Come in 81 Kilo: A Forever Knight Podcast

Come in 81 Kilo: A Forever Knight Podcast

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Forever Knight (Season 3 Ep 12) - "Strings"

/ 01:41:19/E64
Doctor:

This is the person that you must shoot. You are strong. You can do it. It's just clearly, not real.

Rachel:

Hi. I'm Rachel. And I'm Matt. And this is Come in. Come in, 81 kilo.

Matt:

A forever night podcast.

Rachel:

You know what's amazing? Oh, I really find to be the most inspiring part of that is I find a new way to fuck it up. Every single time, honey.

Doctor:

Every single time.

Matt:

How many We're we're both explorers.

Rachel:

Yeah. How many possible combinations are there? I have to

Matt:

know. Your subconscious is just driving you to it.

Rachel:

Exactly. I can't I am an adventurer. I must seek out new new experiences even if that means pushing the wrong fucking button. So here we are. Speaking of adventures, forever night season 3, episode 12, strings.

Rachel:

And I have to admit, I put this on and I got the opening seat because I was like, strings, strings. Because most of the time you can shout an episode title at me and I'll be like, okay. This is what happens. Here's the flashback. Here's some notable quotes.

Rachel:

It's a bit like a it's a good party trick. Right? I can roll it out. Nobody gives a shit because nobody knows what Ferventitis, and nobody ever yells titles at me. But if they did

Matt:

You're ready.

Rachel:

So fucking ready. And yet, I was like, strings, strings, strings. I know the next one's fever. Fever. I was like, oh, fever, and I got the whole download.

Rachel:

The AIDS episode, the, oh, yeah. I'm looking forward to fever. And then I was like, but we're not on fever. We're on strings. What is strings?

Rachel:

And I was like, well, I'll just watch it. It'll come to me. And so I put it on, and it started playing. And I was like, is this an episode I haven't seen? Is it possible?

Rachel:

I haven't seen this episode. We got all the way through the cold open. Of course, I've seen the intro. Then we kept going, and I was like, holy shit. I don't think I've seen this episode.

Rachel:

What is happening? And then we got to the flashback. And I was like, oh, Rasputin. Oh, right. Yes.

Rachel:

No. I have seen this episode, but I think my hypothesis here is that this episode is so boring. I literally purged it from my mind.

Matt:

Okay. So this is really good book I read

Rachel:

Okay.

Matt:

That makes use of a similar premise. The book is called There is No Antimemetics Division, And the premise is there's a whole thing called memetics, which is making things memorable.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Matt:

And it goes kind of on, like, a supernaturally twist, like the, SCP, like, special containment procedure, like monster things exist and whatever. There's secret agencies to contain them. This is a secret agency for things that have developed camouflage, defense mechanisms, whatever, that are antimemetic Okay. Which means you can't remember.

Rachel:

They're not memorable. Yeah.

Matt:

They are adapted or designed or

Rachel:

They're an SCT player.

Matt:

Serendipitously. You they're incapable of being remembered.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Matt:

Is that what this episode was like?

Rachel:

Think so, because I watched it once because I sat down to take notes and Pippen sat on my lap. And the rule in our house is you don't move the fucking cat. So there went my note taking. And so

Matt:

Rachel's rule in the house is you don't move the fucking cat.

Rachel:

So I was already I was like, well, alright. I'm already watching it. So I guess I'll watch forever night. So I was watching the Favourite, and I'll that that's when I came to the realization that I had, in fact, seen this episode, but I had no memory of anything but the flashback and didn't even really remember what happened in the flashback. Just remembered that Rasputin was in it.

Rachel:

And then I was like, okay. So I'll watch it with Matt. So Matt came back, and I was like, alright. We'll watch it together, you know, in prep for watching this episode. And I put it back on, and I was like, hot fucking damn it.

Rachel:

I can't remember anything that happened. My notes are, like, 14 pages long because I was like, I'm not gonna be able to hold this. It's like sand slipping through

Matt:

my fingers. So in in the book, there is no antimemetics division. A whole lot of the story happens by people reading something about one of these antimemetic events. While it's happening to them, they're reading a record of it from the last time. Yeah.

Matt:

And so it's just in the moment. Oh, okay. What I'm reading now is explaining some things that I've noticed, and I need to, like, assume that it's actively happening to me right now. And so that's usually when they like, when they're actively reading it is when they can keep it in mind long enough

Rachel:

Right.

Matt:

That they can, like, defend themselves against the thing that's anti memeing their brain.

Rachel:

Think this is trying to kill me. I just think it's not a great episode of television.

Matt:

It's just benign

Doctor:

in time.

Rachel:

And I was trying to think, like, is there an episode that is like this? Like, another one where I was, like, you could tell me the title. Maybe hearts of darkness, but that's just Would

Matt:

you know?

Rachel:

I would know because you could tell me the title and there would be no there'd be no folder.

Matt:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Yeah. There'd be no I'll have to describe that. You know, when someone tells you something, I don't know how it works for you. When you give me something that's like a trigger for a memory, I get like, okay. Here's the folder.

Rachel:

Here's the box with everything in it.

Matt:

I get like a video

Doctor:

Yeah.

Matt:

Of an event that plays back.

Rachel:

So you can ask me anything. It's in if it's in the box, I've got it. But if you tell me the title and I there's the file has a reference to a box that's missing, then I I don't I can't. That that would be obvious. The box is missing.

Rachel:

Strings has no box. It still has no box. Every time I try to every time I try to hold it, it just just falls off.

Matt:

And as far as I can tell, the title strings means nothing.

Rachel:

I have puppet strings. Puppet strings.

Matt:

Puppet strings?

Rachel:

Yeah. I think that's what we're going for. You don't remember you probably don't even remember what the episode is about, but it's literally, like, 16 story lines all about people who are being controlled by other people.

Matt:

I remember that Natalie poorly explains exposure therapy.

Rachel:

Yeah. Well, Natalie should have a podcast called Explain Things Badly, and that's one of them. It's just but at this he just okay. Well, we're we'll talk about it when we get there, but there's so many storylines, and they're all saying the same thing. And I think that's why it's like,

Matt:

woah. But the twist is you can't remember what any of the stories are saying.

Rachel:

Exactly. I mean, which sort of works out because hypnotism is part of the thing part of

Matt:

the thing. Oh, that's a nice angle.

Rachel:

Know. Is this like one thing?

Matt:

Subliminal programming

Rachel:

episode. Neuro linguistic programming? Is that what the show is?

Matt:

The twist is the viewer is being reprogrammed.

Rachel:

Oh, shit. Well, now it's a better episode.

Matt:

To watch more forever night. Maybe you have seen this episode 100 of times.

Rachel:

It's possible. It's like just like Christy Black in this episode, which is the one tiny her name is the one tiny bit of levity that we try for in this whole episode. The that's not thick on the ground. Okay? Plot isn't thick on the ground.

Rachel:

Levity isn't thick on the ground. Clues, direction,

Matt:

character development Engagement. Just

Rachel:

okay. So before we shit on this

Doctor:

anymore, we should probably get started.

Rachel:

So we start with this woman exiting a bus, exits a bus, scene. Look. We open. A bus pulls out. This woman rolls out.

Matt:

This is a novel situation in a city with adequate public transportation.

Rachel:

I know. I'm amazed. There's a bus, and people ride it. I don't know. I'm I'm already I'm already engaged.

Rachel:

This is the most interesting part of the entire episode. And she's smiling at somebody. It doesn't really matter. She takes a couple of steps away from the bus, and then a car turns its light on lights on, and she's like, oh, I've never seen a car do that before. Then this car just runs straight at her and hits her, like, straight on, throws her through this plate glass window in slow motion into a store display, and then the mannequins look on in horror, literally literally look on in horror.

Rachel:

Close ups.

Doctor:

Close ups.

Matt:

On every mannequin face.

Rachel:

On the mannequins as she gets shot.

Matt:

At first, I thought one of the mannequins was the person wearing a mannequin mask.

Doctor:

That would have been a really

Matt:

that would have been memorable. Interesting.

Rachel:

That would have been memorable, but, no, it's just somebody shooting her. Yeah.

Matt:

I thought the last face, the one with the hoodie on, was the killer. But no. No. I was wrong.

Rachel:

You were incorrect.

Matt:

I was misled.

Rachel:

Yeah. So was everybody. So then we go straight into the intro. Congratulations. That's it.

Rachel:

It's how the fuck is happening. Yeah. Then we come back and, whoo, it's a crime scene. Go figure. Because she got hit by a car.

Rachel:

She got shot. Okay. It's a crime scene. So guess who's at the crime scene? Our favorite dynamic duo, Tracy and Nick.

Rachel:

And Tracy walks over second favorite. Oh, you hat.

Doctor:

Really? I stole

Rachel:

the wind from my sails. So Tracy walks over to the car. Speaking of the inferior partner,

Doctor:

Tracy walks over to the car,

Rachel:

then she's like she licks her finger, rubs it on the car, and she's like, stolen. That looks stolen. She's just like, I don't know why she this car looks stolen, and Nick's like, maybe they jammed the ignition. And she's like, meh. We'll we'll ask vehicle thefts tomorrow, see what they

Doctor:

say about it.

Matt:

It's like when your mom just feels It

Rachel:

feels.

Matt:

Like something is a certain way.

Rachel:

Yeah. Mostly chicken. Is that chicken done? It doesn't feel done. And I don't mean feel like she touches it.

Matt:

I mean, like, she looks at it. It's a 170 degrees in the center of the chicken breast. I just don't feel like

Rachel:

it's done. That's because it's not dry as old boots, but that's fine. Okay. So then Tracy gets

Matt:

Onward and upward.

Rachel:

From her from her dad. And she's like, dad, I'm at work.

Matt:

I hope to do this to my children someday.

Rachel:

Poor Natalie. No. Because they have caller ID. They'll just ignore you.

Matt:

That's right. Yeah. I'll I'll get a, I'll block my number.

Rachel:

Oh, okay. You'll yeah. Because they're

Matt:

hack their phones.

Rachel:

You put yourself into something else. So Natalie hears her on the phone because Nick walks away as soon as she's on the phone. He walks towards Natalie, and Natalie goes, uh-oh. Trouble at home. I've gotta I've gotta go.

Rachel:

Okay. Oh, trouble at home. Thank you, Natalie. Thank you. We never would have gotten that without that hot take.

