Forever Knight (Season 1 Ep.15) - "Dying for Fame"
Come on, Nicholas. It's time to rock.
Rachel:Welcome back, friends. Welcome back.
Matt:Welcome.
Rachel:Oh, It's time for another episode of Forever Knight. And despite Matt's commentary over there, I am happy to note that he is now laughing out loud several times during each episode at things that are meant to be jokes. So I feel like I have made a convert out of you. You might if I put this on.
Matt:I don't think I had to be converted, just exposed.
Rachel:Well, you had to yeah. You had to actually give it a chance, which is true for most of these vintage television shows. You just gotta give them a chance. Yep. And I think if I put it on and you walked through the room, you'd stop.
Rachel:Watch it. So that's my definition of success for this evening.
Matt:Cool.
Rachel:I guess we'll just get started because this episode was a wild time.
Matt:Everybody was tripping, even Nick.
Rachel:Even Nick. So hi, I'm Rachel.
Matt:And I'm Matt.
Rachel:Welcome to the Strange and Beautiful Book Club. So we open in a music video, which this is the most nineties hairstyle I have ever seen in my entire life. The
Matt:It's close.
Rachel:Perm, the coiled perm. I don't know what you wanna call that, but the just the it's a lot. It's a lot. And if you recognize this woman playing Rebecca, congratulations, she played Alma in Dark Knight.
Matt:I didn't know that.
Rachel:Bold of them to recycle an actress for a major part in the later episode, usually they're just filling in bit parts. They're not create they're not being a major act.
Matt:Who was Alma in Rebecca. Their what did the Alma character do?
Rachel:She's the 1 who seduced Skanky in The Raven when he went back, and he was like, my father fooled around. It's a family tradition.
Matt:Gotcha.
Rachel:And he snuck back alone, and that's when he almost became a permanent member of the night shift.
Matt:Right. Especially since we flashed back to that at least once.
Rachel:Yeah. I think so.
Matt:I think twice.
Rachel:Yeah. It was just a bold choice. But, of course, she couldn't go back and check, so they didn't care. Yep. But we open in this music video, and the song is Fan Kill.
Rachel:And it's a song all about this actress, not actress. Well,
Matt:she's a very
Rachel:actress, but
Matt:It's a very nuanced message. There's layers of meaning here. Depth. It means she wants to kill her fans.
Rachel:Yeah. Literally. Over this shit, and she wants all of her fans to die. And we do a nice transition from the music video to somebody watching the music video, which is a gentleman in a hotel room. And he's naked from the waist up, and he's in the bed with a woman who's naked from the all the up and down, which Matt was like, oh, she's not wearing any clothes.
Rachel:But he gets pulled away from watching this video and,
Matt:She sneaks up behind him.
Rachel:Yeah. There's an implied She
Matt:wraps herself around him.
Rachel:Implied lead up to an intimate moment because she is very aggressively rubbing his face. Just like
Matt:That's a little weird.
Rachel:Yeah. Weird. But the weirder part is when she pulls a
Matt:knife. She she moves around and straddles him.
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:And then and then we're flashing back and forth between them in the bed and the music video. And in the music video, as part of her act about wanting to kill the fans, she has this big knife and and then, the lady in the bed who looks a lot like her.
Rachel:Well, it's just her hair. We only see her
Matt:from the bed. Implied that it is her.
Rachel:Yeah. Because we only see her from the bed.
Matt:And she pulls the knife out from
Rachel:Same long blonde hair.
Matt:Under the pillow.
Rachel:And stabby stabby. Yep. Stabs him. And we find out he has we zoom in on his tattoo that says Rebecca, fan for life. So that's our
Matt:We had the little, like, title caption on the music video so that we know that the lady singing is Rebecca.
Rachel:Right.
Matt:And then this guy was a Rebecca fan.
Rachel:Right. Yeah. Back when they used to play music videos on the television and the way that you knew what the record artist song title was was a little title card in the bottom left hand corner. Yeah.
Matt:It's not like Spotify where it scrolls across the whole time.
Rachel:Right. So we open with both the tragedy of this music video and the tragedy of this man getting murdered during an intimate moment. And then we cut to our credit scene. And when we come back, Stonetree is calling everybody in early. He's talking to Skanky.
Rachel:He's like, look at this place. It's a ghost town. I gotta get it. I gotta get people in here. I gotta fill the I gotta fill the room.
Rachel:Skanky is really familiar with Stonetree, like, overly familiar with someone who is in a position of authority because he's like, captain. I think you're overreacting. I don't think you need to bring everybody in. You're being ridiculous. And Stonetree is like, skanky.
Rachel:I don't think you get to make that call. And as evidence, he puts on an interview, like a TV interview, and it's this reporter interviewing people
Matt:On the streets.
Rachel:On the streets about how upset everyone is with Rebecca for this music video. And we get these really funny Toronto surfer dude. No. It is not just a an innocent entertainment. It's a stupid and dangerous attitude.
Rachel:A kidding. Like, we love her and she wants to kill us. Like, a really nice way to say thanks, Rebecca.
Bystander:That's right, man. Like, who the hell does she think she is? I mean, like, kill her, man. Like, she's totally dissing her fans. Maybe she should die.
Interviewer:Are you going to her concert?
Bystander:Freaking right, man.
Matt:This is how upset Canadians get.
Rachel:Yeah. Clearly it's not. I mean, it's a big deal, but not that big of a deal. It's selling her records. It's selling her tickets, which is probably exactly what it was designed to do.
