Spoilers ahead for Thursday's Ghosts Halloween special!
CBS welcomed fans back to Woodstone Manor on Thursday night for a Ghosts Halloween special that certainly did not disappoint!
The Halloween special finally introduced fans to Hetty’s mustachioed sister, Margaret, in an episode that expanded the Ghosts lore in fun new ways. We learned that spirits who catch glimpses of their reflection after dying become trapped in mirrors, but on Halloween the veil between worlds allows for a trapped spirit to swap places with another ghost during that 24-hour window. Of course, as fun as the new lore and the arrival of Margaret were at scaring up some laughs, it was the closing moments of the special that left fans speechless.
As promised, the Ghosts Halloween special did not immediately resolve the Pete mystery, as we’d come to learn at the beginning of the episode that Pete never remarried after his body disappeared in the season 5 finale. Throughout the episode, the ghosts battled with whether or not to try to bring Pete back via a seance before ultimately choosing to respect his DNS (do not seance).
In the closing moments of the special, the ghosts gathered to remember their friend on the anniversary of his death, which was when the unexpected happened: Pete rematerialized out on the grounds where he first died. Our favorite quirky travel agent was back, or so it seemed! For when Pete entered the manor and was reunited with his ghost pals, he had no memory of them at all, having seemingly lost all memories from the last several decades as a ghost!
Below, Hidden Remote chats with Ghosts star Asher Grodman about Pete’s shocking return, Trevor’s complicated relationship with his fellow ghosts, what the arrival of Kyle means for Trevor, what fans can expect from the Christmas special, and more.
First, I just want to say congratulations on Ghosts' incredible ongoing success! When you first booked the show, did you ever imagine it would become the number 1 comedy on TV and resonate with the fans in the way the show has?
You know, it's funny. It would be very hard for anyone to sit here with a straight face and say that you saw this coming, and I certainly didn't. But I do remember reading the pilot and thinking, “Oh, this is smart, and it's funny, and it's unpredictable. It's a complex world.”
What excited me, maybe the most about it, was how specific Trevor was and how much the writing could carry its own because of that specificity. I remember thinking, you don't get this very often as an actor, where you're like, “Oh, I can just kind of like let this thing ride. I don't have to put too much on this because it's there.”
Of course, you know, a pilot is always like the most refined. Then, as you go on, you're like, "OK, all right, now we gotta shape and we build, and you develop the character and all that."
But for the most part from that pilot, I was just like, "I’ve just got to make sure I bring in a little heart for this guy. So he's a little more dynamic,” but like so much of that was on the page.
The other thing with that pilot was, you get to most pilots, and you're like, “Oh, I see what episode two is going to be.” You look at that pilot, and I remember thinking, "Oh, Joe Port and Joe Wiseman are screwed.” Like, there are 1,000 things you could have done with episode two. There are a million directions, and how do you decide which way to go? The unpredictability of the concepts, I really felt in the moment.
But I was like, if you can just get this in front of eyes, that this would find an audience, it would take off. I didn't know it would be this, but I always thought that we had a chance to be a show like Community or something that took these big swings and kind of reinvented itself. So the answer is no, but I was always like, if we could just get it in front of our eyes, this thing could be something special.
Well, speaking of reinventing. I have to address the Pete-shaped elephant in the room. The Halloween special ends with Pete returning on the anniversary of his death, but there’s a pretty big catch: he doesn’t seem to remember anything. What was your reaction to that twist?
I was excited! It's such a complex concept that you really can world-build with this thing, right? So the idea that he's there, but that's not our friend, that's not who he is? There's a loneliness, and there's like a kind of a rage in that, like there's a processing of that.
And then the way we handle it, it's a little more on Richie [Moriarty]'s side, but it's really a group thing. What's so special about the show or what is unique to our show is that you have this cadre of ghosts, this gaggle of ghosts, especially these eight who have been together for so long, and cannot leave each other. So like, that's the relationship that's essential to the show and we just lost 1/8 of that; even if he's there, that's not our guy.
I was excited at the prospect of what it does, because I always think that the best Ghosts episodes are the ones that speak to the relationship in that group of eight, especially through time, like the flashbacks and all that. So it was an exciting, exciting development.
Of course, you can’t give too much away, but what can you tease about this twist and how it's gonna impact Pete and Trevor's dynamic as we head into the Christmas special and the season ahead?
Look, listen. Thor's killed some people. I think it's possible that Alberta killed some people. Hetty was certainly in some way responsible for killing some people. So anyone who's looking at Trevor and saying, “Hey, that's the bad guy, just check yourself for a second,” but I do believe that when Trevor died, it's hard to imagine the ghosts looking at him and not thinking that he was the most toxic and obnoxious human being that they had ever seen.
In my mind, it was always Pete who brought Trevor into the family, whereas Trevor would have showed up and been like, “You guys suck. You're boring, you're morons, you're trapped in the past, and none of you know how the world works. The closest thing to the world that I know is a hippie who's like off in another dimension."
And I always saw Pete as kind of a gateway between Trevor and everyone else, kind of like a big brother figure that Trevor probably never had because he was always kind of the alpha in the group and leading in whatever dynamic he was in. So, that relationship is a very specific and deep one for me.
