SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from Thursday night’s episode of CBS‘ Ghosts.
Audiences, and the rest of the residents at Woodstone Mansion, now finally understand why Isaac Higgintoot (Brandon Scott Jones) has held a grudge against Alexander Hamilton for nearly 250 years.
Thursday night’s episode of Ghosts takes us back to 1776 to see the drama between Isaac and Alexander unfold in real time, as Isaac recounts the story to Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) while advising him against focusing too much on his culinary nemesis who seems to be thriving while Jay’s restaurant is struggling to bring in customers.
As it turns out, Isaac has looked down upon the Founding Father for all this time because he stole Isaac’s neck ruffle — one he’d reserved two weeks in advance, no less — to show him up at John Jay’s house on the night of what was supposed to be the official signing of the Declaration of independence. That is, until Isaac’s pettiness got the best of him, and in trying to prove Hamilton had indeed stolen the neck tie, he accidentally sets the document on fire.
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Naturally, he’s promptly kicked out of the festivities and, in turn, no longer a signatory of the historical document.
“I think [the writers] chose right by saying, like, ‘Oh, my God. Of course, this is an epically petty thing that spawned this one-sided rival, rivalry that only Isaac remembers,’” Jones tells Deadline of solving this mystery once and for all.
In the interview below, Jones broke down the episode with Deadline and teased the rest of Season 4.
DEADLINE: How did you feel about finally getting to tell such an essential part of Isaac’s story?
BRANDON SCOTT JONES: It’s something that has been a part of Isaac’s character since the day I auditioned for him. I don’t even think it comes up necessarily in the pilot, but the character breakdown, when I went in [to audition], they were like, ‘He has a chip on his shoulder about Hamilton.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s funny. That’s interesting.’ It’s been with me for so long. They’ve done such a fun job of just seeding little bits and anecdotes and digs that he takes at Hamilton over the four years. So it felt like this is would either be absolutely epic or epically petty. I think they chose right by saying, like, ‘Oh, my God. Of course, this is an epically petty thing that spawned this one-sided rival, rivalry that only Isaac remembers.’
Even though Samantha wrote an entire book, he never told her this story. I thought that was a really telling thing about Isaac, because if you look at the story, he doesn’t look great in it. It’s not normally the type of story Isaac tells.
DEADLINE: I did notice that too, even admitting that he ruined the Declaration of Independence is a big step for him in terms of being able to admit wrongdoing.
JONES: That was thing thing that I really was interested in and latched onto. None of this was on the page, or none of this is like canonical to the show or anything like that, but it was a fun thing as an actor to be like, ‘Okay, Isaac is, if nothing else, a little bit of a unreliable narrator, and he is a little bit of a revisionist of history, and this episode is him telling a story.’ So you wonder like, are there moments where he’s embellishing to try and save a little bit of face? Are there moments where he’s not necessarily completely forthcoming? I just thought that was really, really interesting to just have in the back of our of our brains as we were making it. It did feel like a step forward. What I loved about it was sort of the ‘why now’ of this story. He started this season wanting to be a better person and wanting to do something nice. He tells a story where he does look bad, but he does it in service of trying to prove a point to Jay, who can’t hear him, but is getting relayed the story. That’s unusually virtuous for him.
DEADLINE: When do you think Isaac started looking at this as a cautionary tale, though? When did he realize he probably should’ve been more focused on the Declaration of Independence than his neck ruffle?
JONES: I think the walk home from that room. I think he started to think about it, and he’s been thinking about it since. I think it’s always sort of been there, maybe a little bit more recently, especially now that the fuel to that fire has been really gassed up for the past four seasons with the more and more he has access to learning about his nemesis like that. But I do think that it’s something that stayed with him, and he’s just held on to it. I do wonder, did he tell the entire truth there? Is he still just trying to hold on to one little bit that makes him look cool? But I think he’s been thinking about it for so long, and he hates telling that story. And he did it for Jay, so I think that’s kind of nice.
DEADLINE: You do make an interesting point about all the ghosts potentially being unreliable narrators…
JONES: Yes, definitely, especially with Isaac, who’s so concerned with history. There’s two types of flashbacks that I’ve noticed that our show has. Our show has the narrated flashback where we’re telling the story, and then there’s the sort of factual flashback that sort of sets up a story, and so forth. So I wonder if the narrated ones are always going to have a little bit of subjectivity to them, where the other ones might be a little bit more objective and factual.
DEADLINE: How do you think Isaac feels now, knowing that he did get to contribute to the Declaration of Independence with the ‘pursuit of happiness’ line?
JONES: Honestly, it’s the most Isaac thing in the world that his contribution that he’s been looking for his entire life is the most unprovable thing. It’s like, I chose the parchment that we use. It’s like, okay, no, all right, I guess there’s no document of that, but you have to either take him at his word, or take him at least at his intention. I think it’s funny and silly that that’s where he gets it, but I think in that moment, you see how he’s willing to take anything, because he’s really thinking about it still.
DEADLINE: What can we expect from the rest of the season?
JONES: It’s wild. I mean, it’s all over the place. We have beloved returning characters come back. We have Alberta’s descendant from last season. She’s coming back because she’s getting married. So Ashley D. Kelley is coming back to play with us. We learn Hetty’s ghost power, which is very exciting. Patience makes a surprise return. I think there’s a little seed that’s planted at the end of this particular episode that, no pun intended, is definitely going to come back to haunt us with Matt Walsh’s character.
The post ‘Ghosts’ Star Brandon Scott Jones Dissects Isaac’s Gripe With Alexander Hamilton & Teases “Beloved Returning Characters” Before Season 4 Ends appeared first on Deadline.
