You know, at some point soon, this show is going to have to resolve this Tommy thing or give viewers credit for remembering the premise of the show, because we're getting about five hours' worth of previouslys to start the show, with clips from all three episodes so far. At this rate, the show will be nothing but previouslys by the end of the season. ["Sounds familiar." -- Sars]
Skeet's working in some kind of public records office, pretty much in the dark, forcing the cute blonde clerk to turn on a lamp for him and then start flirting with him, like, does Skeet have to have a "special connection" with every woman he comes in contact with on this show? And she remarks that he doesn't "give up," and he says, "I don't want to, but everything I need is blocked out" in frustration, and she asks if Skeet knows "his place of birth, mother's maiden name" which Skeet doesn't, and his cell phone goes off, which you'd think would earn A Look Of Stern Rebuke from the clerk, and I'm sure it would, if she didn't so clearly want to jump him. It's Evelyn on the phone, asking how the "witness interviews" are going, and Skeet hesitates to let us know he is Clearly Lying, but says he just has a few more left, and it's nice of Skeet to be already blowing off work at his new job. Evelyn says Keel's "getting anxious" and they haven't seen Skeet in a while, so she asks if everything's all right, and he says yes. Then he seems about to say something but thinks better of it and hangs up, and Evelyn works her eyebrows a little bit and looks contemplative. And back at The Office of Public Records and Horny Clerks, the most helpful city worker ever says that if this unnamed guy could be convinced to sign a release form, Skeet would have access to his records. "If I knew someone who could do that, I wouldn't be here," he points out, so of course this woman gives him an "I'll see what I can do" and Skeet just looks kind of befuddled and thanks her, like, CLOSE THE DEAL, SKEET.
Instead he's on a bus, brooding all over the back of the seat in front of him, checking out the people riding with him. There's a young woman reading a book, there's a middle-aged woman with bags of groceries, there's an older guy reading newspaper. The bus stops, and Skeet gets off and appears startled by something off-camera before he turns and sees a little girl with chalk-white skin and huge eyes, holding a green balloon, and she was clearly not on the bus earlier. They stare at each other for a good fifteen seconds; then the girl mouths the word "why" while Skeet continues to stare. The bus drives off, Skeet watching it, and then it blows up in a pretty cool explosion for a television show, especially since it throws Skeet back against a building and he flops to the ground, all broody unconscious. Opening credits.
In what may be a first, ABC shows a commercial for Alias that doesn't show Jennifer Garner in a skimpy outfit.
Skeet, bruised and cut, comes to slowly and sees the little balloon girl, only she's out of focus. Skeet blinks, and it's just a teddy bear holding a Get Well balloon, being set down by Evelyn, who tells Skeet that this is Sammy The Get-Well bear: "If you don't get better soon, he will maul you," she says, earning a chuckle from Skeet. And there's Keel, pleasantly informing Skeet that the bears were half-price down at the gift shop, and he is obviously quite chuffed by this, earning an eye-roll from Evelyn.
Skeet wants to know what caused the explosion, and we get a little whatever explanation that there was an "underground gas leak" and that the bus stopped over it and filled up with fumes and then there was a spark. Skeet asks how many people died, and Keel says "everyone," which DOESN'T ANSWER THE QUESTION, THANKS SO MUCH. And Skeet starts talking about the little girl he didn't notice until he was off the bus. "It was like she knew," he says, and Keel and Evelyn exchange looks. Then Keel says it was odd that Skeet was on the number nine bus because he normally takes the number five, but before Skeet can think up an excuse for his work-shirking, the doctor comes in and notes that Skeet "drew a crowd today," like, how long did it take Evelyn and Keel to come see Skeet anyway? And Evelyn asks when Skeet can leave, and the doctor says they want to keep him under observation for one more night, which Keel thinks is great, because they'll see him "bright and early" the following morning. Evelyn scolds Keel and tells Paul to come in when he's ready and to call if he needs anything. Hey, wasn't Evelyn on General Hospital? Maybe she's got a nurse's uniform!
Keel and Evelyn leave so the doctor can check up on Skeet by shining a bright light in his eyes and asking if he's having any headaches or blurred vision, and Skeet says no. And the doctor checks Skeet's neck, which is tender, while he lectures us that people tend to play down their injuries, and it's just a lead-in for the doctor to ask if Skeet suffers from such symptoms as dizziness and of course hallucinations and Skeet says no. So the doctor tells him he needs rest: "No visitors, no television, no nothing," because watching television is such an aerobic exercise.
