SGRoA: Forever Knight S02 E06: Capital Offense

I shot the vampire. But I swear it was in self-defense! 

How are you today, Snowflakes? Anyone going to Phoenix ComiCon? Can you tell me why? My Facebook feed is full of writers who are voluntarily travelling to somewhere it's a millionty degrees. You couldn't pay me enough to go to Phoenix in June. Or, you know, to go to Phoenix, period. Sorry, Phoenicians. Been there, done that, luckily didn't get the skin cancer to prove it.

Recap!

Nick and Schenke are staking out some blonde in a jean jacket walking through a parking garage. She's pretty suspicious, as any woman in a parking garage at night would be, but Schenke thinks it's because she made them as cops. And maybe she did: she steals some other woman's car and is making a good getaway before Vampire Nick flies in and stops her. He lets her hit him, and she gets out of the car to ask if he's all right in the world's worst Southern accent. She says she didn't do whatever she's being arrested for, and she begs Nick to help her.

Her name is Laura Garfield, and apparently the whole continent has been looking for her. She's supposedly from Texas (with that accent? Yeah, right), and is accused of hacking her husband up with an axe. Schenke makes a very timely Lorena Bobbitt joke as they go into the interview room.

The accent does not get better. Laura escaped during a transfer to death row. She claims one Danny Carruthers killed her husband and framed her for it. He's been MIA for a while, and Laura was caught because of an anonymous tip from a local number. Laura says that Danny has a friend in Toronto - Billy Briese - who alibied Danny at trial. Danny could be with him, or Billy could have called in the tip, who knows? Laura turns over a photo she has of the four of them - Danny, Billy, herself, and her husband, David - so the cops know whom to question. She begs Nick to trust her, saying that no one knows how lonely it is, always running, and then we're off to Flashback Time!

Nick falls into a cellar in the middle of the day. Judging by his clothes, it's early 1800s, and everyone's speaking French - including the nun who finds him in her cellar.

Back in the present, Lacroix - in his radio persona, The Nightcrawler - is asking listeners if they trust him. If they trust anyone. He wants them to call in and confess, to seek absolution through him. Nick, listening to the radio in the car, eyerolls so hard at his it's amazing he stays on the road.

Can I just say here how happy I am that Lacroix's Nightcrawler is back? Seriously, one of the best bits of the show. He's always so dark and creepy and intrusive and I LOVE IT. I would listen to that every night if I could.

In the lab, Nat gets a giant wrench and goes to town on the autopsy table plumbing. The drain's been clogged by a scrunchie. Now, this is one of those little comedy bits, like Schenke talking about Myra, that aren't ever relevant to the plot, but I mention this one because of course Nick has no flipping clue what a scrunchie is, and Nat has to explain. Her definition? "One of those fancy hair elastics."

Fancy.

A scrunchie.

FANCY. 

Anyway. Nick's brought the death penalty up with Nat. He doesn't believe in it, and Nat finds that funny, and Nick's all, "But how do you know death is a penalty at all?" and then he says that he believes Laura. Nat tells him to run with it - what's it going to hurt to investigate the case? After some hesitance, the captain gives him the go-ahead, and tells Schenke he can't take a vacation until the US Marshals have come to pick Laura up. They've got 24 hours to solve this.

Guys, this episode - Look, it's not Forever Knight boring. I'll grant it that. It's a solid procedural episode. But - blergh. There's not enough to make fun of in a solid procedural episode. It would be like writing recaps of Law & Order. I'm just - I'm apologizing for being boring, here. Because I feel like I owe you guys some entertainment, even when there's not much to work with, but this one's just so meh, I don't even know where to go with it. Half the scenes aren't worth telling you about. And don't get me started on Schenke's gross Myra-goes-fishing fantasies. Maybe Flashback Time will be better.

The nun offers to help Nick, because he's been burnt. He says no. Mother Superior knocks on the door, saying a hunting party is looking for a dangerous fugitive. Has the Sister seen a stranger? "No," she says, earning Nick's trust. She tells him he can stay there, because she's the only one who goes down to the root cellar, and she'll help him on his way come nightfall.

