Forever Knight - Bad Blood

Discussing Ep. 2.4

*SPOILERS*

This was one of my favourite episodes and one of the more memorable ones. As a person who takes a passing interest in serial killers and as someone who likes adding to a mythology, this episode took care of both interests.

It was interesting because the episode took a unique vampire hunter and pitted him against a 'famous' and brutal vampire, in a showdown that was somewhat less action-heavy than a Blade film. Inspector Liam O'Neal was brought in to help with an investigation about a brutal killing in Toronto, a kind of killing that he had investigated before. Of course, Liam had ulterior motives for coming because the recent killing seem to follow a pattern that goes back...too far back for the killer to be human. And Liam would know all about being more than just human.

Before there was Blade, there was Liam, a quasi-vampire who hunted other vampires. I'll get my biggest gripe of this episode out of the way here. I hated the explanation they gave for Liam's unique nature. He wasn't a complete vampire because when he was attacked as a young child, he was partially drained of his blood. And according to the explanation that Janette gave, he "did not taste  enough vampire blood" and therefore did not come fully across, leaving him a half vampire. That explanation is bullshit! This is what I mean when the show inserts little changes to the canon that are never visited again or fly in the face of what they've already established. The thing with FK is, they never established, in definitive terms, what someone had to do to become a vampire. At most, all that they showed was that a vampire needed only to bite someone and not drain them of their blood for that person to turn. In S1, Nick and Janette and LaCroix all fed on people and those people, if they didn't die, would eventually turn into a vampire. And it would also happen in this episode. The victims were NEVER shown drinking or tasting vampire blood as a means to become a vampire.

I actually would have written it that it was the priest's intervention at the time that Liam was bitten is what stopped Liam's complete transformation. That would have made more sense and given more weight to Liam devoting his life to hunting vampires, as well as give credence to the power of the Divine to stop someone into turning into an unholy creature. It's not really clear what powers Liam had though. According to Janette, he could 'sense' other vampires, although they would contradict that ability in this episode. Though it was clear that Liam had a hunch about Nick's true nature, asking questions about his past and doing a background check on him, it seemed like all he was going on instincts and experience rather than a 'sense' that was akin to Nick's vampire sense.

Plus, he seemed to be taking wild shots in the dark, almost literally, as to who was a vampire and who was not when he went to The Raven. I give Liam credit for having the brass to go to that club alone. But it was almost comical the way he would flash a Celtic cross at the various wait staff, believing them to be vampires, only for it to have no effect. I actually thought that was a really interesting detail in regard to Janette and her staff. I thought for sure that Milos, the bartender, was a vampire, but it turns out that he wasn't. He just looks like one! Neither were some of the waitresses. It's intriguing that Janette would actually hire humans for various positions on The Raven staff considering her clientele are made up partially of vampires. For all her talk of seeing herself and vampires as being better than humans, it seems she has a soft spot for some of them after all.

But as far as Liam's ability to detect vampires, that was shown to be untrue the minute he flashed the cross at Raven staff members who weren't vampires at all! So I don't get how he got a sense of there being vampires around. Then there was Liam's ability to endure sunlight. LaCroix made a passing remark that Liam had the ability to endure sunlight better than a regular vampire. But then that was proven untrue the minute Liam opened the curtains in his hotel and saw the fading sunlight and backed away in pain. So, I don't get how he endures the sunlight better when it was shown that he couldn't. Not exactly a Daywalker, is he? Still, he was an interesting character and I would have liked to have known if he did possess some other vampire powers or weaknesses, like increased strength or better healing abilities. He could have been somewhat like the Brotherhood of the Five Hunters in TVD.

But Liam's reputation was good enough that LaCroix wanted him gone. So what better way to do that than to pit him against a vampire that even LaCroix was afraid to face? A person whose evil and insanity scared LaCroix so much that he dreaded him joining the ranks of the undead. A fiend who actually laughed while LaCroix fed on him and ended up poisoning LaCroix into submission. While he was given no name other than the Barber (the Demon Barber of Fleet Street perhaps?), he had gone under a variety of different names throughout the centuries: Bela Kish of Hungary; El Muerte de la Noche of Spain; and most famously of all....Jack The Ripper of England. 

It would be a rare occurrence when LaCroix himself would show fear or admit that he had met someone whose level of depravity exceeded his own, though it would happen more than once in the series. It would actually speak to LaCroix's ability to measure evil and recognize it when he saw it, and that he himself was not as depraved as others, like Nick, had thought or perhaps even he himself would think. For as much as LaCroix himself could revel in the killing and feeding of humans, it was apparent that he had his limits. There was a line that he was not willing to cross and it would be an ominous sign of the evil that existed in another who was willing to cross those lines. One of those others would be the Barber. 

