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by Caroline Roberts Published: November 26, 2006
Along with the grouchy foreman who liked to set fire to the millworkers, the ghost of a Native American named Wooden Lucy tormented the Hawthorne family for building a mill on what was her island. The patriarch's daughter, Margaret, started acting funny and talking to Wooden Lucy. One night while in the woods, the patriarch stumbled across a ghost he thought was Wooden Lucy and beaned it with a shovel (I guess it's normal to take your shovel with you on ordinary strolls). Instead of killing a ghost, he wound up killing his own daughter, who later came back to scare him to death. Nicole Eggert: America watched her turn legal on Charles in Charge, after which she promptly became a Baywatch babe. Courtney Friel: I admit, I had no idea who Courtney Friel was because I don't know much about poker. But if you're really into poker, then you'll know her because she hosted the World Poker Tour. Willie Garson: Unlike many of the others on this show, he's also enjoyed a lot of work, and he was last seen as Carrie Bradshaw's gay buddy in Sex and the City. Ernie Hudson: Best known as the black Ghostbuster. If you don't know him from that, you probably know him as "that guy" or "what's-his-name" because he has had a bit part in almost every TV show or movie ever made. The dude's IMDB credits are a mile long! Eric Nies: One of the original Real World cast members who proves the new adage, "Old reality TV stars don't die - they just fade away." Nicole Eggert: Eggert appears to have the strongest belief in the paranormal. Or maybe she is a little nutty - she thinks ghosts exist because some tchotchkes leapt off her television set and hit her. (If they were real ghosts, they must be pretty harmless ghosts.) However, she trumps Ernie Hudson early on when they go to the Records Room. After Eggert hangs a ghost catcher, which she calls a "triangle cow bell," Hudson refuses to sit in a chair to re-enact the daily life of mill owner Samuel Hawthorne, and she steps up and does it. She is so successful that the rest of the team selects her to be an extremely reluctant medium when they visit the Heart of the Haunting. She is reluctant because she thinks she'll wind up having to perform an exorcism when she gets home, only it takes her a while to remember the word "exorcism." She really doesn't want the ghost to enter her body, but if it does, will there be anyone home? Busey-o-Meter: 3 Courtney Friel: All you need to know is that Friel, like Tony Little a few weeks ago, feels the need to retouch her makeup before meeting ghosts. When she's out and about with Garson, he snaps at her because she won't stop talking over Nies' instructions on how to get back to Base Camp. Who can blame him? Her comments, such as "I smell cinnamon," "It's creepy down here," and "Wooden Lucy, be nice to us" do little to illuminate the situation. Busey-o-Meter: 1 Willie Garson: Garson is genuinely funny - but not in that crazy Busey/Carradine kind of way. Nies starts cracking up every time Garson opens his mouth. Garson turns his fears of going outside to engage Wooden Lucy into a comedy routine. When he tells the burly Nies that he will "bring a world of pain" upon him if he pranks him, it's a riot precisely because it is impossible. Nies could take him, easy. Garson's comments about Friel are also a riot: "She gets a little moist. She sweats a little bit. I know that sounds dirty. I didn't mean it to sound dirty." The ghosts like him, too. He and Friel put flowers behind their ears to offer Margaret and Wooden Lucy, and Wooden Lucy likes it, for they claim the ghost visits them. Unfortunately, the ghost goes, and he's stuck with Friel, who says she won't go out with Garson again because he's too weird. Since he appears to be the most adventurous, by the end, Garson gets frustrated with his castmates, especially Eggert, who is afraid of a ghost "entering" her body. (Insert your own dirty joke here.) He almost gets in a rumble with everyone else when they defend her decision. Busey-o-Meter: 2 Ernie Hudson: As the elder statesman of the group, the real Ghostbuster, and the one who exudes the most gravitas, Hudson immediately takes charge and reads the group's mission. (The guy has so much gravitas while reading that he might be able to defeat Stephen Colbert in a Gravitas Contest.) Despite his gravitas, his ghostbusting abilities are sorely lacking. He refuses to sit in a chair to engage the ghost of the murdered mill owner's daughter, and it left me yelling, "Say it ain't so, Ernie!" Hudson explains himself by saying he doesn't really want to "piss off" a ghost, but c'mon, Ernie! - you were in the Marines! By the end, it's quite clear that Hudson a) does believe in ghosts and b) is afraid of them. When he and Friel go down into the catacombs under the mill, he won't let Friel leave him while he tries to communicate with Wooden Lucy (not that she'd be a huge help, anyway). When he does speak to Wooden Lucy while trying to record her responses on a tape recorder, he is unfailingly respectful. Even if Ernie Hudson is afraid of ghosts, ghosts would probably not mind paying him a visit just so they could listen to his gravitas. Busey-o-Meter: 3 Eric Nies: Nies comes from the Picabo Street School of ghost hunting, which is to talk to the ghosts just like they're ordinary average dudes. Since he's so mellow, Nies quickly becomes peacemaker after Garson starts snapping at Friel for running her mouth. When Eggert snaps at Garson for running his mouth, Nies has to say, "Hey, easy, kids, easy!" All that time on the Real World has turned him into a full-time camp counselor. On the downside, he has a tendency to refer to women as "babe," particularly when he's out on a mission by the Penobscot River with Nicole Eggert. At one point, he even calls the ghost of Margaret Hawthorne "babe"! Busey-o-Meter: 3 This week, no one wins the Busey-o-Meter prize. No one in the group stood out, and most members of the group leaned toward the conservative side, both when it came to engaging ghosts and in their overall behavior. But next week looks far more promising because MAD TV cast member Debra Wilson takes the express train to Busey Town when she gets possessed by a ghost. |
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