SGRoA: Forever Knight S02 E22: Close Call: Star Trek Edition
Guys! It snowed! It is, in fact, still snowing! After 70 degree temps well into this month, I figured I'd never get any winter. I'm so happy. Let's recap!
Some dude with a huge gun - and no, that's not a euphemism - is being chased down an alley by Schanke, who is at a definite disadvantage with this gun thing. Of course, Nick flies down from somewhere, and since all Schanke sees is movement, he tells Nick to freeze. The dude with the gun almost gets the jump on them, but Schanke fires in time. Too bad he just wounds the guy, who gets back up as Schanke's turning to Nick. Nick calls out a warning and jumps from the fire escape where he's been standing to the ground, and knocks the guy out before he can shoot Schanke. Which is all way too fast and accurate for a human to do, so Schanke is, understandably, weirded out.
This is something I've never understood about Nick working as a cop. Cops - detectives especially - are trained to observe, and to make reasonable conclusions from those observations. If they see weird shit often enough, they're not going to be able to explain it away - and they won't. They'll dig until they have an answer.
So why would Nick put himself in close proximity to people who are most likely to discover his secret? Is he trying to have people find out? Does he want to be discovered for what he really is, and stop earning his penitence points in secret? Does he hope that someone will put him out of his misery? I mean, there are a lot of ways to help people. He has all that money - why not just philanthropy? Working soup kitchens or homeless shelters on the night shift?
These are probably questions far too deep for the FK writers to ever have considered, but, you know. I wonder things. It's why I write books.
Anyway.
After the shooting, Schanke's complaining about Nick's superhuman abilities. Nick tries to mojo him, and it seems to work. Schanke changes his complaints to how Nick was in his line of fire. Dawn is coming on, and Nick offers to let Schanke have the Caddy for the day if Schanke will drop him off at home. Schanke agrees, and Nick says he'll ride in the trunk.
See? Nick totally wants Schanke to know.
Schanke remembers asking Nick why he drove the Caddy in the first place, and Nick's answer of "trunk space". Schanke is going to figure this thing out, especially because after dropping Nick off, he goes to complain to Nat about how weird Nick is. Nat tells him that Nick's sun allergy is just that dangerous. Schanke's not having it. He asks Nat if she's ever had a feeling that Nick is just a little too gallant under fire.
Oh, it's a clip show. We're now treated to a scene from that episode with the reporter (another profession that doesn't just let shit go, for the record), when Nick flew out a window to apprehend some shooter. Schanke's using the story to illustrate that Nick is cavalier about his mortality - or maybe he thinks he's immortal?
Nat tries to put Schanke off, but Schanke decides that, since he puts his life in Nick's hands every night, he's entitled to some answers about his partner. He storms out of the lab, ignoring Nat's pleas to stop and think for a minute.
Nat tries to call Nick to warn him, but he's passed out on the couch and hits the answering machine off when the phone rings. Meanwhile, Schanke's also trying to call him, but Nick won't answer for him, either. Captain Cohen comes by and asks why Schanke's checking up on Nick, and Schanke complains that Nick always has to be the first one in. We get another clip - this one of Nick flying around the side of a building to apprehend a guy who's holding a woman hostage and shooting at the cops.
Everyone thinks Schanke's suspicions are just a by-product of shooting the guy last night, by the way. They all keep asking if he's "okay", but no mention is made of sending him to the department shrink or anything. Schanke says he's okay, and then they tell him to do his paperwork.
Schanke realizes he has Nick's keys, but instead of going to Nick's place, he goes to The Raven to see if any of them work. Of course one does - presumably so Nick could use the club to shelter from daylight if necessary - and Schanke just waltzes right in, treating us to a bunch of Janette clips, including that time he almost got chomped by one of Janette's coven in that episode where he had hair like a Butabi brother.
