The encounter lasts mere seconds for him, but after Barbara rescues him, she tells him he was gone for two hours. After discovering a Handbook for the Recently Deceased and noticing they now lack reflections, the couple realizes that they drowned in the river and are ghosts. The house is sold to New York real estate developer Charles Deetz and his second wife Delia, a talentless sculptor. Charles’s teenage goth daughter, Lydia, lives with them. Under the guidance of interior designer Otho Fenlock, Delia begins renovating the house with a new-wave aesthetic of postmodern art. While consulting the Handbook on how to eject the Deetzes, the Maitlands see an advertisement for “Betelgeuse”.