Ghostly Incongruities: There’s No Death Manual

[Kiddvideo]

Why can they walk through doors, but they don’t fall through floors? They don’t know, either. 

[AnimeMania]

I wonder if it is where your dead body is located to ties you to a certain location. Maybe Sass might get a chance to be with the girl that he loves if Sam can move her remains. This probably isn't the case since Pete, Alberta and Trevor's bodies probably are not still on the premises.

[chaifan]

3 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

I wonder if it is where your dead body is located to ties you to a certain location. Maybe Sass might get a chance to be with the girl that he loves if Sam can move her remains. This probably isn't the case since Pete, Alberta and Trevor's bodies probably are not still on the premises.

Going with the premise that ghosts aren't tied to their remains...  that would mean the one place Sam can go for peace and quiet and privacy is a cemetery.  Because no one dies in a cemetery, so there would be no ghosts there!  (OK, it's possible for someone to die in a cemetery, but really, what are the odds that happened and that ghost hasn't been sucked off yet?)

A fun plot line would be Sam & Jay having to go to a funeral, Sam's dreading it because she doesn't want to be surrounded by unknown ghosts, and then finds there are no ghosts there.  Followed by many clips and references to Sam & Jay relocating all dates to cemeteries.  😁

Edited January 24, 2022 by chaifan

[Snow Apple]

Why does Thorfin speak haltingly but Sass sounds like a 21st century dude? Nancy the basement ghost too, and she has less exposure to live people.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Snow Apple

[emma675]

For some reason, I always felt like Sass was more open and interested in learning about modern culture than Thor as the decades went by, so he's adapted more. I have no idea why, it's just a feeling I had. 

I still want to know why the ghosts couldn't get through the vault and Elias was trapped in there for so long. Did the vault builder do something special to the vault to do that?

[AnimeMania]

1 hour ago, chaifan said:

4 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

I wonder if it is where your dead body is located to ties you to a certain location. Maybe Sass might get a chance to be with the girl that he loves if Sam can move her remains. This probably isn't the case since Pete, Alberta and Trevor's bodies probably are not still on the premises.

Going with the premise that ghosts aren't tied to their remains...  that would mean the one place Sam can go for peace and quiet and privacy is a cemetery.  Because no one dies in a cemetery, so there would be no ghosts there!  (OK, it's possible for someone to die in a cemetery, but really, what are the odds that happened and that ghost hasn't been sucked off yet?)

A fun plot line would be Sam & Jay having to go to a funeral, Sam's dreading it because she doesn't want to be surrounded by unknown ghosts, and then finds there are no ghosts there.  Followed by many clips and references to Sam & Jay relocating all dates to cemeteries.  😁

Edited 53 minutes ago by chaifan

If ghosts are not always tied to their bodies, they might be tied to a favorite object and that object might have been buried with them, like Hetty's husband's pocket watch or Alberta's flask. Then ghosts could be at the funeral home and at the cemetery.

[SoMuchTV]

I'm mildly curious about how the "ghosts can't leave the property" rule works.  They seem to hit an invisible wall when they get to the edge of the boundary.  But do "the rules" go by current ownership?  Some kind of fixed distance from where they died?  When Thor and Sas died, surely the land wasn't subdivided and "owned" like it is now.  If Sam and Jay bought some adjoining land, or sold off a parcel, would the "rule" change? 

[chaifan]

53 minutes ago, Snow Apple said:

Why does Thorfin speak haltingly but Sass sounds like a 21st century dude? Nancy the basement ghost too, and she has less exposure to live people.

Here's the explanation I've come up with, based on nothing but my own imagination... 

Sass made a deliberate decision since his death to hang around the livings on the property, as well as all the other ghosts who have come and gone, so he has grown with the times.  Including learning English, modern English, and now modern American.  (He could possibly speak a lot of other languages, too.)  As a result, he's lost his original accent by hanging around and interacting with "moderns" for so long.

Thorfin chose, until relatively recently, to stay isolated.  Like the Brits in the cabin.  He just lurked around, watched Sass have sex, but hid away from others.  So he's a few hundred years behind Sass in lingual/cultural development. 

I have no explanation for Nancy, except it makes for the funny. 

I don't know if it's pandemic fatigue or just that this show is really damn entertaining (especially since I've watched both UK and US versions), but I've never engaged this much with a show, thought so much about backstories, possible future episodes, etc.  I like that this is such a fluff show, yet generates interesting and fun discussion. 

