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'Ghost Whisperer': Daddy's Home
Melinda is hot on the trail of the mystery number given to her at the end of last week. She shows it to Payne, who puts a hyphen before the 1979 part and explains that it's a court case number. Turns out it was a case Melinda's father Tom Gordon prosecuted when she was nine. A man strangled a young boy, and he represented the boy's family.
Melinda goes to see the family of the murdered boy, and asks what they may know of Tom and perhaps even his disappearance. During her visit, she sees the ghost of the boy, Michael, and she's not the only one. His mom knows he haunts the house, and is all in favor of it. As she says, "he may live differently, but he lives, and that's not going to change. Not ever." He's been there since the day he died. Melinda tries to get the Mom to realize that keeping Michael there isn't fair. Mom sees it otherwise - that he's a child, and too young to go it alone into the light. She's waiting until she dies and then plans to cross over together. Mom's got some issues.
That night, Melinda reads online that Paul Eastman, the man convicted of killing Michael, escaped from prison during a fire. She then has a horrible nightmare, complete with the masked man, ending with her father appearing to her. He tells her she's in danger, not to trust anyone, and that no one is who they seem... not even him. Jim puts two and two together and tells Melinda that the mask she describes sounds like ones burn victims would wear. Is it Paul Eastman? She questions her nightmare as well - is it a memory of hers, or a memory a spirit has given her?
The next morning, Melinda and Payne visit the records hall, and free the court case records from a possessed clerk. More roadblocks set up to keep her away from the truth. She realizes that Eastman, who threatened to kill Tom, escaped from jail, and her father disappeared. As she says, "maybe the murder my dad wants me to solve is his own."
Later, she visits Michael and his mom again, explains her theory to them, and asks Michael for his help, as a superhero spirit of sorts, traveling around. Michael yells that she wants her to go, but Melinda refuses to. When Mom asks what's going on, she hears it first hand from her grandson - Michael possesses the boy to talk to his mother about how he wants Melinda to leave, and then plays Mom like a piano, hugging her, and telling her never to let go. Turns out it's not the first time he's done that either. While watching this, Melinda sees the grandson's spirit near her, and Mom calmly tells Michael "it's time". He then releases the boy. Spooky kid.
She explains the occurrence to Payne, who tell her that it's spectral displacement - an advanced version of possession. Michael shoved his nephew's spirit out in order to use his body. Melinda realizes it's not the first time she's seen this phenomenon. Not resting until she learns more, she heads to find her brother. Turns out Jim's been tailing Gabriel the whole time... how convenient! As she starts to explain what she's been up to, Tom comes out from the bedroom.
He's limping, walking with a cane, and explains he'd recently been in a car accident. Not unsurprisingly, Melinda is a little freaked out. She isn't quite sure what's happening, and she's not going to jump into Dad's arms until she figures out what's going on. Melinda explains that just the night before, his spirit told her not to trust anyone. He shrugs it all off, and says he came back because he knew she was looking for him, and that he wants a fresh start. She agrees they shouldn't be strangers... but on her way out, she lifts the bus ticket he said he used to come back to town. He used an alias, Jeff King. When talking it over with Jim, they both realize nothing is making sense. Jim wants her to stay away from him because no matter what, her father has hurt her more than anything, but she says she can't. But she does ask him to use his connections to find out what Tom's been up to.
Meanwhile, Tom and Gabriel have their own issues. Gabriel says that he's done everything Tom has asked of him, but Tom disagrees, and says that's he's there to clean up the mess. He asks Gabriel, "where did I go wrong to make you hate your sister so much" and Gabriel responds with "do I really need to answer that?" After Gabriel leaves, Tom unrolls a gun from his luggage, and has a strange conversation, seemingly with himself.
Jim calls the hospital where Tom got treated for his "car accident" only to find that "Jeff King" had been treated many times for some serious injuries, but no car accident. In fact, it seems Jeff King was being hurt by someone fairly often, or hurting himself. While Jim is on the phone, Melinda thinks she hears someone outside. It's the Man in the Mask, lurking in the bushes.
The next morning, Melinda talks it all over with Payne at the store, and tells him that Tom's coming for lunch. She then receives a phone call from Tom, who says that he's at the doctor, and he got held up. Payne basically says she's fooling herself, and checks the caller ID - Tom called from the hotel, not the hospital. Melinda gets hurt, explaining that Tom's her father, and that she has to trust him. As Payne leaves, he slips on a marble. As she picks it up, Melinda sees a vision of how Michael's body was found. She heads to the area of woods she say in the vision, and finds a trail of marbles, all leading to Michael's cape.