Rachel:

Really appreciate that. And but as soon as Tracy gets close, Natalie drops the tude. She is done sassing Tracy as soon as Tracy

Matt:

comes over. It's the hair fluff.

Rachel:

She is exceptionally fluffy in this episode. I don't know. We you know what? We couldn't keep anything fucking consistent, but the fact that her part is an inch above her ear, left ear

Matt:

Yeah. It's that's where her part always is.

Rachel:

Yeah. And it's not her whole hair. It's just like it fans out from this one spot. Like, I don't know.

Matt:

Maybe she didn't look good, or the the hairdresser thought she didn't look good with a center part.

Rachel:

I am not sure what this choice was because I think we discussed this at length in season 1. Mhmm. Because even when she has her hair pulled back in season 1, it's pulled back with, like

Matt:

The part on the side.

Rachel:

Part on the side.

Matt:

But she had, like, a hard line parted.

Rachel:

The only thing I can think of is she has a wider face. It's not like she's still a beautiful woman, but her face is wider. And so on the camera, if you put the part in the middle, it would emphasize the width of her face. Whereas if you put it on the side and you give her this, like, long fluff around the

Doctor:

side

Matt:

any kind of

Rachel:

Well, it ends up, like, framing her face

Doctor:

Mhmm.

Rachel:

In a way that's very consistent. It doesn't give you, like, a, like, a division. Does that make sense?

Matt:

Yeah.

Rachel:

I don't know. Because in other properties that she's in, she has normal hair, and she has a normal hair part. So I don't know why just Natalie, for whatever reason, in the morning, every morning, when she was blow drying her hair, her head slumped to the left. She glued blow her hair dry.

Matt:

It's because of the working nights.

Rachel:

Is that what it is?

Matt:

Oh, yeah. I bet she's tired when she's doing her hair,

Rachel:

and she

Matt:

just leans her head over.

Rachel:

She uses one of those hairdryers where you put the helm like, the hood on, and then you lay back down. Except she always lays down on her one side, and so when she wakes up her hair, she's like, fine. It looks great. I mean, it looks it looks fine. It just

Matt:

it's the It's exceptionally voluminous

Doctor:

in the seventies.

Rachel:

Commitment to this hairstyle that just gets me because Nick's hair is widely varied. It's short. It's long. It's trimmed. It looks like he stuck his finger in a socket.

Rachel:

It's it runs the gamut. Tracy even gets, like, shorter bangs, longer hair. It varies. Vashawn, I'll guarantee you, is wearing a wig.

Doctor:

It's not even it's not even

Rachel:

it's not

Matt:

even after an interview discussion.

Rachel:

Although okay. Well, we'll talk about that when we get to fever. But, yeah, he has to be wearing a wig, so he's not even part of this discussion. But it's the commitment to the location of her part that has baffled me for decades and will continue to baffle me unless if you were the hairstylist from the show and you wanna drop me a note, you can email us anytime at the hosts at strangeandbeautiful.club, and that will go straight to me. So

Matt:

Can I recommend a solution? Potential closure for this problem? What? You're gonna see Kathy in 9 days.

Rachel:

I'm not asking Kathy about her hair. Look at listen.

Matt:

You can ask her.

Rachel:

Did you do that, or did they do that to you, Kathy?

Matt:

17 questions for you, Kathy.

Rachel:

I've been waiting round. I've been waiting 2 hours in line. I've just paid you $50 to sign this thing. Can you answer a couple of questions and can you adopt me and help me move to Canada? I love you.

Rachel:

Thank you very much. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not well, you know what?

Rachel:

The best I'm hoping for is that we don't do what we did to Gare. That's all I'm hoping.

Matt:

I won't be there to save the day.

Rachel:

I know. And Meg and I have discussed this at length that you I I have strongly considered pinning the thing to my shirt. That's like, if I am non responsive, it's because I love you so much. Please remove and answer questions that are written down

Doctor:

on this piece of paper.

Rachel:

Anyway, after Natalie has her little sassy, uh-oh, trouble at home, Tracy comes over, and Natalie's like, okay. So this lady, her name was Helen Neary. They're looking up her next of kin right now, and Nick is like, oh, okay. So she died on impact, And Natalie is literally like, I doubt it. Natalie, are you Why

Matt:

is she giddy?

Rachel:

Why are

Doctor:

you are you okay?

Matt:

I have an idea.

Rachel:

Oh, no. Oh, no.

Matt:

They got the semi semiannual cocaine bag.

Rachel:

Oh, maybe. I don't know. But she's like, I doubt it. She was shot 5 times. She could've gotten hit by the car and then been dead, and they just shot her out of, like, spite.

Rachel:

That could've been a rage thing. There's literally no reason to assume that she didn't die on impact just because she also got shot. She could've gotten shot and then hit by the car. Whatever. And Tracy's like, okay.

Rachel:

So is it a robbery? Like, are we missing anything? Could it be a hit? And Nick is like, how many hired killers do you know who soften up their kills by hitting them with cars first? Well, I I don't know.

Rachel:

It could be Tony hits people with his cars.

Matt:

The hit and run man.

Rachel:

That's a huge assumption. Like, oh, no. No. No sir no hired hit man has ever hit anyone with a car.

Matt:

That's unprofessional. Hasn't Nick been hit by a

Rachel:

car because someone was trying to kill him? Yes. Like, a contract killer was trying to kill him, and so they hit him with a car, and he was like, psych. That didn't fucking work. I'm pretty sure that's like a modus operandi, the hit and run.

Rachel:

The, like, okay. I've vehicular manslaughter is like a legit okay. Anyway, every time they make these blanket statements, they're like, no. No hired hitman, whatever, hit someone with a car and then get out and shoot them. Yeah.

Rachel:

That's not we could've just not had that. It could've been like, well, we'll look into it, but I don't this just looks like a it doesn't look profesh. Right? They left the car. They used a low caliber bullet.

Rachel:

I don't know what to tell you. And then they walk away. Like, after Nick makes that pronouncement and Tracy is like, you're right. I'm an idiot. I'm so sorry.

Rachel:

I'd thought of that. And then you shot me down, and I you're you're the superior being in this situation. So clearly, you know what you're talking about. And Nick is like, yeah. Of course, I do.

Rachel:

So what about what's this what's with the what's with your dad? And Tracy's like, do you know anything about corporate crimes division? And Nick must know that a change is coming, and he must be feeling sad because he's wearing a vest.

Matt:

To brace himself.

Rachel:

And I don't think we've seen him wear a vest since Skanky died. And he tells her, oh, it's white collar crime. It's a good career move. I mean, corporate crimes division is like, fine. It's legit.

Rachel:

I don't it's okay. And she's like, yeah. My dad really wants to to transfer there. And he goes, okay. But what do you want?

Rachel:

And she goes, I don't know. But this is really weird because we say I don't know, and we literally transition out of this scene as she's saying I don't know. So we almost don't catch the end of the sentence. It's like she tripped, and they couldn't redo it. And so they were just like, well, fucking cut it there.

Rachel:

It's fine.

Matt:

Just fade the the flashback over it.

Rachel:

I don't know. It's weird. But then they go straight from that to they're headed to notify Helen's son. And Nick actually has his little pad out, which is cute because he's trying to be a cop.

Matt:

Oh, yeah. We don't get the flashback till later. Never mind.

Rachel:

No. No. No. We don't get the flashback. Well, we get it soon, but we don't get it for a while.

Rachel:

But he's walking with his little, like, police pad. Like, he's reading it. I don't even think there's anything written on it. He's like he's like, I'm a good cop to it for t m.

Matt:

It's reflex. It's, that's part of his beard.

Rachel:

Every once in a while, he'll pull it out and he'll write in it or whatever, but it's probably just a list that's like, okay. Yep. Alright. So you saw that guy go down there. Okay.

Rachel:

And he's writing, like, lettuce, coffee

Matt:

beans. Bite people. Don't bite people. Don't bite people.

Rachel:

But they go to notify the son. And there's also a daughter, but records is having a hard time tracking down the daughter. And Tracy's like, I hate notifications. And Nick goes, yeah. Everybody does.

Rachel:

Like, who likes telling people that their loved one is dead? Literally nobody. But they knock on the door, and this part cracks me up. They knock on the door, and Hearts of Darkness from Dying for Fame starts playing.

Matt:

Is that the rock star episode?

Rachel:

That's the rock star episode, the the music video, the the episode long music video, but the one that she gets in trouble with because oh, no. That's fan kill. But this is one of the songs that she plays and it's called Heart of Darkness, and it starts playing as soon as they knock on the door. And so they, like, go through like, it's supposed to be this, oh, look. They're being such proactive cops.

Rachel:

They're searching this place. They broke down the door, and they're doing it all to rock music. But we still don't wanna license any rock music, so we'll just drag up that old tune from that Fred already signed over.

Matt:

So I have a problem with this. They arrive at this door

Rachel:

Yeah.

Matt:

To perform a notification

Rachel:

Sure.

Matt:

That a family member has passed away, and they are the next of kin. They knock on the door, announce these police officers Yeah. Please open the door. Maybe not the best wording, but whatever. They hear some scuffling, like, I don't know, whatever noise is inside.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Matt:

But no one comes to open the door. Yeah. So their immediate next course of action is to kick in the door, guns drawn. You're here for a family death notification.

Rachel:

Yeah. But he could've killed her. Well, we know it wasn't a professional. It wasn't a professional hit because she got hit with a car first. And so we know for sure this was an amateur, and it could have been

Doctor:

I would

Matt:

say they successfully hit the victim 6 times. Five bullets, 1 car. Yeah. That's a pretty high success rate.

Rachel:

Well, it's 5 bullets. You would expect okay. I don't know. It's I always say that, like, I'm a I'm an expert. Like, you know, you would expect for

Doctor:

2.

Matt:

What would you expect, Rachel?

Rachel:

Not 5 bullets, like execution style. Like, you hit her with the gun. You knock you hit her with the car. You knock her down. You shoot her in the head.

Rachel:

You're done.

Matt:

5 bullets

Rachel:

to make sure

Matt:

it's done.

Rachel:

It does.

Matt:

Okay. Double tap. Right? Double tap. Make sure

Rachel:

Quintuple tap.

Matt:

Quintuple tap is like you talk about like, so I used to work in manufacturing. There's a whole thing called 6 Sigma. It's like a statistics reference to 6 standard deviations off the mean Yeah. Of, like, failures in manufacturing. And you get, like, 59 like, 99.999% success rate.

