SGRoA: Forever Knight S03 E15: The Games Vampires Play

You know, like skee-ball and jacks and shit. Right? Vampires play, like, Uno and Cards Against Humanity? Hee. Against Humanity. That's a good one. Let's recap!

We open with some spectacularly shitty virtual reality. Like, the game effects in this episode are just regular footage overlaid with something that makes it look...drawn, I guess is what they're going for? Like that weird Keanu Reeves movie that came out a while back, where they filmed the movie and then drew over it, so everything was part Philip K. Dick story, part A-Ha video.

Anyway. This dude is playing the vampire VR game, all kitted out with safety goggles painted black and bulky gloves and a headset. The hot vampire chick in the game (because OF COURSE) starts flirting with him, and one of her fingernails grows to truly absurd lengths. She runs it along his cheek, and he thinks he can really feel it - but what he's really feeling is the silencer of a handgun. Gamer Guy congratulates himself for making such an awesome game, and then he dies, of course.

On the way to the crime scene, Tracy's lecturing Nick about pulling his weight in the paperwork department. Nick isn't listening, but Tracy keeps talking. She asks if Nick heard her, and then complains that he's been so out of it lately. I hope that's important later, but I'm not holding my breath.

No sign of forced entry at the crime scene. R.H. Low, our victim, owned the company in whose office he died. Reese has to tell Nick twice to do his job, and -

Yeah. Like, has Nick ever done his job? Repeating instructions won't help, Captain.

At the lab, Nick asks Nat if she ever gets "sick of it". She points out that she has bills to pay, and her life is short. She can't just flit around doing whatever and being bored by it, so she found a job she liked and has stuck with it. She also thinks she's good at it, and it gives her life meaning. I won't argue with the meaning bit, but...yeah. Dude with the fake heart attack last week probably thinks Nat could use some continuing education, y'know?

Nick is all just:

He says when it's happened before, he's moved on. Nat figures this all has to do with becoming human again, and tells him to live with it.

Reese drags Nick into the office for a dressing-down about his boredom, and tells him to take some time off. Reese brings up - as did Nat - that bored cops are bad cops who get their partners killed. Nick wanders away, right into someone playing the VR game. It's the computer detective, saying it's the best she's ever seen. She then explains MMORPGs to us, and - I don't have to tell you guys how video games work, right? Though, you know, it was 1995. It's cute that she can't just say, "It's vampire World of Warcraft. Probably don't play it. You'll get addicted and die in a pile of Cheetos wrappers and Mountain Dew cans."

Nick puts on the goggles and about jizzes in his pants over the vampire woman in the game. Gross, Nick.

The model for it - Rita - is co-owner of the VR company. She sounds terribly, terribly bored talking about the game and the hardware and how much money it'll make them. She just gave an online interview four hours ago - during the time-of-death window. She can't think of any enemies RH had, and she seems...not guilty, I guess. Not innocent, either, but that might just be her flat affect.

After the interview, Nick goes to the evidence locker and takes the game out to play it again.

The game is like this: You're a vampire, and you have to keep killing to keep your strength up. Nick resists, but Rita keeps saying it's not real, he should indulge himself. "What's the point of the game?" he asks, and Rita says, "Pleasure," though she's made some adjustments to this version in case anyone "came looking." She then confesses to RH's murder, but she assumes that a virtual confession isn't admissible, so tough shit, detective.

She also tells him he has to play the game to find anything out, so, you know. It looks like we're stuck in stupid A-Ha world - until Reese comes in and tells Nick to stop playing with the evidence. Nick insists he has to play the game, because Rita confessed in it. Reese says that's not probable cause (though...I'm pretty sure it is), and Nick needs to stop fooling around. Nick insists that if he plays the game through, he'll find evidence. Reese is having none of it, and Nick says he'll go meet up with Tracy - but he walks out with the game in his hand.

Because it's 1995, Tracy and Computer Detective have to actually go to Rita's office to see if her IP was logged in to the interview. It appears so when Nick arrives, and he asks if that could be faked, and Computer Detective is all:

Like, maybe? The VR company has the most advanced network she's ever seen, only she calls it an "interactive engine", which is just bizarre.

Tracy's looking through some documents just left lying around, and discovers that in the event of Low's death, all his shares revert back to the company - IOW, to Rita. Hell of a motive - but did Rita think they wouldn't find out about that one pretty quick?

Nick says of course she did, but she thinks she's planned the perfect murder, and confessed as much to him in the game. CD says Rita would have to be online to do that, but there's zero way to track her, because 45 minutes of subpoenas to ISPs would be a pretty boring episode.

Tracy dismisses Nick's plan to keep playing the game. And guys, you know how much this hurts me, but...I think Nick is right. He points out that they have no clues, and that all the game levels are actual Toronto locations. Maybe there will be clues at the actual locations that could help them solve the case.

Tracy's all:

CD butts into the conversation. Nobody likes it when Mom and Dad are fighting. She's found something weird: She's analyzing the game program, and it appears the game is deleting itself. Nick has less than 12 hours to find whatever there is to find in the game, and then it'll be gone.

