Ghosts Season 2 Episode 17 Review: Weekend from Hell

Ghosts must sense our unease as we approach the season finale because the timing of this episode is hella suspicious.

Ghosts Season 2 Episode 17, “Weekend from Hell,” certainly raises the stakes and our pulse with its game of twist roulette.

If there was ever a time to join Isaac in the gasping, it’s when Elias reveals they can send emails from hell. Another day at Woodstone, another opportunity to expand the lore in terrifying ways.

Given Ghosts Season 1 Episode 13, “The Vault” lives on as one of the show’s most outstanding achievements, the return of Elias Woodstone is no simpleton’s outing.

We are in the endgame now, and Elias seems like a warning shot for what’s to come.

He might be back under evil pretenses, but Matt Walsh is a delight with his over-the-top mustache-twirling villainy. He’s just absurd enough to underestimate before striking with his sinister robber baron intent those child-labor jokes casually poke at.

Props to Ghosts for featuring this cartoonish top-hat villain as the conflict of the week whenever the mood strikes because he’s a blast.

Spirit Solidarity

Ghosts never introduces conflict without an emotional payoff. As chaotic as Elias trying to drag Pete to hell is, it dramatically impacts Hetty’s unresolved trauma.

Her resentment makes for snapping comedy, but there’s a disarming tenderness to Hetty’s stiff posture that Wisocky plays beautifully.

This unease allows Pinnock’s Alberta to turn the joke on its head, declaring that resenting a man will only serve to poison Hetty. Men don’t care what happens to the women they use, and once that clicks for Hetty, she lets years of pain go in seconds.

The immediate payoff works because it is grounded in a fundamental truth of why we forgive the unforgivable. It ties two women with seemingly nothing in common to a truth they have faced their entire lives.

It’s brilliant how quickly Ghosts resolves decades of conflict with female solidarity.

High on Flower

This Jay storyline has highs and lows, as any secondary storyline would when contending with a portal to hell in the other room.

But there’s no arguing the combination of Flower, Sas, Trevor, and Jay is culinary magic. 

The demi-gloss or port wine reduction debate between two ghosts that are 500 years apart in age and acting like disgruntled siblings is such a fun bit. Unfortunately, these two watch too much Food Network.

Flower and Jay is an equally fun tangent, especially when Jay tries to echolocate her like a bat.

Between the ghosts being zero help and Sam attempting to mediate a hell contract and a high husband in two separate rooms, the total lack of concern from both parties sweetens this dish.

There’s not much Ghosts can do to make this storyline fit seamlessly into the episode, not with Elias and the ghost lore taking up so much space.

That said, three ghosts wandering into another room and missing Pete almost going to hell is a hilariously mundane byproduct. No one cares to investigate any of the screaming going on — a truly horrifying element to this series at times.

The Devil In the Details

“Weekend From Hell” may not work as cohesively as it could, and confining parts of the ensemble to a different room doesn’t help.

But the devil is in the details, and this episode is brimming with them.

We have a moment of peace as we learn Pete gets email blasts from his daughter, and Jay is so invested in little Pete’s Spider-Man retainer. Of course, there is also the sweet melodrama of Elias confessing he messed with Hetty’s cocaine. 

And we circle back to jokes for big payoffs. Thorfinn’s self-defense strategy escalating into a fit of screaming and genital punching has me wheezing. But Trevor vibing with Chumbawamba when Elias previously established them as hell’s theme song is just smart characterization.

Ghosts‘ grasp on good TV is easily the scariest element of this visit from hell.

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Ghosts airs Thursdays at 8:30/7:30c on CBS.

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