Rachel:

Okay.

Matt:

Five bullets feels like 5 sigma of Hitman. Okay. Like, standard.

Rachel:

You were like, she ain't gonna get back up.

Matt:

Right. It's like, bang bang, probably good. Bang, bang, bang. You know, it's like 1 in a 1000000 chance.

Rachel:

Yeah. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. So, anyway, the bro has dipped.

Rachel:

He's like, okay. The cops, I'm out. And so they come in. They do the, like, we're scanning. We're looking all over the place to our rock music.

Rachel:

And then they get in his room and the window's open, and Tracy's like, oh, shit. He went out the window. Then they look no further. They're like, well, that's It's Nick

Matt:

could've zoomed out the window. He could've gone around.

Rachel:

Look. They have a problem with windows. Okay? Because in the last episode, they found a broken window with blood

Matt:

on it. Only goes in the wind apartment windows.

Rachel:

No. He's gone out windows before.

Matt:

It's a rare thing.

Rachel:

Remember the scene that

Matt:

He mostly goes saw his

Rachel:

feet go out the window.

Matt:

He must he's learned his lesson. Okay. Gary was like He

Rachel:

was like that.

Matt:

That was so embarrassing. I never want to look like a fool like that again.

Rachel:

Well, it tells Tracy standing right there. What can he do? What can you do when you have to deal with people?

Matt:

If he really wanted to go out of the window, he'd just say, hey, Tracy. What's that behind you?

Doctor:

Should be like And

Matt:

he'd jump out the window.

Rachel:

How did he get out so fast? No. It's there's no reason to chase they don't know why he ran. There's no like, they they can find information here, which is why he stays. He's like, oh, look at that.

Rachel:

He appears to have left out the window. Well, I guess we're just we're already in here.

Matt:

I'm just gonna paw my bare hands over all this paper and

Doctor:

stuff.

Rachel:

It's called informal look around is what he calls it. And so they're standing they're, like, poking around in his stuff. Tracy gets a phone call. She answers it because there's no screen. She doesn't know it's her dad, and, of course, it's her dad.

Rachel:

And she's like, oh, goddamn it, dad. I'm still at work. And he's he must say something about the corporate crimes division because she's like, I haven't made a decision yet, dad. I am capable of running my own life.

Matt:

Might I say her accent is pretty thick this episode.

Rachel:

Well, a little bit. That's okay. It's a Canadian show. It's fine. And so she leans on the dresser.

Rachel:

She, like, arm leans on the dresser. She licks her palm, rubs it around a little bit, and then she finds a letter, and she's, like, fidgeting with the letter.

Matt:

Yeah. She's, like, playing with

Rachel:

the paper. But the sentence, dad, I am capable of running my own life, is triggering for Nick, and it sends him into a flashback. And in my notes, I was like, ah, we're a spute and flashback, because I was like, oh, ah, yes. I have seen this move this episode before. And it is czar Nicholas, and he's talking to Nikolai, who would be our Nick, about how his wife is under the sway of this weird monk because their son, Alexi, is sick, and she's worried about him.

Rachel:

And this guy showed up and said he can help. And so now he has way too much power. And the czar tells Nick, it is said a friend gained through the gaming table is the truest friend.

Matt:

Okay.

Rachel:

What were they doing? What gaming table are we talking was Nick playing poker and just hypnotizing everybody? And then he was like, well, I like that one. I think I'll keep that one. What was he was he in a gambling den?

Rachel:

What was he doing?

Matt:

Maybe they were playing chess.

Rachel:

Well, when Zarina Alexandra shows up, she's like, oh, are you guys swapping stories about the card tables again?

Matt:

It was probably poker, though. Yeah.

Rachel:

It was probably it was some card game. Apparently, they met. Like, why would you throw this in there? I guess to be like, here's how we met.

Matt:

Yeah. Origin story. Here's how our Nick met the tsar. Of

Rachel:

Russia. Because Tsarina Alexandra shows up, and Rasputin's, like, creeping behind her. He's he's he's nasty.

Matt:

He does a good job as Rasputin.

Rachel:

Yeah. He's he's sweaty looking. Kudos. He's he looks he looks damp. He looks he looks like he looks like he probably smells.

Rachel:

And I was like, good on you, Rasputin. It's gross. So Rasputin shows up, and Zarina's like, oh, I'd like you to meet my very good friend, Rasputin. Rasputin looks at Nick, and Nick looks at Rasputin. Rasputin's eyes turn green.

Rachel:

So they like vampire vibe. And it's like, oh, no. Rasputin's a vampire? Holy shit. This is better than the Titanic.

Matt:

This is the highlight of the episode. It's all downhill from here.

Rachel:

Because Tracy's like, holy shit. Her daughter is Christy Black. This guy's sister is Christy Black, and Nick goes

Matt:

Here's the running joke of the entire episode.

Rachel:

I know. Like, season 2 had running themes and skanky subplots. This one is like, this is as close as we get. It's like a Tracy subplot because she's like, holy shit. She's Christie Black.

Rachel:

And Nick goes, who?

Matt:

The singer.

Rachel:

The singer, and he's like, okay.

Tracy:

I can't believe this. Nick, this letter is from Christie Black. She's his sister.

Doctor:

Christie who?

Tracy:

Christie Black, the singer.

Rachel:

And then he's like, well, is that a letter? Is there a return address? And she, like, nods at him. And so then they run off. Do do do do do.

Rachel:

They show up at this mansion, and this dude answers the door. And he they introduced themselves, and they're like, can we talk to Christie Black? And he's like, well, that's gonna be a hard pass for me because I'm her therapist, and I'm in charge of literally everything about her life right now. And this house doubles as a clinic, so she's under my care. I own her.

Rachel:

I mean, I'm helping her. I'm I'm helping her. And if you need to discuss anything with her, you can discuss it with me because I'm her therapist. And they're like, oh, okay. Like, why is she here?

Rachel:

Why is she living with you? And he's like, well, she requires constant supervision. She's trying to rebuild her life. And Tracy goes, oh, that's right. It was drugs, wasn't it?

Rachel:

And this is the nice little you know, some of these episodes, if you exclude some of the costume and hair choices, feel fairly timeless. And then every once in a while, we get a depiction that you're like, wow. It's the nineties, and I feel like I'm a child again. They did not know how to deal with people who had substance abuse disorder. They were like, I'm pretty sure they're all crazy and fragile and just willing to murder people for the first person that will help them get like, it was just this.

Rachel:

She is the weirdest depiction of someone who has substance abuse disorder. And, like, we've had characters that have drug problems before, and we didn't depict them this way. But she's like a baby child. Like, the drugs have taken her maturity. I I don't know.

Rachel:

It's really weird. How did you feel about the way that her, like, art, quote, drug addict is depicted in this move in this episode.

Matt:

It's not good.

Rachel:

Yeah.

Matt:

Yeah. It's implies that the the drugs, like, strip everything from you. Like, all your agency and autonomy.

Rachel:

They just I don't know. This was just such a weird because they walk in the house, and she's sitting in a chair, and she has these headphones on, and she's watching too zombie is Yeah. It's

Matt:

where I would expect that someone in treatment that is currently sober would have more emotion and

Rachel:

Well, we handled addiction so well in feeding the beast. Mhmm. When we have Carrie Anne Moss's character who is manipulative to get what she wants. Right. And that is actually handled not horrible.

Rachel:

And then it's like they forgot, and they Right.

Matt:

You'd expect the person to be more energetic and having to, like, be, like, restraining themselves from participating in the kinds of habits that they've built up that support and, like, encourage their drug seeking behavior.

Rachel:

Yeah. I don't

Matt:

But here, we just get, she's in treatment, so she's a zombie.

Rachel:

Right. Because she got well, it's supposed to be that she's fallen in with the wrong crowd. Like, she's gotten the wrong therapist. He's the one that wealthy people hire, but he's just an exposure therapist. And so if her underlying issues

Matt:

Well, he's not even doing exposure therapy.

Rachel:

No. He's Well, he's choosing to kill everybody. I mean Right. That's yeah. But if he is an exposure therapist, there's certain types of mental disorders that, like, that is never gonna work and it will in fact make it worse.

Rachel:

And it's just I don't know. It's just like a it's not that it's okay. How do I wanna describe this? It just feels like a fundamental fundamental misunderstanding of substance abuse disorder treatment, what it does to people, the types of people that fall into substance abuse disorder. And it kinda takes me out of the episode every time I watch it because we could have given her literally any other backstory.

Rachel:

She could have had a nervous breakdown. She could have had literally anything. Her her boyfriend kills himself, or maybe she kills him depending on how you wanna look at the ending, and she lost it. And instead, they're like, well, yeah, of course. It was the drugs instead of, like, well, she could have had like, she could have completely disassociated and had a mental, like, just like a mental breakdown where she literally could not cope with real life anymore, and that would have made more sense.

Rachel:

It would have made more sense. It just wouldn't have tied her to her brother in the way they want her to be tied to her brother.

Doctor:

Mhmm.

Rachel:

Anyway, that was my soapbox, and I'll put it away. We're not gonna discuss it anymore, but just know I'm not happy with the way that substance abuse disorder is depicted in this episode. But we're gonna move on because it's the nineties, and they weren't trying. They just they didn't have the language. Like, we'll we'll see in the nineties episode, the nineties episode, the eighties episode, which is the next one.

Rachel:

They were trying

Matt:

to nineties episode.

Rachel:

They're trying to say something without having the language that we have sort of established for saying it.

Matt:

Right. Where we are now in 2023 Yeah.

Rachel:

It's not where

Tracy:

they were.

Matt:

30 years later of people trying all different kinds of ways of talking about the problem. Yeah. And the ones that don't work get discarded, but this is before they've been discarded.

Rachel:

Yeah. It just yeah. It feels like that. Yeah. That

Matt:

We are exposed to this, like, very whittled down list of these are, like, productive ways of communicating about these kinds of problems. Yeah. But they're kind of at the beginning of that.

Rachel:

Even the even dying to know you where she's an alcoholic, that's treated with more aplomb.

Matt:

Right. But they're just throwing out ideas. They don't have any experience No.

Rachel:

I hear you.

Matt:

Of what ideas are good or not.

Rachel:

I just wanted to get it out there that I have feelings, and I wanted to express them. And I did, and now we can be fun. So they walk into the house, and she's sitting in this chair. And she's got headphones on, and she's watching old tapes of her family. And we get this moment of, like, which is like Nick's super hearing.

