SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from Thursday night’s episode of CBS‘ Ghosts.
Last week, CBS’ Ghosts breached new territory by letting another living in on the secret that Sam (Rose McIver) can see ghosts.
The living in question was none other than Trevor’s (Asher Grodman) daughter Abby (Gideon Adlon), creating yet another heartwarming yet dysfunctional dynamic that plays out in Thursday night’s episode, titled “T-Daddy.”
You see, Trevor is incredibly excited to spend time with his daughter once she accepts a job at Woodstone, but he has no idea how to be a father.
His ineptitude was on full display in last week’s episode “Bring Your Daughter To Work Day,” and it rears its head once again during the latest episode when he tries to convince Abby to pursue a degree in finance rather than follow her dreams and study French poetry in Paris.
He soon learns that, in fact, he’s being a hypocrite, as Grodman explains to Deadline: “He’s been utterly hypocritical, because [in] Trevor’s life, he got to go to any party he wanted. He had all the money he wanted. He had access to anything he wanted. He got to sleep with all the women he wanted. He just lived this ‘yes, and…’ life where every door was open to him.”
So, how could he possibly deny his own daughter the same opportunity to live her life to the fullest?
In the interview below, Grodman discusses the rewarding two-episode arc for this character he’s been building over the course of five seasons and what’s in store for the remainder of Season 5.
DEADLINE: How did you feel initially when you read the script and saw this two-episode arc unfolding for Trevor?
ASHER GRODMAN: It is fun. We kind of have this formula for the show. Things do run over the course of multiple episodes, but we do have this fresh start each week. So, I think we all really crave it when it happens, those opportunities to really build a longer story. Man, it’s just such a good concept for a show. That’s the bottom line. It’s so rich. So when you get to have a little more time, you get to have a taste of just how rich it is.
I was excited [about this storyline]. This is something that I really never thought we were going to do, because we do that fake out in “Pete’s Wife” at the beginning of Season 1, where Trevor’s like, a DILF, and it’s not a thing. So I was just very convinced that, ‘Oh, we’re never gonna do that. Why would we?’ When they decided to, I think, in the beginning, I was trepidatious…but it’s been so fun, and Gideon is such a blast to work with. She’s such a fun foil for Trevor. When you try new things, it’s always an excitement and a trepidation, and the idea of someone who’s not related to Sam or Jay knowing the secret, this is a first, and so this is a big moment for the show. So I guess I felt excited that Trevor was part of it. Because of his proximity to life as one of the youngest ghosts, there’s a lot of story potential in that. So if Trevor has even a tenuous connection to the living world, it always yields fun results.
DEADLINE: How do you think that strengthens Sam and Trevor’s friendship, that she has let his family in on this secret now?
GRODMAN: Well, it’s interesting, because it’s not written as a thing for Trevor. It’s written as ‘we have to get out of [trouble].’ Trevor, of course, has put them in all of this trouble. What Trevor did in the first episode where Abby shows up is kind is inexcusable. It’s so bad, not only in that it doesn’t take into account Sam at all, but that it’s something that Sam cannot recover from. There is no excuse for what happens there. I think initially in the script, there was just this conversation that Sam had with Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) and Bela (Punam Patel) of like, ‘I think the only option here is to tell them.’ In the one chat I had with our showrunners about this, I was like, ‘Can there just be a moment where Sam looks to Trevor before she does it, as though to ask him, and he says, do it,’ just so he’s kind of part of that reveal, because it’s such a big thing. Then, It exists on like the living level but also at the level of the ghosts. So I was very grateful. They were down for that. I think in terms of how Trevor feels about it, it’s also quite a big step in the Trevor-Sam relationship, which started on very, very rocky terms and has hit multiple rocks along the way. There’s a real responsibility in revealing that information too, right?
DEADLINE: Well, and now Sam has to serve as this conduit in this familial relationship as well.
GRODMAN: Rose does such an amazing job at just like twisting herself in the pretzels to survive the mayhem that we’re putting her through. Yeah, it’s a really fun dynamic.
DEADLINE: What is it that really makes Trevor come around to the idea that he should support his daughter in whatever she truly wants to pursue?
GRODMAN: I guess there are a few things. One is that, I think in many ways, Trevor blew up this girl’s life. She lost her mom, and Trevor, by thinking only about himself, took away her dad. For me, Abby’s kind of the hero of that first episode, because she’s able to pick up the broken pieces and reunite with her father. So I think there is a sense of responsibility that Trevor has in that. I think there’s an awareness in the fact that Pinkus is a better father than Trevor would ever would have been, which I just think is a really fun thing to play. It’s a unique thing to our show, because you’re on the other side of this living-death boundary, and I think to have a discovery of your own limitations is kind of a fun thing to play.
I think he genuinely loves his daughter. One of the biggest things is, Trevor’s being a hypocrite. He’s been utterly hypocritical, because [in] Trevor’s life, he got to go to any party he wanted. He had all the money he wanted. He had access to anything he wanted. He got to sleep with all the women he wanted. He just lived this ‘yes, and…’ life where every door was open to him. It’s a reflection of what it was like in the ’90s in finance and the tech boom. He represents this time and history, and there’s an innocence to that too. The sad thing with Trevor is that it stopped so short, so soon. So I think when she’s saying, ‘I’ve lost all these people. I don’t want to leave anything behind. I want to live my life to the fullest,’ I think Trevor is like, ‘I’m looking at a mirror.’ It is a hard turn to make after he causes so much mayhem to suddenly just flip it. I think, in part, it has to do with that, and at the end, part has to do with his own responsibility and the damage that he’s caused.
