When it comes to how the spirits of Ghosts died, I’d argue that the most unforgettable cause of death is Pete’s. That’s because there’s literally always an arrow going through his neck. He died with it. So, after playing the ghost for five seasons, I asked Richie Moriarty how the arrow he always has to wear has evolved, and he explained why it’s actually gotten quite a bit shorter over the course of the show.
As I spoke with Moriarty during an interview for CinemaBlend about Season 5 of Ghosts, which is currently airing on the 2025 TV schedule, we also discussed his costume, which, to viewers, hasn’t changed ever. However, for the actors, those costumes need to evolve, and for Pete specifically, his arrow had to change for safety reasons. Speaking about an incident that led them to shorten the arrow, the actor explained:
The first season, it was slightly wider than my shoulders, the arrow itself, and it became dangerous, because there is a moment in Season 1 where I lean towards Sas in a scene. I lean in toward [Román Zaragoza’s] character, and I nicked his eyelid with the arrow itself. And so I almost blinded this dude.
Well, that’s not good! However, since Ghosts has been going on for so long, they figured out how to make the arrow very safe.
Moriarty explained to me that the arrow is actually a “C-shaped bracket that goes around the back of [his] neck,” and then there are bolts on the end of it that make it so they can screw in the pieces of the arrow. Over the years, it’s evolved too, as it went from a heavier metal to a light-weight one.
It has also gotten shorter, so no one needs to be worried about getting their eye poked out. The Pete actor explained that part to me, too, saying:
So after that moment, they were like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna slowly taper this in a bit so that it won’t be noticeable to viewers.’ But it’s basically lost an inch on either side. So now it’s slightly less wide than my shoulders.
While the arrow is shorter, Richie Moriarty told me he still has to be “very cognizant” of the arrow. It impacts and limits how he moves, and, yes, he does have to walk through doorways sideways.
However, while the arrow can still be a minor inconvenience for him, it’s no longer a danger to the Ghosts cast. To that point, on top of making it shorter, the arrow tip is also now made of foam instead of metal, as the actor said:
The other thing that they changed in the arrow was, it used to be a real arrow tip. It wasn’t super sharp, but it was an arrow tip. It’s now foam, so that if it does hit someone’s eye, or, you know, whatever other body part, it’s not actually gonna poke them. It’s very soft.
Overall, the arrow has been a work in progress; however, after Season 1, it seems like they got it figured out. Richie Moriarty made that clear too, as he told me:
It took a while. It took really a full season to figure out ‘How are we going to do this effectively, so that continuity isn’t disturbed, but so that it’s as comfortable for me as possible and also as easy to get around for all the cast mates that I’m so close to all the time.’
Clearly, continuity wasn’t disturbed, because I never noticed, and I hadn’t heard about it until I spoke to the Pete actor directly. However, now I kind of do want to go back and binge Ghosts with a Paramount+ subscription to see if I can spot the differences.
In the meantime, though, I’m going to continue to watch Pete in the current state he is (and always will be) in, as I keep watching new episodes of Ghosts on CBS every Thursday at 8:30 p.m. ET.