Medium (2005–2011): Season 2, Episode 14 - A Changed Man - full transcript

Allison hits her head and goes to the doctor to get an MRI. During the MRI examination of another patient, she sees a vision of him murdering several prostitutes. When she begins to investigate about one of the supposed victims, she finds herself in an awkward situation. In the meantime, Allison's MRI results let Joe create a theory of Allison's visionary power and he tries to persuade their daughters to get MRI to (dis)prove the theory.

It's time to get up.

Is my nose playing tricks on me, or is somebody making bacon?

Someone's trying.

I had the most amazing night's sleep last night.

No bad dreams, no ghosts, no gorgeous.

Just sweet lights out, dead-to-the-world unconsciousness.

I guess one night a year's not so bad.

Hey, you feeling okay?
You sound a little bit stuffed up.

Feel much better now, thank you very much.

Al, what's wrong?

Who are you?



What?

Who are you?! Where's my husband?!

Your husband is standing right in front of you

trying to figure out what the hell has gotten into is wife.

Girls, come out here right now!

What's wrong, Mommy?

Mom, are you okay?

Mom, are you okay?

Hey, Al. Hey, can you hear me?

Al? Al?

What happened?

We were in the kitchen and we heard a crash.

You slipped on the tile and you knocked yourself out for a second.

Are you okay?



Yeah.

I'm just really glad to see you guys.

Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.

No, she isn't bleeding, but she's got a lump
the size of an egg on the back of her head.

Yeah, I understand that.

But what is the point of taking
her to a primary care physician

when I know he's just going
to tell her to get an MRI?

Can't we just cut to the
chase and spare her a trip?

Okay, what will our plan pay for?

Did you see any stars?

No, sweetie.

What about planets or birds?

Like birds flying in a circle?

That's only in cartoons.

So, that doesn't mean that it doesn't really happen in real life.

Actually, it does.

Girls, please, I've got a bit of a headache.

Man, please don't transfer me to Member Services.

They're the ones who transferred me to you.

I'm sorry. Can you hold on just one second?
I got another call coming through.

- Hello. Chan, this really isn't a good time.
- Do you remember your name?

Of course, she remembers her name.
Why wouldn't she?

Well, sometimes when people get
hit in the head, they forget stuff.

Thanks.

Where'd you learn that, cartoons?

My name's Allison Dubois.

What's my name?

You are Bridgette.

And where do we live?

We live in Phoenix, Arizona, and Bridg,
I really don't want...

And where were you born?

What?

Where... were...

you... born?

You do remember it, don't you, Mom?

Of course, I remember.

Mommy can't remember where she was born!

Okay, you hear that?

My wife can't remember where
she was born. She needs an MRI.

That's the other line again.
Just, just let me get rid of it.

Hello. Chan, I told you check the top drawer.

Then check all the drawers.

Chan, I'm in the middle of something right now.

My wife fell and she hit her head
and now these clowns at our HMO

are telling us that we can't get an MRI till...

Yeah, no. I know. I know your wife's a doctor.

Really? She would do that? Are you sure?

That would be fantastic. What's the address?

I don't understand. This isn't a hospital.

No, it's a private imaging center.

They'll scan anyone or anything
as long as you pay for it.

Wait a second.

Are we willing to pay for it?

Chan from my design group, his wife works here.

She's a doctor. She owns a piece of the place.

She's doing us a favor.

That's nice, but I'm not sure how I feel about that.

It's okay. People have MRIs all the time.

There's nothing to it.

Have you ever had one?

I've read about it.

They're completely harmless.

Fine. You go first.

Hey, listen, Chan's wife has been
really nicefitting us inlike this.

I know.

I'm going to check in with
the office. I'll be right back.

Your husband's right.
There's nothing to be nervous about.

How do you know?

I'm a regular. I'm in here all the time.

I have a season pass.

They can never get enough
pictures of my friend up there.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm not going to lie to you.

Holding perfectly still inside a steel
tube can be a little claustrophobic.

I'll tell you what I do.

The machine makes this kind
of loud clanging sound.

I just kind of close my eyes
and pretend I'm on a train.

Clang, clang, clang.

I'm just on a train going somewhere exotic.

I don't know. It works for me.

Thank you. I appreciate the tip.

