Medium 2.14: "A Changed Man"

Written by Bruce Miller
Directed by Lewis Gould

In which Allison begins having dreams about a man who kills prostitutes, but when she tracks down the killer, the man has no memory of the crimes and one of his victims is his wife…


Considering that this series will be on a haphazard schedule until the end of the Winter Olympics, it’s a good thing that they hit the mini-hiatus with a good, strong episode. As usual, the best parts of the episode evolved out of Allison and Joe’s dynamic, right down to Allison’s moral superiority and Joe’s search for a relational explanation for her gift/curse.

As an engineer, I can completely appreciate Joe’s desire to find some physical brain structure that might explain Allison’s psychic ability. Granted, it would have taken the series into “Dead Zone” territory, but it addressed one of those questions that any scientist willing to entertain the psychic notion eventually asks. Logic dictates that something must be different between “normal” human beings and Allison and the girls, but finding that distinction through science can’t be as simple as running an MRI (or it would have been discovered by now, assuming the reality of psychic ability).

In this case, Allison runs into a man who used to be a serial killer and then completely lost his identity. His wife just happens to be his last intended victim, a woman who was also looking for a new life. It’s hard not to sympathize with Angela/Jade in this episode (played by the gorgeous Jaime Ray Newman), because she has a very good point. I was instantly reminded of one of my favorite stand-alone episodes of “Babylon 5” called “Passing Through Gethsemane”.

In that series, killers were sentenced to the “death of personality”, where their old personality and memories were wiped clean and replaced with a personality more suited to public service. The episode dealt with a man who had undergone the “death of personality” and devoted his life to peaceful religious pursuits, only to be hunted down by the relatives of his victims. The moral question was rather plain: if a person doesn’t remember his crimes, is it meaningful to punish that person for their previous actions?

Angela makes the case that her husband isn’t the same person that killed those prostitutes, so what would be the point of holding him responsible for the crimes, especially since it will destroy two lives in the process? Allison simply can’t let it go, because she continues to have visions of the kinky manner in which the man killed his victims.

The question in this case becomes more complex: is Allison even capable of agreeing to Angela’s request? She may be tempted to do so, but it’s unlikely that her visions would end until the victims were appeased. Devalos is in no position to let the matter drop, since it’s his job to ensure that criminals are brought to justice. Thus the moral question is complicated by the effect it would have on Allison.

Yet that is never given as the explanation for Allison’s choice. Allison doesn’t really give an answer, other than her sense of moral outrage over a killer’s apparent escape from justice for far too long. Given how indignant Allison gets over Joe’s scientific verve, one could easily fault Allison for acting out of a less-than-charitable attitude. But that’s something intrinsic to her character, and one of the things that helps make this a unique and intriguing series.

Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 2/4

Final Rating: 8/10