Lower Decks

The following review contains spoilers for Ghost Whisperer through the current episode, “Heart & Soul,” originally broadcast November 21st, 2008.

I was quite pleasantly surprised by this episode. Going in, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, although I admit to being concerned with the way certain things would be depicted, but “Heart & Soul” did a fine job following up on the “game changing” events of the past two episodes while laying the groundwork for what I imagine will be the remainder of the season. In many ways, Ghost Whisperer has been rejuvenated. But it remains to be seen how well the current state of affairs will remain interesting. Will we see a return to the status quo sooner rather than later?

At the end of last week’s episode, “Threshold,” Melinda watched in horror as Jim (as a ghost) jumped into the body of Sam, a man killed in an automobile accident. The man’s ghost had crossed over and Jim, realizing the guy no longer needed his body, decided to take it for a spin. Unfortunately, the man who woke up isn’t Jim. But he isn’t Sam either and he has neither man’s memories.

Throughout the episode we the viewers were shown both Jim (David Conrad) and Sam (former Jericho actor Kenneth Mitchell). But I’m not sure who Melinda is seeing. When Jim/Sam first woke up, Melinda saw Jim. Melinda told Eli and Delia that she sees what everyone else sees: Sam. But she knows Jim is in there. Is she still seeing flashes of Jim? I don’t know. And that confuses me. For now, though, I can let it slide. It would be nice to have a firmer explanation and hopefully a later episode will touch upon whether Melinda sees both Jim and Sam.

The Ghost of the Week in “Heart & Soul” was Alan, the man responsible for the crash that killed Alan. He was also killed, obviously, but didn’t cross over because he saw Jim stealing Sam’s body. He thinks he has to tell Sam’s family the truth in order to atone for the accident. Ah, Sam’s family. Melinda is telling everyone that Sam was helping her redesign her garage (Sam’s an architect), an explanation that seems to satisfy everyone. While going through his things, Sam finds a note about a meeting with Jordan. Melinda promises to keep the meeting to see what it is about.

It turns out Jordan is Sam’s sister. Melinda brings her to the hospital to see her brother. He doesn’t recognize her but seems to remember her shampoo (a little odd, to be honest). Sam is soon released from the hospital and Melinda finds him at his apartment with his parents, who are intent on bringing him back home (a.k.a. far away from Grandview and Melinda). There is a lot of tension with the family; Jordan feels her parents are thrilled they’ll be able to have their son back home again. Eventually, Sam sneaks out and shows up at Melinda’s store.

During this family strife, Eli has been researching the “step-in” phenomenon, when a ghost takes over another body. It’s what Melinda thinks happened with Jim and Sam. Unfortunately, according to Eli, the memory loss is permanent. Eli is really diving into his role as replacement for Professor Payne (who is dearly missed by this viewer) but I just can’t take him seriously. Delia, meanwhile, is certain Melinda is simply experiencing the five stages of grief and clutching at straws regarding Jim being in Sam’s body. The two have a brief argument during which Delia questions whether she has to stop being rational in order to be friends with Melinda. Tears all around.

Eventually, Melinda asks Jim/Sam to move in with her. More specifically, she offers him a job: he’ll help finish the garage and he can live there until it’s done. At first, he agrees, but after learning that Melinda’s husband recently died, assumes the two were having an affair and explains that he has strong feelings for her that are freaking him out. Melinda wants to explain but doesn’t, despite Alan’s urging, and Jim/Sam tells her he’s leaving.

Melinda heads to Sam’s apartment, where she finds his parents, and explains that Sam is gone. She also sternly tells them they have to let to of their children or they’ll lose them forever. We later learn that they’ve called Jordan and apologized and she’s moving back in with them. And that leads Alan to realize that Melinda helped the family more than he ever could and apologizes for being such a jerk. He crosses over.

Delia heads to the basketball courts to meet Ned, who has something called a shooting clinic there, but he’s not there. When she calls him, Ned explains that there never was a clinic. He used to meet Jim to play basketball and didn’t tell her because he was afraid she’d make him work at the store instead. Delia comes across Sam, who is playing basketball, and he tells her he was driving out of town, minding his own business, when suddenly he felt like he had to be somewhere (the basketball courts) but has no idea why. This leads Delia to realize that Jim is inside Sam; he was waiting for Ned.

She rushes to Melinda’s house and tells Melinda she gets it, she understands, and she has convinced Jim/Sam to come back but it’s up to Melinda to get him to stay. Before Melinda can head outside, however, Delia tears off Melinda’s sweatshirt and offers lip gloss. Melinda explains that if it’s Jim she won’t need any. Mm-hm. Melinda and Jim/Sam make up and he agrees to stay. They start moving his things into the garage.

So, to sum up, Jim/Sam doesn’t remember specifics but has a lot of strange feelings he can’t explain. Jim is in there somewhere, along with remnants of Sam. With Sam’s family gone, Melinda has Jim/Sam to herself. But she has her work cut out for her. She has to keep doing her ghost whisperer thing, dealing with the Ghost of the Week, while also trying to reconnect with Jim/Sam. Plus, everyone is going to see her with Sam and wonder why she is moving on from Jim so quickly. Awkward.

From what I’ve read, the producers of Ghost Whisperer killed of Jim and brought him back as Jim/Sam in order to give viewers the chance to see Melinda and Jim’s courtship. Call me cynical, but that sounds like a horrible idea. Couldn’t they come up with a ghost who was friends with Melinda and Jim and use ghostly flashbacks or visions or something to show us how Melinda and Jim met and fell in love? Why go to all the trouble of killing Jim and creating Jim/Sam if the ultimate goal is to reunite Melinda and Jim? The mystery is pretty much gone from the equation if we know our two lovebirds are going to rebuild their nest.

Still, “Heart & Soul” wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t even mediocre. It was a solid episode, particularly Delia’s scenes, and now we know how the rest of the season will play out. Presumably, Jim/Sam will eventually find out about Melinda’s gift, freak out, get over it and start to fall in love with her. Things will be weird at first, because Jim looks like Sam to everyone, but Melinda will start seeing only Jim. And the season finale will be a big wedding special and somewhere along the line Melinda will have a baby. Or, I could be totally wrong and Jim/Sam won’t fall for Melinda so quickly and there will be frustration and tears and drama and Ghost Whisperer will turn into (even more) of a soap opera. That’s my fear.

If “Imaginary Friends & Enemies” (Jim’s death) was the beginning of this eventful arc and “Threshold” (Jim enters Sam’s body) was the middle that makes “Heart & Soul” (Jim/Sam move in with Melinda) the conclusion. It will be interesting to see whether viewers stay interested now that things have settled down. The next episode will, I assume, return to the Ghost of the Week with the Jim/Sam story moving to the sidelines. Will fans who were disappointed in how things played out with regard to Jim and Sam keep watching? There are at least fourteen episodes left in the season (assuming a full season is 22 episodes). That’s a long to wait to see what happens during the season finale, when something big always goes down.