"Haunted, episode 1x05: Blind Witness"

Staring: Matthew Fox, Russell Hornsby, John Mann, Michael Irby, 
Lynn Collins

Guest staring: Ray Campbell, Michael Wyle, Bianca Lawson and 
some people whose names nobody seems to know.


Holy shit, this episode was actually captured when the show 
originally aired. Ah, the not-so-good old days of UPN: the 
bottom of the barrel network. Previously on Haunted. Frank 
died, came back to life and sees dead people. Dante knows about 
it. Marcus knows something is weird but is still clueless. 
Frank is a bumbling idiot who has so far been taken hostage, 
thrown off a roof, stabbed, strangled, nearly drowned and 
managed to turn his back on two suspects long enough for them 
to knock him out. And it’s only been four episodes (and most of 
that happened in only two of them). 

Marcus and Frank are sitting in a car waiting for something. 
Some guy covered in feathers rides a bike past the car, looking 
at them like he’s wondering why they aren’t wearing tinfoil 
hats to protect them from the alien beams, and Frank chuckles 
“I love LA”. Yes, make fun of crazy people. Nice. Then he spots 
some guy carrying a big, heavy box and whips out a camera. “You 
know, this isn’t exactly how I planned on spending my 
Saturday,” Marcus gripes. He’s got shit to do, damnit. And what 
is this about. Apparently, the guy is spending his first 
“permanent disability check” on a computer. Marcus notes that 
he doesn’t look very disabled. Yes, that’s probably why a 
private investigator was hired to follow him around with a 
camera, genius. 

Frank hands him the camera and says he has a present for the 
guy and wants Marcus to get a nice closeup of his expression 
when Frank hands it to him. “Or when he hands it to me.” Marcus 
asks what he means by that. Frank says oh, he used to be a 
boxing champion. Heh. He darts out of the car before Marcus can 
talk him out of it, reminding him to keep snapping pictures no 
matter what happens. Then he crosses the intersection and hands 
the guy a neck brace courtesy of his friends at the insurance 
company. The guy blinks, glowers and, predictably, sucker 
punches Frank. Frank doesn’t even try to duck, but I guess I 
can excuse his lack of self preservation this once because it 
did seem to happen pretty fast. We see through the viewfinder 
as Marcus winces and snaps crazily. Frank staggers and looks 
right at the camera. “Nononono don’t look at me,” Marcus yelps. 
Then Frank proves himself to be a total moron by turning and 
letting the guy punch him again. Not only did he not try to hit 
back, he didn’t even try to put his arms up to block the punch. 
How is this guy not dead? He hits the ground and, while he’s 
getting up we see the world going fuzzy and white from his 
perspective. A voice moans “my heart!” 

The boxer goes to take another shot (ever hear the one about 
not kicking dead horses, pal?) but Marcus swoops in waving his 
badge. While he’s shoving the guy back, Frank just stumbles 
right into traffic. Well, it was bound to happen sooner or 
later. Marcus goes to grab him and Frank clings to him, staring 
at the ground, the tiny bit of blood on his face two seconds 
ago totally disappeared. “I can’t see, man! I’m blind!” Wow, 
what an original plot device! I certainly have not seen that 
before or since! [/flaming sarcasm]

After the Se7en ripoff credits, we have an extreme closeup of 
Frank’s eye as a doctor waves a light in it. She says 
everything looks normal and his vision is back to 20/20 like 
nothing ever happened so is he sure he didn’t just black out? 
Frank says right before it happened he felt a slight burning 
behind his eyes. Yeah, I feel something very similar sometimes 
when watching this show. I think it might be my brain melting 
from your sheer stupidity. He says the guy didn’t even hit him 
that hard (yeah, right) so he didn’t really associate it with 
the punch. Also? The ghostly voice may have been a clue. The 
doctor says people can have temporary sight loss for any number 
of reasons. Yes, brain injury, neurological disorders, venom, 
being overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of Brad Pitt. In this 
case, she thinks it may have been the punch but wants him to 
see a specialist. Did I mention Jessica is fidgeting anxiously 
nearby? She worriedly asks if it might happen again. The doctor 
doesn’t really say, but warns that if the last bout was fifteen 
minutes long than the next potential one could be longer. She 
gives him the specialists name and tells him to take it easy 
and avoid “undue stress”, which makes him giggle.