But it would be a rather ironic fear that LaCroix would express, for it wasn't the for sake of humanity that he feared the Barber crossing over. He feared that the Barber, as a vampire, would be uncontrollable and would go off on insane feeding frenzies without discretion or discipline. Janette expressed how his high tally of victims in short periods throughout history drew unnecessary attention from the local authorities, which put the exposure of the vampire community at risk. Other than the Jack the Ripper persona, I felt like the other serial killer profiles mentioned could actually belong to that of a vampire. The Bela Kish one, in particular. In real life, authorities had found that with some of the corpses of the women that Bela Kish had killed (embalmed and well preserved by the killer), that the necks of some of them were damaged, leading authorities to question if the killer had actually drank their blood! And since Bela Kish had never been found and arrested, it was actually one real life serial killer that fit quite well with this episode.  

It would also be a somewhat unflattering commentary on Nick, who could have prevented all those deaths if he had killed the Barber before he had turned. Nick was right there, saw the Barber's corpse and had the opportunity to end it, but chose not to as he valued human life. You could tell the struggle that Nick was having, seeing that LaCroix had been so unnerved by the sheer darkness that existed in the Barber that Nick felt compelled enough to at least find his corpse and see if what LaCroix had been saying was true. When he touched him, did Nick feel a pulse? Did he recognize that the Barber was not completely dead? It was true that the blood of those victims were on Nick's hands as well, but his disgust for LaCroix and his desire to live a more righteous life blinded him, ironically, to the danger of one of the greatest serial killers being born. 

There would be no setting right what had once gone wrong for Nick. Ultimately, LaCroix would imprison him in The Raven and allow Liam and the Barber to fulfil their destiny. I think that my only complaint about the Barber was that he seemed more feral than intelligent. As a personality who could best LaCroix and kill so many people without getting caught would seemingly warrant being able to speak in complete sentences rather than grunt and roar like a caveman. I think the writers just equated insane with bestial and it didn't have to be that way. But it seemed like being unintelligent was somewhat contagious with the guest characters in this episode.

There wasn't much to say about Bridget other than she was a complete Red Shirt in this episode, inserted in there as a sort of muse for Liam and a victim for the Barber. What I couldn't understand was after seeing the Barber in his vampiric form, she was able to barricade him in a room and seal the steel doors shut. At that point, she could have run away. Instead, she just stands there and watches the doors as the Barber bangs against them until he eventually breaks them down. Only then does she run and scream for help. Idiot! 

I think her only saving grace was that she looked really good as a vampire! The green eyes really played off well with her skin. And note, the Barber only bit her....he didn't feed her any of his blood! So how she became a vampire if she did not do it the way Janette explained....who knows? It was a bit sad that her vampire life was so short lived as Liam had been waiting for her and killed her as soon as she came back. I think she could have been a rather interesting character as a vampire.

I think that a spin off show about Liam might have worked too. It'd be interesting to see him on his vampire hunting adventures in Ireland and around the world. See what kind of powers he has and if he has any kind of temptation of either completing the transition (if possible) and if he ever had a hard time killing a vampire because he developed feelings for them, as he seemingly did for Bridget. I would have loved to have seen a scene between Liam and LaCroix, seeing them argue back and forth, maybe even have Liam hunting LaCroix for a time. If FK had gone on for more seasons, I think they should have done a spinoff of Liam and his adventures. Celtic Crossing or some other name like that!

Aside from those issues, this was definitely one of my favourite FK episodes.

        

Forever Knight - Stranger Than Fiction

Discussing Ep. 2.3

*SPOILERS*

So I have to say, it was a weird step down from the previous episode. While I found myself kind of cringing at the beginning of it considering the plot of the episode, in the end I was entertained by the humour in it. That was about the only saving grace of this episode.

So long, long before Stephenie Meyer and her Twilight books that spawned a boom in vampire literature and TV shows came around, there was apparently Emily Weiss and her vampire series, The Denied. It's funny because it was actually around this time that L.J. Smith had penned The Vampire Diaries, which only 20 years later would be turned into the successful TV series. So I do wonder if this was a spoof on her books at the time.

The premise of the episode is that Emily's fictional series on vampires is a little too close to the actual truth in terms of what they can do and how they live. So close, in fact, that Janette, LaCroix and the entire vampire community is suspicious of her and her writings and are worried that she may unwittingly expose them all. That being the case, they all essentially want her killed, and LaCroix, of course, wants it to be Nick who does it.

