#Ghosts season 5

[champaggin]

MAFF?

[zarophod]

you’re kidding me. the show literally ends with Captain being gay about the weatherman. what a brilliant way to finish off this wonderful show. i’m gonna miss it :(

[parttimesarah]

A good deal of the BBC Ghosts fandom after S5E5…

[thewaywardlights]

I couldn't resist. Haud yer wheesht has to be my favourite phrase so far!

[caeran]

FANNY WITH HER HAIR DOWN ❤❤❤❤❤❤

[dnickels]

RE: 5x05. I have no idea how much I'm supposed to read into this, but that has never stopped me before:

It's VE Day. Havers is back in England. The post office, telephone system, communication infrastructure etc all still work. So where is Cap's sense of urgency coming from? He knows the full name and regiment of a serving officer, a letter will get where it needs to go, they're very good about that over there. Yes, Cap's been waiting, but its been six years, he can wait a little longer-- hang out in the bushes until he sees Haver's car drive away and bang on the window, if he insists on being an insane person (<3). Figure out where he's billeted. Japan hasn't surrendered yet, so I suppose there's a chance Havers could get shipped to Burma or something and potentially die there, but he's not going to go straight from the cocktail reception to the troop ship, especially if everyone there is about to get "Hitler defeated"-levels of drunk. ("They're all red tabs, surely decency and decorum--" they are going to roll those old soaks out of there in wheelbarrows)

The urgency isn't because Havers might die. I think Cap knew his time was short.

He's a middle aged man in tolerably good shape, all that ration food aside. He make good time on his morning jogs, and his biggest ailment is 'creaky knees'. "Widowmaker heart attack out of nowhere" isn't an unheard of COD for someone who seems otherwise fine, especially someone who has been under a fair amount of stress (six years of wartime, including the fucking Blitz would do a number on my heart) but his sudden relocation makes me pause. It's only been about a year since he got relocated away from Button House, right? What was all that about? It's presumably still requisitioned, given that they're throwing a swanky victory party there and Heather Button is nowhere to be seen, but has the weapons program been disbanded? Or was there some reason to pull the CO out of a high-stress position and send him to the beach to take potshots at seagulls? (I am being glib here-- the coast was NOT a stress-free place when you can see your enemy just across the Channel). I genuinely forget what he said he was doing in season three-- was he even still in the army at all, or did they send his ass to the Home Guard? Even they got a campaign ribbon.

I think Cap made one last push to get to the front, and while its very clear that this dingus should under no circumstances be on the front line (<3) they humored him with a medical-- and found something really troubling. Or maybe he went in of his own accord, the old flutter, or maybe it was just a routine checkup. Either way he got some very serious news, so sorry old boy, just one of those things, could be any day now-- best make sure your affairs are all in order.

Hence the single-minded desire to meet, once last time. Everyone else clearly drove-- did he walk all the way from the train station, down the country lanes? Did he feel a little short of breath scaling all those walls? Did every set-back and stressor make him more determined-- just give me a little more time, just a little more time...

It could also be that he just got yelled at so hard he died of it, which is almost certainly how I will go, but that was my immediate impression and it has not left me, nor have I known peace. I know there's a few holes in my theory but I haven't talked myself out of it yet. For me the kicker is that he experiences at least ten devastating emotions in the last moments of his life, but "surprise at entering cardiac arrest" does not appear to be one of them. It looks more like grim acceptance. Stoic in the face of death-- a soldier to the end.

[cursedchildofchaos]

when Kitty thinks she's pregnant but Alison whispers to her how it happens and she just looks at Julien, Robin, and Pat in horror eruivbiuervbhwei i died

[glowinggreeneyes-e]

"and there was even a kind of- an idea that like Alison would go off and buy a piece of furniture and a ghost would burst out of it and they were an awful ghost" - Ben Willbond, inside ghosts s5e5

all the capvers fics that had this EXACT premise is sending me (except it’s the wonderful Havers)

the fact that they were all within the ghosts universe canon now is a gift fic writers should use

[thosesillylittlegayghosts]

Ghosts season five spoilers!

FUCKING JAMES?!?!

HE DIED WITH HAVER HAND ON HIM

I-I. I know UNWELL RIP ME IM DECEASED WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN I KNOW?!

