SO, once Greg’s seen the “reveal” of the show off the new DVR, (for you astute, long-time followers out there who remember that Greg can’t get through an entire episode, he can do it in pieces. With a blanket around him. And milk. And sometimes booze in the milk. And it being noon.) Emmett and Greg sit down with John to try and show him how he’s missing the best part of life, and if he doesn’t like Ghost Hunters, he should otherwise die.

This is the “BitN Findings Review” for the Season 5 mid-season finale of Ghost Hunters, “Garden State Asylum.” Because there’s no better way to review something than to see it heavily edited, months later, and thousands of miles away.

FINDING 1:  In the tunnel, Jason and Grant get an interesting, strange hit on the “thermal-imaging camera” – a figure that seems to either step behind, or in front of something, further down the hall.

GREG: Jason and Grant’s bravery is always astounding. They stared the ghost down, and with just one well-placed “What’s That’s, Down That Way? I Think It’s Something,” they told that ghost: “No, we aren’t going anywhere. You’re going to have to deal with us. This is our tunnel now, you’re just dead in it.” Yeah. Jason and Grant looking at that spirit is the very marrow of life, it’s what the Greeks meant when they said “ambrosia,” or would’ve meant, if they weren’t talking about food.

JOHN: I have to admit, that was kinda cool, but I also wonder about the efficacy of thermal imaging in capturing spirits.  I mean, no one ever reports “warm spots” when it’s a ghost, right?  So what if this is just some camera dude behind a wall?

EMMETT: My research says that Richard Gilrod was admitted to Essex County Asylum in 1900, the five year anniversary. He choked his uncle and dog to death with a poisonous soufflé, somehow. Allegedly, he yelled: “these are hell fresh eggs, fresh from hell.” So, maybe… he came back as a yellow blob?

JOHN: Emmett, it’s yellow because it’s creating a picture of heat.

EMMETT: …yeah, I don’t know then.

—————–

FINDING 2:  EVP

From

http://www.scifi.com/ghosthunters/episodes/episodes.php?seas=5&ep=0508&act=1

Joe and Britt’s recorder picked up a voice that sounded like it was saying “children.” And while Dave and Steve were boxed in the freezers in the morgue a voice was recorded saying, “he’s here”

GREG: The ghosts know who they’re talking about here. And that’s even after being dead, and insane. (Well, reverse that, in order.) “Children,” Joe and Britt hear. Damn right. We’re all children, no matter how dead and insane we are, when they’re around. Or maybe, the ghosts meant: “Hide the ghost children when these guys are around. Because they’re real ass-kickers. Did you see when the British guy wore the helmet?” Sometimes, I swear ghosts hide from TAPS because TAPS is just too scary. Anyway, “he’s here” is obviously a reference to Jason and/or Grant, who the ghost knows are bad ghost news even when they’re 365 acres away. The part the camera probably didn’t pick up was: “He’s here. Let’s us ghosts hide here in the morgue with Tango and the Big Tattoo’ed Guy from Battlestar Galactica, who isn’t really from Battlestar Galactica, but really isn’t that tough, either.”

JOHN: Remember that time I took a shower and you thought it was a ghostly choir singing, but it was just the shitty piping in the apartment?  This is like that.

EMMETT: My research shows that John can be an asshole. I mean, ahem, that “Children” was a popular code phrase among the nurses/guards at Essex County, at the turn of the last century. It could mean: “Someone Made a Bad Mess I Don’t Want to Clean,” or even: “There’s An Actual Child In Here. Help Me Find Them Before They’re Eaten.” Either or any answer was used. This is Jersey.

———————————-

FINDING 3: A DV camera was left, firmly attached to a tripod in one of the many buildings. But the camera is found later on the floor. The footage shows the camera was lifted into the air, held for a second in mid-air, and dropped onto the ground.

GREG: Ghost Hunters is the toughest crew on the air. How tough are they? Even the camera is tough. Even the camera won’t take any ghost crap (which is awful, by the way.) Even the camera’s like: “No, ghost. You can’t even drop me right. And I’m a camera.” The camera’s pretty brave, it’s hard not to admire it. We could all learn a little something from that camera.

JOHN: This happened multiple times on our show.  Every time you try to convince me it’s a ghost.  Every time, it’s one of you tripping or deliberately picking up the camera and dropping it to try to convince me it’s a ghost.  Ooh, scary.

Folks, the next time you knock something over by accident, and it falls on the ground and you look bad… just tell people that a ghost did it.

