Time Travel with TAPS

A “Ghost Hunters” Recarp

Mme. Blahblatsky did the transcript work and then shoved it and the DVD at me muttering about “effing shadows,” and “yesterday is tomorrow,” and I got concerned enough not to argue with her. So the Talking Mongoose is your reluctant guide to the fourth episode of the second season of the dimwittedly fabulized “reality” show “Ghost Hunters.”

Disclaimer: Mme. Blahblatsky toiled to capture almost every word spilling from the mouths of the language-challenged TAPS crew for us to read and marvel over, but all the scintillating dialogue belongs to Pilgrim Television and Films, Inc. We are not responsible.

The Narrator guy attempts to whip up a frenzy of anticipation.

Narrator: “On this episode of Ghost Hunters, TAPS heads to North Carolina for a routine training mission. Does the ghost of Andrew Johnson inhabit this house? Will this investigation sour the ghost hunters’ spirits? And then, Jason and Grant are asked to investigate a haunted battleship. How will they maneuver around this 35,000 ton steel maze? Are the ghost hunters now being hunted?”

Answers to these questions: no; damn it, no; with lots and lots of extension cords; no.

Credits: CARL!!! Demonologist Carl is back. I never thought I’d be so glad to see one of the Johnson twins. And – oh, Andy Andrews returns.

Case Manager Donna LaCroix and Tech Specialist Steve Gonsalves are in conference with the big guys, “lead investigators” aka plumber/producers Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, in the headquarters of The Atlantic Paranormal Society, Warwick, Rhode Island. Where is Brian?

Donna has no cases for the guys. None. But she has a swell idea. She thinks Dustin Pari and Jen Rossi need some training. Hmm. Where do you suppose they could get this training? Because there are no ghosts in Rhode Island. Or Massachusetts or Connecticut or anywhere within several hundred miles. TAPS has eliminated them, through sheer mind control.

Jason: “I talked with Jim Hall and Dave Gurney from North Carolina and they’ve got a place that they use down there, but that’s a trip.”

Donna awkwardly tries to join into this manufactured conversation, but she’s not having fun with it. “Yeah. North Carolina – that is – that’s going to be a haul.”

Tch tch, Donna. It’s only 680 miles! What’s 23 hours out of a weekend when it’s spent on the road with the always hilarious TAPS gang?

Steve plays the role of the reluctant techie, who is still thinking he wants to spend his weekend playing Halo. “Why do we have to go all the way to North Carolina just to train people?”

Because, silly, there’s a battleship just waiting to be debunked. Only we’re pretending we don’t know about that just yet. We’re just heading off on a little training retreat.