Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for the Season 5 finale of CBS’ Ghosts, streaming on Paramount+ as of May 22.
Is it for Pete? The fan-favorite “Ghost” character disappeared seemingly forever at the end of Thursday’s two-part Season 5 finale, but star Richie Moriarty is wondering the same thing.
Moriarty, who has played the soul of late 1980s Pinecone Troopers leader and travel agent Pete Martino since the show began in 2021, is anxiously awaiting word from “Ghost” showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman about his character’s fate, but is preparing for the worst.
“They came back to the writers’ room about a week ago and are just trying to figure it out,” he told Variety. “Guys, of course the whole cast is a little nervous, myself included. This show is in its fifth season and we haven’t lost any of the main eight ghosts yet. I think at some point, even if it’s hard, you have to lose someone to keep the stakes of the show real. So I don’t know what they’ll decide. I’m anxiously waiting for the news! I hope it’s not Pete for me, but we’ll see.”
In the series “Up the Creek” and “Across the Pond,” Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) learn that the evil conglomerate Ever Creek Water has purchased control of Woodstone and plans to demolish it to build a data mining facility in its place. The couple were told they needed to secure historic designation for the home to stop its destruction. Although many people died at Woodstone, none lived a full, historically significant life. That is until the ghost of a cholera victim, Nancy (Betsy Sodaro), reveals a secret: She was actually once a princess, until she decided to escape from the castle and come to America.
It might work – and Nancy’s necklace found on the premises even proves her history. But that’s still not enough for town historian Joe (James Austin Johnson). Nancy then reveals that there is a picture of herself as a princess wearing the necklace somewhere in England.
Pete, who can leave Woodstone for a period of time with the power of a ghost, volunteers to join Sam and Jay on a journey across the pond to find the painting. Sam ends up staying in America to work on a Hollywood script, and instead, his ghost-seeing live-in Kyle (Ben Feldman) joins Jay and Pete as they head to London.
However, as mentioned before, when Pete is away for an extended period of time, parts of his body begin to disappear. This is something he first noticed during his break in Season 3. Fortunately, Pete rushes home and when he returns to Woodstone, all of his body parts have returned. But this time, by the time Jay and Kyle raced home, he was down to his wits’ end. He doesn’t make it in time, and soon he’s completely gone. And no one knows what will happen next.
This isn’t the first time “Ghost” has toyed with the idea of one of its characters disappearing (or, in the show’s lingo, being “absorbed” into the afterlife). In the season 2 finale, Flower (Sheila Carrasco) was thought to have disappeared, but in season 3 it is revealed that she actually just fell into an old well.
Will ‘Ghosts’ tease fans with another fake? Moriarty doesn’t think so.
“I think if you do too much, it starts to feel cheap,” he said. “Let’s see what they do. Look, this show was like the best. It was so much fun. The fact that we’re finishing season five and filming the 100th episode a few months after season six makes me feel really lucky to be able to do something like this. It’s very unusual for anything to last six seasons in this industry, so I’m very grateful for the time I spent on this show.”
“Ghost” also spends a fair amount of time researching Pete’s history, so the show’s producers may have decided they had dug as much information as they could out of Pete’s character. In Season 5, Pete’s ex-wife Carol (Caroline Aaron), who had been cheating on him and wasn’t a great spouse when he was alive, made the ultimate sacrifice by making a deal with Elias (Matt Walsh) to go to hell instead of Pete and Jay and save his soul.
Pete’s story unfolded over five seasons as viewers learned how Pete died after being accidentally shot in the neck by one of the Pinecone Troopers in 1985 on the Woodstone property. In season 2, Pete’s daughter Laura gets married at Woodstone, but Pete sees the emotional event as a ghost. He also had the opportunity to meet his grandson Pete II on the grounds. In season 3, Carol dies while eating a donut hole in Woodbridge, and the two maintain a friendly but separate relationship. When Carol makes a sacrifice for Pete and Jay, she goes to heaven.
Meanwhile, Pete, who possesses ghostly powers that allow him to travel outside the mansion, finally wins the affections he longs for from Alberta (Danielle Pinnock). The two shared a kiss at the end of season 4 and began dating in season 5.
“Once Pete knew he could leave the house, he became, in a sense, a problem-solving ghost,” Moriarty said. “As things happened, he became someone who would be sent on different missions to find and chat with other ghosts in different areas and get more information about all kinds of problems that arise. It gave me a more active role in the Sam and Jay plotline. It also opens up a whole new world of guest stars for me as an actor. There’s a great cast on this show, and it’s been a lot of fun introducing all these new ghosts on all these missions.
“I love our core cast to death,” he added. “We’re like a family at this point, but of course it’s a lot of fun playing with new people. A lot of the guests that come to the mansion don’t get to interact with us, so we’re like a peanut gallery around them. But now we get to go out and meet new ghosts and interact with them directly, which is a lot of fun.”
Moriarty said he enjoyed watching Pete rise in status in the mansion thanks to his ghostly powers. And he has an idea for a CBS crime procedural spinoff. “This is, in some ways, the coolest ghost power, because you can do more things and see more people,” he said. “It feels ripe for a spin-off where he pairs up with Samantha, or Ben Feldman’s character, to solve crimes. Send Pete to Dallas to find out who shot JFK. He’ll chat with other Dallas ghosts and help them solve the mystery.”
He even pitched the idea to Port and Wiseman. “It feels like the time is ripe for a comedic take on a crime-solving procedural,” he said.
Of course, he still has to hang that arrow around his neck. “I think the number one thing people say to me when they see me around the world is, ‘If it wasn’t for your arrows, I wouldn’t have recognized you,'” he said. “What’s interesting is that my character is one of the few people who can tell who this guy is just by his silhouette. It’s interesting to feel so connected to that symbol. It’s both a blessing and a curse, because everywhere I go, someone is talking about the arrow for some reason.”
