Seeing as it appears the new Ghostbusters franchise will be moving away from the previous films, and be a complete reboot, I thought it would be fun to release an idea I’d been kicking around for a third movie, turning the first two into a trilogy.  Following my own beliefs about trilogies, it is a completion of the cycle and themes started in the first film, updated for modern film standards.  As such, it features a heightening of the first film’s threat, as well as multiple action sequences, and deeper emotional through-lines for the characters.

It’s very sparse, but still very long.  If you’re wondering where “all the jokes are” or whatever, just trust that if I actually wrote it, I’d do my best to make this movie very, very funny.

So…

We start in the 1920s, where we witness cult leader Ivo Shandor proclaim the prophecy of the two comings of Gozer, one a failure, and the second thirty years later, to destroy the world. One of his followers speaks out, and is killed for his insubordination…becoming the spirit who is eventually known to us as Slimer.

Slam to 2016.

Ghostbusters was a national franchise, privately owned and government subsidized. But the lack of extradimensional invaders meant that there was ultimately a very limited amount of ghosts to bust, and the very optimistic national expansion slowly depleted the Buster’s funds (“Did the Atlanta chapter really need a helicopter?”). The Ghostbusters remain iconic, but despite the merchandise, cartoon show, etc, the company itself is bankrupt, on the verge of collapse.

Only two houses remain open; there hasn’t been a legitimate call in more than ten years. The original Busters are for the most part long gone; Venkman took the money and disappeared into seclusion, Winston Zeddemore quit the busters in 1991 and has since become a Richard Branson style billionaire, and Egon Spengler accidentally ascended to a higher plane of existence, leaving only the increasingly delusional Ray Stantz, who has run the company into the ground.

The New York Team is now comprised of Ted Becker, an earnest sweetheart living a dream born as he watched the Busters defeat Gozer as a little boy in 1985, Veronica Spengler, Egon’s Very Egon-Like daughter who feels in turns respectful and resentful of the hole left in her world, Brian Quaid, a fast talking breezily confident self-proclaimed psychic with a chip on his shoulder, and Irwin Oberstein, a gearhead MIT kick-out metalhead who sees the Ghostbusters as the ultimate way to explore his punk rock ideas about quantum physics.

Things are bad for the team; along with financial pressure and a sense of aimless ennui, they’re being protested and harassed by a group called Free Spirits, a new age movement that believes the Ghostbusters keeping their catches indefinitely trapped constitutes a human rights violation.

When Winston Zeddemore approaches Becker about convincing Ray to let him buy the Ghostbusters to repurpose the technology, Becker turns him down.  Becker is committed to the cause, and believes that one day the world will need them again, even as his personal life has begun to fall apart, with a disapproving fiance and a disappointed father.  They thought he was going to be a scientist.  Instead, he’s a “curiosity,” relegated to repeatedly giving people tours of the Ghostbuster’s firehouse.

He’s not the only one of the New York Busters with a problem; Oberstein the gearhead is being repeatedly approached by douchey scouts from huge tech companies trying to poach him.  Oberstein is torn; he doesn’t want to leave the Ghostbusters, but the money they’re offering is too good.  He approaches Becker about wanting to amp up the proton packs; “Really take us to Mount Olympus,” but a frustrated Becker turns him down, and Oberstein considers quitting.  It would be giving up on a dream…but maybe the metalhead has to grow up?  He’s not sure, and it’s bumming him out.

But over in Los Angeles, trouble is brewing. The LA chapter of three is essentially the shiny “I Fucking Love Science” durrh we-are-cool-geeks NERD PRIDE reboot of the Ghostbusters, and has been eeking out a profit through public appearances and huge parties.  These are the bullshit lookatmelookatme scientists, who, while not TERRIBLE people, definitely suck enough to earn an eye-roll.

