Ghost Whisperer: No Safe Place (Episode 304)

Melinda's crying over a movie at a town get-together, although she tells Jim what she should be crying over is how overwhelmed she is at the store. Delia's been distracted trying to get Ned into private school, so Jim suggests they take advantage of his mom's obsession with looking younger to camp out at her apartment in the city while she recuperates from surgery. Hopefully said apartment doesn't smell like old lady and house 85 cats. Melinda agrees just as some guy who's had a few too many barrels through the crowd, knocking over chairs and tables when he collapses. Dude, learn to hold your liquor. Women only want to get with someone who isn't going to choke on his own vomit on the bathroom floor. While Jim runs over to help, Melinda spots a woman standing next to her, watching the man intently before disappearing.

Spotting her by a flower stand a few yards away, Melinda approaches the spirit. Hey, it's Syph Nurse from Grey's Anatomy! Don't mistake my exclamation point for anything other than indignation. Mess with George O'Malley and feel my wrath! She keeps jerking her head to the side, saying she has to make sure the guy on the ground knows she'll always be with him. She implores Melinda to give him an orange rose from the flower stand so he'll know.

Jim checks out the guy, Shane, at an ambulance. He finds a bottle of prescription sedatives and says mixing those with alcohol can kill Shane. Shane agrees but says he's been going through a rough patch. He feels like he's going crazy, being watched all the time. Before Jim can give him the name and number of a shrink, Melinda walks up and jauntily presents the rose to him. Shane demands to know who made her do that, and Melinda, startled, says "Colleen," who, it turns out, is suddenly sitting right behind Shane in the ambulance, looking creepy and, well syphilitic. Yes, I can tell. Melinda can convene with ghosts, I can spot lying health professionals with STDs. Good thing Jim's clean, or he'd be on my shitlist, too. Shane says Colleen was his worst nightmare, while Melinda looks confusedly past him into the ambulance.

After he's had a chance to gather himself, Shane explains that Colleen is dead, so Melinda couldn't have seen her. Jim tries to cover, telling him he needs to sober up, but Melinda is having none of it. She wants to know how Shane knows Colleen. He explains he went out with her a few times, but she gave him syphilis she caught from his fellow resident and then let him think he gave it to her turned out to be a little "off," even though she seemed to be really cute and funny when he asked her out. Melinda looks peeved, glancing around for Colleen, who's hiding her syphilitic spirit elsewhere while Shane says she went a little crazy when he stopped asking her out. Well, shit, how can I make light of stalking? Stalking is a serious crime, a silent killer that affects thousands of women each year...oh, wait, that's cancer. Well, hell, if I can make fun of cancer, I can probably make do.

Later, Jim finds Melinda in the living room, researching stalkers. He gives up the hope of sex in favor of food when it's obvious Melinda is too preoccupied with Shane and Colleen. While he fixes peanut butter and jelly, Melinda tells him about Colleen's neck twitch, which Jim says can be a sign of heavy psychotic drugs. Melinda doesn't think so, however. She explains that she thinks Colleen is an intimacy seeker, who wants her victim to love her, rather than a predatory stalker who seeks to control her victims. She probably even thinks she's actually in a relationship with him. Melinda realizes she'll need to convince Colleen the best thing for Shane is for her to move on. Well, since Colleen is a stalker, she should be easy to find, Jim says.

Acting a bit the stalker herself, Melinda follows Shane in her car as he walks to his office. As she watches, he gets a call from Colleen and then gets trapped in a revolving door. I fear that happening to me, although more from my own stupidity than a stalker ghost with syphilis. Melinda spots Colleen and yells for her to stop. Colleen releases Shane so she can appear in Melinda's car. She says every Monday Shane should get an orange rose. Melinda tries to explain that Shane is not Colleen's boyfriend, and she needs to go into the Light, but Colleen sneers that he needs to know how she feels before disappearing.

Melinda meets Shane in his office, which is decorated in bizarre photographs of female body parts...a hand, an ear and some hair, a foot in black stocking and a high heeled shoe. Um, weird, much? I'm all about modern art, but that's just creepy. Melinda skips the bullshit and explains she can talk to spirits and she's seen Colleen. Shane doesn't seem surprised, but he's nervous that Colleen is there right now. Melinda says she was downstairs, but that they're alone now. She wants to help Colleen move on but says she might need Shane to talk to her at some point. He refuses, saying Colleen made up stories about trips the took, arguments they had - all of which never existed.

