#Episode analysis tgamm

[tgammsideblog]

Tgamm S1 Ep 19-B ¨All Night Plight¨ Episode analysis

Molly, Scratch and Libby decide to stay all night late to watch a comet that passes every 50 years, the problem is that staying awake all night for the three of them is more easy said than done...

¨All Night Plight¨ episode is a bit hard to talk about since it has some pretty interesting things going on for the main characters as well as the theme of the story. It is an episode that give quite a lot to talk about in the fandom when it first aired.

The story starts with a quickly explanation in Molly's class about how there is a comet that passes every 50 years for people to being able to see it at night. The teacher explains that one has to stay up very late (4:00 AM) to be able to see it pass. She ends the class and the students leave school.

Molly, Scratch and Libby talk about the comet on their way back home. Scratch has a hilarious moment he talks about how he made a man cry once because he kept moving his keys (with Dana Synder's comedic timing great as always). Then Libby comments how this could be their only opportunity to see the comet together with ¨who knows how our life is going to be in fifty year¨, followed by a funny scenario of seeing herself as some sort of fantasy knight from her fantasy novels.

This makes Molly become very anxious for a few moments, as she thinks about how ¨everything could change¨ and suddenly decides that she wants to stay up night to see the comet, with Libby and Scratch joining her idea. It's clear that Molly fears the idea of losing her friendship with Scratch and Libby over the course of the years or how it could change. So, she decides she wants to make the ¨perfect memory¨ with Libby and Scratch.

It's worth of noting that the song sequence that plays while the Mcgee family are making the preparations for the night is very adorable. It presents the characters as your typical live action comedy sitcom, with their names showing up on the screen. There is also the detail of different moments being potrayed as it was a photo album, which itself has little notes and drawings made by Molly that are both funny and cute.

Once the night comes and Libby arrives to the Mcgees' home, she comments to Molly how there is too much light pollution. After a funny exchange between Sharon and Pete about how drives the trio, Sharon takes them to the country to be able to see the night sky better. (In the buffalo field from Episode 4-A, out of all things).

Most of the rest of the episode involves Molly desperately trying to keep Libby and Scratch to stay still in one place while Scratch protest not having eaten anything for all the night and Libby switching between falling sleeping and pretending to be a knight fighting dragons because of her trying to stay up late.

It becomes so ridiculous to the point Libby starts charging up against the buffalos thinking they are dragons and Scratch using Molly's phone to order a pizza while being in the middle of the country.

In all this, the night get worse and worse as Molly realizes that they didn't brought the snaks with them and Libby becomes more lost in her sleepy knight fantasy. Molly keeps pushing Libby and Scratch to stay to watch the comet together despite they both are tired and hungry. She is so determined to have this ¨perfect memory¨ that she doesn't consider how her friends are making at the moment.

When the sky happens to get covered by clouds, Molly tries to ¨blow¨ the clouds away. Getting tired of the situation, Scratch asks to Molly why she is so desperate to see the comet. That's when Molly explains that she is afraid of what is going to happen to the three of them over the course of the years and she is afraid of losing them as friends or their relationship changing. This shows that even after months have passed since they moved in to Brighton, Molly still has these abandonment issues of having to leave his friends behind for moving from house to house a lot before the events of the show. She is afraid that growing up she is going to lose Libby and Scratch as friends, which is probably the closest she has had to an actual long stable friendship.

I think the context of this episode is important as well since it takes place after the events of ¨Home is Where the Haunt is¨: The Mcgees almost lost their ¨forever home¨ in Brighton and Molly knows the curse that bonded her with Scratch was broken during the course of that problem. I think these two things brought these personal issues to Molly back, making her realize that not all things are permanent.

Noticing how important seeing the comet is to Molly, Scratch ¨eats¨ both Molly and Libby, shapeshifts into a hot air balloon and takes them above the clouds to see the night sky better. This moment is one of the most beautiful scenes from the series, both visually and emotionally. The animation of the comet passing by is amazing and the score is wonderful. It's worth of mentioning that Scratch cries tears of joy when he watches the comet pass by. It's a great example of how much the character has evolved since the start of the season.

Scratch moves back to the ground, releasing Molly and Libby. Molly thanks Scratch and Libby for staying all the night with her. They decide to go back to Mcgees home until they realize that they forgot about the angry buffalos, making the episode end.

In conclusion: ¨All Night Plight¨ is a great episode that shows how far the friendship between Molly, Scratch and Libby has grew over the course of the season. It acts as a celebration of their relationship so far, letting all them have both funny and emotional moments in the episode. It's also a good exploration of a side of Molly that hasn't been brought up for quite a while, which is her abandonment issues and hear fear of losing her freinds again. It is hearbreaking to see her breaking down while explaining to Scratch why she wants to make a ¨forever memory¨. In all, it is a beautiful episode and it isn't hard to see why it is considered one of the best from this season.

[kingoftheu]

I’ve been sold on Andrea ever since she declared herself Molly’s best friend. Because like…that’s actually really sad.

Since then, Molly’s been warming to her, but before that they weren’t friends, let alone BFFs. Molly could barely stand her and they hardly ever hung out.

And that’s what Andrea sees as her closest friendship? It’s heartbreaking.

[the-gayest-show]

Sherlock and Co has no right to be this funny

There's this funny scene in I think The Gloria Scott Pt2 where Sherlock and John are discussing some kind of phrase and John explains it something like this (bare with me I don't have this thing memorized)

"[...] For comedic effect."

"But nobody laughed."

LIKE I WAS GONNA BREAK DOWN LAUGHIBG IN THE FUCKJN TTC YOU CANT DO THIS TO ME SHERLOCK

I was listening to this bc I had to take a bus down for a field trip we were going on but I heard this and a laugh just escaped me oh my God.

Also you can never get enough of the existentialism in Gloria Scott Pt2 like bro. They had me thinking about memory and identity and I'm like 🧍���♂️bc I'm walking to the place we're going for the trip (it was a film festival btw) and I hear this and I'm like. What. What the fuck.

Also nothing beats hearing Sherlock Holmes describe exactly how you see the world but in words. Nothing will ever top the validation from canonically autistic Sherlock

-

In other news, Sherlock and Co remains to be the ONLY podcast I can actively say I like (ever), I'm not a podcast guy and baaaaarely an audiobook person but man. Nothing beats the atmosphere of that podcast and the editing is tip notch. You know it's a good one when *dramatic violin*

The theme song is so catchy hekejejdjdkdkkdkr

Uhhh yeah pls go listen to it and or read the transcripts bc it makes for a good accompaniment but yall. This podcast is FIRE. Sherlock Holmes is great but I've genuinely never related to a character more wtf

Anyways, falling into that fixation phase again!

[the5n00k]

An observation about TGAMM The End

Big big spoilers ahead, click away if you aren't caught up

This is also my first NEGATIVE TGAMM analysis post! Wowie! So if you don't want to see me bitch, also click off now

The End and how Molly McGee's character was disrespected

The End is. An episode. I have many MANY thoughts about it but it would be far too long to put in one post so I'm going to explore one of my more reoccurring opinions. This episode recontextualized a lot of things but I'm going to talk about how it recontextualized Molly as a character. Most importantly as a MAIN character. A TITLE character. A character with her own past and personality and feelings. All of which this episode completely stomped all over, handed her the check, and said "figure it out"

I want to apologize to my friend who called this so SO much earlier into the series and that he had to listen to me watch this show on lethal amounts of copium. You were right but I knew neither of us wanted you to be.

Now let's get into the meat of it, shall we?

All throughout season 1, Molly's history and relationship with the concept of friends is always treated with complete sincerity and the emotional pause it needs to sink in with the audience that she's been through it. Moving away and leaving friends is why she put so much importance on the "forever home" in the first place because she's had to leave so many people she loved. She had a rocky beginning with Scratch during the early season but quickly became on equal footing with him as they began to understand each other and their boundaries. Because she genuinely cares about him. Similarly, season 2 explores the boundaries of their friendship and shows Scratch more willing to participate in whatever Molly is doing, even begging sometimes to be included. And Molly is very patient and kind with him all throughout trying to help him regain memories of his past. And Scratch actually reciprocated a few times like helping her learn Thai and working with Libby to set her up with Ollie. They're the closest they've ever been and something I can confidently call true best friends, possibly the closest and healthiest friendship I've seen portrayed in media. Season 2 showcases how far either of them are willing to go to help each other.

Then The End happened.

Molly is the same understanding and supportive friend as she had been all season, almost to a fault. She encourages scratch to go back to his life, knowing the risks that come with it. Why did there need to be the risk of forgetting her when his spirit didn't immediately forget his living life? Don't know. Something to do with an unreleased episode although I doubt the rest of season 3 would have sweetened my opinion of this episode. Only she knew he was about to do this, she didn't talk to any of his other friends or family before he went out to Todd's house. They only found out after the fact and the next morning is when he left. None of them had any time to process that they just lost a family member, especially not Molly.