The LA team is approached by a man named John Reiser, from the United States Government’s top-secret Moebius Initiative. The initiative has a simple goal, complexly stated: the capture, reformatting, indoctrination and assetizing of ectoplasmic lifeforms; long story short these crazy fuckers want to WEAPONIZE ghosts. They want to buy out the Busters and use their tech for this sinister purpose. LA is on board for this (they need the money), but Reiser demands a government controlled test run of the technology, which has been out of use for a while.

Big problem: no ghosts. The LA team hasn’t caught a spook in their entire time as Ghostbusters.  The LA busters head to New York to try to convince the NYC chapter to loan them an old ghost from the containment unit.

As financial and emotional pressures increase on the busters in New York, things are getting tense, especially between the team and their loopy leader, Ray Stantz, who’s clearly out of touch and desperate for the good old days.  Ray just doesn’t have the answers they need; he misses the other Ghostbusters desperately, and longs for the moment when he, a lifelong outcast, felt loved and useful.  Covered in Marshmallow.  A hero.

A frontman for The Free Spirits, a goodnatured, surprisingly intelligent and open minded guy named Dante, befriends Veronica Spengler, and the two have an instant chemistry, which is revealed to be at least partially fuelded by a Free Spirits plan to infiltrate the firehouse and free the ghosts.  Eco-terrorism-cum-ecto-terrorism.

It’s at this point that we learn that Spengler, every night, listens to white noise static, hoping from communication from her father Egon, from the afterlife…But so far, she’s only heard one word: her name, Veronica.  And it turns out that was just part of a radio commercial for a mattress company.  She’s deeper and sadder than we’d imagined, and her resentment against her absentee father hides a deep, unfulfilled longing.  There’s a reason she’s a ghostbuster, after all: She’s been chasing Egon’s “ghost” her whole life, so to speak.

She confides in Dante: “I don’t know what’s worse; the idea that he’s not there…Or the idea that he’s there, but he doesn’t care.”

They end on a kiss, Spengler’s first in a while.  Dante’s conflicted; Veronica Spengler doesn’t seem like the corporate scum his movement says to hate.

Meanwhile, Quaid has a rare, possibly prophetic dream; Slimer, warning him about a door that’s opening, beyond which is only a massive, bloodshot eye, and seven writhing snakes.

Quaid, usually the joker, awkwardly attempts to tell the rest of the team about his dream; they blow him off, not believing he’s a psychic, and further discussion is halted when the LA chapter arrives, asking to “borrow a ghost.”

With Dante The Handsome Hippie’s rhetoric fresh in her head, Spengler spearheads a rebuttal, and the friendly conversation between the two last Ghostbuster teams on Earth nearly degenerates into an all out brawl…when they’re interrupted by a call.  On the red phone.

Janine answers.  They can’t believe it.  It’s a ghost.

The NYC team has been called to action for the first time ever, and hop in the Ecto-1, giddy to face this challenge.  The LA team, however, takes an errant comment by Ray about the Park West Building as a clue, and leaves with a new plan.

The Busters maiden voyage is predictably chaotic, with Oberstein’s overclocked equipment doing more harm than help, Quaid’s psychic ability surprising everyone by A. Being Real and B. Handicapping him terribly with horrifying visions from the ghost’s past, Spengler’s misidentification of the ghost costing them time and endangering civilians and Becker freezing up under pressure, failing in the moment he’d waited his whole life for.

Yet, after a bombastic, calamitous battle with a spirit in a subway that spills into a broadway theater, the Ghost gets Busted.  They did it.  For the first time ever, they actually did it.

The Busters are overjoyed, and for a night are the heroes they always hoped they would be, and celebrate with a party where we learn more about them, and each of their deeper reasons for becoming a Ghostbuster.  Around a pitfire on the roof of the firehouse, they talk about rumors about the other defunct Ghostbusters teams from the 1990s and 2000s (“Was there really a one man team?  Was there really a helicopter?”)

