SGRoA: Forever Knight S02 E24: The Code

Hello, Snowflakes! Been a pretty boring week around here, and cold the whole time, which is weird for Colorado. I'm looking forward to Thursday's promised 50s, but I'm not holding my breath, considering we're getting unanticipated snow right now. Let's recap!

Some blonde woman is cutting lines of coke with a hilariously off-brand "credit card", which might actually just say "Credit Card" in Visa's colors. You know, like those fake ones they put in wallets? Yeah. I don't think it does a great job, because she starts freaking out and then crashes through a glass coffee table.

Meanwhile, Schanke's stuck on the side of the road with a car that won't start, and he gets rear-ended by a nun. For some reason, this causes him to spin in the street like he's going to start a musical number, but all he says is that he hates winter.

Schanke finally makes it in, only to have Cohen scold him about the time. Nick steers him right back out the door to go investigate the OD. He complains about the cold the whole ride, and I'm guessing that maybe he should invest in a sunlamp. That's some Seasonal Affective Bullshit, right there.

I should probably say here that I get SAD the opposite way - I'm one of the very few who hate summer, who get anxious and agitated by the heat and the long sunshine. I can't stand people who bitch and moan about the cold. Go inside and shut yer gob. I'll be out here, building snowmen. The cold never bothered me, anyway.

So Schanke's already endless complaining is wearing on me. This seems like it could be a good ep - I don't remember it - but if all I hear out of his mouth is complaining, well, me and Schanke might be fucking done, professionally.

Anyway. They show up at the scene, and Nick tells Nat she looks great. She was at a coroner's convention, and she's in a fancy suit? That...looks like all her other suits? Okay, sure. We'll go with that.

The vic was a model - the "Wednesday Jeans" girl. Her apartment is full of prescriptions, and everyone's sure she ODed, so everyone heads back to the precinct.

One of Schanke's old partners shows up in the squad room. He's working in Montreal now, but he's brought sandwiches for Schank and he calls Cohen "Amanda". [Insert live audience going OOOOoooooOOOOO here]

Turns out Patrick - the friend - has quit the force and moved to Arizona.

"Phoenix?" says Nick.

"No no no!" says Patrick. "Scottsdale. It's much better."

OMG WUT. Guys. GUYS. I lived in Phoenix - and Chandler, and Scottsdale - for 12 years. It's awful. Like, just the fucking worst. And you know what? Scottsdale isn't Phoenix like Brooklyn isn't Manhattan. They're right next to each other. In fact, Phoenix sort of surrounds Scottsdale, since it stretches farther east and south than Scottsdale does. The only thing Scottsdale has that Phoenix doesn't? More fake boobs and bottled tans. Also, Amy's Baking Company!

I thought Nick was giving him a look for a second, and maybe he is, but he's also flashing back to his time spent as a VAMPIRE COWBOY OMG THIS EPISODE GETS BETTER WITH EVERY SUCCEEDING SECOND.

Some guy pulls a gun on Nick, and this guy named Wade, who talks like he's trying to be John Wayne, shoots the guy, so Nick and he are obviously besties now.

Nick comes back just as Patrick is talking about how nice Scottsdalians are (No) and how he has a great PI business going. After lunch, they take him down to the lab and Nat confirms that it was an overdose, not a homicide.

Nick goes to notify the vic's sponsor, but he sits in the car for a while, listening to Lacroix talk about friendship. Also listening to Lacroix is the next vic, an old man who went to bed with mittens on and was reaching for the phone when he died. Patrick comes along to that crime scene, too, and Nat asks Nick a pointed question about how he's doing. I guess she thinks Nick is jealous, or something? Despite Nick acting totally normal (at least in the 90s)?

Nick has another brief flashback to burying the guy who almost shot him (like you do), and then Schanke is telling us that he's found the same drug in the second vic's house that was in the model's. Cohen isn't convinced there's an actual connection, and neither is Nick.

Patrick says goodbye to Schanke, and then pulls Nick aside for a chat about Schanke's SAD. Only apparently Myra told Patrick that Schanke's burning out on the job. Patrick tells Nick some random story about bike riding as kids and that Schanke needs him, even if Patrick doesn't know why, yet.

Back in proto-Scottsdale, Wade - who has, like, the gayest face I've ever seen on this show - is sharing his whisky with Nick and talking about killing people and being damned. Yawn.

Gwen-the-first-vic's sponsor is in the interrogation room, insisting that Gwen wasn't using. She'd had surgery last March to fix a deviated septum, and had been having a lot of headaches since then. Schanke's being a total dick about the whole thing, and as they leave interrogation, Nick lays into him for it.