Rachel:

Like, Pu doesn't hear anything, and then it cuts off as soon as the guy stops the tape. Like, he almost hears what's on like, he's trying to hear what's on the headphones

Matt:

Yeah.

Rachel:

But he can't. And she's got this on the table next to her are, like, 4 pill bottles, like, 5 vials

Matt:

Medications and stuff.

Rachel:

A tourniquet and syringes. And they're like, well, this is a clinic, so that feels safe. But Christy Black, he comes over, and he's like, Christy, these people are here to see you until she starts hitting herself on the head. And the psychologist or psychiatrist, whatever, McGee says, that's enough now. You need to listen to the detectives Like, he's her big daddy psychiatrist, and he gets to boss her around because she's this poor, addled brained heroin addict.

Rachel:

Tracy and Nick are like, okay, we got to inform her. Let's go. And so they're like, miss Black, your mother had an accident. She got hit by a car, and she fell on 5 bullets. They don't tell her.

Rachel:

They don't tell her anything about it. They're just like, she had an accident. Your mother is dead, miss Black. And I was just like, an accident. Right.

Rachel:

Okay. And McGee is like, okay. Cool. Is there anything else? And Tracy is still addressing Christy Black, which actually, this episode does one thing right, which is it gives us something to, like, cheer about for Tracy's character because Tracy actually gets to, hold her own and have this tiny moment of of character revelation in this episode.

Rachel:

But she never really talks to McGee when she's asking questions. She's usually if Christy's in the room, she's addressing Christy. And she says, do you know why your brother wouldn't wanna talk to the police? And Christy's like, no. But can I go get a glass of water?

Rachel:

And so she asks her therapist, McGee, can I go get a glass of water? And he's like, yeah, but be quick, and so he she gets up to leave, and she stops as she's passing Nick, and she goes, my mother. How? My mother. How?

Doctor:

I keep

Rachel:

fucking with this character, And Nick's like, oh, it was a hit and run. And McGee's like, no run alone. Get your water. And, and so they turn to him after she leaves, and they're like, oh, Tracy goes, the whole drug thing started after her boyfriend, Gary Wilton, committed suicide at Pier 5. Thank you, Tracy.

Rachel:

That was a lot of information. Thank you for sticking all of that in a sentence. The drug thing started. She had her had a boyfriend. His name was Gary Wilton.

Rachel:

He committed suicide at Pier 5. She covered a lot of what we're going to need to know for the very end all in one sentence, so thanks so much. And McGee is like, yeah. But she would've gone down without that because they had hit rock bottom together. He's like, heroin, you name it.

Rachel:

They did everything. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. And he actually addresses them, which every time that he talks to them, he's, like, probing them for information about, like, what they know.

Rachel:

And he just goes, any leads? And Nick's like, yeah. It was murder. How's that for a lead? And he's like, oh, uh-oh.

Rachel:

She seems to be taking too long getting water, And so he runs out to go figure out what's going on, and, oh, no. She dipped. So McGee and Tracy and Nick, god, so much happens in this episode, and yet nothing happens. And I don't know how that's possible, but here we are. So McGee, Tracy, and Nick all go out the door.

Rachel:

And Nick looks at Tracy and he's like, go on. Go with your friend. Go over that way. And so Tracy and McGee run off in one direction. He takes, like, 2 steps in the other direction, and then he just takes off into the air.

Rachel:

And he eats off to where he can hear her chanting because she's like, center yourself. Center yourself. Center yourself. Center yourself as she's walking down this road.

Matt:

So she attempts to center herself on the road?

Rachel:

Yeah. Because the car is coming, and she steps in front of the car. And Nick stops her, luckily, and then she's like, what? What? What happened?

Rachel:

What happened?

Matt:

This actress pulls off the emotional part.

Rachel:

She's sad. She said the whole episode. She's fucking sad. Too sad. She does a good job.

Rachel:

She doesn't not do a good job, but the only thing they gave her was, like, okay. Now I think in this scene, you'd be sad. Maybe you'd be angry sad,

Matt:

sad sad. She gets the one scene where she has to go from sad to Mad. Kind of angry and determined.

Rachel:

But in a sad way.

Matt:

There's a little bit of a range there.

Rachel:

Yeah. Okay. So then Tracy and McGee run up because they went the other way, but, apparently, they went around in a circle and they both ended up on the road. I don't know how that works. And they run up to Nick.

Matt:

It's a cul de sac.

Doctor:

It's a cul de sac.

Rachel:

Exactly. They just they they ran around the edge of the cul de sac on the sidewalk. Okay. And Christy Black apologizes. She's like, please help me.

Rachel:

I don't know what to do. Okay. And then we cut to McGee talking to them, and McGee is like, oh, because we go back. I don't know. He got her he put tucked her into bed, gave her some milk and cookies.

Rachel:

I don't fucking know. And so he's he's like, Matthew Neary. Oh, no. No. We don't go back.

Rachel:

I'm sorry. This is Reese. We leave there. That's it. He's like, I'm gonna take her.

Rachel:

I'm gonna go get her to settle down. It's gonna be fine. I'm gonna use that tourniquet in one of the whole vials that I had laying around to give to her. So they head back to the precinct, and they've looked up the brother in the meantime, and it turns out he was into drugs, quote, unquote, just like Christie Black, which might explain why he ran away because he could have been holding. Oh, and maybe his mom cut his allowance short, and that's why he killed her.

Rachel:

Because if you are someone with substance abuse disorder, in the nineties, you are guilty of something. We just haven't figured out what to pin on you yet. Right. So they put out an APB for him. Okay.

Rachel:

Great. And so Reese is like, well, what was the sister's name again? And Tracy goes, Carrie Black, Christy Black, the singer. And Reese goes

Matt:

So now it's Rhys's turn to have no idea what Tracy's talking about.

Rachel:

Unless she sings the anthems at hockey games. I don't know who she is.

Matt:

What was the sister's name again?

Tracy:

Christie Black, the singer.

Matt:

Unless she sings the anthems and hockey games, I don't know her.

Rachel:

And then Reese and Nick Scherer look like me. She's so cute when she thinks she knows pop culture. And they decide to leave Christy Black with the doctor for now because all of that felt legit, secure, clinical. Like, he really had her best interest in mind. You could tell how at 1 o'clock in the morning, she was sitting next to a table full of drugs watching a

Doctor:

video of Silas with the

Rachel:

fucking headphones on. And the first opportunity she got, she ran away and tried to kill herself. So clearly

Matt:

Things are going well.

Rachel:

She's in the right fucking place. Okay? So she he's got this.

Matt:

The moment she was, like, free, she ran away. So, obviously, she needs 24 hour monitoring at a mental health facility. She's already in the perfect spot.

Rachel:

Oh, god. Yes. I mean, didn't you see his couch furniture? I have seen this furniture at Goodwill. That's why every time I saw it, it just cracked me up, because it's supposed to be like the super expensive mansion, and then he has the shittiest, like, it's the shittiest furniture.

Rachel:

So funny. Anyway, I love set dressing, and I love seeing what choices they made for set dressing. Like, are you trying to convince me? Because later, they sit on the couches, so they were designed to be interacted with.

Matt:

Sometimes there are choices, and sometimes there are compromises, and sometimes there's just whatever we fucking have to make it work.

Rachel:

I wonder at what point in the season we knew we were gonna get canceled. Like, I wonder at what point in filming they knew they were done because this episode feels

Matt:

When Skanky got on the plane.

Rachel:

Real, real fucking safe. It feels real safe. Like, we're trying to say something, but we're trying to say something in a way

Matt:

Oh, like they're trying to sell themselves to

Rachel:

Yeah. A

Matt:

studio because

Rachel:

we talked about season 1 is experimental, season 2 is safe, and then season 3 is corporate. And this feels real safe corporate. Like, we're trying to look like we're tackling an issue. We went a little far with the police brutality. Maybe there was a little bit of flash for that.

Rachel:

So we kinda ditched having any kind of a meaningful message for a while. And this episode, we're trying to have a meaningful message, but is it? Is it? And then next episode, we're like, AIDS, y'all. We're gonna talk about AIDS.

Rachel:

So it really feels like they got the news, and they were like, gloves are fucking off. Gloves are off because in the penultimate episode, we have a trans character. Well, we'll discuss that when we get there because this is a it's a complicated nineties depiction. It's really difficult to quantify what they're trying to go for, and we will have fun debating that. But it does really feel like they went full, fuck it, gloves are off.

Rachel:

But this episode is really safe because we're like, oh, look. Nick is controlled by Lacroix, and Tracy's controlled by her dad, and Zarina is controlled by Rasputin, and blah blah blah. Everybody's controlled by somebody. Well, of course, we fucking knew that. We've spent 3 seasons watching Lacroix tug all of Nick's strings.

Rachel:

On Instagram, I posted a single frame from this really long Twitter thread where this lady broke down why LaCroix is the world's greatest and longest running troll. And I was trying to read it to Matt, and I was laughing so hard. I fucking lost it. I'll see if I can post a link to it. Although you can't what you can't look at the whole thread if you don't log in.

Rachel:

So Jesus. But, anyway, if you can find it, it's hysterical, but we know it. We know who Lacroix is. We didn't need this episode to tell us that, but it's fine. It's fine.

Rachel:

It's fine. So Reese actually stops Tracy. He's like, Nick, you should probably go get started on some paperwork. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, head out the fucking door. And so Nick is like, cool, cool paperwork.

Rachel:

See you later. Bye bye. So he walks out the door, and Tracy is getting ready to leave, and Reese stops her. And he's like, hold on. Your dad called and informed me that you will be transferring to corporate crime.

Rachel:

And Tracy's like, this wasn't my idea, captain. And Reese is like, okay. I mean, that's fine, but you could have told me this was happening. Like, I get it. Your dad's a little overbearing.

Rachel:

I'm the cool, cool boss. I'm not like a real boss. I'm a cool boss.

Doctor:

I'm understanding.

Matt:

I've seen all these reels or, you know, short videos of I'm a millennial manager and, take your sick days. I'm a millennial manager. Yeah. Go run errands in the middle of the day.

Rachel:

I mean, let's be real. This is still Reese trying to stay on Tracy's good side, so she can't can stay so he can stay on Tracy's dad's good side. Yeah. Because, ultimately, she is the voice that will will be contacting her dad about what's going on. And so he wants to look good in her eyes, and that's fine.

