Plot
The episode opens with a flashback to the night of May 10, 1684, when bandits stormed the Monastery of Saint Theophilus in Greece. The abbot entrusted a young monk with the monastery's greatest treasure, the Codex of Saint Theophilus, ordering him to flee and to never let the seal be broken. The monk lost his footing and fell during his descent, and the book was lost.
In the present day, Ray Stantz and Peter Venkman attend a rare book auction at Norteby's. Ray has his eye on a copy of Benz and Franck's "The Ectoplasmic Gourmet," while the Codex of Saint Theophilus comes up for bidding at a starting price of $100. Dust drifting from the Codex makes Peter's nose twitch uncontrollably, and the auctioneer misreads his itching face as a series of bids. Peter ends up winning the Codex for $1,000, to Ray's frustration.
Back at the Firehouse, Egon Spengler is testing a new device he calls the Ectoplasmic Disintegrator, which promptly explodes. Janine Melnitz takes a call about a ghost in a chimney and the team heads out, leaving the Codex on Janine's desk. When Janine goes to lunch and cannot find her usual book, she picks up the Codex and breaks the wax seal. The weather immediately turns violent and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse emerge from a set of nearby statues, triggering a cascade of supernatural disasters including frogs raining from the sky.
The Ghostbusters, heading back from a frustrating non-ghost chimney call, encounter the Four Horsemen streaking over Ecto-1. They chase the Horsemen into a department store and manage to trap all four of them in the Women's Department. The trap fails to hold, and the Horsemen escape, causing Ecto-1 to crash into a fire hydrant.
A priest named Father Yanos arrives at the Firehouse. He is from the Monastery of Saint Theophilus and explains that the Four Horsemen can only be contained again by using the Seal of Saint Theophilus, which is still at the monastery in Greece. The team books a flight on Balkan Airlines and lands at Athens International Airport with the Four Horsemen close behind. They take a train to the nearest village, then ride donkeys and walk a mountain trail to a cliff-side lift, the only means of reaching the monastery since the 1684 raid. During the ascent, the Four Horsemen attack and cut the lift cable, dropping the car. The Ghostbusters are forced to scale the cliffside by hand.
Peter slips and becomes stranded on a narrow ledge partway up while the others reach the top. The monks produce the Seal and some wax. The team uses their temporary high ground to force the Four Horsemen toward the cliff edge, but a monk trips and the seal ring falls over the side, landing near Peter. With time running out, the others throw the Ghost Trap and wax down to him. The wax lands on his face instead of his hands, but Peter manages to improvise, sealing the trap and recapturing all four Horsemen just in time. The supernatural storms cease, flowers bloom instantly from the ground, and doves return to the sky.
One-Off Entities
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
The Four Horsemen, also identified in the episode as the Dark Riders, the Scourges of Mankind, and the Horsemen of Doom, are the primary antagonists. In the episode's mythology, the holy man Saint Theophilus sealed them within the Codex in the 980s using a special wax seal. The Horsemen manifest physically by inhabiting a set of statues; in the script, these were written as Civil War generals, though the broadcast version is less specific. They are immune to a single Ghost Trap and can remain free even after initial capture, and they have enough physical influence to sabotage mechanical equipment such as a lift and throw supernatural weather effects across the globe.
Codex of Saint Theophilus
The Codex of Saint Theophilus is an ancient book that serves as both the prison and the key for the Four Horsemen. The book's original name was "Northeby's" in production materials (a clear reference to Sotheby's auction house), later adjusted to "Norteby's" in the final episode. The Codex went missing from the Monastery of Saint Theophilus in 1684 and eventually surfaced at a New York auction in the 1980s. Breaking its wax seal releases the Horsemen; reapplying a fresh seal with the matching Seal of Saint Theophilus is the only way to re-contain them.
Monastery of Saint Theophilus
The Monastery of Saint Theophilus is an isolated Greek monastery that has guarded the Codex for centuries. Its cliff-side location, accessible only by an ancient lift since the 1684 raid, provides the setting for the episode's climax. Father Yanos, a representative of the monastery, travels to New York when news of the seal being broken reaches him.
Characters
Regular cast:
Guest cast:
- Father Yanos (voiced by Brian George)
- Additional guest voice: Louise Duarte
Note: Slimer does not appear in this episode.
Equipment Featured
- Codex of Saint Theophilus (the sealed book)
- Seal of Saint Theophilus (the wax ring used to reseal the Codex)
- Ectoplasmic Disintegrator (Egon's experimental device; it explodes before the plot begins)
- Proton Pack and Particle Thrower
- Ghost Trap
- P.K.E. Meter
- Electrical Gloves
- Ecto-1
Trivia
- The episode was recorded on August 22, 1986. It is the first script written by Michael Edens, who completed it in two days.