The scene where he's talking to her on the bench breaks my heart. Knowing your friend is no longer there and is replaced with this stranger. So much of this episode would have been fixed to just let him keep his memories. Considering how hard it was to pull his living memories out of his spirit, it's very likely that even the small fragments of her he remembers will slowly fade away. She had to do the one thing she never wanted to do again and repeat the same pain that's plagued her for the entire series. And it sucks! Why doesn't she get a happy ending? Hell, I'm not even convinced this was a "happy ending" for scratch since he can't remember any of the people he just spent the last two years with.

The biggest slap to the face is when Libby, Geoff, and the McGees come up behind Molly and just act like all of this is fine? They're treating scratch like this wild animal that deserved to be released into the wild because he could never fit in with society when he was PERFECTLY HAPPY with the McGees. He proudly displayed to the entire ghost world that he was an "honorary McGee" and told a ghost hunter to his face that him and Molly would do anything for each other despite their differences. Was all of that completely pointless? Because it sure feels that way. He had this entire new "life" he just completely abandoned because oh I guess I'm not really dead. Guess I better go reconnect with my childhood friend I haven't seen in person or had any meaningful conversations with in decades!!! See ya, chumps, hope you weren't attached to me or anything!

It's so disrespectful to the audience's investment in Molly and Scratch's friendship, the themes of friendship overcoming all odds and lasting forever, and Molly as a character. And to a lesser degree, it's even disrespectful to Scratch since most of the season he spent brooding over the fact that he didn't remember his past! Now he's forgotten a large portion of his "life" all over again. Now he's going to have to live with this nagging itch at the back of his mind that he's forgetting something until he manages to completely repress it too. And to rub salt in the wound, the credits don't have near sight nor mention of Molly McGee outside of a painted portrait of her and (spirit) scratch. All this does is tell me a LONG time has passed and neither of them have managed to successfully contact each other. The dream team is gone, this is a story about a girl and a ghost and none of it meant anything.

"he'll remember when he dies again!" Where does it say that

"he didn't forget, he said Moll! That means something!" The longer he spends away from the McGees and Brighton, the more likely he is to completely forget them altogether. The vague memories will eventually fade away and every "forever memory" will be worthless.

"it doesn't matter, this is Scratch's story" then why isn't it called 'scratch and the human girl'? Or 'the scratch show'? Why is Molly a title character if she's nothing but a plot device for his character development.

"Molly had to learn how to say goodbye." No she didn't. She's been doing that her entire life. She's pretty well aware of how to say goodbye. Making her relive 13 years of trauma from the other side of the vehicle doors is not a useful life skill. Pain is not necessary to grow up.

I don't care what the excuse is. This was a terrible ending for both characters and no amount of "he's happy now!" coping from both the fans and the writers is going to get me to see this any other way. If you enjoy the episode, great! I'm happy for you, there's a lot to love in the music and voice acting and breathtaking animation. But none of that could save me from this abysmal attempt at a series finale. I was so viscerally disgusting by this as a finale that I spent a good two days completely nauseous thinking about it. What a disaster. The sad part is I like the story potential! Him reuniting with Adia is what I've wanted for him all season so he could get closure. Molly and Scratch having to say goodbye is heartbreaking but understandable, a lot of shows nowadays end that way and I half expected it. But him completely forgetting the girl he owes his new lease on life to? My gosh it's just a deal breaker. It is such a cruel end for these characters and I cannot wrap my head around why they thought it was a good idea outside of cheap angst.

I wanted to like this episode and I still do. But they just did so much wrong when one thing could change and it would have completely flipped my opinion on the episode and series in general. But what do I know, I'm just a negative nancy.

Anyway idk how to end this off, justice for Molly McGee, Scratch deserved to be called Scratch McGee, kill Todd Mortenson, peace out

[striderthefrog]

Scratch McGee and repressed trauma.

First off I’d like to preface this by saying I am not an expert on mental health this is an attempted analysis of a cartoon character through the lense of mental health for the purpose of entertainment.

TW: Discussion of mental health/ptsd

Scratch has been one of the most complex characters in tgamm. He starts off as a grumpy hermit, but as the series progresses we begin to see that he has a softer side. However he is trying to escape a traumatic past and is scared of forming attachments.

In scaring is caring it is revealed that Scratches worst fear is losing Molly. Although they’ve only known each other for a few months these two have become the closest of friends and we see that Scratch is deeply afraid of losing her even though he shouldn’t have to be worried about that.

Then we get to season two, this is when we really start to see where the possible trauma originated. In A soda to remember we see Scratch and Molly try to get a soda he had as a kid to help him remember his past. This could be seen as a trigger for his trauma, something related to it that starts to bring up those feelings/memories.

Scratch confesses to Molly that he is scared of his past, he doesn’t know if he wants to remember, part of him wants to forget it for good. He ends up deciding that not knowing is the worse end so he takes a sip and we get a peak into his childhood.

Here we see that Scratch had a friend that moved away. We hear a sad version of the friendship motif which has been used with Molly and Scratch’s bonding moments. Scratch looks up from the soda directly at the screen showing the most raw emotion we have seen of him yet. He does not tell Molly about this for a while.

Finally we get to All in the mind, an entire episode delving into Scratches past memories and trauma. The form of these memories coming back takes the form of bubbles fizzing up. A fitting way to show that he can’t hide from his trauma forever. Now Scratch seems to be depicted with some form of ptsd/cptsd albeit a more simplified cartoon version. These can be triggered by very small things sometimes seemingly unrelated however the brain usually has come to associate some things with the traumatic memories causing it to trigger.

It seems possible due to the correlation with Adia that being around Molly is causing Scratch to remember things and face his repressed trauma. The better he gets to know her the more he feels a connection similar to his one with Adia.

Once we dive into Scratches mind we see many things such as childish cardboard ship in a bottle of the same soda. And we also see many food related things. Including a taco “of his past.” In his mind we see a brief scene where Scratch is in a chair across from a monkey very clearly like he would a therapist. Scratch clearly has something mentally going on.

Later in the episode Scratch is finally able to stop running for a bit, he talks through it with Molly and although still scared he’s going to try and confront his past. We get an even deeper look into his mind and see him and Adia discussing their plans to travel the world, while in a cardboard boat.

We get another look at the scene of Adia moving away but this time we see scratch look down at his hands where the soda is.

Scratch has begun to dig up his past trauma although it seems we have yet to see the source. At the end of the episode we see a massive bubble come up with Adias face in it distorting the end music and the logo.

Scratch still has his biggest traumatic memories to deal with.

It’s been confirmed that Scratch would have been about 9-10 in the flashback scene we got. When someone goes through trauma they often will act in a way reminiscent of the earliest time they had before said trauma. We consistently see Scratch acting like a child, throwing fits, and talking about things like a 9-10 year old would.

All this seems to point to Scratch having un processed trauma and memories. The show seems to be leading towards the final straw being something happening to Molly as Scratches biggest fear is losing her, like he seems to have lost Adia.

On that note I’d just like to add that trauma takes many forms, and many different things can lead to childhood trauma. One persons will not be like someone else’s necessarily and traumatic experiences happen much easier when one is a child as the brain is still forming. Please feel free to critique anything I’ve said. Hope this has been interesting.

[kcuf-ad]

Character Analysis: Oliver "Ollie" Chen

In the New Season of The Ghost and Molly McGee, we get New story plots like Scratch Being the New chairman and his backstory, but the one I am more interested is in The Chens subplot, and the oldest and only son, Oliver Ollie Chen.

He is a Ghost Hunter who was raised in an enviroment of hating Ghosts and hunting them, but he is also known for being the love interest of Molly in the second Season who is a Ghost lover.

In this I Will talk about my thoughts on Oliver, and why he is my favourite character in TGAMM.

It's important to mention that Oliver's first appearences through leaks and sneak Peaks, and he wasn't. ... liked to say the least because it caused one issue. It was a hetero ship, which in Disney nowadays is pretty controversial to say the least, and the Fact that Libby and/or Andrea weren't the ones that are going to be love interests for Molly caused some dramas, but thankfully, it calmed down over time and even now.

He and his family moved in Brighton, and they are immediatelly greeted by the Mcgees, which they found were similair, but the ones that hit it off the most was Ollie and Molly, as they found out that they have similair interests to enhappify, or in Ollie's case, engoodify the world, which made them have feelings for each other quickly.

But it was then revealed, that his family are a family that hunt ghosts which shocked Molly, understandably so, as it was the same day as Scratch became the Chairman and the Frightmares attacked, so after eating their meals, they left the House and thought about still Being friends with the Chens, but keeping Scratch's identity a secret.

