what about the medium?


After a second viewing of the films (and a fair bit of rewinding), I think I've got most of it sorted. But what about the medium? Since there are no other super-natural elements in the films, I think we can safely assume that she is a fake. But I'd like to find a logical explanation for what went on there.

My initial guess was that she somehow knew Jack Dawson's wife. Notice how almost everything she says sounds like mrs Dawsons ramblings. Also, you sometimes hear about how the police uses mediums (although I've yet to read a report where it has worked), so it's not that far fetched.

At this second viewing I looked out for the medium in every scene with mrs Dawson, but if she was there I didn't see her.

Anyone else got any ideas?

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It's hard to say, but they sure did drop her like a rock half way through the film. I can't even remember her last scene, was it with the chicken bones? And were those really chicken bones?

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Probably chicken bones. You can't mistake them for human ones.

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The medium's importance as a character was not to either channel the dead children or connect psychically with the girl missing - which may have been only happening on her own mind as she appears as a rather unbalanced person. Her importance as a character was to be a catalyst for Jobson.

The possibility that she may be communicating with the dead children or may have a vision of where the missing girl is gives Jobson a jolt to try to do the right thing and find the girl and the killer. He realizes how he is a man without ethics, morals, ideals who is has been corrupted by greed and helped cover the murders and crimes committed by his fellow policemen, a traitor to his friend and good cop Hunter who was murdered, a failed cop who did not find out who the real killer was instead putting an innocent retard in prison.

Once the medium has an effect on Jobson, who experiences a conscience crisis, her character is no longer relevant.

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That actually makes perfect sense. Jobson has had second thoughts about his actions since day one, but this is where he decides enough is enough.

I'd just like to figure out how she new about the "beautiful carpets".

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I think we can safely assume that she is a fake.

She was not a fake. She "heard" about the pig, rat etc; the carpet; and the fact that the last victim was still alive. She also told the detective who slept with her that he knew the prisoners who confessed were innocent.

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In the book she seems to be treated not as a fake but as a real medium. She does live in the same flat in 1974 that John Piggott lives in in 1983 and I'm still not sure what the relevance of this is but the address and the description of the flat seems to be in there for a reason. Also in the '74 book the police visit her after she has contacted Jack Whitehead and he instigates the first meeting with Jobson and other police officers when they first visit. As Whitehead has the connections its possible Marjory Dawson has already spoken with him. Maybe that's hint at some connection but it could equally be a red herring, such is the way the books are written. The story line and the fate of both Mandy Wymer And Maurice Jobson are distinctly different in the book, something that was re-written in the film.

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The medium found herself led to the alley where officials eventually found the remains of chicken bones. And the priest was keeping the missing children in an underground bunk beneath a chicken hut. Those bones could have been from deceased chickens the priest disgarded. The medium was right after all.

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The supernatural element introduced with the medium is the only unsatisfactory part of this story, which is otherwise resolutely down to earth.

One thing we can say is that, as we are told numerous times throughout the last episode: "everybody knows". The characters of the reverend and Dawson, and the whole posse of pig, owl, wolf, etc. were known in the neighbourhood. It's not inconceivable that she knew too, and like any shrewd medium used factual knowledge to fake mystical powers.

Moreover, the events with the medium take place so many years later, that it's possible she got her hands on transcripts of interrogations. Could it be possible she managed to talk to Dawson's wife?

It is possible she took an interest in the affair starting in 1974 and spent a long time finding things out for herself, finally convincing the police to see her. Then she purposefully seduced Jobson so as to manipulate him and eventually bring justice down upon the guilty.

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