Ghosts are pretty darn accustomed to waiting around for all eternity with nothing to do.
That’s how it felt waiting for our favorite sitcoms to return from last year’s Hollywood strikes!
Now, the wait is mercifully over as “Ghosts” returns for its Season 3 premiere this Thursday at 8:30 p.m. on CBS.
The original British series ran for four seasons with just 27 total episodes, whereas the American version is already on Episode 41 this week with no sign of stopping anytime soon. The second season ended with a 28% increase in livestreaming viewership across Paramount and CBS digital apps compared to the first season finale. It also saw a 5% spike on linear broadcast television with 6.29 million live or same-day viewers, according to Nielsen data.
So what if you watched last season but can’t quite remember what happened? Don’t feel bad; Season 2 ended nearly a year ago on May 11, 2023, so here’s a quick refresher on where things stand with some burning questions.
The basic back story
Based on the BBC original, the American version by Joe Port and Joe Wiseman follows a married New York couple, Samantha and Jay Arondekar, who inherit a country mansion from a distant relative that looks perfect to turn into a bed-and-breakfast, only to discover that it is inhabited by troublemaking ghosts who died on the grounds. There’s just one catch: Sam can see the ghosts, but Jay can’t — and he’s quite jealous of that.
Rose McIver became known to holiday rom-com fans in Netflix’s “A Christmas Prince” and does the heavy lifting here as Sam. Her acting shines the most whenever outside guests visit the mansion as she delivers a performance within a performance, her face showing us that she’s hearing the ghosts, but trying to not to let others know it.
Utkarsh Ambudkar (“The Mindy Project,” “Brittany Runs a Marathon”) has the opposite acting challenge as Jay, standing next to a roomful of ghosts but pretending that he can’t hear their dialogue. This allows him to make naive comments or sarcastic quips about being left out of the loop. Bonus points for his comic-book nerdiness.
Freak events allowed them both to show their comedic chops. At one point in Season 1, Jay got inhabited by an elderly woman ghost, forcing Ambudkar to speak in a high voice with dainty body movements. Likewise in Season 2, Rose got inhabited by a viking ghost, speaking in a gruff, cave man voice with a hunched macho posture.
As great as the two leads routinely are, the biggest treat of “Ghosts” is the titular ensemble cast of ghosts, led by Brandon Scott Jones as Captain Isaac Higgintoot, an American Revolution officer who is jealous of Alexander Hamilton. He died of dysentery, so he emits a foul odor if any human walks through him. He also gradually comes out of the closet in a budding romance with a British redcoat Nigel (John Hartman) living out in the shed.
Danielle Pinnock is bubbly as Alberta Haynes, a Ma Rainey-style lounge singer murdered by poisonous moonshine during Prohibition. Finding the culprit becomes a running thread throughout the series, including a creepy podcast host who collects her toenails and other memorabilia. Her gift is that humans can hear her humming.
Pete Martino (Richie Moriarty) carries a torch for Alberta, but he isn’t her type as a dorky Boy Scout leader who died from a bow-and-arrow accident in 1985. He now walks around with an arrow in his neck, the most difficult prop to maneuver of the bunch. A running gag is that he is Jay’s favorite ghost, despite not being to see him.
The youngest ghost is Trevor Lefkowitz (Asher Grodman), a Wall Street frat boy who died from a cocaine overdose in 2000. The funny catch is that he died while not wearing pants, meaning he’s destined to wander for eternity with no pants beneath his tie and blazer. His gift is that he can move objects and type on computers if he focuses.
The oldest ghost is Thor (Devan Chandler Long), a Viking abandoned by his shipmates exploring North America over 1,000 years ago. Having been killed by a lightning strike, his talent is being able to affect electricity. He is the funniest character, blurting out macho claims of killing Danes, eating cod and a newfound love of watching TV.
He has a crush on Flower Montero (Sheila Carrasco), who hates monogamy. She’s super smart but lacks short-term memory due to dropping so much acid in a 1960s hippie commune. In fact, she was high when she tried to hug a bear that mauled her to death — and still has the scars to prove it. If the living pass through her, they get high too.
The best character arc belongs to Sam’s great-great-great-great-grandmother Hetty Woodstone (Rebecca Wisocky), the wife of the estate’s original philandering owner. She evolves from an uptight aristocrat who looks down on peasants to a kinder heart with feminist ideas after seeing more freedoms for women in modern society.
Last but not least is Sasappis (Román Zaragoza), a cynical Native American of the Lenape tribe, who is wiser than the other ghosts. He oddly disappears for parts of Season 1 before becoming a fixture in Season 2, carving marks in a tree each time he sees his long-lost native love before falling for a new “car ghost” parked in the driveway.
Where things left off
Season 2 seemed to be headed for a happy ending as Sam and Jay kept control of the Woodstone Mansion despite a fraudulent guest claiming to be the rightful heiress as the alleged daughter of David Woodstone. Turns out, this would have been impossible because David was sterile at the time, forcing the woman and her lawyer to admit that they had made up the entire story to buy, flip and sell mansion to pay off their gambling debts.
However, just when it seemed like time to celebrate, Season 2 left us with a massive cliffhanger with the clouds parting over the mansion and a beam of light pulling an unknown character up into the heavens (or as they call it, getting “sucked off”). Who has gone missing? Will it be temporary for a few episodes or will their absence be felt for the rest of the series? And how will it affect the other characters left to grieve the loss of their friend?
Season 3 also picks up after Alberta discovered she was killed by Hetty’s gay son Thomas, who wanted to run off with Alberta’s boyfriend, Earl. While Alberta was shocked, Hetty admitted that she knew about it the entire time, causing a rift between the two. The ghosts put Hetty on trial and sentenced her to live in the forest for a year, but Alberta reduced the sentence if Hetty agreed to share a room with Flower, creating potential hijinks in Season 3.
And of course, we’ll continue another key romantic subplot after Isaac proposed to Nigel. Isaac is newly rich after Sam split her $20,000 book advance with him, but I’m not sure exactly how that works since Isaac is indeed a ghost. Either way, I assume Season 3 will bring their fancy wedding — if only there were a mansion to host it.
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