Another episode I've enjoyed tremendously that I wanted to ressurect for us newbies, especially in light of the great discussions posted here. The more I analyze it the more I find it to be flawless.

I decided to read everyone's comments BEFORE posting, so as not to be repetitive ( a no-no, I know...no) . I figure that's OK on the oldies.

Anyway, the episode was awesome and I agree with much of the observations already posted here, except that I think we all missed the crux of it -- that the unknown powers of the brain could be so strong as to actually make contact with spirits. Remember, E.G opened the episode with: "My story explores the dark uncharted area of the human brain. Despite medical research, scientists admit that there is much still unknown about the flesh and blood computer that guides our conscious and unconscious lives." Because the medium was a fake, we all assumed that the seances were fully contrived.

I don't believe this play needed more segments. It's all there. Kent was highly susceptible to hypnotism and that's how he was so easily led into the "fake" seances... but that wasn't the only reason he was so convincng at it. Someone wrote that he seemed very competent at this charade for someone who couldn't do anything else. But I assert it was no charade. Defintely not the second one, anyway.


The answer to the bracelet inscription is that, despite the medium's crooked intent, Kent's connection to the otherworld was "real." Kent had formed a wavelength with the real son. The bracelet was transformed from beyond into the real one! A step way above spoon bending, for sure.

I also believe that the visit to his ex-wife was not filler. It marked the transition from the previous brainwashing (6-5-3), when he remembered nothing at all about his life, to the connection he had now made with the otherworld, which awakened his own memories as a prelude to bringing him over.

The first seance began the process of his mind tuning into the other side. Right after that, he had his last 6-5-3 episode when he attacked the medium's accomplice. She ordered him to his room and to stay there until commanded otherwise. But during the two days that it took to have the fake bracelet made, he was compelled by something else, stronger that the medium's spell, but obviously NOT the original spell, to disobey the command and go out into the world, follow his ex-wfe without knowing why, or who she was at first, before the recollections of her name, and most tellingly, their dead daughter, came back to him.

Then, he was compelled to return to the medium's place, seemingly back under her spell, but actually driven by the dead son, who traded Kent some memories, perhaps even contact with his own dead daughter, in exchange for the ability to reach out to his mother one (more?) time. After Kent had gone out and seen his wife, he never had a 6-5-3 moment or attacked anyone. The old spell, which doctors could not reverse, was gone, changed by something more powerful, which may have actually been triggered by the phony medium.

Prior to the first seance he told the mother, "I am sympathetic to the sorrows of a grieving mother," at the prompting of the medium. During the second seance, he told the mother, as Mazomodar, that he must produce evidence only known to the two of him... which he actually did do. At that time, he said that it was something that she had given him "shortly before I left for overseas on my last furlough home." While the medium knew that the ID bracelet was a gift from the mother and that it was never recovered, there was no indication that she knew the exact time the mother gave it to him.

After the seance, Kent's last words were "I am sympathetic to the grief of a lonely mother." Then, his contact with the dead became complete as he immediately joined the son (and his own daughter) on the other side.

Kent's damaged, manipulated psyche, the susceptibility for hypnosis, the powerful suggestions of the medium, the fervent power of the mother's intense needs, and his own impending death paved a road to the other side. So, rather than being a extraneous add-ons, the visit to the former wife was part of the transition out of the previous brainwashing and onto the bridge, and the inscription on the bracelet, performed from the other side, took all of his own power, and life.

I listened to this three times and I have to say that I didn't get any of this theory until after I read the previous comments and listened yet again, intent to figure out why the wife visit and bracelet inscription were included. That's the best explanation I can come up with. Why else would the writer have the guy wander, of all places, into a psychic's lair? If this was just about a brainwashed guy unable to control murderous, implanted commands, he could have just kept on going around killing people and met a sad fate at the hands of the cops. Instead, he utilized the power of his stretched out mind to do something good.