Rachel:He does end up agreeing with Stonetree though, because, Stonetree's like, you see what I'm talking about? And Skanky says, teenage angst. Tom Tree is like, no. Death threats, Skanky. Skanky said
Matt:I got the stadium full of cops and whatever, and I still have to keep, like, regular cops on the street
Rachel:Right.
Matt:While the stadium is full of cops.
Rachel:Yeah. And then we get a weird dream sequence. We cut to a diner, which we don't immediately know this is a dream, but we cut to a diner, and it's a little bit anachronistic. There's people in different period costumes. It's a little bit strange, but Natalie and Nick are eating there, and they bring him a whole bunch of food.
Rachel:And she's like, oh my God, Nick. Don't you think you're overdoing it? And he's like,
Matt:You've got no idea what it's like to have lived almost 800 years and never tasted a French fry.
Rachel:And then he gets the ketchup, and he goes to squeeze the ketchup on the fries.
Matt:But it's a little too
Rachel:Bloody.
Matt:Liquidy.
Rachel:It's blood. And he very deliberately pulls this saturated fry out from the bottom and holds it up, and he's like
Matt:And the blood drips.
Rachel:Yeah. He's like, it's blood, Natalie. And then he looks around and everybody has blood on their hands or they're drinking blood or whatever. And then suddenly the waitress is Jeanette, and the short order cook is Lacroix, and everybody's laughing at him. And he wakes up and he's sweating blood.
Rachel:And he's woken up because Skanky has called him, because Stonetree is literally calling everyone in, because no 1 gives a shit about the fact that Nick is allergic to sunlight.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:I don't know how many times it must come up where he's like, I I can't. I'm allergic to sunlight. And they're like, how allergic? Because they never believe him. They're always like, okay.
Rachel:Yeah. Like, you're allergic to sunlight. Well, can you come in during the day? That'd be great. Thanks.
Matt:We we really need you here.
Rachel:Oh, and there's that scene during the dream sequence where they pour blood in the coffee cup. Yes. And we get that very deliberate, well done drip down the side of the coffee cup.
Matt:That's a well executed drip.
Rachel:It is. And it reminded me of a line from Daybreakers where the guy there's like a coffee shop, and the guy takes his coffee cup bag to the coffee shop, and he goes, I want more fucking blood in my coffee. Anyway, Daybreakers is a good movie. Oh, I love the detail that even Lacroix has a pencil behind his ear. Like, they fully made him up as the short order cook.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:Which I've tried to find gifts of forever night before. And pretty much the only 1 I can ever find is this 1 of LaCroix behind the counter in the, like, period short order cook uniform with, like, blood dripping from his mouth, just laughing hysterically. Yeah. Which if you had to sum up LaCroix, is it a bad gift? I don't think so.
Rachel:This also sets us up for what is kind of the overarching theme for the episode for Nick, which is his isolation from reality, from real people, from mortality, which is what I love so much about this show. And I'm really glad that we're doing this together and watching it through In Order because I can't tell you the last time I watched this through in order. And there's definitely episodes that I'm like, oh, no. That's the weird 1. I'm not gonna watch that 1.
Rachel:So I don't know that I watched this episode anytime recently.
Matt:Okay.
Rachel:And a lot of other vampire shows focus on, like, the hunger, blood, needing blood, whatever. But in this 1, it's effectively a solved problem. He yes. He's not happy with his choice of beverage, but it's not something that harms his ability to interact with normal people.
Matt:The way that he wants to interact.
Rachel:The way that he wants to interact.
Matt:It may impact his ability to use vampire abilities Right. Because he's a little bit weaker. But he doesn't really want to depend on those. And drinking animal blood instead of human blood lets him live a normal enough life that he can interact with society the way that he or at least in a manner close to approaching what he would want to do.
Rachel:And by training this as, like, a solved problem, by not emphasizing the whole, like, hunger blood issue, we really get to explore isolation and the fact that immortality is inherently isolating.
Matt:Right. There's the scene in the, in the jail cell Yeah. Where Rebecca is talking to Nick, and I thought that was a really good metaphor for or they were drawing a really good parallel, between Rebecca's almost, like, involuntary fame
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:And, and Nick's vampirism
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:And the like, all of the downsides of being famous, but you don't actually get to be famous.
Rachel:Right. Yeah. And that and we explore that a lot in this episode is his feeling of isolation, the fact that he's not just immortal. He literally has to watch everyone that he loves die. And no matter how much he loves a life, he can never keep it.
Rachel:And so he's always going to have to move on. Yep. And everyone in his life, except for the people that sort of drive him nuts, like Lacroix and Jeannette to a certain extent, are all transient. They will all disappear. And so in the end, he's alone, and we talk about that a lot in this episode.
Rachel:And this is definitely an episode where we have put on our nineties glasses because we explore these themes in ways that seem overtly ridiculous. They were not intended to be. And at the time, they were probably not viewed as such. But with our 2023 eyes, when Nick just hauls off and starts hallucinating and looking at television screens of the life he can't have, it feels a little heavy handed.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:But they were trying to convey this in a way that the majority of people could understand in I
Matt:think they were trying to, like, match the aesthetic of music videos Yeah. In in the way that Nick was imagining his, separation from
Bystander:Right.
Matt:Society. And
Rachel:I think this whole episode is supposed to play like an episodic music video where you get this odd symbolism as because you had what? Music videos are short form. Right? You have Right. 3 to 4 minutes to convey whatever the artist wish to convey in there.
