Post-credits scenes used to be a rare fun bonus for the cinematic faithful who stuck out the entirety of the credits, but Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have made them into almost an obligation for fandom-friendly movies.
That’s exactly what director Jason Reitman does with Ghostbusters: Afterlife, his direct sequel to 1989’s Ghostbusters II, and his continuation of the work his father, Ivan Reitman, did in directing the original two Ghostbusters movies.
Most of the key cast of 1984 Ghostbusters shows up for this third entry in the trilogy.
And when Phoebe, Trevor, and their friends try to fight the Sumerian god Gozer, who arrived in New York in the first film, all three surviving Ghostbusters — Ray, Peter Venkman show up in their old suits and gear to join the battle.
We can presume, given the shape of so many traditional ghost stories, that Egon hung around on Earth because he had unfinished business to take care of, and once his grandkids defeated his mortal enemy , he could go on to whatever’s next.
It’s a tribute to Harold Ramis, who played Egon Spengler in the original movies, co-wrote both original Ghostbusters scripts, and was a celebrated comedian and filmmaker in his own right.
Reitman gives the audience just enough time to say “Wait, she isn’t in this—” before he cuts to her character, Dana Barrett, holding up a series of Zener cards for Peter Venkman to see if he can psychically intuit what symbol is on the side of the card he can’t see.
It’s a callback to Peter Venkman’s original introduction, doing tests on university students, supposedly to research psychic phenomena, though the scene also shows he’s a sleazeball who isn’t above using the test to flirt with his female subjects, and torture the male ones for fun.
So are Dana and Peter still together, all these years later? It’s hard to say — she’s wearing a wedding ring, she treats him kind of fondly, and they seem to be in a private home rather than an institutional setting.
There isn’t much to that sequence — it’s a deleted scene from the 1984 movie, included as an Easter egg, but without much meaning to the rest of the film.
While Bill Murray as Peter gets to ramble out a goofy monologue and crack jokes about Gozer, and Ray is solemn and sincere as ever, Winston is mostly stuck standing off to the side, moaning at the condition of their old Ectomobile, and promising to get it fixed up.
He explains his initiatives and motives to Janine: “I wanted to be an example of what’s possible.” He talks about his thriving global enterprises, and how he’s secretly been supporting Ray and Peter, who are in less lucrative situations.
It’s a nice moment of payoff for actor Ernie Hudson, who has occasionally been frustrated by the ways Winston was sidelined in the movies.
In a solo shot after talking to Janine, Winston re-enters the Ghostbusters’ old firehouse headquarters, which Ray said earlier in the film had been sold off long ago, when the Ghostbusters stopped making money.