Tru Calling/Recap/S1 E5 Haunted

Tru Calling Season 1, Episode 5: Haunted
Synopsis: Tru must save a med-school student from that student's own stupidity.

Analysis of the episode is below the recap. Recap by Korval.

Recap
We open with a shot of a skateboarder knocking over a trashcan in the suburbs. The camera pans over to a father and his young adult daughter having an argument, the daughter Paige storming off to her car. The father insists that there is nothing wrong with his "baby girl", but Paige shrugs off his affections. The father claims that "nothing happened," that she's imagining the dreaded "it". Paige says she's not, and that the truth will come out. And that her father will have to deal with it. With that, she drives off.

Cut to Davis and Tru cramming for the MCA Ts. Davis decides to call it quits, saying that sleep is more important for passing the MCA Ts. Tru starts going on about how passing the MCA Ts means she gets to go to medical school, become a doctor, and not work in a morgue. Davis looks up at the last part. Hmm... awkward.

As Davis starts walking off, he says that it won't happen. Not the passing the MCA Ts, but the not working in the morgue. He says that some people shouldn't be working in the morgue, and some should. When Tru asks him which she is, Davis replies, "Which do you think?" Tru looks on with a confused look on her face as we...

Cue title sequence.

Cut to Tru's bedroom with innumerable MCAT books scattered about. And I'm serious about innumerable; there's probably a copy of every one published that year. A phone call awakens Tru; it's Lindsay, doing her duty to wake up Tru so that the plot can proceed. Seriously, that's like half of her purpose: interrupting her best friend-who-works-the-graveyard-shift's beauty sleep.

Anyway, Lindsay says that she found someone. Someone for Tru. Oh goody. Some guy named Jeremy that Lindsay's never met. Even better. Tru is not particularly pleased about having to go on a date with a guy that not even Lindsay has personally vetted, but Lindsay says that she will "chaperon." Which is apparently all that Tru needs to hear to accept Lindsay's pressure. Lindsay wishes her luck on the test, then hangs up.

Tru then realizes that she's out of coffee. Thanks for the wakeup call, Linds.

Cut to Tru and Harrison having what looks suspiciously like breakfast. Harrison tells her that she looks like crap. And they so totally didn't even try to make her look disheveled. I mean, she's not even Hollywood Homely here; she's just the same Eliza Dushku as any other day.

Tru reminds him that she was up studying for the MCA Ts all night. The nights that she works. Um... moving on. Harrison starts asking how she's doing, feeling healthy, etc. Tru is rather suspicious about this sudden interest. Harrison feigns offense at her suspicions. They bat the ball back and forth until Tru discovers that Harrison wants proof of her powers.

He wants to run a scheme, where he gives her horse names of the winners, she memorizes them, and if she goes back in time, she tells him the names. She says that she'll "see what she can do," then heads off to the MCA Ts.

Cut to a large room with people taking the MCA Ts. The guy behind Tru sneezes. After a quick time passing montage, the test proctor tells them to put their pencils down. Tru smiles and gives a laugh, apparently happy about her performance. The Proctor shoots her a nasty look, which only makes her internalize her happiness.

Cut to Tru and Lindsay, toasting Tru's apparent success. Lindsay takes the opportunity to show how shallow and self-centered she is by throwing herself into the toast (asking that Tru squeeze her in on short notice and accept whatever health insurance she has. Wow, what a great friend...).

A random cute guy appears at the door, which the pair believe is the aforementioned "Jeremy". Lindsay goes over to bring him to Tru, who takes the opportunity to down a swig of her drink. Lindsay introduces them. Then Jeremy says, and I quote, "but you can't be Tru. You're too good to be Tru." There is a special circle in hell reserved for people who give their children punnariffic names, and I'm hoping that Tru's mom is in that hell.

Tru however, takes the comment in stride, noting that her name lends itself to various puns. Jeremy instantly establishes his credentials by saying that it took him all day to think that up. Seriously, the guy is stupid enough to take an entire day to find a bad pun for her name, and he's not even smart enough to not tell her this. Then he asks if she minds him drinking the rest of her drink. Props go to Eliza for providing the perfect expression face to go with this behavior; that perfect blend of "WTF?" and "Please go away now."

Cut to the end of the date. No, it didn't end right there. Tru is giving the dating equivalent of the "Thousand Yard Stare." As he drones on and on about how Tru is "too hot to work in a morgue" and "ought to be in videos," Tru reaches her breaking point. She says simply "I have to go." She then gets up and leaves. Jeremy attributes this to her working the night shift, and says that it's "creepy". As Tru is leaving, he says that he'll call her, but she didn't give him his number. Tru actually stops, turns around, and gives him a shrugging smile. Then leaves.

