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tomeandflickcorner · 3 years

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Episode Review- The Real Ghostbusters: The Thing in Mrs. Faversham’s Attic

I wonder if this counts as a Peter centric episode. Sure, he doesn’t do much, but we still get a small idea of what his relationship with his mother was like.

It begins with the titular Mrs. Agatha Faversham, asleep in her bed. She’s woken up by noises coming from her attic. While this doesn’t seem like that big of a deal at first, the sounds suddenly escalate to the point where the house itself seems to be shaking. It’s very clear she’s not hearing a raccoon or other fuzzy critter running around up there, so simply calling animal control is not an option. When Agatha cries out to be left alone, she’s answered with a sinister sounding cackle. So the next morning, Agatha heads down to the Firehouse, seeking the Ghostbuster’s assistance. During the initial interview, Agatha tells them a bit of her life history. It seems that she’s lived in that house since she was a little girl. While she did apparently move out for a time, she moved back after her husband passed away. However, she has never set foot inside the attic once in the past 70 years. Agatha explains that her father, Charles Faversham, had forbidden her from doing so when she was a little girl, and had repeated that restriction when she moved back in after becoming a widow. Then, when Charles also passed away as well, his dying wish was that she never sell the house, and once again reminded her that she must never go up into the attic. Clearly, this is quite suspicious. Was Agatha’s father hiding something up in that attic that he didn’t want her seeing?

Agatha finishes things off by apologetically stating she doesn’t know how much the Ghostbusters charge for their services, and stating that she doesn’t have a lot of money. Which is something I personally found surprising, since Agatha’s attire and overall character design seemed almost reminiscent to Madame Bonfamille from The Aristocats, which suggested she was wealthy. However, what’s even more surprising is that Peter actually assures Agatha that the only payment she’d be required to give is a smile. Which is a highly unusual stance for Peter to make, given his history of being reluctant to work pro bono. Even Egon, Ray, Winston and Janine seem shocked by Peter’s sudden generosity. When Ray questions him on it, Peter reveals that something about Agatha reminds him of his mother, who I suppose we’re meant to surmise passed away some time ago.

So the Ghostbusters venture to Agatha’s house, while Agatha apparently stays behind with Janine. When they arrive, Egon takes note of how he doesn’t seem to be getting any reading on the PKE Meter. Despite this, they do hear the loud banging and rumbling coming from the attic. They head upstairs to investigate, and to their surprise, the attic is unnaturally large, even by attic standards. When they set foot inside the attic, the PKE Meter finally starts going off, with the readings going so far off the scale, the device short circuits. Still, none of them seem to notice the fact that a pair of yellow eyes appear on the wall, despite the fact that they walk right past them. They do, however, notice when some toy soldiers come to life and begin shooting at them. (Not sure if I should be humming ‘March of the Toy Soldiers’ from the Nutcracker Suite or ‘March of the Toys’ from Babes in Toyland here.) The Ghostbusters, after taking cover from the toy soldiers’ attack, soon decide to return fire and aim their Proton Packs at the toy soldiers, which results in them returning to ordinary toys. Moments later, Peter, I guess, loses his balance and ends up sliding down the side of a small pile of attic junk. He lands at the base of a coat rack, which also comes alive. The coat rack demands to know why the Ghostbusters entered the attic, and Peter explains that Agatha had asked them to do so. Upon hearing the name Faversham, the coat rack grew belligerent. It demanded that the Ghostbusters hand over Faversham, expressing a desire to destroy him for what he did to him. Otherwise, it would kill the Ghostbusters. Peter tries his best to talk his way out of it, asking why exactly the ghost wanted Faversham in the first place, but the ghost was not very forthcoming. In the end, the Ghostbusters shoot the coat rack with their Proton Packs. Like with the toy soldiers, the coat rack is rendered lifeless, and the Ghostbusters try to take their chance to escape. However, they quickly find that the trapdoor leading out of the attic has vanished. Egon concludes that the ghost that’s loose inside the attic is in full control of everything. Of course, it is pretty silly of this ghost to remove the trapdoor then. If the ghost wants them to fetch Faversham, how are they supposed to do that if they can’t get out of the attic?

Anyway, in order to get away, Egon comes up with the idea of having them all shoot off their Proton Packs in different directions. This would hopefully break the entity’s concentration, allowing the trapdoor to become visible again. The plan ultimately works, and the Ghostbusters are soon able to escape the attic alive. Once they’ve escaped, Winston asks the obvious question. If the entity in the attic is that powerful and nasty, why didn’t it follow them? Why did its pursuit of them end once they made it outside the attic? Egon responds that he thinks he might know, but he’ll need to ask Agatha a few more questions before he can make a full assessment. So they return to the Firehouse to speak with her. Agatha complies by explaining how, when she was a little girl, her father, Charles, had done everything he could to make sure she’d want for nothing, even though their family was never that well off. Of course, Agatha remembered she was very satisfied with her life back then, as she had her loving father and her beloved teddy bear. Therefore, she had everything a little girl could need. (I’m guessing the mother had come down with a case of dead mom-itus when Young Agatha was too little to remember her, as there’s no mention of her at all.) One night, Charles went up into the attic, during a terrible storm. While he was up there, Young Agatha heard her father shouting, and she came to investigate, just in time to see her father coming down from the attic, white as a sheet. Charles had proceeded to tell her that he’d made a terrible mistake, but it was all fixed now. Still, she had to promise that she’d never set foot into the attic. Once Agatha finishes her story, Egon thanks her and asks Janine to show her the Containment Unit. Doesn’t really strike me as a good idea to let anyone not on the payroll near the Containment Unit, but what do I know? Maybe Egon was just trying to make sure she was out of earshot so she wouldn’t hear what he had to say to the other Ghostbusters. Because once Agatha is out of the room, he tells Peter, Ray and Winston he’s concluded that Charles Faversham must have turned to the occult in an effort to make sure his daughter could have even more than she’d already had. In the process, he’d bitten off more than he could chew and conjured up an entity he couldn’t control. He’d tried to send it back but failed, and only managed to seal the entity away inside the attic. The entity, which is called Belleranthon according to the Ghostbusters Wiki, had been trapped there ever since, expanding its domain and growing angrier and angrier as each year passed. Winston surmises Belleranthon must be super mad by now, considering it’s been 70 years since that night. That gives Ray an idea, with him guessing it’s possible that Belleranthon might not even realize how much time has passed. He believes it might be possible to bait Belleranthon and lure it into a trap. Peter, not willing to be picked as the bait, quickly nominates Slimer, who had chosen that moment to pop up. Slimer is clearly not happy about this, but Peter doesn’t give him a choice.

