Skippy Dies

The Van Doren Quartet rush through catch-up rehearsals the day before the concert. Titch takes it upon himself to check on them and assesses that they are not ready. He goes to tell Acting Principal Greg Costigan about it, but the principal ignores him so that he can focus on courting more donors.

The quartet members struggle to get their act together. Geoff realizes that the Pachelbel piece reminds him of Lori’s favorite pop song, which Skippy used to listen to incessantly.

Lori is committed to a rehabilitation facility. The doctor gets her to talk about her pill addiction, which she’d use to cope with her family’s materialism and her pregnancy worries. The doctor tries to counsel her, but she doesn’t pay attention. She is similarly unfazed by different visitors, particularly Janine, who confesses her relationship with Carl. Unbeknownst to everyone, her pills are stashed in her teddy bear, and she plans to take them to die.

One night, Lori is surprised to find Ruprecht calling her from outside her window.

During his suspension, Howard learns that Tom will receive an award during the anniversary concert. Howard sifts through things in his house to pass the time, finding the camera that Halley had been reviewing around the time he met Aurelie. He watches the clip he took of Halley and then, filled with remorse, burns his hand with a nearby candle.

Howard arrives at the Christmas concert, only to be turned away by Greg. The concert’s musical acts begin. When the Van Doren Quartet enters the stage, the members come out wearing tinfoil costumes.

Carl and Barry go with the drug dealers to meet with the Druid at a secure compound. They find the Druid waiting for them with a sword. They walk over to a hill, which Barry successfully identifies as a burial mound and spirit gateway. The drug dealers and the Druid exchange money and drugs. Then the Druid invites them to stay and share a pipe. Barry takes a puff of the Druid’s pipe and soon falls asleep. The Druid reveals that the pipe was filled with heroin.

The Van Doren Quartet begins their performance, mixing different versions of Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.” They are joined by the voice of Lori, who sings her favorite pop song, “3Wishes” by BETHani. Everyone is struck by the discordant quality of the performance, which grows progressively more overwhelming and terrifying.

Howard goes to the pub, where he finds that Jim Slattery has also been turned away in favor of corporate guests. Slattery talks to him about Robert Graves and how Graves found a muse in the American poet Laura Riding. He stresses that one of the key qualities of a muse is their embodiment of the White Goddess, who cannot be possessed. In contrast to her is the Black Goddess, who inspires true, restorative love. He ultimately advises Howard to have a sense of humor to cope with the humiliations of life. Howard realizes that he and Halley had been initially drawn to each other as muses, inspiring one another with details of their lives.

The Van Doren Quartet’s performance ends with the sudden failure of Ruprecht’s wave oscillator device. The noise is so loud that it scatters the crowd, who are mainly upset with Acting Principal Greg Costigan. He scolds the boys, threatening them with long suspensions. Afterward, Dennis declares that he is proud of Ruprecht, though Ruprecht is nowhere to be found in the dormitory. Geoff claims to have heard a voice that sounded like Skippy’s somewhere in the noise. Dennis admits that even if he didn’t think the experiment worked, he joined it out of a malicious intent to ruin the concert. Geoff suspects that Dennis just wanted to bring their group back together, which Dennis denies. As he goes to bed, Geoff senses a presence nearby, failing to smell or see the smoke spreading through the building.

Carl, under the influence of heroin, believes that he sees dead bodies coming up from the ground. Panicked, he runs back home, but he sees Skippy in his house anyway. Carl laments to Skippy about Lori, so Skippy tells him to prove that they are friends by finishing his quest to beat the final boss from Hopeland. Skippy’s ghost tells him that the boss, the Demon, is the pedophile priest. Carl sees a vision of his mom wielding fire above the couch, which inspires him.

Father Green comes back to the school after a day of pastoral duties, feeling the need to leave Seabrook once and for all. He finds it ironic to have been made the school’s scapegoat when he did not commit the error he wanted to commit. He ultimately feels guilty for what he did in Africa years ago. Suddenly, he smells smoke nearby. The fire blazes outside his office door.

A drunk Howard notices the cloud of smoke that floats over the school. He runs over as many of the boarders are evacuated from the dormitory. Howard notices Dennis, Geoff, and Mario trying to reenter, claiming that Ruprecht is still inside. None of the rescuers can find him, however. Howard thinks he hears music coming from somewhere in the school, so he runs inside.

Carl sets the door to Father Green’s office on fire, which prompts Father Green to trigger the fire alarm. Carl walks through the school, thinking that he will see Lori again as a reward for doing what Skippy’s ghost asked. However, when nothing happens, he realizes that he is the Demon from Skippy’s game. Distraught, he lies down, watching his phone ring as the smoke engulfs him.

After seeing the fire from afar, Lori tries to call Carl but gets no answer. She remembers Ruprecht coming to her window two nights earlier to ask her to join his quartet’s performance. On the night of the concert, she sings the song over the phone, which is broadcast live over the school’s speaker system. She waits for Ruprecht to call her again, but he never does. Instead, he returns to her window, telling her that his experiment failed. He also tells her that he is leaving, but he doesn’t know where he is going yet. Lori realizes that Ruprecht has lost all hope, which reminds her of her own hopelessness. She tries to convince him to stay, quoting Paul Éluard: “There is another world, but it is in this one” (652). She offers to help him the way Skippy did.

After she lets Ruprecht out of the facility garden, she puts away her pills and tries to call Carl once more. She takes a bite from one of the doughnuts that Ruprecht left behind.

Greg writes a Christmas bulletin to the school community to acknowledge the tragedy of the fire. He recognizes Howard’s bravery in rescuing Carl and mentions that both of them are recovering from their respective injuries. Father Green, however, perished in the flames. Greg downplays the cause of the fire to an electrical fault. The boarding school is thus closed while students attend their classes in temporary facilities. The Paraclete Fathers turn over management of the school to a private board headed by Greg. Finally, he congratulates Tom on his appointment in Mauritius.