Flop Fashion recap of Ghost Whisperer Season 1, Episodes 3 and 4
Will Melinda find her feet or give me a fright?
Having just wandered through the first two episodes of Ghost Whisperer, you might have thought “Oh, the fashion is sort of normal! When does she pick up an extreme affinity for lace duster jackets?”
Let’s log in to that journey together. Take it away, Melinda:
Ghost Whisperer Season 1, Episode 3: Ghost, Interrupted
Is this the right time to talk about the opening voiceover to every episode? Melinda intones:
My name is Melinda Gordon. I just got married, just moved to a small town, just opened an antique shop. I might be just like you.
Just like me? I can’t imagine many of us just opened antique shops, Melinda!
Melinda might misjudge our affinity for antiques, but how’s her judgement for her first look at the episode?
Melinda is working in the store in this absolute delight while Andrea tries on hats (which I would spend a lot of time doing at this store). Personally I think the little chain really seals the deal for me, or maybe it’s the cap sleeve. Tres chic.
The girl she is walking with here is in fact a ghost, and this ghost is a twin! Her twin sister has been institutionalised for - amongst other things - believing she is being haunted by her dead sister. This obviously hits a nerve for empath Melinda Gordon, who is talking to that very dead sister right now. So she struts on down to the institution at once.
It’s actually a pretty nice institution and they kind of leave her be? This mustn’t be a state facility with those linens. We learn that the twins used to swim out to a buoy in the lake as kids, but they never quite made it. Dead Twin can’t cross over because she’s stressed out by how unhappy her sister is.
The show is desperately trying to feed us some Melinda backstory so we understand why this case is so raw to her. She grew up with her supernatural sensitivity accepted and fostered by her grandmother, June Squibb, who also saw ghosts. If she hadn’t had that connection, she might have ended up in the same spot as Alive Twin!
I love that they always make Jennifer Love Hewitt play herself in flashbacks, so to present her as young they always do her hair in pigtails or have her dress like a child in a comic strip. Here’s she’s in baggy overalls with her hair tied in a bandana. Normal teen things!
Melinda is trying to get Alive Twin released from the institution, so she brings in her boyfriend to try and reignite the spark. To do this, she dons her best spaghetti strap silky camisole with bejewelled neckline detailing. There is no way to wear a bra with this top but if I could get away with it, I absolutely would.
Bringing the boyfriend in isn’t a success, because Dead Twin hates him. She confesses to having slept with him in a weak moment before she died, and she hates that he cheated on her sister.
On her third visit back to the institution, the parents of the twins get mad and start to demand Melinda be barred from visiting. Weirdly, the doctor seems to love Melinda, and is reluctant to kick her out at the parental request.
It’s absolutely absurd the amount of places Melinda weasels her way into with no qualifications or permission, just based on some vague ghost knowledge. They should listen to this girl’s parents!
The rest of the dress is actually a nice 1950s silhouette. I can’t see it coming in via the antique store, but maybe she found the pattern there. I bet she sews some of her own clothes. You know this girl is crafty.
We get another Melinda/June Squibb flashback and you KNOW June Squibb is a ghost in this one.
I like the way the show will occasionally reveal someone is a ghost after Melinda has been speaking to them - sometimes for a whole episode. Here, we have an extended flashback before Melinda realises that she is speaking to the ghost of her grandmother and not the real thing. I also like June Squibb’s cozy looking cardigan.
For her next visit to Alive Twin, after convincing her father of the whole “talking to ghosts” thing, Melinda switches into a more fitted wiggle dress. I like the butterfly print, and it fits with the very retro vibe she’s fostering this episode. This is an episode a person would wear!
After dwelling some more on past trauma, Melinda and Jim go out on a double date with Andrea and some guy, and Melinda really turns it out.
But afterwards, they figure out that Alive Twin might be off trying to drown in the lake, so they’ve gotta go rescue her!
