Ghosts Season 3 Episode 4 Review: Halloween 3: The Guest Who Wouldn’t Leave

Beware: This review contains spoilers for the episode. Read at your own peril!

Ghosts Season 3 Episode 4, “Halloween 3: The Guest Who Wouldn’t Leave,” might be the best episode of this series, period.

Instead of carving pumpkins and handing out candy, Ghosts stops pulling punches and goes for the jugular. It gives itself over to the stakes of this sitcom’s dark underbelly, killing off a recurring character with chilling composure.

It is a risk this scary-good comedy certainly doesn’t have to take. However, that risk pays off big as Woodstone enters a new era of bolder and more unpredictable storytelling.

The One Where Carol Dies

When Carol starts choking and collapses, an appropriate amount of dread fills us.

To depict a death onscreen is to play with fire. It is the type of polarizing decision that can damage a show’s entire reputation (think Pam and Jim almost divorcing on The Office). Once Ghosts crosses this line, no amount of Viking loin jokes can help take it back.

People do not die on sitcoms often — so often, there’s an unsaid rule they cannot. The genre is not suitable for depicting such blunt loss and has become beloved for its lack of deadly consequences.

Ghosts, by sheer existence, has skirted this rule with its flippant disregard for death and little desire to pear into the show’s dark corners.

That is how the episode not only survives this decision but transforms a taboo into something comfortable within this paranormal jaunt.

The choice to breeze past Carol dying on the property and no one discovering her for hours is very on-brand. However, this episode needs to do more than have Sam talk to the air while the ghosts giggle to bring this one home.

This episode needs its edge — something to up the stakes and hilarity.

Introducing the murder plot to the mix is a stroke of brilliance. It’s pouring gasoline on an already out-of-control fire. Sam and Jay’s cool friends discovering Carol’s body and assuming they killed her at their bequest lends humility to the literal body in the room.

It ties in Jay’s “gardening emergency” beautifully and adds another layer of comedy to Sam’s conversations with Ghost Carol.

By embracing darker humor, Ghosts distracts us from the bitter taste of death with a plot that is thrilling with every new interaction. We can feel the ensemble barrelling towards the same outcome, and when Carol and Pete finally make eye contact, the burst of chaos that follows does not disappoint.

A Crowded Party

Additionally, we must recognize the accomplishment of this Halloween episode as a whole.

Ghosts fits more developments into a 22-minute episode than Disney+ does in a 6-hour miniseries. There is so much happening during this outing, and it never feels like too much.

To remove an element of this crowded party would risk ruining the fun. Sam’s initial displeasure with Hetty and Alberta’s meddling is vital to the later conflict, Sam and Jay’s failed séance sets up for the murder plot, and so on.

Only the most skilled comedies can orchestrate something so game-changing and unserious.

The séance for Flower could easily take a back seat. However, thanks to a running joke about doing it in the living room for all to see and a time-sensitive task, the countdown to midnight provides much-needed urgency to the chaos.

It keeps the plot from straying too far and allows everyone to dismiss Carol’s death for the time being in pursuit of other storylines.

Finding Flower 

“Halloween 3” isn’t just here for a good time. It has moves to make.

Amongst all the chaos, we have a plot slowly building to the season’s revelation — Flower isn’t in heaven; she’s in a well (my fellow “she got lost chasing a butterfly” theorists, we won!)

The final moments of this installment are perfect for a big reveal. Like a traditional mid-season finale, it gives the ensemble a common goal to work towards. It also opens a can of worms in terms of how they get a ghost out of a well, and I hope Ghosts is ready to expand the lore accordingly.

So many séance shenanigans lend a hilarity and spooky ambiance to the Halloween special. From Flower’s brother sending an old bag of her weed to Sas confirming there are still pieces of Flower littering the property, it is so fun and morbid.

Also, that tie-in to the premiere with the owl watching over the well is perfection. I just know it is trying to lead Thor to Flower, and that makes me emotionally unwell.

A Real Treat

Ghosts Season 3 Episode 3, “He Sees Dead People,” was excellent, but there’s no denying the excellence of this Halloween outing is on another level.

Both excel within the established world. However, the best episode is the one that challenges the world to change.

For an incredible episode, this sitcom’s usual humor is considerably paired down too. This episode gets something from me that it never does — silence. Much of this episode is spent speechless, taking in the escalating tensions as Carol and Pete’s worlds collide.

This installment is so many wonderful, perfect things, and funny is just one of them.

Throw in the fact that Woodstone did not let strike delays stop it from celebrating a beloved sitcom tradition, and it is fitting that this incredibly spooky episode could be Ghosts’ magnum opus.

Happy Halloween, indeed!

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

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