Jeremy, well-fortified beneath his armor of total stupidity, remains unfazed.

Cut to Tru going to work, still in her dress from her "date". She sees Luc, who she met last episode, but only the first time through. She seems to have a loss of memory of that being undone, so she tries to talk to him as though they've met before. She has to back off some of her forwardness as she realizes what happened.

Luc asks about her dress, and she tells him that it was a blind date, a bad one. Yeah, no kidding. Luc asks if there is another kind, to which Tru replies that her friend insists on trying to set her up with someone. Luc wonders if Tru's friend thinks she can't find someone on her own, and Tru says that Lindsay thinks she can't find someone living on her own.

This degenerates into playful banter, as Tru tries to get him to suggest himself as the aforementioned "someone living", and Luc dances around it. He has to leave due to a previous engagement though. They leave with smiles to all involved.

Tru's phone goes off; it's Harrison, with horse names. Yeah, that's something Tru's in the mood for. He gives her the names, and Tru tells him that her powers probably weren't given to her to bet on horse races. Anyway, after making sure that Tru got the names, Harrison hangs up.

Davis appears, possibly via Quantum SlipStream. He says that county records called for her about an autopsy report. Tru says that it was for her mother. Unfortunately, Davis already told them not to deliver the report. Tru says she'll just get it tomorrow, but apparently that won't be possible due to an untimely vacation.

After Tru accepts having to wait a bit longer for the report, Davis asks if those are the answers she's looking for. Before Tru can respond, Gardez enters with a corpse.

Oh, it's Paige, from the intro. She died at 4:31 and was a medical studient. There's a mark on the front-side of her elbow from a syringe, which Davis attributes to drug use, suggesting that she died due to an OD. Davis notes some "petechial hemorrhaging" in the eyes (usually a sign of asphyxia). Davis orders the body prepared for a toxicology report.

As Davis and Gardez head off to take care of something, Tru is (conveniently) alone with the body. Suddenly, and approps of nothing this time, Paige turns and whispers, "Save me!"

Cut back to Tru's apartment, with Lindsay's wake-up call. Guess what? She's found a guy.

Cut to... oh God no. Not again. Tru runs back into the morgue yet again to verify what she has already experienced four times before at least. Davis appears, asking what she's doing there.

Tru then asks if he's ever had a truly great day, then feel like it was erased. Great day? Did she forget the Date From Hell? Or was her 2 minute talk with Luc really that good? She asks after Paige, then starts to leave. But before she does, she remembers to tell him that she wants the files that county records will call about.

When Tru opens the door, she isn't looking, so it smashes into Luc. Oops. And of course, they haven't met before, again. It breaks his camera, which being a photographer is pretty important. She asks if its fixable, but it isn't. Luc walks off, sarcastically saying that it was nice running into her. She leaves, hoping the day gets better. Well, considering that Luc was the bright spot in what was otherwise a day of hell, odds are low.

Cut to the college that Paige went to. Tru heads down to admissions. While she's waiting behind a very impatient woman, Harrison calls, asking why she's not at breakfast. She says she's having "one of those days".

Harrison then realizes that his plan might work. But she doesn't remember. He immediately decides to disbelieve her and hang up.

The impatient woman, Jessica Hanson, is waiting for her transfer from Harvard Medical. The clerk, not particularly pleased with Jessica's rudeness, tells her that she'll let her know the moment they arrive. Annoyed by this, Jessica leaves, shooting Tru a condescending look. Um, you're not one to talk about condescending, Ms. "I have to transfer out of Harvard Medical".

Tru makes a joke to the clerk about sending Jessica's papers back to Harvard "for laughs." The clerk is slightly more professional than that, asking Tru not to give her ideas. Tru asks where she can find Paige Sanders, but the clerk can't give out that kind of information to any random person. Tru says that that's too bad, since Paige got a residency at the Mayo Clinic, and it would be interesting to see the look on Jessica's face when she finds out Paige got in and she didn't. This is apparently enough for the clerk, who tells Tru what class Paige would be in at present. Is that really all it takes to violate someone's privacy these days?

Cut to a med-school class. Tru walks in, standing in the doorway while the lecturer is presenting. He interrupts a daydreaming Paige with a question that she fumbles on, but Tru knows the answer to. The professor gives the answer, which Paige claims she knew, but the professor doesn't care. "Time matters," he says, "to us, time is the difference between life and death." Way to be a jerk, man. Of course, I suppose if you can't take someone being a douche to you, you probably shouldn't try to be a doctor.

