Ghosts S4E11 “Thorapy 2: Abandonment Issues” – A Quiet Easing

Spoilers ahead for Season 4, Episode 11 of Ghosts (CBS) — “Thorapy 2: Abandonment Issues.” Read gently.

Some episodes unfold like punchlines. Others, like quiet exhalations. This one is the latter.

After more than a thousand years of waking each day with a hollow in his chest, Thor finally finds language for his pain—and it comes not through conquest, but therapy. The setup is absurd (a Viking ghost in emotional group counseling), but the ache beneath it is real. He was left behind by his shipmates. Forgotten. That wound has been festering since the medieval era.

He jokes that he’s had “two sessions in four years,” but the numbers are crueler than that: He’s been suffering every year for a millennium. To even begin to heal from that—to speak it aloud—is a triumph all its own.

And then Pete steps forward. Pete, the ghost most often dismissed or gently pitied, is the one who risks everything—crossing the boundary of the property to find Thor’s old crewmates in the afterlife and learn the truth. That’s no small thing. Ghosts who go out of bounds begin to fade, and Pete goes knowing that. His bravery isn’t loud. It’s quiet, relational, selfless.

It turns out Thor wasn’t abandoned out of cruelty, but by mistake—a miscount caused by helmet confusion. And while the cause is almost comedic, the effect is anything but. He was carrying that betrayal for a thousand years, and with one act of kindness, it begins to lift.

That’s the heart of the episode: the pain we carry when we don’t know the full story… and the people who help us find peace anyway.

And still—Thor doesn’t move on.

If that was his final tether, we might have seen the light. But we don’t. Which tells us: there’s something else. Something deeper. His pain is layered. This was a wound, not the wound.

The episode doesn’t try to explain it all. It just opens the door a little wider.

Even the joke about how long therapy takes becomes unexpectedly poignant in that light. Thor’s soul doesn’t shift with a single insight or revelation. But the ground underneath him settles. There’s less weight now. Less fear in the night. He may not be ready for release, but he’s finally stopped bracing for the next blow.

Not every episode needs a twist or a tear. Sometimes, it’s enough to witness a soul easing—gently, believably, toward something like healing.

To return to the episode index, please click here.