Medium Liveblogging: Ghost in the Machine
Episode Name: Ghost in the Machine
Episode Number: 042 (3.04)
MED-042 Summary | All Episodes
Screaming child. Oh hey, it’s Allison as a toddler. She hated putting on hand-me-downs from the neighbor because they made her feel icky. She found out later the neighbor used to lock her daughter in the closet when she was bad.
That’s an awfully manly woman, there, that neighbor is. What? Thin, pretty women can’t be parental abusers? Hmph.
Pre-teen Allison decides not to sit on the couch after ‘feeling’ the babysitter and her boyfriend recently took their relationship to the next level. Ha ha! She looks grossed out.
Allison, voiceover: Sometimes energy from an event can hang around a particular object long after the event is over. Almost like an imprint. People like me, people who are sensitive, it’s almost as if we can read the energy and know what happened.
Teenage Allison is learning how to shoot a shot gun (rifle?) from her teenage boyfriend and realizes it was just used by the boy’s father to put down their beloved retriever. I didn’t need to see that!
*****
Scanlon and Devalos are at a murder scene on a city street. Oh my. 3:15 in the morning. I am with Devalos: who can function that early?
Yikes! A woman is dead in her car, shot once in the head and twice in the chest by a sniper from a walkway that traverses the street she was driving on.
Devalos: Are you saying we have a highway sniper?
******
At breakfast, it’s Joe’s birthday and Bridgette asks why he can’t open his presents now. Allison says, essentially, “because.” Joe tells Bridgette he’s pretty sure it’s because Allison hasn’t gotten around to getting him one yet.
Ha! He’s right. Allison goes to the electronics store as soon as they open for business. She is looking for a video camera but, sheesh, $1,100? That’s insane! Ah, the salesman pulls out another, even more expensive camera, but tells her she can have it for $500.
Allison asks why on earth he would do that. (She’s no fool.) He says it’s just too complicated for most point-and-shoot customers so every one he sells gets returned. He would much rather sell it to Allison than return it to the manufacturer.
Okay, I guess that’s logical but for less than half price?
As the salesman goes in the back for a battery and blank DVD, the camera starts playing all by itself. Allison picks it up and opens the viewer to see several women in bikini’s being recorded and some guy’s voice behind the camera urging them to roll over. Oops! He’s busted by another bikini-clad woman who says she’s been there the past three days in a row and has seen him trying to take pictures of her and she doesn’t like it. He is speechless so she names him Dick. She completely dominates him. Fun!
Then he chases off after her when she walks away after she is finished twisting him about. I sense a fledgling romance in the making, here.
When the salesman comes back, Allison realizes there is no batter or DVD in the camera. Ack! Of course she buys it.
In her office at work, the camera turns on again as Allison begins to wrap it as Joe’s birthday gift. Same guy and gal, only this time they are clearly together as he records her on the bed (fully clothed, gutter-mind) and she declares her love for him in her oh-so-special dominating way. Aha, Kathy and Travis. They have names.
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Everyone is summoned to the conference room for a heart-wrenching account by Sean Caffey, the murdered woman’s husband, about how she always went to a card game on Wednesdays, how she was always home by 11:25 (well that’s precise, isn’t it?), and how he kept calling her cell phone until it was eventually picked up by an EMS guy. Then he cries, and I want to cry, so stop it please.
Deputy Mayor DiNovi (Creator and Executive Producer Glenn Gordon Caron’s newly minted wife) gives what is supposed to be a moving speech but, ugh!, she is so bad all I see is the acting. I want to cry again, only this time for a very different reason.
Back at home, everyone wears dorky birthday hats (cute!) as Joe opens his gifts. Ariel gives him cologne that smells like “the cool mist of the ocean.” Bridgette jumps up yelling “Open mine! Open mine! Open mine!” and hands him a small package.
Joe: Is it a car?
Bridgette: No, and you did that joke last year.
It’s an ashtray she made all by herself. Joe says he loves it. Ariel reminds him he doesn’t smoke. Joe says he will put it on his desk at work, right next to the one Bridgette gave him last year.
Allison sends Marie over with “their” gift of the video camera. Marie is getting so big!
Joe: I can’t even imagine how much this cost. So which of the girls isn’t going to college?
In bed, Allison says she worried Joe would think she doesn’t care because she always procrastinates getting his birthday gift and never prepares a gourmet meal. Joe is philosophical about life and death and birthdays.
