Ghosts Powers, Ranked: Whose Special Ability Is Best? And Which One Stinks?
Now that Hetty's power has been revealed on Ghosts, every major spirit on the show has a special gift — but not all gifts are created equal.
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Below, TVLine has assessed the powers of all eight ghostly series regulars for usefulness, creativity and entertainment value, and ranked them from worst to best. We've also included a couple of recurring characters with memorable abilities in our tabulations.
How does Hetty's newfound power to be seen compare to Pete's traveling adventures beyond the gates of Woodstone? Is Alberta's humming really worthy of her friend's jabs? And how far ahead in our rankings did Trevor's increasingly quick typing get him?
The ghosts, themselves, have plenty of feelings about their own unique gifts — we get it, Pete, you can leave the property! — as well as their friends' impressive (or impressively lacking) talents. But are their opinions in alignment with TVLine?
Scroll down to review our ranking of ghosts powers, complete with video of the special abilities in action, then hit the comments with your No. 1 pick!
After dying of dysentery during the Revolutionary War, the soldier developed the unfortunate ability to emit an awful, fart-like order when passing through livings. Neither all that useful or amusing, this power is a (literal) stinker, and Isaac knows it.
The basement ghosts finally revealed their power in Season 4, and it was disgustingly fitting: Mirroring the way they died, the spirits gave cholera to Jay's restaurant staff for a brief period of time. Gross but hilarious, just like the basement crew.
While the 1920s singer gets a lot of flack from the other ghosts for her lackluster power, Alberta's ability to have her humming heard by livings has actually come in handy on the rare occasion. When she used it to communicate with her great niece to guide her during an important life decision, Alberta's power went from ho-hum spooky to incredibly touching.
Death by lightning means the Viking can make lights flicker and, sometimes, explode with only the power of his brain. Nifty? Yes. Spooky? Maybe. More often, Thor's ability is a better expression of his emotions than it is in its intended execution. And manipulating electrical currents can leave the giant feeling, well, zapped of energy.
Hetty's cheating scoundrel of a husband can get livings horny when walking through them, which made for a hilarious moment when Jay and Sam fell prey to Elias' power and tried to seduce their friends. We don't want Elias coming back from Hell and wreaking havoc on Woodstone B&B, but if it means we get more randy action, then we'd kind of be for it.
Like with Elias, Flower's ability to make people high when passing through them isn't exactly practical, but it sure is amusing to watch the trippy effects. So we have to give the hippie points for entertainment value over usefulness.
Honestly, we're kind of too scared of Patience to rank her lower. After dying by bloodletting, the Puritan ghost is able to make walls weep with blood. Oh, and she can write out threatening messages with that blood, too. It's all very terrifying and sort of gorily amazing in a 'gruesome horror movie we never want to find ourselves in' kind of way.
No doubt many of Hetty's ghostly pals would love to be visible to livings, like the robber baroness recently discovered she was on St. Patrick's Day, allowing her to briefly date Jay's cousin. But the limited time frame on Hetty's power — it seems to manifest only during that specific holiday — is a major damper on what would otherwise be a god-tier ability. In the meantime, Hetty's left to just wait around until the following St. Patty's Day.
Let's be honest: Trevor has the most useful power on a day-to-day basis. Using his index finger to touch objects, he is able to type out messages and surf the Internet, which comes in handy quite often. Sure, his skills aren't up to Mavis Beacon's level (although he is getting improbably quicker), but they're good enough to set up a dating app profile and land a remote finance job from the afterlife. Bro, that's seriously impressive!
Being a traveling ghost is a perfect fit for former travel agent Pete, who is able to leave the Woodstone property. Since discovering his power, Pete has found brief romance with ghost Donna in Saint Lucia, met new ghost friends at a big box store and opened up a whole new world of storytelling opportunities for the series. But there's one not-so-little problem: Pete can't be away from Woodstone for too long or 'little Pete' and other body parts start to, literally, disappear. Eep!
With his ability to enter people's dreams, Sas has the coolest and most influential power on the show. Not only does he get to hang out with livings and have fun in another realm (Trekkie time with Jay!), but he can also sway their decisions and behavior when they're awake by planting seeds in their dreams. And unlike with Pete and Hetty, there doesn't appear to be a major constriction on the extent of his special skill. No wonder Sas kept the details of his power to himself for so long!
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