Melinda realizes that something's not right with Michael's situation. She heads to his house to talk to him about it, that there's something Michael didn't tell them. Michael then possesses his brother, Graham, who comes after Melinda with a baseball bat, yelling that he wants Melinda to "shut up forever." Mom yells at him to let go of his brother, and he does. Melinda then gets Michael to tell her what happened on the day of his death. It turns out Michael's cape got stuck while he was trying to fly, and it strangled him. Paul Eastman didn't kill him. Michael led him there. Paul Eastman could hear him just like Melinda can. In the end, Mom lets Michael go into the light, and tells him that his grandparents will take care of him until she can get there.
In the end, Melinda realizes that Paul Eastman is dead, and he's the one possessing Tom in order to exact his revenge. Tom knew that he could see ghosts, just like Melinda and her mother could, but sent him to jail anyway. She heads to the hotel to talk to Tom, but hears a gunshot before she can get to the room. Blood begins to seep out from under the door. Sniff.
Season Finale next week...and we got a moment of it with Melinda stating "my father didn't abandon me." But I don't trust that.
Final thoughts:
- I'm happy we're moving ahead with this storyline, and happy they threw in some Ghost-of-the-Week too to move it forward. Again, the secondary character steal scenes. Michael was very good, and Tess Harper, who played "Mom", is a great character actress. I believe she's been on Ghost Whisperer before, even.
- Only one more episode? Sigh. They better do some 'splaining about the Ghosts Under Grandview.
- Not a lot of great Payne lines, but he is very good at boiling down situations sometimes. When he told Melinda that she'd be able to tell if her father was telling her the truth, and added "the question is, will you want to?" was very good.
What about you? Hard to believe it's summer already? Feeling like there's too many loose ends still?
I'd say there are a lot of loose ends that need some expert tying, although I don't know that much can be tied in one more episode. But, I guess we'll see next week.
This ep kept me guessing until the end. The twist for me was that the little boy, Michael, wasn't murdered but had died accidentally when he did something his mother told him not to do.
I nearly cried when he said his first thought after dying was that his mother was going to be mad. Poor, sweet little boy.
I'm glad his mother took control and stopped him from hurting Melinda and told him to find his grandparents in the afterlife. I agree that Tess Harper did an excellent job. As did the actor playing Michael.
I still don't understand Melinda's visions, especially the one with the bloody footprints and the little girl in the hallway. Was that her? Whose footprints did she see? Why were they bloody?
That scene was actually my favorite in the entire show not only for the mystery of it, but also because of that lovely nightgown Melinda wore. I also liked her dress at the beginning of the episode.
Payne's and Jim's love and loyalty for Melinda in the face of the grief her father clearly gives her was great to see. She should probably focus more of her attention on the men she has in her life already who love and support her as opposed to the ones not in her life who don't ...
I did feel Melinda's pain, though, when she couldn't save her father at the end. What Tom did to Paul Eastman was definitely not forgiveable, but this revenge business seems a bit too vindictive to me. Perhaps the ghosts under Grandview amplify spite.
And what is up with Melinda's so-called brother? He's nice to look at, but I'd say he should be told that attitude is best in very small doses.
Should be interesting to see how this whole storyline will end in a cliffhanger next week.
Berlin | May 10, 2008 2:01:41 AM | #It is so sad to see GW with only 1 new ep left. Then, we have to wait another 2.5mons for new ones :[, sad but I guess acceptable. Hopefully, next season will top S3 because I have to say, this has been the best yr yet in turns of depth.
Berlin, let me try to answer your questions about the dream sequence. The footprints are of the burnt man in the mask, Paul Easemen??? Why they were bloody, remember he did afterall escape during a fire at the prison, I doubt he had time to find shoes. Yes, the little girl is Mel prior to her father leaving. I am assuming, it was to show that though Mel is vulnerable and innocent [much like she was 6/7yrs old], that he will not stop from coming after her. Also, adding the fact that now we know he was also a Ghost Whisperer too and possibly coming to Mel to warn of the other side?
From the trailer, though it made Beth out to be the bad guy, there has to be more to Tom and why he ran away. I doubt he really thought running away would prevent him from coming after Mel.
Jeffrey | May 10, 2008 2:07:27 PM | #Why does it say series finale under the video thing? I hope it is not cancelled.