And we fade into Skeet sleeping, when the television mounted in the corner of the room comes on by itself, and on it is a reporter at the so-called "San Antonio Arena" where the visiting "Boston Bucks" are going to take on the "Stallions," and how sad is it that this show can't just say "Celtics" or "Spurs." And the camera pans the crowd while the so-called reporter goes on about "tailgate parties." Thing is, Skeet sees the little girl from the bus in the crowd, and she says, "Why?" at him again, making him flinch and apparently pass out.
At the morgue, Skeet, with bruises and skabs, approaches the medical examiner to start quizzing the guy about the bus crash, because apparently all the victims are there. And he asks about the little girl, the ME says, "You here to claim the body?" stunning Skeet, who is forced to admit he is "not exactly" a relative, but then he concocts this cover story about working for St. Jerome's Orphanage and how one of their girls recently ran away. And you kind of feel sorry for the ME, who's being very nice but being lied to; he tells Skeet, "It's bad when there's one that goes unclaimed. Worse when it's a kid."
So they go to check out the body, and the ME pulls the sheet back so we see that it is in fact the little girl from the bus, and in case we're not sure, we see a clip of the little girl saying "why?" again, and Skeet looks like he's been punched in the stomach. Then he blesses the corpse, and I always thought that no one other than a priest or higher could do that, and he notes it's weird that there are no burns, and the ME agrees because that's how everyone else died, but this girl died of "blunt-force trauma" and was probably thrown from the bus, and the ME manages to stop himself from blurting out delicate information long enough to ask Skeet if it's the girl he's looking for, but Skeet is too busy examining the corpse to answer, and a little too closely examining the corpse to be just a worker from the orphanage, especially when he's peppering the ME with forensics questions about signs that a body thrown from a bus would tend to exhibit, but the ME has a plausible theory for each discrepancy. Skeet asks if there was any soot in the girl's nasal passages, and the ME says there was, but it didn't match the vinyl from the bus seats or the plastic from the bus itself, and FINALLY the doctor asks if they teach forensics at St. Jerome's, and all Skeet says is "you'd be surprised" before saying it's not the girl from the "orphanage." Skeet then asks what happens if the body isn't claimed, and the ME says the body will be cremated after 72 hours.
Over at so-called "WKPV News," Skeet wanders into an editing bay to harass a producer about taking a look at the segment they ran from the San Antonio "Sports Arena," since he thought he saw someone he recognized, and he wants to be sure before he goes to the police, indicating his cut-up face and calling it a private matter. Naturally, the producer doesn't have any actual work to do, so he runs the segment for Skeet, only this time the girl isn't there. Dun dun dun!
Skeet's at home, ironing and making women fall in love with him, as he listens to his radio that looks a hundred years old, and the news guy is going on about the investigation into the collapse of one of the decks at the sports arena in San Antonio. And Skeet does that thing that people do when they hear something startling on the radio; they stare at it, and the radio guy explains that 39 people were killed, including a little girl who remains "unidentified." May I ask just how it is possible that this is the first Skeet is hearing about this, given that it happened earlier in the afternoon and he went to a NEWS STATION to ask about footage from that particular game? I mean, really. Anyway, Skeet goes to the phone to book a flight to San Antonio.
Only I guess the miracles business doesn't pay so well, as Skeet pops by the office to borrow $250 from Evelyn since he "may have seen something," and she suggests waiting for Keel, who just went out for coffee, like, call the guy's damn cell phone or something, but Skeet can't wait, and Evelyn reaches into her drawer of envelopes containing $250 in cash, takes one out, and gives Skeet the money and makes her Concerned Evelyn Face as Skeet strolls off.
I guess Skeet wasn't able to sweet-talk the ME in San Antonio into letting him see the body this time, as he has to make do with the ME taking a picture with a Polaroid. And she gives the picture to Skeet, so he can shake it a couple of times in order to get the only-on-television developing time of about three seconds. And of course it is the little girl, and Skeet looks shocked and shakes his head and says "no!" a couple of times, but the ME just coldly walks away, like, THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP. And Skeet dials up the ME from Boston, who's all, "The little girl? We cremated her, dude." And Skeet needs to sit down, he's so knocked out. Commercials.
Back in Boston, the miracles gang is eating at some fake-looking "café" that's really obviously on a soundstage, and Skeet is filling in Evelyn and Keel on the little girl he saw on the bus, and how he's seen her corpse in two different places. Skeptical Evelyn points out that the girl died right in front of him, so this could be some sort of "post-traumatic stress reaction," but Skeet dismisses that by saying, "Maybe she needs my help," and Evelyn sulks and says, "So much for the voice of reason," and she seems a little sensitive, if you ask me. Keel suggests that, since the girl appeared to Skeet before each tragedy, she may be some sort of "harbinger spirit," and Evelyn continues in her Scully-esque skeptic role, wondering if Keel is suggesting that she's trying to warn Skeet about the dangers, but Skeet doesn't think so, since why wouldn't she just say, "Hey, Paul, stop the bus," or whatever, like, yeah, it's totally unrealistic the way this little girl's ghost is acting.