 

[AnimeMania]

3 minutes ago, chaifan said:

I don't know if it's pandemic fatigue or just that this show is really damn entertaining (especially since I've watched both UK and US versions), but I've never engaged this much with a show, thought so much about backstories, possible future episodes, etc.  I like that this is such a fluff show, yet generates interesting and fun discussion. 

Sometimes it is more fun to make fun of a show than it is to watch it. I am looking at you "La Brea". The people there couldn't wait to rip that show a "new one" every week and the show deserved it. 

[chaifan]

51 minutes ago, AnimeMania said:

Sometimes it is more fun to make fun of a show than it is to watch it. I am looking at you "La Brea". The people there couldn't wait to rip that show a "new one" every week and the show deserved it. 

Yes!  La Brea!  I think I did comment on that a bit, too, completely ripping it apart.  At least with Ghosts it's a positive experience - I love the show and love thinking about it in good, positive ways.  Much healthier for me than just criticizing. 

(Somewhat off topic, but the forum for And Just Like that is 6-9 pages of comments for each episode, about 95% negative.  Talk about hate watching!)

[Cress]

Why do they feel tired and sleep at night? They mentioned this in the episode with the hole in the wall, as Flower asked "why do we sleep?" Hetty just responded "I don't know." Why are they able to have sex, but not finish? Maybe Sam can start writing a Death Manual for them, since none of them can write. (Although, Trevor got good enough at texting that he could sext with Jay's sister. Maybe he's a faster typer now.)

[Kiddvideo]

I wonder how Sam can drive with ghosts everywhere? Presume anyone jaywalking is a ghost?

[The Crazed Spruce]

5 hours ago, Kiddvideo said:

I wonder how Sam can drive with ghosts everywhere? Presume anyone jaywalking is a ghost?

There was that bit in the second half of the pilot, on the way back from the hospital, where she tried to keep Jay from running over an older couple, but they were already ghosts. I'm just waiting for a gag in a later episode where she thinks the guy standing in the crosswalk keeping her from driving through the intersection is a ghost, only to find out it's just some douchebag on his cell phone. (Bonus points if they follow up a few episodes later with him in front of her car again, only for him to be a ghost this time.)

[Kiddvideo]

So I’ve given this wayyy too much thought, but I dislike the Olympics and all the repeats on every channel, and I think I’ve worked it out (though it seems obvious when I wrote it down) that Hetty is Sam’s Great Great Great Great Aunt and that she built the manor. We know Sophie (old woman who got sucked off) was Hetty’s Great Great Granddaughter and also Sam’s Great Aunt, so one of Sophie’s siblings would be Sam’s grandparent. Sam also mentioned that 6 generations of her family had lived there.

I rewatched the scene with Thorfinn singing to little Hetty and the foreman’s son, and they have different wallpaper but that only proves it could have been a different house that Hetty was raised in. (Am I missing anything where she specifically said she’d grown up in that house itself? I imagine before income tax and generational wealth dilution that the grounds were more extensive and there could be more than one home on the ancestral grounds where Thorfinn could roam, which would explain why Sam and Jay haven’t discussed renovating it, and we still don’t know how exactly the ghosts’ boundaries work)

A poorly typed family tree:

G1: Hetty and Elias

G2: Hetty Child

G3: Hetty Grandchild

G4: Hetty Great Grandchild

G5: Sophie——————-siblings ———-—-> Sam Grandparent

G6: Sophie Son ——— cousins ——-—----> Sam Mom (unless her Dad is dead, too, otherwise he would inherit)

G7:  None ————————————————> Sam

Look forward to learning what I’ve missed!

 

Edited February 18, 2022 by Kiddvideo

[Sakura12]

2 hours ago, Kiddvideo said:

I rewatched the scene with Thorfinn singing to little Hetty and the foreman’s son, and they have different wallpaper but that only proves it could have been a different house that Hetty was raised in. (Am I missing anything where she specifically said she’d grown up in that house itself?

Or they changed the wallpaper. It could've been a different room too. They didn't say the foreman's son was in Hetty's room.

So far they've shown the ghosts are stuck where they died. If Thorfin was singing to young Hetty she had to be at that house. Because he can't leave the grounds. 

Elias is Hetty's cousin so he could've inherited her house when her father died. 

[kwnyc]

4 hours ago, Sakura12 said:

Elias is Hetty's cousin

...her LEAST FAVORITE cousin!

[Kiddvideo]

4 hours ago, Sakura12 said:

Or they changed the wallpaper. It could've been a different room too. They didn't say the foreman's son was in Hetty's room.

Right, the logic is that if it were the same wall paper, it would be the same house. Since it’s different wallpaper, it could be a different house. Or different rooms. It doesn’t confirm it’s the Manor House.

