Lower Decks

The following review contains spoilers for Ghost Whisperer through the current episode, “Greek Tragedy,” originally broadcast February 13th, 2009.

After last week’s episode finally brought Melinda and Jim/Sam together, “Greek Tragedy” appeared to push them apart. As romantically frustrating as that may be, with at least seven episodes left in the season it was premature to assume that everything would work out perfectly. As for the Ghost of the Week, I liked it. And unlike last week’s episode I didn’t see the ending coming until Melinda did.

When a coed at a local college goes missing during an sorority initiation, Melinda and Eli insert themselves into the search for her. They chat with the girl’s ghost and feel really bad that everyone is searching for someone who is already dead. The dead girl’s sister seems genuinely worried but the ghost tells Melinda that she’s not telling the whole truth.

The ghost isn’t either. She isn’t a dead sorority sister. Or, at least, she’s not the dead sorority sister they thought she was. The missing girl is still missing, but presumably alive. The ghost was killed in the 1960s during the same sorority initiation and she’s mad. She wants to force the college and the sorority to halt all activities. Melinda eventually figures out who she is, talks some sense into her, and together they find the missing girl alive and (mostly) well.

Aside from the ghost story, “Greek Tragedy” included the requisite Melinda-Jim/Sam story line. Jim/Sam is impressed at the way Melinda is ready to drop everything to go help search for the missing girl and then volunteer at the firehouse. He changes his mind when he catches her in a lie: he spots her on television when the girl is rescued but she told him she was at the firehouse.

Melinda had a logical reason to lie, just not a good one. She doesn’t want to scare Jim/Sam off by telling him about her ability. That makes sense but lying is never a good idea in a relationship let alone during its first baby steps. In any case, he doesn’t like the lying and decides to go do some work rather than hang out Melinda (or maybe he was lying about the work). Suffice it to say, things aren’t looking good for Melinda’s love life.

Eli, meanwhile, has a fairly benign impact on this episode. While talking with Melinda about the missing coed he manages to dig himself into an embarrassing hole regarding improper relationships between professor and student. There are also at least two jokes about sisters and sorority sisters. And Eli talks with the ghost in a shack in the woods while a whole bunch of people stand around not noticing. It’s difficult to believe nobody saw or heard him talking to himself.

If the producers of Ghost Whisperer are intent on dragging out the Jim/Sam thing through the end of the season and ending on a cliffhanger I would suggest not doing that (although the episodes are no doubt already finished). Viewers have been willing to stick by the show this far, waiting to see what happens with Melinda and her returned-from-the-dead hubbie. But they won’t wait forever. And they certainly won’t take kindly to being forced to wait through the long summer months to see if Jim is really back.