Previously on “Ghosts”: In Season 4, Episode 21 (“Kyle”), Pete (Richie Moriarty) discovers Kyle (Ben Feldman), another living with the same ghost-seeing ability as Sam (Rose McIver). His arrival is great news for everyone at Woodstone Mansion until Kyle tries to kiss Sam, a move that understandably causes an already deeply suspicious Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) to despise Kyle.
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Season 5, Episode 6 (“Planes, Shanes, and Automobiles”) opens with the news that the Arondekars will be celebrating their first Thanksgiving at Woodstone. At first, it might seem somewhat surprising that “Ghosts” has yet to produce a single Thanksgiving episode since its premiere in 2021, but a conversation with Sasappis (Román Zaragoza) quickly makes it clear why this particular holiday was likely avoided in prior seasons.
Of course, the problem is NOT that Sasappis, a wise and generally chill dude, has any particular issue with celebrating Thanksgiving (though he does request that some time be set aside for remembering the atrocities committed on the Lenape people). The real issue is everyone else scrambling to distance themselves from any historical wrongdoing, no matter how remote the connection. The writers try to keep the jokes coming during this moment, but the subject matter works against them and most of the humor does not land, aside from one solid line from Pete (see “Best Lines” below).
Once Sam and Jay know that Sasappis is onboard for Thanksgiving, Sam prepares to travel (with Pete following) for her first book signing in Chicago. She promises to return in time for Thanksgiving, and at this point, even if the name of the episode wasn’t a dead giveaway, anyone who has ever seen “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” likely already knows how the rest of the story will go.
Following a clearly disappointing book signing, Sam’s return flight is canceled (thanks to another labor dispute), and she attempts to drive back home with directional assistance from Pete. While this might sound like a good idea at first thought, their journey home is further complicated by the fact that Pete hasn’t actually traveled very much in the last 40 years.
Even worse for Sam and viewers alike is the fact that Pete sees fits to be his most annoying self in this episode. His bright ideas as Sam’s traveling companion include suggesting she wear a diaper, insisting she help a random ghost in the airport, and making her wait while he finishes reading a page in a book she is trying to focus on.
In a rather ham-fisted attempt to replicate the relationship between Neal Page (Steven Martin) and Del Griffith (John Candy) in the 1987 film for which this episode is named, the writers have given Pete a quality that just doesn’t quite fit the Pete we’ve come to know and love in the past. Sure, Pete has always been a total dork, and I’ll bet he would get along swell with Del Griffith, but he himself has never before been quite the pestering, blabbering fool that we see in this episode.
Notably, however, Pete isn’t actually the only character acting “out of character” this week. After agreeing to take care of all “ghost chores” for his wife, Jay decides he doesn’t actually need to do any of it. Now, I personally think that Jay is well within his rights to say that the ghosts need to take the requests down a notch, but it seems particularly unwise and unlike Jay to promise Sam he would do something and then simply not do it.
Of course, both of these characters are only acting this way in order to manufacture the tribute the writers clearly had in mind when they started writing. With Jay completely abdicating his responsibilities and Pete unnecessarily annoying Sam, Sam finds herself stuck away from home just as Kyle arrives at Woodstone.
However contrived, these circumstances do at least create a rather amusing scene in which Kyle attempts to bond with Jay via sports information shared by Trevor (Asher Grodman). Without much knowledge to share after his time of death, Trevor struggles to help with anything since the turn of the century, forcing Kyle to awkwardly admit his subterfuge. Understandably, Jay isn’t exactly pleased by this development, but you still get the sense that the two could be friends at some point, something I hope to see further explored in the future.
Not long after Kyle admits the truth, Sam returns home through a connection to someone from Pete’s past who just so happens to own a private helicopter. Even in a show built around ghosts, the speed and ease of that solution feel overly convenient.
Rating: 7.2/10 – I appreciate the attempt to pay tribute to the best Thanksgiving movie of all time, but this episode seems to forget some of the show’s best characters and qualities in service to that project.
Best Lines:
Pete: “I’m from the ’80s. I drove a Datsun.”
Thor: “Twas a feast, but not a celebration… Reeked of shame.”
Hetty: “Good little butler boy, doing what we say.”
Jay: “Ghosts, I’m not surprised, but I am disappointed.”
Thor (sarcastically): “Nice work, Alberta.”
Alberta: “How is this on me?”
Thor: “That is what you should be saying about your hat.”
Hetty: “Kyle looks he could use a long steamy shower.”
Kyle: “Hetty, I can see you.”
Hetty: “Mm-hmm, I can see you, too. Scrub-a-dub-dub, butler boy.”