"Haunted, episode 1x02: Grevious Angels" Staring: Matthew Fox, Russell Hornsby, John Mann, Michael Irby, Lynn Collins Guest staring: AJ “CSI:NY” Buckley, Josh Holland, Kristina “My resemblance to Kristen Bell is pure coincidence” Anapau, Rebekah Hoyle, Finn Curtin, Ilene Graff, Michael “The Unit” Irby and Zachary “Heroes” Quinto. We open in a club. Lots of strobe lights and loud music. I check my glasses and confirm that the blurriness is, indeed, intentional. Frank marches up to the bar and asks the bartender if he’s seen some twentysomething named Paris Eastman (according to the “missing” flyer he waves under the guy’s nose). He says she’s been missing for three weeks and she was “into the scene”. This whole expository slew sounds so incredibly clunky it’s painful to listen to. Basically, the bartender says he isn’t paid to recognize pretty girls – just serve drinks. So Frank wanders through the club aimlessly until he spots Paris standing in the middle of the dance floor staring at him. He starts to cut a path toward her and she acts nervous and flees through the back door (managing not to touch anybody I should note). Frank follows and ends up in a back alley and finds Paris standing in the rain singing “Long Long Time” by Linda Ronstadt. This is depressing enough but it turns creepy as he gets a little closer and sees that she appears to be crying blood. Or ink. Something dark anyway. And then she disappears. We don’t see Frank’s reaction to this revelation but if he hasn’t figured out she’s a ghost by now I’d say he’s a little slow on the uptake. Curtin and Graff – obviously the parents – are babbling about how they’re still hopeful that the flyers will work if only the right person will see them. Sure. Mom says “you’re not any closer to finding her, are you?” in a totally accusatory tone. Frank rattles off all the dead end leads he’s pursued, including her boyfriend. Dad berates himself for not getting the bastard’s name. Yeah, that’s usually a good idea. Then he adds that he “can’t take this again”. Frank blinks. “Again?” Nice investigative work there, ace. Shouldn’t you have done a background check? Mom reveals that they lost their oldest daughter in a car accident a few years ago. Usual sob story. Paris “lost her way”, started hanging out with the wrong crowd, drinking, doing drugs, blah blah. Frank asks why they didn’t tell him this before. No shit. Mom nonsensically explains that they didn’t want him to get the wrong idea about her. Yes, because withholding information like that doesn’t impede an investigation. Dad insists that she had issues but she still called them every week and wouldn’t just run off and worry them like this. He begs Frank to find her. Frank looks misty-eyed and neglects to ask what the hell they think he’s been doing so far. Totally pointless transition scene of Frank driving down a street, watching some guy staple a flyer for a garage sale to a pole, right over Paris’ missing poster. A voice whispers “wake up” and he whirls around to check the back seat. Nobody there genius, or haven’t you figured out this whole connection to the other side thing yet? Tattoo parlor. The mildly Hispanic-looking Michael Irby – here called Dante - is finishing up what looks like the twentieth tattoo on some guy’s arm when Frank enters. He slaps a bandaid on and sends the guy on his merry way before asking what’s up. They make small talk for a while and Frank finally spews that he’s working on this missing girl’s case and he knows she’s dead but he can’t prove it. Dante makes the mistake of asking how he knows she’s dead. Haven’t talked to Frank in a while, have we? Or maybe he has and is just being redundant because Frank’s sole explanation is “I’ve seen her”. He says he’s checked the morgues, but... “Funeral parlors, graveyards and big city morgues,” Dante cuts in. “My grandmother used to say they were the noisiest places on Earth. She called them ‘grey zones’ because they were filled with unrequited spirits caught in transition.” And now we know why he’s confiding in Dante about this “I see dead people” shit, though the when is still unclear. “Limbo,” Frank clarifies. Yes, you should be very familiar with that concept. Or you will be. “Unable to move on or stay...till when?” When they finish whatever it is they’re stuck here to do. Have you never seen a ghost story, like, ever? He goes back to the club and sits drinking a beer and staring at the dance floor like maybe the answer will just suddenly fall in his lap. Of course, because this is a TV show, this totally works. Some chick who looks a bit like Kristin Bell’s long lost twin but with more makeup materializes, introduces herself as Tierney and says she’s looking for Paris too. Frank does not ask where the hell she’s been and why she didn’t come forward earlier and instead asks when she last saw Paris. Tierney vaguely answers that it’s been “a while” and she was “wrong about something” and