THIS IS IT. THIS IS THE ONE. We finally will put to rest the "Is Janette dead?" question once and for all. (She totally is, you guys. Just like Screed.) LET'S RECAP.

Some dadbod in boxers is watching TV in...a hotel room, I think. It sounds like cartoons. "Nancy" is in the shower, and he tells her to hurry up just before there's a knock at the door. He opens it. A woman says, in French, "Hello, Mario."

"What do you want?"

"You." And bam! She shoots him. She steals a key he has in an envelope, and leaves. Nancy finds him dead, and doesn't look particularly upset. She looks out the window, and sees Janette, who then flees.

It's a one-night stand, says Nancy. She picked him up at a bar. Did she see the woman at the bar? Not that she remembers.

Nat tells us it was a small caliber, silenced weapon. Janette meant business. And then boom! Right into some Nightcrawler.

He's talking about how winter is the best season, because it's bleak and cold and won't make one's heart melt with love or memory. Janette is listening in a car outside the Raven, and it's Flashback Time!

Not very far back, of course. She and Lacroix are chatting over a glass of "wine", and then she turns the bar over to him. Nigel Bennett's acting in this scene is amazing. His face basically doesn't move as he asks her why she's turning it over, why she's leaving - and yet, you can feel his heart breaking. Oh, I know Nick thinks Lacroix doesn't love anyone but himself, but this scene shows all that posturing Lacroix does for Nick for the lie it is. He loves Janette, and this is killing him.

Janette is brought back to the present, where she's crying, by a child's voice in the car with her. Patrick asks when they're going home, and she says soon, but would he like to spend some time at Aunt Peggy's? Sure - better than being in the car all day.

Nancy's at the precinct with the sketch artist while Nick and Tracy look on. The vic - Mario LaRouche - worked for the Montreal Arson Investigation division. He was on vacation - at a no-tell motel in Toronto. So says Reese, anyway, distracting Nick from watching the computer sketching. When he turns back, there's Janette on the screen - and he remembers being turned.

Nick takes the sketch to Lacroix, but Lacroix says that vampires know how to disappear. And they would have sensed her - not even getting into the fact that she would have no reason to shoot an arson investigator, would she?

Nick thinks there was something more to Janette's sudden moving on, and he presses Lacroix about it, but Lacroix has nothing to say. Plenty to remember, though. Janette told him why she was leaving: she had doubts about what she was. She didn't want to end up like Nick, drawn to humanity, hating herself. She had to leave.

Lacroix agreed - and now is deliberately keeping it from Nick, because Nick has enough doubt, and because Nick and Janette had such a close and loving relationship.

We're only 9 minutes in, you guys.

Janette's driving through the city. She stops at a light, I think - or maybe just to cry, because now she's alone and Lacroix's talking about her on the radio and OMG I NEED A TISSUE - and someone shoots her from the next car.

Nick goes home to the loft, and of course he's still thinking about being turned, when Janette shows up at his door. He says it's good to see her, and she says she's glad he thinks so. He then tells her about the case, and she admits to the murder. She knows she's put him in a terrible position, but she needs his help.

"You could have just gone away."
"No. There's evidence I need to find."

She tells him to arrest her or help her, but not to decide right now - she needs to rest.

At the precinct the next night, Nick's not in and Tracy's following up on an abandoned car found shot all to hell by the civic center. It's registered to a Robert McDonough, who was shot and killed in Montreal a week ago.

Nick agrees to help Janette, of course. He asks if she really intended never to see him again, to leave with no explanation. She admits that yes, she thought it would be easier. And then she tells him why she left: because of him. She gives a gorgeous speech, too:

A vampire's heart must be cold. Immortality makes this so. Death is always around us, but we must never allow it to touch us. So we cannot allow the emotion of loss to infect us. Lacroix knew this, and I agreed with him. But you...after 800 years, you could no longer live without your humanity. I began to wonder if you were right. 800 years...it's a long time to live with a cold heart, only for yourself.

Nick says she should have come to him for help, but she counters that she liked her immortality, and was afraid of his suffering. So she went to Montreal to reaffirm the vampire in her, but she was caught up in the very dilemma she was trying to avoid. Nick asks what that is, but she says they have to go.

The key she took from LaRouche is to a locker in the Civic Center. In the locker are $50k and the location of the next fire LaRouche was supposed to set for a Toronto real estate developer.

Tracy's still following up on McDonough, and she's off to see his sister, who lives in the area. Guessing her name is Peggy.

LaRouche framed a "friend" of Janette's for the arson. Nick chides her for killing LaRouche in revenge, and she's all,

Nick accepts the admonishment, for once.

Tracy's off to see the sister, who says that "Bobby's" girlfriend - Janette de Brabont - and his son, Patrick, are here in town, and were driving the car. Janette's off to see her brother in the city, whose name Peggy doesn't know. Patrick might - should she wake him? Yes, says Tracy, after Peggy confirms that it's Janette in the sketch.

Back in the car, Janette finally spills it all to Nick. She was in love with Robert McDonough - more in love than she thinks Nick can imagine. She's Patrick's official guardian, and she can't let the lie about Robert's involvement in the arsons stand for his son's sake.

Patrick says that Janette's brother's name is Nicholas, but he doesn't know about the last name. But he has a picture, and gets it for Tracy - and it was taken in '93, so it's so very clearly Nick.

