Forever Knight (Season 3 Ep 22) - "Last Knight"
I won't leave you. Whatever happens, we'll be together
Natalie:forever.
Matt:I'm having a silence, please.
Rachel:Thank you for joining us. Matt grabs his microphone at the exact right moment. Hi. I'm Rachel. And I'm Matt.
Rachel:And this is Come in 81 kilo.
Matt:A forever night podcast. This is or this was?
Rachel:It still is. It still is. So this is Forever Knight season 3 episode 22, last night. Nat, right out the gate, I wanna know thoughts, feelings, emotions. How are you right now?
Matt:Last night was wild. I had I stayed up, like, so late. And
Rachel:this is not the time for jokes. This is a serious moment.
Matt:Exactly the time for jokes.
Rachel:It is not. It is do not cover up your pain with humor.
Matt:Are the perfect occasion for humor to cover the wound.
Rachel:It sounds like you are covering the wound. Let's but let's, let's peel it back. This is a vulnerable place. This is a safe place. You you can talk about how you feel.
Rachel:I'm fucking messed up, so I just need some validation here right now.
Matt:Much like the end of chapter house Dune Yeah. I was not satisfied with how everything was wrapped up.
Rachel:Okay. That's fair. That isn't then that was a very contemporary opinion. Everyone thought this was the the most fucking bullshit that it ever bullshitted on a television station ever, and we're very, very angry at it. And I think retrospectively, looking back 30 years past when this all happened, I can see that point of view.
Rachel:But also I I mean, we'll get to it at the end, but I feel like I have mixed feelings about how this ends because how else do you wrap this up? How else?
Matt:Well, the my main issue is we don't actually see proof that either of them died.
Rachel:Yeah. No. We don't.
Matt:So it leaves it
Rachel:It's kinda like The Sopranos black screen.
Matt:Yes.
Rachel:Yeah. It is. And you know what? There's Being Human, the UK version, and this is a big spoiler. I don't know.
Rachel:Skip forward, like, 2 minutes. At the very end, everybody gets everything that they want.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Yes.
Matt:But the devil can make you dream whatever you want.
Rachel:At the very end of the canonical television show, like the actual show, everybody gets what they want. All the supernatural beings get cured. And there is, like, a tiny snippet you can find online if you want to where they realize that this is all part of the devil's illusion and they never actually got cured. But in the television show, if you just leave it where it is, it ends completely happy.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:I hate it. I hate it. Like, I fucking hate it. And I think, oh my god. What if we had had a television show where Nick gets it?
Rachel:Like, Nick gets to be human. Like, the Nick Natalie thing works just like the Janet and Bob thing worked, and he gets to
Matt:be like had, like, oh, fade to black because he and Natalie are going to the black fuck sheets. Yeah. And then in the morning, like, the sun is coming through the skylight, and Nick's like, oh, shit. I didn't close the skylight. I never closed the skylight.
Matt:But the sun is shining on him, and he doesn't burn. Yeah. And then boom. We only we would only need, like, 10 frames Yeah. Of the sun shining on him and him not burning with, like, a surprised look on his face and then black.
Rachel:I don't know. I don't know how I would have felt about that. I think I would have had so many questions because, you know, he's gonna keep working in the force. And Tracy, did does Tracy still die? Is Tracy still dead?
Rachel:And he just killed a guy. He's gonna lose his job. He's gonna end up in the life from curiouser and curiouser. Maybe. Fucking his captain, and he gets laid out.
Rachel:He, like, he gets suspended because he's using too much force, and he's gonna forget he's not bulletproof, and he's gonna get shot on the job, and he's gonna die.
Matt:Is there a Nick and Reese fan fiction?
Rachel:You know, I'm not gonna say no. Because over a wide enough population, the possibility for everything is greater than 0. So probably. I mean, we just watched we watched so Scaredy Cats, which I've mentioned before, is doing, he did a whole season watch along of season 1 all in all of January. And he loves LaCroix, and I love his love for LaCroix because I also share a deep and abiding love for Lacroix.
