The premise of CBS’ hit comedy Ghosts is a notably ridiculous one: After a near-death experience, Sam (Rose McIver) can communicate with the spirits who haunt the country home she inherited from her great aunt — a group of specters from all walks of life and historical eras who died on the property at some point in time. One of those ghosts includes Hetty Woodstone (Rebecca Wisocky), the great-great-great-great-aunt to Sam, who maintains a stuffy, Gilded Age-era attitude that prides wealth and power and shows a disdain for modern times.
In the eighth episode of Ghosts‘ third season, however, we learn a surprising fact about Hetty that brings more depth to a character who has slowly revealed herself to be more than just an uptight robber baroness from a far-off generation. Unhappily married to a devious man of means, she is pinned into a corner when her husband’s business affairs make her a criminal target. Pushed into a corner — and thinking her death would save her wealth for her son, Thomas — Hetty commits suicide, using the cord from her newly acquired telephone to hang herself.
That reveal comes when she realizes that the cord, still wrapped around her neck and hidden by a high Victorian-era collar, can be put to good use in order to rescue fellow ghost Flower (a perpetually high hippie played by Sheila Carrasco) from a doomed eternity trapped in an abandoned well.
But in the grand tradition of sitcom comedy, this touching and sensitive moment isn’t used merely as a clever plot twist, but rather offers a extremely human look at a character whose mental health suffered during an era in which there was no one to turn to for help.
Wisocky spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about how she first learned about her character’s backstory, the pride she feels for Ghosts‘ treatment of serious subject matter amid broad comedy, and why the sitcom’s premise rewards its writers efforts to play a long game with its cast of characters.
