S02.E20: Woodstone’s Hottest Couple

[Neptune]

“Woodstone’s Hottest Couple” – When teen ghost Stephanie (Odessa A’zion), who lives in the attic, awakens to find that her crush Trevor is now dating Hetty, she decides to sabotage all the relationships at Woodstone. April 27

[Neptune]

[Neptune]

 

[Neptune]

 

[Annber03]

Oh, I actually said, "Awwwwww..." out loud at the reveal of Mark being Jay's business partner in the restaurant thing. I LOVE how Sam and Jay managed to resolve that issue in the end, that was so sweet. 

Also happy for Stephanie that she found someone - and with Nancy's help besides! An attic ghost getting together with a basement one. You gotta love it :D. I liked that they got to have their own Sixteen Candles moment, too. 

And I'm glad that all the couples are still intact as well. It was fun to see Isaac, Nigel, Trevor, and Hetty double dating, awkward though it was, and of course Trevor and Hetty would play things as they did. Yeah. Some couples are good at doing the typical couples stuff, with them, the "friends with benefits" setup works much better. 

Poor lonely Pete, though. He deserves some happiness of his own at some point, platonically or romantically (or both). 

[Snow Apple]

Stephanie is still mean, although not as bad as last time, but it's because she's lonely and wants love. Hopefully she'll mellow out now that Nancy introduced her to Ralph. Not!

Which begs the question. Does Ralph sleep for up to a year at a time too? Will they go on yearly dates?

[greekmom]

What happened to Crash? And why wasn't he factored in as a potential set up for Stephanie as he's in her age range?

I did like Ralph and the Sixteen Candle callback.

 

[phalange]

I bet Jay going into the attic and accidentally waking Stephanie will be a yearly thing. Now that Stephanie has a boyfriend, I wonder if she’ll stay awake more than one day a year. 

Hetty is so snobby, setting up a double date with Isaac and Nigel, then asking Sam and Jay, but ignoring Thor and Flower. The tea double date was funny though. Tea is gross and talking about it for an hour sounds like a nightmare. I can see why they went back to sneaking around minus the relationship stuff, because really, besides liking money, what do Hetty and Trevor have in common?

I laughed at Thor thinking Sas was making Jessica up. Also at Thor and Flower bonding over owls. That was cute. 

Sam’s idea about turning the barn into a restaurant was smart. And now with Jay and Mark as business partners, he’ll have another living person to talk to. Much to Pete’s sadness lol. 

Nancy just wanting to stand in front of the fridge and smell cheese is extremely relatable. 

Edited April 28, 2023 by phalange

[SoMuchTV]

8 minutes ago, phalange said:

Nancy just wanting to stand in front of the fridge and smell cheese is extremely relatable. 

Well I think she said something like “put her head through the fridge and smell the cheese” so maybe not quite as relatable. 
 

At the tea couples date - they had actual tea, did I see that right? How did that work? Did they get Sam to make it?

[shura]

24 minutes ago, Snow Apple said:

Which begs the question. Does Ralph sleep for up to a year at a time too? Will they go on yearly dates?

That’s actually not such a bad deal.  She is not really someone you want to be around all the time, personality-wise.

Twenty minutes into the episode and no sign of Sas, I was starting to get worried.  But they made up for it with Thor’s acting like Sas never had a girlfriend and is making it up.  That was hilarious.

3 minutes ago, phalange said:

Sam’s idea about turning the barn into a restaurant was smart.

Can it be a successful restaurant though?  How far out in the wilderness are they exactly?  Blue Hill at Stone Barns is right outside of NYC, so it is easily within reach of all the hipsters willing to pay $400 per meal (plus drinks or $90 BYOB corkage fee, plus tax and 22% administrative fee).  Would Jay’s restaurant have clientele like that?

[Harvey]

She tried to break everybody up...except for Pete, because he has no one.

 

Haha, what a good line 🤣

And also the one about Sam not being able to go back to the city because of the parking tickets. Very strong episode.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Harvey

[Chit Chat]

1 hour ago, Annber03 said:

I LOVE how Sam and Jay managed to resolve that issue in the end, that was so sweet. 

