[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Ghosts Season 4, Episode 3, “Halloween 4: The Witch.”]
Ghosts‘ Halloween episode delivered a deviation from tradition as Sam (Rose McIver) steered away from a seance, and focused on trying to spend a mellow holiday cleaning out junk from the Woodstone mansion with Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar), but Puritan spirit Patience (Mary Holland) had another idea.
Horrified by the modern practices of her new cohorts, Patience got the other spirits to present Sam with the option of being tried as a witch. Unwilling to entertain their shenanigans, Sam goes about her business, only dressing in an old gown giving off Bridgerton vibes as her only sign of engaging with her otherwise favorite holiday.
So, unbeknownst to Sam, Patience rules over a judgment that finds her guilty of witchcraft, and she’s sentenced to petrification. Of course, Patience’s ruling isn’t binding as Sam isn’t turned into stone, but a lookalike statue leaves spirits and Jay all but convinced that Sam was turned into stone and sold to a yard sale attendee who happens to blow up random objects on his YouTube page.
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Eventually, Sam returns home and it’s discovered that the lookalike statue wasn’t her, but a long-forgotten artifact collecting dust in Woodstone’s ballroom. Seeing that her ruling wasn’t final and that no one quite agrees with her outlook, Patience ponders the idea of returning to the dirt, but also lets it slip that she’d return to “the others.”
Who are “the others” Patience speaks of? “It’s such a mystery to me too,” Holland tells TV Insider. “I am so excited to find out who these others are and who Patience is within that group. I don’t know any information about it, but I am excited to find that out and I hope we find out soon,” the star gushes.
As for how much we’ll see Patience moving forward considering her decision, Holland shares, “Her presence will be felt. And I think that she is going back to the dirt, so there might be a period of time where she’s not being seen, but I don’t think she’s gone permanently.”
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But her absence may offer some reprieve for the spirits of Woodstone and their living cohabitants as Patience’s ghost gift led to plenty of stress and concern over blood-stained walls. But her power to create blood markings on the wall and her imagined power to turn people into stone is part of what drives Patience as a character Holland explains.
“She really does see herself as the instrument of justice and righteousness. And so I think that there is a confidence she has in her abilities to d0le out these judgments and punishments. And I think the blood coming from the walls is so terrifying, but to her, it’s like, ‘Well, yes, this is the power of my faith and what I have behind me.’ She’s like, ‘This is great. This is what holiness can do.’ She sees it as a positive.”
Part of what prompts Patience to leave as well, is Isaac (Brandon Scott Jones) informing the rest of the ghosts that she’d strayed from the path of righteousness when she took part in observing some reality television. “She’s still learning,” Holland continues, noting, “I think Isaac knows how to access her, knows what her values are, and knows how to get her to soften a bit and let herself go. And I think that scene with the reality TV, there’s a harmlessness to it.”
Part of that comes from the fact that “she’s desperate for human connection,” Holland says. “She’s probably desperate for a little bit of drama. And so I think that it doesn’t take much for him to convince her that this is okay to do. And then, of course, it escalates to her dancing, which is really just her sort of bouncing around in an upsetting way.”
Getting into Patience’s strict mindset was made easier by her period-accurate clothing as Holland explains, “For me, it was the corset because she’s so uptight and constricted, and having the corset physically helps me to be in that mindset so much as an actor.”
Overall, Holland has approached Patience, “where you sort of adopt the mindset of a child almost in a way where you’re experiencing things for the first time. And of course in this case it would be the mindset of a very judgmental child who thinks that any kind of innovation is the devil. But there’s also this fear and judgment around everything, especially anything happy, joyful, or pleasurable. So that is such a rich point of view to come from,” she concludes.
Stay tuned to find out who “the others” are as Ghosts Season 4 continues to unfold, and let us know what you think of the latest Halloween episode in the comments section, below.
Ghosts, Thursdays, 8:30pm ET/PT, CBS