Main cast: Christopher Mattox (Marty Brand), Burnadair Hunt, Chris Lindsay-Abaire (Gail Brand), and Rip Torn (Narrator)
Director: Jeffrey Fine

Three years ago, Gail Brand was found murdered, and what a shock, some black guy was arrested for the murder and sentenced to life without parole. Now that the case is closed after the guy was sentenced, the husband Marty is not happy, because he wants that “punk”—a mentally handicapped juvenile trialed as an adult, mind you—to be sentenced to the gas chamber. It’s only right!

Once his wife’s things are returned to him, however, that’s when the fun begins. He starts seeing his wife around the house. This ghost, or whatever it is, begins slowly over the next few days to recreate the scenes leading up to her murder. It is during this process that he starts to realize that the wrong kid had been sentenced, and that his wife’s real murderer may still be out there. However, the best is yet to come, as eventually the identity of the killer will be revealed to Marty and it’s…

Yeah, it’s exactly whom you think it is. The predictability of the twist is made worse by the fact that there are no other red herrings in this episode to even obscure the obvious identity of the killer. Fine, maybe I should view this as a psychological thriller instead of a whodunit, but that’s a hard sell as the acting in this episode veers from over the top clown school (Christopher Mattox) and adventures in monotonous line-reading (everyone else). It’s not easy to appreciate the dark and turbulent ride into the darkness of one’s psyche, or however Rip Torn would say it, when the characters in this episode are acting more like cartoon characters.

If Denial demonstrated anything at the end of the day, it’s that Ghost Stories has a remarkable ability to turn even a somewhat barely compelling idea into some messy misfire.