Plot
Agatha Faversham is woken by terrible rumbling and cackling from her attic, as she has been for years. Unable to tolerate it any longer, she goes to the Ghostbusters. At the firehouse, Janine brings her downstairs to meet the team. Agatha explains she has not set foot in the attic in 70 years: as a little girl her father Charles forbade her from entering, and when she returned after her husband's death he made the same demand. His last request was that she never sell the house and never go into the attic. When Winston asks how she even knows something is up there, Peter cuts him off and accepts the job. Unusually, Peter asks only for a smile as payment, quietly telling Egon that Agatha reminds him of his mother.
The team enters the Faversham home. The PKE Meter initially reads nothing, but then the entire house shakes with a violent rumble. They find the attic entrance, climb through, and discover the small door opens into a vast, impossible space. The PKE Meter instantly goes off the scale and shorts out. Toy soldiers animate and attack them. Peter falls near a coat rack, which suddenly speaks, demanding to know who the intruders are. When Peter names Faversham, the coat rack turns hostile, attacks the team, and demands they bring Faversham or be killed. The Ghostbusters blast two objects simultaneously to break the entity's concentration and bolt for the trap door, only to find it has vanished. Egon concludes the entity, Belleranthon, has absolute control over everything in the attic. By firing at the spot where the trap door was, they manage to reveal it briefly and escape.
Back at the firehouse, Egon presses Agatha for details about her father. She recalls that as a child she saw him go into the attic during a terrible storm and emerge pale and shaken. He told her he had made a terrible mistake but that it was now fixed, then made her promise never to go up there. Egon pieces together what happened: Charles Faversham, wanting to make his daughter's life even better than it already was, stood on a rug marked with a six-pointed star and read from a book bearing the same symbol, summoning a force he could not control. Unable to send Belleranthon back, he had no choice but to seal it in the attic. Over the following 70 years, consumed with hatred for Faversham and unaware of how much time had passed, Belleranthon slowly expanded its domain and grew angrier with each year. Ray proposes that because Belleranthon does not understand how long it has been, it might be lured out by the appearance of Faversham himself. Peter declines to be bait; Slimer is nominated instead.
At the house, Egon positions a ghost trap near the trap door while Slimer is dressed up as Charles Faversham. He is instructed to lure Belleranthon into the open, cause it to assume its true form, and draw it over the trap. The team shouts "Mr. Faversham" and shoves Slimer through the hatch. Belleranthon appears and takes on its true form, a monstrous construction of attic objects, to destroy the man it has waited decades to kill. When it realizes the trick, it summons a cyclone. Egon taunts it toward the trap pedestal, triggers the trap, and captures the entity. Everyone is unharmed, though Slimer collapses in a dead faint. Peter finds Agatha's childhood teddy bear in the attic and returns it to her. She offers tea. Ray mentions they have another job and the rest of the team boards Ecto-1, leaving Peter behind. He knocks on Agatha's door and takes her up on the tea, telling Egon later that his mother spent a lot of time alone and he never got to be there for her.
Characters
Peter Venkman
Egon Spengler
Ray Stantz
Winston Zeddemore
Janine Melnitz
Slimer
Guest Characters
Agatha Faversham (voiced by Marilyn Lightstone) is the client of the episode. An elderly woman who has lived her entire adult life honoring her father's deathbed request, she has endured 70 years of noise and tormenting from the attic above her without ever learning what caused it. She is the emotional core of the episode, and Peter's unexpected attachment to her drives the story's final beat.
Charles Faversham (voiced by Frank Welker) is Agatha's late father, known only through her memories and Egon's deduction. A devoted parent who wanted to give his daughter a perfect life, Charles made the disastrous decision to summon Belleranthon using an occult ritual, then found he could not send it back. He sealed it in the attic and spent the rest of his life protecting Agatha from what he had done.
Belleranthon (voiced by Maurice LaMarche) is the episode's antagonist. In its true form it is a giant purple cloud-like mass with multiple yellow eyes and red pupils. After being imprisoned in the Faversham attic for 70 years, Belleranthon has expanded its control across the entire attic space, animating any object within it as a host body and projecting psychokinetic energy. In its cloud form it can generate a cyclone and lightning within the attic. It is too consumed with rage toward Charles Faversham to realize that Faversham has been dead for decades. The PKE Meter shorts out entirely from its readings.
Equipment
Locations
Faversham Residence: The Faversham family home, site of the entire episode after the opening firehouse scene. The house's attic serves as Belleranthon's expanded domain, appearing far larger on the inside than it should be and subject to the entity's complete control.
Firehouse: The Ghostbusters' headquarters, where Agatha first meets the team and where the group later reconvenes to research what Belleranthon is and how to defeat it.
Trivia
- J. Michael Straczynski's favorite episode.
- The episode was recorded on December 15, 1986.
- The occult ritual depicted (a six-pointed star, a book with the same symbol) was considered an unusual subject for ABC's broadcast standards of the period.
- Peter states he spent seven years in college, during a moment of fumbling over proton pack polarity.
- Peter tells Egon that Agatha reminds him of his mother, and implies his mother spent a lot of time alone during his childhood. It is the clearest glimpse of Peter's backstory in the early seasons.
- Agatha's childhood teddy bear is retrieved from the attic by Peter, but no explanation is given for how it got there, since no one entered the attic after Charles sealed Belleranthon inside.
- The Devil is referenced by name during the episode, consistent with other RGB episodes that touched on overtly supernatural forces.
- In the IDW comic "What in Samhain Just Happened?!" (page 9), a coat rack resembling Belleranthon's host form appears near a table. In Ghostbusters: Crossing Over issue 3 (page 10), the Doom Ghost's fog form is visually based on Belleranthon.
Quotes
: Peter: (Having a conversation with himself) 'So, Peter, did you have a nice day?' Oh, yeah. I argued with a hat and coat rack. 'Oh, really?' Yeah.
: Peter: Seven years of college and I can never remember if it's positive to negative or positive to positive.
: Egon: Maybe the noise was physical in origin. Squirrels on the roof, perhaps.
(A huge pounding sound starts to shake the whole house)
:Peter: Squirrels, Egon?
:Egon: Okay, fat squirrels, playing basketball. Satisfied?
: Peter: How come we never meet anything cute? It's always big and mean with lots of teeth.
: Janine: Come along Mrs. Faversham, I'll show you where they figure out new ways to do stupid things.
Gallery
Related: Real Ghostbusters | Real Ghostbusters: Season 2 | Real Ghostbusters: Episode Guide
