Warning: Spoilers for Goosebumps episodes 1-5

Summary

• The Goosebumps reboot follows a group of teenagers who are targeted by supernatural occurrences due to a dark secret their parents are hiding.
• Each episode introduces a different cursed item, such as a camera, mask, and clock, that leads to eerie and dangerous situations for the characters.
• The ghost of Harold Biddle is the driving force behind the cursed items and is searching for his old ventriloquist's dummy, Slappy, who seems to be the true antagonist of the series.

While Goosebumps 2023’s plot unfolds gradually over its first five episodes, the links between the show’s horror stories became clearer as the stories progressed. Goosebumps has been through many screen incarnations over the decades. Author RL Stine’s best-selling series of children’s horror novels was first adapted to the screen in the 1990s as an anthology horror show aimed at kids. There were several follow-ups, including live-action movies in 2015 and 2016.

Now, 2023’s Goosebumps reboot is revisiting Stine’s franchise from another fresh angle. This time, the show follows a group of teenagers who find themselves plagued by supernatural occurrences after they all encounter cursed times while at a Halloween party held in a haunted house. Gradually, the teens come together and realize that they are being targeted because of a dark, unclear secret that their parents are hiding. By the end of Goosebumps episode 5, this secret is finally coming to light, but not before a lot of other shocking revelations.

10 A Magic Camera Cost Isaiah His Football Season

In Goosebumps season 1, episode 1, “Say Cheese and Die,” star quarterback Isaiah comes across a cursed camera while looking around the basement of a seemingly abandoned house. The photos taken by this camera depict a terrible fate befalling whoever is in the picture, but only Isaiah can see these images. This plot is lifted from a famous Goosebumps episode starring Ryan Gosling, but Goosebumps 2023 changes the story’s ending. Here, Isaiah tries to destroy the camera when his photograph shows him with a broken arm, only to then break an arm on the football field when he hallucinates demonic players and a ghostly referee.

9 Harold Biddle’s Ghost Possessed Mr. Bratt

Harold Biddle is the teenager who dies in a house fire during the prologue of “Say Cheese and Die.” However, he doesn’t seem to be resting in peace. The troubled teen’s spirit possesses the meek Mr. Bratt, a high school teacher who inherited the lavish hunting lodge home where Harold died years earlier. Harold has some unfinished business with the parents of the show’s central group of teens, but the nature of his grudge isn't clear yet.

8 Isabella’s Mask Improved Her Confidence (For A Price)

In Goosebumps 2023, episode 2, “The Haunted Mask,” quiet teen Isabella is revealed to be an online troll in her spare time. Her story takes a darker turn when 2023’s updated Goosebumps reboot adapts Stine’s novel The Haunted Mask. Like Isaiah, Isabella finds a seemingly cool item in the basement that turns out to be cursed. The mask that she puts on allows her to confidently dance with her classmates at the Halloween party and, when the slacker Lucas breaks her expensive drone later, the mask encourages her to get revenge on him. However, its influence goes too far when the mask almost convinces Isabella to attack her little brother.

7 Mr. Bratt’s Clock Used A Time Loop To Clone James

In Goosebumps episode 3, “The Cuckoo Clock of Doom,” Isaiah’s friend James is trapped in a time loop when he hits his head on the eponymous timepiece. James uses this time loop to win over his crush, but he is horrified to discover that his use of time travel created multiple, evil clones of himself. These clones trap him in his family’s abandoned mine but, luckily, Isabella discovers James’s duplicates, and she teams up with Isaiah and Margot to find and free him.

6 Creepy Worms Gave Lucas Temporary Superpowers

Lucas seemed like little more than a mindless daredevil at first, but as it turned out, his risky stunts are an attempt to recreate his late father’s daring escapades. Eventually, this habit culminates in Lucas eating a worm in a doomed attempt to impress his crush, Margot. This fails, but the worm does give him superpowers that allow Lucas to ride his motorbike off the school roof and survive.

5 Lucas’s Mother and Margot’s Father Were Having An Affair

Initially, there was a sense that magical worms were the least of Lucas and Margot’s problems. In Goosebumps 2023, episode 4, “Go Eat Worms,” the two teens discover that their parents are having an affair. The mild-mannered guidance counselor Colin and widowed Nora enjoy each other’s company but decide to hide this from their respective kids since Colin isn’t officially separated from his wife. 2023’s new Goosebumps reboot pays off this storyline when Lucas’s killer worms pursue him, Margot, and Nora to an abandoned factory, forcing Nora to it to the kids that something supernatural is going on.

4 Harold Biddle Was Behind All The Cursed Items

It turns out that the paranormal source of the reboot’s events is Harold Biddle, whose basement was home to his pet worms, a cursed camera, the haunted mask, and another mysterious unnamed item. Using Mr. Bratt’s body as a conduit, Biddle’s ghost angrily told one of James’s doubles to find a beloved item of his in “The Cuckoo Clock of Doom.” However, this item wasn't named until later.

3 Margot Saw Harold Biddle’s Past Via His Scrapbook

Margot’s cursed item was handed to her by Mr. Bratt (really Biddle’s ghost) in Goosebumps 2023 episode 5, “Reader Beware.” It was a magic scrapbook that allowed Margot to travel into Biddle’s high school memories but then trapped her there with his ghost. There, she discovered that her mother, as well as the parents of Isaiah, Lucas, Isabella, and James, had a role to play in Harold’s untimely death.

2 The Teens Learned the Truth While Reading The Scrapbook

It was discovered that Harold was friends with Margot’s mother Sarah in the saddest twist of this RL Stine adaptation. The scrapbook reveals that Sarah and Harold bonded over their shared interest in photography while in high school together, but a fight later led them to end their friendship when Harold began acting strangely. This eventually led to Sarah, along with the rest of the group’s parents, trying to break into Harold’s house near Halloween night for unknown reasons. In the process, the group accidentally caused Harold’s death.

1 Harold Was Searching For His Old Friend Slappy

Goosebumps 2023 kept the identity of Harold’s obsession a mystery for quite some time. However, the series finally revealed that he was searching for his old ventriloquist’s dummy Slappy. Based on a villain from one of the best horror anthology movies ever, 1945’s Dead of Night, Slappy the Dummy is arguably the most iconic Goosebumps character. Slappy the Dummy was the antagonist of both earlier live-action movies and, after the first few episodes focused on Harold Biddle’s reign of terror, Slappy now seems set to become Goosebumps 2023’s true villain.