Then we get a bit of nonsense in which Skeet sees a girl with a balloon across the street, only to go running over and find out it isn't her, and we are subjected to a child actor faking being skared. And Skeet's all, "I was sure that was her!" and he yanks out the Polaroid of her and Keel looks at it and says, "Dude, you may not be crazy."
We're back at Miracles HQ, where Keel is suddenly pulling out files and telling us all about "Little Girl Lost," who was an unidentified body from a fire that broke out at a circus in Hartford in 1944, and this is all based on an actual event, although I'm guessing the flashbacks we're seeing aren't actual footage from the fire, in which many were killed by burning or being trampled. "She's dying over and over again," says Skeet, and the gang reads out a list of disasters in which hundreds were killed but a little girl's body went unclaimed, and the last known sighting was in March of last year in Pittsburgh, like maybe she's responsible for the Penguins missing the playoffs last spring for the first time since 1990. Keel says the girl has appeared in 80 countries in the last 59 years, but this is the first time she's had contact with anyone before the tragedy. "What does that mean?" asks Skeet, and Keel holds forth about the spirit coming more strongly into our world and how that means "the veil is getting thinner," and all Evelyn can add is, "It's a sign." So Keel wants to relive the moment with Skeet and asks how the little girl looked, and Skeet says she looked "dead," which makes Keel broodily stomp all over the office, and finally he says the girl is not a harbinger at all, and Skeet says, she's not warning me about these tragedies? And Evelyn says, "She's causing them," and Skeet wants to know why the ghost of a little girl would be causing tragedies, as opposed to, I guess, doing whatever it is Skeet thinks ghosts of little girls are supposed to do. Keel says the girl probably isn't even aware of it, but the tragedies are just a byproduct of her materialization, since most situations contain at least a little risk.
"Wherever this girl appears, she tips the scales," says Keel. "Her presence turns the potential into the actual," because her presence is "the presence of death," and she knows Skeet can see her or something and she will keep appearing until she gets what she wants, and meanwhile the writers have given up on pretending that Evelyn has any role to play here other than making her Concerned Face with her big brown eyes, until she finally says, "Then we better figure out what she wants -- and fast!" like, how cheesy is adding "and fast!" to her one line of dialogue every ten minutes? She sounds like a Hardy Boys book. Keel says they should go back to where this all started, and he reminds everyone that it was Hartford, and he reminds everyone that Hartford is in Connecticut. "May I suggest we leave immediately?" he says, and Skeet gets annoyed, because you know he taped CSI: Miami and really wants to watch it.
Instead, Skeet is back at the San Antonio Medical Center, so here we go again with the dream sequences, and the ME pulls back the sheet covering the little girl, and Skeet is looking really closely at her when the girl OPENS HER EYES and says, "Where's Daddy?" which, I admit, kind of startled me.
And Skeet wakes up on a train, in one of the shots from the opening credits, which I noticed because when I was a kid the clips during the opening credits on The A-Team and Dukes of Hazzard were kind of like baseball cards in that my friends and I would watch and say "Seen it!" if it was a clip from a show we'd seen, and we were trying to collect all the clips, as it were. Anyway, Skeet tells Evelyn and Keel that he thinks he knows what the girl wants, which is the same thing he wants, and I think that's commonly known as projection, Skeet. He explains that he was on the number nine bus that day because he'd been at City Hall, trying to track down his father, and maybe she wants to find her parents and that's why she's reaching out to Paul.
Keel gets off his cell phone with some "delightful young lady" from the Hartford Herald who's going to provide them with lists of everyone who died in the "first circus fire," whatever that "first" is supposed to mean, and a list of everyone who survived to be questioned. "Amazing what a little accent will get out of a woman," says Evelyn, who seems rather jealous whenever Keel or Skeet talks to other women, and judging from the posters who love Keel, I could make a joke that it's amazing what a little accent will get into a woman as well, but I won't do that. And Keel says the Herald reporter also told him about one of the reporters who covered the fire, a "Delwyn Earl," and he instructs Skeet and Evelyn to interview Delwyn while he goes to get the lists, which I really think is an excuse to hide the fact that maybe they couldn't afford to put all three of the main actors in the scene.