And once they get there, it turns out she was actually just trying to swim to the buoy, something neither she nor her sister had ever achieved. She does it, and her sister is finally able to cross over into the light. Awww.
Flop Fashion report card: D
One indescribably awful outfit and actually a fair few really nice pieces that feel fitting for Melinda’s character.
Ghost Whisperer Season 1, Episode 4: Mended Hearts
Melinda can’t catch a break. There she and Jim were, having a lovely dinner party at Andrea’s apartment, when a lady upstairs tries to drown herself in the bathtub.
Thankfully Jim has his paramedic skills at the ready so I can try to analyse why Melinda has a bracelet on that high up her arm. Otherwise, the shape is nice, and the lace at the hem is very Melinda. Obviously, I love Andrea’s look - clearly I yearned to be boho in the 00s. I did own 3 sequinned scarves which I wore almost exclusively as belts.
Melinda goes with to the hospital, having seen the ghost of the lady’s dead partner and knowing she’s needed. If I were Melinda, I would never voluntarily visit a hospital. Full of ghosts, it goes without saying.
The lady survives, and Melinda learns what happened to her partner (bike accident death) and he tells her how she’s been depressed and suicidal ever since.
Melinda does some research at the store which this time involves letters instead of laptops. She then goes to visit the hospital again, because the woman is awake.
I do not like this top, but I understand why Melinda likes it. It’s too finicky, has applique details all over, and matches all of her bulky pink jewellery.
The couple seem unwilling to let go of each other, even though one of them is dead.
Melinda finds out that the dead man was an organ donor, and that he wants to see the person who received his heart before he moves on. Maybe that heart connection is why she’s so moored in shades of pink this episode?
To find out the address of the heart recipient, Melinda’s usual strategy of just asking nicely isn’t working. So instead a Hospital Ghost helps her out, and says she’ll call in an IOU later (I love a ghost that decides to come back later).
This is what she goes with the stalk the depressed recipient of the dead man’s heart and it’s pretty faultless by 2005 standards, but it does feel a bit like she raided Andrea’s wardrobe. Like who is this boho wannabe? With jeans and everything?
This whole episode pivots from being about how the couple needs to let go of each other to being about how this man needs to seize the new lease he’s been given on life.
Lest you think Melinda is about to work a shift in the store, she’s actually going to learn more about this sad sack who received the dead guy’s heart. I can’t knock her for this because I too would do anything for a day off.
She ends up deciding to set this man and the dead guy’s girlfriend up on a date. It’s a double date fake out but Jim and Melinda won’t be joining them, even though Melinda got all dressed up in this:
I’m obsessed with this dress. Like, it’s hideous, but I love it. It’s absolutely fashioned from some old curtains, but I love the way the print switches orientation at the waistband and the gathering in the skirt and the demure neckline. Somehow this reads almost more modern than the show: I would not think this was out of place if I saw it on the street today, but I would have thought it was disgusting in 2005. She really is psychic.
It also has a surprise cut-out at the back and around the waistband which is honestly such a bold move from Melinda.
She gets it!
The date is a success and now the guy is convinced that he shouldn’t take life for granted, or something.
The next day, after the dead guy’s girlfriend and the guy with his heart have hit it off, Andrea buys her share of the store. The girls are now officially business partners, which I had assumed they were from the beginning. They dance with joy.
This dress marks practically every Melinda check box: white, lace, ruffles, retro-inspired silhouette.
She goes to visit dead guy’s girlfriend and, convinced of her happiness and that his heart is now being looked after, he moves on. So Melinda dons her finery to go and tell Jim the best news and get laughed at by a suspicious laughing ghost guy who we’ll never really learn the explanation behind.
The top belted right on the empire waistline with a tiny tiny handbag is classic Melinda, and it’s so nice to see her in green.
Flop Fashion report card: D-
Mostly normal outfits once more, although in a slightly stranger array of colours. That pink and green dress with the waist cut-outs, though…that was for me.
All photos are courtesy of Kiss Them Goodbye