they had a fight and blah blah and now she thinks something’s happened to Paris. Man, are her lips shiny. “You’re looking in the wrong place,” she says. Paris was into “the scene”. Frank thought that’s what this was. Tierney says this club is just “a place”. Frank makes a lame joke about “the scene” being a state of mind and flashes the dopiest looking smile that makes me wonder exactly how many of those beers he’s had. Tierney says it’s actually a private club downstairs. Well why didn’t you say that before? She stares into his eyes like “you’re getting veeeerrrrryyyy sleeeeeppyyyyyy” and says “that’s where you’ve got to follow Paris”, then suddenly announces she has to leave. Yeah, this isn’t suspicious or anything. Not that Frank notices when weird shit happens around him. He asks how he gets there. She says “same way she did...down the rabbit hole”. She skips off. “Damnit, not another ‘Alice in Wonderland’ reference,” Frank thinks. “What, do I have to go through a Looking Glass next?” He goes through the backdoor he followed Paris out of before (hey, he’s actually thinking!) and stands around waiting until another door pops open by itself and Paris’ singing floats out of it. Note to dead people: if you keep handing him clues on a silver platter like that he’s never gonna learn. He ends up at a door marked “fire exit”, jiggles the handle a little and is getting ready to leave when the door pops open all by itself. Seriously, enough of the hand-holding. Frank kind of looks around like “here goes nothing”, takes a deep breath and goes in. The atmosphere is much more “socialite club” here than the bump and grind upstairs. Which probably just means they have more expensive drugs and all the drinks have little umbrellas and come in shades of neon. Sure enough, Frank picks up a martini glass filled with what looks like the toxic sludge that turned the Hulk green and sits on a couch next to a couple of pretty girls. They ask him if he’s with the record company. He says no, um...and they interrupt to create all sorts of false memories regarding where they may have seen him before. He wisely leaves them to their delusions and says he was “hoping to hook up with Paris.” Yes, that’s always a good thing to say when you’re a mysterious man who looks possibly old enough to be her father. Lucky for him, neither of them reaches for the pepper spray. Instead, they gush about how much they love her. He asks when the last time they saw her was. Beat. “You know, the whole scruffy Johnny Depp meets Tom York thing really works for you,” Girl #1 says. Yeah...not a very good description. And how is he scruffy when he’s wearing a suit and clean shaven? You want scruffy, I’ve got my Season 3 “Lost” DVDs right here... Unless, of course, they’re just trying to flatter him, which totally works. He blushes and giggles and redirects them to the question. They say it was at a party three weeks ago at Connor and Blake’s place. Oh, yeah, and Connor Hewitt really had “a thing” for her – they point to a couple loud Brits on the other side of the room. Frank asks what Connor does and the girls look at him like he just flew in from Mars. Like, oh my god, he doesn’t know who Grevious Angels is? Are? Whatever? They’re like, the awesomest band ever! (Yes, Microsoft, I know that’s not a word. Thank you.) Connor’s the lead singer and obviously the boyfriend the parents were talking about earlier. Frank goes to take a sip of his drink but it turns blood red and the glass cracks, spilling all over his hand. Hey, maybe if he sits there long enough Connor will just stumble into his lap and confess everything! Seriously, how long do we have to lead him around by the nose? After the (non-existent...thank God for time shifting) commercial break one of the guys from the Grevious Angels group goes to get a drink, bumping into Frank at the bar. Hey, it’s Sylar (aka Quinto)! Or, as he says (in a thick British accent), Paul Kingsley, the manager for the band, but I’m going to stick with Sylar. Don’t like it? Tough. He asks if Frank is a producer or manager. Manager, Frank lies. Sylar asks who he reps and Frank rattles off a few names of “indie bands” Sylar’s never heard of (probably because they’re fake but sound real). Hey, quick thinking! Good boy, Frank! You can have your PI card back now. Sylar agrees that Grevious Angels could “go all the way”...at least Connor could. The other’s are “red shirts”. Says the man who would be Spock. Connor will probably fire them for not making him look good enough or some crap. Frank says well, at least Blake is safe since Connor probably wouldn’t fire his brother. Sylar blows smoke (no, literally, he has a cigarette) and says he hasn’t yet, which is good for Sylar because Blake keeps him in line. Frank not at all subtly says he heard there was a girl Connor was seeing...Paris, was it? Unfortunately, Sylar is not as stupid as the girls he was talking to earlier and realizes