Nightmare Fuel / The Ghost and Molly McGee

The backstory for this ghost isn't much better...

Despite being considerably more lighthearted than some of its other fellow Disney Channel shows, The Ghost and Molly McGee can still have dark and scary moments. It's a show about ghosts, after all. It comes with the territory.

---

General

• The premise itself, depending on how you look at it.
  • On Molly's side, imagine you and your family move into a new house. You start unpacking and suddenly you find out it's haunted by a ghost. The ghost then places a curse on you, levitating you and everything in the room, distorting his voice, becoming bigger and more horrific and summoning bugs and spiders from his body as he chants:
    "I CURSE YOU, MOLLY MCGEE! Wherever you go, whatever you do, for the rest of your days, I'll be there, haunting you, tormenting you, turning your every waking moment INTO AN UNENDING NIGHTMARE!!!"
  • From Scratch's perspective, imagine being stuck with the most annoying person you ever met forever. She's not even slightly afraid of you, she keeps squeezing you so hard your spine breaks (or it would if you had a spine), she insists on doing all sorts of activities even if you don't want to do any of them, and even when you decide to get away from her, she can summon you whenever she wants by saying your name. You can never have a second to yourself again. EVER. And the worst part of it is you placed the curse that bound you to her unto yourself. That would be a Fate Worse than Death.
    Scratch: I didn't curse Molly McGee. She cursed me.
• The Flow of Failed Phantoms. Any ghost that fails to make their assigned town miserable is sent to a hellish swarm of screaming wraiths who are aware of their punishment but incapable of doing anything about it.
• The Chairman is set up to potentially be the overarching threat of the show. Not only is he the one who directly sends ghosts to the aforementioned Flow of Failed Phantoms, but he is a large shrouded figure who does not speak, unlike the other members of the Ghost Council. When he notices that Brighton has become less miserable due to Molly's influence, he emits a low growl.
• Once you look past the cute, quirky, and colorful exterior, the Ghost World underneath the reign of the Chairman and Council is one gigantic spiritual and existential nightmare. This is where the souls of humans are destined to end up (as implied by Roman pagan Julius Caesar coexisting with the mostly Christian US presidents), which wouldn't be so bad until you consider that this society has a Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad mindset and ghosts are tasked with spreading misery under threat of banishment to the Flow of Failed Phantoms, to the point of a billboard advertising a "Misery Hotline" and there being "Joy Hunters". In other words, once you die, it doesn't matter how hard you tried in life to be a good and happy person, you have to completely discard that in favor of being as awful and miserable a spirit you can be, with the rest of your eternal afterlife on the line. Molly deposing the Chairman and Council will allow the deceased to breathe (for lack of better term) freely again, and the ghosts of historical figures are seen chilling and partying (though since they go to a club called the "Haughty Haunt", relaxation is most likely more an elitist luxury), but that's still a frightening thought.

Season One

"Howlin' Harriet"

• The titular ghost is a ferocious specter who was run over by a train, with the only parts of her that could be identified being the mangled toes on one foot. She roams the woods looking for toes from campers to replace her own. Although it initially seems like just a story by Libby, she turns out to be very real and (up until Molly and Libby manage to pacify her) much more horrifying-looking than Scratch and the other ghosts.

"Mama's Gotta Hustle"

• After Scratch suggests that Sharon get a job at a restaurant and tells her to "go cook", she flies into a rage and makes a pretty terrifying Nightmare Face, complete with Fireball Eyeballs.

"No Good Deed"

• Darryl gets three teachers inside a prison, while they think that it's all an escape room even as they incite a riot. They're lucky that they didn't get seriously hurt!

"Monumental Disaster"

• When Ezekiel Tugbottom finds Molly calling him a fraud, he manages to bring a dark storm to the sky and turns himself into a gigantic tornado, a form in which he chases Molly with by taking trees from the ground that she's hiding behind of.

"Friend-Off"

• Molly comes very close to getting killed in a compost machine.

"Festival Of Lights"

• Libby's great-grandparents had to flee from their home (probably during the Kristallnacht) and seek refuge in the USA to save their lives.

"Ready, Set, Snow"

• It's a snow day in Brighton and Molly wants to go out and play with her friends. The only thing is everyone else doesn't want to brave the heavy weather and instead spend time with each other inside. Molly stubbornly goes out to play anyway and begins singing about how much fun she's having. Only as the song goes on, she's singing about how she's dying of exposure and can't feel her fingers. By the end of the episode, Molly is going through a brief psychotic episode! She snaps out of it but not without hallucinating a talking snowman (actually Scratch possessing it).

"The Don't-Gooder"

• Molly's Grin of Rage as she prepares to expose Andrea's charity-cheating. Even Scratch is terrified.

"Scare Tactics"

• Scratch is nearly sent to the Flow of Failed Phantoms and is only saved by Geoff accidentally showing the Chairman how terrified Molly is at the moment.
• At the end, Molly is too afraid to go back into the house, as it has been overrun by thousands of spiders. The shot of all of them creeping up to the kitchen window might be enough to turn an enthusiast into an arachnophobe.

"The Internship"

• Once again, Scratch almost ends up in the Flow of Failed Phantoms and is only saved by Reggie's intervention.

"The Lucky Penny "

• Andrea being The Jinx and a Walking Disaster Area is pretty funny. It becomes pretty scary when it causes a nasty rainstorm in a mall.

