SGRoA: Forever Knight S02 E09: Undue Process: Trigger Warning Edition

YOU GUYS, IT'S CANADA DAY! Let's all celebrate by going out to the fully-dressed strippers club, ignoring procedure, and joining a Lisa Frank cult. IT'LL BE AWESOME.

TRIGGER WARNING: CHILD PREDATORS. I know some people think trigger warnings are dumb, but this episode is so, so bleak. If you're looking for jokes, there aren't any. This one was just awful.

We open on some giant posters of a missing girl, and Nat on the phone with someone who, presumably, is offering a tip. It's a call center, and some other volunteers are chatting about how they can't believe Nat has the wherewithal to be manning the phones when Nick and Schenke come in. They've found her. It's - not good.

They take Nat to identify the body in situ, which seems a little harsh to me. But Nat seems to think she's going to be the ME on the case, even though the captain has brought in another ME to take over. Nat's all offended by this, but you know? The Captain's right, even if she does pass the buck to her higher-ups. For once, someone's a professional.

Nick tries to comfort Nat, but she looks unconvinced. The captain mentions that there's been an uptick in vigilantism - er, excuse me, she says, "citizen's groups", out looking for the guy who did this. Someone named Galt, apparently. Why they haven't caught him yet, what with their complete lack of need to follow any sort of procedure when it comes to suspects, I don't know. Oh, wait, I do: We're setting up the whole plot.

Guys, this one does not look funny. I'm really glad they gave us Lisa Frank Jesus last week, because I'm already depressed.

Nick and Schenke are in the woods, looking for clues. Nick says they have to find Galt before the vigilantes do (Where is John Galt? Doesn't have the same ring, does it?), and Schenke's all, "Dude, I dunno. I think the guy deserves a slow, painful death." Which of course leads to Flashback Time.

There is a literal mob with literal torches. Amazeballs. I love you so much, Forever Knight. A bunch of dudes in tricorn hats - Hold up. Is this episode trying to make American libertarianism look bad? Revolutionaries, Galt as the villain - You know what, Canada? I'm not going to celebrate your day anymore. I'm going to go see naked strippers.

Anyway. The tricorns are stringing up some dude in an executioner's hood. Some guy says they're going to send him to hell, and kicks a log out from under his feet. Lynching accomplished, I guess? But of course it's Nick being strung up, so after everyone leaves, he busts out of the ropes.

Nick and Schenke find a trail of blood and broken branches through the woods. Galt's hurt, apparently, and we cut to a scene of some guy in an alley, using liquor to disinfect a wound on his head before stumbling onto the sidewalk and trying to look normal. Only there's a couple of concerned citizens who recognize him, and pretty soon there's a mob chasing him down.

Nick flies off to intercept after he gets the call on the radio, and he gets there just in time to beat back the mob and take the dude in. They put him in a lineup, but the witnesses they have don't ID him. He gets questioned anyway. He says he wants to make a statement, but he also wants a lawyer? Like, maybe y'all should take him to the hospital to deal with that still-bleeding head wound he has?

Anyway. Nat and Nick and some other lady are watching the interrogation, and Other Lady says Galt should be ashamed. Nat says, "He should be dead." Nick looks concerned.

Schenke and the  captain are complaining about Galt's public defender, who from their dialogue is a zealous champion of individual rights, even for those accused of crimes. TEH HORRORZ. The new ME interrupts their bitch session with a preliminary report from the crime scene. Well, it doesn't stop Schenke's bitching, though it does remind the captain that Galt needs medical attention.

Nat's still watching as New ME stitches the guy up. I'm not sure what she's feeling - maybe she thinks she can slip in and kill the dude by pretending she's doing follow-up care? Who knows?

Galt's lawyer says he needs to be cut loose. Duh. Apparently Galt matched a composite sketch. That's it. That's all the evidence they had for telling the public this guy's name. With no positive ID and nothing else linking him to the crime, they can't hold him. Schenke and the captain are arguing for him to be held, of course, and Nick's just listening to everyone before he stares off into the distance and flashes back.

Nick waltzes in to one of the lynch mob guy's houses. Turns out they all thought that Nick killed some woman in the next village, because "the boss" said so. Nick kills the guy, of course.

The lawyer's still arguing, only now she's on to asking for protection for Galt. Which - she has a point, but why not let him stay at the precinct? It's not prison, there's no general population to endanger him. Maybe she's afraid the cops will take matters in their own hands? Yeah, I don't blame her for that one.

New ME comes in with some bloodwork while they're dickering. Captain Cohen looks at it, then says Galt will be released immediately. Nat has a freakout in the bullpen about it, and ends up slapping Galt's lawyer for looking smug. Jesus, Nat. Get your shit together.