he’s not really a manager and demands to know who he is and what he wants. Fortunately, said girls pick this moment to stumble over and ask if Frank wants to come with them to some party. Recognizing a rescue when he sees one (or maybe this is part of Plan B) he agrees, confirms they are both 18 and offers them a ride. On the way out, the girls fill him in on a few more details. Paris did some work for the record promoter, met Connor and probably woke up one morning and realized “it wasn’t going to happen”. Girl #2 gets a pouty/seductive look and points out that Paris is gone but “we’re here”. He says uh-huh and brushes past them into this new party. Somebody needs to take him aside and explain to him expressions like “hook up with” because I think he might actually be this clueless. Tierney launches herself from a chair in the corner and sidles up to him, noting he found his way in. He says “yeah, ninth circle of Wonderland.” Tierney says they’re like family. “A backstabbing, weird one but...” And the difference is? Basically, she does more of her cryptic act and Frank acts clueless. Same old, same old. The brothers arrive, arguing about football (Americans read: soccer) teams and Connor is waving a team ring. Somehow Frank gets roped into this argument, taking Connor’s side, and Blake shuffles off grumbling. “So, who the hell’re you,” Connor asks rudely. Well, hello to you too. Frank introduces himself as a PI and says he’s looking for Paris. Connor looks blank. Frank pulls out a picture and says he knows her, right? Connor looks confused. “Yeah, I’ve seen her around.” Around what? Your bedroom? Frank says he heard they were close. Blake cuts in from nearby to say whatever he heard is a lie. Frank says she’s been missing since she was at a party here three weeks ago... what time did she leave? Blake spins a story about her getting messy drunk and leaving before Connor even knew she was there. Frank’s not buying it seeing as he wasn’t born yesterday but Blake makes some threats and he leaves. Frank’s car. Frank and Marcus discuss the case. Frank doesn’t think she ever left “the loft” and he knows Connor is the musician she told her parents she was seeing and he thinks maybe she tried to take the relationship further than Connor was willing to go and... Marcus tells him to back up the truck. He has no weapon, no witness and no body. He needs to find evidence the crime has been committed before they start talking motive and suspects. And we cut abruptly to Frank lying in bed in the same clothes he wore to bed in the last episode when he hears a thumping coming from the hall. He grabs his gun and goes searching. Where’s Gus? A radio comes on by itself, playing (what else?) “Long Long Time”. He goes to turn it down and Paris’ voice shrieks “WAKE UP!” in this absolutely creepy, shrill voice. Her disembodied hands appear on the other side of one of the many windowed doors in his apartment, banging on the glass repeatedly, the voice still screaming “wake up!” Then blood appears and the hands slide down the glass, smearing it everywhere for a moment before disappearing. Frank just stares. This scene scared the crap out of me the first time I saw it. Well, not really, but I saw it the same week I saw “The Sixth Sense” and I couldn’t sleep that night because I kept seeing bloody handprints and a boy with the back of his head blown off behind my eyelids. Anyway. Next day. Let’s assume anyway. Paris’ mom shows up at his apartment and he says he has a “strange” question for her but did the song “Long Long Time” mean anything to Paris? Mom spins a long story about how Paris would refuse to sleep when she was little and Mom would sing to her. “Long Long Time” was the only song that worked. Yeah, makes me sleepy too. No, it was her favorite. Mom’s smile fades and she guesses that Frank thinks Paris is dead since he’s started using past tense to refer to her. The camera has been getting increasingly closer to their faces throughout this scene but now I think I can see individual pores. Or at least I would be able to if Mom’s weren’t caked under a pretty good layer of makeup. Frank admits that he does and points out she’s been gone for three weeks. Mom’s chin quivers and she visibly pulls herself together and nods, saying she just wants to know the truth. She leaves and Frank stares at the door the hands were banging on until the phone rings. It’s Marcus with the name of the promoter for the club. So he meets Sylar in what looks like an abandoned diner, which doesn’t seem very smart. Sylar rolls his eyes and says he did a little research on Frank and he has no right to harass Connor. Frank says Connor is a murderer and Sylar’s going to help him prove it. “Really? Who did he murder? Where’s the body,” Sylar does not ask. Instead, he just scoffs. Frank says he did some research too: Paris was working for Sylar’s club and if he’s protecting Connor because he killed an employee