Simon Elroy (Kristian Ventura), Maddie Nears’s (Peyton List) best friend and the only person alive who can see her, is desperate to discover what happened to her. While those answers will provide closure, they will also cause sadness.
Every living being at the school fails to see the ghosts, and Simon is the only one who sees Maddie when she dies. If you’re curious about why this is happening, you will find the answer here.
Maddie wanders about her school after her death because she is locked in the area where she died. She sees Simon, Nicole, Xavier, Claire, and others and pursues them to learn how she died. Maddie, believing that the living cannot see her, stands near Simon shortly after her death, only for him to notice her. Simon not only notices her but also speaks to her. Although he cannot see any other spirits at the school, he can see and communicate with Maddie in any portion of the school where someone died.
Although the first season finale answers some outstanding issues about Maddie’s death, it does not show how Simon sees her. Wally comes across a section in Mr. Martin’s records of the spirits in which the former chemistry teacher wrote that reliving the final trauma to the greatest extent possible may increase the “thinning” between two realms and open an access point, possibly for a spirit to cross over to the Beyond. The same logic must be at work for Simon, who loves and cares for Maddie the most in the world, even more than Maddie’s mother Sandra.
Simon must have been devastated by Maddie’s unconfirmed death and the blood splatters discovered in the boiler room. He must have replayed Maddie’s death in his mind, making it a horrible experience for him. Simon’s grief must have been so intense and overwhelming that it increased the “thinning” between the worlds of the living and the worlds of the dead. That could be how he continues to view his best friend after her death. Simon had always imagined a future with Maddie. Her untimely death must have driven him to unthinkable despair, making him an outlier among the living.
Because Simon’s relationship is confined to Maddie, it’s hardly surprising that he can’t see other spirits, such as Charley or Wally, with whom Maddie spends the majority of her time when she’s not with Simon. Another aspect influencing Simon’s ability to see Maddie is that she isn’t entirely dead. Maddie becomes a ghost not because she is physically dead, but because she lost her body to Janet, who inhabited it while passing through her to avoid Mr. Martin. Simon’s devotion and Maddie’s unusual death must have helped Simon see his best buddy even after the tragedy that transforms both of their lives.
Nicole sends Simon a video of Janet, who is in Maddie’s body, driving away in Claire’s truck in the eighth and final episode of the show’s first season. Simon and Nicole begin to believe that Maddie is still alive, leading Simon to feel that the spirit who has been speaking to him is a construct of his imagination, devised to help him cope with the loss of his soulmate. If the show is renewed for a second season by Paramount+, Maddie may have to persuade Simon that the person he saw in the video is another ghost utilising her body rather than herself.