Halloween "Classic" Recap: Ghosted: "Bee-Mo"

“Duct-taping you to the seat was legitimately my pleasure.”
-Leroy

“Ghosted” is one of only two new shows (along with “The Mayor”) that I’ve been watching this season. I wouldn’t say it’s a spectacular show, but it’s got a fun premise (two guys get recruited to help investigate supernatural happenings), and I’ve been a big Adam Scott fan for quite some time, so I’ve found it enjoyable enough. I think some rearranging the episode order hijinks were going on, because this Halloween episode was the second episode of the show to be broadcast, and it aired in early October. Although, since the show airs on FOX, the World Series could also have played a role in the scheduling. As longtime (are there any of you out there?) readers of MTVP know, I’m a big fan of Halloween and Halloween episodes of television, so I certainly wasn’t going to complain about getting a Halloween episode super early in a show’s run. Plus, the episode did some good work deepening the character of Leroy, who is played by Craig Robinson, aka Doug Judy on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. And there were werewolves! Sort of. More like werecats, I guess.

One thing I do really enjoy about “Ghosted” is the 80’s vibe they try to have going on sometimes. The soundtrack to this episode opens on “Power of Love” from “Back to the Future.” One of my happiest memories is dancing to this song with two of my closest friends, one of whom has since moved out of state, by the dock in the town where I live on New Year’s Eve 2015 (aka the beginning of the “Future” from the movies), so the song holds a special meaning for me. Anyway, the song is playing as Leroy and Max are driving to work, with Max droning on about how great his week has been and how excited he is to be working at the Bureau Underground. Then he asks Leroy about his Halloween plans. Leroy is planning on taking Jermaine, the son of his late LAPD partner, Trick-or-Treating. Max manages to passive aggressively guilt Leroy into extending him an invite, too.

Meanwhile, the Bureau gets word of a creature with glowing eyes and fangs (the aforementioned werecat, although they don’t know that yet), and they need to put a team on it. Since it’s Halloween, there are all sorts of paranormal things happening, and they’re understaffed. Leroy and Max are the only team available for the assignment. Leroy isn’t happy about this considering his Trick-or-Treating plans, but he doesn’t really have a choice. The guys pick up Jermaine, who really just wants Leroy to drop him off at a party being thrown by a girl he likes. First, though, he has to tag along while Max and Leroy investigate their new assignment. They start hunting around a warehouse, and Leroy tells Jermaine to stay in the car. Of course Jermaine doesn’t stay in the car, and he tries to pick up a cat he sees hiding between some boxes. The cat bites him, so Jermaine gives up. Next thing we know, Jermaine has glowy eyes, and he kicks the door to the car open and runs off.

Max and Leroy start looking for Jermaine, and they realize that the cat back at the warehouse must have been what infected him. They call the situation in to HQ, where LeFray gives some directions on what to do next in the middle of putting out multiple other fires. Max and Leroy track Jermaine to the house where the Halloween party he wanted to go to is taking place, and LeFoy tells Annie and Barry to meet them there with a whole bunch of tranquilizing weapons. They’re going to bring everybody infected to HQ for testing and hopefully a cure. Jermaine is indeed at the house. He gave the girl he likes quite the scare when he started foaming at the mouth. When Max and Leroy check out the house, the girl is infected now, too, and she tries to attack Leroy. Leroy holds her back with a table while Max knocks her out with a vase (he understandably had some hesitation about knocking out a child). They go into the next room and find that all of the kids have been infected, and the hightail it out of that house as fast as they can.

Outside, Max and Leroy meet up with Annie and the weapons truck, and they gear up to go back inside. Max tells Annie that if he makes it through this, she owes him a really stiff Midori sour. Annie then makes fun of Max’s drink choices, which I think is totally justified. As they are about to enter the house, Leroy says that Jermaine used to call him “Bee-Mo,” which is short for “Beast Mode,” hence the title of this episode. The fight in the house actually goes mostly okay. Leroy manages to tranq a bunch of kids easily, of course. Max is less successful. Jermaine jumps Leroy, and Max wastes four darts unsuccessfully trying to stop Jermaine. Jermaine leaves the house, and Max has to stab the mom of the house with a dart while Leroy has to shoot Jermaine before he can infect some more Trick-or-Treating kids. Jermaine’s mom even called in the middle of the whole mess. Eventually, though, all the infected are successfully loaded into the van.

As Max and Leroy are driving back to HQ, Max starts to feel a little funny. He feels warm, and just not well in general. Leroy ends up duct taping him to the seat of the car in case he’s infected. It turns out, though that Leroy is the one infected, and when his eyes start glowing, it becomes the car ride from Hell. Leroy, who isn’t infected after all, tries to steer the car with his feet. Eventually, they do crash, although not at high speed. At that point, Annie shows up and tranqs Leroy. Back at HQ, everyone who was affected is recovering nicely, even Jermaine, although he’s taking a little longer to recover than the rest, considering he was infected first. On the car ride home, Jermaine and Leroy have a heart-to-heart while Max pretends to be listening to his ear buds. Leroy says he’s always going to try and protect Jermaine, because he promised Jermaine’s father that he would. Jermaine is grateful for Leroy, but he misses his dad. Then he calls Leroy “Bee-Mo” again. Max thinks this is adorable, and he tries to join in, but Leroy and Jermaine aren’t having it.