The two-part story, "The Devil Inside," starts off when Allison (Patricia Arquette) receives a threatening letter, and also dreams about the writer of the letter. As the writer's claims of Allison's gift being of the devil increase, the local police start guarding her family day and night. When the crazed stalker dies though, his reign of terror over Allison doesn't stop as he starts manipulating her dreams and keeps her from helping her co-workers from solving the case at hand.
These episodes are immediately followed by the three-parter, "How to Make a Killing in Big Business," where Allison is approached by a fellow psychic who uses her gift to help a Fortune 500 company predict business trends and determine the right directions to take their products. While the job is excellent and pays far better than either she or Joe (Jake Weber) could imagine, she still gets dreams about a murder investigation and her attempts to still help D.A. Devalos (Miguel Sandoval) and Detective Lee Scanlon (David Cubitt) in their investigations seem to be rubbing her new boss (David Morse) the wrong way. But could it be more than just the legal claim his company has over her dreams?
There are a couple of other good episodes in this season. In "Apocalypse... Now?" Allison dreams of an impending nuclear war and her dreams keep coming back to a young girl trapped in a bomb shelter, but not everything is what it appears to be as her dreams leave her a bit confused.
In "Then...and Again" Allison wakes up in 2004 after nearly being killed by a parolee that wants to take his imprisonment out on Devalos. Not only does she have to deal with a car accident that occurred at that time, with once again being pregnant with her youngest daughter, and trying to once again convince Joe that she dreams about the future, but she also finds herself dreaming about the man that tried to kill her and the murder that put him in prison. The problem is, this is before she met up with anyone in the D.A.'s office and no one believes her predictions.
There are also a couple of call backs to previous seasons. In one episode, deceased FBI Agent Cooper (Kurtwood Smith) shows up in Allison's living room freely giving her information about cold cases and long-lost killers. Meanwhile, her own dreams are leading her towards another case, but she can't seem to make sense out of those deaths. Needless to say, she quickly becomes wary of Cooper's help, especially since the last time they talked, he was trying to get her to become a vigilante using Cooper's after-life knowledge. Also returning for an episode is Allison's former employer, Cynthia Keener (Anjelica Huston), as Allison tries to get the former Amer-Tips worker to help in finding a missing girl.
The season wraps up with Allison dreaming of a future that takes place a year after her whole family was slaughtered. As she tries to learn what led to the tragedy, she is diagnosed with a brain tumor. She struggles with putting off the operation as long as possible so that she can get a complete picture of the threat on her family, but at the risk of both her ability and her life.
Medium: The Fifth Season doesn't have a lot in the way of extras. There are featurettes on the season as a whole, as well as one called "Curious Maria" that has Maria Lark (who plays middle-daughter, Bridgette) going around the studio interviewing the various people involved in the show. The Special Features also include a script to screen for the "Apocalypse...Now?" episode, and a Q&A session with Arquette and Weber.
There are quite a few good episodes throughout Medium: The Fifth Season. Pretty much all of them were enjoyable to some degree, but without an overarcing story to pull it all together, this season just seems to have less of an impact than past ones. It starts off a little slow, but some of the better episodes happen after the half-way mark, so wading through those early episodes is worth it for the season's last few. In the end though, purchase or rental of Medium: The Fifth Season all comes down to your devotion to the show.