Rachel:

He's also acting friendly. Like like, I get it. Sometimes shit happens to you, and you don't have any control over it. And I don't understand it. In fact, one of the running plot lines of my life is that I don't understand things.

Rachel:

But he tells her, like, this will be a good move career wise. I mean, I get it. You don't wanna go just because your dad says you you should go, but I want everyone here to be here because they wanna be here. I don't want you to be here because you're just trying to stick it to daddy. And Tracy's like, cool.

Rachel:

I get that. I respect you, Cap. And then we go to the morgue, and Natalie has apparently still been hitting the no. No. The the allotment of morgue cocaine that they sent over from from lockup or whatever because she's like, you know, Ellen probably would have made it if she'd had a good enough field surgeon or, you know, field whatever and a good surgeon, but the bullets to the chest sorta settled the issue.

Rachel:

Helen Neary might have lived if she'd had good field care and a great surgeon, but the 5 shots into her chest sort of settled the issue. 32 automatic. What the fuck is wrong

Doctor:

with you?

Rachel:

What's wrong with her in this episode? Every once in a while, she is gleefully ambivalent about death, and it makes you wonder about the type of person that's like, oh, a vampire. Yeah. We could work together. I could make this happen.

Rachel:

But Nick asks Natalie about Ben McGee, the psychiatrist. He's like, do you know who she is? Well, first, he, well, he asks about McGee first, and then he says, you know, she he works with Christie Black, and Natalie goes, who? And Nick goes, the singer? And she's like, I don't know who that is.

Rachel:

And he goes, yeah. I don't know who that is either. So

Matt:

Dig number 3 on Tracy.

Rachel:

Yeah. But Natalie has heard of him, and she's like, well, he ain't great. He's sort of a rich person psychiatrist. You go to him. If you're not crazy, you're eccentric.

Rachel:

And Nick is like, oh, okay. Like, what does he do? Why do we not like him? And she goes, well, imagine you're afraid of elevators, and there's 2 schools of thought. We figure out why you're afraid of elevators.

Rachel:

We treat the underlying fear, and then you're no longer afraid of elevators. Or we just put you in an elevator until you are so, like, over your fear of elevators just through exposure that you can now ride elevators, but we don't actually deal with the underlying fear. And I don't feel comfortable with you not dealing with the underlying fear because it could come back as other neurosis.

Matt:

Okay. So this is where she explains, like, the exposure therapy badly. Because the the thing with, like, fear of elevators is it's like a generalized anxiety, which is physiologically similar to fear, except fear has a specific, like, target, whereas anxiety is just there there's nothing that you can actually identify as the problem. You just feel it as, like, a reflex. And so the exposure therapy is to teach you not that the thing isn't worth being afraid of or feeling anxiety about, but you're actually strong enough to handle it when it comes up.

Matt:

Right. So either way, you're you're not, like, attacking the symptom. You're not, like, numbing yourself to to the fear. You're learning that you can handle it.

Rachel:

Right. Well, then she goes on to say that he's a whiz at hypnotism and chemical conditioning. So there you go. She figured she solves the crime. Like, she's like she's like, oh, yeah.

Rachel:

He could give her drugs, and then he could

Matt:

hit the crime. They're doing something. Foreshadowing.

Rachel:

It was fucking foreshadowing. It wasn't foreshadowing. It was just, like, they wrote it up on the blackboard for later. Like, he hypnotized her using chemical conditioning. The end.

Matt:

Right. What would a bad therapist do? Oh, he'd just take advantage of them.

Rachel:

Oh, okay. Well, that's exactly what he fucking does. And then she goes on to say that she's a treat the disease sort of person, which is real, real rich for the lady who's been like, Nick, use a tanning bed. Nick, here's some vitamin a. Nick, take these

Matt:

garlic pills. Each individual symptom.

Rachel:

Nick, here's some garlic pills. Nick, try to eat food. Don't drink blood. The one time she has attempted to address the actual disease was when she gave him that

Matt:

The fix?

Rachel:

The fix. Yeah. The fix episode. And we all see how that worked out. Well, I mean, in all fairness, what she works in a morgue.

Rachel:

She doesn't have any kind of like, she has nothing. She has no equipment to use to try to

Matt:

To be fair to Natalie, she needed to refine the treatment, and Nick just straight up injected the entire needle all at once, specifically against her medical advice. Right. So it had potential, but Nick Fucked it up. Fucked it up. He fucked it up.

Rachel:

But it's so traumatizing, this whole discussion of therapy. Nick's like, oh, therapy.

Doctor:

It's like it's set into a flashback,

Rachel:

and it's him giving the Zarina a doll for Anastasia. And she's like, oh, thank you. And he's like, oh, I saw it in the market, and I thought of you guys. I I I killed its owner, and I took it from her. And she's thankful

Matt:

that I have come out. My after dinner snacks.

Rachel:

Maybe it was Daniel's. Oh, wait a minute. So he goes, we are grateful. Well, she says we are grateful for your friendship. And he's like, well, why are you so sad?

Rachel:

Everybody in this episode's sad. So why are you sad? And she says, you know, the world is no longer with the world that I knew, and I fear for our survival. And then Rasputin pops up out of the bushes. He's like, I imagine he smelled him coming.

Rachel:

I don't know. He must make that, like, slurp slurp sound

Doctor:

when he walks.

Matt:

Yeah. He just makes a squelch noise when he walks.

Rachel:

Exactly.

Matt:

And it's just the moisture in his shoes.

Rachel:

Right. She said so Nick is like Nick's like, so about Rasputin, though? And she's like, no. No. No.

Rachel:

Do not speak ill of him. And Nick's like, well, hold on. Does Alexi have the following symptoms? Like like, he's one of those, drug advertisements. I don't know.

Rachel:

If you're not in the US, in the US, it's legal to advertise for prescription medication, and so they'll list out symptoms and then be like, ask your doctor about this medication. And so Nick is like, okay. Well, does he have the following symptoms? Is he weak? Yep.

Rachel:

Pale? Yep. His bones ache? Yep. Fevers?

Rachel:

Yep. Bright lights hurt his eyes? Yep. Is he always thirsty?

Matt:

Yep.

Rachel:

And Nick is like, yeah. He's got what I think he does, and the Zareen is like, what what is it? And he's like, oh, you know, it's a thing that I'm familiar with. What? Is there, like, a transitional period where you're weak and your bones hurt, but you're also kind of a vampire?

Rachel:

What the shit?

Matt:

Maybe maybe, that's what happens if you continuously feed off of someone, but don't turn them into a vampire.

Rachel:

Maybe. Yeah. Because Nick is like, well, there's a cure, but only up to a certain point. And this is when Rasputin arrives, and he's like, without the me, Alexei would already be dead.

Doctor:

And he's already has a little

Matt:

bit of text.

Rachel:

Nobody even has a pretend Russian accent. I had a better Russian accent than everyone else in this flashback, including Nick, who we know can do a decent Russian flashback because, as Meg and I just watched an episode of this show called Diamonds where he plays a Russian ballerina. You are a beautiful lady. I am beautiful too. Beautiful people should be together.

Rachel:

Don't you think so? It's the best. Okay. I can't. That episode was also weird and slightly boring, but Garrett gets you through it, and, honestly, this is about the same.

Rachel:

So he's like, there's a cure, but only to a certain point. And then they have a hypno off

Doctor:

where Nick

Rachel:

is, like, look at my eyes and Rasputin's like, oh, look at my eyes. And they're like, you listen to me. Oh, you listen to me.

Matt:

Okay. Okay. Okay. I think I know. I think I know why Rasputin won this one.

Rachel:

Okay.

Matt:

Alright. So we've established that res Rasputin probably has moist clothing.

Doctor:

Yes.

Matt:

We've also established previously that vampires can absorb blood through any orifice.

Rachel:

Okay.

Doctor:

Yes. Yes.

Rachel:

These are all established to pass.

Matt:

What if what if Rasputin just keeps, like, his boots, like, literally full of blood? And then when he needs a little boost for his hypnotism, he can slurp it up through his toes.

Rachel:

Oh, are his toes an orifice? Is there

Matt:

If there's down there? If you're resputin', why not? Nobody's disputing resputin' sick now. Because his hypnotism is so good.

Rachel:

No. No. No. No. I got it.

Rachel:

I got it. Thank you. Yes. Okay. So he he engages his backup blood supply, and he manages to

Matt:

out hit him. Nick Nick has no backup blood supply.

Rachel:

He doesn't have that kind of breath.

Matt:

He does have a turbo boost.

Rachel:

No. He doesn't. And then he's like, yeah. She's mine. I own her.

Rachel:

And he goes, ever your servant, your highness. And then we go back to

Matt:

That's how he gets out of that conversation without getting sentenced to death.

Rachel:

Yeah. He's like, cool. Cool. Rasputin's fine. Heard, fine.

Rachel:

Everything's fine.

Matt:

I'll be on my way.

Rachel:

I'm gonna go lurk in the other room for a bit. Just plug my nose trying to pretend Rasputin's not here. And we go back to the present. Of course, we do because what the fuck

Doctor:

was happening in the past?

Rachel:

And then we're talking to McGee, and McGee is like he's talking to Christie. Nobody else is there. It's just him and Christie. He's like, what were you thinking? And Christie's like, well, I don't know.

Rachel:

He goes, did you think that killing yourself would make it better? And Christy's like, well, she was my mom, and I loved her, and I needed her. And he's like, no. You only need yourself. And accidents happen.

Rachel:

Sometimes people get hit by cars and they fall on 5 bullets. It's a thing. It can happen, but you can't give up. You're not weak. All you've been through, all the work, the pain, that's not something a weak person could go through, is it?

Rachel:

She's like, no. I'm really strong. And he's like, yeah. You're really strong. You're you're you're so strong.

Rachel:

You wanna put the headphones back on? She's like, fine. Yeah. We can do it again. Like, let's get back to my hypno conditioning, which I'm apparently doing.

Rachel:

And he says, I'm only hard on you because you can take it. And it just reminded me of the quote from Margaret Atwood about male fantasies. Do you know which one I'm talking about? Yeah. Male fantasies, male fantasies.

Rachel:

Is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy that you're strong enough to take what they dish out or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy. Pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair, unconscious of the ever present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman.

Rachel:

You are your own voyeur. It was the, like, too weak to take it or strong enough to take whatever they dish out. That's all part of the fantasy. And that's what it felt like. It was like, you can take what I'm giving you can take this.