[Sakura12]

18 minutes ago, Kiddvideo said:

Right, the logic is that if it were the same wall paper, it would be the same house. Since it’s different wallpaper, it could be a different house. Or different rooms. It doesn’t confirm it’s the Manor House

It has to be a house on those grounds though. We don't know how big the property is, only that if you die on it you can't leave. So she lived somewhere on that property for Thorfin to sing her to sleep every night. 

[shapeshifter]

9 minutes ago, Sakura12 said:

It has to be a house on those grounds though. We don't know how big the property is, only that if you die on it you can't leave. So she lived somewhere on that property for Thorfin to sing her to sleep every night. 

Yes, but 

23 minutes ago, Kiddvideo said:

it could be a different house

"it could be a different house" on the same grounds, including a house that is no longer there. Perhaps it was a summerhouse? Upstairs bedrooms would be hot in the summer. A summerhouse could be a ranch style. 

I was wondering how long wallpaper would last. Modern recommendations are "up to 15 years," but here's a centuries-old home with wallpaper apparently still in good condition:
https://www.citybeat.com/cincinnati/this-century-old-clifton-time-capsule-of-a-home-has-some-seriously-stunning-wallpaper/Slideshow/12233926/11985660

In conclusion: We will need to stay tuned for more Ghosts revelations about wallpaper and such. 👻 👻 👻

 

[Kiddvideo]

38 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

In conclusion: We will need to stay tuned for more Ghosts revelations about wallpaper and such. 👻 👻 👻

 

I concur! Lol

[emma675]

New episode next week!

[Cherry Cola]

On 2/18/2022 at 5:21 PM, emma675 said:

New episode next week!

Yay! I'm seriously loving this show.  It's so fun! 

[AnimeMania]

On 2/18/2022 at 5:21 PM, emma675 said:

New episode next week!

The next two episodes will be new, then there will be a repeat.

[Ms Lark]

Shoot. March Madness. It's always something.

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, Ms Lark said:

Shoot. March Madness. It's always something.

Yeah. If it was up to us, we'd make them crank out a new episode every week, LOL.

I don't know how they managed that in the 60s with shows like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie, but perhaps it was ultimately detrimental to their health in quite a few cases.

[Cherry Cola]

3 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Yeah. If it was up to us, we'd make them crank out a new episode every week, LOL.

I don't know how they managed that in the 60s with shows like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie, but perhaps it was ultimately detrimental to their health in quite a few cases.

I always wonder how Soap opera people work all the time, but sitcoms don't. 

[Snow Apple]

12 hours ago, Cherry Cola said:

I always wonder how Soap opera people work all the time, but sitcoms don't. 

I assume Soaps have enough actors and storylines to rotate. I use to be upset when I don't see my favorites that week or they only have one scene the entire week, but I understand they can't work 24/7 now. LOL

[shapeshifter]

17 minutes ago, Snow Apple said:

I assume Soaps have enough actors and storylines to rotate. I use to be upset when I don't see my favorites that week or they only have one scene the entire week, but I understand they can't work 24/7 now. LOL

Other than one summer during high school in the 60s, I haven't watched soaps. But I used to turn on the TV when I came home for my lunch break, and I would often catch a minute of the same actor. But I think I read somewhere that they can film several months of their parts in a few days. Does that sound right?

If so, I'm guessing that wouldn't work with this show. Or should it?

[AnimeMania]

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

Other than one summer during high school in the 60s, I haven't watched soaps. But I used to turn on the TV when I came home for my lunch break, and I would often catch a minute of the same actor. But I think I read somewhere that they can film several months of their parts in a few days. Does that sound right?

If so, I'm guessing that wouldn't work with this show. Or should it?

It could work since the ghosts are always wearing the same thing. They could film groups of ghosts standing around in the background of different rooms. As long as people see all the ghosts every show, they don't seem to mind that they are not really the focus of the episode.

[Whimsy]

This is a great topic idea, but let’s stay on topic. I know there was a break in episodes, but this thread has derailed quite a bit. 😉

[SoMuchTV]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

It only makes sense if Thor and Hetty speak modern English too. It doesn't seem like the ghosts even had a TV set before Jay and Sam moved in. Trapped on the Woodstone property would have given Sass very little opportunity to learn and perfect his English. I mean, you can hand-wave this any way you want, but the reality is nobody is worried about offending Vikings or Victorian-era women because those people don't exist anymore. 

In the pilot, Sasappis's first line is spoken in a way that's more suggestive of "Tonto-speak," until Jay walks through him, and then he starts speaking modern English. It's sort of a joke I guess - making us think he was going to talk the way you traditionally expect to hear Native Americans speak and then dropping it immediately.

