Proof - Til Death - Review

For those of you who really enjoyed the pilot episode, I would say that this was a great followup. Carolyn, Zed and Janel dive into a new case involving a man, Luke Martel, that sees his dead wife, Elena. Now we’ve heard these stories before, but this one was a little different. It seems as though Luke really believed his wife was still with him, she talked to him, made coffee, they even had romantic evenings together. Dr. Tyler is skeptical about the idea of life after death, so naturally she couldn’t believe that he was actually seeing his wife. She decides to turn to science for answers. I have a feeling that this will keep occurring on a regular basis throughout the series!

I do have to mention that I love the use of lighting in this show. It’s almost like they’re using the blue light as foreshadowing for when a supernatural presence is near. I’m sure most of you caught that but if you haven’t keep an eye out for it!

If you read my review of the pilot, I had mentioned that I was trying to figure out what city this show takes place in. We know it’s filmed in Vancouver but I was able to catch glimpse of Ivan Turing’s SUV license plate and was surprised to see that it had Washington on it. I’ve seen a lot of shows in the past that took place in Seattle and was surprised that they didn’t show us the iconic Space Needle to give the Seattle feel. Maybe it’s not that important but I always view the city almost as a character in the show. In that regard, I hope that they can make me believe that they are actually in Seattle.

As we get to see more of the interaction between Carolyn, Zed, and Janel I was happy to see Carolyn’s personality coming out more; a sense of humour even! A joke about Ghostbusters helps to lighten the dark mood of this supernatural show. This is great, because when a show like this is too serious, I find myself losing interest.

In the pilot episode I wasn’t so sure how I felt about Ivan Turing. He seemed to be another rich guy character that wanted to waste money on whatever he felt like. He also appeared to think that he was entitled to anything he wanted. Well in this episode I have to say that I really enjoyed his character! When he visited Dr. Tyler at the hospital he seemed to have a charm about him. He almost gave me the sense that he was just a big kid deep down. That’s not necessarily a trait that everyone will find charming. It’s clear that Carolyn questions Ivan and why he wanted her to work on Luke’s cases. She even asks Janel about Ivan. Janel’s belief in him and why he is searching for answers must have moved Dr. Tyler as she decided to continue working on the case. She even goes to see Luke to ask him some more questions. This is where things become apparent to Carolyn that Luke’s visions of his dead wife might be harmful to him. He’s making drinks for the two of them and running a bath that overflows, all the while claiming that Elena did it. All of this causes her to order a medical evaluation on him.

This episode also had a nice amount of the “personal” element to it. We see Carolyn dealing with issues at home. Her daughter, Sophie, has been getting high and her ex-husband, Len, plays it off as nothing. Someone mentioned to me that he seems to have a “so what?” type of attitude and I definitely see that when it comes to his family. We also see a bit of jealousy on the part of Len. He invites Zed to observe surgical procedures with the hidden agenda of finding out about what has been going on between Carolyn and Ivan. When Carolyn tries to get Zed to do some tasks for their cases Len and Carolyn end up fighting over Zed. Carolyn referenced this being like their child custody case all over again. Later on we see Len telling Carolyn that Zed is going to be an amazing doctor, that she is “clipping his wings”, and could take that all away from him. That really hits home with her and she later tells Zed that she no longer wants him working on the life after death cases. This didn’t sit well with Zed at all and he ends up going to Dr. Tyler’s home demanding that she allow him to continue working with her. Of course she agrees! I was relieved that he stood up to her and changed her mind. I was surprised that Len was the cause of this. Was it out of jealousy or did he really believe that she was going to prevent Zed from becoming a great doctor?

Throughout this episode I was waiting for Peter Van Owen to show up again. We only saw him briefly in the pilot episode but I really enjoyed the dynamic between him and Dr. Tyler. It was about halfway into this episode that we got a small interaction between those two again. It was divulged by Owen that Turing was getting many of his cases from him. This did not make Carolyn too happy. In fact, she told Ivan that she no longer wanted to work with him once she learned this. She believes that Owen is a fraud and has no interest helping him anymore. Well, we know that she was not actually going to quit, but it does demonstrate just how much she disapproves of the work that Owen is doing. To me, their interaction is what I’m looking forward to seeing the most in this show. I love it when you see two strong opinionated characters bickering and contradicting each other!

Moving back to the case that Dr. Tyler was working on, it was discovered that Luke did in fact have a medical issue that caused him to see his dead wife. I was a little disappointed by this as we’ve all seen something like that before, but I guess it would be too early in the series for them to have actually discovered a supernatural phenomenon! That being said, there were a few moments that had me believing that this could be the real deal. For example, when they were in operating room and the power flickered in and out. After, Luke explained to Carolyn that Elena was jealous of her and didn’t believe it to be a good idea for her to be in the room. Later, that was explained by construction workers hitting some power lines. After this occurrence it took some serious convincing to get Luke to agree to the procedure. While he was on the edge of the roof, Carolyn uses Elena to help Luke see that he should get the help. She does a good job and this scene was a great display of how strong and caring she really is.

I enjoyed this episode just as much as the first, if not more! I’m happy to see more of the humorous side of the show. It’s great that they aren’t taking themselves too seriously. The case was a good one, though it has been done before on other shows. I’ll be tuning in next week hoping to see more interaction between Carolyn and Peter, and their latest case. What about you? What are you looking forward to seeing next week?

About the Author - Alexandra

Alexandra (Ali) is an avid TV, film, and music fan from Canada. She attended film school and was a camera operator for a local sports show. Growing up she watched shows like Due South, Pretender, X-files, Early Edition, and Frasier. Her favourite shows are Bates Motel, The Mentalist, and The Closer. Alexandra will be reviewing Proof and Masters of Sex.

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