switchbladeeyes | Entries tagged with fk episode commentary

"The Fire Inside" was among the episodes I missed when Mr. SwitchbladeEyes and I watched (most of) season 2 in 2023. And… I just did not remember this episode. I thought about skipping it like I skipped some season 3 episodes. If I didn't remember an episode, how good could it be, you know?

I decided to forge ahead because season 2 is my favorite, and therefore, I'm willing to be more forgiving with it than I was with season 3. On the plus side, because of my poor memory, it was kinda like getting a whole new episode.

At the end of the day, a “fair” episode. Not that memorable (hence, me forgetting it). It had some interesting moments, but the ending left me scratching my head.

( Did Nick kill a guy at the end of this one, and nothing came of it? )

After the absolute overindulgent Bacchanalia of words/thoughts/feelings/questions I had about “Be My Valentine,” I’ve managed to tone myself down for “Partners of the Month.”

I’ll strive to be a little less wordy going forward, friends 🫡 (except for “Curiouser and Curiouser,” all bets will be off for that episode).

I enjoy "Partners of the Month." The show packs a lot into the various relationships in this episode from the platonic to the romantic.

( In which I begrudgingly admit to not hating Nick’s vest for once... )

Given the time of year, how could I resist hitting “Be My Valentine” next?

This is one of those Forever Knight episodes that makes me simultaneously say, “I love this episode!” and also, “What the hell is going on here?”

We have muuuuuuurder, unrequited romances, LaCroix in love!, Nick in love?, historical flashbacks, makeout seshes, Nick family backstory, unhinged rants by LaCroix, and a high-stakes interpersonal conflict involving a centuries' old grudge. I love this episode!

But we also have very confusing things going on that I can't quite square. Nick's never been in love with a mortal? Natalie forgot everything that happened? Nick and LaCroix are ready to kill each other again? What the hell is going on here?

Even Mr. SwitchbladeEyes observed, "Let’s face it, this show has a lot of plot holes.”

No kidding. C’est la FK.

Buckle up, friends. Of my absurdly wordy episode discussions, this is the longest one yet by far. I hope you hang in there because I would love to hear what others have to say about this episode.

( In which Nick is totally not cool with LaCroix dating his sister... )

Just when you thought Nick couldn't possibly have more to feel guilty about than he already does, along comes "Baby, Baby."

This is a very interesting episode that puts Nick in the position of trying to stop a vampire he created from regaining her humanity. The shoe is on the other foot!

( Tripped by metaphor once again. Poetry can be so deceiving. )

What do vampires, obsessively possessive psychiatrists, and psychopathic sexual predators/serial killers have in common?

A lot, apparently.

“Crazy Love” manages to be simultaneously fascinating, juicy, and wildly uncomfortable as Nick gets all hot and bothered while on the case of an escaped psychopath who hunts down, rapes, and murders women.

( Sexual predators and vampire booty calls. Where the hell was the show even going with this? )

It has been a MINUTE since I did one of these episode review/recap/rambly brain dump posts. Now that

fkficfest is over, I turn my FK fannish (autocorrect really wants this to be “Finnish”) attentions back to season 2's episodes.

Mr. SwitchbladeEyes and I missed "Near Death" (amongst others) when we watched the show last summer because Amazon yanked the show off Prime. The show was a rewatch for me after many, many years, and a first time watch for him. So as I reached an episode we missed, I asked Mr. SwitchbladeEyes if he wanted to watch it with me. I told him, “I think Nick’s soul is devoured by worms or something.” And he was on board.

Parts of "Near Death," I remembered quite well (flashbacks and a lot of the near death experience stuff) but other parts were a total blank (the modern story... turns out the police procedural aspect is not that great, which is probably why I didn't recall it).

I'm assuming fans' mileage may vary on whether the events of Nick's near death experiences were "real." (Real in the sense that they were actually, objectively happening, and not something that Nick's psyche created; no doubt it felt real enough to him.) For reasons I will discuss, I'm on #TeamNotReal. I think what he saw near death were fantastical manifestations of his mental and emotional state à la “Dying for Fame,” “Feeding the Beast,” and “Curiouser and Curiouser.”

This is an interesting episode regardless of whether you're #TeamReal or #TeamNotReal.

( Let's dig in. I'll try to keep my Nick fashion-related comments to a minimum. But I won't try that hard. )

This is a sad episode that raises some hard questions about justice and redemption for which there may be no answers. Or, perhaps, there may be many answers but no way to tell which one is "right."