Schanke stalks off and goes to meet Patrick at his hotel for breakfast, complete with champagne. Hey, I'm not judging. I've worked the nightshift, and I once got delightfully toasted at 7 in the morning, in a bar, on pitchers of cheap beer. Anyway, Schanke's phone rings, and it's Nat. The old guy's blood panel came back, and he died of mercury poisoning - and mercury was also in Gwen's blood, though not in a concentration high enough to kill.

Patrick tries to coax him back to breakfast, but Schanke's trying to solve the case. The only thing the vics had in common was Provatrex, the OTC painkiller found at the scenes.

Cut to some dude in a leather jacket replacing the Provatrex on the shelf with some from his bag. Schanke's done it! He's solved the case! Kind of! And he did it by himself!

Nick, however, is still not convinced. "Something's missing," he says to Nat, and stalks off. Schanke complains that Nick has no respect for him, and...he's not wrong. He also stalks off.

Man, this ep has a lot of weird, short scenes. Anyway. In the lab, Nat tells Nick that whoever poisoned the drugs has to have access to sophisticated lab space and be able to replace the safety seals - so maybe it's an inside job. She also tells him that he hurt Schanke's feelings, and suggests again that he's jealous.

Up in the interrogation room, Schanke's cooling off with some coffee, and Patrick regales him with stories of old teachers before convincing him to move to Scottsdale and go into the PI biz with him.

Nick tries to apologize to Schanke, but Schanke's not having it. He yells at Nick a bit, then turns his resignation in to Cohen - effective immediately. Dude. Myra doesn't have a say in this? At all? You're a shitty husband, Schank.

There's another victim in the morgue, same mercury poisoning. She'd had a hip replacement, Gwen had plastic surgery, but the old man didn't have any surgery. And Gwen didn't die from the mercury. Nick is sure it isn't Provatrex, and he tells Schanke so, just before Schanke tells him he's leaving. Nick's all, "You can't go!", but before Schanke can rebut, Nat discovers that Gwen and the third vic both got some weird bone-marrow composite material.

Schanke's pissed that Nick is undoing his Provatrex work, and he leaves. Nick seems sad, and flashes back to Wade and his poisoned whisky. Wade says something about Nick being an outlaw as Nick passes out, and Wade takes the antidote.

Schanke runs right over to Patrick's hotel room to tell him the "good" news (Seriously. Myra is going to be livid.), but Patrick already has a guest - DUDE FROM THE DRUGSTORE. Apparently, he's Tom Duke, also an ex-cop, also working for Patrick.

At the lab, Nat and Nick are still working the case. The marrow composite did, indeed, cause the mercury poisoning in both women, but not in the old dude. Only Toronto got the marrow composite. If Gwen had taken the Provatrex, they would have blamed the drug for all the deaths. "Someone's pointing us in the wrong direction," says Nick.

Schanke's chattering to Duke, something about how Myra will love Arizona and they'll find Jenny a good schoo - I'm sorry, no, I can't say that without laughing. See above gifs for how I feel about AZ schools. My brothers basically repeated a year when we moved, because the schools - the "good" ones - were so far behind.

Anyway, there's some snazzy briefcase on the table, and Schanke goes ahead and opens it only to find a whole mess of Provatrex.

Nat discovers that the company that made the marrow composite is in - have you guessed?  - Phoenix.

Back in the wild west, Wade is expositing that he'll get a big payday when he turns Nick in, only that's not going to happen, because Lacroix eats him.

Oh, wait, so Patrick isn't a PI? I swear that's what he said. Anyway, yeah, he totes poisoned the Provatrex to cover up tainted marrow composite. Schanke doesn't take kindly to this, and Duke pulls a gun on him, but luckily Nick's on the way. Before he busts in, though, Schanke throws a chair at Duke, whose gun goes off and hits Patrick. Nick flies through the window, stopping Patrick from shooting Schanke, and just in time to witness Patrick dying in his friend's arms. And just in time for Schanke to say, "Friends. Who needs 'em, right, Nick?" and storm off again.

Around the campfire, Nick wakes up, and Lacroix says he'll always find him. "That's our code," and finally, I understand the damn title. Maybe "The Bro Code" would have been better. I kept expecting computer code.

In the code-a (yes, I know, even I see what I did there, and it was terrible), Schanke's back on the job, apologizes to Nick, and asks to borrow his car. The end.

Next week: Giant meteors! Affecting the stock market! The summary gave away the ending! I vaguely remember this one already, though, so maybe it's good!