MELINDA GORDON
Real Name: Melinda Gordon-Clancy
Occupation: Antique Dealer, Owner of "Same As It Never Was" Antiques
Known Relatives: Beth (mother), father (name unrevealed), Nana (grandmother, deceased), James ( "Jim," husband), Aidan (son), Daniel (brother-in-law, deceased), Faith (mother-in-law)
Base of Operations: Grandview-On-Hudson, New York
First Appearance: Ghost Whisperer (2005-2012)
History: Melinda Gordon is a native of Hamilton, New York. Brunette, attractive and out-going, she comes from a family with a long line of female psychics and mediums. Beginning in her childhood, Melinda could see and communicate with ghosts and the spirits of the departed. Raised by her mother after the death of her father, Melinda started seeing ghosts at very early age and was dismayed by the images she saw, being unable to understand why she was seeing them. She shared her gifts with her grandmother who helped her understand her "gift," but her mother never quite accepted Melinda's psychic abilities. Melinda's grandmother eventually passed away, and she revealed her ability to her boyfriend, Jim Clancy, a paramedic, who later became her husband (although she hasn't exactly taken his name). Her best friend, Andrea Moreno, and later partner in her antique store, was also allowed to know about her secret psychic gifts and even began to respect them, although she is admittedly apprehensive about the paranormal. As yet, Jim's mother, Faith, is unaware that Melinda is psychic and instead considers Melinda wonderfully whimsical.
Over time, Melinda has made contact with several spirits needing help to cross over into the afterlife. As such, she is obviously reticent about revealing her abilities publicly since several individuals often treat her with alarm or with awkward ignorance. Her efforts to help spirits have been made easier with more and more individuals' beliefs and experience with the supernatural.
As Melinda has discovered, she seems to be almost consistently surrounded by at least one or two earthbound spirits at all times. Furthermore, she has discovered several locations in Grandview have reputations as being haunted, including Grandview Mercy Hospital, the Kensington Arms Inn and the local Comedy Cave night spot. On occasion, she has had to seek counsel from paranormal experts such as Professor Rick Payne to deal with aggressive and dark spirits. After Andrea's death, Melinda became a bit more sullen and less animated. Her new friendship with a real estate agent named Delia Banks, a single mother with a son named Ned, bolstered her life a bit, but because of Andrea's death, Melinda has started to cast doubts on whether her psychic gifts were actually helpful to others.
Struggling to overcome her depression, Melinda and Jim had a son, Aidan, but most of this time was plagued by delusions and incidents which Melinda thought was real. Jim was seemingly murdered on a trip, and seemingly came back to her. To Melinda, it seemed as if Jim's spirit was reborn in another body, but the veracity of these accounts are debatable. Melinda also started hallucinating a battle between light and dark forces trying to harm her and her son. Some of her illusions were encouraged by the ghost of Carl Sessick trying to force her to face her depression over losing Andrea. His efforts only confused her more, but auditory psychic Eli James, a close friend, eventually pulled her through her emotional crisis.
Case Files: Grandview Mercy Hospital (10-14-05), the Kensington Arms Inn (10-21-05), Comedy Cave (12-16-05), S. S. Clarendon (10-24-08), Bancroft House (01-09-09), Sessick Funeral Home (01-23-09), Peyton House (03-12-10), et al.
Powers/Abilities: Melinda Gordon possesses the ability to see and communicate with ghosts, the astral spirits of people who have died. A Class Three psychic, she can actually perceive ghosts in the forms they had in life and sometimes in the form they had when they died (hanging victims sometimes appear headless, drowning victims appear saturated with spectral water....). While most people can see and perceive ghosts to some extent, usually no more than sensing a presence or glimpsing faint images, Melinda can communicate and interact with ghosts on the same level of human beings, although she usually calls them spirits. She can only see them when they have taken a physical form similar to how they looked in life, but she cannot perceive them when they have attained an invisible, immaterial and intangible state (usually when they are no longer tapping into ectoplasm, the psychic ethereal substance emitted by all living things), although even when they are in this form, she can still sense them when they are in her presence. Her sensitivity to them is so acute that their presence can even lure her out of deep sleep. There is a limit to how much psychic stimulation she can tolerate; white noise can give her a headache by overloading her psychic senses all at once. In some rare occasions, she can read and perceive earthborn psychic energies ("place memories"), often perceiving them as highly-charged dreams.
Comments: Melinda Gordon is played by Jennifer Love Hewitt. David Conrad plays Jim, and Aisha Tyler portrays Andrea. Renowned psychic James Vander-Praagh is a co-executive producer.
Note: At the start of the series, Grandview was a fictional city in a non-specified state. Since the end of the series, it has been identified with Grand View-on-Hudson, New York.
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