Ghosts Season 4 Episode 20 Review: I Know What You Did Thirty-Seven Summers Ago

Ghosts Season 4 Episode 20, “I Know What You Did Thirty-Seven Summers Ago,” rides the highs of Stephanie’s return by paying homage to her slasher origins and a sacred stoner holiday.

It’s an episode that embodies the wacky, oddball nature of a 4/20-themed episode, for better and for worse.

Ghosts keeps the stakes low but the good vibes high as we get to the bottom of what happened to the prom queen thirty-seven summers ago.

It wouldn’t be a proper season of Ghosts without Odessa A’zio materializing to demasculinate a few men as the beloved mean girl.

And the meaner Stephanie is, the better. So the return of her ex-boyfriend Tad is fantastic as it escalates her aggression. We are treated to shots of Sam cowering under Stephanie’s gaze and petty flashbacks of the ghosts cautiously approaching her, only to be brutally roasted and turned away.

From Nancy admitting she was watching two random teens make out to Stephanie, ever so gracefully announcing Tad “ran away like a little bitch” there is a delightful ugliness to this episodes escapades.

Plus, Stephanie learning that the two people she cared about most named their baby after her is a sweet end note to her latest tirade.

This episode really is just a fun smorgasbord of one-liners and character studies. It reeks of Season 1’s chaotic nature.

That said, the fact that the 4/20 storyline almost overshadows Tad’s homecoming is proof that this Stephanie-centric storyline doesn’t live up to its potential. What happened to the boy that was with Stephanie when she was murdered has been a mystery since the beginning, and there are so many fun directions to take this storyline.

The episode had the chance to go full slasher movie, or pay homage to the campy prom queen movies. Stephanie has one of the most insane deaths on the show, and using that as a catalyst for a very juvenile lie is fine, but it wastes so much potential for more — more flashbacks, more character deep dives, more referring to Tad as a “little bitch.”

In the end, Stephanie gets to ditch the permit party and join the crew hotboxing in the car. If you can’t beat them, join them.

Ghosts may not give our creepy attic girl the stakes her slaughter deserves. Still, it does give us an iconic ensemble scene between four inebriated ghosts as they reveal their high personas to us (of course, Trevor is the paranoid deeb.)

Now that we know the ghosts can get high, the possibilities are endless.

The unexpected MVP of this episode is Hetty Woodstone. This woman saunters into her best peanut gallery work yet, with Trevor playing the part of her amused arm candy.

There’s something so delightful about Trevor using his newly established “Girl Dad” status to guilt Sam into helping Stephanie as Hetty screams, “What are you going to do about the wolves?” at the Mayor — a chaotic duo of duality indeed.

Whether she’s high and questioning Jenkins’ existence or asking what a lab partner is, Hetty is regurgitating the commentary around her with winning dialect choices and deadly timing. She has become one of this mansion’s most extraordinary ghostly oddities.

Yet, there’s no denying that having Trevor stare at her with genuine terror in his eyes as she mentions all the butlers they’ve lost to the wolves elevates her material even further.

We even get confirmation of H-Money’s soulmate status when Hetty hilariously declares: “That’s a tough pill to swallow, and that’s coming from someone who swallowed a lot of pills.”

Trevor died from swallowing “a lot of pills,” and these two still doubt their compatibility? Please.

While Stephanie’s outing lacks spark, Alberta and Pete finally light a fire under their painfully slow-burning romance.

It’s not great to have this revelation thrown into the mix after nothing for so long. Ghosts needs to nurture these relationships, dropping seeds where it can so moments like these can fully blossom. We see the success of that writing with H-Money this season, and Pete and Alberta deserve the same treatment.

Alberta realizing Pete has become the edgy bad boy she desires is such a clever way to spin the “Pete married into the mob” storyline. Yet he still makes the conscious choice to shut things down and spare everyone’s feelings, which is so in-character for our sweet Pete!

It allows the beginnings of this romance not to be derailed by something as distasteful as cheating. It also gives Pete and Alberta a genuine shot at a maturing friend-to-lovers relationship now that they’re on equal footing.

Ghosts saw an opportunity to bring the face-palm incident full circle, and we have to respect the puckering follow-through.

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

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