Unforgettable “Spirited Away” Review

There’s a line in a famous Christmas song about telling scary ghost stories and I think the writer of this week’s Unforgettable took that idea to heart. “Spirited Away” started in an abandoned mental hospital and ended with a hidden body in the basement of a creepy house. Toss in a psychotic nurse and you’ve got a pretty chilling tale to tell around the fireplace.

Ghost hunters don’t last very long on crime dramas, but the good thing about killing them off (or bad thing from the killer’s perspective) is that they usually leave video evidence behind for the detectives. This week’s murderer got caught by a heat-seeking, Infa-red camera designed to pick up ghosts. Why ghosts are warm enough to show up on such film is beyond me, but I’m not a Hunter. I don’t get the finer details of ectoplasm.

The dead ghost tracker leads Carrie and Al to the scene of another, more hidden crime that the tracker stumbled upon in the course of his work. After he found a finger bone in the basement of a couple’s stately old home, he was killed for his discovery. Carrie, breaking all rules of law, winds up captured in the basement with the wife, presumably by the crazy, killer husband. She manages to break out, but it turns out that it was really the wife/nurse who killed the teenage housemaid in a fit of jealous rage and the husband was just covering for her.

I admit, I like a good ghost story, so I found this episode actually, genuinely enjoyable. It was a nice break from all the traditional Christmas episodes. I also liked getting to see more of the team and less of Carrie’s preternatural powers. The addition of the flirty criminalist was a nice move; they seemed to imply that she’ll be around more, and I approve.

Also, I see them giving Detective Roe more and more to do. He’s an interesting character. He can be abrasive, but it never crosses the line into d-baggery. I think he might just grow on me, given enough time.

As for Carrie and Al, they are still pretending that they don’t care about each other as much as we all know that they do. We haven’t seen Al’s psychologist girlfriend for a long time, though. If they’re not still together, what is keeping Carrie and Al apart? I think that needs to be explored more in the future.

It got a rough start, but Unforgettable might finally be hitting its stride. I don’t think it will ever be my favorite hour of the week, but it could develop into a very watchable show.

What did you think of the episode? Let me know!