Plot
Three ghosts break into the Bright Wave High Tech Industries facility through the ventilation system and steal the LB-7, the company's most sophisticated prototype laser, shoving two guards into a wall on the way out. When the Ghostbusters arrive, Roland Jackson questions a Bright Wave scientist while Eduardo Rivera confirms paranormal activity with his P.K.E. Meter. Roland reveals he has been training Slimer to track ghosts by scent as a fail-safe for when the meters malfunction, an idea he picked up from watching his brother-in-law train a bloodhound. Eduardo is unimpressed and calls it an insult to dogs. Neither can guess what ghosts would want with a laser.
Across the city, Kylie Griffin and Garrett Miller visit a Paranormal Exhibit displaying Russian antiquities, where Kylie is drawn to a Toltec Skull on display. Kylie brought Garrett along so she would not have to ride the subway alone. The same three ghosts appear, lift Garrett in his wheelchair, and steal the skull. After the ghosts grow agitated, the collars around their necks hum and force them to break off and leave. As Kylie watches them vanish, a shrouded man behind her presses a remote control, then disappears.
At the Firehouse, Egon explains that the Toltec Skull is one of only three in existence and that, together, they can open a door to the Netherworld. He locates the other two skulls: one owned by New York millionaire Wilhelm Rykhart, the other in New Jersey owned by Edward Kirilian, whom Janine Melnitz recognizes as an old colleague of Egon's. The team splits up to protect both.
Roland, Eduardo, and Slimer take Roland's Mustang to Rykhart's, where the millionaire insists his skull is safe in a titanium-lined vault. The ghosts breach it anyway and escape with the skull, while a stray proton blast destroys a Ming vase. Egon, Kylie, and Garrett reach Kirilian's run-down house just as it is attacked. Egon sees Kirilian seized by a ghost moments before an explosion levels the building, and the team watches the house collapse, apparently with Kirilian inside.
Shaken, Egon tells Kylie that he and Kirilian worked together at New York State University and once shared the same passions, but that Kirilian's theories grew dangerous: he proposed controlling ghosts and using them as slave labor, which ended both their friendship and Kirilian's academic career. Egon regrets never reaching out again. The team tracks the ghosts using Slimer, who picks up the trail despite repeated detours toward food (Eduardo sarcastically calls him Lassie when he stops at a Hot Pretzels stand), and follows the readings to the abandoned junior high school Kylie once attended. A display case there reveals Kylie was the school's 8th-grade Cheerleader of the Year, to Garrett and Eduardo's amusement.
In the basement, Egon finds a door marked "Civil Defense," leading to lead-lined fallout tunnels built during the Cold War. The shielding kills the P.K.E. Meters. Ghosts ambush the team in the labyrinth, separating them and kidnapping Egon. Locked in a cell, Egon is found by Slimer, who slips away to fetch the others. The ghosts return Egon to a chamber where the three Toltec Skulls sit on a pedestal beside a machine. A costumed figure approaches: it is Kirilian, who faked his death. He built the Collars of Obedience to subjugate ghosts and intends to use the skulls and the stolen laser to open the Netherworld and enslave demons.
Slimer leads Roland, Eduardo, and Kylie back to Egon. Kirilian activates the laser, energizing the skulls to send out a sub-atomic vibrational pulse that tears open a cross-dimensional rift. As ghosts pour through, the team arrives and Egon wrestles Kirilian from the controls, finally ripping the panel off. The freed ghosts return through the portal, dragging the enslaved ones with them. Garrett blasts Kirilian's remote to pieces. Caught in the portal's pull, Kirilian is grabbed by Egon, but he deliberately lets go and is taken to the other side by a ghost. The portal closes and the machine explodes. As Egon mourns, Kylie tells him that Kirilian let go a long time ago.
Ghosts and entities
Edward Kirilian is the episode's antagonist and the main driver of the plot. A former academic colleague of Egon's at New York State University, he was dismissed after proposing that ghosts be enslaved as a labor source. Working in seclusion, he developed the Collar of Obedience, a device that subjects a ghost to his will, and conscripted a small group of spirits to carry out his thefts. He adopted the self-styled title "The Evil One" and staged his own death to mislead the team. Voiced by John De Lancie, Kirilian makes a non-canon cameo on the subscription cover of Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #18 by IDW Publishing. His surname echoes Seymour Kirlian and Kirlian photography, a technique that some parapsychologists claim can photograph the aura or soul of living beings.
The spirit slaves are a group of weak, collar-wearing ghosts conscripted by Kirilian using his Collars of Obedience. They are capable enough to breach a titanium vault and overpower the team in an enclosed labyrinth, but the collars can override their will and force them to disengage on command. Once the Collars of Obedience are deactivated, the freed spirits voluntarily return through the Netherworld portal and drag the remaining enslaved ghosts with them.
The Toltec Skulls are three ancient artifacts that, when aligned and energized by a sufficiently powerful laser, emit a sub-atomic vibrational pulse capable of tearing open a cross-dimensional rift to the Netherworld. The skulls are connected to Toltec culture; the episode alludes to the Toltec sun deity, Tonatiuh, also venerated in Aztec and Mayan tradition.
The Collars of Obedience are Kirilian's invention for subjugating ghosts. The collars respond to a handheld remote and can be triggered remotely to force the wearer to break off any action. Garrett destroys the remote with a proton blast during the climax, freeing the enslaved spirits.
Cast
The regular voice cast includes Tara Charendoff as Kylie, Maurice LaMarche as Egon, Jason Marsden as Garrett, Pat Musick as Janine, Alfonso Ribeiro as Roland, Rino Romano as Eduardo, and Billy West as Slimer. John De Lancie voices Edward Kirilian and Roger Rose appears as a guest voice.
Notes and references
The episode leans on Cold War history and pop-science callbacks. The civil defense tunnels under the school reflect the real practice of building lead-lined fallout shelters beneath schools and government buildings during the nuclear-threat years of the 1950s. At the exhibit, Kylie refers to the Iron Curtain, the postwar political barrier between the Soviet bloc and the West, and quotes the line "the magic of yesterday is often the science of tomorrow," a sentiment attributed to physicist Edward Teller. Garrett's skeptical mention of "Chariots of the Gods" points to Erich von Daniken's 1968 book of that name, which argued that ancient technologies and religions were gifts from visiting astronauts. Egon is also seen storing a decaying sample of Salmonella spores in his lab.
The Toltec culture's deity is referred to generically as the sun god; that god is Tonatiuh, the sun deity of Toltec, Aztec, and Mayan tradition.
Kirilian's costumed disguise and the broad shape of his scheme are notably similar to the villain of the 1965 Doctor Who story "The Rescue": the antagonist Bennett assumed the alien alias Koquillion and wore a ceremonial disguise to conceal his identity, much as Kirilian adopts a theatrical costume and the title "The Evil One."
Kirilian being pulled through a portal of his own making mirrors the fate of Mr. Tummel in The Real Ghostbusters episode "You Can't Take It With You." Kylie briefly mentions the death of her Great Grandma Rose while consoling Egon, and quotes Star Wars ("That was long ago, in a galaxy far away") when teased about her cheerleading past.
Continuity
"Heart of Darkness" is preceded by "Rage" and followed by "Back in the Saddle: Part 1."