Robert saved Janette from a fire - that's how they met. His heroism was beyond Janette's comprehension; he reminded her of Nick. Through Robert, she realized that Nick's quest to be human again was right. Robert was injured that night, and so was transferred to the arson squad, where all the trouble with LaRouche started. But he was also with Janette from that night on.

Nick asks the obvious question: how were they together? Did Robert know? So Janette flashes back to telling Patrick stories about Napoleon's sister. Robert comments that she tells the stories like she was there, and she says well what if I was? She says there shouldn't be secrets between them, and then she goes for it. She has him put his hand on her heart, so he can feel no pulse. And then she vamps out on him!

She relays all this to Nick, and he asks how Robert took it. She sums it up by saying that love conquers all - which, as we know now, is completely an evasion. Nick asks how Robert got involved in the arson cover-ups, so she flashes back to overhearing LaRouche offering to involve Robert in the whole scheme. Robert offered to think about it, but of course was only confirming that there was a cover-up to begin with.

Near the lockers, two shady dudes are hanging around. Because of course. They want to wait until Janette's opened the thing, but Nick notices them and says they should come back. They leave, and creepy people follow, and they shoot Janette in the shoulder and then run off. Janette's bleeding all over the floor, and she says, "Oh, BTW, I'm mortal again."

Since she's shot, Nick takes her right to Nat. Who is, of course, disbelieving of Janette's mortality.

The cop at the Civic Center - who saw it all go down - confirms to Reese that Janette was shot. Tracy almost tells him about Nick, but thinks better of it.

In the lab, Nat is outlining all the million ways this is a very, very bad idea - including that Janette's a murderer and Nat's stitching her up is basically aiding and abetting. Janette apologizes for getting them both involved, and Nat comes back with asking how she managed to turn human again.

"I fell in love with a mortal," Janette says, and Nick and Nat share A Look. Janette goes on to say she knew the change was possible the first time she and Robert made love - and she didn't kill him. His blood was in her, and it "calmed her heart". Every time they had sex, she would take less blood.

Nat, of course, is all, "Whut?" because duh, this isn't really possible. Janette's all, Yeah, I know, Robert had to bite it before I could be all the way human again. She tried to bring him across, and failed. Her grief was eight centuries of repressed emotion, and the last nail in the coffin, so to speak, for her vampirism was when she killed LaRouche.

This is where the episode goes off the rails for me. This is just weird, mystical woo-woo bullshit. I mean, yes, vampires, okay. I am clearly suspending disbelief for a while. But even if your story is about magical creatures, the magic has to be consistent. It has to have rules. There can be seeming exceptions to the rules (like powers that are rare, and perhaps haven't been seen in centuries, or ever before), but you can't just make it up as you go along and decide that TWOO WUV - or magical semen or something - will cure vampirism. Come the fuck on.

Anyway. Nat sends them on their way, giving Janette some pain pills for the road. I hope that's the good shit, Nat. In for a penny, and all. Janette asks to call Peggy, to make sure Patrick's okay, but of course the murderers are already there. They'll exchange Peggy and Patrick for the key.

Tracy goes to Nat with the picture. Nat fobs it off as the pic is blurry, Nick has no siblings, blah blah. Tracy's not buying it. She presses Nat, and Nat says that she knows Nick, and he always tries to do the right thing.

At Peggy's, the kidnappers are setting up an arson. The lead guy, who looks like Stanley Tucci and Louis Litt had a baby who turned to a life of crime, says Nick should never have gotten involved in this, and tells Nick to throw the key on the table. Stanley Litt then picks up the key, tells the other kidnapper to let Peggy and Patrick go, and then shoots Nick and Janette. No one gets let go, and he sets it all on fire.

Nick gets up and tries to save Janette first, but of course she redirects him to the restrained people. Patrick tries to save Janette, too, but Nick says he'll take care of her, and Patrick and Peggy run out the door.

Janette is dying. Nick offers to bring her across, and she tells him not to, that he has to get out before he burns up, too. He lets out a cry of rage, and the screen fades to black.

In the coda, Nat's talking about how Janette turned human because of beta blockers and epinephrine from emotional trauma. They've been on the right track all along! She's got proof: She's having Nick's baby!

Which is all a dream, of course. A terrible dream, interrupted by Reese on Nick's answering machine, demanding his presence at a double homicide. Nick dutifully shows up at the crime scene - the Civic Center - and thanks Tracy for covering for him. She says she just hopes it was the right thing to do, and he assures her it was. She then tells him all about the murders - looks like LaRouche was covering up arsons.

Nick goes over to Nat and tells her that Patrick is safe with his aunt and uncle. He then tells her he can't take the chance with her life that Janette took with Robert's, and Nat says she's okay with that. Nick says he is, too, and Nat says that's good, because his day is about to get even crappier: the vics have vampire bites on their throats.

Oh. Oh, I see. This is why people think she wasn't dead. But, seriously, no. She was human. She was shot. She burned up in the fire. And you know who killed Stanley Litt and the other kidnapper?

LACROIX. Because at the very end of the episode, this is what he says to Nick:

Even Leonardo couldn't capture all of her beauty. Strange how things turn out, isn't it. Through hellish circumstance, she obtains what has been so elusive to you - only to have that one-in-a-million happenstance taken from her by you.

As they're both standing in front of the portrait of Janette. Nick says, "You haven't told me everything." Lacroix returns with, "Neither have you. It seems I have lost a daughter - and regained a son. Plus ça change, Nicolas. Plus ça change."

SGRoA: Forever Knight, S03 E16: The Human Factor

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