(BTW - I strongly urge everyone to go back and watch the pilot. Sasappis has a different costume in the first episode - it's an off-the-shoulder number. This was also the only episode where we see Crash with his head on. I wonder if they lost the actor after the pilot was filmed.)

 

2 hours ago, KarenX said:

I don’t know if that is true. The house was only recently desolate; Alberta was partying there. Over time there has been lots of opportunity to observe/watch (like TV). Flower and Pete and Trevor are all opportunities to actively practice modern English, too. 

I’m sticking with “Sas has a natural affinity for languages and was probably a multilingual child. So, he can pick up accents seamlessly.” Hetty and Isaac probably knew French but if they didn’t speak it regularly… that’s why those two middle-agers haven’t caught up.

From one of the episode threads, since this really refers to the series as a whole:

Regarding the varying English-speaking abilities of the various ghosts - a lot of the explanations folks have ventured make sense, but I think this is going to come down to being another thing that's not in the death manual.  That's just how it is.

[Driad]

On 1/24/2022 at 12:36 PM, SoMuchTV said:

I'm mildly curious about how the "ghosts can't leave the property" rule works.  They seem to hit an invisible wall when they get to the edge of the boundary.  But do "the rules" go by current ownership?  Some kind of fixed distance from where they died?  When Thor and Sas died, surely the land wasn't subdivided and "owned" like it is now.  If Sam and Jay bought some adjoining land, or sold off a parcel, would the "rule" change? 

Wondering this too.  If a particular ghost's boundaries stayed what they were when s/he died, Thor could go almost anywhere.  But it seems that the boundaries may be the same for all the ghosts, so maybe it's current boundaries, or some other set of boundaries that livings can't see?

Probably we are thinking about these questions more than the writers did.

[shapeshifter]

Copied from the “Tree” episode thread:

4 hours ago, ZuluQueenOfDwarves said:

I think she died there. She wasn’t necessarily buried there. 

36 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

...this👆 reminds me of episodes of other shows in which a person is pronounced dead but then revives at the morgue, or even in at a funeral. That must’ve happened a few times IRL for it to be such a trope of scripted TV.
And now I’m considering plot loopholes based upon something similar to Sam’s experience, in which, for instance, someone “dies” at one location, but is then revived at another.
And what about a heart donor or other organ donor? I trust the writers would make the episode heartwarming enough that it would celebrate organ donation rather than frighten potential real life donors.

Edited October 23, 2022 by shapeshifter

[shapeshifter]

And a Genius of Ghost Rules post by @eel21788

1 hour ago, eel21788 said:

If you're braindead before you reach the hospital, but you aren't actually dead until your organs are harvested in a hospital operating room, where are your ghost boundaries?

[SoMuchTV]

40 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

And a Genius of Ghost Rules post by @eel21788

2 hours ago, eel21788 said:

If you're braindead before you reach the hospital, but you aren't actually dead until your organs are harvested in a hospital operating room, where are your ghost boundaries?

I guess it all comes down to, the rules are whatever the writers say they are, but it is fun to speculate.

ETA:  And while we're speculating, maybe all organ donors have automatically fulfilled all their earthly obligations, and are sucked off immediately, so no worries about ghostly boundaries?

Edited October 23, 2022 by SoMuchTV

[greekmom]

On 1/24/2022 at 12:36 PM, SoMuchTV said:

I'm mildly curious about how the "ghosts can't leave the property" rule works.  They seem to hit an invisible wall when they get to the edge of the boundary.  But do "the rules" go by current ownership?  Some kind of fixed distance from where they died?  When Thor and Sas died, surely the land wasn't subdivided and "owned" like it is now.  If Sam and Jay bought some adjoining land, or sold off a parcel, would the "rule" change? 

What would happen if Jay and Sam got a heck of alot of money and decided to purchase the property beside them to expand?  Would the ghosts then be able to go further on the property line and if any ghosts are there come to Woodstone Manor?

[iMonrey]

Quote

If you're braindead before you reach the hospital, but you aren't actually dead until your organs are harvested in a hospital operating room, where are your ghost boundaries?

For the purpose of this show the spirit leaves the body immediately upon death - we saw this happen in the pilot with Sam's great aunt, and we saw it when Trevor died too. That leads me to believe Pete's spirit left his body while it was still on the Woodstone property, regardless of whether he was brain dead but still breathing or not.

Quote

What would happen if Jay and Sam got a heck of alot of money and decided to purchase the property beside them to expand?  Would the ghosts then be able to go further on the property line and if any ghosts are there come to Woodstone Manor?

