Plot
At the end of a customs shift at John F. Kennedy International Airport, an officer named Al opens a crate marked "Moldova" and finds a red orb inside. The orb glows, a demon manifests, and a ray strikes the officer down, taking his eyes.
Meanwhile, the team chases the Phantom Witch through Sunnyside Yard in Queens. Garrett, spotting the entity, invokes Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" before they give chase. Eduardo, who has been complaining about the weight of his Proton Pack and needling Kylie about her "girl's gun," loses the Proton Pistol when he dodges a passing train car. Garrett and Roland contain the ghost while Kylie traps it, but the pistol lands on a truck bed that drives off. At the dump before that, Eduardo had pocketed a lava lamp he found there, which becomes a recurring irritant. Egon Spengler radios in another call involving a Class 13 and is furious to learn the pistol is gone.
Egon sends Garrett Miller and Roland Jackson to the airport and orders Kylie and Eduardo to get the pistol back. At Hangar Five, Roland picks up residual readings and the downed customs officer is revealed to have lost his eyes. Kylie and Eduardo trace the pistol to the City Dump, where two boys have already grabbed it and accidentally fired it, knocking over a smokestack. The trail leads through a park, past a homeless man who points them to the Brooklyn Bridge, and to a man named George who has been using the pistol to light a campfire for food. By the time they reach him, George has sold the weapon to two men, who then turn the pistol on Kylie and rob her of the Proton Pack as well. For good measure, one of the robbers also takes Eduardo's lava lamp.
Meanwhile, the same demon attacks Curator William at the Metropolitan Museum of Art after he admires the orb. Roland and Garrett, visiting the curator in the hospital, suggest pulling the customs list, and Egon identifies the object as the Orb of Moldova. He explains that ancient druids believed the orb to be a holy talisman used to sacrifice eyes to the gods, but his research shows a demon named Tenebraug is enslaved to it: anyone who looks at the orb loses their eyes to the demon. With the orb on display at the museum, Egon scrambles to warn a cleaning woman who does not speak much English, but she looks at the orb and is taken. The two robbers hit First National Bank, and because the Ghostbusters are the only people known to carry such weapons, the police arrest Roland, Garrett, and then Egon.
The next day, Kylie and Eduardo disguise themselves to visit the jailed team. Egon tells them the gala unveiling of the orb is set for 7:00 that evening and orders them to convince the museum administrator to cancel it. The administrator refuses and calls security, having already looked at the orb himself. With minutes to spare, Slimer frightens the administrator into cancelling the event, and Kylie and Eduardo stuff the man into a sarcophagus when Tenebraug manifests. Eduardo bumps into a floating eyeball and, in trying to shoo it away with a curtain, ends up catching and looking at the Orb of Moldova himself, losing his eyes. Kylie, keeping her eyes shut, searches by touch and holds the orb up, calling the demon to her. As Tenebraug turns toward the orb, the stolen eyes return to all its victims, including Eduardo. Eduardo then smashes the orb and the demon fades away. The following day the real criminals are caught and the Ghostbusters are released and exonerated.
Back at the precinct, free and clear, Eduardo boasts to anyone who will listen about defeating a Class 13 with no gear. He picks up a particle thrower to demonstrate and promptly drops it, shooting out the ceiling light. Kylie defends him, a little.
Ghosts and entities
Phantom Witch is the unnamed ghost the team pursues at Sunnyside Yard in Queens at the opening of the episode. She does not factor into the main plot but occasions the loss of the Proton Pistol that drives the entire story. Garrett quotes Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" when he first spots her.
Tenebraug (sometimes spelled Tenabrauge) is the main antagonist and the only known Class 13 entity in the Extreme Ghostbusters animated series and the Ghostbusters franchise as a whole. He is a demon enslaved to the Orb of Moldova: when anyone looks at the orb, Tenebraug steals their eyes. His spoken incantation upon claiming a victim is "Of sacred seal you did partake. Now your sight you must forsake." When not actively taking eyes, he floats within a cloud of energy and can teleport at will. Tenebraug's hold is broken when Kylie blinds herself to the orb and forces him to confront it directly, causing all stolen eyes to be returned. Eduardo destroys the orb, and Tenebraug is destroyed with it.
Cast
The episode features the regular Extreme Ghostbusters voice cast, including Tara Charendoff as Kylie Griffin, Maurice LaMarche as Egon Spengler, Jason Marsden, Pat Musick, Alfonso Ribeiro, Rino Romano, and Billy West. Guest voices were provided by Charlie Adler, E.G. Daily, and Pat Fraley.
Secondary characters appearing in the episode include Tenebraug, the Phantom Witch, City Dump Foreman, Curator William, George the Cooker (the man using the pistol as a campfire), Officer Al, Officer Frank, and the Metropolitan Museum Administrator.
Equipment and items
The plot turns on the Ghostbusters' hardware passing into the wrong hands: the Proton Pistol and a Proton Pack are lost and stolen in turn, alongside the team's usual particle throwers, Proton Canister, traps, radios, P.K.E. Meter, and Ecto-1. The central object is the Orb of Moldova, the talisman to which Tenebraug is enslaved.
The Orb of Moldova received a pair of non-canon cameos in the IDW comics: one on a shelf in the background of Ghostbusters Issue #5, page 12, and one on a poster in Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #15, page 1.
Locations
The episode moves through a range of New York City locations: John F. Kennedy International Airport (Hangar Five), Sunnyside Yard in Queens, the City Dump, an unnamed park, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, First National Bank, and the City of New York Police Department precinct. The team's Firehouse serves as headquarters throughout.
Notes
The orb's origin ties back loosely to the wider franchise. In Ghostbusters II, one of Vigo the Carpathian's titles is "the Scourge of Moldavia"; the eastern part of Moldavia now lies within the Republic of Moldova, the country the orb is shipped from.
Tenebraug is the only known Class 13 entity in the Extreme Ghostbusters animated series and in the broader Ghostbusters franchise. When Eduardo boasts about defeating Tenebraug without any equipment, he points out that he never needed a trap, implying the team's new gear can capture entities that the original Ghostbusters' equipment could not have held.
Eduardo's reluctance to involve the police is read by fans as a nod to his police-officer brother Carl Rivera, introduced in "Rage." The homeless man Kylie and Eduardo question in the park is the same figure earlier rejected by Achira in "Darkness at Noon, Part 1." When Egon, Roland, and Garrett are arrested, the officer doing so sounds remorseful and concedes they may be innocent, suggesting the police hold the Ghostbusters in higher regard than City Hall does.
Episode navigation
"The Unseen" aired between "Killjoys" and "The Crawler" in the first season of Extreme Ghostbusters.
References
Fandom Ghostbusters Wiki, "The Unseen"; "Tenebraug"; "Orb of Moldova."
