Ghosts Season 5 delivers the best Thanksgiving episode of the last decade—big words. I know. But trust me. I would’ve dared to call “Planes, Shanes and Automobiles” the best sitcom Thanksgiving episode, ever, but people might have my head for it. Big, big words indeed, but it’s true. What we get in Season 5, Episode 6 isn’t just hold-your-belly-and-laugh funny, but it’s impactful. The show presents viewers with the controversies surrounding the holiday with American colonization, all while still making it hilarious because each of the ghosts played a role while they were alive. Well, sort of.
A large part of the reason the show continues to be so incredible is that it manages to have tough conversations through an easily palatable perspective. As a character, Sasappis does plenty to educate them on Lenape and Indigenous Peoples’ history, but the show doesn’t use him as a token character either because it’s fully aware of all the flaws within the system, Hollywood included. So when it delivers an episode that’s centered around Thanksgiving, the writers ensure that they hit every proper angle in a way that’s honorable and not to check boxes.
To achieve this, it relies on what it does best—humor.
Ghosts’ Thanksgiving Episode Is Literally Perfect
Every. Single. Word. Isaac is a colonizer, yes, but as he hilariously admits, he’s also “a gay colonizer.” Hetty is now using her Irish roots to defend the idea that she also knows oppression, even if she didn’t properly acknowledge it before. These characters are all deeply flawed, and it’s exactly what makes watching them learn about and celebrate Thanksgiving so impactful. They aren’t going to change overnight, but every word is meant to touch on all the ways in which human beings fail to recognize the errors of their ancestors.
Not to mention, there’s also the matter of what’s happening in the real world and how there are still people who fail to recognize that you cannot be “illegal” on stolen land. We won’t get to the politics of it all, but we’re all fully aware of the atrocities. There is no way to be ignorant in the year of our lord 2025, and how Ghosts’ Thanksgiving episode touches on this with levity is no small feat.
Because in truth, sometimes comedies are twice as impactful. The jokes are so perfectly on the nose that they may stick the landing quicker than a profound declaration. It’s something the average person can take note of, and not just those of us who pay extra close attention to words. It’s also why sitcoms are generally so effective in conveying what they’re attempting to because they’re easier for people to consume when everything else is dark. But that easiness also doesn’t make it any less significant or deep.
The medium isn’t always taken as seriously, but episodes like “Planes, Shanes and Automobiles” are proof that you can have deep conversations through humor that doesn’t have to be offensive. It’s why a series like Brooklyn Nine-Nine was always in a league of its own when addressing serious topics through its acute self-awareness and mindful inclusivity. Good comedy can be memorable, but an excellent comedy hits deep, and this episode of Ghosts proves this.
