[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Ghosts Season 4, Episode 19 “Pinkus Returns.”]
Ghosts delivered another big Season 4 twist with the arrival of pantless ghost Trevor’s (Asher Grodman) daughter, Abby (Gideon Adlon real-life sister of attic girl ghost Stephanie, Odessa A’zion), in the episode “Pinkus Returns.”
As viewers will recall, Pinkus (Richie Keen) is the colleague from Trevor’s past whom he gave his pants away to the fateful night he died, and in remembrance of Trevor’s good deed, Pinkus visited Woodstone with his daughter Abby. While Pinkus recounted the pants tale to living proprietors Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar), he revealed Trevor’s pants had a phone number in the pocket.
It turned out that the number belonged to a woman named Lori Goldstein, whom Trevor briefly dated before his death. As Pinkus explained it, when Trevor didn’t show up to work after their work gathering at Woodstone in the ’90s, he rang the number to see if the person knew any information. One thing led to another, and Pinkus ended up dating and marrying Lori.
The catch? When Abby left the living room where stories were being retold, Pinkus revealed that his wife had told him on her deathbed that Trevor was Abby’s biological father. And so, the man had to decide if he could muster the courage to tell Abby the truth. But as the episode played out, viewers saw Trevor meddle by sending a text to sway Pinkus in the director of revealing the truth to Abby.
Bertrand Calmeau / CBS
Unfortunately for Trevor, his message sent from beyond the land of the living was delivered to the wrong Pinkus, directly informing Abby of her biological father’s identity. In order to repair the mess he made, Trevor managed to use his ghost power to make a moving slideshow of Abby and Pinkus’ father-daughter moments, set to the tune of Green Day‘s “Good Riddance,” to remind her of their bond and repair their relationship.
The hero’s move gave Trevor the satisfaction of knowing he was able to fix the situation and understand his daughter better. Below, Asher Grodman opens up about Trevor’s daughter twist and shares hopes for the future following the major reveal.
What was your initial reaction to discovering Trevor had a long-lost daughter?
Asher Grodman: A lot of excitement, definitely [some] trepidation. In the back of my mind, I’ve always thought this may be something that we do someday. I got to meet with our writers’ room before we started Season 4, and they told me this was something that was brewing, but that the details weren’t set. So you never know what’s going to come down the pipeline. But I had this idea that we might do something like this. I also remember the whole DILF thing from Season 1, so I always thought if we did do this, it’d be way down the line. But yeah, a lot of excitement and then a lot of like, “Alright, how do we do this justice and make sure it works?” And luckily, the writers did a great job, Skander [Halim] and Talia [Bernstein] killed it, and Christine Gernon, who directed, is just a godsend.
If a surprise child was bound to happen to anyone, it would be Trevor.
He is definitely a candidate for this. And also just a shout out to Richie [Keen], our producing director, who stepped in to play Pinkus, it was great. And then Gideon [Adlon], who killed it as Abby. So, just a lot of really talented people to help make this one happen.
John Russo
Abby’s introduction opens the door for a lot of storylines, with Trevor taking on a more paternal role. Would you like to see more of their father-daughter dynamic moving forward?
I hope we do, and she’s great. I think it’s a great avenue for Trevor. I’ve said this a couple of times, but Trevor is at once a horrible candidate to be a parent, but at the same time, there is a part of him that is all about taking care of his found family. It’s the same impulse in him that gave away the pants. So he does have this other sweet side to him. It’s going to be fun to see this battle out within him. And then it’s the fun thing that this show does really well, which is that we’re all dealing with very serious issues. We’re a comedy about death, so that’s always two inches away. But at the same time, we live in existence like an 8-year-old who can be locked up in their room by their parents. We never leave, and we’re always just trapped in this house together. So I think the juxtaposition of these big issues being played with by very immature people, there’s always going to be a lot to mine there.
This episode delivers another reference to The Cutting Edge as Trevor wonders if Abby likes one of his favorite films. Was it fun using that as a test for their similarities, and why does it get referenced so often?
Joe Port, one of our showrunners, is a big Cutting Edge fan and is not shy about leaving his mark, making his preferences very clear. So it’s been a really fun detail by Trevor. I think it’s always the specificity, right? I think for probably a lot of people who watched the show, they remember that era, and we’re all on the precipice of the internet, and then it’s just starting. So there’s a very big transitional period, and I think there’s a lot of nostalgia to be found. And Trevor, with all of his references, there’s something very comforting and grounding about the world as he remembers it.
John Russo
Will Trevor get closer to Pete (Richie Moriarty) following this experience? After all, there’s some overlap with their storylines as dads.
I love Richie Moriarty. I kind of always felt like at the beginning of Season 1, Pete was kind of Trevor’s closest buddy, and a lot of that was because of the proximity with which they died. They would’ve understood a lot of the same culture. Pete would’ve been there for a lot of the seminal films and cultural moments when Trevor was a kid. So yeah, I remember feeling, in the beginning, “Oh, that’s my buddy.” And so yeah, if this brings ’em closer together and there’s more Trevor and Pete stuff, I’d love to do more of that.
Has Trevor learned his lesson with technology after trying to tex Pinkus and accidentally telling Abby the truth about her parentage?
No, definitely not. What I thought was very fun about this is, he didn’t mean for what happened to happen, at least, not to the extent to which it happened. On some level, he was wrong. I get why he did it, and I get the feelings, but I also think it’s fun to see these characters as the very fallible people that they are in that moment. When you live such a limited existence like these ghosts do, I’m sure all you could think about is what it is that you want. So I get it.
Despite losing out on Abby’s life having died, does Trevor see this as the best possible outcome for his daughter’s life, having had Pinkus as a dad?
I don’t know that it’s the best-case scenario, though, you might be right. I didn’t quite play it that way, but I’m not sure I disagree. What I thought was interesting in the storytelling was a kind of acknowledgement, a realization that Pinkus turned out to be a much better father than Trevor would’ve been. I think the awareness of that came from how Abby responds to a remarkably difficult situation that Trevor puts her in. Abby is able to handle it. She’s the one who reaches out. So I think what was interesting to me in those moments was how I’m watching my daughter do something that I wouldn’t have been able to do. And so I know that she’s in better hands with this man than she would’ve been in my hands. And I think that’s a very beautiful realization.
Ghosts, Season 4, Thursdays, 8:30/7:30c, CBS
