Making of ‘Ghosts’ panel: Showrunners, actors, writer and director from the seminal ‘Holes Are Bad’ episode reveal how it all came to be [Exclusive Video Interview]
The CBS single-camera supernatural comedy “Ghosts” – adapted from the British series of the same name – stars Rose McIver and Utkarsh Ambudkar as Sam and Jay, a young couple who inherit a rundown mansion that’s co-inhabited by the spirits of those who died on the property throughout history. On May 2, the hit series wrapped its third season and has been renewed for a fourth next fall. But a recent gathering of quite mortal “Ghosts” panelists focused in deep-dive fashion on the making of the momentous eighth episode of the season that premiered April 18, entitled “Holes Are Bad.” On hand to reveal secrets about that installment are creator-showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, series regulars Rebecca Wisocky (who portrays Hetty) and Sheila Carrasco (who plays Flower), and the episode’s writer (Sophia Lear) and director (Jude Weng). Watch our colorful and “spirited” discussion above.
Port offers that the seeds of what would emerge in “Holes Are Bad” were planted during the Season 2 cliffhanger that left open the question of who got sucked off. “We knew we had to answer that question and follow the repercussions of that answer,” he stresses. “We also knew we had a few big unknowns and mysteries about some of the ghosts, one of which was Hetty’s death. We never really revealed (how it happened). We knew that we would probably like to answer that.”
As “Ghosts” fans know, “Holes Are Bad” found Sam and Jay heading off on what they hoped would be a relaxing vacation. But while they’re gone, all ghostly heck breaks loose. Flower, who had been gone throughout Season 3 to that point – and whom everyone believed had been “sucked off” (the moment when ghosts living in purgatory are finally sent to heaven or hell) – is found instead to be stuck in a well on the property. Hetty comes up big to save her long-lost friend by lowering a telephone cord hidden inside her collar to pull her out. But that stirs a moving backstory in which it’s revealed that Hetty wasn’t killed by a drug overdose (as had long been assumed) back in 1895 but a suicide in which she hung herself with that same cord.
“I thought it would be very interesting to have one of the ghosts die by suicide,” emphasizes Wiseman. “It’s something that probably isn’t touched on a lot in half-hour comedies. It’s affected members of my family, and it was just something that I thought would be an interesting subject to delve into. And boy, it was.” But it was important to the “Ghosts” team that the episode be really funny as well, Wiseman adds. “Sometimes when people tackle difficult subjects, that gets sacrificed.”
Wisocky says she was approached by the showrunners a month before the episode went into production “and I was so grateful that they wanted to involve me in that conversation. We spoke about (her suicide) a lot, about how Hetty might have done it and exactly was the motor behind why she would have done it. It was really important to me that we not land in a place of shame about it. I thought it was just a stroke of genius that they tied it to this revelation about how to get Flower out of a literal well, and this great metaphor for Hetty (being) in a (spiritual) well for lack of communication and not knowing how to ask for help and of despair in her life. And both Joes and I spoke with mental health professionals about it and it was really intense to perform. It ended up being incredibly moving, and I think everyone on set that day was really affected by it,”
Far less heavy in tone, but intensely joyous, was the revelation that Flower was there and poised to be reunited with her ghost gang. Carrasco says that she got pregnant at the start of the writers strike and turned out to be “this wonderful, happy coincidence that it all kind of worked out for the character.” I know that the Joes went down several lanes of who should get sucked off, and (fans) thought it was Flower because it made a lot of sense. It also enabled me to have a really wonderful maternity leave with my baby and I got to come back when I was ready. I’m so grateful I got to come back in this episode in particular, telling this story.”
It got a little frustrating for Carrasco when she received so many well-wishing texts and messages from fans wishing her a happy motherhood and congratulating her on her choice to be a mom instead of an actor. “I was wanting to tell everyone, ‘No, I’m coming back!’,” she says. “It was really, really hard to hold that back. I even had to not tell certain family members because I knew they were going to get on Facebook and somehow share the news. I had to make sure they didn’t post anything.”
Lear shares that “it was so much fun to write this episode. We find out what really happened with who got sucked off…Flower’s back, and we had this huge reveal with Hetty and how she died. As a writer, there was just so much fun stuff. I love learning about all of their backstories.” Weng too had a blast directing the episode, adding, “In real life, we are sometimes very funny and then we whipsaw to something very dramatic. In the process of prepping and then filming it, it became so delightful to fully understand what that title ‘Holes Are Bad’ meant because it was a triumvirate of three things. It was a literal hole, right? Flower’s literally in a hole. And then there was the character of Hetty being in an emotional hole and making the choice that she did. And then there was also the addressing of tis funny plot hole of when does floor become floor and wall become wall. So the title became this very grounding focus to me in terms of how we were going to bounce around with these three very different tones.”
All episodes of “Ghosts” are available to stream over Paramount+.
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