It was interesting to see the Chens, as they are a near perfect match, but that one flaw makes the Season more interesting than the previous one. His story with Molly and their scenes together were honestly pretty cute to see, and made several fans, myself included interested in the Season. So far, Ollie is a decent character, but he feels a bit too same Like Molly

Then we get to see the next episode where he enters the library, as he felt a powerful ghost presence with his gadgets, but thanks to Molly's brilliant idea of mimicking Ollie's detektor, they are outside as he felt guilty for not keeping Brighton safe from Ghosts, and then we get the idea that was made up from his dad, the idea he was raised by, the idea that all Ghosts are evil, which makes Ollie hate Ghosts, even for a while.

We then get the reason why he hates ghosts, his dad's trauma. Now, you May think that May be silly that all one scare makes him hate ghosts, but what if it is the same as how Ollie reacted during the Frightmare Episode, at how he was taking deep breaths, shivering, quivering and you can hear and see his Fear. Is that how Ruben was scared by the ghost?

Next we get the episode that made me love Ollie, I wanna Dance with Some-Ollie. It starts off with them organizing the school Dance with Scratch not Being pleased at all, as Molly tries her best to assure him. Then we get him asking out her on the school dance, Like a date, it wasn't a date as Molly stated, but he was still happy with the party with her.

During the Dance, we have some cute montages of Scratch trying his best to make this 'date' go down the drain, but instead he makes it worse, a lot worse to the point where people started to ship them "Mollie". Molly described it as not a date, which Ollie was saddened by thar Fact, but he still had to confirm as well as he wanted to respect her wishes. They were then crown Lemming Royality which caused an argument between Molly and Scratch, a one that was delivered spectaculary as Molly decided to continue the Dance as Scratch then left the school, but was quickly caught by one of June's inventions. Then we get them dancing, a slow Dance, as Molly told Ollie that if this Dance was a date, that she wouldn't mind, which we then get this reaction.

Look how happy and excited he was, how joyful he is that the girl he cares for, wouldn't mind having a date with him, which Got them looking at each other, with stara in their eyes, but then, Molly heard some beeping, which was revealed to be one of June's inventions to catch ghosts which made Molly dash out of there, and free him.

And then we get the scene that Is my favourite in all of TGAMM, the scene where Molly tells Scratch That they were finished, which broke his heart, and waited for his mom to Pick him up and what does he do? He doesn't tell her the truth of Scratch, in a situation where he could've done it, but he decided not to, he told her that she is walking with a friend. Even though he felt heartbroken by Molly, saddened by those words and even saw her playing with Scratch, he still decided not to tell her about Scratch, showing that he still cares about Molly.

Now we get to my favourite TGAMM episode, Frightmare on Main Street, where it shows them wearing the same costume as each other, which was funny to see as we see Ollie with a Journal where he wants to Save Molly from a Curse from Scratch.

I want to point out that he is doing this to Save Molly from his Curse, not because of him they can't date each other. His priority were proven to her safety over his jealousy.

Then we get to the scene where he goes inside the shelter, finds out about ghosts Like Jeff, Geoff, the Ghost Council, and the scenes where they terrify him. Not Like a BOO! ,no more Like genuine feer and distress when he was near them as they were scarring him, as he even went down the ground, shaking from fear as he tries to get Molly out of there, which then the Frightmares showed up and attacked the place.

As soon as Scratch was near a portal, Ollie caught him in some goo as he wanted to know if he cursed her mind, tried to harm her in any way, or anything. He then hears that they are best friends, as he doesn't believe it, but deep inside od him he thinks that Might be the case because he saved him from his sister from her gun.

And then, the scene where he was told off that he doesn't know anything about ghosts, and you can see it in his face that all of the thoughts going through his mind. The way he was raised, the thoughts of all Ghosts not Being evil, his Outlook on the Ghosts were wrong.

He then, as soon as he heard that Scratch was the Chairman, and from a plea from Molly, he decides to do one thing...

...free Scratch from the goo, which Molly so glad to do it as she hugs Scratch immediatelly after, and the Ghost Friends were formed.

They began taking care of the good Ghosts, while Scratch dealt with the Frightmares, as while Ollie not fully convinced at the thought of not all of them Being evil, he was still able to be around them, and even slightly, Might even like Scratch. As the episode, with him not Being happy by his father's declaration which Got the attention of his sister.

Ollie, overall, is an interesting character to watch with amazing character development, and I hope to see more of him.

[bennydwight]

Snook is the best. I’m so glad she gave you the episodes to watch because I need to say this lol.

This might be a mouthful, but this episode hit me more than other episodes, so enjoy my rambling lol:

A Soda to Remember was exactly the kick in the teeth this show needed. What a fun and very heartfelt way to set a new storyline in motion. I had problems with season 1 and was worried season 2 would have similar problems, but man, I was wrong. I loved these first few episodes and the ending of A Soda to Remember certified that. Easily the most heartfelt moment of TGAMM so far imo and just thinking about the possiblities, just thinking about after scratching the surface (heheheheee shaddup) moves me to tears. Gravity Falls had Stan’s brother, DuckTales had Della, Amphibia had **rolls out list**, The Owl House had Flapjack, TGAMM….it has a soda bottle. What amazing writing. Rambling over lol.

You are so right anon, Snook is the best <3 And because I'm shameless, I'm plugging their blog @the5n00k. Go look at their soul-shattering take on Corrupted!Scratch and weep with me!

I always enjoy rambling! I agree, A Soda to Remember was an extremely well-done episode not only in terms of writing and character development, but also the pacing. You could tell the episode was winding to a close when Sharon caught Molly talking about the heist, you could tell there wasn't much time left. It could've been so easy to end the episode there, to give the fans a taste of how Scratch felt about his own life and then only bring it up again in the penultimate episodes a la the Misery Meter in season 1.

But that last minute. That last minute of the episode blossomed into a complete paradigm shift. Somehow, they managed to cram enough potent emotion into a single minute of animation to spawn theories and analysis essays and so so many pieces of wonderful art/fic. Something has transformed in the baseline of the show with this revelation, the pool has deepened in one dizzying vacuum that no one could have feasibly predicted. In episode three.

Damn, the writers astound me with every turn. A minute!! And there isn't even much dialogue!!!

(Also, it's high time to shout out the musical team too, that little piano riff as the closing title comes up gets me every friggin time)

[castorochiaro]

@ 16:25 Dunno if you ever cared for his stuff, but Doug Walker started TGAMM and he is enjoying it! He praises the Hanukkah episode in particular which is one of the show’s best episodes! Looking forward to his Disneycember on it!

https://www.youtube.com/live/cIwWoLD8JWQ?si=RNF5VMuSDG7g9ab0

aw man i really haven't kept up with his stuff lately since the nostalgia critic after its revival just didn't work for me as well anymore (plus the "change the channel" controversy kinda soured me on channel awesome as a whole), but i always enjoyed his analysis of things. you can tell he's very passionate about film and loves to describe why things work or don't work for him.

i'll be curious what his analysis of the show will be, if he decides to do so!

[hughjidiot]

I really thought I wasn't gonna like Andrea at first, but now she's growing on me.

The bar for redemption is SO LOW in certain shows, it's unbelievable. They're making it clear that Andrea's not gonna be like that.

I legit thought she was gonna be one of those angry, spiteful, antagonistic characters we've seen in certain other modern day cartoons that don't show an actual caring side until SEASONS later.

It also that helps that whenever she does something bad, Karma (Scratch) is there to put an end to that.

The Christmas episode actually shows Andrea getting what she wants as a good thing for once and that's awesome!

Like I said way back in that character analysis post I made after TGAMM premiered, Andrea stuck out to me as being different than the usual "mean girl" trope.

Usually in the type of plot seen in First Day Frights, the popular girl would be snide and mean to the new girl right off the bat so that the new kid knows their place. But no, Andrea was perfectly polite and friendly (if self-centered) and only got mean after a perceived slight against her. Then in Hooray for Mollywood, while she was being a jerk in basically taking over every aspect of Molly's movie, her attitude came off being born out of obliviousness towards how her actions were effecting others, as opposed to the genuine malice most Mean Girl characters have.

And then of course there was the big moment in Saving Christmas where we finally got to see a genuine softer side to Andrea. She wanted to be Snowflake Queen not to feed her own ego or because it was good for her social media feeds (though both of those were likely a small factor) but because her mother was Snowflake Queen before her and Andrea wanted to follow in her footsteps.

I'll be very much looking forward to seeing more of Andrea as the show goes on and seeing more depth to her character.

[tgammsideblog]

Scratch and Leadership

The season 2 episode premiere ¨The New Paranormal¨ explores the consequences of Season 1 finale ¨The Jig is Up / Molly vs The Ghost World¨. With the original Chairman getting destroyed, the Ghost World needs a new leader to fill the space that got left. Since Scratch is the ghost that ¨defeated¨ the previous ruler, he has to become the new Chairman.

In ¨The New Paranormal¨ Scratch gets tricked by the Ghost Council into becoming the new leader by having to use the chairman robes to scare the frightmares that were in the Mcgees house away. He gives the order to not cause any chaos to the ghost population, since ¨it brings trouble to him and he hates it¨. Scratch makes a deal to work with the Ghost Council considering they know how things work.

