Why Ghosts Season 4’s Finale Has UK Fans Scratching Their Heads

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Although Ghosts season 4’s finale delved into various aspects of Sam and Jay’s struggles, the episode highlighted one crucial element from the original UK show that the CBS sitcom typically ignores. The ghosts of CBS’s Ghosts might be the sitcom’s real heroes, but their long-suffering human companions Sam and Jay also play a pivotal role in the show’s ensemble. Sam and Jay are the only connection that the ghosts have to the world of the living, so anything the ghosts want to do has to be facilitated by the endlessly patient couple.

This could be as small as getting Thor a therapist or as elaborate as turning Isaac’s recollections of the Revolutionary War into a book, but invariably Sam is the one doing most of the communicating. As Ghosts season 4’s Jay plots highlighted, her husband’s inability to speak to the ghosts makes it harder for him to keep up with their plots and plans. This means Sam and Jay often struggle to communicate with each other, since Sam is trying to keep the ghosts happy and keep her love interest in the loop simultaneously.

Ghosts Season 4 Rarely Addressed The Cost of Running The Woodstone Mansion

Sam and Jay’s Expenses Only Merit Occasional Mention

With all of these complications to handle, it is perhaps not a major surprise that Sam and Jay’s finances are rarely the main focus of Ghosts storylines. However, there is a reason that the original UK version of Ghosts made the couple’s finances so central to the show’s story. In the UK version of Ghosts, the main couple, Mike and Allison, constantly struggle with the cost of renovating and later maintaining the massive estate they inherited at the beginning of the show.

Maintaining a property the size of the Woodstone Mansion comes with a hefty price tag, and both Allison and Mike and their US counterparts Sam and Jay try to find ways to make the place pay for its own maintenance. Of course, this is easier said than done. However, the big difference is that the BBC version of Ghosts focuses on the ways the couple try to make money off the mansion, the reasons these attempts fail, and the results of these failures. The CBS show is less concerned with questions about money.

Sam and Jay bounce between seeming financially comfortable one week and close to ruin the next with little consistency or clarity.

Sam and Jay do occasionally note that they could benefit from more income since, by their own admission, the B+B rarely has any guests. Part of the reason that they hired Ghosts season 4’s new character Kyle was to get another pair of hands to help out on the property, but it is unclear how they can afford this if the house is a proverbial money pit. Sam and Jay bounce between seeming financially comfortable one week and close to ruin the next with little consistency or clarity.

Ghosts Focuses On Finances Less Than The Original British Sitcom

The BBC Show Frequently Discussed The Central Couple’s Finances

Mike and Allison’s financial woes shaped every choice they made about the mansion in the original British sitcom and, although this might sound downbeat for a light-hearted comedy show, it instead provided the right level of narrative tension to keep the show going. While Elias’s demonic plan in Ghosts season 4 was surprisingly dark, broadly speaking, the CBS sitcom has fairly low stakes in most episodes. The ghosts can’t die and Sam and Jay seem unconcerned about losing the Woodstone Mansion, so there is little at stake from week to week.

This was helped in season 4 when Jay opened Mahesh, since restaurants operate on infamously thin margins and are a naturally intense, dramatic setting for a sitcom. However, only a few episodes have taken advantage of the restaurant as a setting and only two of them, episodes 13 and 14, “Ghostfellas” and “Alexander Hamilton and the Great Ruffle Kerfuffle,” saw Sam and Jay get seriously concerned about its financial future. Ironically, given how worrisome they can be in reality, some money woes could make Sam and Jay’s story more dramatic and exciting in Ghosts season 5.

Ghosts Season 4 Saw The Ghosts Bring Income To Woodstone

Trevor Got A Lucrative Job Despite Being A Ghost

To be fair to the denizens of Woodstone, the ghosts did start to bring in some income in season 4. Ghosts season 4’s hypocritical new ghost Patience might have tried to sabotage the book launch, but Sam did get all the money from Isaac’s book advance. As such, her decision to spend money on getting the ghost a lap dance from a stripper and a dinosaur-themed novelty bed isn’t as absurd as it might have otherwise seemed, particularly considering both were gifts for his canceled wedding.

Trevor’s job only drew more attention to how strange the sitcom’s handling of money issues is.

Furthermore, Trevor began working remotely thanks to his ability to use a computer keyboard, meaning he was able to secure a surprisingly lucrative job even though he had died decades earlier. However, this only drew more attention to how strange the sitcom’s handling of money issues is. Trevor’s money from his job didn’t go to Sam and Jay in Ghosts season 4, with the ghost instead spending it by bidding on movie memorabilia online. While Trevor doesn’t owe them his money, this does underline just how little the CBS sitcom concerns itself with the couple’s financial situation.

Ghosts Season 4’s Finale Ending Means Season 5 Can Center This Plot

Jay Signed His Soul Over To Elias To Help Mahesh Succeed

Although Ghosts season 4 seemingly set up a Fabio cameo, this was not the only bit of important foreshadowing from the outing. In season 4, episode 22, “The Devil Went Down to Woodstone,” Jay revealed he had hired a publicist to promote Mahesh and this choice was finally paying off. Sam realized Jay’s publicist was really Elias, Hetty’s demonic former husband, taking human form. Elias boasted that Jay had sold his soul, even if he didn’t know it, and therefore Elias could collect it anytime he wanted.

Jay will presumably get his soul back from Elias in Ghosts season 5, but this will still be a good chance for the sitcom to start focusing on the couple’s financial position more pointedly. The high price of keeping such a lavish location functioning is an obvious organic source of high-stakes drama for the series. As such, Ghosts season 5 should finally focus on Sam and Jay’s attempts to keep themselves financially afloat, a plot point that could even be used to explain Jay’s decision to hire a publicist in the first place.

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