Ghosts might be one of the season’s funniest new sitcoms, but there are a lot more layers to the single-camera comedy than one would think. Following the events of “The Vault” where the ghosts of Woodstone Mansion learned Hetty had some hellishly different powers, audiences learned Thursday night with the episode “Thorapy” that Viking ghost Thorfinn too has been hiding some major muscle while channeling his aggression. In an exclusive with PopCulture.com, “Thor” actor Devan Chandler Long breaks down that shocking revelation and what it means for the house ghosts as the premiere season of Ghosts progresses. (Spoilers are ahead for Ghosts, Season 1, Episode 15: “Thorapy.”)
Picking up from last week’s episode, Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) look to free up some rooms for their soon-to-open B&B, requesting the house ghosts to bunk together. Upon their first night as roommates, Trevor (Asher Grodman) discovers Thor has been having night terrors, which inspires Sam to enlist a therapist to help him. During the sessions, the Viking reveals he has killed one of his best friends Oskar. Fast forward to one of Thor’s night terror bouts where he is so entranced by the intense experience and in a shocking moment, chops off Trevor’s ghost hand prompting Pete (Richie Moriarty), Alberta (Danielle Pinnock) and Sam (McIver) to scream. Of course, Trevor’s ghost hand magically reappears as if nothing happened.
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Long tells PopCulture, it was a moment he was equally “wowed” by. “We’re all learning as we go, the evolution of what the rules are in this world that has been building every episode. We get a bigger understanding of the world map here. When we encounter new issues like, ‘Oh, wait, we can chop off other body parts of other ghosts? This is interesting.’ We discovered that ghosts can have sex. We could walk through walls, but we can’t fall through floors. There are all these different rules and then we discovered the boundary when Hetty tried to leave the property, and there’s this invisible kind of barrier. So, it’s just really fun every week when we discover these little wrinkles about the territory.”
While fans learn that Oskar was actually just a squirrel, Long says it’s a lot more than that for Thor, whose heart and soul show through that exact pain and emotional trauma. “Thor’s got separation anxiety and abandonment issues. He was left for dead on new land,” he said, recalling the time he felt like that too in middle school. “I remember growing up, if my friends would leave the cafeteria table too early and I went out for some chocolate milk and I came back and they were gone, I’d be way bummed out. If I had been abandoned in a new land by all my shipmates, I would’ve been totally bummed out.”
Long adds for Thor to lose his “little squirrel buddy” was essentially like losing a best friend. “It seems like he did the same thing to [Oskar] that was done to him. It’s difficult for Thor to process it all,” he said. “I think he kind of shoved it down, and it eventually came up every night when he goes to sleep.”
With the episode hitting some emotional chords with viewers following the confession, Long says the message behind tonight’s episode was all about self-forgiveness and how important it is to be kinder to ourselves. “We all got to forgive ourselves. If you’re a human, you’re not perfect. We all do things that we’re not proud of, whether we know it at the moment, or it occurs to us at a later date,” he said.
Long adds therapy for Thor was a lot like “acknowledging everything that he’s done and seeing it and laying it on the table,” but then releasing it finally “accepting” himself for who he is. “Part of just being a human and growing is paying attention to what you’ve done and forgiving yourself and allowing yourself to love yourself because if you hold onto guilt and you shove it down, it’s like having a bunch of boogers in your nose. You got to blow it out, or you just got boogers.”
Ghosts airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on CBS and will be available to stream live and on-demand on Paramount+. Those interested in seeing all Paramount+ has to offer can click here for a free streaming offer.