In general Scratch doesn't want anything to do with taking charge of his responsibilities in the Ghost World. He would rather do his best to avoid them or quickly be done with them and teleport back to what he was doing previously. He doesn't make much of an effort to learn how the system works nor tries to change it for the better. He feels like it is a role that was unjustly dropped into him without being able to make a choice in it.

A lot of this seems to come from Scratch feeling like he was stuck in a very repetitive job that made him miserable as human (Todd). Once he became a wraith/ghost he lost his morals of taking responsibility since it unconsciously reminded him of his depressive state when he was human. This could explain in part why Scratch avoids most of his chairman duties and responsibilities.

As the creators put it in an interview, Scratch's arc as chairman during season 2 is about this:

One of it was [that] a lot of people want to grow up and be in leadership, and something like want[ing] to be president. But then, to be president is really hard, and it takes a lot of responsibility, and you have to care about what you’re doing. So, it was sort of a little metaphor about [how] leadership is tricky, and it takes a lot of attention and care and thought. Again, he’s the leader now, right? He’s the guy in charge, and that comes with a whole raft of responsibilities. And we’re going to see, like Bill just said, being a leader is hard, and you got to be intentional about it. And Scratch is not. And that’ll lead to disasters coming down the pike. Many of them.

Source: https://www.nerdsandbeyond.com/2023/04/01/interview-the-ghost-and-molly-mcgee-creators-bill-motz-and-bob-roth-on-what-to-expect-from-season-2/

In multiple episodes we see Scratch making questionable decisions as chairman, like avoiding his duties, making others do the work for him, causing a mess in the workplace and misusing his power.

In ¨Dance Dad Revolution¨ he tricks ghosts into cleaning the Haunty Haunts club by making it look like a fun dance instead of doing it himself. He abuses his power as chairman, ordering others to do his duties as it was a game while he goes to sleep. At the end of the episode a mess is caused that leaves the room all dirty again and he is forced to clean it up himself.

In Season 1 there has been a few episodes that show how Scratch would be pretty authoritative, if not abusive, if he decided to take his role as leader more seriously. These episodes being ¨Goat Your Own Way¨ and ¨The Internship¨. During both occasions he was giving orders because he enjoyed the power that came with it and it was a responsibility.

¨The Ghost IS Molly Mcgee¨ also shows that he could be an effective leader if he put his mind into it when he decided to take Molly's place to be charge of a play. He threatened kids with using a hammer if they didn't follow his orders, making obey him quite quickly. In this example he was doing this to help Molly and for the sake of having fun, demostrating again that he cares about leadership if he sees it as a game.

As much of a disaster Scratch is as chairman, he does make some positive changes to the Ghost World: He doesn't use the Flow of Failed Phantoms as a punishment for ghosts, instead chosing to trap them in things like dolls and canisters if they are causing trouble for others.

He does give Lord Doom, one of the most dangerous ghosts, a second chance after he got cursed to be trapped into a doll. In Necro-comicon episode he is happy that Lord Doom is doing well with his new family. In ¨Unhaunting of Brighton Video¨ he is seen helping the team dealing with Blair and her unfinished business. He brings down the whole system of forcing ghosts to scare off humans and keep the Ghost World miserable since he doesn't feed off from misery like the original Chairman did. Ghosts now scare for fun like seen in the episode ¨Frightmares On Main Street¨. This allows them to be able to be more friendly with humans. In general he lets ghosts to have fun and be more free under his reign as long as they don't disturb other ghosts or humans.

He seems to have a lot of fans seeing in ¨The Afterlife of The Party¨ and ¨Jinx!¨. Not surprising considering he isn't as authoritative as the past Chairman and he is a lot more approachable. There is a crowd following him in ¨Jinx!¨ asking for his autograph and he gets invited to a popular ghost party in ¨The Afterlife of The Party¨. In contrast, when the original Chairman showed up in ¨A Very Hungry Ghost¨ in the Mcgees's backyard, all ghosts disappeared, being terrified of the Chairman.

The way ghosts act around Scratch in Season 2 resembles someone meeting a celebrity rather than a leader. Makes sense because Scratch doesn't take his job seriously and uses is for the status and fame that gives him. Still, most seem to like it regardless of that.

In ¨The Afterlife of The Party¨ he lies about being sick to Geoff so he is able to go to an elite ghost party, something he wanted to do all his time as ghost. Before becoming the new chairman he was always pushed around by most of the ghosts. He was happy when he got invited to one of these popular parties for once. Near the end of the episode he learns that the party was Geoff and Jeff's 100th anniversary of being partners. He apologizes to Geoff for lying to him and Geoff forgives him.

Scratch constanly misuses his chairman powers to throw random curses as a way to fix his problems. He uses curses to help Molly with her fears in ¨FONAA!¨ and to get a perfect day in ¨Perfect Day¨, only for the curse to end up backfiring. In ¨Alaka-Sham¨ it is shown that he used so many curses that the curse cabinet was as its fullest and, because Scratch refuses to do something about it, the cabinet ends up exploding on him and the Ghost Council and has to clean up all the mess. There is one occasion he used this in a way that was useful: In ¨All In The Mind¨ to find why his spectral body was having bubbles all around. He and Molly went inside his own mind and found a memory that was a childhood friend that Scratch had named Adia.

In ¨All Shark No Bite¨ he learns that he can create ghost creatures using his chairman powers and they obey his commands. He accidentally created a ghost shark that he later adopts as his pet and names him ¨Sharkie¨. Sharkie appears in some episodes after that, either in his small or big form.

In spite of having many followers, there is someone that doesn't see him fit of being a chairman. That is Jinx, who was a huge fan of the previous chairman and wants things to go back the way they used to be before Scratch became the new leader.

Jinx represents someone who doesn't like the idea of losing the power she previously had in the past status quo. She enjoyed being a joy hunter and feels like Scratch stripped that away from her. She doesn't consider Scratch worthy of being the new chairman, thinking that she would be better at it instead.

As petty as Jinx is, she does has a point of Scratch being lazy and irresponsible as leader. Jinx had to explain to him how jinxes worked, something she pointed out it is a thing the chairman should know about. She acts as a constant reminder for Scratch that he isn't a good leader for the Ghost World.

All Scratch's irresponsible behaviour culminates in ¨Jinx VS The Human World¨. This episode starts with Scratch leaving the chairman robe unprotected and unguarded, which Jinx takes advantage of and steals it, using to take over the Ghost World and almost the Human World. Scratch also makes the mistakes of accidentally getting Molly captured by Jinx when they look for her in the Ghost World.

Near the end of the episode Scratch comes up with a plan to stop Jinx. He suggest others to ¨spread out joy¨ and extra feeding the sobgoblins, making them explode as result. Sharkie gets summoned by Scratch and grabs the chairman robes from Jinx. The Chens trap Jinx inside the phantom canister so she can't cause any more trouble.

The ghost celebrate Scratch as their true chairman. This leads to Scratch to reconsider things and to finally admit that he isn't a good example of a leader. He uses his powers one last time to make the chairman robe select the person they consider the ¨most worthy¨ to be the new chairman. The robe fly away, looking for a new leader.

In the end, Scratch's arc as chairman this season gives the lesson that not every person is fit to be a leader and it would be better to step down and give that role for those who would be more responsible. While Scratch did bring some good things to the Ghost World, he was incredibly lazy and didn't take the job seriously, which end up putting both worlds at risk. He gives up his status, knowing someone should be in the position instead of him.

[tgammsideblog]

Analysis of the symbolism from ¨All In the Mind¨

¨All In the Mind¨ is an episode that left the fandom quite a lot to talk about since it involves the duo going inside Scratch's mind and finding many things about him. The episode has a more serious tone, filled with metaphorical imagery that is up for the viewers to intepret it and see what they represent for Scratch's character.

In these post i'm going to discuss this imagery and analyse what it means for Scratch and his human past. Since there is a lot to analyse, i'll go point by point, talking about different aspects from the episode.

The surface level

The first level of the mind Molly and Scratch find themselves into when they first go through the portal is what i would like to call ¨the surface level¨.

This level doesn't have much going on since it is basically a distorted version of the Mcgees house with gray color. Molly is able to jump from one room to the other randomly in this part. It doesn't seem to have a clear path as one room connects randomly to another.

Most things are gray in color, except for the monkey character that shows up multiple times across the episode, Molly's stuffed animals and food related items. There aren't any particular memories nor imagery that could be connected to Scratch's life as human if one excludes the monkey.

This level seems to represent who ¨Scratch¨ is, as his ghost persona and not his human past life. It's heavily implied that Scratch repressed the memories of his human life on purpose. It is possible that after dying/ repressing, Scratch created a new identity for himself as a ghost.

This would mean that the surface level represents the identity he build himself as a ghost until now. That's why the duo finds themselves in place Scratch considers his new home (the Mcgees house) and most things moving are things Scratch is familiar with, like his obsession with food and Molly's plushies.