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/finales_2008/video.php?cid=722672937&pid=b9DQJpYLo8Ws8ZLtBhncjsVNGUVxmpNN&play=true&cc=1
I really hope and pray it is not cancelled I am freaking out. I do not want Ghost Whisperer to end
| May 10, 2008 6:11:11 PM | #This was a very good episode indeed. To Jeffrey and Michael, CBS announced the renewal of GW for season 4 on February 14.
We agree that it was Paul Eastman's spirit that led Melinda to the court case and eventually the boy but we're not so sure about him being the one to posses Tom. Mainly, there is just no connection between Paul and the other times and reasons when Tom has appeared to Melinda earlier.
There were several small points where we disagree with the summary.
Tom Gordon did not prosecute the case when Melinda was nine. On the phone to Melinda, Jim says "When your dad prosecuted him [Paul Eastman] he hadn't met your mother. So 1979 was before Melinda was born. Paul escaped from prison in 1989 and Melinda said her dad left when she was nine.
Tom did not know about ghosts when he prosecuted Paul Eastman. From that same phone conversation: Jim: "When your dad prosecuted him, he hadn't met your mother?" Melinda "My dad would have felt the same as anyone else. That Paul Eastman was crazy."
Tess Harper has not appeared on the show before. We've done a cross reference of all the guest actors on "Ghost Whisperer" at our web site and this is Harper's first appearance (it's the only one IMDb shows as well). But we agree with you that she was great and hope to see her again.
thebears | May 10, 2008 7:45:48 PM | #Melinda had to had been born already by 1979. She's 29 years old so she was born in 1977. I didn't get why Jim said that. He must have known Beth already and Melinda was a baby. However, we've heard Beth tell Melinda that she didn't tell her dad about her gift until later in their marriage, so it's possible that he didn't know she could see spirits when he prosecuted Paul Eastman.
Mari | May 11, 2008 4:08:19 AM | #Melinda Gordon has never mentioned her current age on the show as far as we know. Like many beautiful women she is very coy about this subject. So we don't know directly how old she is.
To answer such questions, we have constructed a timeline of "Ghost Whisperer" at our website (http://melindaverse.com/timeline.html). The dates are based on information from various episodes plus a few other sources. A few specific dates have been given such as the falling memorial tower on May 11, 2007 in "The Gathering." These provide solid anchor points. However, many dates are relative to the specific episode such as the 5th anniversary of Melinda's first meeting with Jim in "The Night We Met." In these cases we assume the date the episode first aired in the U.S.A. was the date of the last scene.
So what can be determined about Melinda's age? We know her birthday is January 27 from "Melinda's First Ghost." She might be 29, the age of Jennifer Love Hewitt who was born February 21, 1979. That was our assumption when we first built the time line.
However, from "Stranglehold" we know that Tom Gordon had not yet met Beth in 1979 when he prosecuted Paul Eastman so Melinda has to be born in 1981 or later. We also know that Melinda quit college when she was dumped by Kyle McCall in 1999 from "Love Still Won't Die" and she was likely to be at least 16 by then. That means she was probably born by 1983.
We currently assume that Melinda was born January 27, 1981. That would make her 17 when she started college which is reasonable. From "Melinda's First Ghost" we know that Tom Gordon had left the family by her 9th birthday which would be in 1990. A news story in "Stranglehold" shows Paul Eastman escaped during a prison fire November 18, 1989. If Tom Gordon ran because of Eastman's escape that fits with the 9th birthday date.
We assume characters are telling the truth about dates unless we have clear evidence to the contrary. If you don't assume this, you can't get anywhere building a timeline.
I'll have to check, but I thought it was said that she married Jim when she was 26. I belive it was episode Hope and Mercy, Hope was 26 and Melinda described her as someone as old as herself.
Mari | May 12, 2008 6:42:02 PM | #Mari, that would be a very useful bit of information for our time line. Let us know if you can confirm it.
If true, that would make Melinda 29 or 30 this year depending on when you think Jim and Mel's wedding took place.
We would guess that if true, the conflict with what Jim and Mel say on the telephone in "Stranglehold" is more likely a continuity error than an outright lie.
We are trying to get the GW story straight at melindaverse.com and the input of another observant fan is always appreciated.
Who is the actor who played
Paul Eastman. I know I've seen him as young actor?
Thanks
Beth | May 17, 2008 7:02:29 PM | #Beth, according to CBS and IMDb Corin Nemec who played Paul Eastman was in
I Know My First Name Is Steven,
Stargate SG-1, and
Parker Lewis Can't Lose.
Hope that helps.
thebears | May 17, 2008 9:31:46 PM | #
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