"Scaring is Caring"

• Molly's futile efforts to try and do Scratch's scare assignments very nearly get her run over by a semi-truck after an accident. Had Scratch not been cured of his illness by finding his fear (which turns out to be losing Molly) and swooped in for the save, it could have gone very badly.

The Jig is Up

• When Jinx realizes that Molly is the agent of joy she is looking for, she immediately decides to murder her. Only Scratch's intervention saves Molly's life.

Molly Vs The Ghost World

• While Molly is in the Ghost World, her living body is basically an Empty Shell that can only feel apathy towards everything. Libby, who volunteers to babysit it while Molly and Geoff rescue Scratch, is more than a little unnerved by it.
• While it doesn't last long, the Ghost Council finally banish not only Scratch but also Geoff and even Molly to the Flow of Failed Phantoms and they don't hesitate one moment.
• Molly herself is a little spooky in this episode. Not only does she have incredible power in her wraith form, but she manages to disable both the Flow of Failed Phantoms and the Chairman with zero effort. If she wasn't such a good person, the Ghost World would be more than a little afraid of her.

Season Two

The New (Para)Normal

• When the Flow of Failed Phantoms was destroyed, it unleashed dangerous ghostly beings called "Frightmares", that are so nasty and destructive that even the Chairman didn't want them running loose, despite the fact that he was the only one that they listened to. And now they're loose once more...

A Doll to Die For

• Lord Doom. First off, his ghost form resembles an even more unhinged Skeletor or Lord Hater. Then, when we first see him, he terrorizes and attacks every ghost in sight. The Council state he ate a whole village of living people AND their ghosts, indicating him as a threat to the living AND dead. It's no wonder the Chairman banished him to the Flow of Failed Phantoms.
  • Even when he possess a baby doll, he comes across as creepy and unstable. As Molly tries to rehabilitate him, she herself gradually doubts herself as his speech still consists of implied threats, even when he acts friendly, and he commits a few suspicious acts when he thinks she's not looking, such as cutting her face out of pictures, cutting down a coffee table with a chainsaw and spilling what looks like someone's blood everywhere. Molly spends the latter half of the episode thinking that he was Beyond Redemption, paranoid that he wanted to get rid of her. Luckily, his change of heart was sincere and he was only making a collage for Molly. He was just bad at expressing his true feelings and was hurt Molly misinterpreted him.

Frightmares on Main Street

• The third act. The Frightmares are back and they are causing mass terror and destruction, even freaking out the ones who still think it's part of the show, unaware that they are all in very real danger. Worse, the Chens' ghost-hunting methods are completely ineffective against them and the only one capable of stopping them is completely incapacitated, unable to escape the ectoplasma-ensnaring goo he's stuck in. Had Molly failed to get through to Ollie, or worse, had Ollie not stopped June from destroying Scratch earlier, things could have turned out really, really bad.

All Shark No Bite

• The Ghost Shark. Molly, Darryl, and Scratch spend most of the episode fleeing from it, fearing for their lives. As it keeps getting closer to them, the list of safe places for them keeps getting shorter.

The Ghost IS Molly McGee

• Scratch is still able to make demonic faces while possessing Molly's body, and it's a far cry from Molly's usual, adorable, cheerful persona.

Web of Lies

• A lot of Scratch and Molly's guilt-riddled hallucinations are quite creepy, such as the swarm of spiders emerging from the bathtub drain or the duo imagining Pete eating them.

Welcome to NecroComic-Con

• Molly and Ollie are fearful of Ruben and Esther's plan to showcase the ghosts captured in the Phantom Canister, and for good reason.
  • For one, those ghosts are the Frightmares, who wreak havoc everywhere they go.
  • Furthermore, exposing a convention full of ghost hunters to such villainous ghosts would surely spiral into an inter-species war.
  • Worst of all, they actually fail to stop the presentation, with the day being saved only by June's interference.

The Grand Gesture

• Darryl and June accidentally create an ectoplasm creature that eats electricity, causing blackouts all throughout Brighton. It eventually grows large enough that it would surely destroy the town...if it didn't spontaneously revert to miniature size instead. As well as Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence after doing a speech about how love doesn't need to be grandiose and that true love exists in everyday moments.

F.O.N.A.A.!

• With her fear removed, Molly does a lot of insane things that range from self-sabotaging to death-defying. Her final stunt is a trebuchet launch over Brighton, which Scratch is desperate to talk her out of because he is certain that it will kill her.
• Molly is frightened of Toothy, a tooth with teeth. In her defense, Toothy is rather unnerving to look at.
• Molly's face as she peers out at Scratch from inside the kitchen cabinet is quite nightmarish.

Perfect Day

• Crosses into Tear Jerker. It's brief, but during one of the reset days? Darryl actually dies! We even see his ghost leave his grave.

Jinx vs. The Human World

• Because of Scratch's negligence, Jinx manages to get ahold of the Chairman's robes and quickly reduces the Ghost World to what it was at the start of the series. She even brings back the dreaded Flow of Failed Phantoms.
• Things get even worse when Jinx kidnaps Molly when the latter comes to the Ghost World to try and stop her. The Sobgoblins quickly drain Molly of her joy and become even stronger and scarier.
• Jinx invading the human world and laying waste to Brighton. If Molly hadn't found a way to escape her cage, Jinx could have won.
• The episode ends with Jinx being defeated, but now the Chairman's robes are on the loose. What would happen if another sadist like Jinx got ahold of them?
• Throughout the episode, Jinx makes a series of highly unsettling faces.

---