Medium Episode 4.04 “Can You Hear What I Hear” Open Mic
Hooray! We are back to new episodes. Are you as excited as I am? This is the one where Patricia’s brother David is the director and I’ve heard so many good things about it. Allison is deaf during this episode, which probably makes for some interesting challenges.
I have these wonderful new Dove dark chocolate raspberry caramels. I cannot begin to describe how good they are, so you’ll just have to eat a few to see for yourselves. If you are one of the three people on earth who don’t like chocolate, I have Rice Krispie treats. Remember them from your younger years? I have a fruit platter for those of you who are still dieting. And to celebrate the return of Medium, it has to be Champagne.
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POSTED IN: Medium Episodes
35 opinions for Medium Episode 4.04 “Can You Hear What I Hear” Open Mic
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Boy, if I were Allison, I think I’d try to quit sleeping. She hardly ever wakes up well. Screaming, horrible dreams and now…deafness.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:06 pm
I was just about to comment that she wasn’t talking louder than normal and then she almost yelled about keeping it from the kids.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Allison is not dealing well with this. Who would, though?
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Joe had a good idea with the laptop. And the “A little lonely” scene was cute.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Must be going around.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I couldn’t stand seeing everyone else holding a conversation around me like that. Allison looks a bit frustrated.
“I feel a really bad case of carpel tunnel coming on.”
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Cynthia comes across as very reassuring and knowledgeable with the parents.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Awww. Ariel steps up as big sister to read a book to the baby. That’s so sweet.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:22 pm
A recorded ransom message in sign. That may be a first.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:25 pm
I’m sorry, but that Corolla commercial with the badgers is just horrible. Did you guys see it? Who on earth comes up with something like that? It didn’t make me want to buy one at all. I know they are pushing the quiet aspect, but I just associate it with badgers eating some poor guy.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Cynthia thinks Allison is amazing.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:30 pm
I couldn’t handle the strain of having someone bargain for my child like that.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:38 pm
So is the money a smokescreen so they can get to her father? Why the insistence on having him deliver the $$?
And Mr. Swensen, being a happy go lucky type, threatens to murder Cynthia if she follows him.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Aww. That was the sweetest phone message. Sleep tight, sweet dreams and know that I love you.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:48 pm
And Lee makes an entrance. Why doesn’t anyone have enough sense to use a laptop to communicate to Allison like Joe does?
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:51 pm
I’ve never worked with a man as determined as your husband. That’s an understatement.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:53 pm
And Cynthia has a good reason for his anger…Maybe he still works for him.
His stepdaughter?
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Someone is getting a divorce.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Fine. Deny a woman a little happiness.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Allison is feeling cut off from her family, huh? Kind of like she’s outside looking in.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 8:58 pm
And as the girl is reunited with her mom, Allison’s hearing returns.
Katelyn
Feb 18, 2008 at 9:00 pm
What a perfect ending. I can predict a resurgence in popularity for Is Your Mama a Llama.
Dorothy
Feb 18, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Oh, poor Katelyn, are you all alone? I’ll come keep you company.
I enjoyed this episode, like I always do. However, the first thing I told my husband after the show ended was, “What was the point?” So what difference did Allison’s loss of hearing make? In my opinion, she didn’t do anything with it. It didnt highten her dreams any more than usual. She wasn’t able to connect differently than usual. So, any help? Or do I actually have a point?
Tom
Feb 18, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Katelyn,
Are you the only one talking here? I only see your comments??? Where is everyone
Dorothy
Feb 18, 2008 at 10:09 pm
By the way, I think my favorite part was the late night phone call Allison made to Joe…”If you’re there, good night, sleep tight, know that I love you. If you’re not there, sleep tight…” So sweet. I was hoping that he was listening, and yep, they delivered.
Dorothy
Feb 18, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Where is everyone??!! Did they lose track of the time and forget that this was the week it returned (hard to believe, but possible)?