I agree.  They actually talked it out rather than have Jay storm out and sulk for days!  Thank you, writers, for a quick resolution to that issue!  I like the idea of adding a restaurant.  Perhaps we'll see a few barn ghosts!  That was a fun episode. 

[Snow Apple]

I like the idea about building a restaurant too. So many fresh stories can come out of that.

LOL when Sam said Central Park is like the set of Thriller.

[Skooma]

On 4/27/2023 at 9:54 PM, shura said:

Can it be a successful restaurant though?  How far out in the wilderness are they exactly?  Blue Hill at Stone Barns is right outside of NYC, so it is easily within reach of all the hipsters willing to pay $400 per meal (plus drinks or $90 BYOB corkage fee, plus tax and 22% administrative fee).  Would Jay’s restaurant have clientele like that?

It is a sitcom so the restaurant will work if the writers write it so.  (Jean-Luc Picard:  "Writers, make it so!").

Also there are far more people going to fancy restaurants living outside of NYC than inside it.  People living in small towns are not a bunch of hillbilly buffoons with poor education.  But they do have their quota of dumb hipsters that like to waste money on eating expensive and "follow the herd" fad food in restaurants near them.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Skooma

[PaulE]

43 minutes ago, phalange said:

Tea is gross and talking about it for an hour sounds like a nightmare.

Aww, no! As a tea aficionado myself, I'd have fit right in.  Tea is actually an interesting subject but, like any other topic, if you're not into into it as in poor Trevor's case, talking about it is sort of like looking at someone else's home movies.  We did see, however, that Isaac, Hetty, and Nigel are three peas in a pod to some extent.  I was glad that Hetty and Nigel seem to have buried the hatchet if they were willing to double date, though at first I wasn't quite sure if they were being genteel or hissing at each other like the Siamese cats in "Lady and the Tramp."  And I was surprised that Trevor agreed at all, given that he's never liked any of the Brits.

As for the tea itself, Sam would have had to make it, just as with Nigel's Welcome Tea that Hetty sabotaged.  Poor things, all they can do is smell it.

[SoMuchTV]

7 minutes ago, PaulE said:

As for the tea itself, Sam would have had to make it, just as with Nigel's Welcome Tea that Hetty sabotaged.  Poor things, all they can do is smell it.

It’s late, please don’t make me think too much about why they can smell but not taste. I don’t want to have to pull out the ghost manual. 

[PaulE]

5 minutes ago, Skooma said:

43 minutes ago, shura said:

Can it be a successful restaurant though?  How far out in the wilderness are they exactly?  Blue Hill at Stone Barns is right outside of NYC, so it is easily within reach of all the hipsters willing to pay $400 per meal (plus drinks or $90 BYOB corkage fee, plus tax and 22% administrative fee).  Would Jay’s restaurant have clientele like that?

It is a sitcom so the restaurant will work if the writers write it so.  (Jean-Luc Picard:  "Writers, make it so!").

Also there are far more people going to fancy restaurants living outside of NYC than inside it.  People living in small towns are not a bunch of hillbilly buffoons with poor education.  But they do have their quota of dumb hipsters that like to waste money on eating expensive and "follow the herd" fad food in restaurants near them.

We don't know exactly how far north of the city in the Hudson Valley they're located, but there are quite a few wealthy people living there who commute into the city daily, and a lot of city residents have weekend homes up that way, so there are plenty of "city types" who'd patronize such a restaurant.  But as was said above, there are plenty of cultured folks in that area who have nothing to do with New York but might be interested in trying destination restaurants, especially if they have family or friends visiting.  So I think Jay's restaurant could be a success once it developed a reputation.

[PaulE]

3 minutes ago, SoMuchTV said:

It’s late, please don’t make me think too much about why they can smell but not taste. I don’t want to have to pull out the ghost manual. 

Not to mention, how are bodiless spirits able to touch or sexually stimulate one another?  I don't think these ghosts make sense according to traditional ghost lore, but that seems to be the canon for this show.  I guess we're supposed to accept that, on the spiritual plane of their existence, these ghosts are able to interact with each other as if they had material bodies.  But you're right, that doesn't really explain why they can smell non-ghostly things (or why Hetty and Flower could use an actual washing machine as a vibrator).

