Editor’s Note: Spoilers ahead for Ghosts, Season 2, Episode 8 & 9
Ghosts just aired its second Christmas special, and with the first ranking among the show’s highest-rated episodes, “A Very Arondekar Christmas” had a lot to live up to. With Jay’s parents, Champa (Sakina Jaffrey) and Mahesh (Bernard White) making their long-awaited debut, this year’s special is all about family, while still featuring a beloved Christmas tradition — possession. Not one to rest on its laurels, Ghosts ups the ante with its second holiday possession by having not one, but two body swaps, an exorcism, and even a zombie. With all these holiday shenanigans, the show’s living characters take center stage from the ghosts, with Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) in particular finally getting a full episode to truly shine.
Just as Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay have put the finishing touches on everything they need to guarantee a perfect Christmas with Jay’s family, their busted water heater quite literally puts a wrench in their plans. As the often endearingly clumsy homeowners attempt to fix the water heater in the mere minutes leading up to the arrival of their guests, Sam and Jay are zapped backward into Nancy (Betsy Sodaro) and Pete (Richie Moriarty) respectively. For the first part of “A Very Arondekar Christmas” both McIver and Ambudkar give a masterclass on switching between the two characters inhabiting their bodies. While McIver knocks her Nancy impression out of the park, the true star of the holiday special is Ambudkar as he becomes the heart and soul of almost every plotline in the episodes.
Utkarsh Ambudkar Steps Out of the Straight Man Comedy Trope and Into the Spotlight
If you’ve been watching Ghosts for any length of time, you’ll know that it’s an ensemble series with a rather large cast for a 22-minute sitcom. The show generally does an admirable job of balancing the story arcs of ten main characters, with each character occasionally taking a back seat to let the others shine. However, as the “Straight Man” to eight eccentric ghosts and his kooky wife, Jay rarely gets to be the center of attention. Now, he’s certainly had some stand-out moments throughout the series and has been a valued part of the ensemble since its inception — one of the earliest, and most beloved, episodes sees Hetty (Rebecca Wisocky) possess Jay and Ambudkar’s performance in that episode is still widely (and rightfully) lauded four seasons later. From his endless collection of ghost lore to his unconditional love for Sam and their haunted little family, Jay is one of the best characters on the show, and his turn at the heart of “A Very Arondekar Christmas” is a welcome — and long overdue — holiday treat.
With so much going on, Jay’s, and by extension Ambudkar’s turn in the spotlight picks up toward the end of the first episode and carries through to land two-thirds of the special’s emotional arcs in the second. Because Pete can leave the property, expelling him from Jay’s body by passing through the ghost boundary is off the table. Unluckily for Jay, their next best option is an exorcism that accidentally expels his spirit from his body, leaving Pete in charge of his corporeal form. With this twist, Ambudkar gets to play both the ghostly form of his own character while also channeling his inner Richie Moriarty as Pete hijacks Jay’s body for his own holiday adventure.
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Though the episode takes both characters away from each other — likely for the sake of VFX in addition to the story — the two narrative arcs beautifully mirror each other as Pete attempts to take in one last special moment with his family while Jay fights to be seen by his (while invisible). As two different characters with separate emotional arcs, Ambudkar has a lot of heavy lifting to do in the space of just over half an hour, and he does so with ease. His performance as Pete is almost uncanny, not just in the episode’s lighter, joke-laced moments, but particularly in the episode’s first emotional climax, as Pete (as Jay) gets to hug his daughter for the first time in 40 years. One of the highlights of the first half of Season 4 has been how evident it is on-screen how close the cast is behind the scenes, and the way Ambudkar can capture the mannerisms of his co-star through a range of emotions is a prime example of that.
Jay’s Ghostly Encounter Reveals a Heartfelt Truth About His Father
Meanwhile, Ghost-Jay gets to carry off his weighty storyline as his temporary spectral form grants him an all-access pass to what his parents truly think about him. Both are difficult to impress in their own ways, but Mahesh in particular, continually insists Jay give up on his silly (read: unreliable) dream of owning a restaurant and going into a more stable field like engineering. When the ghosts invite Jay to spy on his parents with the irresistible knowledge that they’re talking about him, he can’t help but give in. Overhearing what every child wants to hear when eavesdropping on their parents, Jay learns that his father actually thinks he’s the best cook he’s ever known. However, he won’t tell Jay this to his face as he’s worried that the restaurant is too risky, and he doesn’t want to see his son struggle.