Class dismissed. Cut to outside the building. Two of the students (one tall and scary looking, and the other is Indian) are abusing the teacher for his holier-than-thou comments. They then catch up to Paige and start chiding her over her performance. Way to burn the candle at both ends, guys. Tru interrupts them, then notices the syringe mark on the tall guy's arm.

She introduces herself as Jessica Hanson, for no apparent reason. I mean, she could make up any backstory she wants; it's not like they can verify any of it. Of course, if they know the trick of how to get private information out of the admissions clerk, maybe they can. Anyway, after a little cordial conversation, they blow her off, citing them being "busy."

She stops them through flattery, then tries to ingratiate herself among them. The tall guy seems suspicious, but Tru is able to get on Paige's good side by a combination of abusing her professor and playing up the fact that they're both women. Then she offers to buy them food. Ahh, the ultimate way into a college student's heart: the offer of a free meal. The others apparently really do have things to do, but Paige joins Tru.

Cut to Tru and Paige in a restaurant. Tru starts talking about their workload and how hard they push themselves. Not nearly as blunt as Tru's talks about drugs with Meredith. She is able to guide the conversation from Paige's friends to potential drug use. But before she can actually bring up the subject, Paige gets a call. After hanging up, she thanks Tru for lunch, then gets up to go.

Tru's primary gambit having failed, she takes a one-way ticket back to stupid-ville. Tru claims to know about "the drugs", but Paige has no idea what she's talking about. Tru then grabs her arm and exposing it, to reveal... nothing. No syringe marks. Oops.

Not unsurprisingly, Paige is rather honked off about Tru violating her personal space. She tells Tru to stay away from her and storms off.

I haven't talked about Paige's actress here (Rhonda Dent, though she's credited as play "Jessica" Sanders. Oops). She's... not good here. At all. Her little moment above, for example, is spoken with the exact same monotone that she delivers every other line she speaks. So it comes off less like anger and more like she's reading lines. Which she is. It's too bad that the episode is centered on her, because Rhonda just ruins it.

Anyway, cut to Tru following/stalking Paige. Paige is heading to one of the less well-kept parts of town. Eventually, Paige goes into a (condemned) building, and Tru follows her. There, she finds the whole trio, the tall guy and Paige standing over the Indian guy who's on a gurney with various bits of medical equipment strapped to him. He's connected to a heart monitor that, after a few seconds, flatlines. Paige and the tall guy congratulate each other, then proclaim "he's dead." You guys want to toast over the corpse of your friend while you're at it?

After he's been dead for 20 seconds, the tall guy pulls out a defibrillator and shocks him. At first there's no change in his condition, but then his heart starts beating and he wakes up. He actually says, "That was a trip."

Paige asked if it "worked". Yes, there's something more that needed to happen besides killing someone and bringing them back from the dead. Tall Guy instead realizes that Tru's there and asks how she got there.

Tru of course is well aware that she's in a lot less trouble than they are. She wants to know what's going on, so she gives them a choice: talk, or she'll report them.

Cut to Tru and Tall Guy talking. This is apparently a group of people who kill themselves and bring them back for the sole purpose of unlocking repressed memories. The Indian guy then tells a story that he remembered about the day his father left when he was 2 years old that he now remembers clearly. Yeah, that memory's totally worth the chance of dying.

Paige then says that she's next. Tru tries to convince her not to, to use more normal means to find out what happened. Paige says that she's tried that, and that this is her last chance to find out what really happened with her father. The three then leave. Wait, they just leave? As though nothing important is going to happen, especially after Paige says that nothing is going to stop her.

Anyway, cut to our friendly neighborhood admissions clerk. Tru shows up, asking for "one more thing."

Cut to Tru getting out of a cab to "Mike Sander's" house. A helpful neighbor directs her to the correct place. Tru tells him that she's a friend of Paige, and that Paige is going to hurt herself unless he does something to stop her. He asks why he is the only one who can stop her. Way to go with that whole parenting thing. Tru then says that they have a history, to which he becomes incredibly incensed.

Apparently, Paige claims that he molested her, but can't remember any details of it. The only thing she remembers is "the moon and the stars".

Cut to the MCA Ts. The Proctor calls Tru's name, but she's not there.

Cut to Tru back on campus, talking to Harrison. He asks her to try to remember the horse names, but she's too busy to bother. Paige interrupts their conversation, so Tru hangs up.

Paige is "upset" and asks if she was talking to her father. Tru asks for a minute to explain herself. Oh boy, this is gonna be good.