Matt:And whatever the director wished to convey that
Rachel:Right. Has not interfered with
Matt:the music.
Rachel:Whatever you were trying to get across, you had 4 minutes. In this case, we have 45 minutes. And so we're trying to show the viewer the depth of Nick's isolation and loneliness in 45 minutes. And so they do a really good job of that. So just put the nineties glasses on.
Rachel:It's okay if it's a little bit silly, but just realize what they were trying to say. And so we set it up almost immediately because Nick wakes up from this weird dream, and we're already supposed to be sort of conflating Rebecca's situation and Nick's situation because they are on parallel trajectories when they wake up. They both wake up a little hungover. They both
Matt:They both drink out of a glass bottle?
Rachel:Yeah. They immediately go for a bottle. She says, I think I'll have the continental breakfast. He says, what day is it? What century is it?
Matt:What time is it? What day is it? What century is it?
Rachel:And they're both alone having this moment in the morning, which is like, fuck, I woke up again. And I'm still living the same life I love I was when I went to sleep. Shit. Because Nick even, like, sits down and leans against the wall. He's like, here's to my health, and holds up the bottle.
Rachel:And to continue the parallel, Rebecca's manager is talking to her on the phone.
Matt:Almost berating her.
Rachel:Yeah. And Nick
Matt:About how she needs to get in.
Rachel:Nick is listening to Skanky leave a voicemail on his voicemail machine, his answering machine. And he actually says, Stonetree's sweating blood, which I thought was kinda funny because Yes. Nick literally sweats blood. Funny joke. But mostly it's like, come in.
Rachel:We need you. And for some reason, Nick does.
Matt:Yeah. He suits up full coverage.
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:Drives his car in.
Rachel:During the day. And meanwhile, Skanky has gotten a little bit shamed for his music taste because they're listening to the radio and he's like, I just don't understand rock these days. And then the announcer says, coming up next, it's BTO. Skanky's like, finally, some hard rock. And then it finishes on the easy listening station.
Rachel:And Skanky's like, PTO isn't easy listening. I don't listen to easy listening music. I listen to, like, hard I'm I keep up with the youths.
Matt:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Skanky is Skanky has a lot of awkward scenes.
Rachel:Yeah. But Stonetree comes out and he's like, god, has anybody seen Nick? Isn't he coming in? I literally told everybody they had to come in even though Nick might actually die, which he has told me multiple times. Ugh.
Rachel:And I just don't seem to believe it. And Skanky has his back. He's like, oh, yeah. Yeah. He's on his way.
Rachel:He'll be here in a couple of minutes. And so somebody looks out the window and they're like, isn't that Nick's car outside already? Because Nick's stuck in the car. He can get to the station, but he can't get from the station to the inside. And so Skanky comes out and Nick just slides over, probably because his Cadillac is just 1 long seat in the front.
Rachel:So it's easy enough to just slide over. He probably doesn't have a console in the middle. No. No.
Lacroix:It's like a
Rachel:It's like a bench seat. And so he slides over, and Skanky gets in. He's like, I have a question for you. Do you think BTO is easy listening? And Nick's like, I really don't fucking care.
Rachel:Just trying not to burst into flames right now.
Matt:I'm trying to stay, not dead.
Bystander:Would you ever consider Bachman Turner overdrive easy listening? Can we get out of here, please? Nice outfit. Don't you think you're overreacting a little to this ozone thing? Not really.
Bystander:Drive. Have you been to a barbecue or something? Would you just drive? Seriously, BTO easy listening.
Rachel:I think not. No. I'm not overreacting. That's the whole fucking point. Nobody ever sees this
Matt:as a baby. This is why I work the night shift.
Rachel:And so we go to the hotel and it occurred to me that Natalie might be a psychopath, because she very cheerfully tells everybody that the stab marks on the body are in such a nice, neat little row. And it reminded me of that scene from when they go to the swimming pool, and all of the, like, bloodless pieces of body are wrapped and gently arranged in the swimming pool.
Matt:And everyone's like And
Rachel:everyone's like, oh my god. That's grotesque. And he's like, that's so fucking gorgeous.
Matt:There's no blood anywhere.
Rachel:He's so enamored with the presentation. And so Natalie and every time we've seen Natalie interact with the body in the last 3 or 4 episodes, she's been very glib about it. Except, oh no, we haven't done the episode with the burn body yet. Nevermind.
Matt:No, you were watching ahead the other night.
Rachel:I know, I did. I watched some season 2. Sorry. Nevermind. Anyway, it occurred to me that she might be a little bit left of center, which explains why she was like, oh, you're a vampire?
Rachel:Sweet. We could work together.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:Yeah. Anyway, thought that was interesting.
Matt:I figured it was part of the almost surreal aspect of this episode.
Rachel:Could be. It's also so we can later reference the fact that the nice, neat little rose, because Rebecca claims she was so shit faced, she couldn't remember what was happening. So how could someone who was so drunk, they literally were blackout drunk, stab somebody in nice, neat little rose? Right. Yeah.
Rachel:She's also not shocked to see Nick even though it's daytime. She's just like, oh, hey everybody, check out this body. It's pretty freaking sweet. Yeah. Nick is asking questions and it's clear he doesn't know who's staying in this hotel room because the register says
Matt:some random he nor skanky.
