Heartwarming / Ghostbusters: Afterlife

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• Podcast befriends Phoebe, over their shared interests and her terrible jokes.
• Along the way, Grooberson being something like an encouraging mentor to Podcast and Phoebe (especially when they presently don't have any of the actual live Ghostbusters there to teach them the ropes). The highlight of his mentoring is explaining that while any other line of work would be relatively safer, science is about taking risks and discovering new things.
  • Generally, Grooberson's boundless enthusiasm about science and the Ghostbusters. If one didn't know better, you would think that in another life, he would've made a fine Ghostbuster.
    • And as of a few years later, Grooberson has been given the chance to prove that.
• Lucky and her friends invite Trevor to take a break from the grunt work at the restaurant and hang out on the mountain top with them, especially notable since the early ribbing he got from the staff seemed a setup for a cliché bullying plot. But no, they're just teens, and some (attempted) good-natured teasing is just the price of admission to the peer group.
• The owner of the hardware store may have thought "Dirt Farmer" was nuts, but notes that he was a very good customer. Considering the extensive nature of Egon's traps and equipment, he definitely bought a lot.
• Egon's first interactions with Phoebe are to play chess with her, and eventually lead her to his underground lab and show her how to repair the proton pack. Later on, Egon leads Callie down there to show that while he was physically absent from her life, he kept tabs on her growing up with an entire board dedicated to pictures and newspaper clippings involving her.
  • Egon has a newspaper clipping of Callie having set a record for Girl Scout cookie sales. Given Egon's sweet tooth, one hopes that he'd been behind a lot of the sales as his way of giving her moral support.
  • Earlier in the movie, Callie had bitterly noted that Egon didn't have any family pictures in the house. Turns out this is because he put them in his lab, where he would've seen them every day while working.
  • Egon also fixes a frayed wire on Ecto-1's engine that Trevor missed and shuts the bonnet after the old Caddy roars back to life, to encourage his grandson to take the car out for a spin, showing that Egon's ghost isn't focused singularly on Phoebe.
• There is no practical reason for Egon's basement lab to be accessible by firepole. Egon must have installed it to remind him of the firehouse he used to work from back in New York.
  • Remember when he initially saw the firehouse as a "death trap" in the first movie? Guess adding the firepole shows that old firehouse was growing on him.
  • There's also no reason for him to have the signage with Revelations 6:12 on his property, given that he wasn't much of a religious person. However, as shown by the firepole, the collage of Callie, and a deleted scene revealing that he kept the coin Janine gave him 30 years ago, Egon is a very sentimental person, and so kept or recreated anything that had significant meaning to him or anyone he was close to.
• The sheer number of '50s cars on Egon's farm. He must have been spending a good chunk of his remaining money to get those cars to keep Ecto-1 running, when he probably could have simply used that mining truck or something else. The fact that he kept the car in as good a condition as he could speaks volumes about how much he cared not just about the car itself but the friends he left behind to stop Gozer.
• The visual of the layers of dirt being washed away from Ecto-1's Ghostbusters logo as the kids give it a proper test drive during their first ghost hunt. It's almost as though we're seeing the very spirit of Ecto-1 in true fashion once more. Bonus points for symbolizing Egon's first impression as the town "dirt farmer" falling away as Phoebe accepts her grandfather was a Ghostbuster.
  • Once Muncher's secured in the RC trap, Phoebe lets out a whoop of joy with the others.
• When the town Sheriff insults Egon in front of Phoebe, she becomes positively furious and immediately pulls out the Proton Pack's Neutrona Wand to threaten him with it. Despite never actually meeting her grandfather, she can already tell from spending time with his ghost that he was a genuinely brilliant man as well as a total genius, and she will absolutely not tolerate anyone speaking ill of him.
• In a strange bit of heartwarming, when Phoebe pulls the Neutrona Wand on the town Sheriff, she shows the same hot-headed tendencies displayed by Egon when he faced Peck in the first movie. She really is very much like her grandpa.
• Despite being the antagonists, there's something twistedly sweet about Vinz Clortho and Zuul's reunion after finding their new hosts. Namely, the former hands the latter a dandelion he found, which she graciously accepts... she eats it, of course. It feels like after more than thirty years, their bond hasn't changed one bit.
  • Also, upon her being brought back into our world, Gozer doesn't treat the Terror Dog badly, or berate them for being unable to resummon her for thirty years, but to stroke them, and even give them underchin scratches like you would a real dog, Gozer may be be a world-destroying Eldritch Horror, but it clearly cares for at least two beings.
• After being freed from Zuul, Callie is eager to tell the kids everything she saw in the lab. Trevor, Phoebe, and Podcast are all happy for her (if distracted). Except for Podcast, guessing that the experience must have been especially fulfilling for her, with such genuine sincerity that you can't help but choke up. Not even outrunning an apocalyptic demonic incursion could allow them to spoil Callie's moment.
