In Season 2 of CBS comedy “Ghosts,” Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) and Sam (Rose McIver) have finally succeeded in opening the doors of their bed and breakfast. But, little do the guests know, Woodstone Mansion has quite a few more occupants than meets the eye — and they’re sure to cause some chaos.
“We have some stories about how the ghosts will affect how Jay and Sam do business now that they’re open [and] what role they may play in the B&B,” co-showrunner Joe Wiseman teased to TheWrap, when we spoke to him as part of our Fall TV Preview.
In TheWrap’s new interview, “Ghosts” bosses Wiseman and co-showrunner Joe Port tease more about what’s to come, including the new characters we can expect to meet and whether or not Jay’s fall through the floor of the manor might be his ticket to finally seeing the ghosts.
TheWrap: How much did you know about where Season 2 would go as you were wrapping up Season 1?
Joe Wiseman: I think as we were rounding the corner on Season 1, it became apparent that a natural place to end would be them opening the B&B. Then we could start telling stories about a young couple opening a business together and dealing with that. It allows for stories to literally walk in the front door and provide just a little bit of progress for Jay and Sam without fundamentally changing what the show is. It’s still going to be about the residents of Woodstone.
We’ve gotten into many of the ghosts’ backstories in Season 1. When you were writing those episodes, did you think about how you might expand upon them in potential future seasons?
Joe Port: Because we have so many, you can only really focus on each of them for two, maybe three episodes each over the course of the year. So, you advance the ball down the field a little bit for their backstories, and I think the stuff we did last year greatly informs what we did this year with them — following up on stories like Isaac and Nigel. We’re going to follow up on their relationship now and learn a little bit about how Isaac’s past affects his present in terms of how he is in relationships. We started to delve into Alberta’s murder, and we learned a little bit about Pete’s family. We’re just going to keep unfolding the layers of all the ghosts as we move forward this year.
Last season we met most of the core ghosts at the beginning of the season, but there were some surprises who popped up throughout. Can we expect some new ghosts in Season 2 as well?
Wiseman: Yes. We like to introduce ghosts, and some of them are on the property. This season we’re definitely going to meet some ghosts that are adjacent to the property who have surprising connections to our ghosts. We’ve thought of some fun, creative ways to get ghosts onto the property, both former residents and others. That’s one of the more fun things to think about in the writers room, how we realistically introduce ghosts in a way that makes sense to the rules that we’ve set up.
Port: We are going to meet some ghosts from the past who aren’t necessarily living at Woodstone presently.
The cast members have some really funny and creative ideas for their characters. Did you chat with them at all about what they’d like to see happen this season?
Wiseman: I think informally we’ve spoken to all of them. They all know their characters really well, just from embodying them — or not embodying them, I guess. [Laughs].
Port: They definitely have strong opinions. Like Joe said, they’re so thoroughly familiar with their characters and the eras from which their ghosts came. It’s like having eight other writers on the show in addition to our amazing writing staff, because they’ve all become experts in the time period from which their character came. It’s really helpful and fun.
So you mentioned we’ll see more of Isaac and his relationship with Nigel. Are there any other storylines you can tease?
Wiseman: Our Halloween episode, we always try to do a big swing and do something kind of fun. I think we’ve come up with something that should be entertaining.
Port: We’re going to find out that there’s a ghost that lives at the Farnsby’s. They live a couple houses down. As we’ve learned on the show, wherever Sam goes there are ghosts, because throughout history I guess somebody has died wherever you go. So there are some ghosts that live over there who she comes to know, and there’s a surprising connection between one of them and Thorfinn, which we will learn about very early on.
In the teaser, it seems like Jay might now finally be able to see the ghosts as well.
Port: He definitely really wants that. Both Jay the character and Utkarsh the actor and human being wants to be able to talk to not just one-tenth of the cast that he can talk to right now. This is the one show where, at the end of the season he fell through the floor and he hit his head. I guess on most shows he couldn’t be dead or he couldn’t see ghosts, but those things are both possible on this show. We’re not saying what’s happening with that yet, but anything is possible.
Can you sum up what to expect from Season 2?
Wiseman: Hopefully in a good way, more of the same. I think the show’s going to be fundamentally what it was, but we’re going to continue to dig deeper and learn more about these characters. There’s still a lot of mysteries out there, and we’re not going to answer all of them, but there’s an episode where we find out a little bit more about the circumstances of Pete’s death. … We’re going to continue to learn about our ghosts and develop some of the ghosts relationships as we go forward.
Season 2 of “Ghosts” premieres on Sept. 29 at 8:30 p.m. on CBS.