His huge obsession with food seems to be part of his current persona instead of his human self. It could be considered as something he uses to distract his mind with, since he mentioned eating food when he gets nervous.

An interesting detail is that the pink ghost glow shows up in the song sequence when Molly ends up in her bedroom, which is where Scratch's doll house is located.

The duo finds out that the pink glow is coming from the doll house, shaped as a star from all the places it could be in the house. The doll house would be where Scratch has the most ¨privacy¨ for himself and the glow coming from inside it could be seen as a metaphor for Scratch having to open up to Molly to go deeper into his mind.

The bottle level

After going through the door in Scratch's doll house, Molly and Scratch find themselves in a boat made out of cardboard. They notice that they are inside a giant bottle and they are floating in what it is strawberry soda, the same one that brought a part of Scratch's memory in ¨A Soda to Remember¨.

Molly mentions of how this level could represent how Scratch is ¨emotional adrift¨ and ¨how he is bottling up his emotions up¨, showing that Scratch has been trying to avoid thinking of the flashback memory he got in ¨A Soda to Remember¨ and now those emotions are ¨bubbling up to the surface¨ manifesting as bubbles in Scratch's ghost body.

Based on this, this level could be described as Scratch's ¨emotional level¨ since it is about him having to be honest about how he really feels. It is when he lets out these feelings that he has been repressing that they are able to move to another part of the mind.

Some aspect that are worth of bringing up are: 1) The boat Molly and Scratch are in is the same boat that Scratch and Adia are sit on in the flashback 2) The soda seems to be what Scratch left in the bottle in ¨A Soda to Remember¨, avoiding drinking more out of fear of what other things he could see from his past. Considering all this, the bottle level is an allegory for the general anxieties and fears that Scratch has of facing his own past and finding out what is really inside his mind.

The building level

The third level the protagonist find themselves into is what it is a black space at first that has a trunk with a pink star surrounded by light. When they try approaching it, a huge tall building emerges from the ground and they both have to climb leaders to reach the top of the building, which is where the trunk is. Scratch can't float up, when he does, he falls into the ground. In result he has to climb the leader like Molly does.

The building resembles the Chicago building from Adia's memory. Inside of it looks very business like, filled with offices. Molly and Scratch even stop at one moment to point out how the strange monkey is working in one of the offices.

Seconds later a huge version of the same monkey starts throwing bananas at them, trying to stop them from climbing higher. The monkey is very angry and is also wearing a business suit like other versions of him.

It's a bit harder to guess what the building and the monkey throwing bananas at them could be an alllegory to, but, it is possible that it is about Scratch having a family that had too high standars for him to reach, probably they expected for Scratch to become a sucessful business man when he became an adult. It could be other societal pressures included as well. Another way to see it is that it is part of Scratch's life as adult when he was working in a very busy job that made him miserable. Since the monkey character is rarely seen happy with his job, it could be an indication of Scratch not being satisfied with his job.

Molly brings up that Scratch's mind is stopping them from reaching to the top. Scratch admits to Molly that he doesn't like thinking about his past and confesses that he got a memory from the time he took the soda in ¨A Soda to Remember¨. Based on this, this section of his mind could be where Scratch repressed his own memories. It is where he saves his own memories.

Once Scratch is ready to face his own memories the huge monkey character goes away and lets them climb to the top of the building where the trunk is.

The memory level

This isn't much of a level as it is the memory that Scratch has been repressing about Adia: It is about Adia and him (as a kid) playing in the cardboard boat and Adia talking to kid Scratch about how they are going to see all these different places when they grow up. Adia mentions how they are going to mark every place they visit using pink star stickers, which are the same pink stars that Molly and Scratch have been following during all the episode.

This gives hindsight of why Scratch usually is seen into navy related things, like having decoration in his room or pretending to be the captain in the ¨All Shark No Bite¨ episode. It comes from this childhood dream that he and Adia had about travelling the world together on boat.

Given all the thing we know about Scratch's character so far, it isn't too far to say that Adia was very likely one of the few friends he had, if not one of the few people that cared about Scratch when he was a human. It was one of the few things that he didn't fully repressed from his past life, as he mentioned that he could recall the soda in ¨A Soda to Remember¨.

It wouldn't be out of place neither to say that Scratch may have tried to work in the navy growing up, inspired by this childhood dream he shared with Adia, or maybe as an attempt to find her after she moved away.

The room they are playing in the memory is clearly the attic from the Mcgees' house, meaning that same house was where Adia used to live before she moved. This explains why Scratch was living in the attic as a ghost and was so protective of it when the Mcgees moved in at the start of the show (The Curse). Scratch was haunting and protecting something that he considered very important from his human life, even if he couldn't remember what it was.

What is with the tacos?

One common element that is mentioned a few times in the episode is tacos.

The image of a Scratch ¨brain¨ is shown twice in the episode, both times mentioning he loves tacos. It shows up during the song sequence when Molly is trying to check Scratch's ¨brain¨ and one of the spaces gets filled with tacos. Scratch is later seen grabbing a taco from a box that says ¨taco memories¨.

Having this in mind, tacos seem to have an important meaning behind them the same way the Surly Sid Soda is related to Adia. It's likely that tacos have to do with ¨memory repression¨ since they are mentioned when Molly asks Scratch about the things that are inside his mind and the tacos filling an empty brain space in the song sequence.

Another interpretation is that they are related to some personal memory from Scratch's past life. Scratch mentions ¨tacos of my past¨ in the song scene. Maybe he has to eat an specific type of taco to be able to recall certain memory the same way he did with Surly Sid Soda.

What is with the monkey?

The monkey character that shows up multiple times in the episode is the most unclear symbolism from ¨All in the Mind¨. He is shown doing different things like typing, making calls, driving the boat in the bottle level, throwing bananas at Molly and Scratch in the building level and giving therapy to Scratch during the song sequence.

What it is interesting is how he shows up in almost every level, including the first surface level. It is like something that Scratch can't repress, unlike Adia's memory.

The monkey is seen wearing a business suit and shares some resemblance with Scratch, like having the same bangs in his hair. He always looks at Scratch in disapproval, as he was dissapointed and annoyed by him. Scratch is shown to be annoyed and scared of the monkey in return. He backs away when he sees him in the bottle level and confesses to Molly that he is really scared of him.

A giant version of the monkey throws bananas at the duo in the building level, trying to stop them from going further. He is very agressive and angry towards them until Scratch confesses that he is scared of facing his past. The monkey changes his expression when Scratch mentions this to a more sad one and appears to be somewhat proud when Scratch says that he is going to face his memories.

It has been discussed by fans that the monkey in the suit represents Scratch or different stages of his human life, like working in the navy or in a business job. He could be an allegory to his parents' high expectations of him and pressuring him into be something that didn't want to be. Scratch is disturbed and scared by his presense, almost the same way a child acts when they don't want to dissapoint their parents. The fact that Scratch is so disturbed by him indicates that it was someone or different people that were negative experiences to him and he wants to avoid them.

He is clearly important since Molly brings him up near the end of the episode and Scratch avoids answering about it. The title end card with the Adia bubble hints that he could be a darker part of Scratch's past and he is going to show up in a future episode.

Conclusion

¨All In the Mind¨ is an episode that has a lot of symbolism and allegory that is worth of analysing, giving more exploration to Scratch's psyche and hints of what his human life was like. Hopefully future episodes are going to dive deeper into these allegories as well as showing Scratch's past life and why he repressed it.

[tgammsideblog]

Tgamm S1 Ep 18 ¨Out of House and Home/Home Is Where The Haunt Is¨ episode analysis

After a trip the hospital, the Mcgees find themselves in a very difficult spot when they realize that they could lose their ¨forever¨ home...

When you ask any person from the Tgamm fandom which is the best episode from the series, one of the most likely answers you are going to get is the double part episode 18 ¨Out of House and Home/Home Is Where The Haunt Is¨. And it isn't hard to see why this is the case.

Back when the episode synopses for the last batch of episodes from Season 1 dropped back on May 2022 (last year), a lot of people were surprised by how the show was going to have an episode tackling the cost of the health care american system by the synopsis describing how the Mcgees found themselves in a difficult economic spot after Pete had to be taken to the hospital.

Not that the show wasn't new for these kind of topics. The show was already dealing with characters imitating toxic behaviours from their social environment with Scratch in ¨First Day Frights¨, complicated parent-child relationships (The Best of Nin-tentions) and history and culture in ¨Festival of Lights¨. Still, seeing an animated show aimed for family/general audiences tackling health care and homelessness was very rare to see and still is. Many fans were intrigued about what was going to happen in this episode because of that.

¨Out of House and Home/Home Is Where The Haunt Is¨ could be described as a ¨season finale¨ to almost everything that has happened until Season 1 so far with exception of the Ghost Council Ghost World arc, which is explored in ¨The Jig is Up/ Molly vs The Ghost World¨. Episode 18 acts more as a conclusion to the Brighton arc, and to some extent, Molly and Scratch's relationship from this part of the series.