Dawn
Feb 18, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Sorry so late, but I just got home and I got so caught up watching this episode that I forgot about everything else. This was SOOOOOO awesome. I knew it would be. David did a fantastic job directing this one. This could very well be Patricia’s Emmy submission this year. This was so great. It gave me goosebumps it was so good. It was sweet and touching and sad and chilling. My favorite moments were the ones between Allison and Joe when she was in the bathtub, and he said I love you, but she couldn’t hear him. The scenes with the girls were so sad. Poor Allison was so lonely, being cut off from her own family like that. Especially that last scene. But the best moment was when she called Joe and was telling him how much she loved him. Did anyone else immediately think of the Valentine’s episode last year when Joe left her the message? That was SOO beautifully done. And the last scene when she got her hearing back.
Another sweet moment was when she came home and Bridget met her in the hall and was signing to her. It was so sweet that she was trying to find a way to communicate with her mother.
Another A+++ episode all around. Patricia was awesome as always, and she does so much acting with her facial expressions that she is just amazing. And David did an incredible job. Gotta love the “lonely” scene when Allison gets out of the bathtub and leads Joe into the bedroom. Guess some things you don’t need to hear to communicate, huh?
I loved when Cynthia Keener met the dad at the door. GREAT lines!! And that last one! Classic!! Lol!
Dawn
Feb 18, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Dorothy, I think the point of Allison losing her hearing was to strengthen her sense of empathy to the little girl, and to emphasize her connection to her.
And you’re right. The best lines were when Allison called Joe.
“If you’re there, good night, sleep tight, and know that I love you. And if you’re not there, good night, sleep tight and know that I love you.”
I also loved when she said “I know this isn’t easy. I know I’M not easy. ” WOW!
Fantastic job by the writers as usual. Gotta give them props for this one especially.
Dorothy
Feb 18, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Thanks, Dawn. That makes sense. It’s better than any idea I came up with and better than assuming there was no purpose at all.
Goodnight all (the few of you who are there). Gotta take advantage of when my baby is asleep. Same time, same place next week!
Betty
Feb 19, 2008 at 12:44 pm
OK, I do have to say, I’m not in love with this episode. I think Allison jumped to the conclusion she was deaf a little too quickly considering the dreams she has and all. Why wouldn’t more people WRITE their messages to her - if someone is deaf, talking slower won’t help them hear, nor will shouting if they have no hearing at all. Who would pick up their phone and use it if they couldn’t hear anything?
Considering they are both out of work now and private insurance for the whole family is VERY expensive, even if you have a COBRA plan. Who CALLS an energency room? Who can make an appointment with a SPECIALIST through the ER in the middle of the night? Woudln’t happen. With all the HMO’s and managed care, who gets lucky enough to even get an appointment that quickly when it’s not life threatening? If you don’t have medical insurance? I expected to see them go through some sort of angst over that - how to pay for the hearing specialists and the tests. Why did Cynthia want to take Allison with her? We didn’t see Allison looking at or touching any of the girl’s things. Allison frequently gets flashes when she touches someone - for example meeting the parents and shaking their hands - normally she would probably have flashed on the husband being involved.
God Bless Marie! How cute was she reading that book? Must get that book for my grandkids!
Yea, Scanlon to the rescue, but where was he when they got the bad guy? Again, if he knew Allison couldn’t hear, why didn’t he write something out for her? She was too new to being deaf to read lips.
I do think we got to see Cynthia Keener grow as a character - that’s chilling when you think of it that a kidnapped child is merely a business transaction. Someone has to be calm and collected and thinking. I guess it was an understatement calling the dad the most determined man - big fat ass would have been better! Quite the twist finding out he was in on the whole thing and the stepdad.
I think this was a good concept on the part of the writers, I just thought it was very heavy handed and not nearly as subtle and nuanced as it could have been. Perhaps this was one of the last scripts that was finished and they were rushing to complete to get everything in place before the strike.
It was very touching when Bridgette was doing sign language to her Mom!
