Kushnir, who is a staff writer with Cards Against Humanity and directed the pilot, has described the series as "Ghost Hunters meets The Office", and it's certainly an apt description; Ghost Squad manages to balance a downright spoof of those night-vision laden reality shows with a charming and oftentimes hilarious workplace comedy. It may seem like an odd-pairing, but the inherent absurdity in the world of paranormal investigation and a cast of likable, comedic oddballs makes for the perfect Halloween treat.
Joining Desperado are all of the ghost hunting mainstays; there's Sendrick X (Peter Kim), who had a near-death experience and is now a self-professed "psychic bad boy;" Wind Larmer (co-writer Carley Moseley), a corporate motivational speaker who uses her boardroom banter to reason with the spirits; Frank Fanning (Damian Anaya) a cryptic-zoologist who likes spiders; and the Dinkel Twins (Jo Feldman and Neil Jacobsen), a pair of "medium-clairvoyents" who were bullied as children for offering complimentary tea-leaf readings.
The team has assembled to rid a mansion in Glencoe, IL of its ghastly inhabitants. In a pitch-perfect reenactment, we are told the story of a wealthy suburban housewife who discovers her husband has been having an affair with his male tennis instructor. In a fit of rage, she poisons her husband, the tennis pro, and every guest at her elaborate dinner party. Tragically, her children snuck some of the brandy she used to enact her revenge, and they meet the same fate. And oh, she killed the dog too.
And so, the misfit investigators bumble through the mansion, seeking proof of the afterlife, and attempting to bring peace to the wayward spirits still stuck in our world. Kushnir and Moseley have a keen observational and absurdist eye, demonstrated in lines like "Furniture is just one of the hazards of a job conducted entirely in the dark", and most notably, in a wacky "non-denominational" exorcism late in the pilot that serves to really bring the team together.
Ghost Squad is a love letter to the befuddled paranormal investigators of reality TV and the mockumentary-style comedy of the Office and Parks and Recreation. An official selection of the New York Television Festival, the pilot was officially released this week. Watch at Vimeo or below:
https://vimeo.com/258640220
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