SGRoA: Forever Knight S03 E11: Sons of Belial

Snowflakes! Sorry I flaked last week. Like I said, it was a hard week. But today I'm feeling just fine, and it's been raining for days, so it's the perfect weather to sit inside and snark on Nick. Let's get started!

Some sort of street festival is happening. I think. Maybe it's just a really big drum circle, who knows? Anyway, some cop is out on patrol, and he sees a woman slumped over her steering wheel in an alley. He checks her pulse and she yells something in some weird language, then slumps the other way. He calls in for an ambulance, and while he's in front of the car, reading her plate, she runs him over.

Oh, it's just a band playing on the street, complete with a whole drum kit, but, you know, whatever. Canada. Anyway, the woman's driving all crazy, and you think she'll run into the band, but no. She drives her car off a cliff, and it promptly explodes.

The crazy lady is Melanie Sawchuck. Nick and Tracy have already done some legwork, despite being already assigned to an actual homicide. Reese asks why they aren't, you know, doing their actual jobs, and it's all "Oh, we're waiting on prelims and this looked interesting and that car that hit him is registered to this lady who was probs all burnt up when it exploded." Reese, true to form, just sort of shakes his head and lets them talk to the run-over uniform, who's on his way to the hospital with a broken arm.

Tracy asks the guy what happened, and he just stares off into space. So Nick mojos him, because OF COURSE. You know, for a guy who doesn't want his partner to figure out he's a vampire (FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER), he sure does use a lot of vampire powers.

So not only does Nick get the whole story, but he actually manages to mojo the weird language out of the guy. Nick says it sounds like Latin, because this is the demon episode, and that's what demons speak. Duh.

Nat confirms that the burnt body is Melanie, and she got the next-of-kin: Melanie's brother, Eric. Nick and Tracy leave to find the bro, who's standing on the street, handing out fliers or coupons or something for a ... strip club? Oh, wait, no, he's protesting in front of it. He starts quoting Bible verses at them immediately, before they can even tell him what's going on. He also has zero reaction to hearing that she's dead, and when they ask if she was suicidal, he quotes more Bible verses at them.

The internet is amazing, you guys.

Nick figures it was just another suicide, but back at the lab, Nat says Melanie had lamb's blood in her stomach. She must have drunk it, but why?

Nick will answer in a flashback! He and Lacroix are shoved into a prison cell, one that has a cross-shaped window. Some dude already in the cell speaks to them in Spanish, offering them the blood of Christ to protect against evil. Another dude asks how they got there, and they say they were taken while they slept. "Oh, no evidence? So, like everyone in the Inquisition, then," says chained dude. Blood-offering dude tells them they have to have faith, that faith will get them through it. Chained dude is skeptical.

Tracy and Nick go to Melanie's apartment to check shit out. I don't understand why they're doing all this, you know, detective work. It's really out of character, and frankly, I'm weirded out.

Anyway. Tracy asks Nick how he knows so many Bible quotes, and he fobs her off with something about "knowing the enemy", but dude. How DO you know so many Bible quotes? Can you touch a Bible? Because you would have had to read it on your own - and French Catholics in the fourteenth century didn't get to. No, not even knights. I think we're supposed to believe that since Nick was Catholic once, he just knows all these chapters and verses, but guys, no. That is not how Catholics relate to the Bible - not now, not in 1994, and certainly not before Vatican II.

Anyway. They find some blood on a windowsill, and then Tracy touches a book and gets all shivery. It's about exorcisms, and Nick says that explains the lamb's blood: People used it in exorcisms in the Middle Ages.

Tracy brings this information to Reese, who points out that Melanie's window was broken, and it's October. Basically, no, Tracy, you were not attacked by demons. Jesus be some common damn sense.

Nick's got Eric in the interrogation room, to ask him about the exorcism. Eric's not talking, not even in Bible verses, until Nick appeals to the Biblical prohibition on lying. Eric says she was sick, and she went to doctors, but they couldn't do anything, so he took her for an exorcism. "The Devil is real, detective," and he's going to take you back to your sketchily-historical past.

Unchained Dude owns valuable land that he wouldn't give to the Church. Chained Dude has the mark of the Beast. Some priest comes in with a couple of soldiers, and they take Chained Dude away. Chained Dude starts screaming about Belial, which doesn't make me think he has no knowledge of the Devil.

Nick comes back to Eric's boring-ass monologue about Satan the Seducer, who captured his sister's soul. He admits he sent her to an exorcist - a former priest. He says she killed herself to free herself of the demon, and Nick is bored as fuck. He demands the name of the exorcist - Dr. Vanderwahl.

Nick and Tracy go off to see the Dr., and though he tells them he's busy, they just barge right into his house. Turns out, he was excommunicated for being an exorcist. He missed his moment - the Vatican has been training exorcists at an alarming rate lately. We have one on staff here in Denver, supposedly, but only the people in charge ever know who it is, unless you need him.

You know, for an episode that has all my favorite things - vampires, demons, exorcisms from shady former priests - I am bored stiff. So. Much. Talking. Can we let the Devil have a little time in the spotlight, please? At least let him get a couple one-liners off on Nick.

