A sicko has just murdered Natalie's god-daughter, and things are about to get personal.
Also, things are about to get depressing.
This one starts off on a dark, somber note, and sort of slides down from there.
It's a bit compelling to think about a child killer getting away with a crime. That boils the blood. You can't help but feel Natalie's anger and get on board with her crusade. People like Gault shouldn't exist, and who doesn't want to see them pay?
Should vigilante groups hunt down pedo killers? Probably not, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. As Schanke put it, "The ol' rope dance is too good for him."
Undue Process is an effort to discuss these thorny problems, but it doesn't fit in with a show about vampires. Every now and then I wonder if they're using rejected Law & Order scripts.
The oppressive, dark feeling of the episode makes this a depressing forty-five minutes.
Flashback:
After being hanged for a crime he didn't commit, Nick goes after his killers, one by one. His roaring rampage of revenge is satisfying for Nick... until he realizes this is yet another trick by La Croix, who always wants Nick to embrace his vampiric id, to follow his bloodlust rather than his humanity.
The lesson he learned has to do with vengeance and taking the law into his own hands, but I'm not sure I agree with his application of this wisdom. What's the point of being a vampire with a soul if you can't rid the world of a child killer?
Little Bites:
-Vampire Lore: Nick's heightened sense of smell shows up again. This time he's sniffing the killer's blood, following his trail in the dark. Don't play hide-and-seek with this guy.
-Normally I praise Schanke's police work, but firing his pistol blindly into the air to scare a crowd is poor gun safety. (Please don't ever fire a gun into the air. Please.)
-The "evil" lawyer is actually the good guy here. We love to hate lawyers who represent criminals, but a guilty verdict has trouble sticking when due process has not been followed, and these lawyers are responsible for making sure we put the bad guys away by the book. (Of course, there are wicked lawyers who defend scumbags for the money, but that's not the case here.)
Final Analysis: I salute the attempt to discuss such an important and serious issue, but this episode is too dark to enjoy, and has almost nothing to do with vampires. 1 out of 5 angry mobs.
Adam D. Jones is a writer, historian, and undefeated cat wrestler. He is also something of a vigilante himself, having passive-aggressively glared at his neighbor for playing their music too loud.
Very nice, looks like they listened to my bitching about the featured women. I must be temporally un-grounded, hehe
ReplyDelete