Lower Decks

The following review contains spoilers for Ghost Whisperer through the current episode, “Pieces of You,” originally broadcast December 5th, 2008.

After taking a week off, Ghost Whisperer returned with an episode I found mediocre. “Pieces of You” was the first standalone episode following the trio of episodes (“Imaginary Friends & Enemies,” “Threshold” and “Heart & Soul,” broadcast November 7th through November 21st, 2008) that drastically altered the framework of the series. Unfortunately, “Pieces of You” fell flat compared to those (surprisingly) strong episodes.

The Ghost of the Week is a girl named Gretchen, although it takes both Melinda and Eli half the episode to figure that out. Melinda spots the girl’s ghost at the bottom of a well located on a house Jim/Sam is helping tear down. In between walking in on Jim/Sam half-naked and worrying about an ominous — and vague — warning the ghost gives her, Melinda and Eli get the skinny on the well.

They track down Travis, the son of the woman who owned the house, and learn that he had his own experience with the well when he was a teenager. As he was preparing to leave for college, his girlfriend told him she was pregnant. Frustrated at the thought of his dreams being crushed, he wished that she would lose the baby. Shortly thereafter she was hit by a bicyclist and lost the baby.

Thus, Travis is perfectly willing to have the well drained when told about Melinda’s ghost sighting. The body of a young girl is found at the bottom. She has been missing since 1996. Melinda initially assumes Gretchen was killed by her older brother, Clay, but eventually she learns that Gretchen’s death was an accident. After a practical joke gone awry, Gretchen was under the impression that Clay’s arm had been cut off.

Gretchen had wished for that very thing to happen. While attempting to retrieve the wish (apparently this wishing well requires written wishes) from the well she fell in and died. She blamed Clay for her death but Melinda helps her to come to terms with and forgive her brother. She also reveals that Travis’s girlfriend didn’t lose the baby and he has a daughter.

While Melinda was investigating Gretchen and Clay, Jim/Sam was having shoulder pain and some sort of odd flashbacks to Jim’s shooting. Gretchen has also thrown a little help Jim/Sam’s way. Or, at least, it could be help. She helps him stumble upon a key to a safe deposit box. Inside, he finds an engagement ring. He shows it to Melinda and explains he bought it a month ago but has no idea who for. Uh-oh!

The Ghost of the Week story was a bit of a twofer, with Gretchen’s plot and Travis’s plot twisting together. Although some of the doll imagery was interesting and creepy (especially Melinda’s vision/dream in which she woke up without limbs) it was just not enough to pull me into the episode. And the attempt to throw suspicion on Clay as a serial killer with a penchant for cutting apart his victims felt out of place.

Eli continues to be both over and underused. I still don’t find the character compelling and pushing him into the forefront as recent episodes have done isn’t helping. When was the last time he actually heard or spoke to a ghost that wasn’t Jim? He seems to be little more than Melinda’s go to social worker. At least Delia is fully onboard with Melinda’s new relationship with Jim/Sam. That means she will at least appear in a few scenes discussing said relationship with Melinda.

As for Jim/Sam, the “flashback” to the shooting — if it can be called a flashback — brings up an interesting question. The pain Jim/Sam was feeling wasn’t real, because Sam’s body was never shot (that we know of). So it was akin to phantom pain, recalled pain. Does that mean Jim/Sam will remember all the skills and talents Jim had? Will Jim/Sam know how to intubate a patient?

I foresee an episode in which Jim/Sam and Melinda come across the scene of an accident and Jim/Sam springs into action and saves a life or two, forcing Melinda to explain how an architect knows how to perform an emergency tracheotomy with a pen. The next episode, however, will need to focus on the engagement ring. That was a shocker, eh?