A colleague comes in to ask Shane to lunch, but spotting Melinda, he switches into "you sly dog" congratulatory mode, since that's not rude or anything. Shane introduces Melinda, explaining he met her and her husband the other night, and the co-worker, who suffers from a terrible case of verbal diarrhea, apologizes before blathering on about Shane being the office heartbreaker. Once he finds out they have a mutual "friend" in common, Colleen, he reveals that she quit her job because the attorneys aren't allowed to date interns, and she had a thing for Shane. Shane finally manages to get rid of Talky McTalkerson. Melinda find out Colleen's last name, Finn, before she leaves, promising to end Colleen's stalking.

At the store, Jim runs in from the fire station to take care of a circuit problem they're having in the basement. He's eager to go away for the weekend, but Melinda says she could make him the promise they could go if she could find more on Colleen...there's no record of her anywhere. She cajoles Jim into asking to find out if she was on the police's radar. He agrees and leaves, but the lights immediately flicker once he's gone. Supernatural being my favorite show, I'm sure that can't be good, but different powers must govern the spirit world on this show, because what it actually signifies is...nothing.

Melinda must have managed to uncover something on Colleen, because she visits her apartment. She learns from Colleen's landlord that she probably had no family, as she left that section blank on her lease, and that she kept to herself. As Melinda spots a trashcan full of orange roses, the landlord explains that Colleen died by falling down the stairs, breaking her neck. Melinda asks for a minute alone. She spots a restraining order against Shane, and a note on one of the flower cards: "You are my destiny. Love, Shane." I knew any guy with weird-ass pictures in his office couldn't be good news. Colleen appears, and Melinda urges her to go into the Light, that she's safe now, but Colleen says there "is no safe place. He's everywhere," before she disappears. Melinda looks nervously out the window but misses Shane standing on the sidewalk below. Dude is creepy...too bad Colleen didn't give him syphilis on, like, his face or something.

Outside, Melinda spots Shane down the block, but he's gone when she turns around. She makes her way cautiously down a dark alley, because that's a smart place to park in the city at night, and is scared witless when Colleen appears in front of her. Melinda tells Colleen to let go, that she's acting like Shane, but Colleen refuses. Melinda wants to know how Colleen died. In a flashback, we see that Colleen was running, trying to flee her apartment, and that she fell out of the window and over the railing of the fire escape. She doesn't know if Shane was there or not. Melinda wants to talk to some of Colleen's friends or family, but Colleen says he made them all go away...only Campbell never left her. She disappears, leaving the business card that was stapled to her restraining order, for Detective David Campbell.

At the police station, Detective Campbell fills Melinda in on Shane. Since he was an attorney, he was able to evade arrest, always skating up to the line of what was legal but never over it. He says Shane was a sociopathic predator who isolated Colleen from her friends by harassing them until she wasn't worth keeping in touch with. Melinda is confused by how a seemingly solid, ambitious guy could turn out to be so creepy, but Campbell says a lot of these guys don't have time for a real relationship, so they create one they can control. Have none of these people heard of the internet? They should try to find love in an AOL chatroom sometime...close the browser window and it's over, no fuss, no muss. Campbell thinks Shane believes he was Colleen's Prince Charming. He also believes Shane is responsible for Colleen's death, but he can't prove it, and he's frustrated because he couldn't save her. Melinda tells him at least he kept trying to help Colleen, and she knows it meant a lot to her.

At Shane's office, Colleen attempts to terrify him the way he did her, turning off the lights and rocking his pictures, but he's unimpressed. For a ghost that could trap him in a set of revolving doors earlier, she's awfully ineffectual now. Shane goes on and on about how he loved her, even though she "cheated" on him with a CPA (who, Colleen says, he terrorized, hacking into his client records and canceling his credit cards). This guy is Insane, with a capital "I." Colleen is frustrated because she can't scare him, screaming at him and trying to hit him, to no avail. Shane says he's moved on, as pictures of Melinda scroll on his laptop.