Becker explains that his dad and fiancé’s objections to his chosen line of work, and he feels like a disappointment, and Oberstein confides that he’d been worried he’d get lost in the shuffle among the bigger technology companies.

This leads to Quaid opening up about his ability; he can’t turn it on or off.  When he was young, he was raised by his grandmother out in the country.  Every day he’d come home to her and she’d make dinner and they’d talk about school.  When he was twelve years old, Child Services came to the house.  They found his grandmother’s body.  She’d been dead for three years.

He’d been raised by a ghost.

They bond, and we really see them as a team for the first time.

But something insidious has happened; the LA Ghostbusters have a new plan. They go to the Park West building, long condemned but never demolished, and plan to use the building’s unique architectural properties to summon a small, harmless, easy to contain ghost to do the test run of their technology.  They need to impress the Moebius Initiative, who seem to approve of this decision.

So up they go to the roof, and their plan works flawlessly…for all of five seconds, before the temporary rift in reality is torn wide open by familiar claws.

Enter Vinz Clortho and Zuul.

Only the former-model Olivia Munn 2005-styled Geek Goddess female member of the Los Angeles team actually sticks up to the inter-dimensional invaders, and for her trouble is possessed by Zuul, while the two other LA Busters straight up run away, barely escaping their possessed team mate and a rampaging bad-ass CGI Vinz Clortho.

Meanwhile, Quaid and Spengler discuss the newly caught ghost, and are able to piece together a dark truth from Ray and Egon’s old books: they realize that the ghost they caught is a harbinger for a greater being, a sort of remora fish attached to a bigger shark.  In doing so, they uncover a reference to “Gozer;” but his name is mentioned being mistranslated as “a piece of Tiamat,” or “the eye of Tiamat.”

What could this mean? Is something bigger coming?

Dante the Hippie shows up looking for Spengler, but Veronica Spengler, who’s just dealt with a very real and dangerous ghost for the first time, has little sympathy for the Free Spirits “Ghosts R Nice” cause, and is very harsh to Dante, turning him away. The Busters have a team meeting, where Becker expresses anxiety at the absence of the Los Angeles team, and Ray Stantz reveals that anomalous energy readings have been in a steady rise all over the city for the past twenty four hours.

This heralds the arrival of Reiser and the Moebius Initiative, who detain the entirety of the NYC Ghostbuster team, except Spengler, who escapes at the last second.  The Moebius initiative thinks it’s more than a little coincidental that a ghost would show up in their hour of need to give them some much needed good PR.  The Moebius Initiative hauls them out, denying any knowledge of the Los Angeles Team.

…But this leaves the empty firehouse open to infiltration by Dante, who’s angry at his treatment by Spengler, and has decided to go through with the ghost free-ing plan.  Janine catches him, and he tricks her and locks her in a cabinet.  Proceeding to the basement, he is about to free the ghosts…when he sees Veronica Spengler’s White Noise listening equipment, and remembers his connection to her, and her story about her father.

Dante reconsiders, and decides not to free the ghosts…JUST IN TIME TO BE AMBUSHED AND POSSESSED BY VINZ CLORTHO…WHO KILLS THE CONTAINMENT GRID, FREEING THE GHOSTS.  OH SHIIIIIITTTTTT.

Veronica Spengler sees “Dante” escaping from the EXPLODING FIREHOUSE, and rushes in, donning a pack and fighting off several ghosts to save Janine.  She lets out one last frantic distress call to all the remaining Ghostbuster rosters in America (all of which are already defunct), before she has to flee the firehouse, which finally collapses after all these years.

The freed ghosts are suddenly EVERYWHERE in New York, and the mood is one of total pandemonium.  The NYC Ghostbusters use this opportunity to break free of the Moebius initiative, stealing the ECTO-1 back from the impound.  They use the car’s onboard tracker to locate the ECTO-X, the LA Buster’s vehicle, and deduce that the Los Angeles team started all this by going to the Park West building.

