Filled with Christmas spirit? More like possessed by Flower.
In Thursday’s two-part Season 5 fall finale of “Ghosts,” Sam is in for a big surprise when Thor’s Christmas gift for Flower includes Flower taking over Sam’s body to satisfy her munchies. (I mean, Pringles are pretty tasty.) But it’s all bad timing for Sam, who’s due to appear on live TV to promote her book. The whole charade turns into the perfect showcase for Rose McIver who spends a good portion of the episodes frolicking about as the perpetually stoned Flower — when Sam isn’t actively fighting to regain control, that is.
As soon as showrunners Joe Wiseman and Joe Port locked in on their latest possession idea, they gave McIver a heads up, giving her plenty of time to rendezvous with Sheila Carrasco (who plays Flower) to work on lines and perfect the hippie ghost’s physicality.
“The finished product is incredible,” showrunner and executive producer Joe Wiseman tells TVLine. “It’s hard to tell if she’s actually doing the voice or if it’s being dubbed over, [but] it’s all Rose. She did this previously when she was possessed by Nancy. She’s just this incredible mimic [who] really just nails down the parts.”
While Sam/Flower galavants around the mansion grounds doing everything but prep for her interview, another odd couple (if we can call them that yet) begins to gel: Trevor and Patience. After Trev teaches her some Yiddish and Patience shows him a technique for churning butter, the sexual tension overflows and they surprisingly lock lips. Guess opposites really do attract?
“Someone in the writer’s room brought up [that] the Puritans did not celebrate Christmas, which was very surprising to me,” says Port. “It just seemed like something that they would commiserate over. Trevor, the kid who’s Jewish and felt sort of othered on Christmas when there’s just a lot of Christmas stuff being thrown at you all the time, and him getting a chance to commiserate with Patience about this… The scene where they end up getting together was one of the weirdest scenes we’ve written. It just really tickled us. We’re exited to see where that leads.”
Talk about a Christmas Carol!
No surprise here: Flower completely botches Sam’s interview. Her very live and very important television debut. At the end of Part 1, having at last expelled Flower from her body, Sam makes a bold declaration: “I wish I had never been able to see ghosts!” When she wakes up the next morning, her wish comes true. Like a ghost herself, she walks around a bizarro-version of Woodstone, one where she can witness what her life would’ve been like if she couldn’t see Thor, Hetty, Flower, and the others. And leading her through this waking nightmare? Carol! (Yes, she got sucked off, but it’s Christmas! Christmas Carol… get it?)
“We love Caroline Aaron. She’s an incredible actress and we loved having her on the show,” says Wiseman. “It was very rough for us because in our season premiere, we had her character move on. We wanted to do something significant in the premiere, but it was sort of like, ‘Gosh, we’re losing Carol!’ So we came up with this idea that on Christmas, Christmas Carols have a special sort of duty to perform. Any excuse to have her back. And she made a good guide for Sam as they explored the alternate reality that Sam had wished for.”
Once Sam sees the positive effect she’s had on the ghosts, she realizes how much they’ve added to her life, as well. Thus, she makes another wish, this time asking to get her power back. That, in turn, reverts her back to her original world where she’s able to expel Flower and redo her interview, just in the nick of time.
Thoughts on McIver’s performance, Carol’s return, or anything else? Drop ’em in the comments below!