David Saunders?

Guilty as charged.

Nice meeting you.

You, too.

Feel free to watch if you think it will help.

Excuse me?

From the observation room. I don't mind.

Oh, yeah, well, maybe.

You'll see. There's nothing to it.

It's okay, right?

It's fine with me if it's okay with Dr. Sooran.

Maybe we could ask her.
Our husbands work together.

Just give me a minute to change
into the highly flattering gown.

Did I miss something?

That guy said that I could go
and watch him get his MRI.

Cool. An all-access pass
to a stranger's brain scan.

Excellent.

See that? You don't even
have to scooch in.

It's automatic scooching.

That sound, that sounds like a parade.

No, I don't think so.

I think it sounds like a... train.

Hey, lover boy, you lonely?

Yes, I am... Jade.

Can I offer you a ride?

Sure.

So, where we going, baby?

My house for the weekend.

Oh, I don't know.
The whole weekend?

What about my other boyfriends,baby?

I'm sorry, that was mean.

I don't have other boyfriends.

So where's your house, baby?

What's that?

The train.

We're a block away.

Wow, baby, that was amazing, baby, mmm.

Hey, honey...

would you like me to touch you now?

Want me to scratch your back?

I give a great massage.

Maybe I could wash you.

If you untie me...

We can take a bath.

Please, baby?

It's starting to hurt.

Shh...

Do you like the desert?

What are you doing?

Have you seen enough?

Huh, honey? You seen enough?

Yeah.

Yeah, I've seen plenty.

David Saunders,
white, mid-30s, five ten-ish.

I think I counted five girls,

but he only referred to one of them by name.

Um, Jade.

Although I'm guessing
that's not a real name anyway.

She has light hair, light eyes.

That's me. Needles-in-a-Haystack-R-Us.

I got to go. My husband's
giving me the evil eye,

and my doctor'll be in any second.

Detective Scanlon says hi.

Joe says hi, too.

All right, I'll talk to you later.

You know, two hours ago, you couldn't
remember where you were born,

and now you're phoning the police,
asking them to start investigating

a man you spent all of three minutes with.

Am I the only one who
sees a contradiction here?

Mr. and Mrs. Dubois,
so sorry to have kept you waiting.

No, we're just happy
that you could fit us in.

Uh, besides, we were enjoying the music.

Yes, the walls in this place are pretty thin.

It make it hard to concentrate.

It's sort of like living near an airport...
after a while you stop noticing the planes.

Well, I'm happ report, the MRI shows
no structural damage whatsoever.

I know you mentioned experiencing
some dizziness fofulness.

Both symptoms should be entirely transitory.

So I can go back to using the
bathroom without fear of a relapse?

Absolutly.

I'd take it easy for the rest of the day,
but yes, by tomorrow,

you can do pretty much anything you like.

You hear that?
I'm okay; you're stuck with me.

I was afraid she'd broken her funny bone.

Before you go, there's one
small thing I wanted to ask about.

Of course.

I notice on your patient history form
that you didn't check the box for epilepsy.

Well, I'm not epileptic.

Then you've never had any lems with seizures?

No, never.Why would you ask ?

You see this gray spot here,looks a little like a peanut?

It's called venous angioma.

Sounds scarier than it really is.

It's actually just a small tangle
of exveins in one part of the brain.

How long do you suppose that was there?

Probably since birth.

Typically they're founding it in
the brain of epileptic but considering

you've lived your whole life
and never had a single seizure,

I think it's safe to assume it's benign.

You think or you know ?

I know.

Trust me, Mr. Dubois, if the angioma had been
affecting your wife in any negative way

she would've known about it a long time ago.

I would've been having seizures.

That's one possibility, yes.

But angiomas in this part of the brain have
also been associated to visual trouble,ephemera.

I'm sorry, ephemera ?

A fancy word for hallucinations.

Hearing voices, seeing people
and things that aren't really there.

But... since you didn't check the box for that, either,

I don't think you have to worry about.

Hearing voices...uh, seeing people
and things there aren't really there.

Uh, stop me if any of this starts to sound familiar.

Not funny.

It's not meant to be. But think about it Alison.

What if this angioma

is the reason that you see the things that you see,

the reason that you hearthe things that you hear?

They're not hallucination.

