Auditiongasm Finals 2012: Long Island Medium Fighter Four

Long Island Medium Recap

by Fighter Four

I went to college in Boston. A series of increasingly bizarre occurrences took place in my off-campus apartment that led my two roommates and I to believe with about 72% certainty there was a ghost in our midst (we were drunk a lot, so there’s a 28% chance we misinterpreted or caused a lot of the commotion ourselves). HOWEVER. One night, one of my roommates claimed the Boston strangler murdered someone on our street. I have no idea how she found this out, but if you care enough to click the link and scroll down, the street pictured (where the first murder took place) is the STREET I LIVED ON IN COLLEGE.

Why am I telling you this?  Because I don’t particularly mind ghosts when they are mischievous and play fun pranks, a la ghosts you’d find in Harry Potter or on Scooby Doo. I think ghosts who look like sheets with eyes are cute (as long as they aren’t too KKK-ish). But ghosts who have vendettas or unsettled business among the living? They scare the shit out of me.

Angry or unhappy ghosts terrify me, and so do people that are able to communicate with them…even when said people come in the form of middle class women from Long Island. So, it probably goes without saying I’ve never watched “Long Island Medium,” but I am sucking it up for the sake of Auditiongasm.

Theresa Caputo is the Medium? medium? “Medium?” I’m not sure the of the correct capitalization/quotation usage here. TLC was airing episodes all night, so I read some of the episode descriptions. There was one about how she was going to a cooking class, but ends up teaching a spirit how to cook (or something like that). How evil can gourmet ghosts be? The description for the episode I’m recapping had something to do with a tattoo parlor. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all…

During the intro, Tre says she likes to think of herself as a typical mom, but wherever she goes, spirits come to her and she is compelled to “help.” Tre has gigantic French tips that are long and sharp enough to cut a person in two, and the kind of hairdo you’d expect to find in a 1950s yearbook photo.

The episode opens at an eyeglasses store and I find myself wondering how much they paid TLC for the privilege of an onscreen promotion. Tre’s daughter, Victoria, already wears contacts but wants to get glasses as well. Tre interviews “geek chic” is the new thing, but why would anyone want to look like a geek? 1950s yearbook photo: Meet this glasses-wearing kettle.

Much to the annoyance of her daughter, Tre starts communicating with a spirit. I can only imagine how Victoria must feel — a teenage girl’s relationship with her mom is rocky enough, and it seems like Tre steals everyone’s thunder ALL THE TIME because the spirits are constantly trying to talk to her. Well, the spirit in question better be Benjamin Franklin, inventor of bifocals — who else would hang out in a glasses shop when they could go anywhere in the universe?

It turns out the spirit in question is the father of a random woman at the store. WHAT A CROCK OF BULL. I wanted Ben F! Tre starts badgering the woman. Who goes up to a stranger and starts telling the person they are speaking with their dead relative?  I would find this whole situation highly inappropriate and creepy if this woman hadn’t made a few Benjamins herself in exchange for her role as “Random Glasses Store Patron 1.”

She is soon joined by her mom/widow of the spirit, AKA “Random Glasses Store Patron 2.” Tre asks the mother what happened to her deceased husband’s wedding ring. The mother informs it was given to their grandson for his wedding. Tre says the man is okay with that.  Seriously, all these woman probably wanted to do today was go to the grocery store, get new glasses, have a nice lunch, and maybe hit Bed, Bath, & Beyond if they had enough time. Instead they got accosted by Tre and forced to talk about their dead loved one’s wedding ring.