It Took 4 Seasons, But Ghosts Has Finally Made The Rose McIver Joke We Were All Waiting For

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Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Ghosts season 4, episode 10, “The Not-So-Silent Partner.”

Although Ghosts has taken a few jabs at some of the earlier roles of its stars before, season 4, episode 10 finally addressed one of Rose McIver’s most iconic parts. Ghosts season 4’s cast of characters includes a slew of familiar faces from all manner of movies and shows. Ghosts season 4’s new character Patience is played by Happiest Season’s breakout star Mary Holland, while Sam’s estranged father Frank is played by Breaking Bad’s Dean Norris.

Ghosts has even made a few meta-jokes about the roles that viewers might recognize its cast from. Utkarsh Ambudkar was in an early production of Hamilton, and Ghosts’ ongoing running gag about Alexander Hamilton is set to result in a role for the real-life character later in season 4. Meanwhile, the actor who played Pete in Ghosts season 2, episode 7, “Dumb Deaths,” is Matthew Baynton, one of the stars and co-creators of the original UK sitcom of the same name that Ghosts is based on.

Ghosts Season 4’s Hetty Genealogy Story Referenced A Christmas Prince

Ghosts Joked About Rose McIver’s Role In Netflix’s Romantic Comedy

Ghosts slipped another subtle nod to the screen oeuvre of one of the show’s stars into the cold open of season 4, episode 10, “The Not-So-Silent Partner.” As the ghosts and Sam watched a historical drama together, Hetty boasted that she was supposedly distantly related to the British royal family. Before Sam told her about modern DNA tests and genealogy websites, she absent mindedly noted “This is just like one of those movies where a regular girl finds out she’s a princess.”

McIver reprised her role as Queen Amber Moore for a cameo in 2020’s The Princess Switch: Switched Again.

It would be easy for viewers to miss, but this gag doubled as a reference to one of Rose McIver’s biggest roles before Ghosts. In 2017, McIver starred in Netflix’s Christmas movie A Christmas Prince, which was followed soon after by 2018’s A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding and A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby in 2019. McIver even reprised her role as Queen Amber Moore for a cameo in 2020’s The Princess Switch: Switched Again, thus tying together the Netflix holiday movie cinematic universe.

Ghosts Season 4 Already Referenced Another Rose McIver Role

Ghosts Season 4’s Christmas Special Mocked iZombie

When McIver’s character said she could secretly be a princess unbeknownst to herself, “The Not-So-Silent Partner” was clearly offering a sly nod to the actor’s background. However, Ghosts season 4’s Christmas special already offered viewers a similarly subtle nod to McIver’s earlier roles in “A Very Arondekar Christmas Part 2.” In that outing, Jay was possessed by due thanks to an electrocution incident, and he needed to get back into his body before Christmas dinner with his family.

This proved particularly challenging and, thanks to a string of absurd hold-ups, Jay ended up briefly becoming a zombie, i.e. a body with no soul inside. Sam was horrified, exclaiming that she couldn’t deal with zombies at all. This was an ironic nod to McIver’s role in the cult classic mystery procedural/comedy-horror mashup iZombie, wherein she played a zombie who investigated murders by consuming the victim’s brains and temporarily imbibing their personality and memories. Like season 4, episode 10’s nod to her Netflix Christmas movie, this Ghosts reference was a fun Easter egg for McIver’s fans.

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Ghosts (US)

8/10

Release Date October 7, 2021

Directors Christine Gernon, Jaime Eliezer Karas, Katie Locke O'Brien, Nick Wong, Jude Weng, Pete Chatmon, Richie Keen, Alex Hardcastle, Kimmy Gatewood, Matthew A. Cherry, Cortney Carrillo

Writers Emily Schmidt, John Timothy, Lauren Bridges, Sophia Lear, Guy Endore-Kaiser, Rishi Chitkara, Julia Harter, Skander Halim, Zora Bikangaga