So Skeet and Evelyn show up to meet Crusty Old Journalist Guy, who asks if Skeet and Evelyn are married for some reason, and after they laugh and say no, Delwyn tells Skeet, "I wouldn't let that one get away." Then he says, "Who wants a drink?" and Evelyn all judgmental says, "It's a little early," so Delwyn basically says, look, if I'm going to tell you about the fire, I need a damn drink, so cram it. And once Delwyn gets through rambling on about how the fire was just as bad as anything he'd seen in the war, Skeet's all, "Aaaaanyway, the little girl?" and Delwyn sets off rambling again, this time to tell us about a woman who he thinks was the mother, since she was "morally unfettered" and so she wound up going to Europe for a while in the way young pregnant women get shuttled off to avoid embarrassment for their stupid unsupportive families. And blah blah blah, the girl was Lillian Smith's daughter, although he doesn't know who the father was. So Evelyn says they'd like to talk to Miss Smith, and asks if Delwyn knows where they can find her. "I know exactly where you can find her," he says.
So of course we cut immediately to Lillian Smith's tombstone. Like, Delwyn told them Lillian was dead, but they all decided to go and stare at her tombstone. Whatever. Meanwhile, there's a funeral going on behind them. And Skeet's cell phone rings, and it's the hot-to-trot city clerk from Boston, telling him that someone responded to her request for current contact information, and even though she could lose her job for it, she wanted to tell Skeet that the man who could be Skeet's father will be there at the end of the day. But Skeet's a little distracted by the little green balloon he sees, and sure enough, there's Little Girl Lost standing there, so Skeet runs over to talk to her. Her face is practically black and white, and she says, "Why?" a bunch of times, and Skeet's all, "Why what?" and "I don't know. I wish I had an answer." Keel and Evelyn look on as Skeet appears to be squatting down and talking to the air, but all Keel says is that Skeet is an interesting man, and it takes Evelyn to point out that Unclaimed Corpse Girl showing up means a disaster is about to occur, so Keel and Evelyn look around wildly, and there's a couple of cars driving by and you can tell they're menacing because they're in slow motion. So Keel goes running over to yell at Skeet to tell the little girl to quit with the disaster already, but when Skeet turns back to the girl, she's already gone. And the guys in the cars pull out their guns and open fire on the funeral, and some of the funeral-goers have brought their own guns. And while Skeet and Keel take cover, Evelyn tries to haul a kid to safety and takes a bullet in her leg for her trouble. And Skeet runs to help her, only he sees the little girl lying there dead, and I don't think that making The Skeet Face is going to help anything. Commercials.
Skeet and Keel hang out in the hospital hallway, with Keel trying to convince Skeet he can catch the train back to Boston to meet up with his dad, but Skeet won't hear of it, because that would be like abandoning the little girl, and Keel's all shouting in the hospital that he will keep working at it, and the nurse doesn't admonish them or anything, just tells them they can see Evelyn. So Skeet, who's been sitting slouched against the wall, extends a hand to Keel, who helps him to his feet. Because women don't think these two are adorable enough already.
Evelyn still has the lists even in the hospital, I guess, and she's been going through them, and says they've been misunderstanding what the girl is saying, which Skeet sums up as wanting to know why no one claimed her. But Evelyn finally busts out Skeet's projection, and points out that there's a "Rosanna Wye" on the list.
And Rosanna Wye is living in some upscale seniors' home, and is played by Special Guest Star Gloria Stuart, more commonly known as Old Lady from Titanic, and she blathers on about her knitting while Keel and Skeet squeeze her for information, and she blathers on about salty popcorn at the circus, and a large man poked her whenever the clowns went by while Skeet and Keel rudely exchange "what a senile old bat" glances, like, JUST ASK HER IF SHE HAD A DAUGHTER ALREADY so we don't have to listen to her ramble on about how she was worried about getting her new dress dirty, and how this episode of Miracles stayed only an hour long and didn't bloat up into three and a half hours of heavy-handed tedium is beyond me. Well, it's not like James Cameron directed it. So Keel asks her to tell them about the fire, and she does so without mentioning a kid at all, despite Skeet's best attempts to trick it out of her; she says she was there alone, and Skeet finally asks if she wasn't there with a daughter, and she just says, "I don't have a daughter," while Skeet and Keel give her their best "we don't believe you" looks.
But for some reason, Keel accepts what Special Guest Star Gloria Stuart said, calling this a dead end. Dude, she's the special guest star. There's only twenty minutes to go. It's her. But he says they have to go back to the list; he'll follow up some leads in New York, and practically orders Skeet to go back to Boston. Shouldn't one of them stick around to help Evelyn?
