Ghosts’ Richie Moriarty Talks Pete’s ‘Exciting’ Power and the Surprising Turn It Takes in Season Finale

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Thursday’s Ghosts. Proceed at your own risk!

Pete finally has a power on Ghosts, and it’s a pretty cool one: He can leave the Woodstone premises!

Pete’s first trip out with Jay to a big box store, where Pete got left behind and encountered some lethal ghosts, was a scary one. But after making his way back to the B&B, the former travel agent who never ventured anywhere was convinced by his friends to take advantage of his second chance to live and travel the world. As the episode ended, Pete boarded a plane to visit his daughter and grandson in St. Lucia.

Naturally, Pete’s ability to venture anywhere garnered a big reaction from the cast.

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“Oh, they were so jealous,” Richie Moriarty, who plays Pete, tells TVLine with a laugh. “We have such a friendly competition around ghost powers… We found out early in the season that Sas has this awesome power where he can go into people’s dreams, and he can actually interact with Utkarsh [Ambudkar], with all these different crazy sets. So we were super jealous about that. We were like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s so awesome!'”

Then when Pete’s power was revealed, “everyone was like, ‘What?! You’re kidding me! You get to go wherever you want?!'” Moriarty continues with another laugh. His co-star Devan Chandler Long (aka Thorfinn) had a particularly memorable and funny response: “He’s like, ‘You get to go wherever you want, and I make lights flicker? Like, where is the justice here?'”

Below, Moriarty reveals that his character almost had a different special ability, talks about the story possibilities Pete’s power opens up and teases what’s ahead in the May 2 season finale.

TVLINE | When and how did you first find out what Pete’s power would be?
It’s so funny how we get information on this show, because sometimes it comes from the least likely sources. I think the first place I heard that this was going to be Pete’s power was in the hair and makeup trailer, because what often happens is that hair and makeup and our set designers will get early versions of the script so that they know what they need to plan for, if there’s new characters that they need to provide wigs for or new sets they need to build. So very often, we will get little leaks from the people in hair and makeup or with set design, like, “Hey, I heard Pete’s able to leave the mansion,” and I’m like, “Wait, what?!”

The reason [showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman] often don’t tell us that early is because things change all the time, and they don’t want to get us excited about something and then have to be like, “Oh, never mind. We rewrote that draft, and that’s not happening anymore.” Eventually, I did hear from the Joes and from Trent O’Donnell, our producing director [who’s] directed, I think, the most episodes of Ghosts at this point. Trent has become a really good friend, so he and I had a really early conversation when it became clear that, yeah, this is the direction it was going. I was so excited to hear that this was going to be Pete’s power and just, like, immediately thought about all the exciting opportunities this opens up for the character.

TVLINE | Of all the ghost powers on the show, I think this is one of the coolest in terms of it opens up a world of story possibilities for him.
Totally. And not just for him, either, but for the whole cast, because there is a world in which he can now become almost like a messenger of sorts for the other ghosts to either go and communicate with ghosts in other areas of the country, the world, or go on errands for them. There are a lot of possibilities it opens up for this show as a whole, which I’m really excited about, and I think the Joes are going to find a very smart way to use this power and use it effectively. I think it’ll be a challenge for them, kind of figuring out exactly how to use this power, but I’m really excited about the possibilities it opens up for the show, narratively, as a whole.

TVLINE | In a how where you are, for the most part, confined to one costume and one set, outside of maybe flashbacks, it was so refreshing to see Pete in a different environment in this episode and interacting with a completely different set of ghosts.
Totally. And really exciting to figure out kind of how to play this. There’s excitement, and you’re in these new places, and there’s a lot of awe as he’s kind of looking around this giant store that he’s never seen anything like. But there’s a lot of fear, too, and I think that’s at the heart of this character in a lot of ways. He likes predictability, he’s a rule follower, he doesn’t like to be surprised by things. So to be in this new environment, where there are all these new ghosts, it’s scary to a big degree, and he’s going to have to learn how to sort of keep that fear at bay and continue to explore and meet new people and have new experiences in whatever kind of safe way he can.

TVLINE | You’re the last one to get a power. Was it difficult having to wait this long?
Technically, we haven’t found out Hetty’s power, either.

