SGRoA: Forever Knight S03 E20: Francesca

We're down to the last disc, Snowflakes. Three more episodes. That's it. I'd be even more sad if this one didn't include a section titled "Musical Performances".

That's right. Musical Performances. Which we'll get to at the end of this, but I did want to bring it to your attention, because seriously - WHUT.

On to the recap!

So there's a woman moving in slo-mo, and Ichabod Crane is watching her, and then she bites him, I guess? But then she puts some other dude on a table? - Oh, wait, it's a contemporary murder and a flashback, all cut together. Ichabod Crane is dead, and she's drinking his blood from a glass. Present-day guy is dead, too, in a restaurant, and she leaves a kiss-print on his forehead.

Some other dude is in...a therapist's office, I guess? And he's narrating some vampire sex.

OOOH. This ep is directed by Nigel Bennett. So far, Nige, it's damn weird.

Anyway, dude keeps narrating the vampire sex, which is acted out by chickie from the opening and Nick, back in the past. Oh. He's getting past-life regression, so he's in a charlatan's office. His "therapist" tells him that he should be concentrating on figuring out his fears, not on the actual past life. He seems disappointed by this. She tells him it's still an "experimental" therapy, and it will take some work to really get the benefit of it, but they'll get there.

Or, you know, not, because it's bullshit, but whatever, okay.

He goes to leave, and asks her to understand how disturbing it is for him. She tells him it'll be all right, but clearly it won't be, because you're on Forever Knight, guys.

At the restaurant crime scene, we have our vic: Dan Chase, a poet. He was stabbed in the heart, throat slashed after death, and drained of blood - which the killer took with her. Nat says the lip-print is as good as a fingerprint, if they can find someone to match it to.

Nick takes one look at the print and it's Flashback Time! France, before the Revolution. Some woman comes in looking like Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons, and damn, is that a good fucking movie, or what?

This? Won't be that.

Anyway. Lacroix introduces Nicolas de Chevalier (I see what they did there) to one of his "sisters": Comtesse du Montaigne. She introduces herself as Francesca and makes eyes at Nick. Lacroix apologizes for imposing on her, and she says her master is never an imposition, and then Nick says she's more beautiful than Lacroix said. She invites them to "dinner", as her estate is known for its "rare vintages".

Now, look. You guys know me. I love a good vampire pun as much as the next gal. Probably - okay, definitely - more, even. But barf barf barf all over this scene, because everyone in it is just so...smarmy. Even Lacroix, of whom I expect far better, though at least he has the grace to look faintly embarrassed by it.

In short, I totally hate Francesca already, and I think she and Nick are probably perfect for each other.

Back in the future, Tracy asks if anyone else ever experiences deja vu. She thinks the crime scene is familiar, somehow, and she doesn't like it.

Nat says that the killer is substituting killing for sex. They're looking for a woman - and she turns to Nick significantly as she says this - with a highly sublimated sex drive. She might as well say, "You know, like a vampire might have?" since these ones seem only able to have sex with other vampires, and I don't care how overrun Toronto is, if Nick and Lacroix are the finest it has to offer?

Yeah.

Therapy Dude picks up a battle axe and stares at the camera.

In the lab, Nat says that Nick's been pretty quiet about this one. So Nick, naturally, asks about the victim's stomach contents. He ate within two hours of death - pate, merlot, a fancy last meal. The kiss wasn't lipstick, but the victim's own blood. But there are no fang marks. "No," Nick says, and tells Nat that a stab wound to the heart sweetens the blood, but stops the circulation - so the body would have to be drained. He's seen it before.

And we're back! Is this why all those aristocrats had their heads taken? Were they all out of control sadist vampires? Maybe. Let's ask Jason Schwartzman. who's playing violin at Francesca's, shall we?

OMG, Ichabod is the starring soloist for this quartet!

Nick and Lacroix compliment him to Francesca, and then to his face, though Nick seems pissy about everything. Of course, that might just be Nick. Lacroix moves off, and Nick asks how Francesca got such good musicians away from Paris. "Um, by paying them, moron," she doesn't say, exactly, but jeez, Nick. How long have you been alive? Musicians will do a lot of shit for money, but if you pay us to actually, you know, make music, we'll pretty much go wherever.