Nick drags her out of the precinct and takes her home. She feeds missing posters into a fire while she talks about how awful child predators are. I mean, I feel you, girl, but don't you want to be, like, a millionty percent sure you've got the right guy?

Ugh. This episode is so, so depressing.

Cohen assigns Nick and Schenke to protect Galt. Nick suggests they keep him at the precinct, but Galt doesn't want to stay, so they have to get him a room somewhere so people won't kill him. Like Schenke wants to. Cohen reminds them that Galt can't come back in any worse condition than he left. They install him at a hotel, and Schenke reveals a little tape recorder he has, just in case Galt gets "chatty". I'm pretty sure that's illegal, but whatever.

Meanwhile, Nat sneaks into the lab, looking for the blood samples. She doesn't trust the other ME to do the tests. But the samples aren't there - out for DNA, I guess? Instead, Nat goes into the cooler and takes new samples from underneath her goddaughter's fingernails.

Um, FK writers? You guys know this is a Canadian late-night show about vampires, right? Because it's feeling like a completely joyless version of SVU, right about now.

Nick goes into Galt's room with the tape recorder and mojos Galt into giving his "statement". Galt totally confesses, and dude has some serious mental health issues, obviously.

In the past, Nick's continuing his revenge killing spree. Which makes him feel guilty about coercing a confession, so he destroys the tape. I - don't know how I feel about that, actually.

Back at the lab, Nat's realizing that New ME botched the tests, after running her own. Which makes me feel like maybe New ME has some splainin' to do.

In Nick's flashback, Lacroix totes approves of vengeance, of course, but he asks Nick, "Well, who started that rumor that you killed a woman?" And of course it was Lacroix, just stirring shit to get Nick to act against his ideals. Why Nick doesn't just immediately assume Lacroix is behind everything, I don't know. He clearly is.

At the hotel, Nick and Schenke go check on Galt, only to find that he's had a heart attack. Schenke manages to call the paramedics, and Nick does CPR, but he's dead. New ME is all, "Yup, heart attack. Y'all can forget him now. He's totally dead, and ain't that great?"

Cohen calls Nat to tell her the news, and Nat's all, "Oh, well, that New ME is great, really competent, so I won't double-check her work." Which, what? And Nat's on the criminal justice database while on the phone? Isn't she checking up on New ME? Or does she not care that New ME messed shit up as long as Galt's dead? She gets into New ME's profile and gets Cohen off the phone in a hurry by agreeing to take vacation.

Galt's lawyer isn't happy, obviously, but there's not much she can do, I don't think. She leaves in a huff, and Schenke's all glad she didn't "win", I guess, but Cohen reminds him that this case needs to be closed properly, everything above-board, so there's no way Galt's death can be blamed on them.

The DNA comes back, and it's a match for Galt. Schenke also looks up Galt's prison medical records, and finds that he'd been treated for arrhythmic tachycardia - IOW, dude had a bad heart, documented. It looks like everything's solved.

Except for whatever Nat's been finding in the database, and wherever she's on her way to when Nick calls to tell her everything's wrapped up.

Oh, it's the lab. She runs into the lab security guard, whom we've never seen before, and will never see again. He expresses his sympathy, and agrees not to tell anyone he's seen her. Jeez, Jimmy. You're a shitty security guard.

This time, Nat takes samples from Galt. Nick, meanwhile, has let himself into her apartment, where she's left her search results on Galt open on her desktop. Nick reads the file, of course, and discovers that New ME had looked up his heart condition through some sort of "last accessed" notification.

Nat does some instant test on Galt's blood, and realizes that New ME killed the dude. Of course. She injected him with something when she did the stitches, and it lasted long enough to get him out of the precinct. She confesses all this to Natalie, because of course she's come back to the lab for something. Nat guesses she's done it before, too, and she admits to that - because the other case was her own rapist. Nat claims this is wrong, but she looks unconvinced - and I have to say, I am, too.

Look. I'm not for killing. But the DNA matched in the Galt case, and New ME knew it was her rapist in the other case. She gave them a pretty humane death, all things considered, and saved the taxpayers a shitton of money. I might just keep my mouth shut, frankly.

But of course Natalie doesn't. Nick comes in, guessing rightly that she'd be at the lab, and Nat tells him that New ME did it. Nat tells her she's sorry, and New ME says, "I'm not," as Nick leads her away.

Next week: Mobsters need Lacroix's help. Great. Good. Sounds fantastic. Anything but more depressing child predators, please.