Maybe. This is trickier because technically there was no "property" when Thor, Sass and Isaac died. I have to assume they all happened to be in more or less the same physical location when each of them died on what would eventually become the Woodstone property. That's what makes me think the ghosts are restricted to a certain square foot area of their death rather than a specific property. In which case no, they wouldn't be able to venture onto the neighbor's property if Sam and Jay acquired it. 

The only problem with my theory is that it seems like the boundaries would vary slightly from ghost to ghost since they didn't all die in the exact same spot. Pete was outside when he died, for example - he should be able to move slightly further in one direction than someone who died inside like Trevor or Alberta. And who knows? Maybe he can. We've only ever seen Flower and Hetty try to move past their boundaries. 

[ajsnaves]

I think it would be interesting if Thor and Sass can move around more freely,  it the just don’t. These are the people they like, so these are the people they’re staying near. 
 

im guessing they are keeping these things vague though, so they’re not boxed in, so to speak. Plus it’s fun to expand the mythology as you go along. 

Edited October 26, 2022 by ajsnaves

[chitowngirl]

I think if Sass could move around, he’d go see his lady and vice versa….

[shapeshifter]

6 hours ago, chitowngirl said:

I think if Sass could move around, he’d go see his lady and vice versa….

If that could happen, I’d watch a spin-off with Sass and Shiki as the main couple of the series. They’d have to deal with the forever tedium of a Happily Ever After ghost couple. 
——with heartwarming hilarity, of course.

Edited October 26, 2022 by shapeshifter

[Snow Apple]

Thor is interested in Flower, Pete is interested in Alberta, and Issac and Nigel are starting to date. 

Poor Sass and Shiki. I really wonder if they will get together somehow in the future. Why give Sass a love interest on a TV show if they are forever apart?

My wish list:

Ghosts can travel at least one day of the year.

Ghosts can eat one day of the year (like the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival but not as sad/scary). The ghosts can taste Jay's food and Hetty can have her Hot Cheetos. LOL

Edited October 26, 2022 by Snow Apple

[The Crazed Spruce]

Ooooh, I just had a thought about the boundary issue.

What if the boundaries that the ghosts can't cross have always been there, and as the years went on, civic planners subconsciously knew about them through some mystical spiritual psychic shenanigans, and put the physical boundaries in the same place?

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, The Crazed Spruce said:

Ooooh, I just had a thought about the boundary issue.

What if the boundaries that the ghosts can't cross have always been there, and as the years went on, civic planners subconsciously knew about them through some mystical spiritual psychic shenanigans, and put the physical boundaries in the same place?

I like this a lot. 
It sort of goes along with the often historically documented boundaries that are based upon animal trails or creek beds.

[Driad]

I once read a story in which spirits of some kind were unable to cross running water. The ones in the city were trapped in place by the pipes, until the city's water system went down.  That probably doesn't apply here, but the ghosts in this show could have boundaries based on something that is not obvious to a living.

[iMonrey]

Quote

It sort of goes along with the often historically documented boundaries that are based upon animal trails or creek beds.

I re-watched the pilot (again) and Woodstone manor is 300 years old. That means it was standing when Isaac died. The only ghosts that died on the property before it was the Woodstone property are Thor and Sass. And it occurs to me that the property might have been purchased (or otherwise acquired) from the Lenape who had already established its boundaries. 

That just leaves Thor, and I don't know if the Lenape were around when Thor died - I don't think they were but there may indeed be some sort of natural land boundaries like creek beds and tree lines which the Lenape eventually used to define the property.

[ZuluQueenOfDwarves]

The Lenape themselves have a ten thousand year history, though whether they lived in the exact tiny corner of modern day Hudson River Valley that the show takes place is a bit of a question mark. But it’s not out of the realm of possibility. 

[Neptune]

When did the basement ghosts die?

[KarenX]

5 hours ago, Neptune said:

When did the basement ghosts die?

Hmmm…. There was a cholera epidemic pre-Revolutionary War and maybe other outbreaks after that?

[sharmar]

If I'm remembering correctly, when Hetty possessed Jay, she couldn't see the ghosts.  But in the Christmas episode, it sure seemed like Thor (possessing Sam) could see and hear them.  Did anyone else notice this?

[DanaK]

1 hour ago, sharmar said:

If I'm remembering correctly, when Hetty possessed Jay, she couldn't see the ghosts.  But in the Christmas episode, it sure seemed like Thor (possessing Sam) could see and hear them.  Did anyone else notice this?

I did. It may have been because Sam could see and hear ghosts