EMMETT: My research shows that the most likely explanation was, a ghost wanted to film what the afterlife/Jersey were like once you’re dead. So, the ghost lifted it off the tripod, but got frustrated when it didn’t lift off the tripod because those things are hard to work if you’re alive, even. Thus frustrated, the ghost remembered that it was completely insane, but not before it held the camera in the air for a moment. There are other scenarios, but they’re so much less likely as to not be worth mentioning. Like the one with the Kleptomaniac Ghost and the Lollipops. That one’s just stupid.

JOHN’S FINAL JUDGEMENT ON THIS EPISODE OF GHOST HUNTERS:

JOHN: … I wish you guys would let me just watch “Chuck” in peace.

WEDNESDAY, 8:58 PM

Once a week, the greatest thing in the world happens.

The cloud open, the sun runs home to Mamma, and the moon shines forth and says: “What’s up?”

… on Wednesday nights, when Ghost Hunters comes on.

(!!!!!!)

I can’t even type the phrase “Ghost Hunters” without getting up and running around my room for a moment.

Okay, I’m back.

Tonight I’m going to see how one of these ends. (I am not too afraid. I am not too afraid. It’s on basic cable and I’m 27 years old and my family and some of my friends most likely love me very much I am going to make it through an entire episode of Ghost Hunters without running/sleeping/hiding/getting something wet.)

Emmett helps me prepare our Ghost Hunters Viewing experience. Each week, we get out a different cardboard cutout I made of meticulously enlarged internet pictures of stars of the show (this week, it’s that trucker from a couple years back that saw the ghost kid laughing at him.) Also: the Jason and Grant ones never go into storage, and they’re always covered in Christmas lights. Cardboard doesn’t always do enough justice to one’s awesomeness, you know.

Nerves jumping, feet tapping, we sit down…

… the voice of Mike Rowe lets us know it’s TIME FOR GHOST HUNTERS!

(woooooOOOOOOO—!!) (NOTE: That’s a triumphant “woooooOOOOOO,” and not one of those scared ones. I’m totally not scared. Who’s scared? You are. Shut up. Etc.)

… somewhere, in Warwick, Rhode Island, they sit at a table: two Kings of Eternity, and the warrior-princess-sage. Her voice is ambrosia, her features are crystal, but every word out of her mouth is a warship on a sea of bad.

“We got a call to investigate the Titanic exhibit at the Atlanta aquarium!” Kristen exclaims, the words honored to curl out of her mouth.

The Kings hear the quest before them.

Each week, Emmett and I have a contest to come up with the best introductions for Jason and Grant.

EMMETT:  “If they have any fear, it is not visible at this table. Grant’s piercing gaze is a laser that strikes fear into the soot-black heart of Death.”

GREG:  “The other, Jason, his head gleams with the celestial lights of pure heaven.”

Damnit. I think Emmett won.
“Sounds fun,” Jason nods.

Indeed.

Emmett and I high-five, just from looking at them.

Jason and Grant go outside to tell the other members of TAPS what Kristen just told them, with Kristen right nearby. I’m glad, too. I forgot in the last thirty-five seconds. I’m already feeling a little fear, working up from my toes, like a little worm of fear that says: “Hey! You’re afraid.”

RANDOM SHOTS OF ATLANTA AS WE ARE IN ATLANTA.

Man, the Olympic Rings sure look creepy.

As the team rides in formation in Vans (I bet people play “RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES” as they ride through Atlanta) Master Chief from Battlestar Galactica asks Kristen something about the Titanic. I don’t blame him: I would totally look for ridiculous excuses to call Kirsten, too.

Jason and Grant meet MEGAN, their contact at the Titanic ship exhibit in Atlanta. I’m always a little jumpy watching Ghost Hunters, so her happy, beautiful smile makes me jump.

VOICES! IN ATHENS! VOICES MOVE FROM ONE GALLERY TO ANOTHER! IN MEXICO, PEOPLE SAW A MAN BEHIND A CURTAIN AND THOUGHT HE WAS A CHARACTER ACTOR!!

(At “Character Actor,” I’m man enough to tell you that I gasped a little bit. God, this show is scary.)

Shadows! Staff members hear things! People hear footsteps. In a museum. I can’t tell if it’s a cold sweat or a sweat-sweat but I’m sweating.

Jason and Grant stand as tall and heroic as Hercules, and his Vic Mackey-like brother, Ray.

They aren’t sweating and needing Emmett to have blankets nearby. I’m such a whimp.

ICE BERG ROOM!

They have the actual iceberg that hit the Titanic on display in the iceberg room! (It’s about eight feet tall, and looks mean. I assume they have it there so that you can throw things at it and call it dirty names, like: “Water.” Or “Frosty’s Bitch.”)

TESTIMONIALS FROM PEOPLE THAT SAW THE TITANIC GHOSTS!