The story starts with the Mcgees hanging out playing cards. Sharon finds the last box they forgot to unpack when the Mcgee family first moved to Brighton. While they are doing that, Pete listens that someone is on the door and goes to check. It turns out that it is Irving, the street magician, who is offering his services to clean the gutters house for the price of 300 dollars. Pete declines the offer saying that they don't have that ammount of cash and decides to clean the gutters himself. (which are pretty dirty). This is what sets the conflict of the episode both bringing up the Mcgee's economic situation and what later leads to Pete to have an accident.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Mcgees are unpacking the box inside the house. There is a funny moment of Molly asking Scratch to do a drumroll and Scratch hitting his belly like it was a drum. The last thing inside the box is a gift from Grandma Nin from the last time she went to Thailand. Sharon, Molly and Darryl celebrated for ¨officially¨ moving to their forever home, to which Scratch protests that it is ¨his¨ house too. They make Scratch join the group hug as a sign of gratitude, something that he clearly enjoys by saying it is nice. It is a sweet moment that shows how Scratch has become part of the family and returns that affection when it is given to him, feeling more open to be express himself in contrast to the start of the season.

However, this heartwarming moment gets interrupted when they hear Pete scream and falling to the ground from the roof. They notice how he is clearly injured, including having a broken arm. Sharon decides to call for an ambulance to take Pete to the hospital.

One trip to the hospital later, the Mcgees return home with Pete, who has a casted arm and bandaged head. Sharon checks the hospital bill and sees how huge the numbers are. It's too much for what the Mcgee family usually has saved and Sharon panicks over not knowing how to pay the bill.

In that moment Molly proposes to find a way for them to collect all the money: Sharon is going to work triple time on her gigpig job, Darryl is going to sell his plant collection and Molly is going to hold a cupcakes sell at her school. With Sharon being more busy with her job, Scratch offers himself to take care of the house. The rest are surprised by this but notice that the ghost is being serious about it.

This shows that Scratch has grown quite a lot from ¨Game Night¨ episode. In fact, he really shines in this episode: He becomes the ¨mom¨ of the family, preparing the meals for the rest of the Mcgees, cleaning the house and keeping an eye on Pete, who is spend his time resting for his injuries.

There is even a moment Sharon returns late from work, Scratch asks her why she is so late and Sharon accidentally calls him ¨mom¨. What's more, he is sad when Molly and Darryl don't take the time to appreciate the meals he prepared for them and quickly move on to look for more things to sell. It's kind of adorable how he takes of Pete as well, like he was his own baby. There is a scene Pete wakes up and Scratch coos him in his arms to get him to sleep again.

While there are a lot of funny moments in the episode to not make the situation so grim, under all that comedy one can feel how much the Mcgees are struggling with their situation. Such as Sharon having to work all day and Darryl having to sell his plant collection to gain money. They can barely spend time together because they are too busy trying to collect all the money then need to pay the bill.

It goes to a point Scratch is trying to do multiple things at once in the kitchen and breaks down, both mentally and physically (his form breaks down in multiple pieces while moving from one place to the other) and cries.

It's worth of pointing out that this half of the episode doesn't have a clear linear story as it is more to show how the Mcgee family struggles dealing with paying the medical bill and their situation. It shows different moments like them eating together or Molly selling cupcakes at school.

The thing is that this is something a lot of American families struggle with. Medical healthcare is very expensive in United States and not all families are able to afford it because of that. Even things like a trip to the hospital or not that serious injuries can cost a lot of money, which puts people at risk since some may try to avoid going to a doctor because they lack the money to pay just getting seeing a professional.

Near the end of the segment ¨Out of House and Home¨ the Mcgees are able to get all the money to pay the medical bill. They celebrate having reached their goal and the end episode drops... until it gets interrupted by the sound of hammer hitting down a sign, which says that the Mcgees' house is on sale.

Cadance Green, the realtor, explains to the family that they forgot to pay the mortage, and as result, they can't stay in the house. The Mcgees realize that they have to leave their ¨forever home¨.

One thing i want to highlight is how clever the use of the end title drop is, because it first gives you the impression that the problem is solved, and then it subverts your expectations by telling you that, no, the problem wasn't solved and the Mcgees have to leave their home.

The next scene has all the Mcgees with exception of Scratch packing all their things and are about to leave. It's propably the most heartbreaking scene from this season since Molly can't find a way to find a positive side to this and she is crying. Scratch tries to cheer her up, failing at doing so, and promises to her and the rest that he is going to keep buyers away from the house in meantime.

Suddenly Molly hugs Scratch, telling him ¨I love you Scratch¨, making the ghost get all teared up and answer to that with ¨I love you too, Moll¨. It's such a great moment because it is the first time Scratch is shown to be telling this to Molly on screen. Sure, he usually shows it in many other ways but he never said that before.

The Mcgees leave the house while Scratch sees the car move away. He returns to the house attic, now-empty- without Molly's colorful decorations and lights, all empty and dark, just like it was before the Mcgees moved in. Scratch looks how lonely and dark the room is with what is one of the saddest expressions he has had so far, makes himself a bed out of spider web and rests in there, hugging himself, feeling all alone again.

¨Home Is Where The Haunt Is¨ is the segment that follows. It has some plenty of crucial character moments. So i'm going to discuss them by points.

To start with, there is Molly struggling with her new reality of having lost her home and having to camp in the woods. At the start of the episode there is an scene of Pete and Sharon discussing breaking the news to the kids. While Sharon wants to be honest and explain to them what is happening, Pete decides to lie to them and makes up how they still have a month to get the house back.

And you can see that Molly takes quite a lot from her father ¨pretending that everything is fine when it is not¨ type of mentality. She spends most of the episode pretending that everything is fine to Libby and other classmates. In fact, the song sequence involving this struggle is called ¨Everything's Totally Normal¨, and, as the title says, it is about Molly joining to different school clubs to distract herself and Libby from her current situation. In contrast to the song from ¨Ready, Set, Snow!¨, this song sequence sends an uncomfortable feeling since it is Molly trying to hide what is happening to her family and having what mental breakdown that 13 years old would have in this type of situation.

What really hits of Molly avoiding telling others of her situation is that it isn't rare for people and families who are homeless to keep going to work or school while pretending that is nothing is happening to them. They continue with their daily routines without other people ever noticing that they are homeless.

While all this is happening, Scratch tries to keep people away from buying the house. He has some funny interactions with Candace Green. Some of the tricks he pulls are visually entertaining to watch, like when he posesses an entire wall to scare a person off. However, there is one family-who is clearly inspired by the Addams family-that doesn't get scared of Scratch and thinks that their baby is going to enjoy hanging out with him. This leads to one of creepiest and darkest jokes in the show with the baby pressing against their mother's womb, making Scratch back away terrified of them.

Despite some funny moments in between, ¨Home Is Where The Haunt Is¨ segment is a more serious in tone in contrast to ¨Out of House and Home¨. It really drives home how bad the issue the Mcgees are facing is. It's probably the most emotional episode from Season 1, are for a good reason.

The scene that follows has Andrea hanging out with her father in woods talking about how he is going to do an investment in the place. When walking around the place for a bit, Andrea finds out that Molly and her family are camping in the woods, she is very shocked by the Mcgees's current state but decides to avoid bringing it up much and instead walks away, telling Molly that she looking forward to see her in the geode club next week. Molly tries to go after Andrea but she is interrupted by Scratch, who tells the Mcgees that the house is about to get sold to another family. Molly doesn't know what to do, so Scratch tells them that he has a last trick on his sleeve while laughing evilly-cutting to him ugly crying in front of Candace Green begging her to not sell the house.

Leaving the comedy timing aside, this is a very important moment for Scratch. He talks about how before meeting the Mcgees, the house was ¨dark, lonely and full of spiders¨ and how he was completely alone but once the Mcgees moved in, they made the house a home for him. This feeling of not having friends nor somewhere to belong to is something that was left very clear about Scratch without him having to say it. However, this is the first time he is very open about how the Mcgees have become his family and how much he misses them with them living in the woods.

Candace feels sorry for Scratch and decides to give the family a last change to ¨say goodbye¨ to their home.

While Mcgees are seeing their house one last time, a montage of different scenes from the season plays, all involving important moments taking place in the building.

Suddenly there is a knock in the front door, Sharon opens it thinking it is the realtor, only to find out many Brightonians that they have helped in previous episodes are here. Libby explains to Molly that her family has done so much to help Brighton all this time, that they came to help the Mcgees the moment they learned about the their' problem.

This is a fantastic way of showing the impact Molly and her family has had on Brighton and all those episodes about them helping and getting to know these people coming back in this episode. It goes to show that the Brightonians and their lives are as important as the Mcgees are to the series. In addition to this, it really fits with the whole theme of helping and connecting with your own community and how people can come together to fix a problem, with all what the Mcgees have been doing coming back to help them.

