‘Ghosts’ Star Rebecca Wisocky on Putting Hetty to Work in Latest St. Patrick’s Day Adventure

Ghosts rang in another holiday at Woodstone in the latest episode, “St. Hetty’s Day 2: The Help,” but instead of Hetty (Rebecca Wisocky) having to come to terms with her Irish heritage, she grappled with the reality that she’d never known a real hard day’s work in her life… until now. (Beware of spoilers ahead!)

As viewers may recall, Gilded Age spirit Hetty discovered her special gift was visibility on St. Patrick’s Day, and she wasn’t planning to waste the opportunity as she set up a dating profile to enjoy a night with an adoring man, however fleeting. “She wants to be looked at adoringly by a gentleman caller. I just love that her profile picture has to be that oil painting,” Wisocky tells TV Insider. “It’s kind of delicious.”

The star who brings Hetty to life adds, “All the holiday episodes on Ghosts are always really good. Of course, I was happy that they wanted to revisit St. Hetty’s Day, and I was especially delighted when I heard that Rose was going to be directing it.” Rose McIver, who plays Sam, was largely absent from the episode because she was behind the camera, but that meant there was room for a few guest stars to step in with her away, including Ben Feldman‘s Kyle and Jeff Hiller playing seasoned server Jeff at Jay’s (Utkarsh Ambudkar) restaurant, Mahesh.

Bertrand Calmeau / CBS

While Feldman’s been a recurring guest, Emmy-winner Hiller was thrown into the deep end a bit as his character faced Hetty’s bitterness when her date didn’t show up to the restaurant. “I knew him and his work from the theater scene in New York for a while, so we had a lot of fun with him,” Wisocky says of working with Hiller. “And yes, I unfortunately did subject him to some rather harsh treatment from Hetty.”

When Jeff is upset by comments Hetty made, he leaves work, and as a result, Jay is stressed because he has a very important customer dining in, and now he’s short-staffed. After she was admonished by Jay for not understanding the severity of the situation and not properly respecting staff, she decided to try her hand at serving.

“It’s one of the fastest in real-time human realizations that we see Hetty Woodstone have, that she sees the hurt that she causes this other human being instantly. Jay points out that it’s because she cannot relate to, you know, having a job, and she goes into action, because she can for this one day of the year,” Wisocky says. “But I think it’s admirable and a big step forward for her that she realizes all of that so quickly.”

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Whether the lesson will stick or not remains to be seen, but she quickly won over the Mahesh staff, who helped Hetty memorize how to take orders. When Jeff returned to pick his work back up, Hetty got support from the staff to finish her shift in a Rudy moment as they cheered her name in front of Jay. “She’s never been on a team before, and I think she found it really disarming and thrilling that she could be valued for her joint contribution to a common goal,” Wisocky shares.

While viewers may have to wait until next St. Patrick’s Day to see Hetty get her visibility back, it was one heck of an adventure the second time around. See Wisocky’s full interview in the video above, and let us know what you thought about the exciting episode in the comments section below.

Ghosts, Thursdays, 8:30/7:30c, CBS