I'll get to what I actually liked about the episode and what I think made it entertaining, which was the humour in it. Janette went and completely made a fool of me with what I said in the last episode. I made it a point of saying that Janette was so independent and so flippant regarding human laws that she would go and kill anyone she wanted, and not even Nick could stop her. Well, I was sort of right. What made this episode funny for me was Janette trying her best to refrain from killing Emily all because Nick made it a point to say that he trusted her. Nick felt that only a vampire could keep Emily safe from another vampire and he trusted no other vampire as much as Janette. It seems that that trust meant a lot to her.

I loved Deborah Duchene's acting when it comes to Janette. Just the way she looked at Emily, she was able to give her that look that just gave off that blood lust/hunger vibe that really made Janette feel dangerous. I often feel like that's missing in modern vampire characters, that blood lust when they look at a human as though they are indeed their next meal and have to show restraint when it's called for. And I think part of it was that Janette wanted to kill Emily anyway, so she would have satisfied her hunger and gotten rid of a potential threat to the vampire community, all in one go!

But she didn't, and all because she does seem to care about Nick and his trust in her. Even when LaCroix visited them and praised Janette on her restraint because he wanted Nick to kill her, Janette didn't hesitate to let Nick know that LaCroix had paid them a visit. It just spoke to the bond that she and Nick have, that goes beyond lovers, beyond siblings. A bond that only centuries and immortality can bring. But yeah....I thought the scenes with Janette and Emily were gold.

As was Schanke when he envisioned himself as a glorified LaCroix. I loved this spoof if only because I think Schanke would have made a really good bad guy! It started out really funny as Schanke imagined himself as LaSalle, a character in The Denied who is basically a spoof of LaCroix. Schanke is there in his best Dracula Halloween costume, complete with fangs that are too big for his mouth! But when he starts talking to Christien/Nick, he does a good enough job that I really feel like Schanke could have been a good antagonist. He had a flare for the dramatic and delivered his lines just as devilishly as LaCroix ever could!

That was about the only two things that I liked about the episode. The rest was just a big tease and it didn't really make any sense. Emily would write fictional stories about vampires that seemed to mirror too closely the real dynamic between LaCroix and Nick. She was so on-the-mark with her writing that Nick and Janette and even LaCroix were suspicious of her, with Janette and Nick even asking where she got her information from. Turns out, she didn't even believe in vampires and essentially made it all up! Well, that's just an amazing coincidence, isn't it?!? So that was a real let-down in terms of her connection to the vampire community.

Then there was the romantic connection between Nick and Emily. This was stupid because they had literally just met and both Emily and Nick started falling for each other then and there! I get that Nick is a charismatic and attractive guy but you can't tell me that a woman would be falling for him that fast! Mind you, they did that sort of thing in the past so it's nothing new for FK. Still, I didn't like it and thought they greatly exaggerated this budding romance between Nick and Emily, to the point that even Natalie was pushing for Nick to act on his feelings, despite her own feelings for him.

And even the ending was rather weak, with Emily's assistant, Andrew, going around biting people because he thinks he's a vampire and that Emily had been basing her writing off of him. That made little to no sense at all and was just an implausible ending to the mystery of who was going around biting people on the neck.

And then you have Nick coming in at the end, revealing himself to be a real vampire to Andrew and Emily. Emily suddenly wants to become a vampire to be with Nick (like in her books) while LaCroix goes and kills Andrew, and then encourages Nick to kill Emily. Why LaCroix didn't threaten to kill Emily if Nick didn't do it is beyond me. Nick refused and LaCroix slinkered off, calling it luck that Nick could fight his desire to kill Emily. Perhaps it was supposed to be ironic since this seemed to mirror the cheesy vampire love stories that Emily wrote, but it just didn't work.

So aside from the comedy, this episode is a pass for me. 

Forever Knight - A Fate Worse Than Death

Discussing Ep. 2.2

*SPOILERS*

It was episodes like this one that made me such a fan of the show. This was so far ahead of its time, so nuanced and layered in its symbolism and meaning, much like Buffy was in its time. Not to mention the fact that it focused on the lovely Jeanette and gave her a chance to shine in a way that she hadn't had a chance to before.

In this day and age of the #metoo and woke movements, the patriarchy, feminism and social justice warriors, I feel like a lot of TV shows and movies try to get those messages across in a way that just doesn't work. Most of the time, they do it in a way that feels preachy and condescending. All men are seen as evil and need to be taken down a notch and all women are seen as all powerful and flawless to the point that it just feels ridiculous. If folks want a master class on how to get all those aforementioned movements across in a way that works, they need only look to this one episode. It had it all!

