Season 2 Episode 21

What do I know about this series going into it?

Never heard of it. The blurb on this episode says “Scratch remembers everything”, so I have that to look forward to.

Recap

We zoom in on a snowball that says “City of Brighton”, and past it the city of Brighton. This turns out to be the opening credits.

Molly and her family are being awarded a giant bronze turnip trophy by the mayor for her services to the city. The trophy is very heavy and the show runs with that gag for a while. A ghost tries to eat it out of Molly’s hands. I don’t yet know if anyone beside her can see the ghost.

Molly meets with two friends. They can see the ghost as well, as well as a second one that turns up.

Although everybody besides the ghosts is human, there is for some reason also a giant anthropormorphic turnip. This is never explained.

The two ghosts debate over what food they want to eat. Eventually they decide they want funnel cakes, so they stand in line – but it’s a very, very long line. One ghost, “Scratch”, says he’s got a solution to this: he goes to the front of the line, and each time someone buys a funnel cake, he possesses that person and immediately eats it. That way he gets as many funnel cakes as he wants with no waiting. The Blue Danube Waltz plays while we watch this for a while, and I begin to question the life choices that led me here.

Suddenly Scratch has a vision: he remembers something about his life for the first time.

Cut to later, at Molly’s house. The parents (who can also see Scratch) are freaked out because the kids have bought millions of funnel cakes, which he is eating one by one, and each time he gets some of his memories back. There’s a song number about how awesome his life was: scuba diving, traveling the world, going on adventures. But they still don’t know his name or how he died.

One of Molly’s friends finds Scratch’s ex-girlfriend, Adia, on the social media website Clik Clok. This takes a little mental adjustment, as until this moment I assumed Scratch died a long time ago, but he must have died very recently if his girlfriend is still alive (and looks to be in her early 30s). Molly videoconferences with Adia, who remembers Scratch as her best friend when they were kids; all of the adventures Scratch described were in their imaginations. When Adia actually grew up and began to travel the world, Scratch he refused to go with her on her adventures. Also, what are you talking about, Molly? Scratch isn’t dead.

“Libby” climbs into Molly’s attic room and says she’s figured it out. Scratch didn’t get his memory back through funnel cakes. He got them from one of the people that he possessed: Todd Mortenson. From the images of Todd, Molly can see that his eyes are empty. He has no soul, because Scratch was his soul.

Scratch realizes this is all true. He sings a song about how in life he never had the guts to do anything; she went on the adventures as they had planned when they were kids, but he was too chicken to go with her.

Have you maybe considered bringing the nachos with you?

Because he lived his life on autopilot, his soul just up and left his body out of depression and boredom. Scratch is a wraith, not a ghost. Scratch flees, dismayed.

Molly’s family split up and search the whole town for him, until Molly finally finds him sitting and looking forlornly at Todd’s house. She recommends he repossess his old body and this time actually go on the adventures, but he’s too scared. He’d rather eat snacks and play games. Molly reminds him that he’s become braver and more adventurous over the course of the series, and he has a chance to live his life right this time. But Scratch is also afraid that just as he forgot his life when he became a ghostwraith, he’ll forget his afterlife when he becomes human again – and hence also forget his friendship with Molly.

During this conversation there is a reference, not for the first time, to some sort of curse on Molly that gives her a perfect life and makes her always right. Or something.

Molly convinces Scratch and he rings the doorbell. Todd opens the door and Scratch repossesses him.

It’s the next morning. Todd/Scratch is walking down the street. The McGee family is, one by one, stopping him and trying to trigger his memory by mentioning aspects about his afterlife: a snack called Yim-Yums that has been mentioned a few times over the episode, and something called “the ghost council” that we saw briefly during the searching montage. But while he clearly retains the new outlook and lease on life, he doesn’t remember any of the events or facts they’re bringing up – nor does he remember them personally.

There’s a hint, though, that the memories are there, just buried deep down: he uses the word “enhappifying” and then wonders where he got it from (I’m guessing it’s a word that was used frequently in the series) and calls Molly “Moll” without her introducing herself. And his new outlook has paid dividends: he’s heading out of town on a bus to see the world.

During the closing credits we see postcards of Todd traveling the world – the last of which is him reuniting with Adia.

Are you telling me these two are the same age? I need the number of her dermatologist.

Unresolved questions

• Will Todd ever fully regain his memories and reconnect with Molly and her family?

• Can everyone see Scratch or just this group of family and friends? If the latter, why can they see him?

• What is the nature of Molly’s curse? Or is there no curse and I’m taking that too literally?

Ratings

Story: 3/10. A very simple plot. Scratch suddenly remembers something about his life, through which they finally figure out who he is and restore him to life. There were no subplots, and the timeline of Scratch’s life doesn’t really work when you think it through.

Writing: 6/10. A truly awful first third of the episode, elevated by the final two thirds. The moral being communicated here isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but they knew the story they wanted to tell and they told it very well. With a better setup – a much better setup – this episode could’ve been a little gem.

The second musical number, about how Scratch wasted his life, was very well done, as was the heartfelt conversation between him and Molly outside of Todd’s house. I liked that they went out of their way to justify the stakes, explicitly telling us that Scratch’s fear of losing his afterlife memory is not merely an excuse but based on precedent. And Molly then ties Scratch’s fear to the general lesson of Todd always being afraid to take risks in his life.

Another thing I noticed that deserves praise: while Todd is getting ready to leave town and meeting the McGees one by one, he noticeably does not mention that he’s seeking out Adia. This generates a tension that is very neatly resolved by the postcard at the end of the credits.

Production: 7/10. Nothing special about the animation – maybe even a little substandard. I’m giving this an extra point for the good musical number (the second one; the first was awful), and a further extra point for Scratch’s voice actor, who does a great job of adding vulnerability at exactly the right moments to add depth to the freewheeling, selfish, hedonistic ghost.

One more bit of praise: The “glitching videoconference” plot point was there to stop us learning Scratch’s real name and that he was still alive, but for consistency they made sure to have it glitch multiple times elsewhere in the conversation.

Characterization: 4/10. Almost all of these four points belong to Scratch, and all from after the first third of the episode. Nobody else stood out.

Clarity: 9/10. There were hints towards some kind of curse, and I never learned the rules regarding who can see ghosts and why. But besides those two mostly immaterial questions, there was nothing to be confused about.

Closure: 9/10. One of the two main characters leaves the city, possibly for good, having completed his character arc. Will Molly have further adventures with the remaining ghosts? Who knows? I don’t even know what adventures she had with this one. This was entirely a Scratch episode, and he got all the closure he could ever need.

Do I want to watch the series now?

As with my Hilda review, I have to answer this question more in the vein of: Will I introduce this show to my kids? And I’m not sure about the answer. The two halves of the episode were thoroughly unlike each other in quality. Is the rest of the series more like the first third, in which case heck no? Or is it more like the latter two-thirds, which demonstrated a maturity of output that elevated the entire experience?

My suspicion, based on the types of jokes told in the first third, is that those are more representative of what the show was like. So I’m not likely to tell my kids, “Hey, there’s this show you should watch” (which is something I did after my Hilda review; they’ve already finished the series and are watching it a second time).

But I can’t know for sure, and I’m always open to being proved wrong.