Frank’s apartment. A TV news anchor babbles about police still 
trying to find a 21 year old named Hillary who disappeared 
three days ago. She’s the daughter of an “auto glass” tycoon. 
Frank turns the TV off and hears something tapping in the 
hallway. Gus whimpers. Frank goes to open the door and finds 
nothing. Duh. I don’t know why he bothers checking anymore. 
Something blows past him into the apartment, taking the noise 
with it. Gus darts off barking angrily and the door behind 
Frank slams all by itself. Frank follows the sound - which, 
let’s be honest, sounds exactly like a blind person’s cane 
tapping the ground - into the next room. There’s a sound of a 
cane whistling through the air and hitting a slab of meat and 
Frank buckles to the ground, grabbing his leg and groaning. “My 
heart,” the ghost moans again before whacking Frank a couple 
more times with the cane. Wow, this ghost is not the least bit 
subtle. I don’t know why he doesn’t just yell “pay attention to 
me, damnit!” Frank whimpers and staggers to his feet and we see 
everything from his POV go white again. Also? There appears to 
be the sound of church bells going off. The ghost whacks Frank 
with the cane again (dude, I don’t think this is going to make 
him want to help you) and Frank stumbles around and falls 
halfway out of an open window. Oh for fuck’s sake. The ghost 
realizes this dimwit might actually get killed before he can do 
anything to help and gives him his sight back so he can see 
cars zipping by on the street below and back the hell up.

He meets Dante in the bar sometime later and shows him the 
bruises on his leg and shoulder. Dante whistles and says if he 
didn’t know any better he’d think Frank was finally getting 
some with a dominatrix. Oh, he does not. Frank is wondering why 
this ghost is beating him with a stick. If you still have to 
ask then maybe he didn’t hit you hard enough. Dante wonders 
about the words “my heart”. Where did Frank say he lost his 
sight the first time? Intersection of mumble and 4th. Sometimes 
I wish these episodes had subtitles. Dante says his grandmother 
believed places could be imprinted by bursts of energy from 
extreme emotions and spirits could inhabit those places. “And 
what about the blindness,” Frank asks. Wow, did you just 
stumble off the short bus or what? Dante has no idea but he 
recommends Frank check out the place he first met the ghost. 
Something bad must have happened there.

Frank goes back to the intersection and finds the homeless guy 
covered in feathers kneeling in front of a shrine, lighting 
candles. “Friend of yours,” Frank asks. Silence. “Mind if I ask 
their name?” More silence. Frank assures him he’s just curious. 
“His name was Nestor,” he says perfectly lucidly. Then he 
points at the overpass and adds “he tried to fly.” Frank looks 
at the distance to the ground. “When?” “Two nights ago.” “Were 
you here?” “No. They just found him. And then they spirited him 
away.” Then he hops on his bicycle and rides off.

Frank goes to the morgue, where the coroner claims that one 
Nestor Cruise was number 0538 suicide of the year. I can’t 
confirm the spelling on that because IMDB does not seem to be 
aware of the character’s existence in this episode. But I’m 
going to assume this version and not the Latino spelling seeing 
as the guy is black. While he was homeless, they have a lot of 
information on him because he spent time at the VA being a 
former war correspondent. Oh, and the fall may not necessarily 
have killed him but it’s hard to tell since he was hit by a 
truck immediately afterward. The coroner flips through the file 
and notes that he had no family and only a little cash and some 
cigarettes on him when he died. Oddly, he did not have a cane. 
Frank looks baffled. “Cane?” “Oh, yeah, didn’t I tell you? He 
was blind.” Frank pries open Nestor’s milky eyes and strains to 
put two and two together. Nestor’s ghost gets impatient, shouts 
“my heart” and makes Frank go blind again. Frank tries to get 
out of the morgue before everything goes totally white but just 
ends up falling over a cart full of medical equipment. By the 
time he looks up at the baffled coroner, his eyes are just as 
milky looking as Hector’s. “I can’t see,” he moans. No shit, 
Sherlock.

“I’ve never seen anything like that. Not even in med school,” 
the coroner babbles as Dante guides Frank out of the morgue. 
Frank says he’ll be fine in a few hours, Dante is just going to 
make sure he gets home without killing himself. Dante realizes 
this is going to be a full time job when he immediately has to 
prevent Frank from slamming into a wall and a gurney. Heh. 
“Guess you found your ghost, huh,” he notes. Frank laughs that 
the ghost seems to have found him.

