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The Blame Game
Season 1 · Episode 5 · Dec 9, 2009
Location: Saint Augustine, Florida
*** WARNING! MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS ***
This week, the recruits get their cardiovascular capacity ready for the many stairs of the St. Augustine lighthouse, location of numerous full-bodied apparitions, disembodied voices, and other catalogued phenomena. The curveball this time around is the addition of Chris Smith, a new recruit...and an indication that Steve and Tango are going to be sending someone home at the end of the investigation. The rest of the recruits are nervous, but do their best to welcome their new team member and get him up to speed.
It seems like everyone has the hang of setup, now, as it goes without a hitch and makes Steve happy. The lights go out, and the investigation gets underway. Almost immediately, Steve and Tango are a little disappointed in Jane's work, as she seems to lack attention to detail and basic common sense such as using her walkie talkie to communicate with other team members. Meanwhile, Karl gets high marks for his work in attempting to open a dialogue with spirits, while Susan impresses the team leaders by making use of "trigger objects" - in this case, a cigar and whiskey placed in a room in which witnesses had claimed to smell cigar smoke.
Chris S. has a lot to learn about investigating, but his friendly demeanor and ability to soak up knowledge impress his new teammates. Jane and Chris M., however, have worse luck, as Steve and Tango are forced to stop them from wandering the grounds aimlessly. Steve drives home the point that research into and knowledge of the stories about sightings on the grounds would have allowed them to focus their investigation.
With that, Steve and Dave wrap up the investigation, and Tango states that he was impressed with the way things went, overall. The recruits are feeling pressure going into the analysis phase, but none more so than Jane, who feels like she could be the one to go and gets quite emotional about it. Still, there's a job to do, and everyone settles down to go over evidence. Unfortunately, they only really find one piece of evidence, a personal experience recorded by Ben in which he heard knocking noises in the lighthouse tower. Steve says not to let the fact that they only found one thing get them down...but that he still has to send someone home. After some constructive criticism of Ben, we immediately see Jane aggressively start to throw blame around, including ratting out Chris M. for a statement he made saying he didn't want to be there.
Steve and Tango aren't impressed with Jane's attitude, but more importantly, they think no one who doesn't want to be investigating should be. And thus it is that Chris M. is the recruit let go, while Jane gets to stay despite the fact that the team, as a whole, doesn't have great feelings about her. Jane, for her part, is happy to stay, but feels bad because she knows the only reason she's still around is because Chris stated his distaste. Steve emerges from the RV and informs the recruits that, with one investigation left, he and Tango are really going to be looking for the potential in the team, and they need to show him something. And with that, the recruits pack up and roll on to their final exam.
Today's Lessons:
- There's no substitute for desire and passion.
- Sometimes, even the most promising investigations don't turn up hard evidence.
- Leave your baggage at the door.