Nick and Schenke go to Briese's house. The front door is open, and they find Briese dead in his bed, stabbed with an axe. Even though the electric blanket was on, confounding time of death, Nat can place it within twenty-four-hours on preliminary examination. So Laura may or may not have been in custody - although, if she was arrested the night before, her timeline for committing a murder and then the cops getting enough of a tip to have everyone in place in that garage is tight, yo. Why half the force seems to just think, "Oh, Laura totes did it," is weird to me. Of course, this is MetroPD, so, you know.

Nick makes Schenke listen to The Nightcrawler, too, and Schenke has even bigger eyerolls for it than Nick does. What would you put on, Schenk? Rush Limbaugh?

They're out looking for Carruthers, whether to see if Laura killed both him and Briese or if he set up Laura for her husband and Briese, we have yet to see.

Back at the convent, Lacroix has followed Nick, who's all, "Get out. I told you, we broke up." Lacroix basically laughs at that - "I didn't come for you. I had to get out of the sun, too, fuckwit," and then goes on to lament that he simply won't have time to drain dry all the Brides of Christ in the convent above them. Whether he means it or not, it raises Nick's hackles, and he's all, "She trusted me. You can't eat anybody." Lacroix laughs, and says he's still full from the night before - so whatever he did, it's why Nick's being hunted - and that holiness in any form wreaks havoc on his digestion. And then he says that he'll just stay the day, and then go off on his own - "I tire of you, anyway." IOW, "You didn't break up with me. I broke up with you."

I guess they don't find Carruthers - or they don't try very hard - because in the next scene, Nick's questioning Briese's girlfriend about known associates. Despite dating a drug dealer, she hands over all Briese's contacts just as easy as you please, but doesn't have any other info on who might have killed him.

The nun gives Nick some money she's hoarded, but he refuses, and says he'll keep her secret - she's not supposed to have possessions. He asks why she helped him, and she says that he needed her to, and that there's a hidden goodness in him. Ten bucks says she's gonna die, yo. Especially since Lacroix is apparently hiding somewhere through all this, since Nick can't find him and Sister says she hasn't seen anyone else.

Schenke manages to find Carruthers at some flop house while Nick takes Laura to the meet with the FBI. With the top down. Like you do. Schenke calls Nick to tell him, and Nick decides to go over there with Laura and a very disapproving uniform who tells Nick he's "violating procedure", like that's ever stopped him before.

Shockingly, Lacroix has killed the nun.

He gives Nick some speech about only trusting your own kind. Because if there's one thing vampires are, it's trustworthy.

Nick and Schenke are questioning Carruthers in his hotel room, and it's another terrible accent and a bolo tie, to really drive home the Texan thing. Meanwhile, Laura's choking out the uniform with her handcuffs. I'm starting not to buy her innocence, guys. Laura somehow gets out of the cuffs and comes up to Carruthers' room with a gun - the uniform's gun, I guess? He won't admit to murdering her husband, so she shoots him, and then gets shot by Nick and Schenke. She dies, but not before thanking Nick - "I couldn't have done it without you." So...she was guilty? She was killing witnesses? What?

In the coda, Nat gives Nick a lecture about laying off the blood. Just because he misread Laura is no reason not to work on being human. So...she was guilty? She was killing witnesses?

Like, seriously, they never explain what the fuck was going on with Laura. The closest they get is Nick saying he almost got Schenke killed, but - no? Like, that didn't happen. She shot Carruthers, but it's never stated that he was or wasn't the killer. I mean, I understand that sometimes in criminal cases, there are no real answers, but everyone is acting like there were. Could you guys let the audience in on those, please? I stuck with this whole boring episode; the least you could do is let me in on your little secrets!

Bah.

Next week: It's The Most Dangerous Game: Criminals Edition! Ooh, goody. That story wasn't a boring-ass mess from start to finish when I read it in middle school; I'm sure I'll be riveted when the master storytellers behind Forever Knight give me their take on it!