At the start of every season of Ghosts, audiences are given a set of mysteries to solve. While the title card for the CBS show always features a desk with a flickering lamp, stacks of books, a framed photo and a jiggling teacup, the various knickknacks that surround these items change every year – and they provide clues about the adventures on the way. Season 5 has not deviated from this tradition, and while the run is not yet done, almost all of the Easter eggs have been revealed.
Ghosts fans are still waiting for the sitcom’s return from its winter break (the season is scheduled to resume on Thursday, February 26), but while we wait for more fun adventures, I figured now would be a great time to break down all of the title card clues and the stories behind them. Going from left to right, let’s start with…
The Ghosts Season 5 Easter Eggs That Have Been Revealed
The Sobriety Chip
People in recovery receive chips marking the amount of time that they have abstained from their particular vice, but full sobriety isn’t really a path that’s open to Flower. A hippie very engaged in the lifestyle, she was quite intoxicated when she was mauled to death by a bear, and that means that she’ll be high at least until she finally gets sucked off.
That being said, she actually did get to experience a bout of lucidity in Season 5’s “Bring Your Daughter to Work Day,” as she discovers that she can lose her high when she walks through Jay’s stoner employee Gabe. It’s only temporary, but that explains the “30 Minutes Of Sobriety” text on the chip in the title card.
The Toy Helicopter
One of the greatest highlights of Season 5 thus far has been the episode “Planes, Shanes and Automobiles” – an homage to the classic comedy Planes, Trains And Automobiles featuring Sam and Pete as traveling bodies a la Steve Martin and John Candy’s characters. Through most of the adventure, the latter bugs the hell out of the former with his constant chatter, and things go from bad to worse when he advises her to take a backroad that gets them stranded. Fortunately, Pete has an old contact in the area to whom Sam can reach out, and the duo make it back to Woodstone in time for Thanksgiving… via a helicopter ride!
The Scroll
Ghosts Season 5 has been special for a number of reasons, but one of the coolest is the revelation of a new supernatural entity: a mummy! In the Halloween episode (appropriately if not bluntly titled “Halloween 5: The Mummy”), a sarcophagus is discovered in the mansion, and Sam and Jay accidentally free the spirit – who proceeds to fulfill a curse that has been placed on the Woodstone family. How does this happen? It’s all because Jay translates hieroglyphs found with the wrapped-up corpse in a scroll.
The Boxing Gloves
When Flower has her aforementioned all-too-brief experience with sobriety, it ends up having some significant consequences. Her unclouded intelligence allows her to trounce Isaac in a primary debate and become the elected candidate to represent the upstairs ghosts in communication with Sam, and this in turn leads Isaac to try and become a representative of the cholera ghosts in the basement.
In “The Proposal,” we see that this mission doesn’t go very well, as he gets quickly bored of watching the water heater and hates their way of sleeping while standing up – but he does eventually manage to earn their respect by participating in their Fight Club, which is represented in the title card via a pair of boxing gloves.
The Name Tag
After four seasons of Ghosts, we’ve gotten to know all of the characters pretty intimately… but secrets are always being kept and revealed, and Season 5 features some doozies about Alberta. “The Life and Times of Esther Greene” exposes some long hidden truths about the jazz singer, including a hidden talent for ventriloquism. When she decided to try and put the dummy behind her and pursue a career purely in music, the move demanded that she change her name, and she went from being known as Esther Greene to Alberta Haynes. Hence, the name tag on the bookshelf.
The Tumbler Cup
In “Bring Your Daughter To Work Day,” it proves a little difficult for Sam and Jay to convince Abby both that Sam can see ghosts and that her father, Trevor, is haunting Woodstone. The “identifying contents of her purse” trick doesn’t work because she is already weirded out by the behavior of her employers (which can easily include snooping through her things), and she requires proof that is much more tangible. Ultimately, what convinces her of her biological dad’s spiritual presence is him pushing her tumbler cup off a table – and that same cup can be seen in the Season 5 title card.
The Ghosts Season 5 Easter Eggs That Have Not Yet Been Identified
So far in Ghosts Season 5, all of the special items on the table have been explained, and the same goes for two items on the middle bookshelf. Still, however, there are two items that have not yet gotten their own special backstory, and we expect to see them get some kind of focus in upcoming episodes.
The Great Dane Painting
In past seasons, the framed painting hanging on the wall in the title card has included Tobias Woodstone, Sasappis’ tree and a Norwegian fjord. In Season 5, it features a close-up of a big, gray dog. We haven’t seen any canines play a significant role in the run thus far, hence the item’s placement in this section of the feature, but one can’t help but notice that the pup is a Great Dane – and knowing Thor’s hatred of the Danish people, I imagine that he’s going to somehow be involved with whatever the story is behind the animal.
The Bowl Of Limes
Lastly, we have what appears to be a bowl of limes sitting on the top shelf of the bookcase. I will say that it is possible those round green objects are brussel sprouts – which Jay serves in “Bring Your Daughter To Work Day,” and Thor confuses them for ram’s testicles – but I’m betting that we haven’t actually gotten the reveal for that particular item yet.
So far, only 10 episodes of Ghosts Season 5 have aired, so there is plenty of fun and spooky adventure on the way in the coming months. As noted earlier, audiences will be able to return to Woodstone when the run continues later this month with an episode titled “The Others.”