Frank’s apartment. Dante gets a couple bottles of beer from the 
fridge and asks if Frank is sure he can’t take him to the 
doctor. Frank says no, it’ll go away eventually, damnit. Dante 
opens Frank’s beer and sets it on the table in front of him. 
Frank, predictably, knocks it over. Dante, honey, this is Frank 
you’re dealing with. This kind of thing is pretty inadvisable. 
You’re lucky he didn’t break the bottle and cut his hand open. 
Dante catches it and cleans up the spill while Frank slaps the 
table angrily and starts pacing the tiny kitchen. He asks what 
time it is. Dante says 5:15. Frank says it’s been three hours 
then and starts washing his face in the sink for some reason. 
It didn’t last nearly this long last time. Dante looks 
concerned and hands him a towel, saying he’s probably right, 
it’s just a ghost. He just needs something from Frank. Frank 
snaps yeah, and how is he supposed to do whatever it is if he 
CAN’T SEE?! Yes, bite Dante’s head off, that will make you feel 
better. Dante gently says they’ll figure it out. Frank says 
Dante doesn’t have to “do this”. Dante says hey, you know what? 
You’re right. See you, sucker. He heads for the door and then 
stops and waits quietly for Frank to start groveling. Frank 
laughs and calls him a jerk. Dante comes right back and spews 
some exposition to explain why he seems to have the patience of 
a saint where Frank is concerned. Apparently, Frank arrested 
him once upon a time. Frank mumbles that he never arrested a 
thief who quoted Titus Andronicus and used the money he stole 
to feed runaways. “You didn’t belong on the street.” Dante says 
no one does. Frank wonders if that’s what Nestor is trying to 
show him – “what it’s like to be him. So I can figure out what 
happened to him.” I just... I...aaaaauuuuuuugggggggghhhhhhhh. 
NO KIDDING MORON. I’m pretty sure *Gus* could have figured that 
out by now. Frank says he hates to ask but... Dante jumps like 
an eager puppy. Yeah? What? I’ll do whatever you ask! I owe you 
my life, man! You know what? I’ve decided I’m going to take the 
high road and not end this scene with a slash joke.

So Dante goes to the intersection and calls Frank on his cell, 
which has one of those hands-free earbuds. Frank manages to 
locate the phone fairly quickly as he’s sitting at his desk 
waiting and looking completely bored. Frank says he’s looking 
for a man erm...wearing feathers. Dante gets a hilarious “is he 
fucking kidding” look and says “uh-huh...” Frank says he’s 
serious. Luckily, the guy happens to ride by across the street 
right at that moment. Frank says follow him because he’s all 
they have. Dante runs over to where Bird Man was just standing 
but he seems to disappear. Meanwhile, Frank is distracted by 
the return of the tapping cane. “Who’s there,” he asks lamely. 
I’ll give you three guesses, Frank, and the first two don’t 
count. This time we actually see Nestor standing behind 
him...sort of. Everything on this show is so damn dark he’s 
mostly just a big shadow. Frank seems to sense him and whirls 
around to wave his hand in the empty space behind him as Nestor 
has already disappeared again. Meanwhile, Bird Man reappears 
behind Dante. Blah blah I just want to find out what happened 
to him. “Then go to church,” Bird Man says cryptically. Dante 
looks baffled. “You know what they say,” Bird Man adds. “Seek 
and ye shall find.” Then he peddles away. “Nice lead you got 
there, Frank,” Dante does not say.

Sometime later Frank is standing at the window looking anxious 
when the phone rings. He fumbles for it for a moment and Dante 
tells him he’s at the church. I think we skipped a couple steps 
because Frank just tells him to ask around, starting with the 
priests, and see if he can find somebody who knew Nestor. 
Montage. Dante doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of luck until 
he finds another homeless guy outside who seems to know Dante. 
He says Nestor was a lot like the people in his poems. “Nestor 
used to say that he was invisible. At least to the people that 
live in the world.” As opposed to space aliens, to whom he was 
a giant neon sign I guess. Frank asks what the hell the guy 
means by that. Oh, you could probably figure that out yourself 
Frank. Oh, wait...I forgot. You need a lot of hand holding. 
Dante asks how he was invisible. The guy says even a blind man 
can tell when the world looks the other way so they don’t have 
to deal with your disability. But just cause he’s invisible 
doesn’t mean he doesn’t count. Church bells go off in the 
distance. Frank hears it and tells Dante to ask where Nestor 
might have slept. Homeless guy says the park right over there 
and Frank tells Dante to get his ass back to the apartment now 
and fumbles the phone back onto the cradle.