Rachel:So if you look up scaredy cats, SKARDY, on YouTube, Feel free to go follow him. He did a great job covering all of them, and he has 1 episode where he talks about Lacroix. And he's like, are these 2 men having gay sex? Are they how much gay sex? Is it good gay sex?
Rachel:Who's the top, and why is it Lacroix? And then he's like, being a vampire is a pansexual fuck fest. That's just science. Just like it. Anyway, I I that was our moment of levity before we get into the show because there is no levity in this episode.
Rachel:It was ending, and they wanted it to feel like an end, and it feels like an end. And it ends the only way a nineties show can end, which is with suicide, contemplations of suicide, actual suicide. We get Murder suicide? Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel:It's like suicide by cop.
Matt:Or is it assisted suicide by assisted suicide?
Rachel:It's suicide by cop, but, like, long distance. Like, it just took a long time to
Matt:get around me. Chained.
Rachel:Yeah. It's fine. So, anyway, we open on a tub, like a tub of water. Yeah. And there's a woman getting into the tub, and she's wearing her clothes.
Rachel:And this is the part where I knew this was gonna be hard for Matt because he was like, why she have her clothes on. That's just crazy. Yeah. And we also flashed to her leaving this notebook and addressing it to Natalie, and all of this is happening while LaCroix monologues.
Matt:But with this, like, wave filter.
Rachel:It's this weird kind of underwater almost. Mhmm. And don't think I didn't notice that the skylight is in the background behind his head because the skylight is the actual villain of the entire series, not Lacroix.
Matt:It's the plot hole. Yeah. The literal that all the plot comes through
Rachel:Literal plot hole.
Matt:Straight into this apartment.
Rachel:Yeah. Well, this woman in the tub ends up, cutting her wrists with a scalpel and then sinking down under the water and then fade to intro. And the monologue that LaCroix LaCroix is giving over all of this is 1 of my favorite the LaCroix monologues in this episode are like this is why I love these old television shows. They did not have budget. They did not have special effects.
Rachel:You are not coming to them for the for the costume design, special effects, adaptation, whatever was happening. This is not foundation. They knew what they were, but what they did have were writers. And every once in a while, they had some really fucking good writers, and you get some really good dialogue moments and monologue moments in forever night and in a lot of nineties television shows. Like, that's 1 of my favorite things about Babylon 5 is how well written all of the dialogue is.
Rachel:And so his monologue is like, life is a gift as sweet as a ripe peach, as precious as a gilded jewel. Side note, how does he know what a peach tastes like? He wouldn't have had a peach in Rome, would he have?
Matt:He was very well to travel. He was very well traveled as a Roman general. So he may have
Rachel:Yeah. But it's native to Northwest China.
Matt:He was very
Rachel:So well traveled. Yeah.
Matt:Okay. Yeah. Probably not then.
Rachel:No. Would even Nick would know.
Matt:Why Peaches feature so prominently in Journey to the West.
Rachel:Possibly. Yes. But that's okay. It doesn't matter. I have never been able to understand the logic of willfully surrendering such a treasure, and what is there to gain?
Rachel:How dark can your existence be when compared to an eternal void? And this we've discussed before, but the concept of eternal void is literally the only way a conscious being consciousness, and then it would just end like, when you go to sleep and you don't know how much time has passed, that's effectively what but even then, there's a partial awareness of time passing. Death would you would assume if there is nothing after would simply be like flicking off a light switch. It's not like you are in an you are in an endless black sea. You simply do not exist.
Rachel:But we can't conceive of that. That's a that's actual a limitation in how our consciousness works.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:So that's not what LaCroix is referencing. We just wanna throw that out there. Eternal void, not really. More like just nothing. Blick.
Rachel:Unless, of course, you have faith that there's something beyond, which we kinda discuss later.
Matt:Or first hand experience.
