Ghosts UK Season 2 Episode 4 Review: Redding Weddy

Ghosts UK Season 2 Episode 4, “Redding Weddy,” is an absolute blast, figuratively and literally.

While uncovering an untouched corner of Button House, Alison forces the ghosts to fend for themselves as she and Mike wrestle with the overgrown garden.

As the unattended ghosts run amuck, stumbling across buried secrets, this episode strikes a beautiful balance of silliness and somberness. Additionally, it reveals some emotionally compelling sides to the stoic Captain.

Bored ghosts are the best ghosts, it seems.

“Reddy Weddy” includes an abundance of ensemble shenanigans despite functioning successfully as a walk down memory lane for the Captain. That combination of storytelling shouldn’t necessarily work together effectively, but it does somehow.

This bloated episode throws new pairings at us as the ghosts try to busy themselves while Alison helps with the garden.

Ultimately, building a plot of chaos and nonsense on a foundation of boredom justifies the manic pacing and provides an entertaining amount of absurdity without tipping into irritability.

These mundane episodes where the ghosts bop around Button House, playing tag together, watching movies, and exploring their world through new eyes are as thrilling as any structured storyline could be.

Oh Captain, Our Captain

What we see of The Captain’s backstory is subtle and nuanced but incredibly telling of his invisible wounds.

The episode only has a few brief moments of somber contemplation to tell its story, and it chooses to zero in on interactions between Captain and his comrade Havers.

However professional their interactions seem, stolen glances and swelling music betray the stiffness of their goodbye for what it is.

From Captain’s urgency when he hears of the garden being excavated to the desperation and pain in his face as he begs Alison to leave his secrets buried, this character is very good at taking the brunt of the emotional heavy lifting.

Of course, she thinks the explosive secret is symbolic and all but convinces us that is the case, which makes the literal bang of his bomb a total blast.

The improvement in how these personal reveals are folded into the larger story is evident when you compare “Reddy Weddy” to Fanny’s Season 1 outing. There is more focus and care in how these personal details are folded into the larger ensemble outings.

However, it would still be beneficial to have these episodes dive deeper into the ghosts’ backstories before moving on.

Ben Willbond imbues Captain’s ridged posture with such heartache and longing. Hopefully, this is the start of his emotional undoing.

Top Gun Pat

Ghosts UK’s homage to Friends was a highlight of Season 1. So it is a delight to see the show embracing its pop culture secret weapon again — this time with Top Gun.

It is so bizarre that Pat would be the one to enjoy the film this much as opposed to The Captain or even Julian. Yet, Pat goes full Top Gun, and we cannot help but embrace him for his enthusiasm.

If the constant quotes and references to his favorite character, Goose, are not enough, his reenactment of the slow-mo beach volleyball game using Humphrey’s Head is a perfect use of this hyperfixation.

Ultimately, we cannot lose when the ghosts take an intense interest in new things.

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Back-to-back episodes of Ghosts UK air Thursdays at 9/8c on CBS.

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