Becker, Oberstein and Quaid are enraged, deciding to chase the LA-busters down…But Ray refuses to go with them.  He seems broken; his dream has truly become a nightmare, and he feels responsible for the LA Busters and their inadvertant causing of the apocalypse.  Becker is convinced it’s not too late, even as his fiance calls him, telling him he needs to give up and evacuate the city; she clearly doesn’t believe in him to change the fate of the city, and it’s implied she’s given up on him in general.

Becker wavers…But holds firm.

Meanwhile, “Dante” the Keymaster arrives at Park West, and heads up to meet with the Gatekeeper Female Los Angeles Buster.

Becker and the gang catch up to the LA-busters, whose millions of twitter followers can’t help them now.  This leads us into an insane car chase sequence, with the Ecto-1 pursuing the Ecto-X through the ghost infested chaotic streets of New York.  Finally, after driving through the subway, on the elevated rail and across the docks, NYC runs LA off the road.

They confront the LA busters and confirm their worst suspicions, but it’s much too late: the Gate’s been Keyed, so to speak, and the Park West building EXPLODES into a massive storm of light and energy.

The end is near.

Veronica Spengler sees this happen from where she’s helping civilians.  She knows what this means…But she’s not afraid.  Bring it on.  Thinking she’s the only one left, she zips up her jumpsuit and heads to Park West to face Gozer on her own.

Ray, in the meantime, has made his way back to the firehouse, to find it destroyed.  He walks through the rubble of his life’s work, utterly broken.  All those moments.  Slimer in the ballroom.  The TV commercials.  The fame.  The statue of liberty.  He was a hero.  They were all heroes.  He picks up a photo of himself, Winston, Egon and Venkman, and tries to call Venkman.

We cut to Venkman who’s on the beach on a tropical island with his grandkids.  He forwards the call.

Ray cries, alone, and is joined by Becker, Oberstein and Quaid.  Becker’s eternal optimism has finally been defeated.  His fiance’s left him, and he’s a shitty ghostbuster.  All of Oberstein’s research was destroyed in the firehouse, and he’s become what he always thought he would be; a second rate nothing.  And Quaid’s power did no one any good; he didn’t see what was coming.

They’ve failed, and the world will suffer for their failure.

Meanwhile, in the embattled city hall, a frantic city intern rushes in with news that a helicopter is asking for clearance to fly into the city.  They’re about to deny it when the mayor arrives, fresh from the chaos outside.  But he’s seen all this before.

Because the mayor is WALTER PECK.

Peck reads the helicopter’s clearance code, and immediately grants it access to New York’s airspace, and then rushes into action.  He looks out the window at the Park West Building, and then calls into action the city’s entire police and fire department.  He demands all the cell towers be hijacked to broadcast one text message, which he writes himself, and then throws on his coat and heads out the door, full-on West Wing style.

At the firehouse, the Moebius Initiative arrives in force, easily beating up and arresting the NYC ghostbusters and Ray for the second time, super pissed off that they got away at all.  John Reiser clearly blames them for what’s happening to the city, and all hope is lost.

When we hear the sound of a helicopter.

A Ghostbusters branded classic Volkswagen bus, ambulance, armored car, Chevy Chevell, and 1975 Cutlass suddenly skid in from all directions, blocking off the street, as THE FREAKING GHOSTBUSTERS CHINOOK HELICOPTER swoops low.  That’s right: the one we heard about earlier.  IT ACTUALLY EXISTS.

IT’S WINSTON ZEDMORE, jump-suited up.  He received the distress call Veronica Spengler sent earlier, and rallied every available Ghostbuster, flying them all in by private jet.  And holy shit, it’s Nick Swardson, Amy Poehler, The Workaholics, Key and Peele, Lisa Kudrow, Nick Kroll, Amy Schumer, Will Forte, Patton Oswalt the list goes on, it’s the fucking Avengers of comedy in 2016.