Shane visits Melinda's store the next day. He spots Delia's folder on Morgan Price, the private school she's trying to get Ned into, before he finds Melinda outside. He presents her with an angel statuette, because he's a stalker with really bad taste in gifts, but she tells him she wants him to leave her alone. She's on to him. He starts going on and on in his insane way, and Melinda pointedly tells him she's married to a man with a lot of cop friends. The "they'll shoot your balls off before you can blink" is implied. Shane is oblivious, even when Delia comes out and tells him to leave, although he does say a true friend doesn't tell her friends who she can and can't talk to. Look, buddy, a true friend brings his stalking victims good shit they can use, like jewelry and expensive perfume, rather than tacky angel statuettes. He leaves while Melinda inexplicably clutches the angel statuette as she goes inside. I guess if she can make a few bucks off of Shane's bad taste, so be it.

At home, Melinda is reading in bed, alone, as if every off-duty cop in Grandview wouldn't be huddled up on the bed next to her, eating doughnuts and guffawing to Police Academy. She hears something downstairs and goes to investigate, finding Colleen in a ball on the floor. Colleen says it's happening again, that even while she's safe from Shane, Melinda isn't. A knock at the door makes Melinda jump out of her skin, but it's only Delia, who's upset because Morgan Price got a call from Ned's school counselor, asking about special education resources. Melinda says it's Shane's doing, that he's trying to cut her off from her friends, which seems to be working. Delia is pissed that Ned won't be able to get into the school now. I'm a little confused as to how Shane could convince a school counselor to do something like that...he must be, like, Super Stalker or something. Colleen reappears, reiterating that it's starting again.

At the store the next day, Melinda asks Detective Campbell what she can do stop Shane. Campbell is pretty useless...other than getting access to Shane's computer records through a subpoena - which they can't get unless they can prove wrongdoing - they can't nail him for anything, effectively leaving Melinda at risk. Excuse me for asking, but what in the hell is Jim doing through all this? I am baffled - baffled - at the fact that Melinda isn't walking around with three guys who are 6'5" and 300 pounds who carry guns. I mean, instead of asking my husband to find out who someone is, I think I'd pull in a few protection favors, but maybe that's just me.

At home once again, Melinda enters to find music playing, candles lit, and the shower running. She does yell up to Jim that she tried to call, but her phone wasn't working. Girlfriend needs to try a payphone or something. It's been two days since she found out she was being stalked, and she didn't try a little harder to call her husband? She changes into one of Jim's shirts, surprised that he went all out in such a romantic way, but when he doesn't answer, she pulls back the shower curtain to find...an orange rose. Well, that's anticlimactic. I guess nothing will equal the horror of opening your cupboard and finding your canned food alphabetized . Now that's scary. Shane, meanwhile, is standing outside in the pouring rain. Melinda yells at him to go away, that her husband will be home any minute, but Shane says there were complications with Jim's mom's surgery, and he won't be home for a while. Melinda runs around the house, slamming doors and locking them.

At the surgery center, Jim asks to see his mother. At home, Melinda is turning off lights, because I guess it's better to fend off an attacker that you can't see. She tries to call out on her home and cell phones, but they're both out. Back at the surgery center, Jim finds out his mom was discharged earlier. He says his cell phone is out of service, which is apparently enough to clue him in to Shane's shenanigans - that wacky stalker! He grabs the receptionist's phone but can't get through to his landline, so he takes off instead of, you know, calling the cops or anything, even though he's a few hours away. This is like a badly-written slasher flick. If it were on cable, I'd expect to be seeing some boobies right about now.

Melinda creeps downstairs and grabs a knife, while Colleen appears and informs her that Shane has moved around back. Melinda begs her to remember if Shane pushed her down the stairs, as if that will make a lot of difference when she's plunging a butcher knife into him, but Colleen can't. Melinda looks out the back, and Shane jumps up and starts rattling the door. Jim makes it back from the surgery center in record time, even though Shane said he was a few hours away, and goes after him. He comes back in and says Shane jumped the fence and drove away. He leaves Melinda to call the cops on the neighbor's phone, while Melinda spots the ugly angel and throws it to the ground in a fit of rage. Why did she have to get the cheap stalker? The horror!