We see Jeanette's life as a prostitute in France in the Middle Ages, where as both a woman and a prostitute, she is regarded as mere property to be used and discarded by men as they see fit. Even the institution of marriage doesn't seem to soften her stance on relationships with men, as she tells her fellow prostitute who longed for the days when she was married to a man in England: "You'd be lying down for one man instead of twenty! Is it really better?" Jeanette was a feminist long before the word was even in the human vocabulary!

The unfortunate thing for her though was, she was trapped in that life and couldn't escape. She relied on a man for her food and shelter, and relied on men to bring in the money to keep her pimp happy. She was trapped in a darkness where the only exit was death. And as far as she was concerned, women were always trapped in some kind of darkness throughout the ages. As she explains to Nick: "Back then, women belonged to her father...then to her husband...to be passed onto a servant if she failed to produce an heir...to be sold to a brothel keeper if she was in the way of another marriage." That explanation said it all, the true plight of women throughout the centuries, and for Jeanette, it still continued on in the present day. And I felt like her explanation was so powerful, so emotionally charged that I really felt for her and for women like her who were trapped and held down by the patriarchy throughout history, even to the modern day where women are still regarded as mere property in some countries and cultures.

And it wasn't like other women or even religious institutions were much help. This scene always stuck with me ever since I first saw it. When the one soldier is trying to rape Jeanette and she escapes and runs into a band of nuns, begging for help, and they just ignore her. Finally, she tries to hide behind the priest, who is more concerned with public impropriety than actually helping one of God's children in need and lets the soldier do with Jeanette as he wishes. Way to uphold the love, mercy and charity of God there, ya fucking prick! So the soldier goes and punches Jeanette in the stomach and tries to rape her, but she fights back and is suddenly saved.

I loved this. I loved the irony, the symbolism and the tragedy of it all. Jeanette wasn't saved by the so-called servants of God, the servants of light. She was saved by a creature of darkness. She wasn't saved by her fellow women...the women who were in positions of power (i.e., the nuns). She was saved by another man. And while he offered her freedom from the life of slavery that she had been living, little did she realize that she would, in essence, be trading one form of slavery for another.

It was such an insight into LaCroix as much as it was into Jeanette. It was interesting how she kind of went into a default mode when LaCroix approached her and asked her if it was true that she was of noble blood. She immediately said that she is whatever he wants her to be. It was heartbreaking to see how beaten down, both psychologically and physically, she had been to give a response like that. But that wasn't what LaCroix wanted. It was rather refreshing to see someone like LaCroix, who is generally depicted as the villain, as being someone who wasn't there to victimize or abuse Jeanette, even in her most vulnerable state. No, he was impressed by her strength, by her rage and by her tenacity. He saw someone that was worthy of the dark gift that he had to give. But as I said before, her only exit from the life she was living was death. And she would indeed die, but that wouldn't last.

Aside from immortality, LaCroix gave Jeannette something that seemingly no man had ever given her in her entire life. He gave her a choice. He didn't force vampirism on her. He didn't drink her dry and then turn her against her will. While he didn't exactly spell out what was involved, he presented her with an opportunity that would allow her to control what man could touch her and when. No man would ever touch her again without her permission. And she would gain a power that would allow her to get revenge and put her in a place greater than most men in the world. Of course, it all came with a price but it seems like it was a price that Jeanette was willing to pay. And although she is bonded to LaCroix as a result, I never got the impression that she minded it. LaCroix seemingly never mistreated her and never treated her as property but rather as a daughter, much like he viewed Nick as a son. And the vampire life seemingly agreed with Jeanette.

So in the present day, while Jeanette regards herself and all vampires as being better than humans, it was interesting to see her have such a concern for prostitutes as she regards them as herself, as they are all "ladies of the night" in one way or another. In a lot of ways, it felt like this was the closest Jeanette was ever going to get to being a mother as she was very motherly towards Celeste and the other prostitutes, allowing them to spend the night at The Raven and not allowing the other vampires to bother any of them. And her protective nature goes to the point of her even arguing with Nick for not bringing Celeste's pimp to justice for killing one of his own prostitutes.

I was both impressed and surprised by Jeanette's restraint. Normally, she comes off as someone who has so little regard for the human world and human rules that she has no problem breaking them since she doesn't feel like those rules apply to her. Why would they, since she's no longer human? She'll kill who she wants and feed on who she wants and no one, not even Nick, will tell her otherwise. So her not completely eviscerating Mason, Celeste's pimp, just then and there when he barged into The Raven to collect Celeste and clearly disrespected both her and Jeanette...that really surprised me. She clearly was pissed and could have taken matters into her own hands but she didn't. I wonder what it was that motivated her to show such restraint.

