WMG / Ghosts (UK)

As a WMG subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Kitty has a crush on Thomas

The few times she shows irritation with someone (other than the Captain) is whenever Thomas is declaring his affections for Alison ("She's married, Thomas." in episode 1, and "You think every woman is the woman of your dreams." in episode 4). She stands up for him in the first episode, and is listening intently to his attempt to write a novel in episode 6.

• In series 3, she casts Alison, Mike and the current ghosts in the roles of figures from her past, with Alison as her sister, the Captain as her father, etc. Thomas is cast in the role of a man who wishes to ask her to dance at an upcoming ball.

Mike will try to contact the ghosts with a Ouija board

...which will have hilarious results as Julian's powers, coupled with the fact that the thing actually works, make the planchette rocket across the room.

• He does find an ritual online when he is tired of Alison being only able to talk to the ghosts. He does it and think he’s able to see and talk to the ghosts when he encounters an man who he thinks is Julian.

Alison and Mike's relationship...

...might be showing signs of a mild Happy Marriage Charade. I don't want to be that person, and happy marriages can have their ups and downs, but as of season 2 the relationship is showing signs that it might be in trouble soon if they're not careful.

On Mike's end, he made a big, financial decision without consulting Alison first back in series 1, which is a bit of a red flag especially in a long-term relationship. And while it could be argued that he only did it because Alison was in the hospital, he still should've waited until she was better. He's very insecure about his relationship with Alison, to the extent of getting jealous when her celebrity crush shows up, Facebook stalking her ex-boyfriend and almost ruining a wedding when he overhears that Alison may have had cold feet on their own wedding day. If their relationship was in its early stages then this wouldn't be unusual, but they're married and supposed to be in a long-term, committed relationship, and both jealous behaviour (even mild) and insecurities are usually a sign that something's wrong. He's also been upholding a lie that he's a black belt in Taekwondo, something he really should've admitted sooner.

On Alison's end, she's constantly assuring Mike that she loves him and he has nothing to worry about (which can get tiring after a while), she admits in series 2 that he started off as a rebound after her ex dumped her, and also has a drunken moment where she admits to Thomas that if they were the same age, he wasn't dead and she wasn't with Mike, something could have happened between them. Granted, she was drunk when she admitted this, but since alcohol removes inhibitions... If she was secure in her relationship with Mike, she wouldn't really be having thoughts like that.

If they communicate and work on it then they'll be totally fine. If not, Thomas might end up getting his wish...

• People who are secure in their relationships can still experience attraction to other people and think about how else their lives might have otherwise turned out, though. It’s a bit naïve to say that someone who’s happily married would never wonder about other possibilities. (Also Ymmv but my perception of it was that she was throwing him a bone to be friendly, not acting on actual attraction.)

Robin’s cause of death.

Struck by lightning. Explaining his ability to control electricity, which is unique to him and not a general ghost power. As well as being a perfectly plausible thing to happen in the Stone Age.

• Confirmed as of series 4.

The ghosts' powers are Personality Powers tied to their obsessions, and the others each have a power they haven't discovered yet, related to their personalities.

• Robin - Nothing else catches Robin's attention quite like people making fire in front of him, and electric light is, in a way, the ultimate expression of control over a force which makes heat and light.
• Fanny - She spent her marriage wanting attention from her husband, and died just as she discovered why she never got it. Well, we see that she can get more attention than anyone else by showing up on camera.
• Julian - Even now, he's focused upon what little influence he can have over the living world.
• Mary - Does it need to be said? She's still haunted by the circumstances of her death.
• Jemima - She died of the very plague that her super-scary, audible-to-the-living, nursery rhyme is all about.
  • Then why aren't all the plague ghosts audible to living people who have never been close to death?
  • Actually, "Ring-A-Ring-A-Roses" being about the Black Death (or the Great Plague of London) is an urban legend - the first attestation of the nursery rhyme was centuries after the Black Death (and the Great Plague).

Admittedly, the only thing I can think for other powers at the moment is that Kitty might be able to possess Alison (implied due to her obsession with her?).

Alison's family.

Given that the house went straight to her instead of her parents, we can probably assume that they're dead - or at the very least, the parent related to Heather Button is dead. And since she has no one to invite over for Christmas, then she was either an only child or any younger siblings she has are estranged from her (and if one parent is still alive, then they're estranged from her, too).

• Confirmed as of season 3. Her father (who's related to the Buttons) died when she was very young, and her mother died more recently. She's also an only child since the half-sister who turns up on her doorstep is an unrelated woman trying to scam her.

Kitty's death

Supplementary material implies that someone engineered her demise. Because she puked in series 2, there are theories that she was poisoned. In series 3, it's revealed that her father planned on giving her equal inheritance to her sister, despite her sister, Eleanor, demanding most of it (if not all of it) because she's their father's real daughter. Conclusion? Eleanor poisoned Kitty so she could get all of the inheritance.

