Ghosts Season 3 Episode 1: Producers Explain That Shocking Departure

This article contains major spoilers for Ghosts season 3 episode 1.

It’s been a long wait for the Ghosts season 3 premiere – nine months, in fact, since the Ghosts season 2 finale ended on a major cliffhanger in May 2023. The WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes unexpectedly extended the usual planned summer break hiatus well into the fall and winter. 

Now fans are finally finding out what happened immediately after Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) watched in shock from their car as a massive light beamed down from heaven to “suck off” (in the show’s parlance) one of the ghosts. 

“The Owl” begins with Sam and Jay entering Woodstone and immediately conducting a headcount. One by one, the main ghosts either appear or tell them that they’ve seen another ghost recently. The basement ghosts and even the attic ghosts are accounted for. It’s clear eventually that Flower (Sheila Carrasco) hasn’t been seen by either Sam or another ghost in a while and she was the one that abruptly got “sucked off” to the real afterlife. 

Nine months was plenty of time for fans and celebrity gossip mongers to theorize which ghost left Woodstone and for what reason. Several fans even scoured social media posts from the cast to help their guesses. Den of Geek interviewed executive producers Joe Port and Joe Wiseman to discover why they decided to have Flower head off and why mourning is such an intrinsic theme of the series.

Port and Wiseman are adamant that Flower’s ascension was not due to Sheila Carrasco being fired or quitting for any negative reason. 

“We wanted the departure to be someone significant, someone that would have ramifications in the house and for all the ghosts, and for Sam and Jay, and not to have it be just a punch pull,” Port said. 

The extended off-season meant more time to brainstorm ideas and consider multiple possibilities and all the internal factors involved. At the same time, however, there is a possibility fans may see Carrasco return to Woodstone in some way in the future. 

“We’ve seen ghosts come down from heaven,” Port said. “Maybe we might even see somebody on a different plane of existence. We are not saying exactly where this is headed.” 

Sam and all the ghosts feel Flower’s loss and give themselves time to grieve. Jay never saw Flower but still feels her absence. Thor has lost a lover and a friend and looks for signs of her presence around Woodstone. Jay explains to Thor about the Hindu principle of reincarnation into other beings. Later on in the barn that will eventually become Jay’s restaurant, a white owl is spotted. Thor immediately latches onto Jay’s comforting explanation and now believes the white owl obstructing repair work is a reincarnation of Flower. He demands that the owl be moved indoors. A guest complaint leads to a reversal of this decision. 

Grief and how both the living and dead cope with loss in various ways is intrinsic to Ghosts. Fans will go through the same process their favorite characters will to mourn Flower’s loss. What will the rest of the season hold? Part two of this interview, including a preview of the rest of season 3’s plotlines from Joe Wiseman, will be released after next week’s episode of Ghosts. 

Ghosts season 3 airs Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. ET on CBS and is streaming on Paramount+.