‘Ghosts’ Star Rebecca Wisocky Breaks Down Hetty’s Halloween Reunion With Sister Margaret (Exclusive)

The lore of Hetty (Rebecca Wisocky) was continued in Ghosts‘ long-awaited Halloween special, which delivered a supersized hour of spooky antics. Warning: Spoilers for the Ghosts Halloween Special ahead!

After an antique mirror was broken at Woodstone during an indoor game of basketball between Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) and Kyle (Ben Feldman) amid Sam’s absence (Rose McIver), it was replaced by another. The surprise was that Hetty’s mustachioed sister Margaret (Maria Thayer) happened to be stuck inside it.

After an hour of back-and-forth revelations, Hetty found herself trapped in the mirror with Margaret having attempted an escape, but she didn’t realize that the ghost boundary wouldn’t allow her to travel all the way to Paris, where she’d always dreamed of going. It turned out that Margaret had died while the mirror was uncovered by Hetty to snort cocaine. Her soul got trapped, and on Halloween, that’s the only time that she’d be able to escape. When Hetty got close enough, Margaret swapped places because she wanted her sister to pay for having stolen her love so many years ago, unaware Hetty hated her for tattling on her affair to their father.

The mirror helped the women realize that Julian (Tim Rozon) had been a wedge in their allyship as sisters, and Hetty’s inability to listen to Margaret had allowed her to make a major misstep. In the end, Margaret returned to the mirror after it was repaired following an unfortunate fracture, and she was ultimately sent off to live in Paris as she took in the sights from the apartment of Trevor’s (Asher Grodman) living daughter.

While the return of Pete (Richie Moriarty) was certainly the episode’s twist ending, we couldn’t help but catch up with Wisocky surrounding Hetty’s special reunion. See what she had to share below.

CBS

Hetty reunites with her sister Margaret in the Halloween special. What was exciting about peeling those layers back?

Rebecca Wisocky: Hetty has been living under the belief for the last 150 years that Margaret is the one who ruined her life because she stole her one great love from her. And of course, Margaret thinks the same of Hetty, and so it takes them this entire hour to realize that if only they had just listened to one another, namely, if Hetty had just been a better sister and listened better, they might not have both been doomed to a loveless, miserable life. It’s a wonderful, lovely Ghosts-style lesson to learn. I always like learning more about why my character is the way she is and what she got wrong, why she’s an unreliable narrator, not necessarily a liar. I like it when she has a chance to change and grow and improve, and this episode does all of those things.

It is funny that the woes of Hetty and Margaret really boil down to the mustache, which distracts Hetty from listening to her sister more closely about her true feelings for the painter… 

I think the mustache is a metaphor. It’s whatever series of things that made Hetty Woodstone incapable of actually truly seeing and listening to the one person in her young life who might have been a friend and advocate, and instead pushing her aside and treating her as competition. That is an accurate commentary of that moment in time, historically, where the most two young women could hope for in terms of a potential happy life was if they married well. We know that her father was problematic and that he institutionalized her mother. [Hetty and Margaret] were both up for exchange in a land deal. So, how sad that they saw one another as competition as opposed to an ally, and I think they both learned that in retrospect.

Margaret ended up becoming stuck in the mirror because Hetty uncovered the shrouded glass to snort cocaine. Given that the mirror had that impact, are the other mirrors going to get covered up at Woodstone? 

A really smart point. I’ll make a confession to you… Haven’t thought about it once. The only time it would really be necessary is if someone is close to death on the property. Of course, given our track record at Woodstone, that’s going to happen sometime soon. So I’ll make sure that I remember to mention that, insist that we cover some mirrors if it happens.

Jan Thijs / CBS

You can never be too careful… 

That would be wise.

Along with welcoming Maria Thayer as Margaret, Tim Rozon also steps in to play the artist Julian, who has captured both sisters’ attention. What was exciting about getting to embrace Hetty’s past life again through new dresses and onscreen dynamics?

That teal dress, I truly do love it; people find that hard to believe. But anytime I get a flashback look from Carmen Alie and her team, it’s so delicious because they’re so detailed, they’re period accurate, they’re so beautiful, and I think I have four or five flashback looks in that episode, so that was an embarrassment. She dressed Margaret so beautifully as well, and also Tim.

So, Tim is not only a wonderful actor — people will remember him from Schitt’s Creek and lots of other things — who plays my paramour, Julian; he also happens to be one of the co-owners of our very favorite restaurant in Montreal called Garde Manger, which anyone who’s been to Montreal will likely know. It’s a phenomenal restaurant. We love going there. And so I really geeked out meeting Tim, mainly because of the restaurant, but then he also ended up being such a fun scene partner.

Maria Thayer, she’s so sweet and kind, and she was so generous. I loved the chemistry between those two. People don’t get actively really enraged with Hetty a whole lot because it probably seems too dangerous to do so. So it’s fun to receive that energy too of someone just wishing horrible things happened to Hetty.

What was the filming process like after Hetty became trapped in the mirror? Was there a lot of green screen?

It was the most effects-heavy episode we have done, by far. Both Maria and I had to spend days just talking to tennis balls in front of a green screen, which was a lot more challenging and different for the crew and also for us. That’s a unique challenge, especially the moments where we’re trying to actually really connect.

Speaking of challenges, what was your reaction to seeing Margaret’s mustache for the first time? Was it what you anticipated? 

It looked just really good. It makes me want to have a mustache. In fact, our makeup department head, Gillian Bruce — who I love —  has a wall of mustaches next to her station, and every day she does my makeup, I think of which one I would love to wear next. I thought it looked incredibly natural on [Maria]; she’s a talented enough comedic actress that you didn’t need a big gag mustache. It needed to seem actually plausible. So I thought everyone did that successfully.

Ghosts, Christmas Special, Thursday, December 10, 9/8c, CBS