Rachel:Yeah. And Natalie's like, oh, come on. Don't you guys know this is Rebecca's room? And they're like, oh, shit. Stonetree was right.
Rachel:We really did need to come in. And so we cut through the concert because Rebecca has arrived, and they've decided to do, like, it it doesn't really matter. She's drunk. She's so drunk. They're gonna do a recorded.
Rachel:They're gonna do a recorded lip sync. And we get to see her singing Fan Kill live, quote, unquote, live on stage. And she literally takes out a 9 millimeter automatic and fires it into the crowd.
Matt:And It's gotta be fire in blanks.
Rachel:Oh, obviously. But as someone an American in 2023, this was hard to see because you're like
Matt:because this has literally happened.
Rachel:This has literally fucking happened and people died.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:And it happens on average, what, like, every day?
Matt:At least once a day? It's like 1.3 mass shootings per day.
Rachel:Yeah. So to watch this treated as a narrative device in a television show was like, wow. Wow. Which were what? When is when is, Columbine?
Rachel:19 99. 1999. Yeah. We're like
Matt:7 years.
Rachel:7 6, 7 years away from Columbine. Yeah. Anyway, I just that was but they're watching it. Skanky and Nick. And Nick is like, oh, Skanky.
Rachel:You like this kind of music? You keeping up with the times? And Skanky's like, yeah, I try. But do you think Mick Jagger ever feels old? And Nick's like, well, I don't know about Mick, but I sure as shit do sometimes.
Bystander:Right. Never. Never. Never. Finding it all the way.
Bystander:You think Mick Jagger ever feels old? Well, I don't know about Mick, but I know I sure as hell sometimes do.
Matt:I'll just find Yeah.
Rachel:And Skanky does try to relate to the youth. He's trying to talk about
Matt:He tries way too hard.
Rachel:BTO with this little younger girl. And she's like, oh, yeah. I think my dad had that album. Yeah. And then the manager comes over and he gets another, oh, my God, casual nineties sexism line where he's like, oh, you guys want something?
Rachel:Like, can I buy you off? I can give you money or seats or whatever, but I can't give you a backup singer anymore. That's frowned upon now.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:He's like Yeah.
Matt:Normally, I'd give you each a backup singer, but
Rachel:No. We're not allowed to do that anymore. Oh, wow. Okay. And so Nick decides that this is the perfect moment to have a hallucination.
Rachel:I'm not gonna call this a flashback. We don't really have a flashback in this episode. Right. We just have random asides where he just hallucinates for a second. Well, she starts singing a song, which is the dark side of the glass.
Rachel:And she says a line That
Matt:really resonates with me.
Rachel:Because she says a line right before it where she says, I can't see you guys past all these lights. I know you're all out there. They tell me there's 10, 000 of you guys out there. So then why do I feel so alone?
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:And Nick's like, oh, my God. I feel seen. So I'm gonna hallucinate for a second. And as she's singing the music video as she's singing this song, which is not a bad song. I like this song.
Rachel:He is seeing himself watching other people's lives. And all And then
Matt:they keep looking awkwardly at him.
Rachel:Yeah. And then always being driven out.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:He can never get close before he has to leave. And he, like, he sees this, a man with his son. He sees a family eating together at, like, a family reunion kind of thing. He just keeps seeing
Matt:And he keeps like, in each scene, he's gesturing appropriately, like, with the father and son are playing catch Mhmm. And he holds his hand up like he's gonna throw a ball.
Rachel:Yeah. And so it's like, I can never be a part of the life that I want. I can't have that life. They're all day lit scenes too. They're all, like, aggressively day lit so that we know this is, like, humanity.
Rachel:This is humanity that he keeps getting close to and then having to leave. And he comes back to himself a little bit, and Skanky is watching it. And he's like, man, she's really got it made. What do you think it's like up there? And Nick just says, lonely.
Rachel:Because he's
Matt:He knows.
Rachel:He's vibing. He's feeling this. He's no he knows what it's like to be I mean, ostensibly, he's something that other people would seek to be. Right? Right.
Rachel:He's
Matt:powerful. Just like Immortals. Famous and rich, and everybody who interacts with her adores her. He's immortal and powerful and whatever.
Rachel:But ultimately alone.
Matt:But it the, the negatives outweigh the benefits.
Rachel:For Nick. Because he's refused
Matt:Rebecca too.
Rachel:Yeah. For Rebecca too. So he sees himself and Rebecca that she's not embraced this life because he has also not embraced the life that was sort of forced on him. Forced, not forced, depending on how you look at it. I mean, he he said yes, but did he really know?
Rachel:He couldn't know what he was agreeing to
Matt:Right.
Rachel:As we've discussed before.
Matt:Yeah. And Jeanette was implying other things.
Rachel:Yeah. Yeah. He was only there for a night of romance, and, he didn't. And maybe he got the romance, but he got more than he bargained for. And he spent the last 800 years trying to make up for it.
Rachel:Oh, give or take. Give or take a couple centuries. Yeah. Here and there. But they end up in the changing room, the dressing room.
Rachel:And the manager kicks everybody out. Because at this point, he knows that, she's under she's under suspicion for murder, And she's not taking it seriously at all. She's just making cracks.
Matt:It's good banter, though.
Rachel:It's good banter, but she is like, I'm not. What what what is this? What's happening? I don't I don't care what's going on. They're like, do you know Billy Conway?
Rachel:He was with you all night last night. She's like, all night. And Nick is like, listen. I really think you should take this seriously. She's like, oh my god.
