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Recap / The Outer Limits 1995 S 7 E 13 Free Spirit

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The Control Voice: Heartfelt regret can sometimes serve as compensation for past misdeeds. But what happens when dark secrets resurface unexpectedly, to claim their due?

A body-hopping ghost seeks revenge on the people in charge of the experiment that killed him.

The Control Voice: If we are unwilling to heed our conscience, our worst moral judgements will inevitably come back to haunt us.


Free Tropes:

  • Body Surf: This episode features a person involved in a mind transfer experiment whose consciousness became disconnected from his body after the scientists chose to terminate the experiment by killing the test subjects. He takes several years to learn how to possess people's minds and then comes back to get revenge on his killers. He's become so good at it that in one scene he repeatedly jumps between two people to finish a single sentence.
  • The Disembodied: A human test subject became a disembodied body-possessing spirit after his body was terminated in the middle of a mind transference experiment. Then he comes back for revenge against the scientists responsible for his death.
  • Finishing Each Other's Sentences: A body-hopping consciousness decides to demonstrate its power in front of the heroine by jumping in and out of two bodies in quick succession to make the hosts finish a single sentence in perfect concert.
  • Flatline Plotline: CryoSync Laboratories, working on behalf of the US government, conducted experiments into near-death experiences in order to determine whether those involved would have out-of-body experiences. The government hoped that the resulting disembodied spirits would be able to serve as the perfect spies. However, Project Free Spirit, as it was known, had an unfortunate side effect: it resulted in the three test subjects, Mark Gregory, Alex Hanover and Kevin Lockwood, going insane after being brought to the brink of death and returning so many times. The government ultimately ordered Project Free Spirit to be terminated and the three men were killed while the experiments were still ongoing. Gregory and Hanover's spirits died along with their bodies but Lockwood's spirit survived and he began plotting revenge against Dr. Rachel Harris for disconnecting him.
  • Frame-Up: The disembodied spirit of Kevin Lockwood has his vengeance when he frames Dr. Rachel Harris for the murder of Dr. Kate Thornton. Both women were part of Project Free Spirit which led to his spirit being separated from his body. However, Lockwood holds Rachel directly responsible for his current condition since she was the one who actually killed his body while Kate merely delivered the order issued by the US government. Lockwood took possession of Rachel's body and gave Kate a lethal dose of an unspecified drug that the Sleepy Order Sanitarium had in stock. He later took control of Dr. David Strickland's body and goaded Rachel into attacking him. Just as she was about to stab him, the police arrived and he claimed that she killed Kate. This episode ends with Rachel in a prison cell being mocked by Lockwood, now in the body of a guard.
  • Just Following Orders: In the opening, a group of scientists receive an order to end a mind-transfer experiment by terminating their unconscious human test subjects. When the last one escapes as an incorporeal spirit and eventually comes back for revenge, they try to use this excuse by claiming they had no choice in the matter. He calls them out on how weak it is, as they didn't even attempt to object to the order.
  • The Killer in Me: The body-hopping spirit reveals at the end that he used the body of the woman whom he blamed for his death to kill her own friend, who was another person on his hit list. She is subsequently sent to prison for it.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: This episode mainly revolves about people's past misdeeds coming back to haunt them; literally in this case when the disembodied essence of a person who was killed in an aborted science experiment pursues his killers by possessing people in the asylum they're working at.
    Control Voice: If we are unwilling to heed our conscience, our worst judgments will inevitably come back to haunt us.
  • Phony Newscast: The staff of Sleepy Order Sanitarium watch several Channel Nine News reports on the progress of the winter storm that has them Snowed-In.
  • Snowed-In: The staff and patients of Sleepy Order Sanitarium are snowed-in during a severe winter storm. The disembodied spirit of Kevin Lockwood uses the opportunity to have his revenge against Dr. Rachel Harris for killing his body four years earlier.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: Rachel asks Kevin why, given his new state as a disembodied spirit, he doesn't just possess someone and return to his still-living family. Kevin bitterly explains that he can only possess people temporarily, no matter how hard he tries, so he's forced to roam among humanity. The only thing left driving him at this point is outrage at his killers, so he's made it his sole mission to torment her.

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