SGRoA: Forever Knight S02 E20: Beyond The Law
Mr. Winters suggested I make this the Judge Dredd edition, but I haven't seen that movie, so you'll have to settle for my usual Mean Girls and random internet meme jokes. Onward!
Some woman in a very early 90s haircut is getting the gift of a pearl necklace (snerk) (Do NOT Google that at work if you don't get my twelve-year-old's sense of humor) and then a massage with warm oil all over her negligee, which is probably going to ruin it, and I would not find the thought of ruined silk erotic at all. But it's all moot, because she gets strangled, of course. Nice to see FK returning to its Crimetime roots, here.
At the dump site, Nick actually uses his vampire powers for once and finds a pearl near the body, which he surmises will match the marks on the vic's neck. There's also a new forensic tech on site who's flirting with Schanke quite shamelessly. Does Myra have competition?
The vic - Tamara - matches a missing persons report. She's a single bank teller, and there's not much evidence to go on. No prints, but Nat did find massage oil, so obviously Tamara knew her killer. Nat says that it's every woman's worst nightmare, to trust someone and then end up dead.
This makes Nick flash back, but we know he won't be doing anything as interesting as meeting Margaret Atwood. No, it's a political convention in black-and-white on the mid-cent box in - a living room? A club? There's a ton of people - staffers, most likely - and Nick leans in to talk to TRACY MOTHERFUCKING VETTER FROM SEASON 3.
This is like that Law & Order: SVU episode where a woman was convicted of rape, and then like a season later, she came back as the new ADA.
Anyway, they're discussing the candidate. Tracy's all into him, and Nick's a little meh, but Tracy seems to think that politicians don't lie, or something. The candidate - Thomas Gardner - says something dumb about "outcasts", and Tracy asks Nick if he wants to join the campaign. He demurs, saying he's just an off-duty cop working convention security.
Nat brings him back to the present (but thankfully not the future where he'd see Tracy again and have to remember why she looks so familiar) by talking about the pearls. Captain Cohen sends Schanke down to forensics to check on the tests, and he's all jumpy, because he can't just enjoy an office flirtation for what it is. Nick goes to talk to a witness.
She tells some rambling story about her Corgi and her husband and a walk and blah blah blah. Anyway, they saw "the strange car" on the way back from a walk, but she can't remember any details of it, which is actually pretty normal for eye witnesses. Nick mojos her, and she says it was big and black and had a red license plate - which lines up with Daphne the Forensic Tech's assertion that the tire tracks probably came from a stretch limo.
In the lab, Daphne mentions Schanke's wife and flirts with him some more, making him uncomfortable. Maybe he has a harassment complaint, here, but she seems pretty harmless to me. I'd flirt back. Anyway, the pearls are real, and judging by the silver in the clasp, the necklace was Kazakhstani.
In a club that's not The Raven, the killer's looking for a new victim. We know it's the killer because it's just the camera moving around, staring at women - many of whom are dancing or talking in intimate twosomes. Lesbian bar? Maybe, but there's a lot of men there. Canada is weird.
Aw, Schanke kind of has a crush on Daphne! But he feels guilty just thinking about flirting back, because Myra is apparently supes jealous. Doesn't she know a little harmless flirtation can be good for a marriage?
And there's another body, in the trunk of a limo. I can't even make a professionalism joke, because Nick and Schanke are doing their jobs - at the moment, by showing up at the Kazakhstani embassy. They're very polite with Ambassador Petrochenko, but he insists that no one knows anything about Tamara and that they can't question his staff. And then he tries to throw them out, which makes Nick flash back to the Gardner campaign.
Gardner asks Nick how his speech was, and Nick says he was short on specifics. Gardner acknowledges that, and then Nick tells him it's no big, he's totes headed for the presidency. Gardner asks Nick to join the team, then heads over to talk to someone else. Tracy (they keep calling her Angela, but no.) and her truly terrible hair extensions urge Nick to join the campaign again, before she's pulled away by Gardner who has to talk to her about something-or-other.
Nick wanders away - right over to the sofa where Lacroix is sitting. "The world is watching," he says, "and I am watching you, Nicholas." He's wearing a wine-red turtleneck, because '60s. He says he's always been attracted to political turmoil, and that the best form of government is "a benevolent tyranny tempered by the occasional assassination." Nick says he prefers democracy. "Oh," says Lacroix, "then you believe in corruption, deception, and immorality!"
Lacroix wonders why, when Nick already has real power, he's wasting his time with human politics. Which is a good question. It's not, after all, as though Nick owns a shipping company worth several billion and needs to grease the wheels of corporate regulation.