They jaw for a bit about Melanie and why she might have committed suicide, and then Vanderwahl says to Nick: "You've never been tormented by evil, have you, Detective?"

No, he hasn't. He's decided to torment the rest of us, instead.

Nick keeps eyeing this doorway, and before he can answer the doctor's (obviously rhetorical) question, the doc opens it for him. Turns out it's his Big Ol' Room of Exocising! Complete with a patient on the table! And the doctor just keeps on with the exorcism since he opened the door! The possessed guy looks like Coach Tanaka from Glee!

It's so ridiculous and campy. There's a lot of "The power of Christ compels you!", only in Latin, and then the demon seems to leave Coach Tanaka and go into Nick, saying that Nick is his.

Tracy is pretty freaked out by the mediocre acting. She makes a Wizard of Oz reference that Nick should totally get - he wasn't in a box for the entire 20th century, after all - but he's too busy zoning out and seeing Inquisition priests in the middle of the street. He swerves, tells Tracy he thought it was a cat, and then there's shots fired from a robbery down the block. Nick tells Tracy to call it in and runs to "help", gun out.

Dave Grohl is knocking over a convenience store with a three-foot-long gun. He takes a hostage, but Nick mojos him - or is it, perhaps, SATAN?

Dave Grohl (I mean, not really, but it's an uncanny resemblance) freaks out, asking WTF Nick is, and he agrees to put his gun down. Only, he puts it in his head first. And, you know, pulls the trigger.

Dave Grohl was an armed robber, a murderer, and a rapist, with apparent mental illness - so, you know, no big deal on the shooting, Nick. IAB won't care.

The precinct is cold, and there's a terrible stench, and some electrician gets shocked while within feet of Nick. Nick is freaked right the fuck out.

So he heads home and starts guzzling blood. Only the blood makes his eyes glow green - not vamped out, but something else entirely. His sink backs up with black liquid. All his piano wires are cut. A bottle of blood flies across the loft toward his head.

And then it's flashback time! Because clearly when the Devil is fucking with you, you want to mentally check out for a few minutes. Good plan, Nick.

Unchained Dude is not looking good, and he's praying for his family. Lacroix mocks him for asking God for help - the same God, presumably, that arranged for his imprisonment. There's some boring conversation, but it boils down to the fact that Unchained Dude thinks they're both "angels of the Devil". Or, you know, vampires.

The priest and guards come for UD. They're gonna burn him alive, and if he lives, well, hey! He wasn't a demon, after all! UD pleads with them, and as they're dragging him away, Nick decides to save him by vamping out and claiming to be a servant of the Devil. "Really, Nicholas," says Lacroix, "such crass showmanship."

And it fucking works. Nick says that UD wouldn't join them, that his faith was too strong, and the priest lets him go! Too bad he's now going to burn Nick and Lacroix, but before we see their daring escape, we're back to the precinct.

Tracy's worried because Nick won't answer his phone. Reese says he just needed some sleep: he's never seen someone look so pale.

Nick goes to the Raven, of course, and is super vamped out. Some woman comes onto him, and he turns around, intending to scare her, I guess? but she isn't fazed. She just says it looks like he could use a drink, and he drags her away to some back room to make out. EW. I SAW HIS TONGUE. HE LICKED HER CHIN AND I HAD TO WATCH.

The things I do for you people.

Oh, she's a vampire, too. There's some breath play he's taking too far, and then Lacroix wanders in, pleased to see Nick being a dickbag, as usual. This particular form of dickbagism is apparently more vampy, I guess, and therefore meets Lacroix's approval.

Nick asks for Lacroix's help, saying that he's possessed. Lacroix's all "What? LOL. No. There's no such things as demons." Nick begs Lacroix to take him to Vanderwahl, and Lacroix, again, says "What? LOL. No." So Nick begs some more, and Lacroix relents.

Blah blah blah, Lacroix doesn't believe, Vanderwahl thinks he should, Nick starts talking in a demony voice. Satan says that Nicholas is already lost, that he belongs to him, and this is what gets Lacroix involved, obviously. How dare the Devil claim one of Lacroix's children!

So Lacroix helps with the exorcism, despite, you know, not being able to touch the crosses and shit. The modern exorcism is intercut with scenes from the Inquisition, and then Natalie, who's been looking for Nick, somehow figures out where he's gone and busts into the room. Nick almost eats her, but her appearance gives him the strength to fight, and then the demon is just - gone. Lacroix mojos Vanderwahl to forget.

In the past, UD comes back and saves them by braining the priest and knocking him out.

Pacing is not this show's strong suit, is it?

In the coda, Nat tries to talk to Nick about all...this...and he doesn't want to, except to say that being possessed set him back in his "treatment". And then we end with a Bible quote, delivered by Lacroix. Or maybe it's from Paradise Lost, I can't tell. I was raised Catholic, after all.

Next week: The summary has too much plot! A rock star in rehab! Her murdered mother! Her brother the suspect! Her therapist who maybe brainwashed her to be a killing machine! I'm already confused!