Betty
Feb 19, 2008 at 12:45 pm
HELP! Katelyn, I’m stuck in the spam filter!
Dawn
Feb 19, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Betty, I think when you wake up and can’t hear, it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that you’re deaf, but the question is why. How could she have known right away that her deafness was related to the dream? How often has she suffered any sort of sympathetic physical response to a victim or a dream? So why would her first thought be “It must be because of the girl in my dream.” Yes, she does get dreams often, but how often does she have that sort of reaction to them? And the most common response of almost everyone to a deaf person or someone who speaks a different language is to speak loudly and slowly. Don’t know why, it just is. Yes, it should have occurred to more of them to write notes for her, but that’s typical of human behavior.
As for the doctor visit, who else are they gonna call when a) it’s the middle of the night, and b) they have no insurance? The emergency room is the only place that people with no insurance can turn to and know that they cannot be denied. And naturally, if it’s not a life-threatening condition, the ER docs are going to tell them to see a specialist, and will likely refer them to one. That’s not such a stretch.
Yes, it was a little bit of a stretch for Cynthia Keener to ask her to stay with her given her condition, and the fact that she had been keeping her involvement with Allison a secret up til then. And the reason we didn’t Allison touching any of the girl’s things was because Cynthia nor Allison told them who Allison was, so of course they aren’t going to ask the parents to grant Allison access to their daughter’s things. It wasn’t until the end when the mother figured out who Allison was and even then, she was skeptical and didn’t believe her when she said her daughter was in danger.
I didn’t think the script was heavy handed at all, at least not the part about Allison’s deafness. The parents were a bit over-written and over-acted, imo. The father was over the top to me. I normally like Steven Culp, but I thought he was a bit hammy in this role.
I thought the parts that dealt with Allison’s deafness were handled beautifully, particularly the scenes that showed her isolation from her family and from the rest of the world, at the home of the girl’s parents, when all the activity was going on around her and she had no idea what was going on, and feeling left out in her own family and feeling as if she didn’t belong in her own home anymore. I especially loved the interplay between Joe and Allison in this one. Joe was so sweet and understanding and supportive. And that phone call was so sad. Oh, my God, it just tore my heart out. When he could only listen and she could only speak. It was as good as the Valentine’s message he left for her last year.
I like that we’re starting to see Cynthia Keener warming up to Allison and seeing her as a little bit nicer than she initially came off. I think there is a lot more to her than meets the eye. It’ll be interesting to see where this story goes.
That’s just my opinion.
Lena
Feb 19, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Hay ya’ll!
Sorry that I missed the party. I had to work late and was exhausted when I came in. I taped the ep and watched it this evening. Thought I’d chime in on my opinion.
I’m with Betty on this one. The plot is not my favorite; haven’t we had this treatment done before? The kidnapping for money orchestrated by the parent?
Anyway, the acting was really very good by everyone in this episode. My favorite scene was how Allison looked so much like a frightened crying child with the hearing test headphones on. Patricia did an exceptional job acting in this one. But the story was just okay in my opinion.
BTW, I love the scuffy faced Joe- very sexy.
Dawn De Poorter
Feb 19, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Hi Everyone… The show is okay.. Very disappointed in some parts. I am deaf and I know how it feel. I was born deaf and when I sleep and I dont hear anything except I can feel the vibration, but with Allison s screaming was not nesscarily. its silly but disappointed. but the Deaf Girl her sign language in the cabin room wasnt clear because the camera was only showed half of it … their sign languages on the show is more rusty to me but its good learnign experiences for Nancy Travis . Maria Lark was so cute when she tried to signed to Allison but she was lost. I wish I could give Maria a hug for trying so hard. it brought me tear a little.
Hope you all have enjoyed the show last Monday night.
Betty
Feb 20, 2008 at 11:36 am
Hi Dawn D - thanks for your input! Are you profoundly deaf? I thought the screaming scene was over the top myself. That’s just my take.
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