In Free Pass, Thomas says he had a dream where he had the body of a crab. At first just sounds like random gibberish, but when you look up the meaning of seeing crabs in dreams, that would imply that he has a lot of tenacity, but is very emotionally clingy.
Robin's claim that everyone is descended from him and his sister is given new context in a later episode, when he reveals that since no one was monogamous in his time, no one knew for sure who their fathers were. It's possible he didn't know he was related to his sister until after they had children. Or, given that they all grew up together, he may have simply regarded all of his tribe's women as "sisters," regardless of genetics.
Isabelle's name is misspelled in "her" letter to Thomas. Francis Button not only didn't love Isabelle, he didn't even care enough about her to learn how her name was spelled.
Mary's Cloudcuckoolander traits can be an explanation as to why she was burned as a witch. Considering her odd way of thinking and viewing things - such as imagining the guests in the Thomas Thorne Affair as literally floating around and have wine pouring out of their ears - her behaviour would have made her a target among her suspicious peers who can claim her oddness as a sign of witchcraft and/or heresy.
Confirmed in season 4; a flashback to a few weeks before Mary's death outright shows two men discussing how she will make a good candidate for a witchcraft accusation because of her being a bit odd and living alone.
Why doesn't Pat remove the arrow from his neck? Well, he's probably already tried to, but as shown with Thomas trying to discard the letter only for it to keep going back into his pocket, it most likely re-appeared back there.
Robin insists that Christmas is "just a fad" that will turn into something else in time. It makes sense why he would think that; he's been around for a lot longer than Christianity, and has seen many traditions and celebrations come and go, including several previous incarnations of the celebration that is now called Christmas.
As of "The Thomas Thorne Affair" it is officially confirmed that ghosts are not necessarily stuck on Earth forever but canmove on, even though they have no control over the process. So that explains what happened to the ghost pigeon!
In fact, once an animal ghosts needs of hunger and complete safety from predators are met by virtue of being dead, it's probably no time at all before they're ready to be sucked off.
The Captain's repressed sexuality makes a lot of sense when you consider how homophobic Britain was during the world wars. Indeed, master codebreaker Alan Turing was infamously convicted for being gay despite his leading the team that helped Britain secure their victory in World War II.
It also explains why he got excited at the same sex marriage at Button House. It’s revealed that he died in the same room as the wedding. At the time of his death he couldn't publicly admit his feelings to Havers, who was at his side. He is finally seeing gay love being accepted and celebrated.
Half Brilliant, half Horrible—Kitty bawls her eyes out when they throw out her stuffed "Bunty Bear" after her death, despite being a full-grown woman by that point. While it's played off as Kitty being over emotional over small things, children who were emotionally neglected often cling to stuffed animals and other comfort items well after their more well-adjusted peers. Kitty's background, with no living mother figure and a sister who was backhanded at best and downright malicious at worst, would naturally lead to her seeking comfort elsewhere. She wasn't just watching them bin her things, she was watching them destroy a friend (like Florence the statue).
One of the tell-tale signs that the Captain is retelling Thomas’ duel is the pistols are suddenly firing multiple rounds. During Captain’s life guns were already capable of firing multiple rounds but during Thomas’s time, guns were only able to fire one shot before it needs to be reloaded.
Thomas being spooked by a toaster gets a new understanding when you realised that it came from behind and sounds similar to gunshot. “The Thomas Thorne Affair” reveals that he was shot from behind. It implies that sudden loud noises from behind him is a PTSD trigger. Julian reassuring him that is just a toaster isn't telling him that it's just an object that didn’t exist in his time, it's reassuring Thomas that it is not a gun.
Pat is shown to be the driving force behind such things as the talk on basket-weaving that Mary gives, and Kitty's description of the first time she ate an egg. Being a scout leader, he would be one to organize events to pass the time, something all the ghosts have plenty of.