- The title is a play on the 1979 war film Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.2 Peter's line calling the Four Horsemen "the Fab Four" echoes the popular nickname for The Beatles.
- Norteby's, the auction house where Peter accidentally purchases the Codex, was spelled "Northeby's" in the original June 9, 1986 script, a direct parody of the famous auction house Sotheby's.
- Among the bidders visible at the Norteby's auction, two are stylized caricatures of bandleader Paul Shaffer and the character Indiana Jones.
- Janine mentions to Peter that she learned about wax seals in high school. The June 9, 1986 script had a different explanation for her curiosity: a romance novel called "Passion's Pen-Pal" about a poor shepherdess in love with a poet-aspiring duke, rather than the wax-seal trivia.
- The June 9, 1986 script included a line where Ray referenced the Haunted Franklin Stove Incident of 1847 while discussing the chimney ghost call. This line was cut from the finished episode.
- In the same early script, the Four Horsemen were written to enter a boutique called "Revelations," named after the last book of the New Testament, which features the Apocalypse. This was changed to a generic department store for broadcast.
- The four statues from which the Horsemen manifest were written in the script as Civil War generals.
- After entering the department store, the Four Horsemen pass a female mannequin in a blue dress that briefly strikes a pose referencing Marilyn Monroe's famous "Seven Year Itch" photo.
- Egon references Tobin's Spirit Guide after the team first captures the Four Horsemen.
- The Washington Monument and the White House are visible in the news special report segment, illustrating the global scale of the supernatural disaster.
- A television advertisement for Stay Puft Marshmallows appears during the news segment. The on-screen text misspells the product name as "Stay Puff."
- The June 9, 1986 script called for a snatch of "Tubular Bells" (the theme from The Exorcist) to play when Father Yanos arrives at the Firehouse. This cue was not used in the finished episode.
- The June 9, 1986 script gave Yanos an additional name for the Horsemen: "the Horsemen of Doom."
- Balkan Airlines, the carrier the team flies to Greece, was a real Bulgarian airline that operated between the 1970s and early 2000s.
- When Father Yanos kisses the tarmac of his homeland at Athens International Airport, Peter makes a reference to Newark.
- The village nearest the Monastery of Saint Theophilus was given the intentionally unpronounceable name "Megalagoumenitsadepsovderokastrozathyphoropolis" in the script; a version of this name appears to be written in Greek on the village's train station sign in the broadcast episode.
- The June 9, 1986 script included a scene on the trail to the monastery where Death's horse kicked loose a boulder that created a natural bridge to replace a collapsed stone one. Father Yanos called it "Providence," to which Peter replied, "That's in Rhode Island." This bit was cut.
- The June 9, 1986 script misspells Winston's surname as "Zeddmore."
- The title of this episode appears on a flier visible outside Ray's Occult Books on page 12 of IDW's Ghostbusters Issue #5.
Animation and Continuity Errors
- The design of Peter's office visible behind Janine's desk is significantly off during the pan shot.
- Winston's leg is briefly visible in his uniform during a scene where he should be in civilian clothes.
- Peter asks Janine to answer the phone; she replies it is not ringing. She then asks "How did he do that?" but the phone rings only after her question rather than before it, reversing the logical order of events.
- During the drive, one shot shows Peter at the wheel of Ecto-1 in civilian clothes rather than his uniform.
- Before and during the department store sequence, Ray is shown alternating between having skin-colored gloves and having no gloves.
- The team is shown in civilian clothes inside Ecto-1 while still in front of the Firehouse.
- When the Horsemen cut the lift cable, Egon and Peter's uniform colors are switched.
- When Winston helps Father Yanos to his feet, Winston's uniform collar is the same color green as Peter's.
- In one shot while standing next to Father Yanos, Peter is shown in civilian clothes.
- As the team (minus Peter) crests the cliff top, one shot shows two Rays and no Winston.
- In one shot Peter is shown standing next to Ray rather than Winston, and the Ghost Trap is missing its black stripe markings on the doors.
- During one moment, the license plate on Ecto-1 reads "ECTD-1" instead of "ECTO-1."
Production
"Apocalypse -- What, NOW?" carries production number 76036 and is included on Vol. 2, Disc 3 of the DVD box set. In the show's broadcast order it falls between "Ain't NASA-sarily So" and "The Devil to Pay." For the full episode listing, see the Real Ghostbusters Episode Guide.
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
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The Real Ghostbusters, "Apocalypse -- What, NOW?" (1987), original airdate November 18, 1987; production number 76036.
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Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola (United Artists, 1979).