Nick and Schanke leave the embassy and head back to the precinct. Schanke gets a call from some guy he knows in foreign relations. Petrochenko turned down the presidency of Kazakhstan to accept the ambassador post. Seems a little hinky to both of them, but before they can discuss it further, Captain Cohen is yelling them into her office.
The RCMP - who I call the Royal Fucking Mounted Canadians, based on an acronym from one of Mr. Winters's former jobs - is taking over the investigation, because even though they were super polite, they pissed off Petrochenko. Nick is pissed, and he flashes back to the campaign again.
Tracy's coming out of a hotel room, crying. She tells Nick "it was my fault" and that he should forget it ever happened. As she leaves, Gardner comes out of the same room, shirt half-on.
Cohen tells them both to stay off the case, then gets the call about the next body. So they have to pick that one up, but they have to stay away from Petrochenko.
Nick's already convinced the bodies are related - and of course he's right - and he's up on his moral high horse about Petrochenko and solving the case. Everyone else tells him to back off, because the case is now under federal jurisdiction and he has to play the game by the rules at least some of the time. Nat warns him that if he doesn't have rock-solid evidence, he'll have to relocate - and then we're back in the 60s.
Tracy's body is found hanging in the hotel hallway. Lacroix claims he hates to say "I told you so", but we all know better. Nick's angry, and Lacroix goads him, telling him that Gardner deserves to die. All politicians do. Nick has the right and the power to provide justice for Tracy. Nick stomps off - just like he does from the lab.
As he walks to the elevator, Lacroix soliloquizes about what a joy this decade has turned out to be. "War, riot, assassination. The Age of Aquarius indeed."
In the squad room, Schanke's off to look for Nick when one of the ambassador's staff comes in and says that he needs Schanke's help. The ambassador is a murderer.
Yuri - the staffer - says that Petrochenko left Kazakhstan because he beat his mistress to death, and beat his wife so often that she committed suicide. He also wasn't home during the Toronto murders, and has no explanation for his whereabouts.
Meanwhile, Nick's gone to the embassy to spy, and sees Petrochenko with several loose pearls. He sneaks into the house and arrests Petrochenko.
RCMP dude - who has a terrible French accent - is having a tantrum about Nick "kidnapping" Petrochenko on Kazakhstani soil. Which...isn't wrong, but Cohen's just as pissed when she asks RCMP if the foreign affairs office knew about Petrochenko's past, and he as much as says yes, they did.
While they're all fighting in Cohen's office, Schanke gets a visit from a woman who was at the club with the second victim and went somewhere with her and the killer. She left when the massage oil came out, but she says she can ID the killer. They do a lineup - well, they bring Petrochenko through - and she says that it's not him. There is some resemblance, but Petrochenko is about 30 years too old.
Back in the 60s, Gardner is drinking apple juice from a decanter like it's whisky while he tries to keep Nick quiet about how Gardner raped Tracy before her suicide. Before Nick can chomp him, he gets a phone call, and tells whoever's on the other end that he's no longer a candidate for president. There will be no investigation if he withdraws from the campaign. Someone called the press.
Nick looks very self-satisfied at this news, and walks out of the room and back to the precinct.
They've finally found out that Petrochenko had a son, whereabouts unknown, who left Kazakhstan under a cloud of suspicion. Before Petrochenko can leave the station, Nick and Schanke tell him they know that he didn't kill the two women - but he did dump the bodies, because his son killed them. Turns out, Petrochenko brought the son over as part of his staff - the very same staffer, in fact, who came to the precinct to rat out Petrochenko.
Of course, Son is long gone. They ask Petrochenko where he is, and he says he knows, but they have to take him with them so he can keep Son calm. They agree, and lecture him in the car about covering up crimes, and of course he's all, "Dudes. He's my kid. What would you do?"
Meanwhile, Son is at a club, laying it on thick for some woman who's buying his lines and doesn't seem bothered by his greasier-than-Snape's hair. The boys and Petrochenko walk into the club just as Son is leaving, and of course Son pulls a gun on the girl and everyone's screaming. Petrochenko almost gets the gun away from him, but then Girlie makes a wrong move, Son shoots and runs, and Nick uses his vamp powers to catch him.
In the coda, Daphne gives Schanke some hockey tickets. Schanke's all, "I can't go with you!"
...but Daphne says they're for him and Myra. See? Harmless. Schanke says he doesn't feel right taking them, but why doesn't she take Nick to the game? Nick says sure, he likes hockey. Daphne looks unenthused, and decides she'll ask a girlfriend.
Next week: The stupid harp one! With human Nick! And a terrible Irish accent, if memory serves!