Nope, guess not, because here we are at the train station, where Keel is rushing to meet his train while continuing to insist that Paul go to City Hall in Boston to meet his dad. Skeet wants to know why Keel cares so much if Skeet meets up with his dad. "I have my reasons," is all Keel says, which placates Paul for some reason. And Keel gets on the train just before it leaves, and Skeet walks away only to glance back and see, naturally, the little girl riding the train out of the station. Commercials.
Skeet does his best Indiana Jones impression, running after the train, and finally hopping a fence and managing to jump on board, where he terrorizes the patrons and staff, and starts yelling about the train crashing. Eventually he finds Keel, who, upon finding out that the girl is on the train, runs interference for Skeet, who is being pursued by ticket-takers or whatever those guys are, who are understandably after the crazy man yelling that the train is going to crash. And Skeet manages to yank on the emergency brake.
Skeet and Keel are being led from the train by the authorities, who are then stopped by some dude who launches into a ridiculous explanation of a power outage farther down the track, and how this train would have collided with another train, and these guys couldn't have possibly been involved but it looks like they "saved our ass" (not to mention some lives, guy).
It's dark now, Skeet and Keel are in a (I guess) rented car, and we have to listen to Skeet whine about the three hours they spent detained, time they could have used to go through their precious lists. And Keel points out that Skeet missed his father, which Skeet doesn't think is such a big deal, since the guy didn't exactly send Christmas cards every year. "He abandoned you," points out the ever-helpful Keel. "You might not be capable of facing up to that." And Skeet seizes on that, and says that abandoning a kid might not be something a person would admit when first asked. Well, duh.
So we're back to Special Guest Star Gloria Stuart warbling out her recollection after Skeet has, through a convoluted trail that involves going to the hospital in the same town as the store where she bought the damn dress she was yammering on about before, like, now they're asking us to pretend that Special Guest Star Gloria Stuart's mind-bogglingly annoying blathering has some value, for God's sake. And yeah, the daughter was hers, and named Amelia, and Special Guest Star Gloria Stuart had just left her abusive husband and blah blah blah, while the stirring, emotional music plays underneath. And in the car before they got to the circus, Amelia woke up from a nap and asked, "Where's Daddy?" which they play over that creepy clip of the corpse asking that same question in Skeet's dream. And when the crowd was trying to get away from the fire, SGSGS got pushed from behind and was separated from Amelia. "And you never told anyone," says Skeet. "How could I? I died that day," says Special Guest Star Gloria Stuart, who doesn't know how she got out of the tent. "Why didn't you claim her?" asks Keel. "I couldn't claim myself," she says, whatever that means. Then she says her family thought she was dead: "You don't know how many times I wished that were true," she says. Oh, after watching Titanic, I have some idea. And Special Guest Star Gloria Stuart whines that there was nothing she could do to bring Amelia back. And Skeet says, "You can't bring her back, but you can let her go."
Hartford morgue. Skeet takes Special Guest Star Gloria Stuart to see Amelia's body, and Special Guest Star Gloria Stuart starts crying, and I'd really like to know how Skeet explained to her why her daughter's body was in such good shape, having been dead for 59 years. "Forgive me," says Special Guest Star Gloria Stuart, while Skeet lets them have their moment. He walks out of the hospital, and he hears Amelia say "Wye" again, and he looks over to see a green balloon floating up into the air. Okay -- creepy show? Good. Cheesy ending? Not so good.
Oh, God. We're not done with Special Guest Star Gloria Stuart yet. We need to have her and the miracles gang put flowers on the new grave in front of an ALREADY WEATHERBEATEN tombstone for Amelia.
Back to City Hall, where Skeet surprises the comely clerk, who's closing up the place for the night, and he thanks her for her help, and she looks vaguely embarrassed, and says she's sorry it didn't work out. "What was he like?" asks Skeet. "He was in a hurry," she says, and then, "You must take after your mother. The man who was here? He was nothing like you," like, SAVE IT, you busybody. She walks away, stopping only to tell Skeet that the guy wouldn't release the records. "He sealed the file," she says. Skeet's crest falls.
Skeet's place. He's writing in his journal or something when the door behind him swings open on its own. He looks around, and there's Tommy, who's just suddenly there. "Are you all right? What's wrong?" asks Skeet, keeping a lot calmer than I think I would if a ghost was hanging around my apartment. "Help us. It's real," says Tommy. "What is? The darkness?" says Skeet. "It wants," says Tommy. Skeet's all, "What does it want?" "Everything," says Tommy, turning to go. Okay, this is a better ending. I think the hairs on the back of my head are standing up. Skeet's all, "Tommy! Tommy!" but Tommy's gone. At least he had the manners to close the door behind him.