The character of Travis Drake/Casey Brooks parallels Nick, both having committed heinous acts in the past for which they seek to atone. But can they ever really do that?

The backdrop of the Vietnam War was quite an effective and visceral place to set the flashbacks, probably particularly so for a 90s audience for whom events of the past and notably, the My Lai massacre (definitely an inspiration for the fictional Binh Loc massacre of the episode), would have been much closer in time than for a new viewer today.

On a different note, it was personally neat for me to see Clark Johnson guest starring since I was a big fan of "Homicide: Life on the Street" in which he played Detective Meldrick Lewis.

( Some debts can never be repaid. So where does that leave Nick? )

This one's for the fans of the fucked up love/hate relationship between Nick and LaCroix.

Through the course of the series, the two manage to do a total 180 from murderous animosity in season 1’s “Dark Knight” to genuine devotion by season 3’s “Ashes to Ashes.”

But in season 2, they’re mired in the tense, uncomfortable middle. Things could go either way. And I am HERE for it.

( Being in a vampire family is a lot like being in a crime family. You can’t just walk away. )

Another one I like!

A huge part of what's fun about this episode is the audience not knowing whether Nick actually has joined a fringe religious group and abandoned his job, home, money, and friends for it.

I mean, it does seem like the kind of thing Nick might do, especially when the group's charismatic leader says things that maybe Nick wants to hear.

( Natalie, I'm scared they've got him. He was like a zombie or something. )

We're back on an upswing after a couple "meh" episodes. I like this one. It's Forever Knight meets The Most Dangerous Game as a serial killer hunts down victims for sport in Toronto.

The stakes quickly become high for both Nick and Schanke. I find the flashbacks very interesting not only for their (disturbing) content, but also as a creative choice for a show in which Nick is the hero

( How sick do you have to be to get your thrills like this? )

It's literally forward into the past over here on my journal as I backtrack to hit this episode after taking it out of order with "Capital Offense."

Unfortunately, it's another weak episode though it does have some bright spots.

( Forver Knight math is placing the main character at a battle that occurred over 150 years before he was born. )

From the "they can't all be winners, even in season 2" files, we have “Capital Offense.” It's been a strong run until now. But what goes up must come down. It’s not the worst episode, but that's not exactly a mark in its favor. The episode makes less and less sense the more you watch it.

(And yes, I am taking episodes slightly out of order. I will be doing “Forward into the Past” after this one. For fan fiction reasons, I needed some inspirationally awful LaCroix and my brain said, “Well, there’s always the ‘Capital Offense’ flashbacks.” So here we are.)

( In which I’m not sure we solve any murders, the flashbacks don’t ultimately make a lot of sense, and Nick goes off the fucking rails as a police officer. )

This is a fun one. Jack the Ripper is a vampire and a vampire hunter comes to town! What's not to like?

( Turns out there's a vampire who's an even bigger psychopath than LaCroix. Who knew. )

The entirety of "Stranger Than Fiction" would be worth it solely for what Schanke imagines when he pictures himself as a vampire in a famous novelist's story. That stuff was SOLID GOLD.

( Famous vampire novelist Anne Rice... I mean Emily Weiss is in town promoting her latest novel, which is a leeeettle too on the nose for some of our vampire characters. )

I love this episode. We learn so much about the mysterious Janette and her backstory.

And it's also kind of a story about who social power structures exist to serve and protect and who they exist to judge, ignore, and crush. Spoiler alert, they serve men and crush women, especially "immoral" women.

( And Janette has had it with this misogynistic, patriarchal bullshit. Buckle up, this is a long one. )

I decided to go ahead and buy season 2 of Forever Knight because it’s my favorite season (notwithstanding Nick trying to make vests happen), and I missed several episodes when I was rewatching it months ago and Amazon yanked it off Prime.

I’m going to leisurely go back through season 2 since I enjoy it, can share my thoughts, and can hit those missed episodes this time around.

"Killer Instinct" was the first episode of the show I ever saw back when it first aired in 1994 and, for all I knew at the time, was the first episode of the show, period. I didn't learn about season 1 until I discovered the fandom a couple years later when I got the internet. I didn't see season 1 until it started airing on the Sci Fi channel (1997?). I never really quite warmed up to season 1 and the big gap in time is probably a reason why.

At any rate, "Killer Instinct" totally hooked me on the show.

