Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Completely Ignores The 2 Biggest Questions About The Spengler Family

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire further expands the Ghostbusters story, yet manages to ignore two major questions regarding the Spengler family. The sequel to 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Frozen Empire reunites audiences with returning characters while also introducing them to a bunch of new faces. Overall, the film feels like a culmination of every Ghostbusters movie so far. However, despite certain mysteries surrounding the Spengler family being set up in the previous installment, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire fails to provide any answers.

Directed by Gil Kenan, Frozen Empire brings together the cast of the original Ghostbusters film to work alongside the characters introduced in Afterlife, as well as a handful of new players. The film continues to tell the story of the Spengler family, which, at this point in the series, consists of mom, Callie (Carrie Coon), and her children, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace). Though their story forms the film’s emotional spine, by the end of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, two big questions remain unanswered.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Doesn’t Reveal Who Egon Spengler’s Wife Was

It’s A Significant Event In Egon’s Life To Ignore

Egon Spengler was one of the four men who made up the original Ghostbusters team first introduced in the 1984 film. He was played by the late actor, Harold Ramis. Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which was directed by Jason Reitman, served as something of a legacy sequel and introduced audiences to Egon’s daughter, Callie, and his grandchildren, Trevor and Phoebe. What is never revealed in Afterlife is the identity of Egon’s wife and the mother of his child. In fact, the film almost goes out of its way to avoid providing an answer, as though setting up the mystery for a sequel.

Now Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire has been released, and the identity of Egon’s wife and Callie’s mother remains unknown. Though the film, like its predecessor, makes numerous references and homages to the character of Egon, it fails to provide a backstory. There’s a gap of more than thirty years between Ghostbusters II and the events of Afterlife where big things clearly happened in the life of Egon Spengler. However, the modern Ghostbusters films seem too preoccupied with fan service and callbacks to the original film to provide any answers.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Doesn’t Acknowledge Who Callie Spengler’s Husband Was

It Seems Odd To Leave Him Out Considering The Sequels’ Emphasis On Family

The identity of Egon Spengler’s wife isn’t the only mystery left unsolved by the end of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire; the identity of Callie’s husband is similarly left ambiguous. Afterlife establishes Callie as a single mother who, having been evicted from her Chicago apartment, moves to an Oklahoma farm formerly owned by her father. The film implies that a divorce between Callie and the father of her children took place in the recent past and is what led to the family’s financial struggles. Despite this, Callie’s husband is never seen or even given a name in either Afterlife or Frozen Empire.

While it ignores some of the questions set up in the previous film, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire happily takes the story of the Spengler family in new directions. For instance, Paul Rudd’s character, Gary – who shared a certain chemistry with Callie in Afterlife – is shown in Frozen Empire to be her full-time boyfriend and a father figure to Trevor and Phoebe. Though it’s certainly a good thing that Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire makes some effort to progress the story, its refusal to give answers to two of Afterlife‘s biggest mysteries is nothing short of frustrating.