• The fact that Eleanor deliberately gives her food poisoning in one scene adds weight to this.
• Jossed as of Season 5. Even though the other ghosts suspect Eleanor, it turns out that Kitty died of a spider bite. However one of the symptoms of being bitten by a poisonous spider can include vomiting.

Mary's Witch Trial wasn't an official trial

As is pointed out in the main section there are a couple of historical inaccuracies in the series, which is unusual given who's making it. One is that Mary was burnt at the stake when witches in England were hanged, the other is that Humphrey was wearing a full suit of clothes rather than just the usual shirt when he was beheaded. Episode 1 of the third series reveals that Humphrey lost his head in a freak accident rather than a formal execution so perhaps Mary's death was the result of the 17th century equivalent of a lynch mob, lynchings by burning being unfortunately very much Truth in Television .

• Alternatively: Mary was also charged with something else for which burning WAS the punishment, most likely petty treason (the mid 17th century is a bit late for heresy, and if she was burned for a HIGH treason / witchcraft combo her story would probably be well known). An especially tragic aspect of this theory is that petty treason would have been a possible charge if she were thought to have killed her husband, as she seems in fact to have loved him and been devastated by his death.
• There is a radical possibility. She was accused of witchcraft but, oddly enough, the adjudicator acquitted her, which would then lead to the accusers taking the matter into their own hands.

Heather Button

It sounds pretty farfetched that the ghosts (apart from Pat and Julian) had never seen a TV before, especially after we see Heather Button using an (albeit old) mobile phone in a flashback during series 3 (meaning that she wasn't against using technology). But since Julian stated his family had three/four homes, then someone as wealthy as Heather probably had multiple homes too, and she only used Button House for events (which she was doing in the flashback). It's possible that as she got older, she sold the other homes and retreated to Button House, and probably didn't bother bringing a TV with her. It's also possible that she'd gone bankrupt by the end of her life, which would explain why she was living in such an old house (which hadn't had any work done) instead of a care home, and also why Alison only inherited the house and not any money.

Why some people remain as ghosts while others move on

From what we've learned of the circumstances surrounding the ghosts' deaths, there's a key link — trauma. Fanny, Patrick, Thomas, Mary, Julian, Humphrey and the plague ghosts in the cellar all died in violent or traumatic circumstances, plus there are hints that Kitty was poisoned. By contrast, Lady Helen Button died peacefully in her sleep and immediately moved on.

• Jossed. In the Button House Archives, it says that it happens at random.

Humphrey gave Robin his name

As Robin probably isn't a common caveman name someone had start using it when talking to Button House's Budget Tarzan. Humphrey's the most likely candidate for a few reasons, he's the oldest ghost we know of to encounter Robin and as a Tudor nobleman he wouldn't have been aware of the idea of cavemen, so he took Robin to be some sort of forest sprite and named him after Robin Goodfellow.

• We have no way of knowing what names "cavemen" were given, and what languages they spoke, so there is no reason to assume that "Robin" cannot be a "caveman name". Assuming that Robin is Homo sapiens, his people would have been able to make the full range of sounds modern humans can, so there is no reason his language couldn't have the phonetic complexity of any language today. "Robin" may mean something completely different in his language, but there is no reason it couldn't have been a word in his language.
• Perhaps Robin was named after the bird in his native language, and "Robin" is a translation into English, a name he chose once he had learned enough English.
• In Season 4, we learn that Robin called himself "Ro" at the time of Mary and Annie's death. This was the name by which Humphrey referred to Robin at the time, so it is likely that this was Robin's original name. Humphrey suggested that "Ro" "must be short for something", so it is likely he came up with the name "Robin" shortly afterward.

Humphrey has been more influenced by the living than the other ghosts

Despite being the oldest ghost after Robin and the plague victims, Humphrey is remarkably modern in his language and attitudes compared to the others. We see that he's often neglected by the other ghosts, and that he's very observant: he's probably spent a lot of time watching and listening to the living, and absorbed changes in both social outlook and speech patterns.

The ghosts have a sixth sense for when someone in the house or on the grounds is about to die

That’s why they’re so often seen clustered around the dying person in flashbacks

The final episode will feature Alison and Mike biting the dust, presumably after having their own children or heirs.

The final scene of the series will be set a few generations later when a new owner comes to Button Manor.

• Jossed — the series ends with Alison and Mike selling Button House and moving out, and returning many years later (when both of them have gone grey) as regular guests to Button House, now a hotel. The two of them do have a child, who was a baby when they sold Button House.

The regular characters will meet another person who can see ghosts

There will be an episode where someone visits Button House for a wedding or other event and walks in on Alison having a conversation with Julian, who will only be visible to the other person from the waist up, apologize for interrupting to ask a question and accidentally reveal that they had a near death experience allows them to see ghosts like Allison, but they've learnt to hide it so as not to be constantly pestered by the dead.

