Saturday, December 20, 2008

Ghost Whisperer - Recap & Review - "Ball and Chain"

Ghost Whisperer
Ball and Chain

Original Airdate: 19 Dec 2008

Lynn – TwoCents Reviewer
lynn@thetwocentscorp.com


At a marketplace in Grandview, Melinda meets a ghost named Tammy, who doesn't know she's dead. Melinda must help Tammy face the difficult truth about her death and her marriage(s). More specifically, her husband Roger and his new wife. Meanwhile, Sam is questioning what he should do about the engagement ring from his past.

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[photo: CBS.com]

1 comment:

  1. At a marketplace in Grandview, Melinda meets a ghost named Tammy, who doesn't know she's dead. Melinda must help Tammy face the difficult truth about her death and her marriage(s). More specifically, her husband Roger and his new wife. Meanwhile, Sam is questioning what he should do about the engagement ring from his past.

    It's another typical morning at Melinda's house, but definitely not as nice as when Jim was around. She talks to Sam in the driveway, asking him about the ring he found. He just assured her that she doesn't want to know. At the market, as Melinda explains to Delia that "of course" she wants to know, she sees a woman impatiently asking for fruit. Her hand goes right through the pile of apples, but she doesn't seem to notice. Melinda discovers that her name is Tammy and offers her a ride home. She finds that Tammy's husband, Roger, hasn't heard from Tammy since the day she left and is remarried to a woman named Elizabeth.

    Roger says she disappeared a lot, but always came back. One day she just left and didn't come back.

    Eli and Melinda are discussing the ghost later, who has disappeared. They see her at a dry cleaner's trying to pick up Roger's clothes. She still doesn't understand why people can't see her and she gets angry. Mel tries to explain to her that she's dead, and Tammy starts to remember floating, trees, lots of colors... Then she disappears. Eli realizes since Tammy disappeared in October, the colors could have been of the leaves on the trees.

    Eli goes to investigate at one of the nearby parks and finds a car in the middle of the woods. It has been filled with carbon monoxide. He wipes the window clean to see a skeleton inside of the car. (Eeks!)

    Melinda suspects that guilt that is keeping Tammy here. She abandoned her kids and her husband, which may be why she's trying to take care of them now. They also suspect that maybe Tammy was having an affair because of her frequent disappearances.

    From her window, Melinda can see Sam/(Jim?) packing up his clothes. She's worried that he's leaving to find the woman the ring was for, but he says he needs to go to the Laundromat. Melinda stumbles through a few sentences before offering for him to use her washer and drier.

    Back at Roger's house, Melinda discovers from the neighbors that Roger and Tammy didn't have any kids. This is quickly explained by Detective Blair, who says the dental records from the skeleton matched two people: Tammy and Sarah Evers. Two identities?

    Melinda goes to visit Tammy's ex-husband Thomas, who says the neighbors had suspected an affair. Then, one night, she just disappeared. Later, she wrote Thomas to say that she wasn't coming back.

    Delia says hi to Sam, getting straight to the point of asking whether or not he's found who the ring was for and if he's going to go looking for her. He says he hasn't found her and he doesn't know what he should do: what would he say if he found her?

    Later, Melinda urges Tammy to remember what happened. She says she wouldn't commit suicide. She puts her hands to her face in frustration, which is when Melinda notices the marks on her wrists. Melinda points them out, but Tammy doesn't know how it happened. She doesn't think it was Roger, though. Melinda believes otherwise.

    She meets Elizabeth at the market and tells her about Tammy's wrists, asking about Roger. She points out that Elizabeth looks frightened, similar to Tammy. She assures Elizabeth that she can trust her. Elizabeth just leaves, saying she can't be late.

    This makes Tammy realize that she used to be like that, too. She remembers everything now: Roger kidnapped her, holding a knife to her neck as he took her out of her house in the night. He locked her up in a hole in the ground for days. When he let her out, he treated her caringly and she began to trust him. He fed her and took her outside and eventually let her go to the market on her own. Melinda says it's Stockholm Syndrome: he brainwashed her.

    One day, for some reason, she was late home from the market. She was lying to him, and he knew it. He said he decides when she leaves. He drugged her and took her into the woods where she died.

    Melinda arrives at Roger's house to help Elizabeth. There's a rumbling from under the carpet in the living room. Melinda finds a door in the floor. Inside is Elizabeth with her wrists tied, looking terrified. Suddenly Roger appears behind Melinda and attacks her. Mel narrowly escapes, and Elizabeth helps her to lock Roger in the hole in the ground until the police arrive.

    Elizabeth is reunited with her husband and her daughter. Melinda finds Tammy's wallet and a crumpled newspaper article inside. Tammy realizes it was the reason she was late coming home. It had a picture of her son, Rich, who scored the winning goal in a soccer game. She stared at the article for hours, which made her late. Roger realized he was losing his control on her, so he killed her.

    Melinda helps Tammy say goodbye to her husband Thomas. She says she's sorry. She recalls the houseboat they were going to have when they were old. Thomas realizes Mel really is talking to Tammy, and he apologizes for not looking harder for her. She asks Melinda to tell him she loves him and that it wasn't his fault, then she crosses over.

    The next morning, Melinda brings out coffee for her and Jim/Sam. She asks him if he's going to go find the girl the ring is for. He says he needs to. "Then what?" Melinda asks. Sam doesn't know.

    I liked this episode overall, although we got virtually nowhere with Sam's plotline. And you all? What did you guys think? Let's hear your two cents!

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