he’s an accessory. I’m not a lawyer, but that sounds weak. Whether or not she worked for him, if he knows something and doesn’t speak up he’s an accessory anyway. Is he suggesting Sylar had her whacked or something? And why? Was her singing getting in the way of his plots to rule the world? Sylar says he just told Connor to stay away from Paris. “What about the song ‘Long Long Time’,” Frank non-sequiters. “What did it mean to Connor?” Sylar says hell if he knows, but he was always after Blake to record the damned thing. Frank asks where it was recorded. Sylar says in a converted building across the street from the loft and are they finished here because he has mutated brains to collect. Frank says one last thing – Paris didn’t have a computer so how did she help with the mailing list? Sylar says they work from a cell phone, which the club provides. Frank leaves and Sylar glowers after him like “mmm...brains.” Sorry. Loft. I guess. Connor is laying on the floor listening to music and smoking, his shirt half-off. Frank appears and rips the headphones from him so he can ask a few questions. His relationship with Paris wasn’t “casual”, right? Connor admits they “had it off” a few times. Frank points out that Connor’s story keeps changing every time he asks so maybe if he keeps harassing him he’ll get around to the real story. Connor asks what that might be. Frank says they had a really long phone conversation three weeks ago after she got off the phone with a doctor at a pregnancy clinic. Oops. Connor points out that this is no longer the Dark Ages (wouldn’t be so sure) and getting a girl pregnant wasn’t going to ruin his career. Frank says no, “but killing her because she was trying to control you might.” What? “Long Long Time. Does that mean anything to you,” he adds. Uh...what is the length of his prison sentence, Alex? Connor feigns ignorance. Frank menaces that all he has to do is prove Paris never left the place and he can have the cops over in five minutes “getting very acquainted with your DNA.” “What makes you think I wouldn’t enjoy that, mate,” Connor asks. Not. But seriously, what a horrible choice of wording there. And I really have to stop pausing scenes like this on Matthew’s face because I just got creeped out by the crazy eyes again. As Frank is leaving, he runs into Paris, standing on the other side of some glass. She gives him an intense stare and slams her bloody hands onto the glass, murmuring “wake up”. Then she disappears, the handprints following a second later. And because Frank is still utterly clueless he meets Dante at a bar to ask what the hell this means. Dante concludes that she’s “dying again and again” for his benefit because he’s the only person who can be her witness. Yeah, that or she trying to TELL HIM SOMETHING but it’s not getting through his THICK SKULL. Dante strangely latches onto the fact that the bloody handprints are disappearing which means either “blood that can’t be seen or if it *was* there...” “Someone cleaned it up,” Frank concludes. Oy vey. The handprints couldn’t be disappearing because...gee, I don’t know...THE GIRL IS DISAPPEARING? Sloppy, writers. Frank comes around to a conclusion he should have made a couple scenes ago which is that the combination of music and glass equals recording studio, gives Dante money to pay for both of their drinks and splits. Recording studio, exterior. Frank looks around to make sure nobody’s watching and picks the lock on the door. He’s about two feet in the door when Tierney pops up all bright and chipper. “I saw your light. Did you pick that lock?” He says uh-huh and waves her in. “Cool,” she trills. Heh. They enter the studio and Frank picks up a CD labeled “To Paris”, finds a crack in the glass partition and uses that spray/blacklight combination CSIs do in their sleep to reveal the handprints. It should be noted that he only has a glove on one hand so, y’know, he’s probably leaving left-handed fingerprints everywhere. He concludes that Paris was killed in here and then starts walking through the whole murder, following the blood trail out the door into an alley, Tierney trailing after him. He finds Paris’ decaying corpse under a pile of garbage and Tierney sobs and runs off into the night, Frank watching her like “shit, I knew I shouldn’t have let her tag along...” Morning. Coroner says Paris died of shock and blood loss three weeks ago. Marcus forces her to clarify for the audience that, while Paris was beaten, the beating didn’t actually kill her – she could have lived if she’d been taken to a hospital. Marcus points out some gashes on her face and the coroner says it looks like it wasn’t deliberate – like she was hit with something. Like maybe the killer had something on his hand. Like...oh, I don’t know...A RING? Frank jumps on this and tells Marcus to talk to Connor, who was the father of her child and wears a soccer ring. Marcus agrees they should talk to him, but first