Season 3 of Ghosts premiered on Thursday on CBS, and there’s a lot of unwelcome change around Sam and Jay’s inherited disaster of a dream house turned bed and breakfast. Continue on for my thoughts on this CBS comedy!
[Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Ghosts season 3. Turn back or risk getting banished to the basement!]
Death comes knocking in the Ghosts season 3 premiere
There have been many shocking main character deaths on television shows. Usually, these happen in drama, but comedies are not immune to changing things up as well. In Ghosts, most of our main characters are already dead, so you can’t kill them again. (Although I’m sure there’s a Buffy or X-Files episode out there dedicated to doing that very thing.) But one main character, Flower (Sheila Carrasco), is leaving the show.
This episode was my first introduction to Ghosts, whether American or British, and I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. The story of Ghosts is part Clue, part Ghost Whisperer, and part Haunted Mansion packaged into 20-minute episodes. And not to keep reference dropping, but some of the movement in this third season opener reminded me so much of the old-school movie Arsenic and Old Lace. Samantha (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) are a couple and have inherited a “dream” house/hotel thanks to the death of Sophie Woodstone, Sam’s great-aunt. Sophie lived a long life and was unaware of the supernatural inhabitants on her property, although they were all rather fond of her.
The writing on Ghosts brilliantly brings us into the world, and it’s true: you don’t need to have watched all the 40-some previous episodes to understand the stakes and the characters. From the beginning of the episode, we are led to believe that the shocking reveal at the end of season 2 about Alberta’s actual murderer, would mean she’d go off into the bluish Trek-transporter-like a beam of blue or be “sucked off,” as it’s called. Instead, we find out something far more devastating for the residents, alive and dead, of the not quite-dream house. It’s Flower who has inexplicably gone.
What follows is a story where the ghosts of Woodstone deal with their ghostly emotions in the wake of Flower’s moving on. To quote Thor, “I feel pain!” Additionally, Jay’s restaurant dreams hit a bump in the road because the ghosts believe Flower has been reincarnated as a barn owl. For Jay, that means no construction (and plenty of soy mice for the tiny dinosaur) unless he wants to deal with burning fires, thanks to Thor.
From this episode, we are promised the answer to a question as the season goes on: What happens after a ghost moves on? Flower’s passing into the next stage of whatever this ethereal life is not only forces Thor to admit things but also Samantha. Although she’s been using her near-death experience and her ability to see the ghosts as a way of helping them, they’ve provided her with something she needed: friendship. This theme of vulnerability is something that Rose McIverm (best known for iZombie) carries and delivers well. I hope the show answers this question, but only time will tell.
Laughs, cast, and setting help make Ghosts an enjoyable show
What’s clear is that although the show isn’t a multi-cam sitcom comedy that was a staple of the CBS lineup and, indeed, the larger network prime-time lineup for a while in the days of yore, it’s still got a ton of laughs. Ghosts is laugh-out-loud television with a touch of grown-up humor.
The cast’s performances are what sell Ghosts and help make it so enjoyable. They simultaneously don’t take themselves seriously, but also take themselves very seriously. Consider Thor: the idea of a Caveman-like Viking who loves the flavor of Cod is a pretty ridiculous character idea. Yet, Devan Chandler Long’s hilarious and fully committed performance sells this.
Similarly, Danielle Pinnock’s Alberta grounds everyone’s performance with a ton of humor. (She deserves all the awards for this role, seriously!) Each member of this ensemble cast is distinct in voice, and the acting adds a flare and believability to the show that, frankly, you wouldn’t necessarily expect if you were just reading about it. Ghosts is full of depth.
And as a lover of all things historical (I still can’t get over the brilliance of Dickinson), the gorgeous manor house setting and tongue-in-cheek “historical” costumes make this show special. If you watched Sleepy Hollow, one of the running gags in that drama was how Tom Mison’s Ichabod never had timeline-appropriate clothes, even though he was well-settled in modern times. Ghosts doesn’t have that issue and has a canon explanation for the juxtaposition between the contemporary and the old from so many different periods. (Seriously, how many people died in that house over history?)
Here’s hoping there are more episodes and seasons to come for Ghosts beyond what’s already been announced. There are a lot more characters that we have yet to meet (hello, basement ghosts!) that still need to get “sucked off.” The show breezes by and is an easy watch, heavy on the laughs.
Ghosts season 3 airs on Thursday nights on CBS. You can also check out new episodes via Paramount+. Let us know on social media @mycosmiccircus or in The Cosmic Circus Discord your thoughts of the season 3 premiere of Ghosts!
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