Molly wonders how they all learned about their problem with the house. That's when Andrea approches Molly and tells her that she used her social media to make a campain and raise enough money to help them get their house back. She did this because she considers Molly her ¨best friend¨ for the time they made a movie together (Hooray for Mollywood!) and Molly saved her from the campain selling fraud (The Don't Gooder). It isn't hard to tell that Andrea doesn't have the best idea of what a normal friendship is and Molly is likely the real first friend she has had in a while. In spite of this, she appreciated Molly being nice to her in (The Don't Gooder) and decided to return her the favor when she noticed her living in the woods earlier in the episode. Overall, is great moment of character evolution for Andrea and it changes her dynamic with Molly, now being in friendlier terms with her.

In the last scene the Mcgees move back to their home, not having to worry about having to camp in the woods anymore. Scratch says that ¨now it feels like home again¨. Then Molly thinks for a moment and brings up to Scratch how the curse has been broken (since they had to leave the house for a while) and wonders what he is going to do now that they aren't longer bonded together. Scratch looks nervous for a moment and then lies about how the curse is still there. He asks Molly to summon him, to which she does and Scratch pretends to be summoned (something that Molly can see it is a lie) and tells Molly that he ¨isn't going anywhere¨. The episode ends with the two hugging each other, leaving clear that the Mcgees have become Scratch's home and he finally has a place to belong.

In conclusion: ¨Out of House and Home/Home Is Where The Haunt Is¨ is a special episode that deals with some difficult topics, like medical healthcare and homelessness. It lets all the main and recurrent characters have a moment to shine, resulting in one of the most emotional moments in the show. It has an excellent payoff for the ¨Molly/Brighton arc¨ of this season, with all coming back in a full circle for the Mcgees. Another important aspect is that it shows how much Molly and Scratch's dynamic has grown during the season and how fond Scratch has grown of the Mcgees. Really leaving this clear by one of the most emotional endings for an episode. In all, it is a beautifully written story and the best from this season.

[tgammsideblog]

Tgamm S1 Ep 20-B ¨Molly vs The Ghost World¨ Episode Analysis

While Scratch is being put on trial for being friends with humans in front of the Ghost Council, Molly tries to find a way to go to the Ghost World and look for Scratch...

Starting from when segment A ¨The Jig is Up¨ left, Scratch is brought to the Ghost Council by Jinx, who reveals that Scratch is friends with a ¨living person¨. The members talk about how that is a very serious charge against the ghost rules and begin the trail.

Back on the living realm, Molly is trying to do astral projection with Libby helping her. This gets them nowhere and they aren't sure of what else they can do. Then Molly happens to have the idea of summoning Geoff by spelling his name.

Suddenly Geoff appears. Molly begs for Geoff to let her go to the Ghost World using to a ghost portal, to which the green ghost hesitates for a few moments, since humans aren't allowed in the Ghost World or usually can't go there. Molly still decides to jump through the ghost portal, only to find out why is that the case: Her own spirit becomes separated from her body when going through the portal, leaving an empty husk that barely has any emotions. Libby explains to Molly that she is now a ¨wraith¨ and she would remain as such as long as her spirit doesn't return to her body. Since Molly is now a ¨ghost¨, she can go to the Ghost World now. Quickly, Geoff and her go to the spectral realm while Libby stays to keep an eye on Molly's husk until they return with Scratch.

In this episode we get a better insight of what it was established in previous episodes: the Ghost World lives in misery and joy itself is seen a some type of poison. As Geoff puts it ¨joy is not allowed¨. The Chairman feeds off from the misery he causes to humans and ghosts. He keeps his position of power by keeping the Ghost World as miserable as possible and tries to get rid of anything that radiates joy.

This brings a lot of problems to Molly since her spirit is full of joy energy. Almost everything she touches turns into joy like changing its shape and getting flowers growing around them. The visuals of Molly's powers are pretty cool. It's fun to see the contrast between the more cold colors from the Ghost World and how Molly accidentally changes it wherever she goes.

It's worth of mentioning Geoff's role in this episode: He guides Molly through the ghost realm, helps her with avoding Jinx and the sobgoblins and, when they are cornered, he uses the sobgoblins as nunchucks to fight the rest, giving time for Molly to escape. Throughout all this, Geoff acts seriously since he knows that Scratch is in danger. He is willing to defy the Ghost Council's authority to protect his friend, showing how loyal he is.

While this is happening, the trial takes place. There is a sequence of ghosts from previous episodes getting interviewed like Sonia, Harriet and the doctor from ¨Scaring is Caring¨. It's a clever way to bring back all these characters and showing the consequences of it when it comes to Scratch not being able to hide his actions anymore.

Just before Scratch is about to send to the Flow of Failed Phantoms, Molly shows up. Scratch begs for Molly to leave but she pushes and calls out to the Ghost Council for saying that they shouldn't throw Scratch to the Flow only because he happens to do things differently from them. Keep in mind that Molly is a teen girl who turned herself into a ghost and went throught the Ghost World because she wanted to save her friend. Despite fully understanding what is happening, she is willing to do anything to help Scratch. She isn't only positive but a very brave girl to stand up against someone like the ghost rulers.

Jinx shows up and throws Geoff to the Flow for helping Molly and Scratch and calls Molly a ¨menace¨ for her joy powers. This leads to Scratch to talk about how Molly thinks it is better to be nice and help others to make the world a better place and, in a rare genuine moment, he admits that Molly is right for doing all those things. Scratch admits out loud that Molly is his friend and ¨he doesn't care who knows it¨. This speech is the culmination of the development Scratch got in this season so far. He finally stands up against the Ghost Council, who spent this entire season (and years) abusing and treating Scratch as worthless. He gains the courage to speak up against those who have been pushing him down for years and being honest about who he really is.

As result of their defiance, Molly and Scratch are send both to the Flow of Failed Phantoms. They try holding on for a few seconds and right before they are sucked in, Scratch grabs Molly's hand and tells her that ¨You were the highlight of my afterlife¨. This line holds a lot of emotional weight to it, because before meeting Molly and the rest of the Mcgees, Scratch felt very alone and miserable. This started to change when the Mcgees moved in and over time became a family to him. Molly inspired Scratch to open up to others again and for him to ¨feel alive¨ again.

After they get sucked into the Flow for some moments it appears that's the end of it until some sparks of joy energy appear in the Flow: It turns out that by throwing Molly into the flow, that made it change because of her joy powers. All the ghosts that were trapped in the flow get freed while Molly gives a speech about how ¨joy is more powerful than misery¨ and explodes the flow surrounding herself and Scratch with joy energy. Molly approaches the Chairman, defying him, she touches him and the Chairman suddenly is taken over by Molly's energy and he disintegrates, only leaving the robe behind.

Geoff appears and hugs both Molly and Scratch. Molly says that she is leaving with Scratch and threatens the Ghost Council and Jinx if ¨they have a problem with that¨. Scared by her power, they answer that they can leave without any problem, letting Molly and Scratch return safely to their home in the human world.

Back in the Mcgees house Molly returns to her human body and the Mcgee family celebrates Scratch coming back to home. Scratch talks about how Molly defeated the Chairman, exaggerating some parts of it. Then he tries putting a curse on the Mcgee family, a callback to the first time he met Molly, and stops in the middle, clearly indicating that it was a joke. The episode ends with Scratch talking about eating something while the rest of the Mcgee family is smiling at him.

In conclusion: While feeling rushed in some ways because it has many things going on, ¨Molly vs The Ghost World¨ is a great emotional conclusion for Scratch's conflict with the Ghost Council and Season 1 as a whole. In spite of its writing being slightly inferior to the one of ¨Out of House and Home/ Home Is Where The Haunt Is¨ it is still a good double part episode with great visuals, some shocking twists and cathartic character moments, specially for Scratch.

[the-gayest-show]

"Scratch is the most complex/interesting character in the show and yet everyone ignores him outside the fandom despite also being in the title lol" - EMositeCC

RIGHT???

YES YES YESSS!!!!

I could legit rant about how he's 1000% complex. I mean, so is every character in this show (the mcgees mostly) but holy shit scratch has so much LORE and so many interesting ways he can grow and the writers are doing an AMAZING job at showing that!!!

The recent episodes are starting to show some interesting perspectives on Scratch and how he interacts with people and I hope this is explored more! The traumas from being neglected and made fun of his whole afterlife, plus his new role as chairman (which effectively gives him a chance to be treated better/as a higher being) is 100% an interesting territory for the writers to cover!

It's probably going to be mentioned in some of the episodes we're getting in the next few weeks (my guess is that since Bill said scratch's new leadership creates some chaos in the GW, then we get little glimpses of the chaos as we see more chairman scratch).

I'm 90% sure this will be covered in the Halloween special bc we all know the Frightmares are bound to show up and who else can control them but the chairman! Also I think we'll see glimpses in later episodes but I don't know which ones. Glimpses may appear in the beginning of the episodes such as in A Doll To Die For.