Reese has pulled Rita back into the precinct. He wants Tracy and Nick there ASAP, but Nick's all hyper-focused on the game. Tracy tells him she doesn't care: when the captain says jump, they both say how high?

Turns out, the virtual confession WAS enough to pull Rita back into the box. She's not pleased, and Nick is a little methed-out when he questions her. She threatens to call her lawyer, and Reese says she can go. He's annoyed with Nick, but - Reese was the one who dragged her back in there!

Nick storms out to go investigate the scenes he saw in the game. At the first place - a museum boudoir - he finds a silver skull in a closet. At the next - some mall, or something? - he puts the game back on and Rita's all, "Hey, you found the skull? Good job! But everything gets harder from here. Now go kill that chick!"

Nick goes after the girl - in the game? IRL? - but she has a cross and thinks she'll get away. She doesn't. Nick chomps away, presumably moving around in the real world like a crazy person. His life-points go back up, and Rita tells him he has 8 hours left. He takes off the headset, and he's all vamped out.

Nick gets hold of himself and finds another clue: some...label? From something? Oh, a blood-bag label. Anyway, he takes the clues back to the precinct, where Tracy berates him for wasting time. Because he found clues. To the murder they're investigating.

Let me break that down for you: Tracy, a homicide detective, tells Nick, her partner, that he is wasting time by investigating a murder. 

Nick insists that this is worthwhile. CD is giving him guff, too, telling him that he doesn't know what the clues mean, and maybe they should try a different approach. Nick, who justifiably has had it up to HERE with these people, mojos her into agreeing with him, as Nat looks on from the other side of the room.

Tracy points out that Nick is a little methed-out, and he says it's just the game, he's going to go back to it. Nat grabs him and drags him away to read him the riot act about mojoing in the office. Nick's all, "NO ONE WILL LET ME SOLVE THIS MURDER" and man, I feel for you, but you can't just go around all methy, hypnotizing your co-workers.

Nat yells at him about the game, about how killing in the game is clearly giving him the jolt he's been looking for, and it's not good for his "recovery". He leaves to, you know, SOLVE A MURDER.

He stops off at home for a snack, and Lacroix shows up with a bottle of human blood. Nick takes it, and Lacroix admits he's been hoping that Nick is coming back around to being a real vampire, and wonders what's going on to make Nick take the human blood.

Nick explains the game, to which Lacroix replies, "How quaint." He clarifies that Nick has killed in the game, and then he's gone, leaving behind the bottle for Nick.

In the game, Nick is somewhere industrial, being attacked by enemies trying to kill him. This is just, like, a four-minute-long fight scene in A-Ha land, and I'm not pleased. Nick kills the enemy, and now he has 6 hours left. He downs his blood and heads out to find the next clue.

Which is an hourglass and a baton, and he brings them back to the station. Why, I don't know, because everyone's just like "STOP DOING YOUR JOB, DUMMY."

So he heads home after some heated words with his boss - who, remember, is actively discouraging him from doing his job for once - and goes back into the game. More industrial shit, and some dude in a TOS uniform to fight.

Nick defeats him, of course - dude should have had a red shirt on - and now he has 3 hours.

At the precinct, CD finally comes around to Nick's POV all on her own. Probably because Tracy hasn't found anything through sitting at her computer uselessly. CD posits that Rita is addicted to her own game, and she's playing with Nick - and she won't stop until she's played out the whole scenario with him. The clues are a game unto themselves; Tracy suggests it might be an anagram.

Nick's next clues are a noose and a knife. And because he only has a little time left, he puts the VR shit back on right there in the...electric plant?

The clues are an anagram, and he can't move ahead until he figures it out. He has less than an hour, so he takes out his gen2 cell phone and calls Tracy, who says they figured out it's an anagram, and then hangs up on him. Because a group isn't at all helpful to figure this shit out.

Anyway. CD puts all the names of the clues into some program she developed for the Royal Fucking Mounted Canadians, and it gives her anagram words. Nick, however, figures out the next location is St. John's - a church - just as the sun starts to rise.

He hightails it over there, smoking all the way, and puts the gear back on. Rita tells him the murder weapon is in the church - "Probably somewhere a vampire wouldn't want to touch it!"

The Useless Scooby gang back at the precinct finally figures out the anagram.

Rita is watching Nick IRL, in the church, and she shoots him with a bullet. From the murder weapon. Which, you know, would be a great idea, if Nick were human. But of course he gets up and goes after her, and almost chomps her. He mojos her so she won't remember that part, and then arrests her - and reads her her rights. 

In the coda, Nick's doing his Steve Jobs impersonation for Nat while she throws the VR gear in his fire.

Next week: JANETTE'S A HUMAN JANETTE'S A HUMAN I HAVE BEEN WAITING ALL SEASON FOR THIS ONE I'M SO EXCITED YOU GUYS!