Directed by Night Gallery regular Jeannot Szwarc and written by David Rayfiel from a story by Martin Waddell, “Whisper” has Sally Field and Dean Stockwell as Irene and Charlie Evans. He used to work as an architect, but his wife hasn’t been herself. Literally.

Irene and Charlie have moved to rural Mississippi because she channels the personalities of deceased people, a fact that he has just come to understand and deal with. After all, she always comes back and is herself again after being possessed. She’ll always come back to being Irene, he figures, he just loans her out. Right?

One of the spirits in her head is Rachel, a woman who keeps coming back and begins to obsess Irene. She starts referring to Charlie as Johnny and makes him dig up something — a dead child? — buried under some rocks. He goes back to his wife when he’s done but she tells him. “Oh, Charlie, I can’t get back. I can’t get back!”

Is Irene gone forever? Or is she just a victim of mental illness? There are no answers from this Night Gallery.

Three years later, Sally Field would gain more critical praise for another TV program about multiple personalities, Sybil. As for this episode, Szwarc proves why he’s the best director on the program and even has moments of Stockwell narrating directly to camera, as if this is all a dream or a memory.

The third season is rough but as always, when it works — like in “Whisper” — it gets it right.