Ambudkar brings the whole episode home as, after he’s back in his body, Jay reveals that he’s naming the restaurant after his father. Jay explains that the very point of the restaurant, down to the menu, is to celebrate the risks that make life worth living and to honor Mahesh’s legacy of making Jay’s dream possible in the first place. Putting father and son on more equal footing, Ambudkar delivers the moment with the perfect level of sincerity to bring a tear to your eye for the second time in 20 minutes. After three years of playing through punchlines and putting up with shenanigans he can’t even see, it’s a thrill to see both Ambudkar and his character get to lead the audience on an emotional rollercoaster through “A Very Arondekar Christmas.”
Jay Finally Gets To Meet the Ghosts This Christmas
While his interactions with them take a more secondary role in the wake of the episode’s big family swings for him and Pete, Jay finally comes face-to-face with the ghosts in this episode. Teased as a major revelation at SDCC earlier this summer, the moment that Jay finally gets to see the ghosts has been one of the most anticipated of Season 4. While it does feel a bit too brief amidst the other storylines, the payoff of Jay’s interactions with the ghosts is both sweet and gratifying. Ever the keeper of his infamous “Ghost Notes,” despite having never met them personally, Jay instantly recognizes each of the ghosts after he’s excised from his body. Hilariously clocking Alberta (Danielle Pinnock) from creepy Todd’s back tattoo and Hetty from her trilling laughter familiar after his first possession, Jay gets at least one moment with each ghost. While one might argue that they were as close as any two spirits could be given that they briefly shared Jay’s body, it’s a shame that Jay and Pete don’t get their face-to-face interaction.
However, as much as we’re delighted by — and left wanting more of — Jay’s brief time seeing the ghosts, it’s for the best that this isn’t a permanent alteration to his character, nor is it an easy fix that he can call upon during future episodes. Having Sam be the only person able to regularly see the ghosts is part of the show’s charm, and it allows for many moments of both heart and humor as Jay navigates interacting with people he can’t see or hear. If seeing the ghosts were an easy thing for Jay to repeat, we’d lose the fun of episodes like “Halloween 4: The Witch,” which rely on the ghosts and Jay having to get creative in communicating. It would also undercut Jay’s relationship with Sass (Román Zaragoza).
That being said, as brief as it is, Jay’s expanded personal knowledge of the ghosts is no small thing and the series should carry the impact of this experience into Jay’s future storylines. Will Trevor (Asher Grodman) attempt to keep pitching Jay terrible business ideas? How will this affect Jay and Isaac’s (Brandon Scott Jones) relationship as they continue working on the restaurant? Will anyone ever bring Hetty ghost cocaine? On a more serious note, this will hopefully only deepen Jay’s connection to the ghosts whom we already know he loves as if they’re his and Sam’s rowdy children. And that will certainly be a joy to watch. While seeing the ghosts again shouldn’t be an easy feat, it’ll also be fun to see if Jay ever makes another attempt to see them through increasingly ridiculous means — let’s just hope it doesn’t bring back zombie Jay!
Ghosts Season 4 will return to the CBS lineup on Thursday, January 30 at 8:30 PM EST. You can watch “A Very Arondekar Christmas” and all previous episodes of Ghosts on Paramount+ right now. Watch on Paramount+
When a cash-strapped couple inherits a crumbling country estate, they soon discover it is inhabited by an eclectic group of spirits, leading to comedic encounters as they navigate cohabitation with their supernatural roommates.
- Release Date
-
October 7, 2021
- Cast
-
Rose McIver
, Utkarsh Ambudkar
, Brandon Scott Jones
, Danielle Pinnock
, Richie Moriarty
, Asher Grodman
, Rebecca Wisocky
, Devan Chandler Long
, Roman Zaragoza
, Sheila Carrasco
, John Hartman
, Betsy Sodaro - Seasons
-
4
- Network
-
CBS
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