A psychic nearly blows Nick's cover.
Two women go missing—the wife and daughter of a rich philanthropist—and Nick and Schanke are on the case. It's high-profile stuff, with celebrity entanglements and calls from the mayor, but things get really rough when the lovable Captain Stonetree assigns a quirky psychic to the case.
Denise, the psychic, joins the investigation and wanders all over the crime scene in a trance. You can't do that. You can't walk around crime scenes. Trust me. I did that by accident once that thought a cop was about to arrest me. So angry. Yes, I should have been paying more attention, but that's not important. The important thing is that you can't just go wandering through a crime scene all willy-nilly, but Captain Stonetree lets Denise do whatever she wants.
But psychic Denise is useless because she's plagued by visions of Nick's long and violent life, so, following Natalie's advice, Nick tells her the truth about being a vampire. She digs it, and now she can focus on the case, but she really wants to know if Nick is able to fly.
With her psychic ability no longer clouded, she helps the detectives discover that Hedges, the philanthropist was skimming off the top and getting rich off of his own charity. Not really a surprise. He has the biggest house in Toronto and a personal limo driver. People who run charities don't have that much money.
Turns out, the wife and daughter learned that Mr. Hedges was a crook, so he had them kidnapped (the plan was to kill them both) to save his reputation. Our heroes confront him in a climactic finale, but Hedges pulls a gun and shoots Denise. As she bleeds out, Nick carries her in his arms up, up, and away into the sky, to experience the joy of flying before she dies.
Which, I'm guessing, was a better idea that flying her to the intensive care unit, but what do I know?
This is followed by a strange scene where Nick sits around his apartment and remembers things people said. It's weird and throws off the pacing. More on that below.
Flashback:
Nick is hanging out with some Puritan settler. If you ever watched Highlander: The Series, one of the fun parts is that you can build the immortal main character's timeline from his flashbacks. Duncan spends some time in Scotland, then Japan, then Europe during the great wars, finally splitting time between France and Canada/Washington state. It's fun that his backstory can be plotted out in an organized timeline.
But Forever Knight doesn't hold up to this scrutiny. As we progress, Nick will hop around the globe like someone was throwing darts at a map. It's very hard to believe a vampire could globetrot like he does in olden times.
Anyway, his Puritan buddy saw Nick as a vampire and thinks he's going nuts. Nick tried to keep his nature a secret, but it drove the neurotic Puritan guy so crazy he hanged himself. Haunted by his mistake, Nick decides not to let the same thing happen to Denise.
Quotes:
"Tell her the truth, Nick. I know what you are and it hasn't made me crazy."
"Maybe you're one of a kind, Nat."
"That's what I've been trying to tell you for ages."
"That's fantastic... and scary and weird... 800 years!"
Little Bites:
Fashion Police: The daughter wears a hat inspired by the hit 90s TV show Blossom. If you're too young to know what I'm talking about, ask your parents and see how much they cringe.
Wasting time: Why does Nick sit in his apartment forever, looking like a sad puppy and bouncing a ball against the far wall? It's not merely a reference to The Great Escape, this was necessary because some TV markets had longer time slots than others. In the 90s, people had to add extra scenes that were edited out of the non-American broadcasts. Sometimes, these moments are called "Eurominutes." (Hence the random slow-mo videos on Baywatch that had nothing to do with the episode, and the extended Highlander scenes where Duncan rides around in his car for a really long time.) This is the first time we see a music video-esque approach filled with audio flashbacks, but it won't be the last.
Finding the cure: Natalie makes Nick drink a disgusting protein shake. He hates it. Later, Schanke accidentally drinks it and no one knows what to tell him.
-Schanke is flattered by a reporter and gives an interview against Stonetree's orders, because the man can't resist being on TV. He has a weakness for the spotlight that will fuel a few more episodes.
-The title, "Dying to Know You," doesn't seem to have any relationship to the script. It's the sort of thing a producer would come up with to make the show sound edgy. Or a writer who had ten seconds to come up with a title.
-The wife and daughter are mostly only in the opening scene where they are...driven in a limo to Toronto's nicest stores to max out their credit cards? They don't act like they're about to blow the whistle on dear ol' dad for stealing from his charity. Heck, they're the ones spending all of his stolen money.
Final Analysis: This episode did not include Janette or any other vampires, and the investigation and mystery don't really make sense. 2 out of 5 bouncing balls.
Adam D. Jones is a writer, musician, and medievalist who feels a kinship for vampires because his sensitive eyes that make it difficult to go outside during the day.
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