Ghosts Season 4 Episode 19 Review: Pinkus Returns

“There’s not going to be a daughter,” this devious show chuckled all the way back in Season 1 when Trevor thought the bottle service chick he banged got pregnant.

Three seasons later, Ghosts Season 4 Episode 19, “Pinkus Returns,” reveals that (sike!) we were fools for thinking Trevor could have relations with all these women and not have a secret child somewhere.

He’s not shooting blanks, and neither is this Trevor-centric episode!

Trevor-centric episodes always promise emotional anguish, and “Pinkus Returns” delivers that gut-punch in spades.

Ghosts turns the loss of a parent on its head by establishing the grief from Trevor’s perspective as he is haunted by the choices that led to having a daughter whose life he can never truly be part of now.

Yet, in true Trevor fashion, he takes the blow in stride, focusing on the fact that he was lucky enough to have Pinkus to raise Abby when he couldn’t. It’s an emotionally uplifting reunion that plays with the many different colours of Trevor’s lifestyle.

On one hand, he knows he couldn’t be a good father or husband, but on the other hand, Trevor is a family man who values community. This episode plays with those dueling traits in several profound ways.

It’s authentic that the conflict surrounding Trevor and his daughter stems from a ghost overstepping their boundaries.

Essentially, most conflict on this show boils down to the ghosts asking Sam to do something insane that would damage her reputation; she rightfully refuses, and the ghosts do it anyway because they are the equivalent of five-year-olds being told no in a grocery store.

What matters is that the response to this behaviour changes.

For once, Sam doesn’t sweep the incident under the rug. She wears her emotions on her sleeve as she lays into Trevor for making her look like a fool in front of Abby and Pinkus. She doesn’t immediately let him off the hook for his actions, and that’s a refreshing escalation of this recurring conflict.

It’s not nearly enough, though. It would be exceptional to see more of this push back from Sam and to have that disappointment bleed into additional scenes, or even episodes. Sam needs to yell at these ghosts far more often for their antics, but this is a good start.

As Sam’s anger triumphs, you can also feel Trevor’s desperation as he pleads for her to be okay with his actions. It plays into this core characterization that makes Trevor’s episodes such devastating, emotional affairs.

He cares so deeply about his family, whether that’s his found ghost family or his real-life family of Pinkus and Abby. Trevor has proven that he will do anything to keep his family together, and when cracks begin to form in relationships, it takes a physical toll on him not to try to help mend them.

His secret desire to be a caretaker of the group drives the spirited journey of this episode.

The photo montage is a corny band-aid slapped on a far more profound emotional wound. That said, there’s also an understanding that Ghosts only has so many minutes in an episode to wrap up the conflict.

Just that shot of Trevor standing protectively behind his daughter as she forgives her father and the camera staying on his reaction as she moves out of frame to hug Pinkus, says all this episode needs to say.

Trevor is happy when everyone around him is happy, and because of one small act of kindness with a pair of pants, he inadvertently gave his daughter a lifetime of love and support.

This episode doesn’t have to add to its laundry list of victories. Still, it pulls out all the stops with two excellent plot twist reveals.

The scene building to the reveal that Trevor is Abby’s daughter is beautifully melodramatic, with pauses for gasps and momentous payoff as the thrilling information sinks in.

Even better, Pete’s investigation into Donna killing her husband suggests at every turn that his Caribbean girlfriend is the slayer. But it’s a clever offhanded comment about Prince to Jay that reveals the ghost Pete interrogated was lying. 

What an incredibly slick reveal! Hopefully, Ghosts will lean more into unexpected reveals like this. It takes what could be a very mundane B-storyline from good to memorable.

Ghosts has always known how to keep us on our toes, and the latest installment of Trevor’s traveling pants saga is proof that every story has new angles to explore with the right writers on the case.

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

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