In Season 5, the ghosts all start to panic when they realise they're facing a long eternity if they're already bored of everything. One might wonder why they haven't faced that problem before now, particularly Humphrey, Thomas and Kitty, but then you remember that during the time they've spent as ghosts, and up until fairly recently, Button House always had plenty of living people resident; even as late as the early 1990s Heather Button was still hosting conventions and other events, so there were usually lots of things for the ghosts to watch and comment on. It isn't until the last few years, when Heather essentially became a hermit and let the house fall into decay, that the ghosts had to resort to entertaining themselves.
The Captain feeling grateful when Pat gives him the teamwork award badge gets a new understanding when it’s revealed that badges he wears were actually stolen in order for him to gatecrash the Button House VE Day celebration. The imaginary badge he receives from Pat is the only one he had truly received.
Kitty and Thomas are obsessed with Alison because they want her to be the woman they truly never had in life. It is also a coping mechanism to deal with the trauma they had in life. For Thomas, he wants a woman who would love him since he was robbed of a life with Isabelle and had died believing that he was unloved. For Kitty, she wants a loving and caring sister since her sister in life Eleanor was abusive. Although Eleanor later regretted her unkindness, it was too late as Kitty was most likely unconscious due to being bitten by a poisonous spider. It is also noteworthy that Alison bears somewhat of a resemblance to Isabelle and Eleanor. Coincidentally, Alison is also related to Eleanor and Isabelle.
It makes perfect sense for Julian to make the apology to Alison after he accidentally disclosed that he pushed her out of the window. He was the one that started the chain of events that turned his and the rest of ghosts’ afterlife around.
Thomas bowing before he dances in “About Last Night” gets a new understanding, if you know about dancing etiquette of the Regency era. During this time period, you would bow or curtsey to your dance partner before you start dancing. It is a subtle way showing that he is still a man of his time.
One of the first ghosts that Alison sees outside of Button House is a Victorian nanny walking a pram. The thing that killed her probably took the baby too.
Not one of the ghosts we have seen has been in pyjamas or any kind of bedclothes. Every single one of them died awake.
"Ya killed my kids, mate". A quick throwaway line, but much sadder seeing as Jemima is the only child to be seen among the plague ghosts. That means that a) if the villagers had children before they died, they've been separated from them for centuries and may never see them again even in death, and b) Jemima's similarly been separated from her family with no end in sight.
Jemima herself is full of fridge horror. Why has she, a child, stayed behind as a ghost? What possible unfinished business could she have?
All of the other ghosts are adults, and have each other for company—between her age and creepiness, Jemima has nobody to call a true friend. For centuries.
The ghosts stay where they died, yet the plague ghosts haunt the site of the plague pit. This would suggest they weren't dead when they were buried.
The Horror is softened if we assume "where they died" just means the general property, and they hang around their bones as a comfort thing or force of habit. They are able to go upstairs, which proves they are free to roam, just prefer not to. This suggests they probably didn’t get buried until after death.
Alison is lucky that the only ghost she saw at the hospital was of a doctor; chances are it also has some ghosts of patients who died there of any number of gruesome injuries or illnesses.
It's best not to think too hard about the aftermath of Pat's death. All of those kids probably needed serious therapy after seeing their scout master die in front of them, especially the kid who accidentally shot him. Not to mention the repercussions the kid could face for it (he's a minor and it was an accident, but it's doubtful that the incident would be swept under the rug). The boy, Keith, shows up in the last episode of series 2. He's still feeling guilty about causing Pat's death, to the extent that just while at Button House, he starts drinking heavily.
Thomas' cousin, Francis Button, ended up marrying Isabelle and inheriting Button House, formerly Higham House. They would have had children, a family and an entire life together at Button House...and Thomas, unable to leave the place he died, would have had to watch his cousin live the life Thomas would have had with the woman he loved.