He asks if all her guests have to sing for their suppers, and she says that all guests have to meet her approval. Nick won't have to sing for it.

Tracy comes down to the lab to tell them they have another body in a parking garage. Our Comtesse is slumming it.

Tracy gets hassled by a crime reporter at the scene, and, like - *sigh*. Canada, get your shit together. Why is a reporter trompsing all over this crime scene? Oh, turns out it's some guy Tracy went on one date with, which is why he thinks he can get her to talk to him, I guess?

Anyway, we don't look at the body or anything. We just go back to therapy, where Therapy Dude is telling the "doctor" that he is Francesca, it's 1780, and he's in his home on the Cote du Rhone. More vampire sex between Francesca and Nick. Dude says that Nick is his/her lover - and killer!

Tracy has some dream that Francesca's killed her and put the kiss print on her forehead. She wakes up terrified.

Therapy Dude breaks into the therapist's office to...get at his records? Like, does he not remember what he's been saying? What kind of a therapist is this?!

Dude takes the tapes home to listen to them. Then he...has his own flashback? Is imagining all this? I don't know, but I could do without watching Nick make out with anyone. Francesca stops the slobber, though, and gives Nick a goblet full of Ichabod's blood, and he's decidedly not happy about it.

Cut to the lab, where Nick's telling this story to Nat. So whose flashback was it? Who knows? But Nick does know that every drop of blood has someone's whole life in it, and he'll know everything if he tastes it. Sure, that makes sense.

Nick explains that's why the blood is so addictive. Well, you know, that, and the fact that it literally fuels your body and allows you to be alive, so, whatever. I mean, I do have a dangerous dependence on food, so who am I to talk?

Tracy goes to Vachon to ask if the killer could be a vampire, and thank God. I've missed Vachon! He explains that there are plenty of vampires who get off on the actual killing, and aren't just, I don't know, humanely processing the humans for consumption. He thinks that the blood is being collected and then sold by a "blood-broker", especially because there's no real connection between the victims.

But why were the bodies left in such public places? Tracy thinks it's not a pro, that these killings are personal, and that's why the killer doesn't clean up after herself.

Therapy Dude is still listening to his tapes, which have now devolved into exposition about the house and the drapes. I wish I were kidding. That segues into Dude recounting the first flashback we had, then turning off the tape and trying out his "new" name: Comtesse de Montaigne.

The therapist comes into the precinct to tell everyone that Dude stole the tapes, and has been talking about things that recall the killings. She also says that Dude believes he's the reincarnation of "some 18th-century Countess - a vampire," says Reese, wearing that patented "Do you believe this shit?" Reese face.

Can we get Reese his own show? Like, please? I just want him to be all, "No." and "Ain't nobody got time for this bullshit" all. the. time. I would watch 40 minutes of Reeseisms.

They listen to the one tape she still has. Dude's name is Frank lo Pietro. She claims he said he came to her because he had overwhelming feelings of being female and sleeping with men, though he'd always been straight. All these feelings were focused on being this Francesca du Montaigne - a vampire who'd lived centuries ago.

Nick looks more dismayed than usual at this, and it's Flashback Time again! He's fighting with Francesca about taking lives, about killing artists, ultimately throwing her on the bed and stalking off.

The therapist, of course, finally earns her title by saying that it's all a fantasy, that he's suffering from some sort of dissociative disorder, and not really remembering a past life.

While she's explaining this, Frank is dressing up like Francesca.

They get into how killing is sexual when you're a vampire, how the vampire myth is deeply embedded in the collective subconscious, yadda yadda. Someone clearly wanted to explore all this, and I'm not saying that it isn't worth exploring, but maybe FK isn't the best venue for expository musings on the nature of vampirism? Like, that's shit you can do in a novel or three. It's not really well-suited to a cheesy-ass vampire show in syndication.

Anyway. Everyone heads off to find Frank, but Reese holds Nick behind. He asks that Nick try to keep this case "in the real world". Nick does not laugh at him like a crazy person, and instead says he'll "try".

They go to Frank's house, and it's just a recreation of Francesca's bedroom. Like, so much so that Nick looks freaked the fuck right out.

He goes to see Lacroix, who says that Francesca's dead. Nick says maybe she isn't, and Lacroix calls reincarnation just a trick. Nick says that Frank has her soul - "Or perhaps," says Lacroix, "her soul has him." And if that's the case, will Nick arrest her soul? Oh, and, you know, Nick - she won't remember you very fondly, so maybe be careful.

