Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Ghosts’ Season 3 On CBS, Where Sam And Jay Deal With The Loss Of A Ghost And Other Spiritual Inconveniences

Ghosts ended its second season with one of its core spirits being “sucked off” into the next realm, but the shows creators and CBS have given no clue which ghost is no longer at the mansion. We find out in the first episode of Season 3, but we won’t spoil it for you here.

GHOSTS SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: After seeing the light coming from the Woodstone Estate, indicating that one of its resident ghosts was “sucked off” to the other side, Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) run in and try to get a spiritual headcount. This is when Jay remembers that Sam is the only one who actually sees the ghosts.

The Gist: What Jay and Sam are afraid of is that one of the core ghosts at Woodstone — Isaac (Brandon Scott Jones), Hetty (Rebecca Wisocky), Alberta (Danielle Pinnock), Flower (Sheila Carrasco), Sasappis (Román Zaragoza), Thorfinn (Devan Long), Pete (Richie Moriarty) and Trevor (Asher Grodman) — was one of the ones that got “sucked off”. As the core ghosts report in, they all wonder exactly where the missing one went, and why they weren’t the ones to ascend, despite the changes all of them have made since Sam and Jay arrived.

For instance, Isaac has gotten engaged to Nigel (John Hartman), and the two were planning an engagement party that was rudely interrupted by the “suck off.” Hetty admitted that her son was the one who murdered Alberta. And Flower and Thor had forged an unlikely relationship. In addition, the basement cholera crew, led by Nancy (Betsy Sodaro) are asserting their ghostly autonomy, especially when one of the upstairs ghosts calls them “just basement ghosts.” The cholera ghosts respond by hanging out upstairs, staring at the television, and overjoyed that they don’t have to talk about the water heater’s gurgle of the day.

This spiritual crisis, though, isn’t getting in the way of the renovation of the barn into a restaurant. But a barn owl that has taken up residence there is a problem. Jay regrets bringing up the Hindu principle of reincarnation, though, when one of the other ghosts thinks that the departed ghost has been reincarnated in the owl. And when Sam moves the owl inside the mansion, its screeching scares off the few paying guests the B&B has.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Ghosts is an American remake of the 2019-23 British original of the same name, which was called Ghosts UK when CBS aired the original in the US to fill in a strike-created hole in their schedule.

Our Take: Ghosts has been successful because it’s not only funny but showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman and their writers have done a good job of making Sam, Jay and the ghosts into a “found family” in somewhat of a different way than the UK original did.

There are always going to be ghostly gags in this series, but there are certainly less gags about the time period these ghosts came from versus the current day, because Port and Wiseman used the presence of Sam and Jay to force the ghosts to get to know each other as people, finding things out about each other that they didn’t know during their decades and centuries of being trapped at the mansion with each other, bickering about tiny things.

The first episode of Season 3 bears this out. The departed ghost gets a pretty emotional sendoff, and for fans of the show, it’ll be a blow to see that spirit is gone. That wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for the bonds the characters forged with each other over the first two seasons. It was always a better decision for the ghosts to learn to live with Jay and Sam — and for Jay to buy into the fact that Sam can see them — than to keep things adversarial. And the payoff is that when one of them finally achieves enough growth and closure to ascend from the mansion, it’s a big deal.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: The cholera ghosts decide to go back to the basement, thanks to the efforts of one of their own.

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Ambudkar, because he has to play Jay as a guy who only knows the ghosts via Sam, and constantly has no idea where they actually are in the room when he talks directly to them.

Most Pilot-y Line: Jay offers a disgruntled guest double the “Woodstone Rewards Points” that she’s earning for the visit. That’s quite optimistic that they offer a program that assumes people are coming back. Also, the “sucked off” gags get old in a hurry.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Ghosts has become a true ensemble show in its third season, and it starts its new season with an episode that shows just how much of a family the ghosts and the “livings” have become.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.