Maybe you can see them in their spin off films or TV shows after this movie is a big hit.  Nevermind.  Focus.  Concentrate on what’s happening.

Winston and Ray revisit their conversation about Revelations and the apocalypse from the first Ghostbuster’s film.  This is it.  This is fire and brimstone; the final test.

Everyone’s faith is restored!  Holy shit!  THE GHOSTBUSTERS ROLL OUT…meanwhile…

Veronica Spengler, on foot, walking alone up the middle of the street to battle a god by herself.  We can hear the sounds of panic, we can see glowing ghosts of various colors causing chaos.

She’s scared, but this is her destiny.  This is what her father would’ve wanted.

She can’t turn back now…and she turns a corner onto park avenue, only to find THE STREETS LINED WITH PEOPLE LIKE A FUCKING PARADE!

Walter Peck is up on a cop car, yelling to the crowd, psyching them up with positive energy a la Ghostbusters 2.

Veronica is stunned to have a crowd of tens of thousands cheering her own as she walks up the street…But then, over the noise of the crowd, blasts “Ghost” by Ella Henderson, playing on loudspeakers as…

IT’S THE GHOSTBUSTERS!  The procession of vehicles comes up the center of Park Avenue as the crowd goes insane, the helicopter swooping low.  The energy, with the song playing, is completely electric.

Becker pulls Veronica up onto the ECTO-1, and thanks her.  She can’t believe it.  Becker’s in disbelief; they all are.  All the positive energy is keeping the ghosts at bay, holding them back, if only briefly.

Oberstein spots the douchey tech company scout who approached him in the first act, and shrugs at him from the roof of the ECTO-1.  “Sorry buddy.  Gotta go save the world.”  They make the “We’ll call you” hand sign.  Oberstein makes a “hanging up” hand sign.

Becker sees HIS FIANCE AND FATHER IN THE CROWD, CHEERING.

He jumps off, running and embracing the fiance to huge applause from the crowd, asking how all this was possible.  She shows him a text, the same one everyone in New York got:  “PARK AVENUE NOW 2 HELP THE GHOSTBUSTERS SAVE THE CITY.”

Ray sees the text, and he and Winston clock Walter Peck, who salutes them.  They laugh, and both of them give him the finger.  The convoy pulls up in front of Park West, to the adulation of the crowd.  It’s suddenly 1984 again.

Veronica touches Ray’s arm.  “I wish my dad could’ve been here for this.”  Ray looks at her for a moment, finally connecting with the friend he’d lost through his daughter.  “Me too.”

As the music blasts, the Ghostbusters unload from their vehicles, assembling outside the Park West Building, strapping on their packs.

Becker looks up at the building, a massive energy vortex swirling menacingly.

“Okay…How do we get up there?”

Ray speaks up.  “Not the stairs.”  Winston nods.

Lightning cracks through the sky, and a bellowing roar is heard!

Ghosts begin to attack the crowd en mass!  The dark forces are organizing, retaliating to protect themselves.  With Winston leading them, the majority of the Busters move to protect the crowd, as Ray, Oberstein, Quaid, Becker and Spengler get in the helicopter, headed up to the top of the Park West building, to attempt to save the world one more time.

Atop the building, they must briefly contend with Zuul and Vinz Clortho, but Ray is anxious; something’s wrong, it’s different this time.  The energy readings are way off the charts, and the energy coming off the Park West building has becoming a blinding swirl; they’re in a hurricane of ghosts and chaos!