Schanke manages to find a chest of Janette's things, including a pic of Janette, Nick, and Lacroix together in the 1800s. Of course Janette catches him with it and demands he explain himself. She passes the pic off as their grandparents, and Schanke buys that, but then asks her a bunch of questions about Nick's "weirdness" because obviously she knows him so well. Then he "tells the story" of the time Nick was being haunted by someone he killed and stopped a city bus by jumping on top of it.
This illustrates how Nick does "outlandish" things and then refuses to talk about them - including the shooting the night before. This segues into a question about Lacroix, so of course Janette mojos him. She does a better job than Nick, though, because Schanke is all out of sorts as he leaves the club. A uniform is writing a parking ticket for the Caddy, and GUYS, IT'S CHRISTINA COX AGAIN. Last we saw her, she was Jeanne d'Arc, refusing immortality from Nick. I wonder if anyone from FK ends up guest-starring on Blood Ties. (We'll find out next year sometime, when I finally am done with these FK recaps.)
Anyway. She asks for his license, finds out he's a cop, asks if it's his car, and when he says no, asks to see the registration. When he finds it, it's with Nick's old NY license, under the name "Nicholas Forrester". He gets a ticket anyway, so he goes back to the precinct to fix it, and asks "Vera" - who's a secretary or something? - to do a background check on this Forrester identity.
And then all the mojo-ing wears off.
Oh, Vera's a uniform officer. I guess that means she has to do errands for the detectives?Whatever. She wakes Schanke from a nap with the background check, and of course it has Nick's picture in there. He compares it to the miniature of Janette he stole, for some reason - checking to see how everyone looks so good, so long after the fact? This scene doesn't make much sense, frankly.
Anyway, then he goes to the lab to complain to Nat about all the mojo-ing. Nat tries to fob him off again, this time with sleeping pills, but Schanke's all, "I've been asleep too long!" and then we get two clips - Schanke talking to that reporter about how Nick never eats and has no family; that time the cops searched Nick's house and found a sun bed and blood in the refrigerator.
He goes back to his desk, and Vera pops by, looking over his shoulder at his list of clues as to the identity of "John Doe 199": Allergic to sun, never eats, hypnotism, needs blood. Vera laughs and tells Schanke he's looking for a vampire.
Schanke starts reading up on vampires, and this leads to a whole bunch of clips at once, all backing up what he's reading in the book (which has a truly terrible cover, let's be honest, here.).
He goes through Nick's desk, because clearly, that's where vampires keep all their proof that they're vampires.
Nick does keep one drawer locked, however, so Schanke picks it and finds...Nigel Bennett's head shot. Which was also in Janette's trunk, so it does look like maybe he's the "master vampire" spoken of in the book. Schanke arranges all these pictures - Janette's miniature, Nigel's head shot, and Nick Forrester's license photo - on his desk, just as they were in the photo from the 1800s.
Meanwhile, the sun has set. Nick wakes up and goes to call Schanke, but Janette shows up before he can even dial. "Something wrong?" "You'd better hope not," she says. She gets him up to speed on what Schanke's been doing all day, and asks what they should do if Schanke confronts Lacroix. Nick doesn't know, and as they head out the door, Nat comes in to warn Nick. They all head off - to where, I don't know.
Schanke's gone to the radio station and straight-up asks Lacroix if he and Nick are vampires.
Lacroix asks why Schanke would think that, and then asks what has changed in Schanke to make him notice these things. Schanke finally opens up about the shooting, saying he had to "waste the guy". "Terrible thing," says Lacroix, "to waste people."
So Lacroix does a little therapy mixed with mojo to convince Schanke he's just stressed and tired. Schanke buys it this time, and seems a little embarrassed to have thought Nick was a vampire at all. He thanks Lacroix ("Mr. Nightcrawler") for the talk therapy, and asks him never to tell Nick about it.
In the coda, Schanke washes Nick's car - just like Nick mojo'd him to way back in the beginning.
Next week: I think it's the one where Nat goes on a date! Or have we done that one?! I can't remember, but it's Valentine's Day! I remember a bunch of murders with flowers and cards! Because murder is romantic!