Tru talks about the night her mother was killed. She urges Paige not to go through with the experiment, saying that it's too risky and isn't worth the chance of death. Paige doesn't know what else to do to learn more about what happened to her. Tru suggests talking to her father or a therapist. Paige then agrees to call it off. Crisis averted.

Cue the Big Damn Villains. Tall Guy shows up, and look who he's brought: Jessica Hanson. Tall Guy apparently ran into the real Jessica randomly. Oops. Next time, Tru, use a lie that can't be traced. Obviously, this makes the plan fall apart: Paige no longer trusts her and thinks she was running a scam. So they all leave Tru to kick herself for using such a stupid identity.

So, with two hours to go, Tru decides to go for a long shot. She tracks down the Indian guy (who's name is now revealed to be Steven). He wasn't there for the big reveal, so he probably doesn't know that Tru is the anthesis of her name. So she tries to get him to talk Paige out of it, but to no avail. Apparently, Paige is getting herself killed right now.

And now it's time for a bit more Fridge Logic. The show quite literally just told us that we had 2 hours till Paige's time of death. Yet now the Running Tru has to go to the condemned building to save Paige. At least in this case, it might be reasonable for Tru to assume that she changed events, thus moving up the time of death.

We get scenes of Paige being killed interspersed with the Running Tru trying to make it there to save her. When Tall Guy uses his Magical Defibrillator on her however, she doesn't come back. Tru runs in just as this happens. She asks for a number of drugs that might help, but he doesn't have any of those. Good job planning for contingencies. So Tru takes over and eventually shocks Paige back to life.

Tall Guy actually starts to brag on his equipment and procedure how. Seriously, he starts to talk about how he designed it to have instant recovery time. Tru promptly and properly smacks him down for it. Tall Guy asks her who she really is, but she punts on the question in favor of her MCA Ts.

Cut to Tru showing up 3 hours late for the MCA Ts. Really, she shouldn't bother at this point. Again, the guy behind her sneezes, but she is prepared with a tissue. Note: I'm just guessing, but in reality, if you pass someone a small white thing in the middle of the MCA Ts, they will probably throw your ass out of there.

Oddly enough, there is a question on the exam about petechiae, and she realizes that the particular method of death being used wouldn't have caused that. She gets up to leave, saying she'll be right back. Um, what test have any of you been to that has ever allowed you to come back in after leaving in the middle? The Proctor intercepts her, saying that she can't come back in after she leaves. He also points out that they won't be giving the MCA Ts again until next year.

Tru makes her decision: Paige's life over her medical school. Well, to be fair, she was probably going to fail anyway, what with missing 3 hours of the exam, so it's not like she hadn't already made her choice. Yeah, that scene would have been a lot more tense if Tru hadn't already screwed up by not being there for most of it.

Cut to Tru and Tall Guy. She wants to know where Paige is and what memory Paige unlocked, but he's reluctant to say. Tru then repeats her threat about having him kicked out, which loosens his tongue a bit. Unfortunately, it wasn't very much. Paige remembered the man hurting her, and then "the moon and the stars".

Cut to Tru at Paige's dad's house. Tru has apparently barged in and is yelling for Paige. The dad keeps telling her that Paige isn't there. Tru tells him that Paige unlocked her memories via a dangerous experiment, and Tru thinks she came here. He seems to think that Tru believes Paige's story that he molested her, so he tells her to leave. And she does. Yes, just do what the nice incestuous pederast says.

She gets a call while she's trying to decide what to do. It's Lindsay, asking if Tru forgot her blind date. Wait, what? Tru had a date at around 4:30? Anyway, Tru tells her that she can't make it. Lindsay offers to cover. Though by the smile on her face when she sees Jeremy, she's probably thinking I'll just take him instead.

Jeremy walks over to her, and she apologizes for Tru's absence. He then says, "You're not Tru? Of course not; you're too good to be Tru." Oh, Jesus Christ. Lindsay, for her part, calls it "hilarious". You two totally deserve each other.

Cut back to Tru and our actual plot. As Tru is deciding what to do, she sees the neighbor's house. And just above the door is a stained-glass window depicting... a crescent moon and stars. DUN DUN DUNNNNNN!!!!!

Cut to inside the house where Paige has confronted the man. He's denying it, but she keeps telling him that it's true. And look, she's actually acting... slightly. When he threatens to call her father, she suggests that, adding the police and the district attorney to that. Yes, she just threatened the man who sexually assaulted her when she was nine. While in his house. While nobody knows where she is. Hey, let's find out how that asphyxiation thing happened to her.

Completely unsurprisingly, he turns on her and starts choking her. Tru barges in, which causes the man to release her. Paige and her father reconcile.

