‘Ghosts’ Star Sheila Carrasco on Flower’s Positive Impact & Groovy Backstory

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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Ghosts, Season 1, Episode 7, “Flower’s Article.”]

CBS‘ hit comedy continues to pull some surprising emotional punches, but Ghosts‘ latest installment is one of its most surprising yet.

In “Flower’s Article,” Woodstone’s resident hippie Flower (Sheila Carrasco), and her not-so-groovy bank-robbing past blossom on television in the form of a moving half-hour episode. Taking things back to 1968, viewers discover that not only was Flower a one-time criminal, she also has a big secret to hide from Sam (Rose McIver) and her fellow ghosts.

(Credit: CBS)

When Sam looks for a potential story topic for a prospective writing gig, Flower opens up about her bank robbery but won’t elaborate on finer details or give permission to share the tale with other living beings. Ultimately, it’s unveiled that Flower was tired of her commune’s inability to choose a worthy cause to allocate their money, and so she and her boyfriend Ira decided to make a run for it with the cash until she was fatally attacked by a bear.

Feeling as though she’s been living a lie, Flower admits she’s embarrassed by her past until Sam reveals that Flower’s boyfriend Ira went on to create a chain of fair trade coffee shops in her memory that also promote bear safety tips. Below, Carrasco opens up about Flower’s revelation, her dazed state, and a personal connection to the hippie’s real name.

(Credit: Bertrand Calmeau/CBS)

What was your initial reaction upon learning Flower’s origin story?

Sheila Carrasco: Yeah, I was both surprised and really excited by it. At first, I was surprised we were going into a part of Flower’s past life that didn’t involve her death. For some reason, I expected [to do] visual effects of the bear or something for the Flower episode. So it was cool to see that there are so many possibilities in all of these characters. It’s not just about their death, but their actual life and the mistakes that they.

And then when I found out that it was about the secret she was hiding, I was so excited because when you’re playing a character that really leads with the heart and is really positive, it’s a wonderful place to be. I think it was really neat to explore that and find out that she is a really kind and giving person but she’s not perfect and she’s flawed. I think everyone can relate to that.

(Credit: CBS)

Flower is often in and out of it when it comes to lucidness. Is she constantly tripping on the drugs of her time or is she truly living in her own world?

I think it’s a little bit of both. From the pilot episode, we knew that she was always in the midst of possibly being in an acid trip flashback. So sometimes you don’t quite know if she’s with it because of that, or if she’s with it because of her personality. What’s fun about playing Flower is exploring that physicality of being in the scene and understanding what’s happening, but also seeing these amazing colors and having these visual trippy moments that [are like] her little secret.

Is Flower smarter than the other ghosts give her credit for? It feels like Isaac (Brandon Scott Jones) and Alberta (Danielle Pinnock) were underestimating her when they were trying to stealthily deliver Sam’s questions.

Thank you for asking that question. I think she is very intuitive, she is a good judge of character, she sees when things are happening in group scenes, but she has her own opinion on it and doesn’t always weigh in because maybe it doesn’t matter that much to her. In this specific moment, she definitely knows that no one really asks her that many questions for their own mental health [because] she’d probably drive them crazy [with her answers].

(Credit: Bertrand Calmeau/CBS)

This is kind of a trippy thing to say, and maybe this is where I kind of relate to the character a little too much, but I feel like Flower is an empath. And I think that she can feel people’s feelings and see what they’re going through sometimes before she really hears what they’re saying, and also I think that is where she connects with Sam a little bit too. She’s really keyed in and connected in that way.

Would you say Flower’s low-level hippie rage is one of her greatest traits? She seemed upset but not distraught over Sam selling her story to the local paper.

I think so. I think that coming where she came from with the commune and cult, she’s in this house with all of these ghosts, and I think that she definitely gets her feelings hurt. But I don’t think she’s one to point a finger necessarily and say, “Why did you do this? This is your fault.” She’s just kind of like, “Wow, you did that. And I’m disappointed, my feelings are hurt.”

(Credit: CBS)

Did you enjoy exploring Flower’s emotional side after she learns that her old boyfriend Ira opened Daisy’s coffee shop in her memory?

Oh, I loved doing that. I was so grateful to the writers and our showrunners for exploring that side of her and gifting me with something that really would mean a lot to Flower. For a character that is notoriously not lucid most of the time and kind of keeps to herself, to have this connection with Ira, the love of her life, and finding out what happened to him and finding out that she meant as much to him as he meant to her, was so touching. And to me as an actor and performer, I would like to know that in the end that I leave a positive impact. So I really connected to that and the moment where she gets that knowledge from Sam.

Since Pete (Richie Moriarty) got his chance to reunite with his family through SAm, do you think there’s a chance she could help Flower reunite with Ira?

Oh, I hope so! I would love for that to happen and I hope he looks like Jerry Garcia [Laughs]. And I hope that through mushrooms or acid, they’re able to have a Nine Perfect Strangers moment, and maybe dance in a technicolor dreamland or something together. I really wish that for them. I hope Sam pulls through on that for her.

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We also learn Flower’s name is really Susan Montero. Do you think Susan is the same person as Flower or is there a separation?

Yes, I think she was a different person. This is something we discussed early on with the writers about who Flower was before she joined the commune and cult. Could she have come from a really religious family or a buttoned-up environment and then one day she ate the wrong brownie at a party and took a 180? Or maybe she just was running away from home and found her chosen family. That is left to be determined. But I do think that once she got the name of Flower and then Daisy from Ira, I think she fully embraced this commune lifestyle.

But a fun side note is that the writers had already [picked] the name of Susan for her, which is great, but then they asked me to send them a shortlist of last names that I would be into and Montero is my abuela’s last name, and I really want to represent all aspects of who I am [as a] half Chilean American and it’s really important to me that Flower can also be Latina as well. I didn’t know what last name they chose until I read the script. It was very emotional for that as well, just as an actor to be able to have my last name be a family name. That means a lot to me.

Ghosts, Season 1, Thursdays, 9/8c, CBS