SGRoA: Forever Knight S03 E07: Hearts of Darkness

Snowflakes! I don't really have anything to talk about here, because life has been boring lately, but! I do have a recap for you! Let's get started!

So, the Raven is a strip club now? And it's amateur night? Lacroix seems awfully happy to proclaim that his customers are going to "reveal their inner selves by GETTING NAKED!"

And indeed, some woman hops up on stage and starts stripping down. Urs looks on, unhappily, flashing back to some lecherous man in a top hat. Vachon comes up to her and says that if the girl on stage is an amateur, he's a vegetarian. Does Urs know her?

She doesn't answer. When the woman comes off the stage, Urs stops her and says that the man she's with will hurt her. The woman brushes her off, and Urs tries to convince her, but Vachon's all, "She wants him, she's got him."

"She wants him to hurt her," Urs replies, and then runs out of the club for some air.

At the woman's apartment, she's in her underwear, writhing around on black satin sheets, when she hears a noise and sits up. There's blood on her lip, and a dead dude all rigged up in a BDSM harness thing.

The woman claims the clothes she was wearing aren't hers, and that she doesn't know Eckert, our victim. She called the police, but can't remember anything else.

The victim has a ton of stab wounds, but there's no blood on the scene. There are, however, bite marks on his neck. Tracy's convinced the lady did it, despite what she says, and points out that she came to a "dungeon". "Did she really expect flowers and romance?"

BDSMers never love each other. Offensively wrong idea count: 1

Nat and Nick leave and Tracy twitches aside the sheet on the body to look for the fang marks.

Meanwhile, Urs is wandering the streets, accompanied by a tilted 90s camera, and it's Flashback Time! It's the Old West, because there are feather fans and player pianos. She's the entertainment at this particular saloon, singing and removing her gloves. Ooh, 1870s stripping, how racy you are! Vachon and Screed are in the audience, and she takes off a stocking in front of Vachon. She stands at the bar, basking in her applause, and then some dude grabs her arm and pulls her away.

The Lady - Ellen - takes a polygraph and passes. Apparently, she didn't know Eckert, despite being naked in his bed. Tracy gives Nick the rundown on her: in foster care, both parents dead. While she's being processed, a wife-beater comes in. His wife dropped the charges, though, so they have to let him go, even if the arresting officer doesn't want to. Ellen is watching verrrrry closely.

Eckert apparently beat his girlfriend back in San Francisco. He's only been in town eight days, and Tracy calls him "a regular Marquis de Sade" and proposes that Ellen's a victim.

Too bad Ellen's fingerprints are all over everything in Eckert's apartment. If it's a framejob by a vampire, it's pretty thorough. Nat measures Nick's bite, and it's larger than the marks on the victim. It wasn't a male vampire.

Urs is still walking the streets, down prostitutes' row. Why?

Nick goes back to the crime scene and finds a coaster from the Raven, so back to the club we go. Only Tracy's there first, asking Vachon about the case. Vachon says it's Ellen, but Tracy's seen her in daylight. Nick comes in, spots Tracy, and hides behind a pillar until she's gone.

He walks up to Vachon and Lacroix and lays the coaster on the bar. "Nicholas," says Lacroix, "how kind of you to bring your own coaster." Hee. I love you, Lacroix.

Oh, but Nick's got his dudgeon all high, and tells Lacroix with a sneer that he found it at a murder scene. Lacroix basically just shrugs and walks away, so Nick asks Vachon if he knew Eckert. He did. He says he saw him leave with someone who called herself "Monica", who was not a vampire. Nick asks if Urs saw Eckert, and tells Vachon that if she killed him, Vachon will have to answer for it.

Vachon's remembering that same night in the same saloon - the first night he met Urs. The guy who grabbed her at the bar says he doesn't like when she looks at other men, so naturally Vachon threatens to kill him if he threatens her again.

Nick and Vachon speculate that Urs sees herself in Monica, and is protecting her by killing Eckert. Vachon says the killing might have been a mistake, that Urs doesn't know her own strength.

At the precinct, there's a press conference for that wife-beater, because he's a hockey star. Former star? I dunno. I wasn't paying that much attention. Reese explains this to Nick with his now-signature "I can't control anything around here" look. Poor Reese.

Tracy comes in with a huge duffle bag. She's going to take Ellen home and stay with her until her memory returns. Nick says he'll go, too. Tracy tells him he doesn't have to, but Nick says he does, and Reese is all "I can't control anything around here", so Nick packs up all his nail polish for SLEEPOVER MAKEOVERS!