[kathyk24]

I didn't like this episode. I thought it was out of character for Jay not to be honest with Sam. I thought it was realistic for Hetty to have  more in common with  Isaac and Nigel than Trevor. Pete really does have a temper every time he talks about Carol.

[possibilities]

They were talking about "a destination restaurant". I think that it's actually as viable as the B&B itself, and in fact that it might enhance the B&B because people could make it a weekend, where they come for a fancy meal, stay at the B&B, and it becomes a whole vacation. 

 

 

[callie lee 29]

9 hours ago, greekmom said:

What happened to Crash? And why wasn't he factored in as a potential set up for Stephanie as he's in her age range?

I did like Ralph and the Sixteen Candle callback.

 

I thought it Crash to but he admitted Flower awhile back and she threw his head over by a curtain in the TV room. Which I think is kinda mean and didn't really like. 

I like tea as much as the next person but yeah, is really boring to have an entire conversation about it on multiple occasions ( but Nigel is right, green tea is gross).

 

I like that they're doing something for Jay, that they acknowledged that this might not be the best set up for him and that Mark may be around more. 

[Daff]

8 hours ago, PaulE said:

in the Hudson Valley

They could invite Bill Murray. He’s had experience with ghosts, and might even be able to see them.

[appositival]

I was amused at the trope of Ralph becoming beautiful after taking off his glasses. I thought he looked cute enough when wearing glasses, but YMMV, I guess.

I was worried when Jay admitted his desire to work in a busy restaurant, but they deftly avoided those storm clouds by giving him his own restaurant. Some of the shows crises seem artificial and forced, but the solutions are generally well done.

[shapeshifter]

14 minutes ago, appositival said:

I was amused at the trope of Ralph becoming beautiful after taking off his glasses. I thought he looked cute enough when wearing glasses, but YMMV, I guess.

Good job of the show dissembling that prejudice. 

[nora1992]

Poor Pete!  Bad knees, and a bad round of Rock/paper/scissors/axe.

Edited April 28, 2023 by nora1992
Typo correction

[NoReally]

I would've thought Nigel might have a bit of a problem discussing tea, of all things, with a Colonial. 😉

[Artsda]

I thought it was realistic of Jay to feel like alone in a way. He left the city, friends, job.  Plus excluded from ghost interactions and conversations. 

[Starchild]

13 hours ago, Harvey said:

She tried to break everybody up...except for Pete, because he has no one.

Why don't I recall her trying to break up Isaac and Nigel? Did she?

 

12 hours ago, PaulE said:

I was glad that Hetty and Nigel seem to have buried the hatchet if they were willing to double date

I suspect that they're both doing it more for Isaac right now. A true detente, possibly even friendship, may come later, once they each get over their jealousy of the other's relationship with him. There's enough Isaac to go around!

 

12 hours ago, PaulE said:

We don't know exactly how far north of the city in the Hudson Valley they're located, but there are quite a few wealthy people living there who commute into the city daily, and a lot of city residents have weekend homes up that way, so there are plenty of "city types" who'd patronize such a restaurant.  But as was said above, there are plenty of cultured folks in that area who have nothing to do with New York but might be interested in trying destination restaurants, especially if they have family or friends visiting.  

Not to mention swingers.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Starchild

[proserpina65]

13 hours ago, phalange said:

Tea is gross and talking about it for an hour sounds like a nightmare.

Tea is awesome.  But I'm not sure I'd want to talk about it and nothing else for an hour.  Although Nigel is right about green tea.

 

[Phebemarie]

https://www.findthelostkitchen.com/
 

I wonder if this is the inspiration for Jay’s restaurant in a barn.  I saw it on a PBS cooking show a few years ago.  Looks swanky and even more rural than the Woodstone. 

I was glad to see Mark and Nancy again. Even Stephanie was almost pleasant.  The writers do a really nice job with recurring characters.  
 

[iMonrey]

I thought it was odd that Nancy would know who Stephanie is. Nancy wasn't around the last time Stephanie was awake, and I got the impression Nancy never came upstairs until that time she pretended to be Pete's boyfriend. I suppose it's possible Stephanie has gone downstairs before though.

