Spoilers for Ghosts Season 4 are ahead. If you aren’t caught up, you can stream the series with a Paramount+ subscription.
When I found out that Jay would get to see the ghosts this season, I did not expect it to happen in the way it did. I thought it’d happen in the same way it happened to Sam – however, that couldn’t have been further from the case. Through a wild double possession and a ghost who knows no boundaries, Jay eventually was able to exist on the same physical level as the spirits, and according to Rose McIver, because of this, in some ways, he actually knows the ghosts better than she does.
Calling the episodes “momentous,” McIver explained that it was a very big deal that Jay finally got to see the spirits and Utkarsh Ambudkar got to really perform with the whole Ghosts cast. She also noted that Jay’s experience with the ghosts is totally different from Sam’s, making things even more interesting, which I had never thought about before, as she told Collider:
To actually have this tangible, in-person — and it is tangible, he can touch them. I've said this, that Jay is able to physically interact with the ghosts, which is something that Sam has never been able to do, and I love that. I love that. I hope he lords that over her in an argument down the line, that he does know them better in some ways.
At the moment, as far as we know, Jay’s ability to see the ghosts was only temporary. After his parents’ visited while he was possessed by Pete, Utkarsh Ambudkar's character ended up expelled from his body, which made him kind of a ghost. It meant he could physically interact with all the other spirits, and that is something Sam could never do.
I can’t believe I’d never thought about this before. While Sam can constantly see the ghosts, Jay actually might know them on a more intimate level.
He knows Sass because that ghost infiltrates his dreams, and in the Christmas episodes, Jay basically was a ghost himself. Sam hasn’t experienced either of those things, and she only knows the ghosts as just that, ghosts.
Moving forward, I’d love to see how this fact impacts Sam and Jay’s dynamic. I also think it’d be funny to see them bicker over all this, as McIver pitched.
Overall, I love that the show found such a unique way for Jay to see the other beings living in his house. While it seems temporary, it also adds a new dynamic to the household, because there’s nothing left to Jay’s imagination anymore. Plus, he actually might understand them better than Sam in some ways, because he’s actually been able to live like them.
Now, I can’t wait to see how all of this impacts Ghosts as it moves into the second half of Season 4! To see how Sam and Jay evolve after this wonderfully wild situation, you can catch new episodes of Ghosts when they return on the 2025 TV schedule on Thursday, January 30 at 8:30 p.m. ET on CBS.
