Finally, after a brief tease earlier this season we get to see more of Scratch’s past, but first – a classic body swap comedy adventure between the human and the Ghost Worlds.
The Ghost is Molly McGee
The school is putting on an original play, written by one Libby Stein-Torres – “Lunar Lemmings – An Intergalactic Love Story.” Special thanks to Molly McGee for literally greasing some palms to ensure that that happened.
But Molly is also serving as stage manager for this production, and she takes the reign of the stage, ensuring all the rambunctious children get into position and help make the stage show a success – or at least she tries.
She can’t get through to the fellow students and they keep ignoring her, and even Libby is frustrated telling Molly to be the manager she is and manage that stage.
At the same time in the Ghost World, another problem is developing as Scratch doesn’t appreciate his Ghost Council all the much, terrorizing and destroying their hard work with ease, using paperwork as a napkin and such. This causes the four members of the council to go on a strike. Worth noting, Animation takes a while to process and surely the creators of The Ghost and Molly McGee were not making topical WGA and SAG-AFTRA commentary at this time.
I digress. Back at home, Scratch and Molly are explaining what has happened during their day, with the other giving the other advice on how to handle their situations. There’s got to be an easier way to handle this, right? Of course there is! A body swap adventure!
Remember, at the end of season 1, we learned there is a way for Molly to separate herself from her body and become a ghost herself. Using that method, with Scratch taking over her spiritless body, Molly dons the Chairman’s robe and disguises herself as Scratch to head into the Ghost World to address the striking council.
Scratch’s way of handling the students as Molly was a bit more aggressive, taking charge, where Molly’s approach is buying off the council with delicious churros.
Here’s the catch – they both encounter one individual who refuses to cooperate. For Molly, it's Bart on the ghost council, and for Scratch it’s Georgie, the student assigned to assemble the lemming costume for the play.
Together, they realize the best idea might be to just sit and talk with the troublesome individuals. Molly finds out Bart’s biggest issue is that Scratch eats at the council desk, destroying all their hard work. So, for any resolve on that end there has to be some kind of promise made that Scratch will never eat in their work area again. As for Georgie, he was more interested in being in the suit than making it, wanting to perform in the play. So Scratch gets him a part in the play, though by the end of the episode, it's clear why he wasn’t cast in the first place.
With the resolutions in place, and Scratch having to keep his word (that Molly gave) all seems okay now, and the two swap back into their original bodies… or however you want to describe Scratch’s vehicle.
All In The Mind
Something is up with Scratch. His ectoplasmic skin(?) is bubbling like a fizzy bottle of soda (more on that a little later) and the ghost doctor who is treating him says that there’s nothing wrong with him. Everything that is happening is purely psychosomatic.
As such, Molly wants to find out what he is repressing that is causing all this and with access to Scratch’s chairman’s book of spells, she knows that there must be some kind of way that they can get into his mind. Alas, there is!
Using a portal, they are able to jump into Scratch’s mind and must find a glowing symbol to follow. As they go through, the world we are in is quite familiar though mostly black and white or sepia toned. Molly, a pro seeker when playing hide and seek, is at a loss and can’t find this glowing icon. Finally, they arrive back at Scratch’s Dollhouse where he is saying he has some stuff hidden, but what he is describing are more practical items that he is protecting, not much else. Oddly though, the door to his dollhouse features a glowing star. That’s where they have to go.
Once inside his dollhouse, the pair are transported into a sea of bubbling strawberry soda featuring a monkey captain on their cardboard boat. Why? Turns out, they are on a ship in a bottle, with pressure building and Molly still trying to get to what is bothering Scratch. After another adventure that leads them into a skyscraper setting, the monkey that has been following them since they got into Scratch’s mind is now King Kong-sized and chucking bananas at the two while they are forced to climb the side of the building.
As they are climbing they stop and Scratch comes clean… This is likely about his life, which he doesn’t like remembering. Molly reminds him, he drank the soda and no memories came from that. We the viewer know that’s not entirely true… just after they gave up on the memories, Scratch had a flashback where we saw him saying goodbye to a childhood friend.
Now, we’re getting what I’ve personally been waiting to see more of since that episode, as Scratch flashes back again to a moment where they are playing in what is now Molly’s room in a cardboard ship talking about all the sights around the world they are going to see together. And then, afterward, they are going to mark them on the map with a little star – which happens to be the same icon they’ve been following this whole time. Of course, none o this really explains the monkey.
While we still don’t get the full explanation of what happened in Scratch’s life, we did get a bit more and a fairly ominous closing with the usual theme, that went slow motion as we see Scratch’s friend in a memory bubble as the episode ends.
You can see this episode of The Ghost and Molly McGee now on Disney Channel and the DisneyNOW app. You can also catch up with earlier episodes of the series on Disney+.