No, I know that.

So what are you getting at ?

I'm getting at a theorie,

I'm getting at the possibility thats this
little peanut that we found in your brain today

might be what makes you so different from all the other girls.

You're angry.

You're psychic-- you must have
a little peanut in your head .

Actually, I'm not.

I'm trying to figure out why you'suddenly so obsessed
with reducing what I do to something... physiological.

I'm a scientist, and taking complicated things and
reducing them to their simplest eles is what I do.

And you, my dear, are a very complicated thing.

Something the matter?

I-I don't know. I can't seem to find my car.

You don't remember what level you parked it on?

No, I-I thought...

Well, I'm sure it's around here somewhere.

What kind of car do you drive?

What kind of car?

The make, the color-- that sort of stuff.

Nothing. I just wanted to make sure you were you.

Can't you do that when I'm asleep?

Mommy, where were you born?

I was born in Chelsea, Oklahoma,sweets.

And what's your middle name?

Louise. My name is Allison Louise Dubois,
and I drive a metallic beige station wagon.

Good morning, girls.

- Morning, Daddy.
- Hi, Daddy!

Good morning.

What's your name again?

I know what you're up to.

You're not really kissing me,
you're kissing my inner peanut.

Please! There are children in the room!

What? Was it something I said?

You got a love note from that Scanlon fellow.

Good news, girls...
Mommy's completely back to normal.

H i.

I don't understand, this is her.

This is the girl I saw getting into David Saunders' car.

Can't you at least question him about her?

Based on what?

Based on, I saw her tied to his bed.

Based on,I think he suffocated her,
along with all the other girls I saw.

I don't know what to tell you, Allison.

I ran a check on this guy, and he is a Boy Scout.

No priors, no arsts, no stints in rehab.

Just a couple of unpaid speeding tickets
from six or seven years ago.

The guy's married, owns a copy shop, pays his taxes.

Picks up prostitutes and smothers them.

Maybe. Look, all I have to go on is a missing
persons report filed by a fellow prostitute.

Right? For all we know, this, uh...

Jade girl could've up and moved to L.A.
and just didn't bother to tell anyone.

For six years?

Come on, this report was filed in 1999.

Did the cops even look into it?

I'm sure the department did the best
they could with what they were given--

the woman who filed the report didn't
even know her friend 's real name.

She said Jade was just her street name.

Didn't know any of her friends,
didn't know anything about her family.

That's not a lot to go on.

Did you say this guy owns a copy shop?

'Kay, thank you very much. Have a good day.

Can I...

Hey, you survived.

My goodness, from the MRI! Hi!

So, you work here?

Kind of. This is my store. I own this place.

You're kidding.

I've never been in here before...
what are the chances?

I know. Amazing. So, really,
how'd it go yesterday with your MRI?

It went well. I-I took your suggestion.
I told myself that I was riding on a train

and it really relaxed me.

It relaxed me a little too much.

I think I fell asleep, my head went to the side,

and half my views came out blurry.

I have to go back again tomorrow.

Oh, no.

Yeah, well, that's why it's good I have a season pass.

So, what can I do for you today, Miss...?

Dubois. Allison Dubois.

I don't know if I mentioned that I work
part-time at the district attorney's office.

No, you didn't.

I also help out with this, uh, missing persons group.

This girl has been missing for the last seven years,

and we're finally reopening the case.

I was wondering if you wouldn't mind
putting this flyer in your front window.

Her name's Jade. She's a prostitute.

She's been missing since 1999.

Uh, this is strange.

Really? Why do you say that?

Hey, Angela, come here a minute.

Dave?

You have no idea how embarrassing I was.

Well, you handed a man that's been nothing
but nice to you a photograph of a prostitute

that looked remarkably like his wife.

I think I have a pretty good idea
how embarrassed you were.

He even showed it to her.

Really? How'd she take it?

Eh, she laughed.

She thought it was pretty funny. So did he.

Then he offered to make free copies so
I could put it in as many windows as possible.

The fiend!

First he kidnaps them, then he kills them, then
he offers to reproduce their image,free of charge,

so the police can have an easier time finding them.

Clearly u're dealing with an evil genius here.

Well, that's the thing--
when I was around him yesterday,

I didn't feel anything like that.