“Margaret Mourino,” felt pressure, like someone was pressing down on her head “like a swimming cap.” I’ve never worn a swimming cap, but it must be nefarious. (I assume it has like, horns that dig into your ears? That would explain why Michael Phelps goes so fast.)

FISH! JASON AND GRANT ARE GOING TO SCUBA DIVE AND GHOST HUNT GHOSTS UNDERWATER!!

No, wait, no. They aren’t. Damn.

SET UP EQUIPMENT SET UP

The TAPS family sets up the equipment, while Master Chief takes us through it. “Joe” and “Diana” of “TAPS Atlanta” are here. Dave Tango ignores them like they’re ghosts/have a horrible disease/both, so there must be something wrong with these folks.

A MONTAGE OF TURNING OUT LIGHTS! THE SCARY IS UPON US!!!!

(Granted, we haven’t even turned out the lights yet, and I’m covered in four blankets.) Fish do look cool in nightvision. Do they have nighttime in water? It always looks so dark there, anyway.

JASON AND GRANT WALK THROUGH THE AQUARIUM! (I like to think, on some level, we walk with them. By watching them.)

“It’s real cold right here,” Jason says. I instinctively put more blankets around myself.

“Why is it cold in the aquarium in night?” Emmett asks. I shrug, as much as someone can shrug with the number of blankets I have wrapped around myself.

If Jason and Grant weren’t Ghost Hunters, (which is sort of like saying: “What if the Beatles Had Gone into Plumbing?”) they’d be the baddest detectives on the force. (I hear FX used to have a show about a detective based on Jason.) Because when they interrogate a ghost during an EVP session, it stays interrogated.

“Were you a passenger on the Titanic?”

“If you’re here, we’re going to walk to the iceberg room. You’re welcome to join.”

I shivered, out of fear, awe, and inexplicably being cold, too. That may not seem like they said much, but YOU try saying something in a museum late at night that you’ve been let into and told that something happened in Athens, Mexico, and underwater.

THEY’RE AT THE ICEBERG!

And then, the terror happens.

I look away, I try to run, but all I can find is the couch and all these damn blankets.

Jason says… (deep breaths, I’m writing “deep breaths” to take my mind off of the “deep breaths” I’m taking—)

Jason says: “we…” (be strong, Greg) “we… found the cold spot, it’s right here… it followed us into the Iceberg room!”

HOW DID THE COLD SPOT FOLLOW THEM INTO THE ICEBERG ROOM? THERE’S NO WAY THE COLD SPOT COULD BE IN THE ICE BERG ROOM AND —-

JOHN NOTE #2 WEDNESDAY 11:44 PM: And… that’s as far as Greg got this week. If you watched the rest of the episode, you saw Jason and Grant sit on the ground and tell the camera they saw a ghost off screen, but no one made any kind of effort to, you know, go over and film it.

Then, the TAPS family members in Atlanta Joe and Diana managed to walk through the museum and not find anything. They told us they found something before, and managed to work this whole thing into a free tour.

Kristen seems like she dyed her hair on the drive down from Rhode Island. Jason and Grant found a really great EVP voice that said: “Wait, don’t go.”

But, I did, and went to bed. The 2^nd half will remain a mystery except for those of you who, you know, actually saw it.

Next week, I’ll handle the Ghost Hunters review. Not because I think much of the show, but because I’m tired of Greg stealing all of my blankets.

THURSDAY, 10:12 AM: Greg:

— … I didn’t make it through the episode, again. One of these days. Emmett’s still asleep, so I won’t wake him up to ask him how it ended. Hopefully, he’s not dead. From fear. Etc.

— Every week I… don’t quite make it through an entire episode of Ghost Hunters, I like to think about what I think happened after I watched, and what I’d like to happen. This is those:

1. Jason and Grant found the spirits that were haunting the Titanic. They somehow managed to explain to the spirits why the hell they were in Atlanta.

2. Dave Tango and Master Chief (or, as the Indian name he sometimes goes by, “One-With-More-Tattoos-Than-Fear”) had a deep philosophical conversation about life, death, and fish. Then Tango told the ghost “We respect you” and “Please” several times.

3. Kristen began a contest called: “Ghost Hunter Viewer Date of the Week.” A viewer sends in a tape of themselves, and their awesomeness, hoping that Kristen picks them for a date, or at least a one-on-one EVP session with a chance for something more. Wait, no, I totally don’t hope that happened, because I was passed out, afraid/asleep. What if it did happen, and Emmett saw it? Emmett…

4. Jason and Grant led the ghosts into an uprising, where they beat the hell out of that villainous iceberg. Just when they thought the iceberg was dead, it yelled: “You’ll never take me frozen!” and melted, to escape.

… there’s always next week.