Dante takes Frank to the park and tries to keep him from 
running into trees or tripping over roots. Frank hears the 
tapping again and asks if Dante hears it. Uh, no, genius. 
You’re the only one who can hear the noises ghosts make. Frank 
follows it and Dante runs to get ahead of him. They end up in a 
tunnel with a couple of makeshift shelters. Dante pokes at an 
empty one and a big dog comes out barking and snarling. Dante 
scrambles for the other side of the tunnel, nearly slamming 
Frank into the wall behind him. The dog barks a few more times 
and then runs off. Some guard dog. Probably a big marshmallow. 
Dante pulls Frank over to the shelter and Frank feels around 
until he finds the cane. He taps it on the ground and because 
it’s a plastic tipped cane tapping on a rocky surface and 
echoing in a tunnel I guess it’s understandable that he 
recognizes the sound as specifically belonging to Nestor’s 
cane. Dante finds Nestor’s dog tags. Frank wonders why he would 
leave his things if he was planning to go downtown. “My heart,” 
Nestor moans. Frank drops the cane and stands up. “He’s here.” 
“Who? Where,” Dante asks in an adorably frantic tone. Frank 
just points Dante in the direction of the sound and Dante 
guides him toward it until Frank starts smelling something 
Dante doesn’t and orders him to shine his flashlight in the 
direction of a bush. A few steps later, Dante smells it and 
pushes aside branches to reveal a decomposing body. He 
describes it for Frank as a young woman and mutters “you’re 
lucky you can’t see this, man.” Of course, this is the moment 
when Nestor takes away his blinders and the world wobbles back 
into focus. “Not so lucky,” he grumbles. “Something tells me 
this is exactly what Nestor wanted me to see.” I pause the 
screen and stare at Frank’s frozen face for several minutes (or 
what I can see of it through the shadows, anyway), trying to 
calculate just how much glue and lead paint chips he consumed 
as a kid. Somewhere, Nestor is muttering, “don’t make me use 
this cane on your stupid ass again.”

Morning. Coroners take the body away. Marcus tells Frank he was 
right, it was that Hillary chick. He thinks it’s a pretty big 
case for Frank to be involved. Frank is not insulted by this, 
he just says he thought he was working on another unrelated 
case. Sigh. When will you ever learn? Marcus says Hillary was 
rich young and beautiful which means she was naturally into all 
sorts of trouble mostly involving drugs. Frank offers to meet 
Marcus later. On a side note, the alcohol I consumed earlier 
seems to be taking effect. Not only am I making all sorts of 
spelling mistakes, I keep trying to call Marcus Frank. These 
next few scenes should be interesting.

Diner. Frank and Dante (and I just tried to call Dante Marcus) 
discuss what a homeless guy could have to do with a rich 
socialite. Marcus shows up and says the coroner confirms cause 
of death as asphyxiation about three days ago, right after she 
disappeared and shortly before Nestor died. Marcus jumps to the 
idea that Nestor might have killed her. “Transient spots an 
easy target...” Frank says he didn’t spot anybody. Really. He 
and Dante think maybe it’s not so much what he “saw” as what he 
“witnessed”. The killer realized somebody had heard the girl 
being killed and followed him to the overpass. Dante wonders 
how he could have gotten to the overpass seven miles away so 
fast. “If you’re blind and it’s two o’ clock in the morning, 
what do you do,” Frank asks. Well, unless I was a blind vampire 
or other creature of the night I’d probably be sleeping.