Rachel:You guys aren't really kidding, are you? And so they take her back to to be interrogated in their little interrogation room. And she has a lawyer who keeps shutting her up every time she tries to talk. But she says, you know, I was too drugged to remember. I was out at some club.
Rachel:I don't know. And they're like, well, can we get some kind of an alibi? And she's like, no. Because I was in disguise. The whole point of going out was to have fun, and I can't have fun if I'm me.
Rachel:And she ends up confessing, because Nick is like Nick walks out of the room. They're in the hallway, and Skanky and here arguing because Nick is like, she's not a killer. She's absolutely not a killer. I don't believe it. I don't know who did kill her or who did kill Billy Conway, but it was not Rebecca.
Rachel:And Skanky is like, oh, please. She's so detached from reality. She would kill anybody, and she doesn't know what the consequences are.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Hey, heavy handed metaphor. And Rebecca confesses. She says she did it.
Matt:Right. Her lawyer probably advised her.
Rachel:Well, I think she wanted an out and she saw this as an out.
Matt:Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I guess this could be an out from the lifestyle that she's come to regret.
Rachel:Yeah. And she doesn't have she's under contract. She's owned by the studio for at least 1 more album. And whatever, the 52 city tour she's going on, and she's got years years years of contractual obligations left. And she's drinking every night to escape, But this is 1 this is a escape she can do for good, which is just be in prison.
Rachel:And so Nick is headed somewhere. And there's a crowd now outside because they've realized that Rebecca has been arrested and that she's at this police precinct. And as he cuts his way through the crowd, somebody hands him something, and they have a deliberate, like, shared eye moment. And it's a bald guy. He's got like Yeah.
Matt:Distinctive look.
Rachel:Yeah. And it's a little can like a little envelope, which is another thing that wouldn't happen now, because you couldn't just
Matt:And that would be a flash drive.
Rachel:Well, you couldn't randomly hand a police officer a package
Matt:Oh, that's true. And expect
Rachel:them to just carry it into the police station.
Matt:Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point.
Rachel:But it's Polaroids of someone in a blonde wig with sunglasses on. And they're all like, That's weird. I don't know why somebody would give us these Polaroids. That's just, So strange. Weird.
Rachel:No idea. Unconnected, obviously, because Rebecca confessed.
Matt:But apparently, it's bugging Nick.
Rachel:Yeah. Oh, of course, it's bugging Nick because he knows she confessed on purpose.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Because he sees himself in her and he knows that's what he would do just to get out. And Skanky is like, well, you guys, best of luck. But I've been here since dawn, and I'm out. I'm going to bed. I'm going home.
Rachel:So he goes to leave, and there's all these police out there's all these reporters and people standing around outside, and he's like, oh, my God. It's freaking Woodstock out there. And Nick's like, Woodstock. And so skanky's like, you are not at Woodstock. And Nick was like, yeah.
Rachel:Definitely not at Woodstock. And so as Skanky walks away, Nick's like, yeah. I was there. I was there with the Grateful Dead.
Bystander:On second thought, maybe I'll take the long way around. Rebecca's van still camped out? Yeah. Word's up big time. If I sign up, it's gonna be Woodstock out there.
Bystander:Woodstock? Yeah. Woodstock. You were there? Yeah.
Bystander:Right. In macrame diapers, and Jan Joplin sang you a lullaby. You're full of it, night. Actually, I was with the Grateful Dead.
Rachel:And then we get another slice of Nick's. Let's call it
Matt:another vampire pun.
Rachel:Yeah. Obviously. But let's call it Nick's music video that he's composing in his head for himself
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:Set to this song. And this is his concert where Leclerc is like, your soul's been sold out for days.
Matt:Yeah. In 23 cities.
Rachel:In 23 cities. It's a really weird line. And then, like, the light bulbs around his dressing table start exploding. And then he goes out on stage and he has a guitar, and then he like vamps out and starts floating, and everybody starts booing him. And then he comes back to himself.
Rachel:And I think he's actually asleep this time when he wakes up. He wakes up.
Matt:Okay. So this was actually another dream.
Rachel:Yeah. Because he remember, he saw the ball guy in the crowd.
Matt:And he saw someone in the crowd wearing the wig and sunglasses and dress.
Rachel:Yeah. And he's like, oh, snap. I get it. Those were those Polaroids are of Rebecca. She said she was in in disguise.
Rachel:So he goes to her to hotel room and sure enough, he finds the way
Matt:He finds that outfit from the Polaroids.
Rachel:Yep. And we cut back to Skanky.
Matt:Which exonerates her.
Rachel:Obviously. And so we cut back to Skanky. And Skanky is our comic relief for this episode. Nick is dealing with some heavy shit. Rebecca is dealing with some heavy shit.
Matt:In this case, it's actually Nick who's working the case, and Skanky just fucking off.
Rachel:Yeah. They they bet back and forth a little bit. It depends on how serious each 1 thinks the case is. Skanky thinks the case is solved. Exactly.
Rachel:So he's done with it. Nick is not willing to settle for anything less than absolute justice. And so he continues to work the case. But meanwhile, Skanky gets the opportunity to be our comedic relief because he's listening to some rock and roll music, and he just takes the headphones off.
Matt:I don't get it. I don't get it.
Rachel:And Stonetree says, are you ready for that Neil Diamond CD I've got in my office? And he's like, no. That's just in case of
Bystander:emergencies. I don't get it. I just don't get it.