I watched last season's episode with Stephanie before this one, and her hair has changed a little. It was a bit fuller and less frizzy/stringy than last time.

Kind of a stretch there's a cute teenage cholera ghost. All the other cholera ghosts have visible sores on their faces. I was waiting to see if they'd hook her up with Crash but I guess he has disappeared again.

My big LOL moment was when they were all guessing baseball movies and Flower shouted "Barbarella!"

Quote

We did see, however, that Isaac, Hetty, and Nigel are three peas in a pod to some extent.

Which is weird because their lives were separated by over 100 years. It goes to show how little things had changed, at least socially, between the 1700s and 1800s, versus the 1900s and present day. (And did they really have green tea in the 1700s?)

Quote

Not to mention, how are bodiless spirits able to touch or sexually stimulate one another?

The show has already established that they can touch each other, just not livings or solid objects, so yeah it's kind of like they're on a different plane. What the show seems to have retconned is the sex part, because originally Sass said they "couldn't finish." Hetty and Trevor seem to indicate that's not true.

Quote

I thought it was out of character for Jay not to be honest with Sam.

I actually thought this was perfectly in character. He had no real intention of taking the chef job and saw no reason to tell Sam about it because he knew it would just make her sad if he expressed his loneliness to her. She can't live in the city and he knows this.

Mark said the barn had "good bones" but it looked to me like it was about to fall apart, the walls were mere slats you could see through. And if Mark is going to be around all the time now I wonder if he'll eventually realize the place is haunted, like Freddie did.

[proserpina65]

12 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

My big LOL moment was when they were all guessing baseball movies and Flower shouted "Barbarella!"

I almost didn't catch that one, but when I realized what she'd said, I nearly rolled off the couch laughing.

13 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

What the show seems to have retconned is the sex part, because originally Sass said they "couldn't finish." Hetty and Trevor seem to indicate that's not true.

So maybe it's just Sass's problem?

14 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Mark said the barn had "good bones" but it looked to me like it was about to fall apart, the walls were mere slats you could see through.

The part of the barn they entered first looked pretty solid, but yeah, the back part did look a bit rickety.  Guess it depends on how you define good bones.

[Chit Chat]

1 hour ago, Starchild said:

Why don't I recall her trying to break up Isaac and Nigel? Did she?

I'm sure they were on her to-do list, but she quit before she got to them.  

My "oh no, you didn't" moment was watching Thor cut off Pete's hand!  Yikes!  Best to stay on Thor's good side!!

[shura]

13 hours ago, PaulE said:

We don't know exactly how far north of the city in the Hudson Valley they're located, but there are quite a few wealthy people living there who commute into the city daily, and a lot of city residents have weekend homes up that way, so there are plenty of "city types" who'd patronize such a restaurant.  But as was said above, there are plenty of cultured folks in that area who have nothing to do with New York but might be interested in trying destination restaurants, especially if they have family or friends visiting.  So I think Jay's restaurant could be a success once it developed a reputation.

Oh, I have no doubt there are people there who would want to spend unreasonable amounts of money in a "destination restaurant."  The question is only whether there are enough of them within driving distance to sustain a restaurant like that.  Because if you have to make it an overnight trip to partake in the experience, then the restaurant better have a reputation that is way more of a must than Sippr's "visit them before they go out of business."  Until they develop such reputation, they might be just wasting money running the restaurant.  Well, it's Mark's money, I suppose.  Maybe he did his market research.  

5 hours ago, Daff said:

They could invite Bill Murray. He’s had experience with ghosts, and might even be able to see them.

They already have Liam Neeson, he had a movie about ghosts at some point.

[Browncoat]

A restaurant coupled with the B&B is absolutely do-able.  Google The Inn at Little Washington in Virginia.  Granted, that restaurant is Michelin-starred, and the hotel part is a five-star, but it didn't start out that way.

[tennisgurl]

Awww I'm so glad that Sam and Jay talked their issues out and everything was resolved quickly. I love their relationship and didn't want to see it struggle due to typical sitcom misunderstandings. Jay has seemed rather listless in the house in regards to his career for awhile now, he gets to cook for guests but it always seems like he wants to do more, so a restaurant is a good idea. If they add a few more things, they could make the manor more of a destination sight than "just" a B&B. I still think they should make a historical tour sort of thing, or a ghost tour! People love those! The ghosts can even perform for the guests, it would really break up the monotony. 

