Ghosts' Rebecca Wisocky talks the importance of balancing comedic and dark themes

The cast and creative team of CBS' hit comedy series Ghosts returned to San Diego Comic-Con once again to celebrate the series with fans and give some insight into what audiences can expect in the upcoming season. The panel was full of news and personality, but one discussion in particular stood out in Ballroom 20, and it centered around a very memorable episode from Ghosts season 3 titled "Holes are Bad."

In "Holes Are Bad," we learn Hetty died by suicide from a hanging, something she finds the courage to share in an effort to rescue Flower from the well. And during the panel, moderator Perri Nemiroff applauded Rebecca Wisocky, who plays Hetty on the show, for her incredible performance throughout Hetty's death reveal story.

Wisocky credited the writer and director on the episode, Sophia Lear and Jude Wang respectively, for how they crafted and portrayed the story, and went on to explain that she had been involved in the discussion about how this would be part of Hetty's arc in Ghosts season 3, and that she knew it was an important story to tell.

"Our show manages, for a half-hour silly zany comedy, to tackle some pretty deep, dark themes that have really resonated with our audience," Wisocky said. "And that's been so important to us."

She went on to share that "tackling suicide in a comedy certainly felt very risky, and also very important that we were able to handle it with levity and sensitivity and nuance." Wisocky and the rest of the panel echoed the sentiment as she talked about how proud everyone was of the episode. "It was really moving to, I think, to all of us shooting that week," she said.

Richie Moriarty, who plays Pete on Ghosts, also complimented Wisocky's performance. "Every day, we're blown away by Rebecca's talent," he said. "But like, that episode in particular was an insanely emotional week to shoot, and just kind of raised our gratitude and respect for Rebecca even more."

We're confident that Ghosts season 4 will continue to push forward on weaving important and sensitive stories into its strong comedy machine, especially now that the show is returning to the longer episode order that it had in its first two years. Ghosts sets the bar high for itself as a primetime broadcast sitcom, and the series shows other premium streaming "comedies" what a true balance of genres in comedy can look like.

Ghosts season 4 premieres on Thursday, October 17 at 8:30 p.m. ET on CBS. New episodes will be available to stream the following day on Paramount Plus. Catch up on Ghosts season 1-3 now!