Ghosts Season 5 Episode 11 Review: The Others

A Flower-centric episode to celebrate the return of Ghosts is tres groovy!

Ghosts Season 5 Episode 11, “The Others,” reminds us how good it is to have our comfort show back doing what it does best — alleviating our stress with discussions of cults and murder.

But does the introduction to these long-awaited “others” live up to expectations?

The tiny moments are the triumphs of this outing, for sure.

A bunker of dead bodies on the property puts Ghosts smack dab in its greatest wheelhouse of material. Any time this ensemble can deliver hilariously mundane reactions to the macabre, it’s a good time.

Thorfinn gets to talk about the bloody details of his plundering past, and the group learns that Flower accidentally killed her entire cult.

All this silly talk of death and accidental murders leads to a discovery that Jay and Sam are besties with the coroner. While many of us will be disappointed to learn it’s not Rahul Kohli, any insight we can get into that odd partnership between the corner and the haunted house is exciting.

Additionally, any time Patience interacts with the other ghosts in casual conversation is fabulous because she says the most unhinged things, like: “I once went to the shore, beautiful place to drown a witch.”

Flower’s quest to end Bruce’s cult has some exceptional highlights.

The magical meteor that Bruce clings to for guidance, turning out to be a fake key holder, is amazing. Not nearly as amazing as making Jay rob a personal item off a corpse for his wife (again).

The last time he was asked to frisk a corpse, Jay didn’t let it go for years. So, here’s hoping Jay can get back to his roots with this unfortunate callback to Season 1.

For Isaac to be so desperate to fit in that he willingly joins a cult is an outstanding joke to let him run away with as well.

His annoyance that they didn’t loop him in on banishing Flower, outweighing his actual concern for Flower, is so painfully on-brand for Isaac. The poor guy wants to be part of something so bad.

However, it is frustrating that the weaker link of this cult storyline is Flower, and not by any fault of her own.

She has very minimal screentime and nowhere near enough to take the cult down from the inside. We never do see Flower make good on her promise to Thorfinn, as the script relies entirely on her telling us, not showing us, in her final stand against Bruce. It’s a rare show of weakness for Ghosts’ storytelling abilities.

Additionally, the storyline is surprisingly surface-level given its subject matter. Flower’s journey throughout the series has been incredibly emotional as the group helps her heal the wounds Bruce caused. Now that the monster himself is here, that trauma is glossed over.

On one hand, it shows how strong Flower has become in his absence, and drives home how, even in a drug-induced state, Flower is still smarter than most people in the room. However, their detached reunion misses the opportunity to close this chapter of her life with something more memorable.

The script relies on Bruce and the other hippies just existing to bring the laughs, and the result is an episode that doesn’t offer many jokes in place of depth.

It’s no surprise that Trevor and Patience’s troubled romance brings the laughs.

The concept of these total opposites becoming romantically involved is ripe with absurdity and hijinks. Ghosts continues to cash in on this chaotic pairing by highlighting their entertaining physical comedy and the joys of watching Trevor squirm in a nightmare of his own creation.

It is, however, a surprise that their relationship is the element that offers this episode its depth.

Instead of following the predictable sitcom shenanigans to get Trevor out of this relationship, the episode doesn’t allow him to write Patience off. The more he pushes her away, the more she shows her true nature to him — and shockingly, Trevor appreciates what he sees.

It makes sense that Trevor, who craves dysfunctional and toxic relationships, would be shell-shocked by someone who believes he can be better and is willing to stand by him. It is an unexpected but lovely moment of growth for Trevor to desire her for that.

As cute as that epiphany is for Trevor, doubling down on Patience as his love interest is overshadowed by conflicting narratives. 

One of the complaints that comes up often with this sitcom is its lack of continuity. New characters are introduced, only never to be seen again, and it sometimes takes multiple seasons to revisit a fan-favourite dynamic.

Ghosts is at its best when it is weaving story threads throughout the season and establishing that actions can have lasting effects.

One dynamic this show really had going for it was Hetty and Trevor’s delusional friendship pact. Their volatile and tender mess of a relationship brought forth some of the sitcom’s best writing and received excellent feedback from the fans.

Yet, after a season of success with that pairing, Ghosts has seemingly dropped the experiment without an acknowledgment from the two characters that it happened.

The comedy could so easily ascend to new heights by bringing Hetty into Patience and Trevor’s romantic storyline to play off them. Instead, like with Sas and Joan, we are asked to invest in another brand-new relationship without the promise that it will amount to anything.

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

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