TVLINE | Is it not the thing where she gets to send them down to Hell?
Well, they sort of tease that, where she’s like, “Is this my power?” But then she tries to send Trevor to Hell, and it doesn’t work. So we don’t know for sure, I think, what Hetty’s is. But yes, from day one, obviously, when you read the pilot and you learn that certain ghosts have powers, you, of course, immediately are like, “Well, what’s my ghost power?” And there was actually a moment in Season 2, we read an early table draft of an episode where they wrote in a power for Pete that was totally different than this. One of the major storylines in that episode changed, and so they pulled back on that, and my assumption was, like, “Oh, they’ll bring that out at another time when it narratively makes sense, but it’ll remain the same power.” But it wasn’t. It was a totally different thing. So I’ve been so anxious from day one to learn what the power is going to be, and it was really nice to finally get answers.

TVLINE | Can you share what the other power was that he originally had?
You know, I don’t want to, only because I think it’s such a fun idea that they might use it for another ghost, like a guest-star ghost at some point. So I don’t want to say too much about that.

TVLINE | How long is Pete going to be traveling? Is this a quick trip to see his family, or is he going to go all around the world?
I will say that he does make it back to Woodstone by the finale. The nice thing that the Joes have done with this power is that it opens up a huge world of possibilities for him and where he’s able to go, but they find a really smart way to place a limitation on the power so that it can’t be used constantly. I guess I shouldn’t say too much more than that, but they do a really good job of sort of putting reins on this power.

TVLINE | I don’t think he would miss Isaac’s wedding…
Yeah, that’s true. There’s big motivation to get back home when there’s this monumental thing happening with all of these ghosts that he loves.

TVLINE | Where would you like to see him go? Is there a dream spot that you would like to see him travel to?
Oh, man. He’s such a sports fan that I think it would be really fun to bring him to the NBA Finals. [Laughs] Because it’s hard to get tickets to the NBA Finals, but when you’re a ghost, you don’t need tickets. So to have him just waltz into an arena somewhere and watch the NBA Finals would be hysterical.

TVLINE | Are there any residual feelings of hurt or anger on Pete’s part towards Jay for losing him? Is that friendship still intact?
I think it is still intact. He probably blames himself more. The fact that he was having this conversation with these two trampled ghosts while he lost Jay, I think there’s a little bit of, like, hey, you had to have known you got to stick close to this guy or you’re going to lose him in this giant store. So he’s probably madder at himself than at Jay.

TVLINE | I wanted to touch on last week’s episode about Hetty and how she died, because it was such a moving and unexpected episode, and I wanted to get your take on how you and the cast responded to that revelation.
We do the table reads over Zoom because we are all on set together in Montreal when we do the table reads, but there are CBS executives in LA, and the writers are in LA. So it’s just easier to do them by Zoom so everybody can kind of jump on together. I remember the tone of the table read for that episode, we all really felt the weight of the story we were telling in that episode. I felt right away that, like, “Oh, if we execute this well, it’s going to be a really great episode of this show,” and honestly, it’s, I’d say, one of my top three favorites from what we’ve done so far. And then being on set and actually filming it is a different thing, right, because you read it on paper, you read it at the table read, and it’s one thing. But then you get on set, and you see the people around you, and Rebecca Wisocky is just an incredible actress. She delivered such a powerful performance in that episode, and she brought me to tears multiple times on set when we were shooting her reveal of how she died at the well. She can tell a story with her eyes. I just find her to be a real North Star in terms of acting and what she’s able to do with this character on this show, and that episode was no exception. I just think she’s spectacular, and she delivered a really moving performance that moved me as an actor on set and then moved me as a viewer at home, watching it when it aired. So just very grateful to be in her company.

TVLINE | I also have to give you props for your Jaws “meow-meow” in the Halloween episode. Cracks me up to this day.
[Laughs] I loved reading that. I was like, “Oh, this is such a gift.” It was so fun. Anytime there’s moments like that, it’s so nice. Our writers work so hard, and it just feels like such a gift to be given moments like that Jaws moment in the Halloween episode. They’re so fun to play. I feel so insanely grateful for this show. I was a working actor for so long before this, and it is such a difficult profession, and shows like this do not come around very often, and I feel grateful every day that I get to be a part of it.

Ghosts fans, what did you think of Pete’s power? Hit the comments with your thoughts and predictions for next Thursday’s season finale!