Upon returning to Agatha’s house, the Ghostbusters get to work at setting things up. They disguise Slimer to look like Charles Favershim by having him put on a trench coat and fedora. Because as everyone knows, if it works for anthropomorphic turtles, it must be a good disguise. Slimer is instructed to get Belleranthon to reveal its true form and get it into position by luring it to the entrance to the attic. Once Belleranthon is in position, the Ghostbusters can trap it in a Ghost Trap positioned at the base of the attic’s ladder. At first, the plan seems to be working, with Belleranthon believing Slimer is actually Charles. But before Slimer can lure Belleranthon into the designated position, it suddenly is able to see through the disguise. Belleranthon instantly grows angry, summoning up a large cyclone that managed to snag Slimer, Peter, Ray and Winston. Fortunately, Egon was able to grab hold of the top of the attic ladder in time. He taunts the entity, causing it come after him. Belleranthon takes the bait and approaches Egon. The moment Belleranthon was looming over him, Egon manages to trigger the Ghost Trap, and Belleranthon is successfully captured.

A short time later, the Ghostbusters return Agatha to her house. Peter even reveals he’d found her old teddy bear in the attic. (Not sure how the teddy bear got up there, as I distinctly remember it being shown that Young Agatha had the teddy bear with her when Charles first forbid her to venture up into the attic, and nobody ever went up there since then.) Agatha thanks the Ghostbusters for what they’ve done and asks if they’d like to stay for some tea. Ray informs her that they can’t as they have to head out on another call. Agatha states that she understands and suggests they could stop by another time. However, as the Ghostbusters start to get back into the Ecto-1, they notice Peter is hanging back. Peter proceeds to explain that he’s realized Agatha is all alone in that house, and it’s made him remember how his own mother had spent a lot of time alone as well. Which makes sense since it’s already been established in previous episodes that Peter’s father, Jim, was rarely home, as he was constantly away chasing some get rich quick scheme. And Peter now regrets that he never took the chance to be with his mother, either. I’m guessing he didn’t visit that often while he was away at college. The other Ghostbusters seem to catch on to what Peter is thinking right now, so they allow him to sit this one out, with Egon saying they’ll catch up with him back at the Firehouse. And so they drive off, with Peter going back to the house in order to take Agatha up on her offer for a cup of tea.

I wonder. Am I the only one who actually feels a bit sorry for the entity Belleranthon? I mean, think about it. Charles Faversham just summons him up from whatever netherworld it came from and then proceeded to trap it within the attic. Bellerathon is then imprisoned up there for 70 years. And the Ghostbusters resolve the issue by trapping Bellerathon in a Ghost Trap. Granted they’ll probably transfer Bellerathon in the Containment Unit, so it will have plenty of company now. But while this was clearly the easiest way to resolve things, was it the best way? Couldn’t the Ghostbusters have at least tried to explain to Bellerathon that Charles Faversham was long dead? And then promised to try and figure out how to help him return to its dimension of origin? Sure, Charles couldn’t manage it. But the Ghostbusters are equipped with more sophisticated technology and academic knowledge of ghosts and the occult. I’m sure they could have figured out something if they’d tried to. But maybe I’m the only one who sees things this way.

Of course, I suppose we’re really supposed to be focusing on the character development Peter underwent. He clearly cared deeply for his mother and has a soft spot in regards to his memories of her. Although, it’s implied that he possibly took her presence for granted and didn’t spend enough time with her when he had the chance before she passed away, which is something he regrets now. And by the episode’s end, it looks like he’ll try to make up for that by spending time with Mrs. Faversham. Overall, I’d agree this seems like a sweet gesture from Peter that could be therapeutic for him as well. (Huh, there were a lot of allusions to dead relatives in this episode, wasn’t there? Agatha’s mother apparently died when she was a baby, then she lost her husband and father sometime later. And Peter’s mom is implied to be dead, too.)

Finally, there is a small issue that occurred to me. It was clearly stated in the episode that the father’s name was Charles Faversham. But Agatha Faversham was clearly stated to have been married in the past, which is emphasized by the fact that the title refers to her as Mrs. Faversham. So….wouldn’t Agatha’s last name be different from her father’s? I suppose it’s possible that she married someone with the same last name as her, but that’s highly unlikely. Did Agatha and her late husband do the opposite of the norm and have the husband take the wife’s last name, or did Agatha go back to her maiden name after being widowed? (Although, wouldn’t she have called herself Miss Faversham then?) Then again, I suppose it’s possible the writers called both father and widowed daughter Faversham for the sake of simplicity.

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