tale of old man Corcoran any hints spoilers

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I think "Vernon" getting intensely upset at the boys being in her grave was a big sign. You knew she wasn't getting incensed about the game (especially since the boys were both it) and her "look a little closer next time" comment when they said "I don't see your name anywhere" (when referring to the grave) made it a reveal before the actual reveal itself.

That one incident with Vernon is fairly obvious. There was another moment when one of their gang jumps out from behind a tombstone and runs to the left, and when the boys immediately go after them Corcoran is just standing there. Why didn't he say anything about that kid if they were really there?

I do think a lot of episodes like this tend to cheat a little bit with the "ghost" concept. They usually have them interacting with the real world a bit too comfortably, and in particular, why is someone like Marshall wearing modern clothes and riding a contemporary bike if he supposedly died in '78?

It's not really a flaw, it's just, how else can they pull that "they were really ghosts" twist unless they bend the rules a little bit? It's almost a necessity. It also relies a lot on us, the viewers, and our willingness to believe Vernon's story about Corcoran so that we start looking at him as the ghost the whole time.

So there's a bit of cheating and misdirection thrown in, but there's a couple of spots where they give the twist away.

One thing that annoyed me was we didn't find out HOW the kids died, and yes we know not everybody gets to grow up and old and gray before dying, but still it seems very strange. Of course we can guess that after Marshall, the others died playing the game, presumably, since he was so big on getting the boys to join him in the grave, but all those kids dying so young, and no explanation given, for any of them? You'd expect to hear this one drowned, this one died this way, that one died that way, but nothing, that makes it a bit anti climatic I think.