Rachel:I know. Right? Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel:What do you see from where you stand? A bright light at the end of the tunnel? Is it a ray of hope? A glimmer of something better, or will it burn you like the rising sun? Is that sound you're hearing, the trumpeting of Saint Peter's angels, or the scream of Mennonox tortured souls?
Rachel:Did he make all this up on the fly, or has he been scripting this in his head for this moment for a real long time?
Matt:Well, that's why he's been podcasting. He's been practicing his ad hoc existential info dope. Yeah. Looking up, Memnock.
Rachel:But I love the last line. Don't trade a treasure for an empty box. That's a really powerful monologue, especially considering that the subject matter of this entire episode is the contemplation of suicide
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Which we've discussed before. This is sort of the underlying elephant in the room of the whole quest for mortality thing, which is if it is so hard to be a vampire and you can't stop being a vampire, why don't you just stop being? And we gloss over that question a lot. Well, he loves life. Okay.
Rachel:Well, that's great. No. I'm I'm totally behind that. That's fine. Sometimes it's because the vampire survival instinct is too strong, and so they can't kill themselves.
Rachel:And I don't mind that 1 either, But it is a question. If Nick is so tortured, how has he made it 800 years? And I think that's a question on Laquotte's mind too. And I think that's why we get the lines that we get from him at the very end of this episode, which we will talk about when we get there because it has to have occurred to him that this was a possibility, that there might come a time when it was so hard for Nick to be what he was that he didn't wanna be anymore. And I think that's why he does all the shit that he does to Nick because he's constantly pushing him.
Rachel:He's constantly making him angry instead of sad and cause it like, forcing him to question his, like, ideas, to question who he is, to question how he moves through the world. Does he do a real bad job of it sometimes? Yeah. But all parents do. I mean Does
Matt:he respond to at least 30% of Nick's emotional bids?
Rachel:Yeah. He responds to all of them, just not positively. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel:No. He's picking it up. He's just not putting it back down the way that Nick wants him to. And it's just the way that we pivoted the Nick LaCroix relationship in the last 3 episodes gives this 1 so much impact. I can't believe it was not planned, That they didn't want this final moment between Nick and LaCroix to hit, and it hits.
Rachel:But after we come back from the intro, we're at the scene. It's not really a crime scene. There's no crime in this episode. This woman needed help. She didn't get the help she needed, and here we are.
Matt:Oh, the crime was addressing the suicide notebook to Natalie.
Rachel:I have feelings about that too. I do because I get where this woman was going. Natalie had been a friend. She saw herself in Natalie, and she didn't want Natalie to do what she had done. So she was telling she was trying to present herself as a cautionary tale, but she didn't check-in with Natalie first.
Rachel:We've we have had conversations with Natalie in the past where she has expressed suicidal thoughts.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And this woman was a psychiatrist. She didn't check-in to see if Natalie was already having suicidal ideation before she gave her social permission to go ahead and do it and then address this notebook to her, which everyone lets her keep this notebook. And I get that you can't, like what are you gonna do? Rip it from Natalie's hands, but also, like, you could, quote, check it into evidence. You could separate it from her for a little while to give her some breathing space.
Rachel:You you all can see that she is obviously struggling, And we make cracks about the fact that nobody cares about Natalie all the time because it kinda feels like like nobody does, but this feels like blatant neglect.
Matt:Yeah. Reckless endangerment.
Rachel:She wasn't offered counseling. She was allowed to keep the suicide note that was addressed to her, and I yeah. I'm I'm big mad at her friend for giving her this. Of course, her friend didn't know that her biffle like, her her love interest was a vampire who had been ignoring her for 6 years. She couldn't know that, but they had been out of contact for years.
Rachel:And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, she writes her this letter, and she's like, this will help Natalie. Natalie will do what it takes to get a life now. Of course, she's not thinking. She's not thinking rationally. She's not making rational decisions right now.