Matt:Okay? III give. Ready for that Neil Diamond CD in my office? No. No.
Matt:No. No.
Bystander:It's okay. I'm fine. I'm fine. That's only in case of emergency. I'm fine.
Rachel:So Nick calls him, saving him from having to try to listen to more rock and roll. And he's like, you still got those Polaroids? And Skanky's like, yeah. What what about them? He says Polaroids take up to a year to develop.
Matt:This sounds like forensics b s.
Rachel:This looks a little sounds a little hand wavy. I googled around a little bit, and this might be something that because Polaroid just came back out, Polaroids are enjoying a renaissance right now.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:All the information I could find was recent.
Matt:Okay.
Rachel:So any article I might have been able to find about the length of time it took for a original release, Polaroid, to develop, I couldn't find. I did find that, yes, there are still active development chemicals for up to 30 days afterwards, but nothing about it taking up to a year. But anyway, Nick is like, oh, 0, they take a longer they take longer to develop than you think they do. They can take up to a year to fully develop. So you need to send those to Natalie and have Natalie date them, which I love how Natalie is the entire forensics department.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:All information and data that is gathered all goes to Natalie and Natalie handles all of She's the coroner, so she's literally only supposed to handle the remains, the bodies, but she handles everything else too. I'd love to know if this was business as usual or if this is a shortcut so we don't have to have a forensics in
Matt:her head. A shortcut.
Rachel:Yeah. So meanwhile, Rebecca is in, like, lockup. She's in the holding cells. And she's traded her sunglasses for a guitar, and she's playing the guitar, and she actually sounds really good just playing the guitar. And it brought to mind the question, if she is an alcoholic, like an every night blackout drug alcoholic, they just dropped her in this holding cell for days at this point.
Matt:She could die.
Rachel:She could literally die. They are not putting her on any kind of supervised detox. Alcohol is 1 of the most dangerous things to withdraw from.
Matt:Yep.
Rachel:And they were just like, you're probably gonna be fine. You're young. You're healthy. It's fine. So I just wanna point out, this is a scientific inaccuracy.
Rachel:If the Polaroid thing wasn't a scientific inaccuracy, the unsupervised detox that Rebecca is going through is a scientific inaccuracy. And this is where we get Nick's very poignant chat with Rebecca, where we're really seeing him and her through each other's eyes. Because she's explaining how, as a child, she wanted this.
Matt:She wanted fame.
Rachel:She wanted fame. And if she had known what it meant, she never would have done it. And Nick is feeling it. Everything she's saying, he's like, totally. I get it.
Rachel:Absolutely. And she's like, this is my chance. I'm gonna be able to be free, finally, of everything that has happened to me, this image that they've created for me. Because he says, why don't you just change your image? Or you don't wanna ruin your image when she's playing the guitar.
Rachel:And she's like, oh, don't worry. I couldn't bend, fold, mutilate, or spindle my image even if I wanted to. Right.
Matt:Because they have so many PR people working on her. Right.
Rachel:Because she is a construction of the studio to sell records.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And she's like, I have become something where I feel like I can't be myself. Like myself is being taken from me by all of these people that worship me. And unbeknownst to her, Nick has exonerated her. Now, it wasn't the Polaroids, believe it or not. It was the DNA on the knife.
Rachel:Her DNA wasn't on the knife.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And so that gets her out. And, but the Polaroids may or not.
Matt:I don't know. Polaroids could have done it.
Rachel:Could have done it. Also. But they come in to get her out. Her manager, her press secretary, her lawyer, everybody shows up all at once. And this huge crowd of people come in and surround Rebecca.
Rachel:And Nick is over in the corner of the cell by himself.
Matt:Lonely old Nick.
Rachel:Lonely Nick. And even when the manager is like, you have that guy to thank over there. He's the 1 who got you off. Nick is just like, sup? He's just standing in the corner.
Rachel:All of this life and busyness is happening over here, and Nick is over by himself, which is just that little bit of symbolism. And it ends up tipping him into another music video moment. Because as soon as they walk out, Lacroix shows up with a giant, like, comically large key ring, and he's banging it up and down on the cell bars. And he's like, oh, 0, poor Nikki. Do you want out?
Rachel:Do you want me to fix it? Do you wanna be better? And Nick's like, yeah, I do. And the koala's like
Matt:He's like, you want release?
Rachel:He's like, you know
Matt:And then he's like, no, there is no release.
Rachel:He's like, there's no release. You're stuck. Enjoy. And he You don't
Matt:get out that easy.
Rachel:He growls at him and then starts laughing hysterically and just leaves. Because even hallucinatory Lacroix is my favorite character, which is funny that Nick has this. That's the construct of Lacroix that exists in Nick's mind because he's puppeting all these characters. This isn't a memory.
Matt:Oh, yeah.
Rachel:And so the overly over the top, rub it in your face, you're never getting out of this, I'm gonna laugh at your attempts to even try to get out of it, is how he sees Lacroix.
Matt:At least he has an accurate representation of Lacroix.
Rachel:Yeah. And then we get a little bit of, I mean, we get a Rebecca shrine. We find out that the bald guy is plotting to kill her in revenge for this fan kill thing. I mean, there's plot. It's a little bit secondary.