All I felt was kindness and warmth and honesty.

And suddenly the idea of him hurting these girls,

it made absolutely no sense to me.

'Cause even the thought
of doing something so horrific,

so hideously evil wouldn't even
enter a mind of a man like that.

I don't understand how I could
have been so wrong about him.

Well, let's not forget about that bump on your head.

Yesterday, when you had all these visions,

that bump was fresh-- maybe they're swelling,
maybe you're a little off your game.

Are you implying my peanut's
not all it's cracked up to be?

Actually I'm glad you brought that up.

Remember we were talking about yesterday
about the possiblilty that the peanut--

that growth inside your head--

is what makes you so sensitive?

You realize you're looking
at me like I'm a petri dish?

Look, it got me to thinking.

What if I have somebody actually test that theory?

How would someone prove a
correlation between venous angiomas

and increased sensitivity to... I don't know...
various psychic phenomenon?

Gosh, Mr. Wizard, I don't know.

I guess you'd have to find somebody
else who's kind of sensitive

and scan their brain see if there's an angioma.

That's my thought exactly.

You can't be serious.

Oh, I'm completely serious.

- There's no way in the wide world I'm gonna let you.
- It's perfectly safe, Al.

- You're subjecting our daughters to MRIs!
- There's no radiation, no side-effects.

Dr. Sooran said she wouldn't
even charge us a dime.

You already spoke to her?

Not about the psychic stuff.
Just about getting scanned for the girls.

See if they gave angiomas, too.

It's intriguing, Al, the possibility
that there might be a genetic link.

I mean, it's pretty heady stuff.
No pun intended.

What about the girls?

Have you at least thought about how traumatic it
could be to be trapped in that metal,clanging coffin

so that Daddy could take pictures of your brain?

There's a machine that can
take a picture of my brain?

It's called an MRI, sweetie, and there's no reason
in the wide world that you should get one

'cause you're perfectly fine.

But what if I want one?

Try to stay perfectly still, honey.

Sorry! My toe itched, but I think I got it.

This is gonna make for
one hell of a show-and-tell.

Cooool.

Like mother, like daughter.

You found another peanut?

The exact same spot as Mom.

I have a peanut in my head?

Just a little extra lump of brain that looks like one.

And Mommy has one, too?

That's right, kiddo. Mommy has one, too.

I understand there's another daughter.

Perhaps we could find the time.

Perhaps we could find the time
to perform a scan on her as well.

You did a wonderful job, Bridgette.

I'm sure your mom and
dad are real proud of you.

Hey, honey.

Would you like me to touch you now?

Want me to scratch your back?

I give a great massage.

Maybe I could wash you.

If you untie me... We can take a bath.

Please, baby?

It's starting to hurt.

Shhh...

Do you like the desert?

What are you doing?

Again, I don't know what this all means.

This extra pocket of blood flow to the brain.

Perhaps I could interview you sometime.

Interview you both.

See if there's some manisfestation of all this
that we can identify and quantify.

But first we need to get Ariel in here.

Yes, if they all have it,
then we're truly onto something.

Well, I say that was two hours very well spent.

You understand her point about Ariel?

Mrs. Dubois!

Back for seconds.

Hi.

Hi.

How you doing?

That was you in there?

I told you, I'm a regular.

The joke around here is that I keep
mistaking this place for a tanning salon.

Hey, did you ever find that girl?

No. Not yet.

The desert.

They think she was buried in the desert,
along with a few others.

You mean someone...

Smothered them...

and buried them.

That's the theory.

And they've been rotting in the sun ever since.

They've been sitting there and rotting
for the last five or six years.

Excuse me. I...

I think a simple "No. We're still working on it.
She hasn't turned up yet." would have sufficed.

You meet him, you're with him.
He seems like the nicest guy in the world.

He goes into this machine, he gets scanned,
and suddenly I see this whole other side of him.

Maybe you do and maybe you don't.

What's that mean?

Allison, I believe you when
you say you see his thoughts,

but thoughts are not necessarily memories.

They can be ideas or fantasies.

Didn't you say that his wife first
appeared to you as a prostitute?

Wall, from what I've read, he wouldn't be the
first man to have had that particular daydream.

Well, with all due respect, sir, these are violent,
gruesome, horrible encounters that I'm seeing.

