About
Allison DuBois (Patricia Arquette) is a strong-willed mother of three, a devoted wife and law student who has had the gift of being able to talk to dead people, as well as foresee events, read minds, and witness past events in her dreams. When she begins working for the Phoenix District Attorney, Devalos, she has a dream which relates to a murder in Texas, which convinces her boss and others working in the DA’s office that her gift is real.
The real challenge is initially convincing her boss, D.A. Devalos (Miguel Sandoval) — and subsequently the other doubters in the criminal justice system — that her psychic abilities can give them the upper hand when it comes to solving violent and horrifying crimes, whose mysteries often reside with those who lie beyond the grave. Information on certain people or crimes come to her in dreams or visions in cryptic forms, and often do not mean what they seem to.
All of her daughters appear to have inherited Allison’s gift, with Ariel (Sofia Vassilieva) and Bridgette (Maria Lark) also having visions or dreams, which usually occur when their mother is in a bind in searching for answers to her own dreams. In Season 3, Allison’s youngest daughter, Marie (Madison and Miranda Carabello), begins also have a paranormal inclination. Currently, she has only been shown to watch a premium TV channel that the family does not subscribe to, as well as reading the mind of her optometrist in order to pass her sight test, and unknowingly using paper dolls to predict the future of her father’s company. In Season 5, Marie had her first “dream”, where she saw herself on stage with stage fright during her school’s play. In earlier seasons, Bridgette never appears to be bothered by her abilities, but during season 4 she has some moments of frustration either understanding her visions or communicating them to her parents. Ariel usually has a harder time trying to cope with a gift she knows very little about.
Allison’s younger half brother, Michael “Lucky”, has the family gift too, but doesn’t like to acknowledge it much, since it always seems to bring him trouble.
Initially Allison believed the gift had skipped a generation and her mother had had no psychic abilities. However, she later discovered that her mother had always possessed the gift, but had done everything she could to repress it.
The second season episode “Sweet Child O’Mine” revealed that Allison and Joe’s first child either miscarried or died very shortly after birth, a boy they named Bryan. In this episode Allison dreamed of Bryan as if he had never died and had grown up as part of the family.
Allison is often accompanied by Det. Lee Scanlon (David Cubitt), who initially did not believe in her “gift.” Allison often bends the rules of the law when she is determined to stop a crime from happening about which she’s had a vision. Additionally, Allison has helped and been helped by Captain Kenneth Push of the Texas Rangers (Arliss Howard), who is the first law-enforcement person to whom Allison revealed her gift and Cynthia Keener (Anjelica Huston) of AmeriTips. In season four, it was revealed that Cynthia had a daughter who was missing. After days of searching it had come to the attention of Alison and Cynthia that she was dead. Cynthia made a choice to kill the murderer of her daughter and do time in jail. Keener appeares in season five to help Alison on a case for the D.A. It was said that Cynthia has a couple more months to go before she was able to get parole.
