Forever Knight - Killer Instinct

Discussing Ep. 2.1

I figured I would restart a review of a show that I had started back when the Septic Tank was still on Disqus since it will be a while until The 100 starts up again. I only got through Season 1 before I got sidelined by other stuff, but in light of being locked down, I figure that I now have more time to devote to reviews of this rather excellent vampire series from the 90's! And thanks to this YouTuber, who has kindly posted the episodes on YouTube, they're available for all to see!

So the episode picks up where S1 ended, with the return of LaCroix. I will say that his return and the explanation given was both rather intriguing and yet rather cheap. He got staked through the heart by Nick (with a burning stake no less) in the pilot episode of S1 to the point where his corpse disappeared. But then he returned at the end of S1. And the only explanation given was that he was too "old and powerful" to be killed like that. Which begs the question....if a burning stake through the heart couldn't kill him, then what would?

At the same time, I recognize that the series needed to bring him back because him appearing in flashbacks as he did in S1 wasn't going to cut it anymore. It would be the dynamic between LaCroix and Nick that would define this show and he needed to be present and not just appear in flashbacks. And there was just no way to explain him coming back so that throwaway line that he gives is about the best that they could do.

What I find interesting and yet annoying about the Forever Knight series is that they fiddle with the lore and canon to the point that it's not consistent. Just like in S1 where they gave very conflicting histories of Nick and Jeanette and the powers that a vampire has with each episode, so too in S2 would they introduce cool elements in a particular episode and hardly ever revisit them again. While I don't remember the rest of the series, I don't think they ever touched on this sire bond (which it essentially was) that resulted in the vampires being able to 'feel' each other's presence. Between LaCroix and Nick, it made sense, since LaCroix created Nick. But Nick could also feel it between himself and Jeanette and other vampires. I always liked that idea that vampires could feel the presence of other vampires since it added to the supernatural element of them and made them more of a community, but I don't think they've ever really touched on it again later in the season. It just seems like they inserted whatever element fit the narrative of the episode alone and would never go back to it again.

I will touch on again what I had always liked about this series and what I felt was missing from current vampire series' like TVD and especially Legacies. In FK, vampires don't eat food. They can't. It just doesn't go down well at all. So Nick keeps bottles of cow's blood in his fridge (since he's sworn off of drinking human blood) and nothing else. The running joke is that everyone thinks it's wine and that Nick has a drinking problem (which he kind of does, I suppose....just not with wine!). He had always been able to excuse having nothing but that in his fridge as being part of his eccentric nature, but I liked how in this episode, he had to go the extra mile when the police raided his place. He told Schanke, who had always bought the 'wine' excuse, that the cow's blood was used for his paintings as a paint thickener...an old European technique, as Nick put it. Brilliant!

This is actually one of the few episodes where Nick's vampirism was close to being exposed. He's always at risk anyway but has always been able to come up with an explanation for his bizarre behaviour one way or another. But I liked how here, he was really put into a corner. Much like the episode in S1 where he had to appear in court in the daytime to explain a feat he did using his vampire powers, so too was he forced to being treated like a regular person and have to endure being moved around in the daytime. No daylight rings here! So LaCroix frames Nick for a series of murders as a means to fuck up Nick's mortal life and force him to return to LaCroix's side. Though it's interesting given that Jeanette, who didn't know that LaCroix had returned, was complaining that the vampire community was upset with Nick because he was at risk of being exposed and they, by extension, were too. But LaCroix didn't seem to care about all of that.

Of course, Nick's helped along quite a bit thanks to Natalie. It really is Nick's good fortune that he should have Natalie on his side, who can forge blood samples and provide false evidence to cover up Nick's vampirism. But it backfires here and I really liked how they were stacking things up against Nick. From him being framed for the murders to Natalie inadvertently getting a blood sample of the real killer and labelling it as Nick's (because she couldn't give a sample of Nick's undead blood because there would be a hell of investigation for that), it really seemed like Nick's life as a cop was over.

It all culminates in a showdown between Nick and LaCroix. What I loved about this fight were two things. First, the line that LaCroix gives when he says "I made you!" and Nick replies "Then what you made was a mistake!" I love that exchange. Secondly, Nick picks up pieces of lumber in the shape of a cross and uses it against LaCroix. One of the few things that carried over from S1 was Nick's tendency to endure those things that repelled vampires like holding crucifixes, eating garlic pills, and in this episode, tanning in a tanning bed, as a means to build up an endurance. And even though he never builds up a complete immunity to those things (unlike in TVD where vampires could digest vervaine like it was nothing), he was able to endure the pain of the cross a lot better than other vampires and therefore it helped him a lot in his fight against LaCroix.

What I didn't like about the fight was them inserting footage from their first fight from the pilot episode as though it were a part of this fight. That felt really cheap and it was highly noticeable. Beyond that, it was a good fight in that it showed LaCroix's power and dominance and how Nick was able to counter act that by using elements that a human would use, like a crucifix.

In the end, neither won and, like I said about elements in each episode sort of being a one-off, Nick and LaCroix would not engage in this kind of fight again (to my memory) and LaCroix would essentially leave Nick alone to his mortal life again, despite his yearning for Nick to return to his side. But I do like that line he give Nick, sort of like a father letting his child go on his merry, foolish way. In regard to all the friends and people that Nick loves in this mortal charade of a cop that he's created for himself: "Blink, and they'll all be ghosts. Blink again, and they'll all be gone!" The show really needed LaCroix there to act as that miserable reminder that Nick's endeavour to be more human could be a sham after all.

As for the frame up job and Nick being found not guilty in the murders....it was all tied up a bit too neatly and quickly but I won't gripe too much on it. It was a good first episode of the second season and I'm looking forward to watching the rest of them now.