( Vampire detective. It makes sense. Don't overthink it. )

Last night, I busted out the Lactaid and dished up some emotional support ice cream for Mr. SwitchbladeEyes and myself so we could knuckle down to watch this gut punch of a series finale.

I'm sure I have nothing to say about “Last Knight” (LK) that hasn't already been said by many other people. Nonetheless, I'm going to say my piece.

( So apparently, suicide is the answer. WTF, FK. What the actual fuck. )

I love this episode!

Last night, Mr. SwitchbladeEyes and I binged three FK episodes: “Jane Doe," "Francesca," and "Ashes to Ashes." And since I have only so much capacity to throw together my thoughts, I'm prioritizing chatting about "Ashes to Ashes."

I love “Ashes to Ashes,” but also, it has so many plot holes. A lot a lot. Like it's a bit much even for FK and I kinda hate that :-(

But it's fine! Let's turn that frown upside down and instead of “plot holes,” we'll just call them "fan fiction opportunities." :-)

( Whhhhhhew, so much happens in this one. )

"Fallen Idol" was not great, but also not terrible. This one goes on the heap of season 3's "okay" episodes.

I remembered the flashbacks from this story well because Nick's "pit of condemned bimbos" made it pretty memorable. This is Nick before he pined for humanity so he is totally down to keep women he is slowly murdering in the basement while his young nephew sleeps cozy upstairs. Yeahhhhh. It's incredibly bizarre and unworkable. Like… what’s the plan? I kind of get where LaCroix is coming from in these flashbacks.

Nice callback to the Fleur story in the flashbacks. FK is Not Great at connecting with prior events of significance so that was welcome here.

We get some classic LaCroix in the final flashback. He's often in top form when he's cruelly Making a Point to Nick. I'm like, "Ugh, why do you have to be so awful, but also, you're not wrong."

Meanwhile, in the present, Holy Medical Ethics, Natalie. What on Earth? She totally went off the rails in this episode! There are so many reasons her actions were problematic. You can't just go around experimenting on kids with vampire blood! Joey lacks the capacity to consent. Nick said no to using his blood. And her justification is nonsense (somehow this is needed so Joey and his uncle won't be separated? The investigation was still open! Plus, no prosecution case is getting made off Joey because he's a totally unreliable witness) . To be honest, this made very little sense to me for Natalie's character.

It would have made way more sense to me if it had been Nick who injected Joey with vampire blood. Nick is known to do questionable things in the name of trying to help. Because we need him to be that way to keep him interesting. Then NATALIE can divert him back to a better path than “whatever, I do what I want." That's literally her role on this show. Sigh.

Natalie complaining about working from home and having technical issues "modeming" things to the office made me LOL. At least she didn't have to deal with all the mute/unmute issues with Zoom. Or being unable to remove a Zoom filter during a court proceeding.

The killer was obvious the moment he appeared on screen.

I did LOL at Nick's comment that "no wonder" the killer "washed out" after Nick easily physically overpowered him. The killer is bigger than Nick and, if Nick were human, would presumably be stronger. I like that the show's like, "Yeah, we need to acknowledge that." Thus, Nick's comment.

Everything about Joey ending up at the Raven is confusing. Why did he go to the Raven? Because he found a Raven matchbook? I mean, maybe just coincidence since he's starting to unravel, but even if that's the case, how did he get there (and now I'm also wondering, how did he even get back to Nick's place)? Does Nick live near the club? How does the Raven not have bouncers at the door? How does a 17 year old kid get in there?

Though once he is at the Raven, it does get interesting, I have to admit that.

LaCroix was just kind of skulking around in the background during Joey's meltdown, but the camera kept going back to him. It felt like something more was supposed to happen with him, but no, not even a subsequent radio monologue.

At the very end of the episode when Natalie's like, "Was I wrong?" Nick conveniently absolves her because Joey and his uncle are happier at the end than they were at the beginning of the investigation. Record scratch. WHAT? FK, you were doing soooo well for like a second there when you let the prior episode have a messy ending. IMO, Natalie really needed to sit with the seriousness of her actions and Nick should have been more upset with her. What she did was Not Okay.

“Avenging Angel” was one I didn't remember except for the eerie and melancholy music that plays near the end of the episode after Nick finds the bullet at the shelter. I'm surprised I didn't remember it because I think this is one of season 3's better episodes.

( This one was heavy, wow. Dark. Bleak. )