Pete was a scoutmaster who died in the eighties from an arrow to the neck, and that is by far the most interesting thing about him. Thus making him, the most inoffensive of the ghosts to modern sensibilities. Notice how I said inoffensive not good. Yeah remember that, because I’m probably going to come back to it later loudly.

But in the mean time I want to take a moment to note that I don’t hate Pete as a character in of himself. When he’s not being forced to act as mouthpiece to the current chosen Aesop of the story, he does show some potential. I quite enjoyed his conflict in an episode of season 1 with Flower, when he excludes her from watching basketball with him because she’s a girl and has to get a swift kick in the rear to learn the error of his ways. I also really enjoy that when the focus of the writing is more on getting a laugh instead of delivering a ‘meaningful message’ Pete’s relentless cheerfulness is characterised more as a flaw, bordering on psychological issue than it is something to aspire to.

But this depiction is certainly not consistent, and eventually the laughter stops and we have to have our moral shovelled down our throats. If it sounds like I resent this storytelling tactic on principle it’s because I do. It makes me feel like the writer is talking down to me, as if the audience hasn’t been trusted enough to pick up on the argument the episode was making already – we had to have it carefully explained to us. This does not make me like Pete, but so long as I don’t find the moral he’s vomiting up repugnant I can just about manage him. For instance while I didn’t like or need Pete explaining to Sas that he has to trust his partner, because there are no signs if someone is cheating – having caught onto that point with the rest of the storyline – it didn’t make me want to punch him repeatedly in the face.

And then we get episodes like “The Perfect Assistant”.

Most of that episode is fine, I just want to say before I get too carried away with this. It’s a funny story about Sam and Jay hiring their first employee, him having a ghost in his car and them then worrying that he may be a murderer. No, my issue stands with the subplot in the episode, involving Thor, his *spoiler* adult son Bjorn who lives as a ghost in the next house over, and Pete. Flower is there as well, but she mainly just offers support from the sidelines. The short explanation is Bjorn is getting bullied by one of the other ghosts in his house and he seeks advice from his father for help with the situation. After thinking it over for a bit Thor decides that he will tell his son to fight back against his bully – referred to as ‘bullying back’ by the episode, gee I wonder which side is going to be wrong – while Pete councils hard against this tactic. Stating that there’s only one way to deal with bullying , and that is for Bjorn to tell the bully that she’s hurting his feelings.

Okay, so I’m neither a parent, nor a teacher, so I’m going to try and be careful with my wording here – as I don’t want to shit on anyone’s actual experience with this sort of thing . Having said that, let’s unpack this. First I think we can all agree that stating there is only one way to handle a social situation – any social situation – is objective nonsense. We as a people are so varied in both our circumstances and our world views that to apply a one size fits all mode of conduct to our social situations, is like saying we should all dress alike, or we should all talk the same language, or think the same thoughts. Stupid, and unattainable, even by the assholes that try to enforce it. However, even putting that fact aside Pete’s advice to Thor and his son is flawed for one major reason. That is, it assumes that the bullying is either accidental or that the perpetrator does not fully understand how deeply their actions are effecting their victim. Look, I am in no way saying this can’t occur, but denying the very real possibility that some bullies want to hurt their victims is both stupid and dangerous. And because this is coming from Pete, it makes it seem like this is the message the writers want us to take away from the conflict.

[I’m not implying Thor’s advice was the correct choice either, but as it is clearly positioned as the wrong choice in the conflict – it’s downsides are surprisingly not relevant either to this post’s argument or the episode’s].

Indeed, it is Pete’s advice that works for Bjorn not Thor’s, who is then forced to endure a very emotionally cruel conversation where Pete compares him with his own emotionally distant father, who never understood him and his needs as a shy quiet, kid. Ignoring the very real circumstances of Thor’s and Bjorn’s estrangement, in that Thor died when Bjorn was a baby – and now even in death parent and child are kept apart by the mystical boundary of the property line. You remember I said Pete being inoffensive was not the same as him being good, or even kind, yeah this is a good example of that. I’d imagined a less self obsessed version of Pete would have been able to express his concern without dumping all of his baggage on someone who thought they were his friend. Particularly when that friend’s pain – the pain of not being able to be there when their child was growing up due to an early death – should have been something Pete understood. For he too died young, while his daughter was still a child. But nope, that would require validation of any of Thor’s feelings and he’s currently busy in his role as designated straw-man of this argument, so we can’t have that.

Notice that once again the main issue with this storyline – putting aside the ridiculousness of tackling a bullying asop as if they’re talking about it happening to children, when it’s not even a kids show – is Pete’s designated role as moral centre of the show. If he wasn’t and he pulled something like this – projected his father onto Thor – it would be an interesting storyline. We could explore just how much that comparison was warranted, or whether it was simply brought on by superficial similarities between the two centuries apart men? How does this affect Thor’s and Pete’s relationship going forward? But because Pete must never be wrong – at least when the writers decide they want to teach the audience something – what we get instead is a lecture. Without the potential for a character to be wrong , nothing interesting can happen.

Which is a shame, because as we see in his British Counterpart – a character like Pete can be great when they’re allowed to be a character rather than just a mouthpiece.

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