Cut to Paige and Tru talking on a bench. Paige wants to know who she was. Tru tells her about her life in the morgue as a "med-school wannabe". As Paige leaves, she tells Tru that she'll make a hell of a doctor someday. No thanks to you. Seriously, confront the man who assaulted you when you were nine, in his own house? Without police escort?

Cut to Tru in the morgue, on the phone with Lindsay. Apparently, Lindsay's only problem with the guy was that he used his "too good to be Tru" line on the waitress while he was with her. Well, my days of not taking Lindsay seriously are certainly coming to a middle. Lindsay tries to encourage Tru to date people. Just then, Luc comes out of the elevator. Tru hangs up to talk to Luc.

He's a lot nicer now that the destruction of a vital piece of photographic equipment is several hours in the past. He says that their accident might have had good consequences, since otherwise they'd never have met. They move on, with a "to be continued" exchanged between them.

Harrison calls her. Apparently, he didn't go to the track, and he had a great day. There's this girl groping at him in the restaurant while he's talking. So everything got better. After she hung up, she pulls out a list of horse names. Apparently, she remembered them herself. And she didn't bother to phone in a bet for a little walking-around money? Or maybe for a car that would allow her to get to places without needing a taxi, thus making her whole "saving people" thing work a lot easier?

Enter Davis, carrying Tru's mother's autopsy report. She looks at it, but decides not to open it immediately. He says he's sorry about her MCA Ts failure. Tru thinks that maybe that wasn't so bad. She talks about how Paige just wants to understand and the lengths she went through to get understanding. And now Tru wants some understanding.

Davis sympathizes, saying that it must be hard to do what she does, carrying her burden. He says, "Some call it a blessing, others a curse. I see it more as a calling." He says that he knows about what she does, helping the dead to live. DUN DUN DUNNNNNN!!!

It ends with Davis about to reveal the extent of what he knows.

Analysis
The intro scene to this episode is absolutely horrible. It's this mash of non-information, trying to set up some mysterious thing that happened to her at some point in the past. The dialog comes off as so arbitrary and forced that it fails to give the viewer any of the much-needed reason to contiue watching. The viewer is supposed to be sucked in by the promise of mystery, but instead is shied away by the promise of bordom. A failure of writing and acting.

The fact that the mysterious incident is exactly what you think it is doesn't help the people who stuck around.

This episode will unfortunately be the standard for most of the next run of episodes. This is what sank the show: it was frontloaded with crap. Not Filler so much as just shabby writing and execution.

At least the last episode had an excuse: it involved 6 new characters. This one only involved 3, and 2 of them were perfectly flat. The success or failure of this episode was on Paige. And Paige failed in every way.

Much of it comes from the actress, as mentioned above. But part of it comes from the setup. We should sympathize with Paige. That's what we're supposed to do. She's supposed to be going on a search for the truth, and Tru is trying to stop that. At the very least, we should see her side of things somewhat.

But the fact that this search involves killing yourself makes siding with her unlikely. The only way her decision can come across as sympathetic is if we actually see her trying alternatives and failing with them. It's one of those cases where the "show, don't tell" precept really needs to be followed. We simply can't buy into her doing something this risky without real knowledge of her alternatives.

The fact that we discover that her death was caused only by her monumental stupidity didn't help matters.

Also, there was the acting in the first death/resuscitation sequence with Steven, the Indian guy. That was horrible from everyone involved. I understand that they believe in this process, but the atmosphere of the scene was almost lighthearted, like Steven was going off to band camp or something. And I know that's supposed to try to fit into the idea that they see this as OK, but the fact that they're not very serious about the whole thing makes them seem either subhuman or just stupid.

There were good things about this episode. They cut out the nonsense with Tru's time jumps; they simply had it happen at a convenient moment, rather than this long drawn-out setup with that silly not-scary music. However, they still had Tru going back to the morgue to verify what happened, which requires a level of stupidity that no human language has ever needed words to describe.

Additional props go to Eliza Dushku and Jeremy's actor; the date was short, but they did their jobs very well. Eliza's expressions as Jeremy revealed himself to be a pretty douchebag were priceless.

Now, something needs to be said about the ending, where Davis reveals that he actually knows what's going on. Obviously, they've been building up to this for a while. The fact that Davis didn't fire Tru on the spot for stealing the morgue's supply of glucogon, as well as their conversation at that time, was a strong indicator that he was somewhat aware of things. The build up to this reveal was very well done. The only bad part is that the payoff happened in a low-quality episode like this one, rather than in a truly good episode like it deserves to.