There are two episodes that fans really struggle with. And this is one of them.
A fan favorite returns, but thanks to a confusing sequence of events we're left with a big question mark.
We finally know why Janette left. According to La Croix's flashback, she was scared of turning into Nick. His journey to redemption absolutely affected her. La Croix promised not to tell Nick, which explains his casual attitude about her departure earlier in the season. And now continues to lie to Nick's face about it.
Janette's not only back... she's no longer a vampire. ("I forgot to tell you. Uh, I'm mortal," is exactly how she explains it.) But how?
She's not sure. She had sex with her boyfriend and took a tiny bit of blood each time. Then she tried to turn her boyfriend (when he was nearly dead) and the feelings of failure did... something. I don't know, but somehow she ended up turning back into a human. She doesn't claim to understand it at all, which infuriates Nick (and us).
For such an important episode, there's not actually a lot that goes on. (There is a LOT of talking.) Basically, she killed the man who killed her lover (that's the Janette we know and love), but when she's trapped in a fire things things get a little weird.
She's too injured to escape the flames, so Nick offers to make her a vampire.
Hang on. Every time we see someone perform a conversion it's a pretty time-consuming process. That's not going to work.
Furthermore, he's a vampire. He could just fly her out of there.
So that's a little confusing. But it gets worse.
Later, after she apparently dies in the flames, the bad guys turn up dead, and they all have vampire bite marks. Who did it? I could dive into the fan theories, but the truth is that we don't know. These final scenes are confusingly edited and honestly just aren't clear. Some people think Janette survived and got revenge as a vampire. Some people think Nick or La Croix killed those men.
Sadly, it's just not possible for us to know what happened. I would love to tell you this is because the producers wanted to keep the ending mysterious, but it's actually just a baffling sequence that was not put together well. Fans are still scratching their heads over this.
Little Bites:
-This episode was directed by Geraint Wyn Davies, and Janette's adopted son is played by Geraint's actual son.
-Apparently Janette knew Napoleon's sister.
-There are some interesting locations in this episode. Since the script is just endless conversations, they tried very hard to find ways to make it look interesting.
Final Analysis: I honestly don't know how to rate this episode. It's written in a way that's hard to follow, and it's laborious to sit through the endless conversations. But Deborah Duchene is impossible to ignore. Two out of five Napoleon stories.
Adam D. Jones is a writer, historian, and undefeated cat wrestler. He also may have permanently damaged his arm by spending so much of his life holding a torch for Janette.
I mostly come down on really liking it. Admittedly just for the Jeannette "closure" I wouldn't have dared hope for. I especially loved seeing a woman for once getting to shout the epic "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!" after a loved one dies on them. Nick got in a pretty good one too lol.
ReplyDelete"("I forgot to tell you. Uh, I'm mortal," is exactly how she explains it.)"
Yeah lol. It's annoying to see that kind of casual bombshell as a common trope in TV writing today, but it's really funny to see that here in this kind of show.
I have so many problems with how this was handled. For one thing, the show establishes that vamps can sense one another AND can sense humans. How is her mortality a secret?
DeleteAnd then the fact that the script never explains it. Janette even says she doesn't know what happened. They spend a lot of time elaborating only to admit they don't have a reason for it. It's as baffling as it is frustrating.
I did like the scene where Janette is explaining exactly what she and her human boyfriend were doing that made her more human, and Nick and Natalie keep looking at each other.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely setting something up for the finale...
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