PaulE

And he's always so gleeful when he talks about it! Like it's just another day at the office. That alternates with his trying to be a more modern, sensitive guy. I think the writers created him as a stone-cold killer harboring an inner teddy bear. To me, the absurdity of that is what makes him so funny. Though in real life, in addition to being relatively casual about sexuality, Norsemen were generally considered to be family men in terms of looking after them, making toys for the kids and teaching them stuff, etc. Granted, if you're talking the Dark Ages the bar would be set pretty low, and I have visions of a Viking hand-crafting a knife for his little boy and then teaching him how to murder someone with it efficiently. But when we saw that flashback of Thor leaving his wife and baby son, he did seem to have affection for them. I imagine he must have missed them as a new ghost, especially knowing he'd never see his son grow up. And he couldn't even murder another Dane as compensation.

But also, regarding Sass and Thor, I've read that both Native Americans and (surprisingly) Vikings were tolerant of homosexuality. I think gay people were considered a sort of third sex among Native Americans, and had roles in society that were a combination of male and female. And Viking men could have have male lovers as long as they also married women and produced children. But the men weren't allowed to be the ones who were penetrated, as that was considered weak, which makes me wonder what men they did have sex with if so inclined.

Hell, the benefits of being young and having hair, period!

And yet many of their demands on Sam involve Jay in one way or another (if only because he has to put up with the consequences), and at least she has the satisfaction of being able to interact with them. I mean, think of all Jay's preparations for the wedding, and for all his efforts he ended up sitting in a silent, empty room dependent on Sam to tell him what was going on. But that dynamic is part of the humor of the show, so I don't see it going away, though maybe Jay's upcoming ability to see the ghosts will change it a bit. Right now, because Jay often doesn't and can't know what's going on, I think they see him as a bit of a doofus. They don't dislike him, but I'm not sure they really respect him. Pete is the exception, of course. For me, the bigger issue is that Sam almost never sticks up for Jay when the ghosts' demands or behavior are a little too much. I'm thinking back to when Isaac refused to loan his share of the book royalties to Jay for the restaurant. Sam should have ripped Isaac a new one over that. If she occasionally took Jay's side, the ghosts might not take him for granted as much they do. But in the long run I guess it depends on what gets laughs.

Poor Jay--even his dreams aren't his own. I couldn't believe Sam was so matter-of-fact about asking him to dream about Sass's crush, and then got weirded out when Jay, in an effort to comply (the man's a saint), started looking at pictures of her before going to sleep. (Sam, honey, the time to get weirded out was when Sass made his request in the first place.) The poor guy just can't win. So I was pleased when it backfired and Sass realized he was actually attracted to Jay's personal attributes. Which I don't think is going to turn into any kind of gay subtext or anything, but it'd be nice if, maybe, it makes Sass value Jay a little more. But I also did feel for Sass when he finally realized that he was desperate to have a romantic connection with someone. After all, of all the ghosts, he's the one who had the shortest life and he was robbed of many of the experiences the others had when alive, even if not all of those experiences were positive. He must feel that, in many ways, he never got a chance to live his life, and that it was over before it had scarcely begun. It's quite poignant, really--another nod to the inherent sadness of the ghosts' situation. In addition to the running commentaries of Hetty and Isaac, as well as Flower's loopy observations, I also enjoyed Trevor's snarky interjections. But no Thor! This is now the third episode in which one of the major ghosts isn't featured, isn't it? I wonder what's up with that. By now it almost seems deliberate yet I can't guess what they writers have in mind by doing it.

Here's someone's interesting theory about why it was necessary for Nigel to return to the shed this season: It touches on the issues some of us have raised about his character development, especially apart from Isaac. I think maybe the commentator is placing a little too much importance on Patience, but otherwise I tend to agree with him. Still, I'm hoping the writers bring Nigel back into the story now and then. We haven't seen him for several weeks now and I'll admit I'm beginning to feel that he's going to fade into a character who's mentioned but not seen. I know the other actors have said they all love working with John Hartman so I hope the writers don't jettison his character completely. (I put this here rather than in the Ghostly Media Talk thread, as I originally intended to do, because the appearance of Jay's family at Christmas is mentioned, so I guess technically that's a spoiler even though I think everyone knows about that by now. But I wasn't going to take any chances!)