Melinda goes back to Colleen's apartment, where she finds her on the floor, despondent. Colleen thought she could stop Shane, but she's led him to Melinda instead, and now he'll kill Melinda, too. Melinda says he won't, and she was wrong. It's time to take this asshole down. Okay, she doesn't say it quite like that, but you get the gist. She asks Colleen to tell her everything she's seen since she started stalking Shane, so they can find something with which to implicate him.

Colleen says that Shane kept personal records on everyone in her life - her friends, landlord, Detective Campbell. She says Shane even had the date Detective Campbell started smoking again, which she remembers, because she gave him hell about it. She wishes she hadn't, since he was the only person strong enough to stand up to Shane and try and help her. Colleen asks Melinda if she really thinks they can get Shane, or if she's just trying to get Colleen to go into the Light, and Melinda confesses it's a bit of both.

Melinda goes to Shane's office, accompanied by Colleen, who tells her Shane is in court all morning, and that his assistant thinks Melinda is his latest girlfriend. Melinda gets inside by letting the assistant think she left her bra in there the night before. She copies his computer files before noticing the pictures on his walls. Colleen spots them as well, and they realize they're of Colleen - after her fall from the balcony. There's batshit insanity, which leads to stalking women with bad folk art, and then there's "abandon hope, all ye who enter here" insanity, which apparently means you take pictures of your dead stalker victim's body and put them on your office wall, and I think we've just crossed over into the realm of the second.

Back at Detective Cambell's office, Melinda wants to know if there's any shred of proof they can use to link Shane to the murder. He says there's not, that Colleen's body was found alone in the stairwell (I guess "stairwell" and "alley" are synonymous here, since Colleen fell from an outside fire escape to the concrete below), but he shows her a copy of the crime scene photo, which is where Shane got his photos.

Melinda pays a visit to Shane, slapping the photo down in front of him. He plays like it's gross, but Melinda calls him on having pieces of it on his wall. He says it's his way to remember Colleen, and Colleen says that makes her happy. Melinda conveys the message, along with the rest of it...Colleen is happy the whole firm will remember her, since they sent copies of the crime scene photo to everyone in the office, along with a note about the "artwork." Oh, they also sent copies of Shane's stalker files to everyone. By the way, his clients? All copied on the emails. Melinda says Shane is a pariah now, everything he wished for Colleen, and he'll be lucky if he can get a job scrubbing toilets at the local McDonald's. Well, the sentiment is there. Melinda leaves as Shane tries to make it sound like Melinda came after him, but the disgusted buzz from his co-workers in the lobby shows it's not working.

Detective Campbell says they can probably get Shane on identity theft, so it's all over. Too bad they couldn't get him on assault of the senses with a deadly piece of angel art. With Colleen standing by, Melinda says Colleen really was grateful for Campbell's support. Apparently they had an unrequited crush on each other, and Campbell confesses there was one night he wanted to kiss her, badly, but he couldn't, because she trusted him. Melinda assures him that Colleen wanted him to, and Colleen gives him a brief kiss before disappearing. Campbell wants to know what just happened, but whether or not Melinda explained isn't clear, and being a novice to this show, I'm not sure whether or not she usually tells people they've just gotten tongued by a ghost.

At the shop, Delia comes in and says Ned did get into Morgan Price, in spite of Shane's tinkering, so I guess all is forgiven. She leaves to run more errands, but says she left the sconces in the basement, since the lights are still flickering. Downstairs, Melinda hangs up with Jim, and just as she does, Shane asks if she missed him. The phone rings, and Jim says Melinda will never guess what happened, not in a hundred, million years, not with three hundred and fifty billion guesses. "Shane's dead," she says, much to Jim's disappointment. An overdose, he says, and, by the way, how did she know? She tells him Shane is right there, but before Shane can attack Melinda so they can "be together forever," he's pulled into the Darkness. A fitting end to the cheapest stalker in history, if you ask me. Guess next time he'll spring for the tennis bracelet.

Next week, a Very Special Halloween episode. Given the content of this show, I'm guessing it's not about the Great Pumpkin.