Miracles - E12

The Letter
First Aired: Friday December 19, 2003 (Canada)

A friend of Paul's and a fellow orphan, Georgia has been getting a letter a year from Poppi from her deceased father. After the last one is given this year, the following day she receives another one in the mail. Paul investigates and finds out these letters are coming from a man on death row.

The episode begins with Paul having dinner with Poppi and other friends from the orphanage. The occasion is the birthday of Georgia, one of Paul's best childhood friends. At the end of the evening, Poppi hands her the last letter her father had written her. It turns out Poppi has been giving her one a year on her birthday. The day after receiving and reading this last one, she gets a new on one in the mail. Asking for Paul's helping, he and Evelyn track the letter back to a death row inmate. This impossible, however, because the man is illiterate and can't write. Investigating further, Paul finds out that he has been sending letter to the families of his victims. All believe that the person in the letter is the real person, though they did not know Dubeck was the one writing them. One of the correlating thing they mention is that the handwriting is the same. Georgia says that the handwriting of the letter and the previous ones don't match, leading her and Paul to find out Poppi forged the letters for years, ultimately breaking her trust. Dubeck's attorney brings the families together to remind them that a leniency hearing is coming up, which could lead to Dubeck staying alive and going into general population of the prison. Some of the families relent and Dubeck gets the leniency. The celebration is very short since he is killed by another inmate not long after. Putting things together, Paul figures out that it was one of the victims husbands, since he gave the inmate's wife a new car from where he works. In the end, Georgia reconciles with Poppi and they are shown having a cordial meal with Paul.

I think this was one of the better episode of the recent ones. I think it was an interesting concept and made one think that all of it was meant to happen so that Dubeck died sooner rather than later (due to appeals and such). It was interesting to see the back story on Paul being in the orphanage and the roles the people around him played. Skeet's performance was also better than it had been in previous episodes. My only complaint was that Alva was missing from the episode except for a few brief words, but it was good to see Poppi be featured, since I enjoy Alicia Coppola's acting.

Score: 8.4 / 10