Through most of the show, Trevor has been the eyes for the audience, because he's the one of the ghosts who hasn't seen the things. [He] hasn't seen the possession before, hasn't seen a portal to hell, hasn't seen, you know, all of these elements or doesn't know the people who have been there in the past who are trapped in the dirt and all this. So there's this reversal now where now suddenly my older brother is the one who is new to everything, and we have to kind of like take care of and guide through it. That's a fun reversal to play and we get to do a little bit of that, which is nice.
It's funny, it's all set up as a thing between Pete and Alberta, but the truth is, it's really the relationship of the eight and how that shifts. Pete and Alberta are like a relatively new thing, but these relationships have lasted for decades.
Speaking of relationships, with Sam away working on her movie, Kyle is around Woodstone, which gives us a chance to see a different dynamic play out with the ghosts. What has it been like getting to play off Ben Feldman, and what can you tease about how Trevor and Kyle will interact in the season ahead?
It's fun. The Trevor Sam relationship is always tricky because they're very different people, obviously. He finds her attractive and would absolutely be hitting on her; I mean, he is hitting on her but would be hitting on her even more if he were alive. He has put her in horrible situations. Like, I don't think anyone has caused more damage to Sam, both in the stuff with Trevor's daughter and putting Sam in an absolutely unrecoverable situation as far as humiliating her in that regard to the point that the only way around this is to tell this woman that there is a ghost here, which breaks like the number one rule of the show, which is no one on the outside can know.
He was helping her financially, you know, kind of floating the place for a little bit, but that sent them down a road that was problematic. So they're allies, but there's some tension there.
He gets a fresh start with Kyle; he hasn't destroyed Kyle's life yet, so it's fun. Also, there are a lot of similarities between them. They're different people, obviously, but I think there's a lot more about Kyle that Trevor can relate to.
Ben does a great job. It's a hard position that he's in, and it's a kind of thankless position that he's in. It's like coming in and trying to play quarterback for a team who's been running the same offense for five years and knows each other very well, and you're learning the playbook on the fly, and you have to keep up the momentum but also have respect for the fact that you're kind of the new guy. He does that with such ease, and he's true to who he is and he's just a great dude. He's so funny and talented, and he's brought in this kind of new fresh, dynamic, which has been so fun.
He, Richie, and I all live in the same building, and like we all did this trip to Quebec City together. He's folded it right in with us and this little insane ensemble we have.
I have to ask. Towards the end of the Halloween special, we see some flirtation between Kyle and Bela. I'm sure Trevor is going to have some thoughts on that. Can you tease how he might react to seeing that kind of come to fruition?
You know, I always expect Trevor to be, as competitive and jealous as possible. But also, it's funny because Trevor's been around the block so much. He's had a lot of experience with women.
So it's always surprising me, like there are things that I'm like, Trevor's really gonna want to win this moment because on some level, it's like being in middle school or elementary school when the class is tiny, and so then it feels like that's the whole world. So that dynamic happens on this show, and then other things happen where Trevor's just like, he's been around the block, and he's experienced so much that he's like, yeah, I don't care.
Desperation is not something that sits on Trevor very often, so there's tension, but Trevor's fine.
You touched a little bit on Abby, Trevor's daughter, and there's a fun little nod to her in the Halloween episode with them like shipping the mirror to Paris. Will we get to see more of their father-daughter dynamic in the season ahead or in the Christmas episode?
Yeah, I think so. I can't confirm anything, but I think it does seem to be something that we're setting up. That's just such a fun thing because, again, we really broke the cardinal rule of the show with her because before that, Bela was the only one who knew what was going on. So much of the show rides on the fact that we're keeping this secret and it's such a fun dynamic.
Now she's got this haunted mirror out there in Paris, and imagine being that young woman who's found out that her dad wasn't her dad; her dad is a ghost who died 20 years ago and ghosts are real. He's paying for your life in Paris because your ghost dad has a job, and he just sent a haunted mirror to come hang out with you. So, yeah, Abby's dealing with a lot of stuff, and I'm sure we will see how all that is landing.
In addition to the Halloween special, fans will be getting a one-hour Ghosts Christmas special as well, which will honor Die Hard. What was it like filming the special, and what can you tease about Trevor’s role in it?
Well, I can tease that Trevor is absolutely the reason, or I should say, injects, as he does the most things, chaos and every obstacle possible, and makes the situation exponentially worse and then is also, in part, responsible for cleaning it up. He is just the agent of mayhem that you expect him to be.
As we wrap up, looking ahead, both within the Christmas episode and season six as a whole, what are you most excited for the fans to see where the writers are taking Trevor next?
I actually am really excited for people to see the Christmas episode because Richie gets to do some stuff that is so fun, and it's such a heavy lift, and he does it beautifully. So that's going to be, I think, really, really fun. So please check out this Christmas episode because they're always insane. This is the most insane we've ever gone and the stakes are so, so, so high. I know that's not a Trevor thing, but it is the most dangerous and intense episode I can remember us shooting.
In terms of Trevor stuff, there's some fun stuff with the aftermath of Pete's memory being wiped that is really fun. There's always fun Trevor Hetty undertones and what's going to happen there. But it's also navigating how we deal with the fact that Pete's gone and what that means and how we are dealing with this kind of shell of a person who's with us. He knows what his life was, and there are a lot of lessons that now he has to learn that were painful that he has to relearn. I think for Trevor, who saw Pete as a little bit of a big brother, it's a journey that we deal with. And then there's stuff with Trevor causing mayhem with his financial abilities and his immense business prowess. Of course, you know, sexually, Trevor is always causing a problem.
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