Quaid, seeing Slimer, the ghost from his dream, separates from the group, following Slimer up onto the structure as Ray, Becker, Oberstein and Spengler battle off the ghosts, realizing they’re not alone on the roof: THEY’RE SURROUNDED BY HUMAN CULTISTS!  What?  Oh no!  Who could this possibly-

SHIT.  IT’S THE MOEBIUS INITIATIVE.  John Reiser and the government guys WEREN’T A GOVERNMENT AGENCY AT ALL.  It was a ruse…They’re the modern day incarnation of Ivo Shandor’s GOZER CULTISTS!  They intentionally manipulated the Ghostbusters desperation to bring about the end of the world!  All hope is lost as they surround our heroes, but then…

BLASTS OF PROTONIC ENERGY SEND THEM SCRAMBLING!  Holy shit, no way, it’s the LA Ghostbusters Team!  They came back to set right what they put wrong, at any cost.  The superficial Honorary PhD Celebrity Scientists put their money where their mouth is: Their interference causes the ghosts to go crazy, attacking the cultists, as a large part of the  temple structure collapses, scattering the bad guys and badly injuring the LA team.

TOO LATE.  Gozer’s here.

As in the first film, the Ghostbusters are told to choose their doom as they rush to pick up their proton packs.

“EVERYBODY THINK OF SOMETHING HARMLESS.”
“Decide on something!  Everyone- it’s-“
“TOILET PAPER OKAY GO THINK NOW HARD”

Everyone stands around like idiots with their eyes shut tightly.

Gozer appears as a roll of toilet paper.

Becker BLASTS IT.  “Toilet paper situation has been handled.”

Gozer is defeated.  The ghostbusters celebrate, but slowly realize all of the ghosts are being sucked backwards up towards the energy rift.  And why is the energy level RISING?

That’s when Spengler puts two and two together.  The research she was doing earlier, the thing her father missed: Gozer.  It doesn’t mean “The Traveler,” it means “The Guide.”  It’s just the emissary to something much, much bigger: Tiamat.

The ghosts all around them are SUCKED FROM EVERYWHERE IN THE CITY UP INTO THE RIFT.  There’s an EMP blast: OH NO, their packs are fried!  Shit!

Everything starts to shake.  Radiation levels spike.  The rip WIDENS DRASTICALLY, tearing vertically four miles into the air, exposing a single, bloodshot eye the size of the entire horizon, a true Lovecraftian giant.

Up on the structure, Quaid is in awe.  “That’s a really big…eye.”  But Slimer has held fast, and urges him to help start destroying runes across the top of the temple…But oh no, John Reiser strikes from behind, shooting Quaid in the back and starting to fix the runes!  No!

Tiamat announces himself, and the ghostbusters huddle up.  Spengler assures them that Tiamat would be entering from the spirit-realm, causing a permanent destruction of our reality.  Ray realizes there’s only one way to close the rip: Crossing the streams won’t do it.

There needs to be a protonic reaction INSIDE the gate.

Ray agrees; if they can get the packs working again, he’ll carry his pack in himself and detonate it.  The other busters stare at him; don’t they know he’ll- “What?  Die?  Not a chance.  The explosion of the pack in that catalytic of an energy cocktail will convert me to atoms electron by electron and blast me across the entire universe in a superheated wave of pure energy!  To say I’d ‘die’ would be a terrible understatement!”

The busters look at each other.  “It’ll be great!”  Ray yells.

They rush to their packs, frantically trying to get them to start working, THE RIP WIDENS EVEN FURTHER- OH GOD- NO- ghosts and demons of all sorts BEGIN TO POUR OUT OF THE RIP AS IT WIDENS FURTHER AND FURTHER UP INTO THE SKY, reaching up into the stratosphere- and the packs aren’t working-

Reiser laughs uncontrollably, classic full evil villain, as his GOD OF CHAOS ENTERS OUR WORLD.  Really over now.  Nothing the Ghostbusters can do.

…Veronica Spengler shakes her pack in anger.  “Please.  I need you.  Please-“

There’s a burst of static, and then the Ghostbusters get a message over their walkies; it’s garbled, that familiar voice Spengler heard late one night that turned out to be a mattress ad.

But it wasn’t an ad.  It’s Egon’s voice.

“Veronica.”  It says.

