# What was wrong with Vincent Gray in The SIxth Sense?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wrong-with-vincent-gray-in-the-sixth-sense/590954
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [July 31, 2011, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wrong-with-vincent-gray-in-the-sixth-sense/590954 "2011-07-31T19:54:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wrong-with-vincent-gray-in-the-sixth-sense/590954/1 "2011-07-31T19:54:14Z")
Open spoilers, of course. Not that everyone hasn’t already seen this.
Anyway, after unsuccessfully googling this question, I’m wondering if the reason Vincent Gray shot Malcolm (Bruce Willis’s character) at the beginning of the movie was ever stated, or if there’s an agreed-upon theory? How did Dr. Crowe fail Vincent?
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### Author:  [@Scathach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scathach)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wrong-with-vincent-gray-in-the-sixth-sense/590954/2 "2011-07-31T20:01:19Z")
I think Vincent was supposed to have been able to see dead people too.
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### Author:  [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wrong-with-vincent-gray-in-the-sixth-sense/590954/3 "2011-07-31T20:01:39Z")
Vincent had exactly the same problem as Cole (Haley Joel Osment). He saw dead people. Malcolm failed to help him with this problem.
Note that Vincent had the little white patch in his hair, the same as Cole. A marker of the “sees dead people” ability, I guess.
Remember when Cole goes into his cellar to listen to old tapes? He is listening to the tapes of his old sessions with Vincent. That’s when he turns the volume way up on the recording and realizes that Vincent was seeing dead people back then the same as Cole is now.
All the dead people finally drove Vincent over the edge, but Malcolm successfully helps Cole figure out how to deal with the dead.
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wrong-with-vincent-gray-in-the-sixth-sense/590954/4 "2011-07-31T20:08:43Z")
> [@Scathach](#):
>
> I think Vincent was supposed to have been able to see dead people too.
Took me about six viewings of the movie before I got this. :smack: Yes, you’re right.
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### Author:  [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wrong-with-vincent-gray-in-the-sixth-sense/590954/5 "2011-07-31T20:09:11Z")
Cool, thanks for the quick answers. That’s poetic. I’m rewatching it for the first time since I first saw it, and I’m not all the way through it yet.
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### Author:  [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wrong-with-vincent-gray-in-the-sixth-sense/590954/6 "2011-07-31T20:19:36Z")
> [@Spoke](#):
>
> Remember when Cole goes into his cellar to listen to old tapes?
That should have been _Malcolm_ going into the cellar to listen to tapes, of course.
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### Author:  [@Sigmundex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmundex)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-wrong-with-vincent-gray-in-the-sixth-sense/590954/7 "2011-07-31T21:54:24Z")
Yeah, this is the “closer/bookend” to the whole story - Malcolm was still here after his death, this whole time, because he hadn’t completed something important… and interestingly, he needed Cole to do his job helping people sort of ‘close their accounts’ on Earth, to be able to go. They helped each other out.