Rachel:

You can do this for me. You're strong. You're making progress because you're strong. And she ends up putting the headphones on and restarting the video because she's like, yeah. I'm strong.

Rachel:

Yeah. I can do this. Let's let's get back at it. Well, heal me with this re repetitive home movie that I'm watching over and over again that nobody questions ever. They're like, yeah.

Rachel:

Obviously, I watch home videos to feel better about myself often on repeat, especially if it's somebody else

Matt:

enjoying themselves. Not licensed therapist, Rachel.

Rachel:

Like, this guy got a license?

Matt:

Like, it's hard.

Rachel:

Like, well, like, it's hard. So how do you reason with someone who thinks they're always right? That's what Tracy is saying, because she's talking to Nick because Nick is dealing with Rasputin having control over his friend in the past and also with, McGee having control over Christy, and Nick is dealing or Tracy is dealing with, her dad. So she's like, sooner or later, you just give up, and you let him have your way. But I really think people need to feel in control of their lives or a piece of you goes crazy.

Doctor:

You can't reason with them.

Tracy:

How do you reason with someone who thinks that they're always right? Sooner or later, you just give up. Let them have their way. People need to feel in control of their lives. If not, it's like a little piece of you goes crazy.

Rachel:

And she even mentions, like, maybe that's why I go to my dad so often for advice because I can't make decisions. He won't let me learn how. And Nick is like, oh, I feel this so fucking hard. Oh, like, it took me, 500 years to figure out how to make my own decisions. And I had to kill LaCroix, like, 3 times.

Rachel:

And then I go back to McGee's.

Matt:

Right. Because you can't even kill your dad. So It's

Rachel:

like McGee precinct morgue. McGee precinct morgue. McGee precinct morgue. We're back at McGee's, and they're talking to him because she's unavailable. And he's like, well, I mean, I'll help you as much as I can, but, like, I'm not gonna jeopardize her recovery because her recovery is utmost to me.

Rachel:

Did you not see how I have an entire stack of her home videos? And they were like, oh my god. So, like, I heard heard, but can you provide some info? And he spends a little bit of time shitting on Helen, which is really interesting. He's like, well, she was an absentee mom.

Rachel:

They all had ambivalent relations with her. Her brother was a drug deadbeat drug user or Christy Black. And they're like, okay. Well, have you seen Matthew? Like, do you have any idea why he would have run?

Rachel:

And he goes, oh, what? Matthew won't talk?

Matt:

He's a

Rachel:

suspect. He's a suspect? He doesn't ever actually answer their questions. He just asks further questions about Matthew because they go, you said they fought. Was there physical violence?

Rachel:

And he's like, he's a suspect? I know Matthew. He's not a killer. And this reminded me of talking to my own mom, and I felt a little triggered for a minute because my mom can't answer a question to save her life. She just asks you clarifying questions.

Rachel:

Like, my daughter wasn't feeling good the other day. She came out. I said, I said, daughter, did you throw up? And immediately mom had a panic attack and was screaming, did she throw up? And I couldn't hear what my daughter said.

Rachel:

And this is kind of what this interview felt like. Like, yeah. I don't know. We're trying to ask you about Matthew, but you're not being really helpful. You're actually being super sauced, so good job on that.

Rachel:

Like, this guy needs to learn to be better at crime. He is not covering it up very well. He literally has the recording of him saying, you're strong. You can shoot these people. You're strong.

Rachel:

You can murder these people just out and about. He doesn't he doesn't fucking put it away. And these police officers have been there, like, 17 times today. But he does mention, that they've already worked through a lot of Christy's grief in his sessions. Like, she's pretty much already fine now.

Rachel:

So and Nick confronts him. He's like, yeah. So about your treatment techniques so at least it's bothering him a little. It's a it's like like nibbling at the edges of, I don't feel great about this.

Matt:

Yeah. That this guy has a reputation for Yeah. And just exploiting people.

Rachel:

McGee's like, I don't know what you've heard, but I get results. So and they're like, the man says he gets results. That's a compelling argument. And then they get a he hears a doorbell ring, and he goes to his door because he's like, if you'll excuse me, I'm waiting for some deliveries. And then we hear a gunshot, and I warned you.

Rachel:

And then Nick is like, oh, okay. How does Nick get out the door and cut him off on the motorcycle by flying in front of the motorcycle without anybody seeing him do that? It is like a circle in front of this guy's house, and so he's parked slightly around the circle with his, like, motorcycle. And Nick runs out and lands in front of the motor cycle as if he flew in front of the motorcycle.

Matt:

Yeah. He happens from the door, like, the stairs in front of the door to in front of the motorcycle. But

Rachel:

Unless Tracy was so preoccupied with making sure that McGee was okay, she didn't see her partner fly over. And then he's looking. He should have seen him land in front of the motorcycle.

Matt:

Well, he was looking down at the motorcycle to get it started.

Rachel:

Alright. Well, Nick pops up, and he ends up getting this guy, basically. And they take him back to the precinct because, hey. That's the next stop. We go McGee's house precinct morgue.

Rachel:

McGee's house precinct morgue. Like, on repeat. So we're back at the precinct, and he's like, I wasn't trying to shoot him. I just don't like how he treats my sister. So I shot in his general vicinity.

Rachel:

And they're like, well, it kind of feels like he's helping her, and he goes, yeah. Like, any rehab clinic would. Like, it helped me. But Christy isn't Christy anymore. She's a fucking zombie.

Rachel:

And Tracy's like, well, maybe that's a good thing. I mean, the alternative is drug addicts, so maybe vacant and uninterested in life.

Doctor:

Any is better than that.

Matt:

That's a horrible life.

Rachel:

I know. And Matthew was like, no. No. She isn't anyone anymore. That's my problem.

Rachel:

She's not anybody anymore. And Nick's like, oh, okay. Cool. Can you tell us about your mother? And Tracy immediately follows with, did you get along?

Rachel:

So they're doing a really good job of being a partnership in this in this discussion. And Nick follows it up with your mom's dead. You know? She was murdered. And he's like, oh my god.

Rachel:

Do you think it was me? Like, I didn't it wasn't me. And he's like, okay. Nick says we went to your apartment to notify you, and you ran. That's not a great look, dude, bra.

Rachel:

That's not a great look, bra. And he goes, yeah. Well, I was holding, and Nick's like, oh, okay, cool. I thought you were clean. And he's like, well, clean's a little relative.

Rachel:

I just had some grass, which wouldn't even be illegal now in Toronto. And they're like, you know what? We haven't told because he asked, does Christy know that mom's dead? And they're like, well, we haven't told her yet. McGee thinks it would be too hard on her, and he's like, yeah.

Rachel:

I agree. For once, I agree. And then they go out to kinda talk with Reese about it because we just got it. This is just a series of conversations is what this entire episode is. And neither Tracy nor Nick really believe his reason for running, but, like, meh, we're not gonna follow-up on that.

Rachel:

So who gives a shit? And Reese says they can hold him for a bit on the weapons charge and suggests telling, Christie Black that her mom was murdered. Nick suggests that because that she's the one person they haven't talked to so far. And as it turns out, this is an excellent hunch on his part. So good job, Nick.

Rachel:

You did police work. And then Reese breaks the news that Tracy will be starting at corporate crime first thing tomorrow morning. And Tracy does not seem shocked, and he's like, oh, you knew? And she goes, I had accepted the inevitable. Like, I knew I was gonna get shunted over there.

Rachel:

Dad decided I was gonna do it, so here I am. And Reese is like, well, I'm sorry to lose you, but you just let me know how it goes. Go home. Rest. Shifts over anyway.

Rachel:

So Nick is driving home because, hey, surprise. We get a new location in this episode and it's Nick's house. So Nick is going home, and LaCroix is podcasting. And LaCroix goes, you're thinking about the past. I can tell.

Matt:

Well, of

Rachel:

course, he can tell. He can fucking read his mind. He's probably like, oh, is he back on Rasputin? Damn. I haven't thought about Rasputin in a long time.

Rachel:

And he's like, I bet you're wondering, how did I get here? Did I have a say in the matter, or did I just drift here? Like flotsam, subject to the winds of everything and everyone but myself, bumping through history. And this is so traumatizing. It sends Nick into his flashback.

Matt:

That monologue reminded me of Paul Atreides.

Rachel:

It's like, are we really predetermined to be on a certain path, or do we just sort of bump around like a ping pong ball

Matt:

Our way through history.

Rachel:

In the obstacles of history. And we go back and he's walking into a room and Rasputin's, like, sitting in the corner. He's, like, huddled in the corner. And he's like, okay. What why did you summon me?

Rachel:

And Rasputin's like, it is not I who summoned you. He has a different accent this time. Don't ask me why. Nick looks over, and it's Laquan. Laquan goes bumping through history again.

Rachel:

So, that's our follow through. That's like he said it in the podcast, and they said it in the past. And that's how we know. He is remembering what Nick is remembering, because he remembers this conversation too. God.

Rachel:

God. This fucking episode. And he's like, or did you just sense the coming revolution? History. Oh, we are always he doesn't say we are always where history is.

Rachel:

He says history is always where we are.

Matt:

Which I thought was a really nice angle on it. Yeah. Because it can provide a hand wavy explanation for why is Nick always with these, like, famous figures of history?

Rachel:

Yeah.

Matt:

It's because Lacroix is always in the background, causing some event that leads to this person being famous. Yeah. It's not that he just happened to be hanging out with famous people. It's whoever he hangs out with or whoever Lacroix is paying attention to at the moment. Lacroix is going to engineer some situation, some social upheaval or revelation or whatever Yeah.

Matt:

Just because he likes poking around.

Rachel:

Yeah. Well, he he likes the carnage that follows.

Matt:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Yeah. He's just cooking the buffet is what he's doing.

Matt:

He's preheating the oven.

Rachel:

Yeah. That's the entire, premise of The Secret Life of Addie LaRue is that she secretly drives, like, creativity and artistic growth throughout history. I didn't finish that book, because I could not bear to finish that book, because it got so predictable, but it was a pretty interesting premise. She gets forgotten immediately. I think she has to walk through a door or it's the next day.

Rachel:

Anyway, she gets immediately forgotten as soon as people don't see her anymore. And so she can, like, influence people and then immediately be be forgotten. So they think they did it. They think they invented it, but she did. And we find out that, surprise motherfuckers, Lacroix turned Rasputin into a vampire, But it turns out he's more headstrong than he bargained for.

