Ghost Whisperer - ReCap - Season 4, Episode 10 – Ball & Chain – air date 7/17/09. In this episode Melinda helps a ghost (Tammy) come to terms with her death, and her marriage, so that she can cross over. Sam (the man that Melinda’s husband Jim entered rather than crossing over) discovers that he has an engagement ring in his possession – and has no memory at all of the woman.

Melinda meets a ghost (Tammy) at the Farmer’s Market – a woman who seems perfectly normal, but does not realize that she has died. She has this urge to go home to her family – husband and children. When Melinda goes to the woman’s (former) home, she meets her husband (or the person that she thinks is the ghost’s husband). His story is that his wife was bi-polar, and used to disappear for several days at a time. He reported her missing, and has since remarried.

There is quite an interesting scene where the ghost wife goes to the cleaners to pick up her husband’s shirt. They can’t see or hear her, so she is ignored. In retribution, she sets the mechanism that brings the cloths around on super-fast! Melinda catches her and makes her stop.

Meanwhile, Melinda’s friend searches the area that Tammy last remembers being. He finds her body in a car, with a hose attached to the pipe. It appears that she committed suicide – but what about the rope burns on the ghost’s (Tammy’s) wrists?

Tammy appears in Melinda’s living room – wanting to know a bout herself, and her family. Melinda tells her that often spirits are afraid of remembering their physical life.

It appears that Tammy also has another identity – a husband and children that she supposedly left six years ago. Her husband believes that she had an affair with the electrician and left with him.

Melinda goes to see Roger (Tammy’s second husband) and finds out from the neighbors that they have no children.

It comes out that Roger kidnapped Tammy at gunpoint and held her hostage – tied up in a cellar. He told her that if she tried to get away, he would kill her family. His words to her were “I will decide when you leave.”

Melinda goes back to Roger’s house to check on his second wife – a woman that she believes is being abused. Tammy appears there with her. They hear the woman’s voice, and find her handcuffed and locked in a cellar under the living room floor. As Melinda is releasing her, Roger comes up from behind, a fireplace poker in his hand.

Roger is subdued and handed over to the police. The second wife is reunited with her husband and child.

Melinda talks to Tammy’s first husband, helping him to release his guilt and grief over not having tried to look harder for his wife. Tammy sees the husband that she loves, and her children, and comes to a sense of peace that allows her to cross over.

Sam has still not decided whether he is going to look fo rt he woman that he bought the ring for, or what he will say when he finds her.