Cut to a city bus pulling to a stop. The driver says this is 
where he had to kick Nestor off because he was acting crazy and 
disturbing passengers. Frank points out that the guy died 
shortly afterward when somebody pushed him from that overpass 
up ahead. Driver says tough shit. They have a zero tolerance 
policy for trouble on the late shift. He kept yelling about 
somebody chasing him and demanding to be driven to a police 
station. Frank looks ticked off (hey, he’s just blindly 
following protocol) and asks if he said who was after him. 
Driver says yeah, he kept yelling “loud kids in a loud car”. He 
points out the direction Nestor left in and Frank gets off. The 
buss. Which is spelled with only one s. Damnit, I’m drunk. Give 
me a break.

Frank goes up to the overpass and finds some scratches or 
something on the railing. Tires squeal behind him and he leaps 
up and looks at nothing. The camera wobbles and cuts away long 
enough for Matthew to put the “blind” contacts in. He staggers 
a bit and hears the two non-present kids yell at Nestor to get 
out of the car. “Later old man,” the guy sneers and then 
there’s a meaty thump and Frank somehow falls over the railing, 
barely catching it with one hand. Seriously, Nestor, he might 
be able to help you better if you STOP TRYING TO KILL HIM. His 
sight comes back and he has a vision of Nestor’s body lying on 
the pavement below. It disappears and he somehow defies gravity 
to pull himself back up.

Nice pan of LA, parts of which can probably be seen in every 
other television show and movie that has come out of Hollywood. 
Bar Frank lives above. I think. Frank tells Jess and Marcus 
with absolute conviction that whoever killed Hillary also 
killed Nestor. They say um, okay, in other news we got a lead 
on the Hillary case. A witness claims she left the club with 
this guy Fritz the night she disappeared. He’s the spoiled rich 
brat of a software developer who died in a plane crash last 
year. For reasons he cannot explain, the words “plane crash” 
give Frank sudden chills. They already interviewed him and his 
expensive lawyer. He has a very loose alibi. Frank offers to 
visit him unofficially.

Pretty, modern looking house on the beach. Nobody answers the 
door, so Frank goes around back to find the snippy brat coming 
out of the ocean. A girl with big boobs (of course) comes out 
of the house to demand to know who the hell he is. Frank says 
he wants to ask some questions about Hillary and Nestor. Boobs 
says Fritz has answered enough questions already. Is she his 
lawyer? In a totally emotionless tone she says Hillary was a 
friend of theirs so it’s a painful subject. Sure it is. “And 
you are?” Frank asks. Heh. She says her name is Brandy, but I’m 
sticking with Boobs. And she seems to think any questions about 
where they were that night are none of his business. Yeah, that 
doesn’t scream “guilty”. Frank babbles that they want to find 
out what happened to their *friend*, don’t they? They want to 
help out, right? Fritz says uh, yeah. Frank shows him a picture 
of Nestor and asks if they recognize him. Fritz glances at it, 
looks uncomfortable and says nope, never seen him. Frank tells 
him to look again. Boobs gets uppity. He *said* he’s never seen 
him, asshole. Now get “Lost”. Heh. Have I mentioned I make 
really lame jokes when I’m drunk?

Frank starts to leave but then he walks past the open garage 
door and hears church bells and squealing tires. I would watch 
it Frank, following this ghost’s clues has been pretty 
hazardous to your health so far. He finds a car with a cover on 
it and pulls back the cover to find scratches and paint 
matching the overpass guard rail. And instead of covering the 
car again and going around to corner to call Marcus and tell 
him about the paint transfer he just whips out his cell phone 
on the spot. He trails off when he hears the couple bitching 
just inside, doors slamming. “Gotta go, I’ll call you back!” He 
gets all of two steps before going blind again. He ducks behind 
the car and quietly panics as the garage door opens and 
somebody walks out. Fritz sneaks up behind him (which would 
probably work even if he could see) and clonks him over the 
head as Boobs closes the garage door.

Frank comes to on the floor in a bedroom somewhere in the 
house, a towel under his head catching an alarming amount of 
blood. He staggers around trying to find a way out while the 
couple have a loud discussion in the kitchen downstairs about 
how best to deal with him. Boobs seems to think he wasn’t much 
of a threat until Fritz gave him a concussion. Fritz thinks he 
knows too much. Boobs hands him a knife and tells him to take 
care of it then. Fritz, clearly, is not the brains of the 
operation and not a natural born killer. But he takes the knife 
and goes up the stairs seconds after Frank manages to stumble 
into an alcove just behind them. He staggers down a hallway, 
possibly toward the sound of Nestor’s tapping cane and runs 
right into the wall at the end. Fritz is baffled to find Frank 
missing. “He looked half dead, he can’t be far!” I’m pondering 
how these two managed to get him up the stairs to the bedroom 
and only get blood on that little towel. I’m pretty sure Frank 
outweighs both of them combined. I mean, Fritz is not the most 
buff guy in the world and the majority of Boobs’ weight is 
probably...well, in  her boobs and I doubt she would want to 
get her delicate, perfectly manicured hands dirty.