Anthony. James. IM GOING TO CRY MYSELF TO SLEEP TONIGHT FUCK RIGHT OFF I DID NOT READ A STUPID AMOUNT OF FANFICS AND HAVE THE ACTUAL CANON BIT BE SADDER

HAVERS GAVE HIM THE BLOODY STICK THING THATS WHY HE LOVES IT SO MUCH

[visceral-viscera]

british ghosts is soooo good btw guys i just finished the last ep (before a possible Christmas special... ohg) but ohhh my god this show is so genuine and theres so few shows that let characters change so much but let them keep their original traits so well WITHOUT flanderizing them and . whag. good show

[oatmilkenjoyer79]

so in the trailer it looks like one of the flashbacks we’ll see is cap returning to button house after the war is over:

(the signs read Victory! and then something i cant make out)

so maybe its like a commendation ceremony or smth and thats how he dies? but he doesn’t have a hat as a ghost so idk

[happylittleghost]

I just love this sad gay man so much

[bearsinpotatosacks]

Funny how the ghosts line dance to achy breaky heart when we find out the captain died of a heart attack

[ghostsbestepisodetournament]

Parings are, once again, done by a random picker wheel, may the best episode win!! :)

[leftabit-leftabit]

Ahhh the Eps are already on iplayer!!!

[dnickels]

"The house is a character" goes without saying, on Ghosts and other shows about people trapped in an old crumbling house that hates them (by God, is that Julian Fellowes' music?), but Ghosts makes good use of the house as a site of contention. It is a very old pile of bricks and masonry in disrepair, that's what it is, but it means to various people-- who live in, who live around it-- is a much thornier issue. Robin, who predates it by millennia, doesn't really give a shit, and to Allison and Mike by the end of the first episode its a huge liability they would bulldoze if given the chance. A windfall, an asset, a stone around their necks etc. But to the people who lived there it was/is a world unto itself. We get to see just how much history that place has, which is a meaningless thing to say, because any square foot of Earth outside of Antarctica has untold millennia of human history, but its a history that's real and alive and present because people remember it, and live out that remembering.

Who does it belong to? Legally to Allison and Mike, by the vagaries of fortune and inheritance law. But what does it mean to try and share the place where you live, currently, with centuries of past inhabitants? The show makes the issue literal but its an ideological struggle that happens constantly when it comes to preservation. People do have to live. Not every beautiful old building can be preserved as it was forever with no changes or updates, although it doesn't stop me from wincing when a new block of 5 over 1s goes up. If you wanted to talk about the long arc of the show, its from episode one where the Ghosts can only watch in horror as the wrecking crew comes in to the last (penultimate?) episode where they make a negotiated peace with the idea of change. (I haven't! Not a golf course! Allison noooo its so bad for the environmeeeeent etc).

I am a little surprised the blue plaque issue got such a brusque treatment-- I was wondering when the Coopers would come up against whatever local heritage society objects to them putting in modern plumbing, or tearing out the old lathe-and-plaster, to say nothing of the government agencies who hand out historic protections etc. But on the other hand, maybe the history of the house feels "more important" than it is because we, the audience, got to experience it so closely. Yes it was the site of a duel, a witch-burning, a murder, a WW2-era weapons development project, a plot to murder Queen Elizabeth-- but so were lots of places. It's not, in the grand scheme of things, an especially important house and yet it means so much! What do you mean, Cap doesn't get a blue plaque for having a very minor homefront position from 1939-1945! What do you mean Fanny doesn't get a memorial for being pushed out a window! Those are my friends!

There could have been a season-arc about someone outside the house trying to 'save' it, make it into a museum etc, but maybe that would be a more byzantine and thorny issue than the half-hour penis joke format would allow. I do still cringe whenever they sell off pieces of 'the collection', or destroy a painting etc, but the point is that its not a collection-- its furniture. People are still living on it, using it, etc. i do hope that any future plans (in the canon of the show) include some kind of way for people to learn about the ghosts' stories-- Allison could write one hell of a book, though how she would source it is a nightmare to think about. But maybe its for the best that the house doesn't become a stagnant museum that's locked up at night. If nothing else, the ghosts would get bored again.