Stephanie is such a messy mean girl, but I did feel bad for her, being the only teen ghost, but now she gets a cute basement boyfriend. I loved the slow motion "takes off glasses and is revealed to be a hottie" bit with the 80s music playing, ending with a 16 Candles moment. Maybe Stephanie will wake up a few more times a year now? 

Poor Pete and his knees. Alberta is still not interested and now Jay has a living friend to hang out with. I'm glad at least that Mark is going to be around now, maybe he'll find out about the ghosts. 

I love how Hetty and Trevor decided to keep things secret again between them and that Thor and Flower bonded over owls. 

"It'll be rough to watch them wither and die, but for now, this is nice." 

[DanaK]

Why didn't the basement ghost's glasses return to his face?

[ramurphy2005]

1 hour ago, Phebemarie said:

https://www.findthelostkitchen.com/
 

I wonder if this is the inspiration for Jay’s restaurant in a barn.  I saw it on a PBS cooking show a few years ago.  Looks swanky and even more rural than the Woodstone. 

I was glad to see Mark and Nancy again. Even Stephanie was almost pleasant.  The writers do a really nice job with recurring characters.  
 

As a Mainer, I can definitely say that restaurant is in the middle of nowhere, but there are other places in the state that are even farther afield.  According to the 2020 census, Freedom had a population of 711. 

[HurricaneVal]

Mean girls gotta mean!

 

I think the restaurant is a wonderful idea.  I hope it brings more car ghosts, or perhaps children who can see the real ghosts.  I can imagine Hetty flitting from table to table making critical comments on the behavior of the guests, Sass eavesdropping on interesting conversations and making acerbically sarcastic commentary, Pete just hanging out and marveling at how great Jay's restaurant is.   It will be an expensive process, but potentially quite lucrative.  Plus it gives Jay something to do and feel fulfilled with.

I have stayed at a B&B in SE Ohio, out in the middle of nowhere in hill country for work, and their restaurant is fantastic.  Unfortunately, it is currently open only to guests, but prior to 2020, it had been open --by reservation--to anyone who cared to venture to the location.  I've dined there both as an outside guest and as a guest of the B&B, and it was busy every time I was there.  I think they're only open for B&B guests right now because they can't staff up to the needs of running several rooms worth of tables.  They literally are in the middle of nowhere, two hours east of Cincinnati, and probably that and a little more from Columbus.

[Good Queen Jane]

8 minutes ago, HurricaneVal said:

I have stayed at a B&B in SE Ohio, out in the middle of nowhere in hill country for work, and their restaurant is fantastic.  Unfortunately, it is currently open only to guests, but prior to 2020, it had been open --by reservation--to anyone who cared to venture to the location.  I've dined there both as an outside guest and as a guest of the B&B, and it was busy every time I was there.  I think they're only open for B&B guests right now because they can't staff up to the needs of running several rooms worth of tables.  They literally are in the middle of nowhere, two hours east of Cincinnati, and probably that and a little more from Columbus.

I think this is the place I've been wracking my brain trying to remember the name of. It's in Amish country, right? I live in Cincinnati and went there for dinner one Saturday with friends of mine. We had to make reservations about a month in advance. I thought of the place with this episode but can't remember the name. The restaurant was very popular. Sorry to hear the pandemic closed it to non-B&B guests. The B&B was also popular during the summer. Lots of Amish shops in the area.

[HurricaneVal]

10 minutes ago, Good Queen Jane said:

I think this is the place I've been wracking my brain trying to remember the name of. It's in Amish country, right?

Yup!  The B&B I was referencing is The Murphin Ridge Inn.  The accommodations are in a more modern building and cabins, but the restaurant and reception is in the main house built in 1828.  There is also a separate sattelite building a mile or so away called The Amish House  which is on more of a main road.  I sat on that porch and watched the buggies go back and forth one lovely Sunday.