Rachel:We're uninterested in it. We're I was personally just in this for I'm all about the lonely, sad vampire. And so this was ticking a lot of boxes for me personally, which is why I have loved forever night for so long is because it's about the distance between a vampire and the world they have to inhabit, the mask they have to wear and how that ends up becoming a wall between them and life. And so, I just we have a lot of good moments in this episode, And I'm not really interested in the, like, bald guy that wants to kill everybody. And he has a 9 millimeter automatic just like the 1 that Rebecca had.
Rachel:And we see him very dramatically picking it up and leaving. We assume he's going to the concert. And Nick realizes that there might be a danger to Rebecca, that he may have freed her only to
Matt:have her die. On the news Yeah. Somebody gave something to the news about what's gonna happen. Yeah. And, they use the same phrase on the package delivered to the news.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:To whoever's in charge.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Yeah. And so Nick is like
Matt:like, oh, no.
Rachel:Oh, shit. Somebody's gonna try to kill Rebecca. And so he tries to get skanky, but of course, skanky has gone to the concert with comped backstage passes.
Matt:Oh, skanky.
Rachel:And he is there in a leisure suit with the top his, his shirt.
Matt:I'm sure like 4 buttons down.
Rachel:Unbuttoned. And there is a significant amount of chest hair on display, which I wanna know, did they apply that in makeup or just John Capellos' chest hair? Inquiring minds want to know, John weigh in, is that your chest hair? I mean, it's a look with the sideburns and the haircut and the leisure suit and the it is a look. It achieves what
Matt:it's going for. Somebody in the 20 twenties dressing like the 20 hots.
Rachel:Yeah. Wearing a baggy suit and tie, like a pair of shoe. Pants. Matt had a pair of pair
Bystander:of shoes.
Rachel:Guy got rid of them. So we go to the dressing room and Rebecca is not enthused to be back here. And we get, like, a little bit of chatter with the back up dancers where we establish this is another night where they're going to be doing a recording. They're gonna be lip syncing.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:She's like, ah, who cares? We're gonna be lip syncing anyway. And we go to the dressing room, and Rebecca's not enthused. And there's another woman there who we've seen a couple of times in passing, but she very much resembles Rebecca. And her name is Wendy.
Rachel:And she's acting super sus. She's like, oh, you k? Rebecca's like, no. I'm not really that k, Wendy. And Wendy's like, well, you look okay.
Rachel:And then we cut away, and Nick is trying to get in. He tries flashing his badge, and it doesn't work. So he just hypnotizes the guy, and he's like, I'm with
Matt:the guy. He just glares him down.
Rachel:I'm with the badge.
Bystander:Hey. Where's your pass?
Matt:Nah. I'm with the band.
Bystander:Okay. Go ahead.
Rachel:And the guy's like, oh, okay. Yeah. Go ahead. And he goes in. And Nick comes up beside Skanky just in time to see this guy.
Rachel:Because this guy got in with a full ass 9 millimeter in his jacket.
Matt:Yeah. He's got an Uzi in his jacket. Yeah. And they didn't catch it.
Rachel:It's not a button jacket. Nothing. It I don't know. Why is the bouncer there? Wow.
Rachel:You took your life into your hands when you went into concerts in the nineties. I guess you were just like, I really hope nobody brought anything because there's no metal detectors or anything. And he pulls out his 9 millimeter and he shoots everybody on the stage. And Nick does get to him, but it's a little bit too late. And so we see him go up to the to what we think is Rebecca, because she was wearing her sunglasses and her blonde hair.
Rachel:And we just see it from the point of view of the dead body, because Rebecca has passed. And she is or the we see the camera is looking up at Nick. And so he throws his jacket over the camera, and then the cope gets pulled back, and that's our transition, which is a really well done transition. Yeah. And
Matt:that's Natalie. Like, do you think I can keep this contained?
Rachel:Yeah. Natalie's like, I can't keep a wrap on this. And Nick's like, take a long time doing the autopsy. It's what you normally do. And she's like, I can't do that.
Rachel:And he's like, oh, no. Say some say you found something unusual and you have to test or something. I don't know. Just we believe in long shots, don't we? Let's give her a chance.
Rachel:And then we get our last little bit of, music video, And it's Nick driving in his Cadillac. And it's pulling on to, like, a back road, and the door opens, and someone in like a cowgirl boot steps out. And then we cut to the precinct where everybody's arguing. And this is another moment where there's a lot happening in 1 little section, and Nick is off by himself. Because the lawyer and the manager are like, what do we do?
Rachel:We we can't. We need Rebecca. And he's like, no, no, no. No, we don't. We own Rebecca.
Rachel:We own her image. And now that image is immortal. It will never die. And we can keep pumping out records, best hits, remixes
Matt:a new out new best hits for every sighting at a 711.
Rachel:Yep. And if this is gonna be great, we are gonna sell more records with her dead than we ever were alive. Even though they know she's not really dead, they're like, we're just gonna let this ride.
Matt:The persona has died.
Rachel:The persona has died. The woman behind the persona, quote unquote, has left and, quote, died, which ironically, this is the plot from the first episode of Lucifer. In the first episode of Lucifer, there's a pop star that gets killed. And so Lucifer is investigating, and it turns out that she was murdered so that her music would get popular.
Matt:Oh, the booster music. Yeah.
Rachel:I was like, oh, hey. And then we see a, like, TV, and we actually see Rebecca getting out of the car and then, like, turning to to camera.
Matt:Well, that's after Nick finds her.
Rachel:Oh, yeah. Well oh, yeah. I cut I cut out that whole section. Oh, jeez. Yeah.
