After teasing fans at San Diego Comic-Con that Woodstone Mansion matriarch Henrietta “Hetty” Woodstone — played immaculately by Rebecca Wisocky — would “come undone” in Season 2, Ghosts star Utkarsh Ambudkar is speaking out on her progressive character arc. In an exclusive with PopCulture.com ahead of Thursday’s sophomore premiere on CBS at 8:30 p.m. ET, Ambudkar opened up about the formerly touted “unnerving” character shift, admitting it will be a “satisfying” development this season.
“I think there’s a lot of Hetty in this season that’s really funny,” Ambudkar, who plays Jay Arondekar — husband of Rose McIver’s Samantha — told PopCulture. “Hetty is having a sort of, personal awakening. She grew up in a time where women weren’t really allowed to express themselves at all in a way that I think did a disservice to her. And so now in this season, thanks to Flower [Sheila Carrasco] and some of the other ghosts and Samantha [Rose McIver], she’s getting a chance to emancipate herself, so to speak and it’s very satisfying and also hilarious.”
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As previously teased at SDCC this past summer at a panel hosted by Ghosts guest star Matt Walsh, Ambudkar expressed his excitement over Wisocky’s direction this season with Hetty. While Wisocky remained mum on the exact details of what her character will undergo, she praised the showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman for being so “wonderful” in allowing the characters to “maintain [their] hypocrisy.”
“There’s something so great about these characters allowing [them] to experience things that the rest of the world has come to accept as normal. But we can experience them in this very kind of childlike, sometimes very idiotic manner, which is very funny and they let us take several steps forward in an evolution towards feminism or what have you,” Wisocky said at the panel in front of convention-goers and media in the famed Ballroom 20 on July 21. “But, but they always allow for us to betray ourselves and take three steps back at the same time. That keeps it fresh and it, and it keeps it’s funny — it’s funny to watch people try so desperately to learn a lesson and learn a little bit, but really run back to their whole and so, it’s kept a lot of avenues open and it’s been very fun to play for Hetty in particular.”
With the show being the number one new comedy on all of TV for the 2021-2022 season and earning massive ratings across broadcast with its average of 8.4 million viewers per week thanks to its 22 minutes of fun, Ambudkar praises the fans for their love and support of the sitcom. “It’s been really refreshing,” he told PopCulture of the response to his ensemble comedy series, which is now streaming in select markets overseas. “I think we had high hopes, and now with this 8:30 slot behind Young Sheldon and with So Help Me Todd coming after us with my Pitch Perfect alum Skylar Astin leading that, I think we’ve got a really great night of comedy on television for families to come and watch together. It’s just a nice place. It’s a nice place I think for families to come that doesn’t really exist on television right now.”
Ghosts Season 2 returns on Thursday, Sept. 29 at 8:30 p.m. ET on CBS. For more on Ghosts and everything Season 2, stay tuned to the very latest about the show, news about the cast, and everything in between only on PopCulture. Season 1 of Ghosts is now streaming on Paramount+.
