Melinda Gordon

Did You Know?

• Melinda is often compared to Allison DuBois in the TV series Medium, but Gordon is not explicitly described as a medium.
• Melinda's son Aiden first appears in season 5.

Abilities

Melinda Gordon comes from a long line of mediums on her mother’s side, stretching back at least six generations to her great-great-great-grandmother Tessa, with her grandmother and mother also being ghost whisperers. Her biological father is later revealed to have the same ability, though this is only mentioned once and it is unclear how common it was in his family. Melinda can see and talk to the spirits of the dead, especially those stuck on Earth, and she helps them move on by delivering messages to loved ones or finishing tasks they left undone. She can also sense spirits of people having out-of-body experiences, such as those near death or in a coma. Her grandmother says Melinda will eventually feel what spirits feel. At first, she struggled to tell living people from ghosts, but she got better with practice. Melinda often gets visions related to the ghosts she is helping; Professor Rick Payne notes she has psychometry, meaning touching objects can trigger flashes of the past. In one case, she sent her consciousness into a virtual reality game to talk to a ghost haunting it, calling it similar to her usual visions. In season five, it is revealed that Melinda shares a psychic link with her son Aiden, who is an empath, letting her receive visions from him.

Appearances

Melinda and Jim moved to the small town of Grandview, where she opened an antique shop named 'The Same As It Never Was ANTIQUES'. She became friends with Andrea Marino, who shared management of the store, and eventually trusted Andrea enough to tell her about her ability. In the episode 'The Lost Boys', Melinda helped three young boys cross over from an orphanage; one boy, Vic, told her he would tell everyone on the other side that Mel is his mom, making him her unofficial adoptive son. Later, Melinda encountered a malevolent spirit named Romano who wore a black hat and tried to prevent earthbound spirits from crossing over. In the season finale, a plane crash in Grandview allowed Romano to keep souls Melinda could not cross over, including Andrea, who died in the crash. After losing Andrea, Melinda succeeded in helping Andrea and many other crash ghosts cross over. In Season 2, Melinda met occult professor Rick Payne, who often helped with troublesome ghosts without realizing it until she told him about her gift. She also met widow Delia Banks and her son Ned, inviting Delia to become her business partner. Melinda confided in Ned about her gift and eventually revealed it to Delia, who slowly began to believe.