Kitty mentioned that Francis and Isabelle's son returned to the house, implying the two wedded and raised their family elsewhere. It's possible that she fled her own house since she had been devastated by Thomas' death and couldn't stand the place where he had been killed. This could explain why Thomas never saw Isabelle's devastation at his death and thought for centuries she no longer loved him. This could also account as to why Thomas did not harbour hate for Francis all this time; the Buttons may have simply opted to raise their family elsewhere, sparing him from watching his cousin snatch away the woman he loved.
Robin died at least ten thousand years ago, and until a) the plague victims' village and b) Button House were built and someone died there, he presumably had almost no one to talk to. It's no wonder he's a little divorced from reality. Though since it's revealed that there have been other ghosts who have come and gone, it's possible he did have others to talk to who have just moved on. However, that raises the point that he himself still hasn't moved on after all these years.
The girl ghost who died while hitchhiking is still trapped on the side of the road where she was murdered. The fact that she knows she was murdered means she remembers her (likely violent) death, and she can't tell anyone except Alison what happened to her.
From how calmly she asks if Alison died due to hitchhiking it's possible that she did have some company all this while and they had either moved on or are doing things elsewhere. The horror is just how many unfortunate ghosts were murdered while hitchhiking for that girl to be so blasé about finding random company by the road side?
(Somewhat) Less horrifically, there are likely multiple reasons why ghosts might find themselves outdoors beyond being murdered hitchhikers — there's a good chance there's been some kind of battle there at some point, for example.
Fanny introduces herself as the late Lady Button's great-grandmother, meaning she and her husband had children at the point where he murdered her (given Fanny's age and Lady Button's age, several years adult children, but still).
In "He Came" the 2021 Christmas episode, we find out that Fanny was part of an arranged marriage with Lord Button, in order to keep her family out of poverty. Most likely, she felt it was part of her duty to have children as part of being a good wife, as she has the attitude of the times.
Ghosts seem to have incredibly good memories, being able to clearly remember events from hundreds, even thousands of years ago (Thomas can even remember when he was a baby). So people like Mary who suffered greatly before they died may never be able to fully overcome the agony and terror of their last moments.
Robin, of all people, disliking the idea of sleeping outside sounds absurd at first. But back when he was alive, there were all sorts of predators roaming around (wolves, bears, big cats, etc.) that would make it very unsafe. He even mentions that a wolf attacked his cousin and his mother had her face bitten off by one.
To add more heartbreak to Kitty's backstory, the fact that she's black while the rest of her adopted family are white could mean that a lot of her sister's cruelty could have been motivated by racism.
Eleanor starts off played by someone Kitty knows and loves (Alison) and is very kind—when the flashback changes to what really happened, she's played by a different actress, and is far crueller. The thing is, she isn't the only member of Kitty's family in the flashback. Given Kitty imagines her kind and fair father as the Captain up until he becomes angry with her, it's possible that he, too, was just as cruel as Eleanor and Kitty's mind refuses to accept it.
Though that would imply she made up the entire scenario of getting equal inheritance as her sister and being allowed to wear her mother's old dress, both of which her sister obviously objected to in the real memories. It's more likely that her father was still kind to her (if not as kind as she remembers) and did treat her equally, but it's also possible that this incident may have driven a wedge between them.
Kitty says Isabelle Higham and Francis Button had a son who "came back to live" at Button House. With the emphasis Francis put on inheriting the house when he and Thomas first arrive, it seems strange that he and Isabelle wouldn't have lived there themselves.
It could be that Isabelle simply did not want to live there anymore and left the house after Thomas' untimely death. The Highams were wealthy, so it's possible they both stayed at a different house before their son chose to return.
Given that property often passed through a male line, while wealth could be passed to daughters, it's possible that they never would have lived at Higham House (Thomas apparently didn't intend to). They had a life elsewhere, funded by her father's money, but when Isabelle's father's heir died, the house passed to the next male in the family, George Button. Francis may have been dreaming of being that wealthy rather than specifically wanting to live at Higham.
, that would imply that he has a lot of tenacity, but is very emotionally clingy.