The Ghostbusters are at work in a garden centre. The ghost sprays Ray with a hose, comes out of it, and starts screaming while pushing a wheelbarrow around, at one point knocking Winston into a compost heap. Peter and Egon seemingly trap the ghost, but Egon thinks it disappeared before the trap was closed. The owner of the garden centre wants to repay the one who actually caught the ghost with one of his geraniums, so Peter, despite being equally responsible for its capture, has him give it to Egon because he'd prefer money. On the way home, Peter is complaining about not getting paid, but Ray has grown attached to the plant. He and Egon cite studies which show that plants respond to music, while the plant grows and glows.
When they get home, Egon gives the plant to Janine, who likes the plant and gives him gardening advice she read from a "plant psychologist". She takes it home and puts it on her windowsill, but it continues to glow and grow. The next day, she goes to work, and Peter is bored because it's raining. Slimer wants to play with him, but Peter doesn't want to play with Slimer and shoos him away. Meanwhile, Janine's plant continues to grow until it's ridiculously big and ravaging the streets and sewers.
The Ghostbusters get a call to Brooklyn Bridge, so they head there to find the giant plant, which has now stopped growing. They are bemused, thinking it's just a regular plant, and a botanist tells them not to destroy it since he wants to study it. Ray then gets a PKE reading from the plant, which then grabs him. The rest of them use the proton packs to free Ray, and then Egon determines that they must find the centre of the growth.
They walk off and meet the botanist on the way, who accompanies them, and they brainstorm solutions. Ray wants to shoot at the plant, but Egon fears that'd start a catastrophic fire. The botanist suggests they try to communicate with it, but Winston points out they don't know how. The botanist suggests doing it with "love" (since he feels that's the "universal language"), but when the plant picks him up, he yells at the Ghostbusters to kill it.
While the Ghostbusters pursue the botanist who is being carried by the plant, Janine goes home and tries to feed it, only to scream when she sees how much it's grown. They arrive at Janine's apartment and find that the plant is her plant, so they conclude that the ghost they were fighting before has taken possession of it. They enter the apartment and try to save Janine and the botanist, who are both being held by the plant, but Peter and Ray get grabbed too. Egon tries to save them all by using the firehose to drown the plant. Once it dies, the ghost flies out and Egon and Winston trap it.
This episode provides examples of
- Artistic License – Biology: Ray and Egon point out that plants respond to music and cite it as proof they have feelings. While plants do respond to music, this is because of the vibrations caused by sound and not because of any emotions they have. Emotions, for one, are produced in the brain and plants do not have brains.
- Aside Glance: The episode ends with Peter winking at the screen.
- Baby Talk:
- When Ray thinks Peter offended the plant by mocking him for thinking it has feelings, he says in a cutesy voice, "It's all right, Gerry. The bad man didn't mean it."
- When the botanist calls love the "universal language", Peter mocks him by saying, "Little Petey Venkman's gonna thwow up!".
- Batman Gambit: Peter tricks Slimer into going away by asking him to play Hide and Don't Seek, where he hides but Peter doesn't seek.
- Bittersweet Ending: The plant is dealt with, but Janine is sad at the state of her apartment.
- Calling Your Nausea: Peter says he's going to throw up when the botanist talks about using "love" to communicate, but he doesn't actually throw up.
- Cardiovascular Love: When Janine is describing geraniums as "romantic" to Egon (who she has a crush on), hearts appear above her head.
- Character Tics: Implied. Egon can recognise Janine's shriek, implying she always shrieks the same way.
- Chekhov's Gun: When Egon wonders how his plants died, Janine suggests he overwatered them. Later, Egon kills the giant plant by overwatering it.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The ghost in the garden centre at the beginning ends up being the reason for the plant going crazy.
- Companion Cube: In the car, Ray talks to the geranium and calls it Gerry, then in her apartment, Janine talks to it.
- Covered in Gunge: After falling into the compost heap, Winston can be seen all dirty.
- Damsel in Distress: Janine gets grabbed by the plant at one point.
- Dissonant Serenity: At one point, the monstrous plant picks up a taxi, but all the driver says is "Hey!". Soon after, a woman sees it out her window, but she just shrugs and keeps typing on her typewriter.
- Distressed Dude: Ray is grabbed by the plant and dangled above the city, and later the same thing happens to a (male) botanist, and then Ray again along with Peter (only this time they're indoors).
- Dork in a Sweater: There's a geeky botanist who gets excited about studying the plant and wears an orange sweater.
- Dramatic Irony: At one point, Egon wonders if it's salient that the monstrous plant is a geranium, like the one he gave Janine. Ray thinks it's a coincidence, but we know that they're the same plant.
- Everyone Has Standards: The botanist may love studying plants and usually be against plants being killed, but even he demands the plant be killed when it picks him up.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Ray says that the monster plant and Janine's plant both being geraniums is a coincidence, seconds before discovering that it's growing from her apartment.
- Joke and Receive: When Egon says that Winston looks like "someone who flew into a compost heap", then asks what happened, Winston replies, "I flew into a compost heap".
- Mistaken for Flirting: Egon only gave Janine the plant because he didn't know what to do with it, but she thought it was a romantic gesture.
- Mourning an Object: Discussed when Ray says that plants have feelings and Peter says, "Then it must break your heart to eat a salad".
- Nature Is Boring: Downplayed for Peter's opinion on the geranium when it's first aquired. He partly hates it because he finds geraniums boring, but he's mostly just ticked off that he didn't get paid.
- Noodle Incident:
- We learn that Egon used to experiment on plants until they all died. It's never revealed what the experiments were, or what killed the plants.
- Ray says that the last time a ghost possessed a plant was the "zucchini scare" in the '50s.
- Not So Stoic: Egon exclaims several times while working with the firehose.
- Ocular Gushers: Slimer cries when Peter doesn't want to play with him, and the tears spurt out.
- The Power of Love: The botanist cites love as the "universal language" and suggests using it to communicate with the plant.
- Pun:
- When Venkman wears a safari hat, he jokes, "Safari, sa-good-i".
- When Egon says that the plant can't be killed with traditional weapons, Ray replies, "Egon's right— we need to get right to the root of the problem".
- Winston says to Egon at one point, "We're not gonna let you turn the Big Apple into the Big Geranium".
- Rain, Rain, Go Away: This episode establishes that Peter hates the rain because it leads to him staying inside with nothing to do.
- Say My Name:
- Peter shouts, "Ray!" when the latter is grabbed by the plant.
- When Egon sees Janine is being held by the plant, they yell each other's names.
- Slipping into Stink: The ghost launches Winston into a compost heap at the beginning.
- Space Whale Aesop: Parodied when Peter, upon finding that the plant is the same one he gave Janine, says that this is why you shouldn't give women flowers or why you shouldn't knock off early.
- Trash Landing: At one point, Peter falls off a fence and into a trash can.