Of course, that restraint didn't last for long and she went after Mason. Sadly for her though, someone else beat her to it. What was funny (and something that Nick pointed out) was how Jeanette was being very cooperative throughout the whole investigation. She seemed to get a kick out of playing inside of Nick's little mortal world. What was fantastic about the way they built this episode up was how Jeanette was bent on killing Mason and saving poor Celeste, seeing a bit of herself in Celeste....a woman who had reached a dead end and needed a new start—a new life where she held all the power and would never be at the mercy of a man again.

I loved the swerve because it not only affected Jeanette but Nick as well. Nick saw, as Jeanette did, some of himself in Celeste. He could see the master-slave relationship that Celeste, as a prostitute, had with her pimp, Mason. He felt that it was a lot like what he had with LaCroix, so much so that he perhaps regarded Celeste as a fellow prisoner, just in a different kind of cage. When in turned out that Celeste wasn't a prisoner but rather was the warden, that turned everything on its head. With Celeste being the one who killed her fellow prostitute, killed Mason and killed an innocent cop, all to take over Mason's business...that changed everything. Especially for Jeanette, who felt betrayed by Celeste as it was clear that Celeste was, in the end, no better than Mason. Once again, Jeanette showed incredible restraint by not killing her (even though she wanted to) but let Nick's human justice take care of things. It was such an incredible turn but one that I think really highlights the problem that one can have when they base everything off assumptions.

It was such an interesting irony because Jeanette accused Nick of confusing 'not guilty' with 'innocent,' when she herself did the same thing with Celeste. She bought into Celeste's sob story, as did Nick, never thinking for one second that Celeste may have been playing her. She got so caught up in her own ideology and anger and seeing Celeste as a victim, like she was, that she didn't see the betrayal coming. And yet, despite all of that, it wasn't like Jeanette was going to be singing a different tune from now on. Perhaps she'd be more cautious, but certainly her views on men and the role of women in society hadn't changed.

And that's something that I love about this episode. Unlike shows and movies of today that don't provide a balanced view and go too far with an ideology, this episode kept a wonderful balance that didn't hurt any of the viewpoints of the different characters. Jeanette had her point of view on men and patriarchy and was supported not only by history but by her own experience. And yet, despite her views on men, the irony of it all was that she was helped and saved by men and she didn't seem to care. She was saved and made into a vampire by a man (LaCroix), and turned to a man (Nick) for help in her time of need. She even said it herself in regard to helping Celeste escape her prison and also helping Nick: "I would have killed to set her free and I will do no less for you." Though she had her strong views on men and how they view and treat women, it was clear that she didn't hate all men or cursed all men either. She was able to accept men into her life without compromising her views on men in general. And her view that only men could somehow use and abuse women was betrayed when Celeste proved that women could be just as callous.

Neither were Nick nor LaCroix made to look inferior to Jeanette as a way to elevate her in this episode. Hell, they weren't made to look superior either. They were all on the same level, all flawed yet in different ways. Though LaCroix saved Jeanette and gave her the gift of immortality, Jeanette and Nick saw it that she traded in one master, her pimp, for another master in LaCroix. Nick was also depicted as being on the same level as Jeanette, buying into the lies that Celeste was spewing out and getting as emotionally worked up as Jeanette did in trying to find justice. It was only the fluke discovery of the cop that Celeste had killed that Nick discovered the truth about Celeste. Otherwise, he would have kept on believing Celeste until it was too late. 

To me, that's the brilliance of this episode (which, should be noted, was written by a woman). It was able to address the issues with historical patriarchy and how it affects modern life. It explored gender issues and it explored the views of men and women in society, especially those in the less respected professions, but it did it in a way that didn't belittle either gender or any particular group. It highlighted the issues that prostitutes face and the psychological power that a pimp can hold over them. It highlighted the dangers of going off assumptions and how it could happen to anyone. It highlighted how, in many ways, people are always a slave or a prisoner to something and it can seem like there is nothing but darkness all around, but that there is a right way to escape that darkness and a wrong way. "It's about how we live in captivity. But we must escape, or die trying. Vampires and humans alike." I liked how it provided hope at the end, that starting over is possible, no matter how dark the cage is.

Something of an ironic note about the episode. I griped last episode about how LaCroix was appearing in flashbacks in S1 and how that wouldn't work anymore in S2. Well, he only showed up in flashbacks in this one but it still worked!

Ironic indeed.

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.