In fact, I think about that place every time I watch Ghosts.  There is a similar feel, though the main house is much smaller than Woodstone Manor, and plainer as one would expect when comparing the mansion of a robber baron with a wealthy farm manor in Amish country.  But the remote location, old building, trees, out buildings, trails, fields....the setting and feel is very similar.

Oh!  I just checked the website, and it appears the dining room is open to non-guests, on a reservation only basis!  So Jay totally could make this work.

[KarenX]

54 minutes ago, DanaK said:

Why didn't the basement ghost's glasses return to his face?

Is it because he was still holding them?

[possibilities]

Glasses don't bother me. I would have more trouble with the whole cholera affect. But I'm not a ghost without another age appropriate prospect for eternity, so....

I did laugh at "don't give up! maybe a young person will die here!" [paraphrased].

[Ms Lark]

17 hours ago, shura said:

Can it be a successful restaurant though?  How far out in the wilderness are they exactly?

Well, Kristin Kish (Top Chef) just had a short run show called Restaurants at the End of the World. She learned from chefs who overcome the formidable challenges required to serve memorable meals in the most remote outposts on Earth. Episodes were on a Maine Island, in Arctic Norway, a floating restaurant in Brazil, and Panama's Cloud Forest. Most of these were very difficult to get to and yeah, they do a good deal of business in spite of it all.

If Jay makes the restaurant good enough and the food excellent, they can probably do well.

[shapeshifter]

Stephanie’s mean girl trickery being motivated by her own experiences of rejection and loneliness was a revelation.

[Daff]

4 hours ago, shura said:

Oh, I have no doubt there are people there who would want to spend unreasonable amounts of money in a "destination restaurant."  The question is only whether there are enough of them within driving distance to sustain a restaurant like that.  Because if you have to make it an overnight trip to partake in the experience, then the restaurant better have a reputation that is way more of a must than Sippr's "visit them before they go out of business."  Until they develop such reputation, they might be just wasting money running the restaurant.  Well, it's Mark's money, I suppose.  Maybe he did his market research.  

They already have Liam Neeson, he had a movie about ghosts at some point.

Does Liam live in the Hudson Valley, too? 

[PaulE]

4 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Quote

We did see, however, that Isaac, Hetty, and Nigel are three peas in a pod to some extent.

Which is weird because their lives were separated by over 100 years. It goes to show how little things had changed, at least socially, between the 1700s and 1800s, versus the 1900s and present day. (And did they really have green tea in the 1700s?)

Quote

That's true, especially among the upper classes, to which Hetty and, I assume, Nigel belonged.  I mentioned in a post for an earlier episode that Hetty and Nigel probably have more in common with each other than with any other ghost, which is why it's too bad they're feuding.  If they could get past that, they'd probably understand each other pretty well and become friends.

The Chinese and Japanese historically have drunk green tea almost exclusively, so it's always existed, but I'm not so sure any of it was imported to the West in the eighteenth or even nineteenth centuries.  Britain already had a foothold in India in the 1700s and China and Japan were isolationist until the mid-nineteenth century, so I'm thinking that Nigel, Hetty, and Isaac would have drunk varieties of Indian black tea and probably wouldn't have known about green tea.  Of course, Isaac probably stopped drinking tea after the Boston Tea Party and I'm surprised he and Nigel (the Bickersons) didn't get into an argument about that.

And, yes, even I don't like green tea, though I've tried.  Too vegetal for my taste.

[incandescent]

19 hours ago, Harvey said:

She tried to break everybody up...except for Pete, because he has no one.

Probably because of his knees. 

Edited April 28, 2023 by incandescent

[PaulE]

20 hours ago, Annber03 said:

Poor lonely Pete, though. He deserves some happiness of his own at some point, platonically or romantically (or both). 

I agree.  You could see his heart breaking when Jay and Mark became partners.  He's afraid he's going to lose Jay.  I think it would be cool if, eventually, Mark found out about the ghosts and also bonded with Pete.

[Chit Chat]

4 hours ago, DanaK said:

Why didn't the basement ghost's glasses return to his face?

I wondered that too.  There was a scene awhile back where one of the ghosts had a similar thing happen, and whatever it was they were holding reverted right back to the spot on their body where it was originally.  I can't, for the life of me, remember that scene and who it was!