Rachel:

He goes, not unlike you, Nicholas, except I hope it isn't madness that makes you so headstrong, is it?

Doctor:

He's rather headstrong, rather like you, actually. Although I trust that it is not madness that makes you so You know why I resist

Matt:

you. Oh, yes. You would have

Doctor:

me believe that all men should be free.

Rachel:

It is now. It wasn't at first, but it is now.

Matt:

If that makes you leave me alone, then yes.

Rachel:

And then LaCroix launches into a pro a pro enslavement monologue that just feels like rammed the fuck in this episode. Like, if we didn't listen, if you had not gotten the point that everybody is controlled by somebody else yet. Here, guys, so I'm fucking here to tell you, LaCroix is ready to spell it out explicitly. Never fear. If you felt like it was a mystery before, it won't be for long.

Matt:

He has lessons to teach. That's why he started a podcast.

Rachel:

I mean, fair. It's fair. He's like, oh, yes. You would have me believe that all men should be free. Except people like to be enslaved and told what to do and who to hate, and freedom is the absence of individual thought.

Rachel:

And then he goes on, and this is the part of this monologue that I actually do like. And he says, we are all under someone's thumb. The czar is under the czarina. The czarina is under Rasputin, and Rasputin is under me.

Matt:

So like I said, we're all under somebody's thumb, except for me,

Rachel:

of course. Nick goes, and you're under? And then he's like, he does not answer that question.

Matt:

Well, he explained in the the possession episode

Rachel:

Sons of Belial.

Matt:

That he

Rachel:

I answer to no one.

Matt:

Yeah. He answers to no one.

Rachel:

Then you have no purpose. That maybe, but at least I don't lie to myself. Yeah. Okay. That was back in the inquisition.

Rachel:

We're we're past that now. He's grown. He still doesn't answer to anybody, but he's also grown. So LaCroix just like shrug, and then a couple people walk in with guns, and he's like, yeah. Shoot the bitch.

Rachel:

And so they shoot, and then he's like, dump them in the river. And Nick's like, that's not gonna kill him. He's like, it's not, but it will spark a revolution. It will catalyze events. And he goes, revolution, you see, is all in the timing.

Rachel:

And then he takes off, like, takes off in flight up inside the building.

Matt:

Inside the building.

Rachel:

And it reminded me of cherry blossoms where Nick takes off inside the building.

Matt:

Breaks the ceiling?

Rachel:

Does he go through the ceiling? Literally, anyone watching the pals just sees, like, something, like, pop out of the out of the roof and then fly off.

Matt:

Damn. We need to get the roof repaired again.

Rachel:

Goddamn it, Nicholas.

Matt:

Oh, wait. Wrong thing. Anastasia.

Rachel:

Does Lukla get covered in plaster dust and he leaves, like, a cloudy trail as he flies off? I don't know. And then Tracy is at corporate crimes department because, of course, now she works at the corporate crimes department, and her boss is an asshole. And that's the entire

Matt:

office space.

Rachel:

That's the entire purpose. That's the entire point. She's an asshole. And the funniest line here is when Tracy is like, oh, forensic accounting, but I do homicide. And she goes, the boss says, oh, I know this will be a challenge for you, but you can handle it.

Rachel:

Like, oh, no, honey. I knew you'd do homicide, but don't worry. I think you're better than that because we're better than you. Just spoiler alert. And then we come back because fucking videos.

Rachel:

Finally appears and is immediately murdered, but damn, damn, damn, then we're done. So then Natalie is there for the body.

Matt:

Well, this is when we find out that it's Christie Black. No. Yeah. We we zoom, like, pan over and see the girl,

Doctor:

and we

Matt:

go up to her face.

Rachel:

Yeah. You're right.

Matt:

That's when we find out.

Rachel:

Oh, Christy. Fucking forgot. It's falling out of my mind. I gotta fast forward through this because I'm losing it as time goes on. It's, like, chunking off.

Rachel:

Yeah. It's Christy. Surprise y'all. It's Christy.

Matt:

The anti memetic Yeah. Properties are

Rachel:

It's already at work. At work. So Natalie is there for the body, and she's like, This was Christy Black's business manager. Christy Black's mom died. I'm sensing a pattern.

Rachel:

Thank you. And Nick goes, well, it can't be Matthew because he's been in holding, and Natalie goes, so who does that leave you with? And then walks off.

Matt:

Natalie's got some attitude.

Rachel:

Oh, she got some tood this episode. She really does. So then Tracy has gotten a file. They give her a file, and they're like, this is a file. Go through this shit.

Rachel:

And Tracy's like, explain

Matt:

Lauren a character in Babylon 5?

Rachel:

Lauren. Yeah.

Matt:

Yeah. This is the Lauren account.

Rachel:

Is it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, Lauren's in it for, like, a couple of episodes, and it's end of season.

Matt:

It would be after this.

Rachel:

It's yeah. It's when Sheridan dies on Zahadoum because he jumps off the ledge.

Matt:

Spoiler alert.

Rachel:

He meets Lauren at the bottom. Between the tick and the tock. It's one of my favorite episodes. What do you live for? Who are you?

Rachel:

Okay. Sorry. Could derail me with Babylon 5 because now I'm like, oh, that's a really fucking good episode because he's like, what do I live for? It says okay. Never mind.

Rachel:

Sorry. I have to go back to

Matt:

But Tracy, Tracy can't

Rachel:

focus on the world where it's gone. File, and then she's like, yeah. This looks real exciting. And the lady goes, I know it's tedious, but my people get their job done, and they just keep their head down and they do things my way. And you homicide cops have a reputation for being independent.

Rachel:

And Tracy goes, don't worry, ma'am. I wouldn't dream of using my head here. And she's like, I'm gonna pretend we got off to a good start, and you're gonna have this file done by tomorrow.

Matt:

Tomorrow. E o d, b a u.

Rachel:

F u. So then Christy Black shows up at the precinct to see her brother and Reese lets her go in. He's like, no. We wouldn't normally do this, but Tracy says you're famous, so sure. Just leave your purse at the front.

Rachel:

And her brother's really happy to see her, and he's like, after this, let's go out and get something to eat. You can come back to my place, and we need to talk about McGee because I don't think he's good for you. And we have this really sweet moment right up until she shoots him because he sends the guard out to get water and Kleenex because she's crying because, apparently, every time she cries, people just hydrate her. They're like, can we get this woman some water? She's leaking.

Rachel:

Moisturizer. You need

Matt:

to fill up the tank.

Rachel:

And so she shoots him, all surprised, 5 times in the chest with a low caliber bullet.

Matt:

I was thinking it might have made this episode a little bit more interesting, just character wise, to have Matthew be the one that got Christie into drugs. And then you could have a little more interaction.

Rachel:

I don't even wanna talk about how to make this episode better. I just want this episode to go away.

Matt:

Okay.

Rachel:

Except for Rasputin.

Matt:

He's dead now.

Rachel:

Yeah. Except for Rasputin, it saves this episode somehow with his, like, moist dampness.

Matt:

Why did Rasputin just sit there and let himself get shot?

Rachel:

Because everyone else knows that the only thing you can do when LaCroix is around is surrender. Nick is the only one who has been fighting this long, and that's why LaCroix likes him so much.

Matt:

It's a test.

Rachel:

Everyone else is like, oh god. Okay. He don't like me anymore. I'm surely dead. I shall just sit here and await to my fate.

Rachel:

But Reese come because, of course, now we come back to Natalie has once again arrived to investigate this body. This is, like, the fucking 5th time she's done this today. And Reese is like, how the hell did this happen? Well, Reese, you let somebody in to go meet

Matt:

him and lock him. Bypassed procedures.

Rachel:

You didn't you didn't pat her down. You just had her drop off her

Matt:

She didn't even walk through a

Rachel:

medical A medical detector? This woman has medical coverage. Oh, that probably would have been good because they've been like, what is all those drugs?

Matt:

But even a metal detector would have been great.

Rachel:

Yeah. I don't whatever. So Reese is like, how the hell did this happen? It's all gonna go to shit when they find out I let her in, and then we just let her walk out. And then we go back to Tracy.

Rachel:

Whoosh. Over to Tracy, and Tracy is actually doing research on Christie Black at the accounting, like, the forensic accounting department. And so her boss comes over, and she's like, Tracy, you still working? And Tracy's like, yeah. And her boss goes, okay.

Rachel:

Did you come up with anything? And Tracy's like, you know what? Actually, let's cut the shit we both know. I'm not actually working on anything you've told me to do. Tracy, you still working on the Lauren file?

Rachel:

Yeah. Come up with anything?

Tracy:

Why don't we just cut the little game, captain? You and I both know I'm not working on the Lauren file. I would have thought you had the smarts to take a look at the larger picture. We're talking about your career. This is not about the Lauren file or your homicide case.

Tracy:

This is about you doing what you are supposed to do. You mean me doing what you say I'm

Rachel:

I'm being insubordinate. I respect Tracy so much in this moment because she's like know. She's like, yeah. Let's face it. I'm not doing what you told me to do.

Rachel:

And the boss is like, you need to be doing what you're supposed to do. And she goes, you mean what you want me to do? And the boss was like, yeah. Same thing. And so she's like No.

Matt:

Not the same thing.

Rachel:

Okay. Cool. And so she just goes back to what she's doing, and she's like, what are you doing? And Tracy goes, being insubordinate. And so the lady goes, you're making a big mistake, and Tracy's like, what are you gonna do?

Rachel:

Bust me down to meter, mate? I don't think so. You're too far up my dad's ass. There's no way you're gonna be able to do that, and she just storms off. And Tracy's like, control p,

Doctor:

and she prints the file.

Matt:

Oh, wasn't it f 11?

Rachel:

She was f 9ing when she should have been f 10ing. Now this is the I love this scene. And then, otherwise, episode, this was like, thank you, Tracy. Thank you. Yeah.

Rachel:

I needed that little bit of, I got sass. I don't do what everybody tells me. I'm actually a really independent character. I'm just growing up. Yeah.

Rachel:

And given enough time, I'm gonna be formidable, and I appreciate this moment. And so Tracy is like, well, fuck that job. And so she goes back to join Nick. She's and Nick maybe has a bad influence. I don't know.

Rachel:

I mean, look what Nick has gotten away with. Look what Nick gets away with.

Matt:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the hypnotism.