Nick stalks off, as per usual.

Frank/cesca is driving around listening to The Nightcrawler, recognizing his voice, perhaps, as he muses on immortality and sin.

Back at the station, Tracy asks the therapist about dreams and deja vu, and the therapist says that dreams are just about stuff we're trying to work through. She offers Tracy a session, and Tracy's all, "Oh, yeah, no thanks. That would be good for my life and my work, so I'll pass."

In the lab, Nat tells Nick that he's an idiot for believing in reincarnation. He insists it isn't so farfetched, because after all, he exists, right? And like, ghosts and demons and shit. And also, how could this guy know all this stuff about Nick's past if it's not real? "I don't know, maybe Lacroix told him."

"Why?"

"I don't know, he's evil?"

Which is snarky, but that's not really a motivation for anything - especially since most of Lacroix's motivation is about love. Twisted love, selfish love, sure, but love nonetheless.

Tracy ends her talk with the therapist and then turns around to the crime reporter to give him the sketch of Frank. She turns back and throws the therapist's card in the trash, in full view of the reporter, so of course he grabs it out of the can. Like, seriously.

Also, can we talk about the great incidental character who could have been? Like, I do not buy that all of a sudden, some reporter is dogging Tracy's every step and haunting crime scenes and is somehow allowed in the precinct for this one episode. But imagine how awesome he could have been if he'd been with us from even just the beginning of this season? He could have been a great comic foil, or someone who pointed out how ridiculously the police are always acting - an audience stand-in. Of course, that would have required a level of self-awareness that I don't think FK could have survived, really, so maybe it's best that we can just be all "The fuck is this guy?" instead.

Tracy goes back to Vachon and asks if the name "Nicholas Chevalier" means anything to him. Ben Bass proves yet again that he's the best actor on this show by giving us a face that clearly says, "Girl. How do you not know your partner's a vampire?" while remaining neutral enough that Tracy doesn't notice anything amiss as he asks where she heard it instead of answering.

Too bad he can't keep that neutrality up when she asks if Chevalier is a vampire. He doesn't say anything, but she guesses that he is, and maybe they should be looking for him.

Reporter goes to the therapist and she gives him the bum's rush out the door. Just after he leaves, Francesca shows up, asking - not idly - if she sent the police to his/her house.

Luckily she left the tape she started for Reporter's aborted session on. They drag Reporter down to the station, and he says he didn't see Frank - he saw some woman, taller than him, going into the office. Nick orders the composite sketches altered.

Francesca takes Therapist to some basement somewhere? There's a human-sized cage, and it seems a gentle captivity for the moment. Francesca brings Therapist some food on a tray, and talks about how she's all that's left of Francesca, and how she remembers her hopes and dreams and needs.

And it's Flashback Time again! Nick has wandered downstairs, where Francesca keeps the musicians in cages. She follows him, telling him to go back upstairs: "The chef doesn't spend time in the slaughterhouse." (Except, you know, for all those that do, because farm-to-table wasn't hipster then, it just WAS, but whatever.) Nick is, of course, all aghast that she looks at people like food, and she's all, "Um, duh, we're vampires".

Nick tries to free the musicians and then impales her on a portcullis.

Nick tells all this to Nat, and says that Frank has been feeding his victims like Francesca did. He'd have to keep them somewhere private - and then he's running off after repeating that "chef in the slaughterhouse" line.

It's a typical Forever Knight climax, with Nick running to the rescue at the last minute. Francesca tries to kill him and ends up dead again, of course.

In the coda, we learn that Nick mojo'd the therapist after she saw him vamp out, and Nick tells Nat that Francesca threatened to come back again.

Tracy goes to see the therapist after all, but only because she wants to believe she was reincarnated from one of Francesca's victims. The doctor is all, "Um, no, this shit isn't real." and Tracy's all, "Well, but it could be, just like vampires." Something crosses the doc's face, and she agrees to regress Tracy.

Who was Ichabod.

Next week: DIVIA DIVIA DIVIA OMG YOU GUYS I HAVE WAITED LIKE TWO SEASONS FOR THIS I'M SO EXCITED.