• And the other person will be played by Rose McIver
  • The character will actually be Sam from the US series
• Confirmed, though this happens in the 2023 Children In Need special rather than the main series (so the canonicity of this incident may be debatable). It is Kylie Minogue, played by herself, who can see ghosts, following a head injury. She arrives at Button House as part of a music festival being held there.

Series 5 will introduce a new ghost to replace Mary

A visitor to Button House will die while on the premises and be stuck there as a ghost, with a story line how they cope with being dead and how the other ghosts cope with having someone new and contemporary to Allison and Mike.

• Or somehow Button Manor will expand their land and a ghost from centuries back will arrive.
• Maybe the field where Maddox is.
• Or Julian's worry will come true when Barclay comes over and dies of a heart attack.

More than simply recovering from being close to death is needed to see and hear ghosts.

If simply experiencing trauma that leaves one comatose, then making a recovery, is enough for one to see ghosts, the phenomenon ought to be widely documented in the medical literature and become common knowledge. Therefore, there ought to be something else in the process that makes information about people who can truly see and hear ghosts so difficult to come by due to the extreme scarcity of documented cases, leaving scope for widespread scepticism about the existence of ghosts and misconceptions about methods to see/detect ghosts.

• Ghosts need to have directly been responsible for the near-death trauma, as when Julian pushes Alison out of the window. Ghosts who can directly interact with the physical world - as Julian can - are very, very rare, so it checks out.

Houses like Button Manor exist all over the world

We saw the house in America, so it stands that there are many others across the world.

• Australia: An ancient Aborigine, a British sailor from Captain Cook's expedition, a convict, a prospector, a soldier from WWI/WWII and a Ten Pound Pom.
• Japan: A Jomon, a Yayoi, a Buddhist monk, a daimyo, a persecuted Christian, a disgraced samurai, victims of the Great Kanto earthquake (akin to the plague pit) and a Tokyo businessman.
• France: A caveman, a Gaul, a soldier who fought under Charles Martel, soldiers who died during the Hundred Years' War (who live in the basement), a Huguenot who died in similar circumstances to Humphrey, an eighteenth century peasant, an aristocrat fleeing the Reign of Terror, an SOE agent and a mime.
• West Coast of America: A Native American, a Spanish missionary, a fur-trapper, a Chinese railroad worker, a Mexican, a gold panner, victims of the Oregon trail and/or Okies (who live in the shed), a failed Hollywood star and disgraced executive.
• Egypt (possibly only a piece of land): A murdered relation of a Pharaoh, slaves or farmers (similar to the plague pit), an ancient priest, an ancient priestess, a Roman soldier, a Coptic priest, a Barbary pirate murdered by slaves he took from West Africa or Europe, a harem slave, a Napoleonic soldier and an archaeologist.
• Mexico: An Olmec warrior, a Mayan, an Aztec, a member of Cortes' expedition, a Jesuit, a bandito, a soldier who died in the Texas Revolution of 1836, a flamenco dancer and a politician who was involved with drug smuggling..
• Iraq: A Sumerian, A Babylonian put to death under Hammurabi's Code, An Assyrian Warrior, an Islamic Scholar, An Achamedian Dancer, A village that was drone striked (similar to the plague pit), and a man beheaded by ISIS.
• Canada: A Metis, a Viking, a Canadian mounted police officer, residential school children (similar to the plague pit), a fur trapper, a captain during the war of 1812, a failed Quebec nationalist, a man who choked on maple syrup or Tim Hortons, and a disgraced hockey player.
• Ireland/Northern Ireland: A person blown up by the IRA, a Celtic warrior, a village devastated during the conquest of Ireland under Oliver Cromwell (similar to the plague pit), a Norman Knight, a person beheaded for starting an uprising against Elizabeth I, a Ulster County plantation owner,a slimy Irish MP, and an Irish nun
• New Zealand: A Maori, a member of an expedition, a settler in the New Zealand Company, a farmer trampled by sheep, a suffragist, a soldier, a miner and a hobo who died during COVID.

Robin's tribe were already the last of their kind when he was alive.

Consider: Robin's brain is too primitive to fully master speech. Combine that with his facial structure and pale skin, and it's a near certainty that he's at least part Neanderthal. (Thanks to genetic studies, we now know that the first modern humans in Britain were dark-skinned; the first post-Neanderthal people with pale skin were Neolithic farmers vastly more advanced than Robin.) Yet he died within sight of a stone circle - which weren't built until the Neolithic, thousands of years after the Neanderthals were supplanted. His isolated tribe must have survived in the wild all that time. He was already an ancient throwback before he was a ghost.

The plague victim played by Lolly Adefope came from abroad.

There were no black peasants in the British Isles during that time period. She may have been part of a foreign household that visited the area and was left behind.

In the final scene when a much older Alison visits the ghosts in the now-hotel Button House, Julian had recently moved on.

When she asks the ghosts what has been going on, a reply of "Julian..." amidst giggles can be heard. The ghosts and Alison never really liked Julian, so perhaps they're happy that he is no longer there.