‘School Spirits’: Kristian Ventura Breaks Down Simon & White Eyes’ Dark Connection

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers from School Spirits Season 3 Episode 5, “The Raiders of the Lost Scar.”]

New School Spirits lore just dropped. The Paramount+ drama has been steadily unpacking the mystery of Split River High throughout Season 3, and Episode 5 offered the most details so far. The show’s biggest question so far has been why so many people have died at the school and been trapped there as ghosts — and it seems to have something to do with Alfred Van Heidt, the big bad who’s taken an interest in Simon (Kristian Ventura).

However, when TV Insider spoke with Ventura, he suggested there might be more to Van Heidt (aka “White Eyes”) than meets the eye. The previous episode revealed that Split River High was built where an old church used to be. In the next one, we not only learned that Van Heidt is the mysterious spirit that resides inside the scar and has been sharing visions with Simon, but that he (supposedly) orchestrated the deaths of eight kids and died alongside them.

“I’d say this is what School Spirits does so well, which is they present these characters that — rightfully so — are to be hated. I mean, there’s a reason we hate Janet [Jess Gabor]. It is messed up what she did to Maddie, but we could kind of understand what she was doing, because we’d do the same thing if we want to be alive [and] we’re trapped in the underworld,” Ventura said.

“Season 3’s villain, there seems to be so little to understand, and maybe there’s no room at all, but what the show does pretty well this season is it lets you play both sides, even just for a second, and it humanizes this villain,” he continued. “I don’t like White Eyes, even when I can empathize with him, but we allow ourselves to be empathized. That’s what the writers did. You don’t have to like him, but that’s what I could tease.”

Van Heidt’s connection to Simon, who thinks the spirit trapped him in the afterlife, isn’t the only development in his story this season: Simon’s birth sister reached out for the first time. It was by design that Simon’s backstory — he was adopted as a baby after his mother died in childbirth — was hardly brought up in past seasons. Ventura explained that his character doesn’t like to talk about it and “can’t admit that he doesn’t know what to do with the information.”

Related

'School Spirits' Cast Teases Answers to Show's Biggest Questions in Season 3 (Exclusive)

“There’s a sort of powerlessness in his home life, these questions that are unsolved,” he said. “I can tell you, though, that his backstory and his childhood will play a role in uniting teams and solving problems, and without whatever he’s going through, I don’t think they can make it through Season 3. There’s something there that’s needed in order to unlock something else. That is all I could say without going to jail.”

Don’t expect all mysteries to be solved in the Season 3 finale, though. Come Episode 8, Ventura warned, “Fans will throw their TV remote at the screen. It is gonna shatter. It’s gonna break. It’s ‘get the f**k out of here.’ It’s one of those. I read that, and I was like, ‘Damn, they would do that. It’s great, it’s satisfying, but it’s a good cliffhanger. I’m really excited for people to see what’s next.”

School Spirits, Season 3, Wednesdays, Paramount+