Hilarious shot of Frank bumping headfirst into a wall like a 
particularly stupid Golden Retriever. Hee! The couple search 
the house. A weird, tribal horn blares across the soundtrack. I 
think Marc Snow may be stuck on the last episode. Frank just 
sits against that wall he ran into, panting. Nestor takes pity 
and opens the door to the garage right next to him. I’ll assume 
he was too rattled by the head injury and twenty-somethings 
trying to kill him to try that wall. He follows the tapping 
cane and shuts the door behind him. He feels his way around and 
manages to knock a bunch of tools off the back counter, 
alerting the couple to his location. He feels along the car and 
Nestor unlocks a door and nudges it open. Awful helpful 
considering you got him into this mess in the first place, 
buddy. Frank ducks under the cover and cowers on the backseat, 
gasping and whimpering a little. Then his hand closes on some 
sort of metal object. “My...heart,” Nestor gasps. Sure enough, 
it’s a purple heart. That was much better than the “wake up” 
clue in the second episode. I actually could probably still 
believe that the man had a heart condition up until this point. 

Frank’s sight comes back just as the couple enters the garage. 
Tribal flutes bleat ominously. Seriously, Mark, try to keep up. 
Fritz holds the knife at ready and rips back the cover, only to 
get a boot in his face. Frank leaps out of the car in a manner 
that is far too lithe for a man with a bleeding head wound and 
punches him out. Boobs picks up the knife. Frank looks at her 
like ‘really? You think you might have a better chance?’ and 
she drops it. Heh. The garage door opens and cops swoop in to 
grab her and Fritz. Frank hands the medal to Marcus, saying he 
found it in the back of the car. Fritz bleats that he planted 
that! Frank spews a bad line about murder and Nestor’s prints 
being most likely all over the vehicle. “It was all her idea,” 
Fritz tries next. “Shut up,” Boobs hisses. Frank spews another 
bad line about Hillary. Y’know...Matthew Fox is totally above 
this and I love him, but the fact that he is striking a pose 
disturbingly similar to David Crusoe’s standard Horatio “I am 
God’s greatest gift to humanity” Cane while he says all these 
cringingly bad lines makes me want to hit him. Fritz says he 
and Hillary were just going to have some “fun” in the park and 
Boobs wanted to join them. Boobs is keeping up a menacing 
patter of “SHUT UP!” throughout this confession. Apparently 
they were experimenting with erotic asphyxiation. Which is 
always a good thing to try when you’re drunk and/or high and 
stupid. He didn’t think Nestor would be a problem: that was all 
her idea. I’m totally entertained by the look on the face of 
the cop holding Boobs. He’s looking back and forth between the 
couple like ‘are these two fuckwits for real?’ Marcus orders 
the cops to take them away in the hopes that the dialogue will 
improve. Frank notes that Nestor must have struggled when they 
pulled him out of the car and the medal ripped off his jacket.

Later Frank is heading toward the Bird Man’s shrine with Dante, 
apparently updating him on the result of the case. He shows 
Dante a picture of Nestor in full uniform. Dante points out the 
friend of Nestor’s who directed him to the park. They give him 
the purple heart and he cries a little. Frank sees Nestor’s 
ghost nearby nod in approval. And the episode ends on this 
weird little moment: the Bird Man rides his bike past, kicking 
up enough wind to snuff out the candles on the shrine and 
DISAPPEARS INTO THIN AIR. I...don’t get it. I mean, if Frank 
was the only one who saw the guy that would be one thing but 
Dante (who clearly believes in ghosts but doesn’t actually see 
or hear them) talked to him and Marcus seemed to see him at the 
beginning of the episode, so I guess the real question is am I 
too drunk to get this or am I not drunk enough? 

If you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go take a nap.