But if they never really happened,

they're not illegal.

Allison, I don't know what to tell you.

The man you're suspicious of has no real record.

There appear to be no real victims, and my suspicion is,

what we've got here is no real crime.

Allison?

Allison?

Excuse me.

Allison!

Mrs. Saunders.

Angela, are you looking for me?

If I tell you a secret...

If I take you into my confidence,

how can I be sure that
you aren't gonna tell my husband?

When your husband isn't
running his copy shop,

does he work for the prosecutor's office?

Then I have no reason to
tell him anything, Angela.

It's not Angela.

Um... it's Jade.

Actually, or Melanie.

Really, but, um...

My name, my street name--

at least the first time that I met David-- was Jade.

I'd seen his car around before.

There was something about him... some...

essense that you picked up.
This, uh, this core of niceness.

Hey, loverboy, you lonely?

Sure.

Oh, I was such a mess.

I even let him tie me up.

What's that?

The train.

We're a block away.

There was one little problem.

He finished too early.

You see, my pimp and I had
come to this new arrangement.

When I came across someone
who wanted to take me home,

if it seemed like he had some money and...

wouldn't put up much of a fuss,
my pimp would follow us,

and then he would break in and rob the place
while I kept the john occupied in the bedroom.

Shh!

Do you like the desert?

So he broke in around midnight,

...knocked over a lamp
on his way into the window.

Wh-Where you are going, baby?

Come back, baby, come back!

They met each other in the hallway.
There was a fight.

And then I heard a gunshot.

What did you do?

What did you do?!

He dragged me out of there.

David was lying there in the hallway,

bleeding from his head.

He wasn't moving.

What did you do?

I waited till my pimp got high and then...

I snuck away and I called 911.

The next day I read in the paper that
a bullet had passed through David's skull.

He almost bled to death on the floor.

So you saved his life.

Yeah.

In a strange way, he, uh,
he returned the favor.

I don't know what it was...

but being that close to death--
something about it, it... it changed me.

I got myself off the street.

I checked into rehab.

A couple months later,I was deep into
the program. You know, the 12 steps?

And I had taken all my personal inventory
and now it was time for step nine:

making amends.

I went to David's hospital room,

all ready to tell him what I'd done, you know,
accept responisibility,take the consequences.

And that's when I realized
he didn't remember me.

He didn't remember anything.

His life before that night--it was a blank.

He had been in the hospital
for months with his friends

coming by every day, trying to
fill in his memory for him,

reminding him that, uh,
he loved watching baseball.

That his favorite food was pizza.

Of course they couldn't fill him in...

on the parts of his life that
they didn't know anything about--

the cruising, the girls off the street.

And they didn't know anything about
what got him into the hospital

except for what they read
in the paper, you know,

that a man had broken into his
home and shot him, left him for dead.

I started visiting him every day,

First at the hospital,then at his business.

I should have told him then, you know?

I should have told him everything.

But I couldn't.

Before I knew it I was in love.

And so was he.

We've been married for five years now.
We want to have a family.

That man who used to pick up girls off
the street? He doesn't exist anymore.

And that girl that, uh, you're looking for?

Well, she's fine.

Oh, she's better than fine.

Isn't there any way that
we can put the past behind us?

Particularly when there is
so much future to look forward to?

Wow...

Let me see what I can do.

And he has no idea?

About her past? Apparently not.

And the ultimate romantic irony?

She has no idea about his.

Although, who am I kidding?
I'm not certain about his past either.

Maybe Devalos was right.

Maybe what I tapped into when he was in
that machine was some sort of dark fantasy.

I can feel the heat coming
off your brain from here.

What are you chewing on?

Mm, nothing much. Just the mystery of life.

That again.

You need to get your head out of the clouds
and think about something that matters.

Mm...Are we really just the sum of our memories?

Wait a second. I know the answer to that.
I read it in a magazine.

I mean, David Saunders,
he looks at his wife and he sees...

this wonderful woman that he met in the hospital
while he was recovering from a horrible accident.

That's who she is to him, that's all he knows,

and when he wakes up in the
morning he looks in the mirror

he doesn't see a guy who went cruising downtown
looking for strangers to have sex with, or worse.

He sees the guy that I see when
I go visit him at the print shop.