Rachel:I cut out our euro minutes. We had our euro minutes because he's like, put a lid on it, Natalie. Just put a lid on it. And then he rushes off to go back to his apartment and brood for a little while. He's just gotta prepare himself for what comes next,
Matt:I guess. Right. So then he goes back to the concert venue.
Rachel:Well, I what I really And
Matt:he goes to the dressing room
Rachel:I like and listens. I like this Euro Minute. I don't know why I skipped it because he's actually sitting up in his, like, second story window.
Matt:Yeah. As a I just I just play your story window.
Rachel:Just with his knees drawn up, just with his head resting on his his knees. Like, he's so sad and lonely, and it's so poignant. And I really enjoyed that scene. It's in a really random fucking spot. It doesn't make any sense in the timeline, but I liked living in that scene for a moment.
Matt:Yeah. They they could have put that filler somewhere else.
Rachel:Somewhere else. It just 5 minutes later because he goes from there. We get a clip from dark night where they use the clip of him in the car Right.
Matt:And he
Rachel:has his white sweater and his popped collar black jacket. And then he's driving, and apparently he's going back to the concert venue because he goes in the dressing room and he finds her tied up, Which means, if you believe the euro minutes, he spent, oh, I don't know, an hour, 2 hours at his house just chilling while she knew she was tied up in the dressing If we just dropped it, we could have dropped it after the scene where the Cadillac where the Cadillac is letting somebody out. We could have put it right there. Right? Like he was preparing himself to tell the manager what was going on.
Rachel:Like, we were waiting for the news to break.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:That would have made so much more sense. So thank you for reminding me. Jeez. What would I do without you, honey?
Matt:Not have a pod lab?
Rachel:That's true. You did too a lot of the work. Decorated it, like, on purpose. But we get to see her getting out of the car, turning to frame. And she's better.
Rachel:She's smiling. She's happy. She's ready to live the life that was taken from her in the way that Nick would have liked to live this life.
Matt:Right. This is another music video moment for Nick because Yeah.
Rachel:This is
Matt:she's not actually on the TV.
Rachel:This is no. This is him resolving that he can't necessarily free himself, but that doesn't mean that he can't use what he can do to free others.
Matt:Right. He can't get some kind of a fresh start.
Rachel:Yeah. That he can make a difference.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:Use, you know, use his eternal life to change other people's lives for the better instead of for the worst by, you know, killing them.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:So that was a I mean, that was an interesting episode. I know it was wild. I knew it was gonna be wild. I remember it as being wild. But I don't think I was open to the emotional significance of what was happening.
Rachel:I think it was just the oddness of the filming that I got distracted with the last time I watched it, which is why for the same reason that I didn't watch Spin Doctor was I was probably just a little bit too young. And so I'm glad I revisited it. Because I know I've looked at it before and thought, oh, no. That's the weird 1 with Nick the rock star. Because I'm usually in it for the flashback.
Rachel:And that episode doesn't have a flashback. So I haven't rewatched it in a long time. So that's why, like I said, I'm really glad we're going through this in order. Because even when I watched them originally, when they were syndicated on sci fi, I don't think they played them in order. So happy to be here, honey.
Rachel:Cool. I I got a thumbs up and a cool. Matt looks like he's about to pass out, so we're gonna wrap this up. We have an Instagram. I'm sure you know that.
Rachel:It's a good Instagram. I post on it every day. I put up pictures of kitty cats. I put up teasers for the movie coming up. And remember, our movies go in fantasy, horror, sci fi orders.
Rachel:So if last week was fantasy, this one's horror, horror, then sci fi, etcetera. If you have a moment and you've enjoyed our podcast, which I really hope you do, please feel free to use our submission form as a way of giving us feedback and submitting ideas. I'd be happy to have some ideas. We have actually gotten a couple of suggestions, but because they're TV shows, it's hard to we'll work them in. I'm very excited to work them in, But it we're going to have to work them in sort of after forever night.
Rachel:So if you got some movies that you want us to watch, I'd be happy to watch them. Please throw that our way. And also just like and subscribe and hit that subscribe button, 5 stars, whatever. Anything to kind of help us get our name out there just to get other people listening to the podcast. Because the more feedback we get, the better we can make it.
Rachel:We also have a Patreon. I'm really, really hoping long term to keep the whole podcast ad free. So there's no paywall for people that necessarily would like to listen, but can't necessarily afford to not to pay to have the ads removed. And that way that we would do that is just by having a robust Patreon. My plan is to start updating the Patreon with, information every day, like I update the Instagram.
Rachel:So if you want more long form stuff, that will be over at the Patreon. We have some really affordable tiers. We have a $3 tier, which maybe I should take a picture and put it up on Instagram. But the $3 tier gets you, like, access to our Discord channel, which we are on frequently. So anytime you wanna pop in there and talk to us, we're around.
Rachel:Yeah. That's pretty much my sales pitch. I mean, if you guys like us, please feel free to show us that you like us. Please tell us you like us. Just kidding.
Rachel:Like I said last episode, my definition for success for this podcast would really just to be to have a community where people of like minds can come and chat in a kind, supportive, dialogue based community where we can maybe, even if you do disagree, it's a friendly disagreement, just like when Matt and I disagree. I think I would really enjoy that. That's what little Rachel wanted when she was watching forever night the first time through. It was just people to talk to about it. And so I'd love to have that this time.
Matt:So remember, sometimes the strangest things are the most beautiful too.
Rachel:So be who you are and love what you love. Until next time, friends. Bye.