Joe: I was driving home tonight, … every building that I passed, every bridge, every water tower, I was thinking, Is he there? And you could just feel it, every person in every car around me, they were thinking the same thing. Is he thinking about shooting at my car? At me? Doesn’t he know it’s my birthday? Doesn’t he know I have to get home so Bridgette can give me her ashtray?
Allison awakes later that night to the flashing glow of the possessed video camera. Travis is trying to focus the camera and captures a shot of his framed sharp-shooter certificate on the wall. Hm. Kathy opens her shirt to reveal several ugly bruises. She says her husband knows something is up and beat the crap out of her. Then she “wonders” what life would be like if he were gone. If he were dead. No, Travis, don’t fall for it. D’oh! He is sympathetic. She has him turn off the camera before they talk about any details. No!
Allison tries to tell Devalos the next day Travis and Kathy are plotting to murder Kathy’s husband. Devalos says he can’t do much without last names. Sorry.
She goes back to the video store to try to find out who previously owned the camera but is stonewalled by the salesman. But at least she remembers to buy recordable DVD’s for the camera.
Back at the office, she and Devalos observe Scanlon interviewing Sean Caffey, who Scanlon discovered had a pre-nup and a thirty million dollar motive to kill her. But all Allison gets is more about Kathy and Travis and nothing about Sean.
That night at home, Joe roams the house using his video camera for the first time. Ariel is doing homework (yawn) but Bridegette does a dance with a spoon on her nose. Hilarious! (You must watch it for nothing else than the “ung-uh-uh-uh-uh-UH-uh” sounds she makes as she dances.) Next Joe interrupts Marie taking a bubble bath and faces the wrath of “GO AWAY” over and over again as she sits in the bubbles looking adorable. She tries to look angry but she can’t keep the smile off her face. Adorable! More of Marie in future episodes please.
Lastly, Joe tries to film Allison’s butt before reminding her it was his birthday yesterday so they need to have sex tonight. He doesn’t actually SAY that, but the implication is there. He goes off to brush his teeth and leaves Allison alone with the camera. This time, she sees Kathy and Travis on the same overhead walkway the sniper used to shoot Mrs. Caffey. Kathy says her husband plays cards every Wednesday night and they close up the club at 11:00 (hey, that sounds familiar) so his black Mercedes should be along any minute. As it goes by, Travis says, “Bang. Too bad this camera doesn’t have bullets,” and then “Next week.”
Allison tells Devalos the next morning she thinks Kathy and Travis meant to kill Kathy’s husband but killed Sean Caffey’s wife by mistake. She makes the link between Caffey’s comment about his wife’s Wednesday night card game and Kathy’s similar comment about her husband’s. But when she and Scanlon talk with the club manager, they find out 1) the only female member named Kathy is over 60, and 2) the Wednesday night card game is ladies only.
But wait! There’s Kathy! She’s a waitress at the club. Only her name is Diana, not Kathy. And she’s single so she can’t be the woman plotting to kill her husband. Drat. Foiled again.
Allison is so disgusted when she gets home she decides to exchange the camera for one that isn’t haunted. She packs it up and puts it in the car so it won’t glow all over her and wake her up later, but it sets off the car alarm in the middle of the night. The car alarm only she can hear.
Allison watches Kathy arrive at Travis’ place to find him a tad upset they killed the wrong person. Kathy says oh well they’ll get it right next time. What next time! Travis says he doesn’t have a next time in him.
Travis: I don’t know what to do. We can’t run away together, you’re still married. You’re not gonna get the money. You tell me. What do you think we should do?
Kathy: I don’t think you should sit there crying like a baby. Listen to yourself. You sound like you want to commit suicide.
Travis: Suicide?
HOLY CRAP! She just pulled out a gun and shot him!
Next, the video camera shows her returning the camera to the video store and Allison’s phone rings. It’s Scanlon calling to tell her they just found Travis McQueen’s body, a former Army shart-shooter with a high-powered rifle with a night scope. He has been dead for about three days.
Scanlon: Looks like a suicide.
Allison: Of course it does.
*****
Devalos, Scanlon, and Allison have a nice chat with Diana from the club in the D.A.’s conference room. Turns out she had an affair with Sean Caffey about a year ago. She denies denies denies knowing anything about the murder or Travis or “Kathy.” But then they bring in Allison’s little friend, the salesman from the electronics store.
Salesman: Hi Kathy.
She is so busted.
He verifies the proof of purchase receipt was originally charged to the credit card of Travis McQueen.
Did I mention busted?
Salesman: Hey, you want to hear something funny. It may well be that the camera you returned is the one I sold her (points to Allison.) Go figure.
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