A member of the Chamber of Commerce.

A little league sponsor. A devoted husband.

Well, maybe.

What do you mean maybe?

I mean, who knows what
really goes on in someone's brain?

Who knows what memories actually
survive and what might trigger them.

Anyway, what are we talking about?

Didn't you tell me you were pretty much convinced

that whatever you saw didn't really happen?

Was only in his head.

No, I keep thinking...

if I see it, it's in his head,

and if it's in his head, it's in his head for a reason.

If a memory is killed in the forest
and there's no one there to hear it...

Ha, ha, ha.

What time do we have to go
to this MRI place in the morning?

I don't know what to tell you. I don't see it.

I don't see any signs of venous
angioma in Ariel's brain.

- Oh...
- Oh.

- Hey.
- Hey.

Good news.

Absolutely. Very good.

You're disappointed, aren't you?

Ah, it was a nice theory.

Would ha answered a lot of questions.

I admit it, I had visions of newborns all over
the world being tested for the "Dubois angioma".

Ah, the Dubois angioma. Nice.

Hi, sorry I'm late. You wanted to see me?

Yeah. No big deal.

I just wanted to let you know that I received
the rest of the inquiry on David Saunders.

Went all the way back to 1995
and there's really nothing there.

A couple of neighbors'complaints about noise,

a parking ticket, a couple of traffic violations...

What are these?

Those are evidence shots from
a photo-enforced stoplight he ran in 1998.

You've seen them-- you run the light and
it automatically takes pictures of the car,

whoever's driving, the license plate...

Pretty much eliminates people going
to trial over traffic tickets-- why?

See this woman here in the front seat?

I've seen her before.

It's not about you. It's about him.

Well, I guess that's me.

I have no idea who that
woman seated next to me is.

Her name is Delmy. Delmy O'Toole.

She's a prostitute.

Was a prostitute.

No one here is suggesting that
that's what she was doing in your car,

or that you were in engaged in anything
illegal or inappropriate, Mr. Saunders, but...

we have been conducting a review
of open missing persons cases.

Miss O'Toole's been missing since the late '90s.

And I am aware of the unique circumstances surrounding
your memory of anything that might have happened so long ago,

but, still, when we came across this photo...

Well, this is very strange.

I mean, weren't you asking me about
another missing person just last week?

Another prostitute?

I mean, is their something I don't know?

Was I someone who spent a lot of...

No, uh... We have a right to a lawyer, right?

No, we don't need a lawyer.

I haven't done anything wrong.

And you haven't done anything wrong.

Of course. You always have the right to an attorney, but frankly,

no one here is being accused of anything.

We were just hoping that you could shed
some light on these missing persons cases.

Cases? You mean there are more?

Yes, sir.

- Prostitutes?
- Oh, David...

No, this is nothing.

This has nothing to do with us.

They're just trying to find some missing people. Sh...

I don't know this woman.

No. I'm sorry.

- No.
- He doesn't know them...

Okay ? He doesn't. Now, if he met
them before the accident,

he doesn't remember them.

And besides, what difference
does that make? That was then.

Do you like the desert, Mr. Saunders?

Do you like the desert?

No, he... no, he doesn't like the desert.
He refuses to go there.

Okay, where ever it is that
you're trying to go with this,

- you're barking up...
- Shut up, Jade!

David, David, I love you.

I've loved you every second of every
single day since I met you at the hospital.

And whatever happened before,

I swear to God, that doesn't matter, okay? Tell me.

Tell me that it doesn't matter.

I love you, too, Angela.

This isn't about something you did.

I think this is about something I might have done.

Yeah, but I forgive you.

And I love you.

But I'm not so sure you should.

I think perhaps...

perhaps I might not be
the man you think I am.

No, no...

No.

Yes.

I'm sorry.

Can I see those pictures again?

I think... I would like to go to the desert, actually.

Do you think we could take a ride?

Oh... look who finally made it home.

Hi.

Hi, stranger.

How was the desert?

It was filled with secrets.
Filled with corpses.

Good for you. You got him.

I guess.

You guess?

I don't know.

We got the right man,
I guess that's a good thing.

So what's bothering you?

Come here.

Al, what are you doing?

I want to remember this moment
for the rest of my life.

Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.