Frank needs to head over to the grieving parents on the sidelines and feed them a stilted promise that he will FIND the person who DID THIS, damnit! Interrogation. If you could call it that. Marcus gets up in Connor’s face and menaces that Paris wasn’t dead when he threw her and her unborn child in the dumpster. She died a long, slow death. In the cold. All alone. I’m sorry, I’m waiting for the lawyer to arrive and yell at Marcus. Connor says she hit him because he was dumping her but that’s all he remembers because he was smashed at the time. He rattles off a few vague memories of her screaming and her head hitting glass and blood everywhere, but he’s basically got nothing that would hold up in court without solid physical evidence. In the hall outside, Marcus finds a scowling Frank, who is less than impressed that a “spoiled kid confessed to killing a girl that loved him”. Marcus says “the law doesn’t care that she loved him. Only that he killed her.” Frank snots that she deserved better. Have the writers reached their cliché quota yet on this episode? Frank’s apartment. Just in case you thought maybe that solution wasn’t too easy and this case was over. Frank is in the bathroom washing his face when the radio snaps on in the next room. It is, of course, playing the Macarena. No, of course it’s playing “Long Long Time”. Haven’t you been paying attention? Frank looks at it, baffled, and then blood (or at least frothy red dye) starts bubbling up from the sink drain. Yeah, you might want to call the super and get that checked. Frank stares at this, wheels spinning, and Paris whispers “wake up”. Luckily, he finally gets what she wants him to do and goes to the brothers’ apartment (I guess) and fishes a bloody soccer ring out of a kitchen drain. Interrogation part deux. Sort of. Let’s just cut to the chase, shall we? Both brothers are there. Marcus says Connor is innocent. Blake says no shit. Frank adds that he only thought he killed Paris because he was “high and suggestible”. Blake says whu? Frank plays the CD he found at the studio. It’s Connor singing “Long Long Time”, dedicated to Paris. Frank spins a very wobbly tale about Connor listening to Paris more than Blake and that pissed Blake off and somehow hearing him recording that song sent him over the edge. Paris had already been having a fight with Connor that night and he snapped and beat her to death. Like I said, it’s a bit wobbly. Meanwhile, we see this all happening in flashback, with Blake knocking Connor out with a right hook and throwing Paris around the next room, where she repeatedly bangs on the glass and begs Connor to “WAKE UP!” At least this part makes sense. Blake says they’re bluffing and have no proof. Marcus whips out the ring. And since Connor’s is in evidence already from the last interrogation this must be Blake’s. Because they’re not identical or anything. Lucky for them, Blake then basically spews a bullet-proof confession at Connor along the lines of “she had you by the balls and she was going to ruin your career and I’m always fixing your damned messes.” Marcus drags him out. Connor mumbles that he remembers disposing of the body. Frank assures him he didn’t kill her though, Blake just made him think he did. He leaves Connor alone to cry pathetically. Train station. Frank asks Paris’ mom how her husband is doing. She says he feels responsible and rambles about how he wouldn’t even let her or Paris mention Paris’ sister after she died but at least he’s making funeral arrangements because with Tierney she had to do everything and... Frank’s eyes bug out. “Your other daughter...what was her name?” Tierney, Mom repeats. Seriously, Frank, they’re called background checks. You might want to look into them. Frank asks if she has a picture, which it so happens she does right in her purse. And, of course, she hands him a picture with both ghosts of the week. This plot twist seems obvious now but it totally threw me the first time I saw it. Granted, my knowledge of ghost plots at the time was “The Sixth Sense” and a few episodes of “X-Files”, but... When you go back and look at some of the scenes Tierney is in you realize they actually did a pretty good job of hiding it. People walk around her and talk to Frank like she’s not really there but it’s not at all obvious. Kudos. Mom keeps rambling about how Tierney and Paris had a fight before Tierney went to the mall and then her car went off the road and flipped over. Frank assures her that she did not fail them and Paris was “loved”. Dad arrives to tell Mom the train’s leaving and they say goodbye and leave Frank standing in the near-empty station. “Wake up,” Paris whispers one last time. And Frank turns to watch Paris and Tierney walk away, evaporating into thin air while Linda Ronstadt warbles on. And just so it ends on a creepy note instead of a sappy one, her voice changes to Paris’ toward the end. Because damn, that girl has a creepy voice.