DEADLINE: It is fun to see the ghosts slowly develop a bit more self awareness over the last five seasons through this connection to the living world. How have you sort of layered this character over five seasons to illustrate how some of those small growth moments impact Trevor long term?
GRODMAN: That’s a hard question. What the hell have I been doing? [Laughs]. I will say this: The primary play of the show, I think, is that Trevor is different than Isaac is different than Hetty is different than Pete, and not only because different different time periods, but also their personalities. So part of the fun of the show is you learn all the lessons you learn, but then you snap right back to bad behavior, because that’s where the combustibility of the show lies. All that being said, the greatest way I think Trevor has probably changed in the last five years — and this has to do with what he’s experienced and what he’s seen through with Sam and Jay and his relationship with them, but also his own power that now this is a guy who’s got this very profitable job that opens up a whole other social network of things. He’s got a daughter, connections with his parents, and his brother, all that stuff — is Trevor’s afterlife has expanded. So I think, in terms of the layering you’re talking about, it’s almost just like more terrain that’s been tread.
I think it’s less that he has changed his mind about things. I think it’s just that he’s broadened his mind about things. But…I think he’s always gonna be that guy who’s competitive and wants to party and wants to live after life to its fullest. Now, there are just more threads that reveal new parts of him. “Trevor’s Pants” is kind of a good example. I feel like that episode was a moment where everyone was like, ‘Oh, Trevor is not a bad guy.’ Well, for me, he was never a bad guy. So we’re all learning more about the circumstances that got them here.
DEADLINE: One of the best parts of this episode, to me, is that Trevor’s attempts to woo his daughter are really pissing off Jay’s kitchen staff, because they think it’s Jay and Sam who have all this money.
GRODMAN: It is such a good idea. Shout out to our writers for that. Trevor as a father, for me, is a kind of parallel thread to Trevor’s relationship with Sam, in that this is a woman that he’s objectified. This whole thing starts with, ‘Why don’t you kill yourself so we can have sex, and let’s keep it casual, you know?’ He’s beginning to see Sam as this fully fledged person…there’s also this thing with Jay, which is so fun. There is this competitive thing, not so much for Trevor, it’s a little more of a Jay thing. But there is this kind of enjoyment of, ‘Well, I’m flirting with your sister, and I’m making quadruple the amount of money you are.’ For someone like Trevor, who is so limited because he’s this dead guy, the fact that he is able to amass this small fortune, it’s just such a fun reversal. It’s such a fun dynamic for Utkarsh to play, for me to play. And then us tying Rose up in knots, where she has to balance the chaos of the ghosts while trying to seem like a normal human being.
DEADLINE: What should we expect from the rest of the season?
GRODMAN: This was a big one, just because no one had ever shared the secret of the show with anyone who wasn’t related to Sam and Jay. I feel like we kind of keep coming in with — I don’t think we’re breaking the concept at all — but I think we are forging new territory in a lot of episodes, and there’s a lot of creative stuff that happens. God, you know, this is always that question. I’m like, there’s so much, but I don’t want to spoil…but what can I tell you?
DEADLINE: There’s a Christmas episode coming up, right?
GRODMAN: There is a Christmas episode coming up. We’ll do this thing occasionally, where the form matches the content a little bit. I know I sound like I’m teaching a college class, but where the story is affecting how we’re telling the story. A soft example of that is ‘Trevor’s Pants,’ where the episode is weirdly like a murder mystery, but it’s all about a missing pair of pants. A similar thing happens with the Christmas episode, where we’re leaning on a classic Christmas movie concept in order to tell the story we’re telling. It’s a two-parter, and there’s a possession, but it’s kind of like a love letter to the concept of our show. I think fans are really gonna love it, because you get to see everything from a new point of view.
DEADLINE: The possession episodes are always great, so I’m looking forward to that one.
GRODMAN: They’re fun. What Rose and Utkarsh have been able to do in the past with these possessions, I’m not saying that’s where it’s going this time, but their performances are always so great when they’re mimicking us.
DEADLINE: You’re renewed through Season 6. Does that change how you’ve approached this season? Does it take any sort of pressure off?
GRODMAN: I mean, it’s pretty wild. I don’t know if it’s pressure, but it is hard to be an actor. It’s like winning the lottery. This stuff doesn’t happen, especially now. Shows don’t last this long. We have some amazing fans, and that’s why we’re still here. So when we got that double pickup, I think primarily it’s like gratitude [for] just be able to do something you love with people you love, because our cast is amazing, our crew is amazing, and they don’t get nearly as as much credit as they deserve. First of all, Zoe Sakellaropoulo, who’s our production designer, deserves every award that they have. I think it’s hard to comprehend it, because it just looks like it’s a networks sitcom, right? But she is building Ancient Egypt in a matter of hours…then she’s knocking that down and building a forest. In Season 3, you may remember, Flower was in a well. We did that one week, and that was like 50 trees that they brought in, and who knows how many pounds of mulch and of dirt, and then that was wiped away. Days later, sand came in, and we built the tiki bar where Pete’s in the Bahamas or Bermuda, I can’t remember what it was [editor’s note: it was St. Lucia]…the design, the craftsmanship of that. It’s really insane. They’re going to, once again, this season, flex their muscles.