"Halloween" is the third episode of season 2 of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
While Matthew, Colleen and Brian are in the barn, calling up ghosts to speak to them, Brian calls his mother. Meanwhile in the cabin, Sully tells Dr. Mike what the Cheyenne believe about spirits, and as they kiss, a photograph of the family falls to the floor by itself. The next morning at breakfast, after talking about ghosts spelling out the one you love, Brian believes "there'll be a big S" for Dr. Mike. Sully offers to make some homestead renovations but Dr. Mike insists she is happy with it the way it is. Brian misses his mother who always made him his Halloween costumes, and he struggles to find a costume. The school children discuss witches and they make Brian believe that Dorothy is a witch, so he tries to catch her in the act. Meanwhile, a man keeps turning up "dead" in different areas of the town, first at Jake's barber shop, Hank's saloon, then at Grace's cafe, disappearing whenever the townspeople go to fetch Dr. Mike. She angrily thinks the townspeople are playing a practical joke on her. In the night, Dr. Mike hears a baby crying and she goes to the barn and finds an unfinished rocking horse which Sully made for his child. She turns around to see Abigail, Sully's deceased wife, who disappears. The next day, when Sully arrives to start work on the renovations, Dr. Mike says she doesn't want him to do anything because the house is Abigail's not hers. Abigail appears to Dr. Mike a second time saying that she wants Dr. Mike out of her house. When Dr. Mike brings Sully's rocking horse to him to finish, he throws it into the fire. Brian's suspicions grow but it turns out Dorothy was behaving oddly because she was making him a devil's costume. Brian breaks down crying and tells her about missing his Ma. Abigail appears a third time to Dr. Mike, and they discuss Sully. Dr. Mike tells Abagail that she is being selfish and that she should want Sully to get on with his life. Abagail says Dr. Mike is selfish, that she has nothing, and Dr. Mike has her husband. At the Halloween party, when the stranger wins the first prize for best costume, everyone is shocked by the "dead man" they've been encountering. He then collapses, falling into a deep deathlike sleep, a result of a rare medical condition caused by a slowed heartrate. Dr. Mike tells him he suffers from catalepsy. Sully brings Dr. Mike the completed rocking horse and Dr. Mike calls Abagail, who appears a fourth and final time. After breaking down crying, she says, "We would have been friends.” In the end Abagail is finally at rest after Dr. Mike gives her the rocking horse Sully never got to finish a long time ago but now did. Dr. Mike chooses not to tell Sully about Abagail, just saying that the rocking horse was for "a child that really needed it”. She then agrees to Sully's offer to renovate the homestead.
This episode provides examples of:
- Dead Person Conversation: Michaela's conversations with Abigail
- Everyone Can See It: Brian believes "there'll be a big S" [for "Sully"] for Dr. Mike.
- Halloween Episode: As you might guess from the title.
- Halloween Trickery: Dr. Mike thinks the townspeople repeatedly calling her for a non-existent dead person is this. (It turns out that he suffers for catalepsy.)
- One-Word Title: "Halloween", of course.
- Posthumous Character: Abigail, Sully's first wife.
