TV Recap: “Secrets of Sulphur Springs” – Episode 4: “Time to Face the Music”

It’s been one week since Disney Channel introduced their exciting new paranormal mystery series Secrets of Sulphur Springs. The hour-long series premiere was actually the first three half-hour episodes and today marks the premiere of episode four, titled “Time to Face the Music.” The new episode airs tonight (January 22nd) at 8/7c, but it’s streaming early on Disney Now ahead of the television premiere. Here’s a recap of episode four – “Time to Face the Music.”

Griffin’s grandpa arrives for a surprise visit and Ben is not happy to see him. Ben’s father tells him that the family shouldn’t be at The Tremont. Twins Wyatt and Zoey are searching for a video camera in the basement when Harper sneaks in. Harper and Griffin are worried the twins will find the bunker as they head back to the past. Griffin will have to be back to the present before dinner with his grandpa.

The portal takes them back exactly 30-years to the day. When they get to the past, they find Jess and Savannah having a fight over Bennet. It’s Griffin’s first time seeing Harper’s mom Jess in the past. They split up to try and get more information out of their young parents, with Griffin finding Bennet in his bunk playing the electric guitar. Griffin and Harper are still using their aliases, Harry and Hermione.

While Griffin finds out that Bennet likes Savannah, Harper confirms that Jess has a crush on Ben. Jess says “I just think this place would be a whole lot nicer if she would just go way,” referring to Savannah. Griffin helped Bennet write a song and when he tells Harper how cool that experience was, she thinks he’s not taking this mission seriously. They had back to the present mad at each other.

At dinner, Griffin lies and says he was doing homework all day. Grandpa is asking the family to move back to Chicago and for Ben to come back to work at his firm. The twins have their camera at the table and when they tell grandpa they’re trying to record Savannah's ghost, he turns to Ben and says “Savannah?” Griffin notices the awkward exchange, especially since Ben has already told Griffin that he didn’t know Savannah when he was at camp.

At Harper’s house, Jess asks her daughter why she was quiet at dinner and she says she doesn’t understand why boys are so immature, referring to her fight with Griffin. “Boys can make you feel so crazy, especially when you have a crush,” Jess tells her daughter. Harper asks her mom about her first crush and she says “It ended the way all crushes do, with somebody getting crushed.” Harper assumes she’s talking about Bennet.

At The Tremont, Griffin asks his grandpa why he’s so mad at his dad for coming back to Sulphur Springs. He says “It’s nothing but a pile of old wood and bad memories.” Griffin asks him about the bad memories, but all he will say is “The past belongs in the past.”

Sarah and the twins go to Jess’ coffee shop where Zoey and Wyatt find Topher and ask him for help getting the old video camera to work. When they tell him they want to get Savannah’s ghost on film, he says “Your funeral” and gives them some tips. Meanwhile, Sarah talks to Jess about continuing to keep Griffin and Harper apart and agree to keep an eye out to help each other.

Outside of school, Griffin and Harper reconnect and make up from their fight the previous day. Harper had notes dropped at the front office allegedly from their moms saying they’re both sick and they skip school to go back to the past. They arrive just in time for the talent show, hosted by Jess, and they get to see Bennet play guitar, the song he co-wrote with Griffin. Bennet’s dad is watching and gets upset that he isn’t playing “Greensleeves” like he planned. It makes Bennet nervous and he stops playing, unplugging his guitar and walking off stage.

Bennet’s father is mad and tells him he’s embarrassed by his actions on stage. In the previous episodes, we learned that Bennet won the talent show, but there’s no way he can win with that performance. Savannah is the next performer, singing the song that scared Ben on the tape. It then turns into a more hip-hop version that Griffin hasn’t heard yet. Everyone casts their ballet for who should win the talent show.

In the present, Ben is working on fixing a drafty spot in The Tremont when Sarah finds him. She tells Ben that she thinks Griffin has been hanging out with Harper again and reveals that she talked to Jess about it. Ben asks if Jess said anything else and Sarah asks him why he would ask that. He makes an excuse to leave, saying he needs to find a different screwdriver.

Sarah finds the twins setting up the camera pointed at the hole in the wall to the secret room where they felt one of the cold spots they mapped previously. Sarah kicks them out and as they leave the area, she peeks into the secret room and gets cold, breathing out condensation into the dark room.

Against the odds, Ben still wins the talent show and everyone is confused. Harper thinks Jess rigged the results, cheating to make her crush win or doing it to spite Savannah. When Griffin gets back to the present, he hears that his grandpa is leaving since he can’t talk Ben out of restoring The Tremont. Griffin and his dad have a moment of understanding and Griffin hopes his dad will open up more about the past, but Ben tells him to go do some homework before dinner.

Harper and Topher are helping Jess make dinner when Jess asks if she’s still having boy problems. Harper tells Jess it’s actually a problem with a girl this time, referring to her mother in the past. Harper asks Jess if she ever took her frustrations with a crush out on another girl. Jess tells her to stay away from girls like that, saying “What starts off as a game can be very real.” Harper has a video call with Griffin later and says she now thinks her mom might’ve done something to Savannah.

As Griffin and Harper talk on the phone, both of their moms enter their rooms, having found out that they skipped school. Jess and Sarah ground both of them, which will make it even harder to get to the past before the dance.

The episode ends with a flashback to the past with Savannah staring at the banner for the end of camp dance, the night she disappeared. Bennet and Jess join her and Savannah says she’s thinking of skipping it. When Ben says he might skip it with her, Jess says “You have to be there. Trust me, it will be a night to remember,” with an extra emphasis on the word “Remember.”

Before the credits roll, we get a preview of the next episode. It’s set on the day of the 30th anniversary of Savannah’s disappearance and the twins are going to once again try and catch her ghost on camera, thinking her hauntings will increase due to the anniversary. Topher covers for Harper as she and Griffin sneak back to the past for the dance, even though they’re both grounded. Jess asks Harper if she will go to the dance because she needs a “Partner in crime.”

The next episode is titled “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Time,” all herbs but “Thyme” is spelled like the progress of existence rather than the herb. Here is the official episode description from Disney Channel:

“Ben is upset by the flurry of news reports marking the thirtieth anniversary of Savannah’s disappearance, while Zoey and Wyatt see it as the perfect opportunity to finally capture her ghost on tape.”

I’ll be back next week with another recap of Secrets of Sulphur Springs.

By the way, if you’re loving Secrets of Sulphur Springs, I recommend checking out So Weird, a Disney Channel series from the early 2000’s about a girl who researched paranormal activity as she travels around the country with her rock star mother in search of the ghost of her deceased father. The entire series is now streaming on Disney+.

BONUS: Check out our interview with Landon Gordon, who plays Wyatt on the show.

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Alex Reif
Alex joined the Laughing Place team in 2014 and has been a lifelong Disney fan. His main beats for LP are Disney-branded movies, TV shows, books, music and toys. He recently became a member of the Television Critics Association (TCA).