His backstory only adds to the complexity of who he was/is/will be because some of his actions seem to be subconsciously stemming from whatever his background is and I just... I NEED TO KNOW MORE!!!

If you really think about it, the fact that Scratch doesn't know his past only makes it a more emotional journey because we (the audience) are finding out this info at the same time Scratch is. Like a double whammy baby.

Scratch is probably the most interesting character to write an analysis on and a Full Scratch Character Analysis is one of my many many things I wish to create!!

(Also hi Em! I've seen u on mollycord a bunch!)

[tgammsideblog]

Tgamm S1 Ep 20-A ¨The Jig Is Up¨ Episode Analysis

While Brighton is celebrating the factory's opening, Scratch finds himself in deep trouble when a joy hunter is sent to investigate why join is increasing in Brighton...

While episode 18 acts as a conclusion for Molly-Brighton arc, ¨The Jig Is Up¨ and ¨Molly vs The Ghost World¨ act as a conclusion for Scratch-Ghost Council conflict arc. In this episode Scratch finally finds himself with all these problem finally catching up to him and all the lies and cover ups to hide his true relationship with Molly (being friends and family) from the Ghost Council don't work anymore.

The episode starts with a funny sequence of a video that promotes Brighton as a good place to invest in wind energy and the local factory. Not surprisingly, Molly and Pete are behind this video to help the city grow. This cuts to the video had some effect since Molly talks about celebrating for the restoration of the factory and jobs coming back to Brighton.

Suddenly Scratch is summoned by the Ghost Council. They tell him that Brighton is full of joy and wonder what is happening in that city. This makes them summon one of their most professional joy hunters, Jinx, to work with Scratch to look for the ¨joy agent¨ and get rid of it.

Jinx as character and antagonist is pretty entertaining. She is fast talker, charismatic, clever and takes her job very seriously, in contrast to Scratch. She usually appears to be chill and easy going most of the time, only when she lets her ¨mask¨ slip and shows a more sadistic side of her that enjoys hunting her prey. Jinx doesn't only does her job because she is hard working, she loves doing what she does and she doesn't let anything stop her.

In spite of how high the stakes are, this episode is very ridiculous. This is thanks to the interactions between Jinx and Scratch, involving Scratch trying to distract her and coming up with random things to hide where the joy comes from. Because of their how their personalities clash with each other, this leads to some pretty funny exchanges between them. One of example of this is when Scratch grabs Jinx hand and tells her how she has ¨showed him the error of his ways¨ in a very dramatic manner, trying to get her to leave and return to the Ghost World. Jinx tells to Scratch to stop doing that because he looks embarrassing.

The song sequence, ¨Killjoy¨, has classic spy movie style along with some cool use of visuals and color palette. It does a good job at leaving clear who Jinx is as antagonist and how determinated she is to find the ¨joy agent¨. It has some funny moments of Scratch interrupting her too.

At one point of the story, Jinx explains to Scratch why some ghosts are demanded to scare of humans in the living world: The scares generate misery and the Chairman feeds off from that misery. It's creepy to think how the Chairman is a being that uses misery as a way to make himself stronger and, based on how different he looks from other ghosts, it isn't hard to say that he is mainly made out of misery.

Jinx is finally able to discover that the joy comes from Molly. She pulls out a giant scythe that is three times bigger than she is and goes to ¨get rid¨ of Molly, as it was the most normal thing in the world. Scratch intervenes, defending Molly, who has no idea that she was being chased down by Jinx. Scratch calls Molly his best friend, to which Jinx answers with ¨i knew it this whole time, you are friends with a human!¨, revealing that all this investigation was a set up to get to Scratch to confess that he is friends with Molly.

Much like the Ghost Council, Jinx sees a ghost and human being friends as ¨unnatural¨ and she tries taking Scratch to the Ghost Council. Scratch tries holding onto Molly, only to get pulled back through the ghost portal and leaving Molly alone, devastated that her friend was taken away.

In conclusion: ¨The Jig is Up¨ is a good first half that introduced a new fun villain and finally makes Scratch get caught under his lies to the Ghost Council about the true nature of his relationship with Molly and the Mcgees. It balances the tension of the situation with humor pretty well, mainly coming from Scratch and Jinx's dynamic. While the ending isn't as emotionally charged as ¨Out of House and Home¨, it is still pretty effective, as it leaves you with desire to watch the second part.

[tgammsideblog]

Tgamm S1E19-A ¨Scaring is Caring¨ Episode Analysis

On the last day of the month for Scare Report, Scratch gets a strange ¨sickness¨ that transforms him into a cute ghost, without his ability to scare off, he relies on Molly to help him with his scare report...

¨Scaring is Caring¨ is an interesting episode in multiple ways, showing how ghosts powers work as well as establishing how far Molly and Scratch's characters have evolved during this season. While the premise is pretty simple, the characters interactions and development make the episode fun to watch.

The episode starts with Scratch complaining that he is running late for his scare report and he has to complete it. It's rather funny scene that involves the blue ghost whining about how he has only four weeks ¨to relax¨ and Molly asking why does he wait until the very last day to complete the report. It represents Scratch's avoidance of responsibility and work at its finest.

In the next scene Pete is seen taking care of the garden flowers and talking to them. Cuts to Scratch possessing one of the flowers to scare off Pete. Just when Scratch is about to do his jumpscare, Pete hugs the plant and says ¨i love you¨ to it, to which Scratch accidentally answers with hilarious ¨i love you¨ in response. That's when the ghost finds out that there is something wrong with him: he looks adorable.

This establishes the premise of ¨Scaring is Caring¨: It's a sick plot episode. The difference is that in this case it isn't that literal since it only interferes with Scratch's ability to scare. He can still easily move around and do other things just fine with exception of scaring. There is also a bit of ¨role reversal¨ since Molly is the one that offers herself to help Scratch with scaring people while he isn't able to do it.

Most of the episode is about Molly trying to be scary but failing at it because she isn't used to be mean or she is ¨too nice¨ for her to do that. It's funny and adorable watching her trying to be the opposite of how she usually acts, which is a role Scratch is better for. She comes up with some cool disguises like a zombie or a mother spider but she isn't able to be fully scary.

As Scratch explained to her, she can be scary in a more unintentional way. For example: In ¨The Don't Gooder¨ after her rant about getting Andrea back, Scratch mentioned how Molly was scaring him in that moment. The problem is that she isn't good when she means to do it, it is something that comes more when she gets angry with someone than when she tries to do it on purpose.

Another thing that is fun about this episode is seeing all the changes that Scratch goes through in his ¨cute¨ disease and his reactions to them: First he becomes cute, then he is sneezing rainbows, later he changes different colours. It's both pretty adorable and funny the exchanges Molly and Scratch have when this happens, such as Molly smiling when Scratch changes colours or her squishing him as a paint tube when she sees him sneezing rainbows.

Later in the story, while Molly is coming up with new ways to scare, Scratch visits a doctor in the ghost world. She explains to him that he is ¨infected with joy¨ and he has to find ¨his fear¨ to return to his normal self. There is a great sequence the doctor checks out Scratch's ¨insides¨ and there are all rainbows, puppies and flowers dancing and singing, showing how he is filled with joy inside. Despite it isn't brought up by the characters themselves, it is clear that a lot of Scratch's misery came from his being alone and having no one to be his friend. However, since he started living with the Mcgees, this misery levels went down over time, to the point there is only joy inside of him. Another thing worth of bringing up is the context of this episode. This takes place after the events of ¨Home is Where the Haunt is¨. Keeping in mind that the Mcgees were homeless around a month and Scratch was staying alone all the time taking care of the house, it is possible he had a ¨burst¨ of joy when the Mcgees were able to get their home back and that made him ¨sick¨.

Meanwhile Molly stumbles into several things that make her look like a monster covered with sand and she accidentally scares off a lot of people (again, this being unitentional, just like Scratch pointed out). Scratch returns from the doctor, thinking about what his inner fear could be when he sees that Molly is blindly walking to the street (her eyes are covered in sand) and a truck moving is very close. That's when a real cool moment takes place, in that Scratch gets terrified, his joy insides become scary (with some very cool visuals) and he goes back to being his normal self again. He quickly speeds up and saves Molly before she gets crashed by the truck.

Scratch lets Molly on the ground and says how his inner fear is ¨losing Molly¨, which demostrates how important Molly has become to him that something bad happening to her would be his greatest fear. The episode ends with Molly asking Scratch if she has ¨spice¨ for scaring him, Scratch confirmes that she has and Molly celebrates ¨having spice¨.

In conclusion: ¨Scaring is Caring¨ is a great, cute and fun episode that explores well how Molly and Scratch's dynamic has grown so far and how close the both of them are now. It also does a bit of interesting twist in the sick plot stories and turns into something that develops the lore behind ghost powers and develops the main duo in different ways. All around a very solid episode.