Rachel:

Well, no. I mean, if you looked at his file, it's gotta be just a bunch of, like, he did this thing, and then it's just scratched through with red paper. And it's like, no. He didn't, and it's in crayon.

Doctor:

And then it does it again.

Rachel:

He's like, he killed a man by throwing him into an electrical transformer, and it's, like, scratched through.

Doctor:

And then

Rachel:

it's like, uh-uh. He jumped on it by himself. And it's just obvious, like, someone in, like, you know, crayon, whatever was handy at the moment just corrected all of his records. So he gets away with everything. So I'm sure Tracy is like, well, if he can do it, I can do it.

Rachel:

And the one important thing about this, literally, the only reason she goes there plot wise is so she can investigate, like, forensically. She can look at her accounting, and she finds out that no one can get to this fortune unless literally everyone dies. Her mom has to die. Her brother has to die. And now either

Matt:

Christy her agent, her

Rachel:

Yeah. Her business manager, and now McGee is also on it. So McGee or

Matt:

Christy and Christie are the only ones left.

Rachel:

Whoever dies first, the other one gets it. And so Tracy goes, yeah. So which one is next? And so they go into McGee's place, and it's empty. And Nick is like, oh, look at this tape player that's just sitting right here.

Rachel:

I could just walk over. It's playing.

Matt:

It's like Finally.

Rachel:

Fucking finally. And so it starts playing the family whatever. He puts on the headphones, and it's like, kill. Kill, murder, death, kill, kill, kill. And he's like, I think this might be related because it turns out the headphones are hypnoprogramming her to kill people.

Matt:

I do hypnotism, and this feels like hypnotism.

Rachel:

Listen. I've got, like, a thing. It's a thing. I know about hypnotism, and this feels like like Umbran. And Tracy's like, oh, okay.

Rachel:

Cool. So she actually she doesn't he doesn't actually say anything. He's just like, oh, he's showing her how to kill, and he's, like, tell telling her to kill these people on here because it's like, this is the person you must shoot, but the weirdest part about this isn't the, like, murder. Duh. Kill this person.

Rachel:

Shoot them. This is all a dream. It's the weird, like, sitar music, the like, oh, what is happening? Does that have to be there? Does it not work if you don't play a sitar over it?

Rachel:

It doesn't work. I don't know. But it sends Nick into the flashback again because Rasputin has been dumped into a river, but, of course, that doesn't actually kill him. So he shows back up, and he's confronting Nicholas, the tsar, and Nick, the vampire, shows up. And he ends up staking him, and then the tsar is like, oh my god.

Rachel:

Are you, like, like, the same? And Nick is like, yeah. Although Nick gets a pretty metal fucking line to Rasputin, and I just wanna put this in there because he's grabs Rasputin, and he's choking him. And he's like, what do you think is going to fucking happen? You were gonna start this revolution and what?

Rachel:

You're gonna own the kingdom? You're gonna take it back for the people? What? You will be a ruler of nothing but a wasteland filled with rotting flesh.

Doctor:

You would bring a monarchy to its knees. Countless thousands of people may die in the upheaval. You would be ruler of nothing but a wasteland filled with rotting flesh.

Matt:

Yeah. It's pretty metal.

Rachel:

It's pretty fucking metal. Anyway, he stakes him, and he dies unlike everyone else who gets staked around here.

Matt:

So I thought, we finally know what happened to Rasputin. Why is this video not playing in high school classrooms?

Rachel:

This is a historical record, y'all. Especially the part afterwards for the vampire is like, my friend, because czar Nicholas is like, you're like him, and Nick goes, it's a long story, one that I'm afraid I shan't be able to tell you, but your son will recover now. I wish you and your family well, my old friend. And czar Nicholas is like, yes. Cool.

Rachel:

Can you get the fuck out? And Nick is like, yeah. I'm already on the way. Just wanna get a parting shot in there. And so Nick puts in another tape.

Rachel:

He pulls one up at random, and he's like, okay. And he puts it in, and it's Christie and her boyfriend. Uh-oh. Did she also murder her boyfriend? I

Matt:

don't think she murdered her boyfriend because she wasn't seeing a therapist until after.

Rachel:

The yes. Unless she was seeing him, but she wasn't living with him. We don't know. This episode's so convoluted. There's no way of telling.

Rachel:

But he puts it in, and it's her and her boyfriend on Pier 5.

Matt:

They tried to shove some more plot in this episode, but it pushed the original plot out, so they stopped.

Rachel:

So they just were like, you know what? Take it for what it is. And Tracy's like, oh my god. If Christy kills everyone on these videotapes, and then Nick goes, then she's gonna kill herself. And then McGee shows up, and he's like, why are you guys touching my tapes?

Matt:

What the hell are you doing here?

Rachel:

What the hell are you doing here?

Matt:

Bruh.

Rachel:

And so Tracy runs over, and he then we get a little bit of whatever, cuff him, and then Nick is like, cool. I'm a go. And Tracy goes, where are you going? But he just leaves. I'm going around, Tracy.

Rachel:

And so he flies off literally. And Christie's standing at the pier. She has a gun. She's hearing McGee's voice telling her to kill herself. Nick shows up just in time, and she's like, I have to shoot her.

Rachel:

I've got to do this. And Nick hypnotizes her to overcome the hypnotism that she's already been hypnotized with, and so the hypnotism undoes the prior private blah blah blah previous hypnotism.

Matt:

Which which vindicates him for losing the hypno off with respiration

Rachel:

flashbacks. Yeah. 1, a, I won because I'm still fucking alive. And 2, I win because I can hit I can out hypnotize a human. So good job, me.

Rachel:

And he's like, you don't have to kill her. And she's like, I don't have to kill her. I don't have to kill her. I don't have to die. I don't have to die.

Rachel:

And so he she collapses on Nick's chest like, oh, thank fucking Christ, except, and I wanna point this out, this poor, clearly psychologically fragile woman murdered her mother, her brother, her business manager, and possibly also her boyfriend, and she has to live with that. I mean, I'm not saying she should have killed her. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just saying this is a long road ahead for Christie Black. So we come back and, we just had this I mean, this woman's life is shattered.

Rachel:

It is broken in pieces on the ground. So, sure, let's have our wrap up be about how Tracy's gonna stick it to her dad. That's exactly how we should turn this turn this frown upside down. So Tracy's like, I'm back y'all. And they're like, oh my god.

Rachel:

We're so glad you're back. Have you told your dad? And she's like, no. But I know that conversation is coming, so it'll come to me. I don't need to come to it.

Rachel:

And they they do get one line where they're like, how's Christie Black doing? Well, it's not good, but it's not hopeless because she's gonna testify and, hopefully, it sticks even though he's got skeezy lawyers, it's gonna be fine. And then Tracy gets a call, and Nick literally says, oh, that sounds like his ring. And so she's talking to her dad, and she's like, we have to talk. Okay.

Rachel:

How about 2? No, dad. You changed yours, and then that's the end of the episode. And y'all, we made it. We made it through strings.

Rachel:

You know what? I hesitate to say this is a terrible episode. It's just not engaging. I think there's too many plot lines. There's too much going on.

Rachel:

Every single plot line is actually repetitive And we get these tiny little moments of, like, oh, that was good. Like, the Tracy insubordinate one and the Rasputin flashback is not being nearly enough Rasputin. Right? That's what we needed. He just sort of lurks.

Rachel:

He doesn't he's not really active in one moment where he hypnotizes the czarina, but the and then the czarina has the squarest jaw I have ever seen in my life.

Matt:

Oh, this lady has a Russian accent.

Rachel:

No. She doesn't. That's bullshit.

Matt:

No. No. She does. She's the only one that does.

Rachel:

I'm sorry. It's already gone. It's left me.

Matt:

I didn't remember until you brought her up.

Rachel:

Oh, she looks like somebody had, like, a filter. You know, those whatever filters where they'll be old people or dog or whatever, except the filter makes her mouth really, really tiny in the middle of her face.

Doctor:

The bottom.

Rachel:

I don't know. It's okay. It's fine. It's fine. I mean, there's better episodes.

Rachel:

Let's put it that way. I liked sons of Billio better just because it was so fucking off the wall. This wasn't off the wall. It wasn't weird.

Matt:

This was not uncomfortable to watch.

Rachel:

It was everybody's being controlled by somebody. Let's show ad nauseam everyone being controlled by somebody else on repeat for 48 minutes. The end. We get a couple metal lines. We get Tracy b and badass.

Rachel:

We get Lacroix arguing force slavery, which I'm just gonna you know what? I'm gonna put that I'm gonna chunk that out. I'm gonna put it in the little box where the Oedipus flashback lives. And I'm just and then I'm gonna put the lid back on, and I'm gonna let that sit there. So later it can come out as unresolved trauma.

Rachel:

That's not gonna do because this felt as this felt as throwaway as the I can't even remember what episode the Oedipus flashback is in because it doesn't have anything to do with what's happening in the main storyline. Is it father figure? About. I don't know. I don't think it's father figure, but you know what I'm talking about?

Rachel:

The one where

Matt:

The one where

Rachel:

Jeanette helps LaCroix kill his father in effigy.

Matt:

Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel:

And Nick has the worst wig in existence. It's like they cut up a wig and threw it at his head. Like, they threw glue at his head, and then they threw it at his head. Yeah. Okay.

Rachel:

Well, that's what I'm gonna do with that because I don't wanna hear Lacroix being like, what do you mean people deserve to be free? Fuck you. You don't deserve to be free. You're my son and my bitch. You will be for all of eternity.

Rachel:

Well, I think we've pretty much said all we wanna say about that episode, and we are going to make up for it in fucking space with fever. I'm so excited. It's one of my favorite episodes for, like, multiple reasons, and I'm just so excited to talk about that. And maybe that's why I was like, Strings is the episode before Fever. Okay.

Rachel:

You know, when you don't watch them in order, there are episodes where you're like, well, I watched that once, and then I see it, and I'm like, strings? Well, that didn't make any kind of an impression. I'm not gonna watch that again. And then I'm like, oh, but fever. Alright.

Rachel:

It's the other single word I can't even tell you how long. You've had a fever for fever? I've had a fever for fever. For I can't even tell you how long.

Matt:

You've had a fever for fever?

Rachel:

I've had a fever for fever. So I guess we'll just leave it here. Until next time, friends. Bye.

Forever Knight (Season 3 Ep 12) - "Strings"

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