• When it looks like the plan has failed, as Gozer reforms herself and gets ready to kill Phoebe and Callie, Callie pulls a fearful Go Through Me, putting herself between Gozer and Phoebe. Yes, she's obviously terrified out of her mind, but she doesn't let that stop her from at least trying to protect her kid. Callie also attempts to drag the disoriented Lucky (who she only knows because Trevor has a crush on her) away from Gozer before the teen ends up getting possessed by Zuul.
• When Egon's spirit arrives to help his family and friends defeat Gozer, everybody is shocked — aside from Peter, who just nods at him and says, "I thought you might turn up."
• After the Final Battle, Peter introduces himself to Phoebe, saying that he's from the Ghostbusters "home office" and commends her on an excellent job done. There's no question in his mind that she's a fellow Ghostbuster and not just Egon's granddaughter who's been messing around with their old equipment. This is also when Callie introduces herself with her last name, Spengler, for the first time.
• When Podcast invites Ray to be on his show, he's elated to discover the man is his (only) subscriber and even shares his opinion on when the show started to find its voice. There's also the fact Ray listened to over forty episodes of Podcast's show, which could have ranged in quality from subpar to outright terrible, in order to support a young believer of the paranormal.
• Lucky spends much of her screen time teasing Trevor's crush over her. Near the end of the movie and after Trevor helping her out of Zuul's husk, she treats him better and even encourages him to greet his grandfather.
• Egon's final moments as a spirit are spent reconciling with his friends and family, even getting a hug from his estranged daughter.
  • Notably, Egon is the first ghost in the movie franchise who has ever left for the afterlife peacefully.
  • Fridge Brilliance: "This is how it ends" takes on a whole new meaning when you realize that truly, this is where Egon not only ends what he and the Ghostbusters started, but also concludes his time on Earth by reconciling with his daughter.
  • Traditionally, ghosts stick around because of unfinished business. One way of dealing with them is to help conclude said business keeping them tied to this mortal coil. Egon sacrificed so much trying to stop Gozer once and for all, but once that's done, he's still here... until he acknowledges his old friends, takes a moment with each of his grandkids, and hugs his daughter. His real unfinished business was reconciling with his family, both biological and choice.
  • Without saying anything, one can tell what Egon is saying by his facial expression. He is happy to be with his friends once again and make peace with Ray, whom he had a fallout over the past few decades and accepts his apology. While Trevor feels a little awkward to meet his grandfather, Egon places his hand over his grandson's shoulder, feeling proud seeing him a wonderful young man. He then turns to his granddaughter, wiping off the tears from her face and thanking her for finishing what he failed to accomplish. He finally turns to his estranged daughter, whom he was never present for her whole life. Father and daughter silently apologize to each other as they finally share their first and final hug. With his life mission completed, Egon's spirit departs to the afterlife as his friends and family watch him one last time before he vanishes.
• The film ends with a Dedication that reads "for Harold", which fittingly appears right after Egon's spirit fades away. Some theaters were reported to have some cheering and clapping as soon as those words came on.
• The first stinger is Peter and Dana doing the "Negative Reinforcement on ESP Abilities" electric shock test from the opening of the first film, with the implication that they are Happily Married.
  • It's subtle, but the fact Peter takes every shock without complaint and never loses his good humor shows that he's matured enough to acknowledge how sleazy his behavior was back then and accept his lumps for it.
• The second stinger reveals that during the Time Skip, Winston (who started out as just a blue collar Sixth Ranger out for a modest paycheck) has become a happy CEO and Family Man. Winston has been paying the rent for Ray's bookshop (and, presumably, Egon's expenses from afar, given that Egon was making zero income, and because Winston is talking to Janine, who was handling Egon's day-to-day finances), and that he's since bought back the old Ghostbusters headquarters in addition to bringing the Ecto-1 home with the promise of restoring the vehicle. He also states to Janine that while he initially took the job for a paycheck, he came to genuinely love what they did and with everything he's accomplished since the team disbanded, he still considers himself a Ghostbuster first.
  • In addition to this, the second stinger starts with a flashback to the 1984 film, with a scene between Egon and Janine that had been cut from the original film. It's a tender moment where Janine gives Egon her lucky coin from the World's Fair. He initially refuses, telling her that they may not make it back from the fight with Gozer, which she tells him to keep it anyway and that she has a second one at home.
    • Even more heartwarming is that it ties to a deleted scene from this film where it turns out Egon held onto the coin, with Janine finding it on the mantle of his fireplace in the farmhouse and pocketing it. Even after 40 years, he held onto it.

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