Ghosts season 3 review: So which specters were “sucked off”?

When Ghosts viewers last visited Woodstone B&B, they were faced with a terrifying question: Which of the ghosts had been “sucked off”? (That is the show’s official term for a ghost who makes the transition from an endless purgatory to the afterlife, but we still marvel at how the writers managed to get around broadcast television’s strict standards and practices with this double entendre.)

The season-three premiere, which airs February 15 on CBS, a full nine months after the season-two finale due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, picks up in the immediate aftermath of that nail-biting cliffhanger. A frantic Sam (Rose McIver) and a hilariously clueless Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar)—he still can’t see the ghosts, much to his own chagrin—run back into their quaint mansion and do a head count to make sure all of their usual spirited specters are accounted for, only to discover that one of them has sadly disappeared into the light. (No spoilers here, but the writers have cleverly incorporated some real-life circumstances to make this plot twist work.)

With this reveal, the first two episodes of Ghosts’ third season become a surprisingly somber affair, showing just how close the “livings” and the ghosts have gotten in the brief time they’ve spent commingling as a kind of found family. Sure, the actors know their characters inside and out at this point, and the jokes are still coming thick and fast in an already truncated season. But even with this large of an ensemble, it is difficult to not feel the gaping hole that is left when one of them leaves the premises (albeit, hopefully, temporarily).

No matter how many times the writers attempt to write around this departure by reintroducing old ghosts, that character’s absence is still deeply felt and raises the simple question of whether Ghosts could survive with the departure of anyone from the main cast. (The answer is “probably not,” only because the individual performances have been so strong and it would feel like a stretch to simply introduce a new ghost on the property who Sam has not already met. We don’t envy the challenge of having to introduce a new ghost if one of the supporting actors does decide to move on from the show.)

Although this is obviously not the first time that the ghosts have enviously watched one of their counterparts ascend to heaven—or, in the case of Hetty’s awful husband/cousin, descend to hell—the remaining ghosts are each forced to contemplate existential questions that haven’t really been asked since the pilot, including just how far they are willing to go in order to get “sucked off” and how their departures would affect the other residents of the mansion. Let us be clear: The show is still as broadly comedic as ever and hasn’t lost the charm that made the first two seasons so successful, but there is an extra undercurrent of loss that rises to the surface this season that gives the actors something new to play with.

After two seasons of sustaining this high-concept premise, the writers have found surprising ways to add new layers to the characters without wading into overly familiar territory. Devan Chandler Long delivers a surprising standout performance as the amiable (if loud) Thorfinn, lending depth to the man behind the Viking. As the Victorian-era lady of the manor Hetty Woodstone, Rebecca Wisocky continues to set the standard for all of her fellow actors, consistently delivering some of the funniest lines on the show.

One of them comes early in the premiere when Hetty, the wife of a robber baron, offers some hilariously out-of-touch perspective about life and loss: “Loss is never easy but as I once told the grieving parents of a child factory worker who’d been pulled into a loom … there’s a job opening for your other child and this time be sure to cut their hair! They cried for joy.” In a bit of a departure from past seasons, Wisocky seems to be intentionally incorporating some more modern intonations in her way of speaking this season, a sign of how interacting with the living world has changed the ghosts in some profound way. (Hetty, of course, would be loathe to admit that she has changed in any way.) It remains to be seen, however, if the writers will be able to serve all of the ghosts in an effective way this season.

But it’s not all doom and gloom inside the walls of Woodstone B&B. The motley crew of remaining ghosts, once they are able to overcome some of their initial sadness about one of their own seemingly moving on, are up to even more hijinks this season. When they discover one of them has a track record of “losing” their romantic partners to the afterlife, multiple ghosts attempt to cozy up to that poor specter in a thinly veiled attempt to move on. That ghost, however, recommends a séance to bring the departed ghost back to their indefinite purgatory. (We would normally advocate against disturbing the peace of a ghost, but in this case, we’ll allow it.)

Meanwhile, another ghost reveals that they have a special power that can be manipulated for good or for evil—and this storyline actually gives poor old Jay an opportunity to interact with a ghost in a way that doesn’t require a TV set or steam over a bathroom mirror. It also grants the show an opportunity to finally address how Jay feels left out as well as another way to connect the land of the living with the deceased.

Ghosts, at the end of the day, possesses all the virtues and benefits of a classic ensemble sitcom—only with the added benefit of being able to weave in flashbacks and recurring characters in a way that doesn’t feel contrived. And yet, in the current TV ecosystem, where traditional network comedies now must compete with streaming “dramedies” that run twice as long (we’re looking right at you, Ted Lasso), Ghosts has been criminally overlooked in the awards conversation. For some reason, Academy voters believe that Abbott Elementary is the only network sitcom deserving of recognition. But they don’t need to look far to discover that Ghosts is equally deserving of that kind of praise. Let’s just hope they come to their senses before it’s too late.

Ghosts season three premieres February 15 on CBS, and seasons one through two are available to stream on Paramount+.