That makes sense considering that Trevor's the only one of the ghosts who's been alive longer than he's been dead. (If Pete was around 40 when he died, he's just about reached his halfway point). He's still relatively new at this ghost stuff.

There have been several discussions about ghost boundary issues in this forum, and I think we pretty much agree there's not a lot of logic there. i suspect the writers didn't think too much about it when they set up the boundary canon, and probably didn't take it into consideration when creating additional ghosts, so now things are in a bit of a mess. I agree with the Screenrant writer that it would be interesting to delve into the mysteries of the boundary--the writers could get pretty creative if they take the mess and run with it.

We certainly do. But we're still alive and therefore experiencing the changes that are constantly taking place. Trevor, on the other hand, is located in a sort of bubble; sure, many things can and do penetrate, but because he's essentially dependent on the bits and pieces he can glean from random livings, he's not really able to form a completely accurate picture of how things have changed. Some of the assumptions he had when alive he still held on to, as I think would any of us in his situation. Also, we all see ourselves getting older every time we look in a mirror, and are reminded of it by every ache and pain that wasn't there before (I definitely speak from experience!). But Trevor's been frozen in time, as it were, so there aren't many reminders. I don't mean that he's completely unaware of how life has changed. He's surely got the big picture, but some of those small, gradual shifts in social attitudes, opinions, trends, etc., have mostly slipped by him. I think that's why he was so chagrined by what happened.

I think Trevor's situation was especially poignant because he's the youngest and most recently deceased of the ghosts and probably considers himself still belonging to the modern society he's now observing. But he died in, I think, 2000 and he was, what, in his early thirties? If he were alive now he'd be well into middle age, and the things he thought were cutting edge then are now quaint. I'd guess that somewhere in the back of his mind he already knew this, but what happened in this episode kind of rubbed it in his face. I think he had a mini-mid-life crisis. Even the fact that he was a legend for helping PInkus was bittersweet: after all, you become a legend long after the fact. At that point, you've made history but you're no longer making it. I think we've discussed before that there's a certain sadness about all the ghosts' circumstances and it was nice to see the writers bringing that out specifically for Trevor, since he's the one with the most bravado and the one most likely to be considered shallow.

I love the fact that Thor speaks broken English yet knows the word "sphincter"! And curious about the circumstances under which he would have added it to his vocabulary. He must have eavesdropped on some interesting conversations during the past millenium.

This was a heartwarming episode, but I think we have to overlook a lot of improbabilities regarding Trevor's employment, some of which have already been mentioned. I'm also wondering when Trevor's power amped up. Remember, he used to have to strain for minutes just to hit a single computer key, but now he seems to be able to work fast enough to perform job duties successfully. I think Pete's insufferability about his power was a reaction to his status in life. He would've been considered just a colorless, ordinary Joe, and it's possible that's what he thought of himself as well. I doubt Carol ever made him feel important, so having a power like his would make him feel that, finally, he was a big deal. To his credit, though, at the end of the episode he did realize he was being obnoxious.

I think they'd be wise to avoid politics in general, especially now that we know the election results, if only because the fans probably represent the political spectrum, so why antagonize anyone? That'll just drive viewers away, which won't be good for ratings. Also, we need to have a few places we can go where we're not divided by politics (other than British Tories vs. American Patriots, of course!).

I've noticed Pete's cringy behavior too. Hopefully it's going somewhere and will lead to character development. Yeah, that was a little puzzling, wasn't it? It seemed so out of character for him. He's dorky, not creepy. I can imagine that, having been robbed too soon of being a father to his daughter, he might still have raging dad hormones, even as a ghost, but with Sam? I agree it might be going somewhere eventually.

I agree with those of you who think Jay will only temporarily be able to interact with the ghosts. As you've said, if it were permanent it would detract from the comedy. I'd like it to be long enough just for him to get to know them a little better, which will then make a difference once he's back to not hearing or seeing them. Like when Pete accompanies him in the car, he'll remember what Pete looked and sounded like even if he can't see him now, and he'll be more real to him. And he'll get to know their personalities better if he can talk with them, even if that doesn't last. Of course, as has also been said elsewhere, the writers and producers aren't above messing with us, so we don't know what they actually mean by hinting that Jay will be able to communicate with the ghosts. They've led us down the wrong path before, though I don't think they've ever outright lied, so there's got to be some way Jay will be able to see and hear the ghosts. I like the idea of Sass being able to bring them into Jay's dreams--that would be one way of doing it.