Editor’s Note: The below contains spoilers for Ghosts Season 3.

The Big Picture

The episode “Holes Are Bad” in Season 3 of
Ghosts
was emotionally intense, focusing on Hetty’s suicide.
Actress Danielle Pinnock tells Collider’s own Senior Reporter and
Ladies Night
host Perri Nemiroff about her personal connection to the episode’s themes of mental health and suicide.
Pinnock believes
Ghosts
deserves Emmy award recognition for tackling serious topics with heart and humor.

Ghosts might have just wrapped up its third season on Thursday night, but there’s one particular episode that stands out across the CBS sitcom’s third-year catalog. With the FYC season in full effect, the Joe Port and Joe Wiseman sitcom has long deserved acclaim and a couple of Emmys for their charming, comfort series. But it’s their Season 3 episode “Holes Are Bad” that is perhaps one of the most exceptional half-hours on network television. In the antepenultimate episode, audiences finally learn the cause of Hetty’s (Rebecca Wisocky) death at Woodstone. It was also an episode that Danielle Pinnock tells Collider’s very own Senior Reporter and Ladies Night host, Perri Nemiroff was a “really difficult scene and episode to film.”

Ghosts (US) A young couple, Sam and Jay, inherit a haunted mansion and, unaware of their invisible housemates, plan to turn it into a B&B. Their lives become much more complicated after a fall causes Sam to see the ghosts. Based on the UK series.Release Date October 7, 2021 Creator Joe Port, Joe Wiseman Main Genre Comedy Seasons 3

The following discusses themes related to suicide, including its causes and impacts, as well as descriptions of emotional distress. Reader discretion is advised.

‘Ghosts’ Danielle Pinnock Discloses Her Own Suicide Attempt

While speaking about the Season 3 finale cliffhanger that found Isaac getting abducted by a vengeful Puritan spirit, Pinnock opened up about the episode “Holes Are Bad” and what it meant to her and the cast. With the episode tackling the subject of suicide and mental health delicately, Ghosts took audiences for a turn with a moment that led to the usually strong mansion matriarch’s death by suicide. It was a scene that Pinnock discloses was personally triggering. “In 2011, I had a suicide attempt, and so to see the telephone cord around Hetty’s neck was extraordinarily triggering,” she tells Nemiroff for Collider. “Rebecca played it with such precision and grace that there was not one take where I was not crying at the end of her scene. I mean, she just is truly a masterclass.”

Pinnock adds that the one thing she loves most about this ensemble comedy is how it’s able to expand into more serious topics. “Because death, you know, there’s grief that comes with it and people die in all sorts of ways. But it’s also made me want to live my life even more. It’s made me grateful that I was unsuccessful in 2011. You know what I mean?” she says. “I didn’t see a future for myself, and now, to see all of the things I’ve accomplished in all of those years, my God, I am so grateful to be alive and to have breath in my body today.”

The award-winning actress states how episodes like “Holes Are Bad” are really important for fans, especially those who are struggling with their own mental health. “To know there’s another chance: ‘Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,’” she says.

Isaac Needed To Be Hetty’s Shoulder
Image via CBS, Paramount

With the other ghosts stunned by Hetty’s revelation, Isaac (Brandon Scott Jones) asks if she would like to talk about it, to which Hetty says no. Naturally, it’s a difficult moment between the friends and one the audience can see is deeply agonizing, as the pain felt by those contemplating suicide and those affected by such complex actions greatly affects everyone. But it was a moment for Isaac and Hetty to delve into and no one else.

“I don’t know if it needed to be Alberta [to talk to her]. It had to be Isaac because Isaac came out to Hetty,” Pinnock says. “He didn’t come out to any of us, Isaac came out to Hetty. They are deeply connected, those two friends, and so I would love to feel like Alberta would have supported her in that way, but I feel like it was just pure perfection that it was Isaac.”

Related The Entire Cast of ‘Ghosts’ Really Wants to Make a Musical Episode Happen We caught up with the cast of ‘Ghosts’ at the Library of Congress, where they were treated to an incredible tour of the collection.

As Hetty expressed her regret over taking her own life to Isaac and Sam (Rose McIver), Pinnock says it was all about listening and being supportive to an individual feeling as like they were in their own hole. “There was no judgment there, and I think that’s the thing: This is a secret that she’s been carrying for hundreds of years, and so it just was such an important episode,” she says.

‘Ghosts’ Deserves Its Emmys, Stat!

Pinnock tells Nemiroff she hopes those in the television academy will finally start looking at their show after three seasons and really watch the episodes, brimming with so much heart and wit. “I do feel like this series is deserving of award recognition. My cast — they hate when I say it. They’re like, ‘Danielle, leave it alone. Stop saying it.’ But I just think this show is so beautiful,” she says. “We are talking about things that no one really can talk about because we’re ghosts, the absurdity of it all, but it just is so impactful and our fans love it, and so I’m hoping this is our season where the show is nominated. But we’ll see. And that was one of the episodes where I was like, ‘Yeah, for certain,’ you know?”

With these two journalists being firm believers of willing things into existence, the third time (or season, rather) has to be a charm for the series. Pinnock hopes her co-star, Rebecca Wisocky, is finally nominated for her portrayal of the Gilded Age matriarch. Pinnock says:

“She deserves it. She’s been in the industry for so long and has just been such an incredible journeyman actor. I remember when I met Rebecca, it was in 2016. I was an understudy at the Geffen Playhouse, and we were in this show called
Barbecue.
Even just watching her on stage to now, and to have this friendship now, even more, budding that we’ve known each other in these last three years, she’s just an incredible human being and deserves all of her flowers. Truly.”

Ghosts is available to stream on Paramount+.

Watch on Paramount+

If you or someone you know is experiencing mental health distress or suicide ideation, reach out 24/7 by dialing or texting the Suicide Crisis Hotline at 9-8-8 or using chat services at suicidepreventionlifeline.org to connect to a trained crisis counselor.