THERE’S AN ELECTRICAL SURGE!  Their packs kick back to life!  EGON REACHED FOR HIS DAUGHTER ACROSS THE EXPANSE OF INFINITY.  HE IS THERE.  HE DOES CARE.

She’s crying.  YOU ARE CRYING.  WE’RE ALL CRYING.

Tiamat screams menacing threats from beyond the rift, shattering windows all across New York, but Becker straight up just cuts him off: “SHUT UP.  I’m not afraid of you, you stupid god!  You wanna come in our house, and take a shit on OUR floor?  We SLAM. THE DOOR.  IN YOUR.  FACE.  Oberstein, SHOW ME MOUNT OLYMPUS.”

Oberstein CRANKS THE POWER, activating his modifications to the packs, squealing in excitement; the moment he’d been waiting for ever since he joined the Ghostbusters!  THE PACKS EXPLODE WITH PROTON STREAMS SO BRIGHT THEY LIGHT UP THE ENTIRE SKY OVER NEW YORK CITY.

Reiser takes aim at them with his pistol- But Slimer FLIES THROUGH HIM, sliming him, and the distraction gives just enough time for Quaid to SHOVE HIM OFF THE BUILDING.  NICE.  Quaid turns to the runes, and KICKS APART the final piece of the structure, crackling the rift in time open at its base as Ray steps towards it.

“HEY.  REMEMBER ME?”  Ray says, climbing the stairs, tossing aside his eye patch.  “I’m ready!  Bring it on!”

As the other Ghostbusters hold back the swarm with their MASSIVELY OVERPOWERED PACKS, Ray steps into the chaotic swirling light.

He pulls the ripcord on the reactor in his pack, and we hear it start to overload-

For a moment, Ray Stantz can see through to the other side.  He can see Tiamat, a PLANET SIZED dragon with five heads, THE DESTROYER- Ray can see it all.  He can see beyond time, beyond space, beyond reality.  Yes.  And then his body flakes into glorious pure blue light, and he’s converted to pure energy; his whole life’s work, coming to fruition in one glorious, stupendous transcendent storm of crackling beautiful color.  His eyes open wide, as he smiles.

“Oh…wow.”

RAY’S PACK EXPLODES!  The massive Tiamat eye is BLASTED WITH LIGHT AND ENERGY AND THE GATEWAY TO BEYOND IS SLAMMED CLOSED, blasting it backwards, with a thunderclap so loud it shatters every window in the city.

The storm over New York is blown apart, and the ghosts are caught in an ENERGY WAVE THAT FLINGS THEM OUT OF Manhattan, out of the city, out of the state…All over the world…

Becker and Oberstein get up, dazed, and rush to help the remaining member of the LA Ghostbusters Team as she transforms back from Zuul, while Spengler grabs Dante, who’s transformed back from Vinz Clortho, and he falls into her arms in true damsel-in-distress fashion.

The gateway is closed.  The world is saved.  The soundtrack explores into a full orchestral version of the Ghostbusters theme.

The Ghostbusters come down the tower to find a massive celebration in the streets, somewhat tampered by there being paramedics treating people everywhere, but still, really good vibes.  Upon hearing what happened with Ray, Winston sighs, sad.  But then looks up to the sky.  “Sounds about right.”

Becker is reunited with his fiancé and dad.  Oberstein rocks out, having found the validation for his work he’d always wanted.  Quaid flirts with some fans, but then they’re immediately scared off by Slimer.  “Oh, great.  Is this the new deal?”

Spengler, who was willing to face Gozer alone, finally got her closure, and feels more at home than ever on her team.  Plus, it’s looking like, post being possessed and hijacked into an apocalypse plot, Dante isn’t that interested in staying with the Free Spirits Movement.

New York will be repaired, but Becker wonders what’s next; the explosion from the spirit world sent rogue spirits, demons, wraiths, elementals, witches, ghouls and ghosts all over country, maybe even the world.

Winston smiles.  “I guess that means ya’ll are back in business.”