No, not really, but that would be awesome.

Hockey guy's wife comes into the station and hugs him. Ellen's still looking on. I think we know who her next victim will be.

Nick makes a mysterious phone call - "I need your help" - and then he and Tracy and Ellen leave the station and take Ellen home.

Where Urs is watching from across the street, of course. Nick sees her, but doesn't let on.

Ellen offers to make Tracy some instant coffee, and Nick says he'll look around. Tracy starts a conversation, and Ellen says she does secretarial work. Nick finds some racy clothes in Ellen's closet, hidden in a suitcase on the bottom, so of course he just grabs a garment and sticks it in his pocket.

Nick says he has to get going. On the way out, he checks Tracy's duffle: Full of garlic and stakes and crosses. And then Vachon shows up. Oh, that was the phone call: Nick wants Vachon to keep an eye on Tracy, despite Vachon's saying that Tracy's a big girl, she knows how to handle herself. Nick doesn't think she can take on a vamp, and Vachon again expresses doubt that Urs is involved.

At the lab, Nat says the hair on the clothing that Nick just shoved in his jacket is a match for Ellen's. Because there's absolutely no way Nick could have transferred that hair at all. Nick thinks it might be a disguise, because Ellen's from Vancouver, and was obviously stalking Eckert from out west.

Eckert, who lived in San Francisco, mind.

Nick's all, "Ellen's not the type to wear this stuff," and Nat says, "Hey, grandparents get prosecuted for mail order porn these days," and I say:

Was porn, like, illegal in Canada or something? Mail-order porn? What even is that? Like, smutty books? Playboys? I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON HERE.

Anyway, Nick says it's like two different people, and that's all Nat needs for a House-like epiphany. Two people, one body.

At Ellen's, Tracy's digging into her personal life and her relationship with her now-dead father. Urs is listening from the yard, and Ellen's admission that she wanted to die when her father abandoned her leads to another flashback. The saloon dude is attacking Urs, so Vachon eats him. When she doesn't completely freak the fuck out, Vachon offers to take her away. She says she can't leave; she's tried, but she always comes back, because the singing makes other people happy. Oh, and also, could Vachon kill her now?

Ellen asks Tracy if she's ever wanted to die, and Tracy of course says no.

Nick and Nat put Ellen and Monica together, and figure one of them must be a vampire. Nick rushes off to save Tracy, because she's inside with a maybe-vamp, and Vachon's just outside.

Ellen goes to change her clothes, and changes personalities instead. She sees that hockey-dude has been released and grabs some black clothes.

Vachon sees Urs outside and asks her if she killed Eckert. She denies it.

Ellen has changed into Monica, and she tells Tracy that Ellen's not there anymore.

Vachon didn't kill Urs, obvies, but changed her, and she tells him that Monica is as trapped as she was - as she is. She wanted to die, and she didn't, and that's Vachon's fault.

Monica admits to knowing Eckert, but says that "we didn't kill him". She tries to leave the apartment to kill hockey guy, and Tracy stops her. There's a struggle, and Monica vamps out. She knocks Tracy out and flees.

Vachon runs in to tend to Tracy, just as Nick shows up. Vachon gives him the rundown and Nick yells at him for not taking care of Tracy. Vachon says that Monica flew away. Tracy comes to and tells Nick that Monica's on her way to hockey guy's place, so Nick heads out while Tracy waits for an ambulance, I think?

Monica goes to hockey guy's house, starts making out with him, introduces herself as Jacqueline, and then eats him. Urs shows up a little too late. Jacqueline recognizes her from the club, calls her "the dancer". Nick shows up, too, and stays in the shadows while Jacqueline gives her villain speech about looking for her father's love in all the wrong places and how there are three personalities. Ellen is pain, Monica is anger, and Jacqueline is revenge. Only Jacqueline knows about all three.

Urs says that she's just a killer, that she's lying to the other personalities. Nick moves out of the shadows, and Ellen reappears. She stares at Urs and Nick, at the body she's just made, and says it has to stop. So she throws herself off the roof.

In the coda, Urs explains her boring psychology to Vachon, and says that she doesn't want to die anymore. And Nat points out that Ellen was human, even while she was a vampire. So Nick should think about that, shouldn't he? Even though Ellen's body is twitching in the morgue?

Next week: Tracy is a CONSUMMATE PROFESSIONAL! Nick does his Clarice Starling impression! None of this will be anything as good as Silence of the Lambs!