Rachel:Yeah. And I don't know because I have complicated feelings about suicide or, like, I just have complicated feelings about all of this because I can understand there are situations where life is too painful, and there is no way out. And having gone through several family members who have gone through extended extended illnesses knowing they were never gonna get better, they were only gonna get worse, and that at a certain point, they were gonna be unable to even cognitively understand the the load that they would place on their loved ones, and there being no way out except through. And that is hard. And of course, there's lots of people that would still choose to do that because yeah.
Rachel:Did we have great times with my dad after he had dementia? Heck, yeah. 1 time he sat in a laundry basket, and it was the funniest thing. And we all laughed, and he laughed. And it was really funny, and it was really sweet.
Rachel:And those were great memories, and I wouldn't have had them, but I can understand where there would be a situation where suicide is maybe not the answer, but should be offered as an option. And yet, we get things like this where this woman clearly needed help. She needed someone to talk to, and if in the end, she felt that there was no other way out, okay, but then don't drag Natalie into it. Does that make sense?
Matt:Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel:Oh, and we kinda went back and forth on the Discord about this a little bit because does this make Laura a bad friend? I don't think it makes her a bad friend. I think it makes her a bad psychiatrist. I think it makes her a, I don't check-in with my make it maybe a neglectful friend.
Matt:Like A bad communicator?
Rachel:Yeah. It's just, you know what, she didn't make sure this was the moment. She didn't check-in. She just was like, this is I know what's right, and I'm gonna do it. And okay.
Rachel:I'm just gonna leave that there. There's no solution for that. It just is what it is. But we find Nick and he's comforting Natalie, and she's holding the notebook because, of course, it was addressed to her. And he goes over and talks to Tracy, and Tracy's like, she was a psychiatrist.
Rachel:I'm guessing no 1 saw this coming. And Nick goes, yeah. Not even her closest friends, which okay. If this if Natalie was her closest friend and she hadn't talked to her in years, this woman was way more isolated than Natalie.
Matt:Right. Because at least Natalie has, peers that she communicates with.
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:And if this lady was practicing as a psychiatrist, like, in a private practice, she may not have had peers. She may have only had patients.
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:And Nick kinda looks meaningfully at Nat implying that she's the, quote, closest friend. And then he goes, guess you really never know your friends, do you? And Tracy goes, no. I guess not. Tracy just lost Vashon.
Rachel:She doesn't know she killed him, but she knows he's gone. He moved on. She just basically got ghosted by her boyfriend. Literally, he's like a ghost now. But he got go she got ghosted by her boyfriend.
Rachel:And, like, oh my god. And then all of a sudden, this is happening. She's gotta be in not a great place either. And we get, like, a tiny little glimpse of that in just a second. 1 with this, no.
Rachel:I guess not, which is this really sad line and also foreshadowing because she doesn't know what shit about Nick. She thinks she knows a lot about Nick, but guess what? Not really.
Matt:He's got a secret.
Rachel:Yeah. And Nick goes, can you finish up here? And Tracy's like, yeah. That's fine. That's k.
Rachel:I can do that. And so Nick takes Natalie out of the scene because she's struggling, and he sees that. And he's the most emotionally intelligent person in this entire episode, so it it tracks. And then Tracy whispers
Matt:Who is? Nick. Nick. Yeah.
Rachel:Yeah. Nick, maybe Lacroix. Lacroix is like, just assume Lacroix takes, like, you know, s position, like, top, and then Right. Then we compete for the 1 below that. And Tracy just goes, sure.
Rachel:Like, what else was I gonna say? No. Don't go. Leave Natalie here because she's sad that her boyfriend just left, and there's Nick over there being lovey dovey with Nat and, like, kissing her on the forehead. And it's gotta hurt, but she had this guy and he was they were together, and then he left.
Rachel:And here's Nick with this woman who obviously loves him that he is doing nothing about.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And Tracy's not dumb. She sees them. She sees them not being together and that has to hurt too. And then we cut to Nick and Natalie in the morgue, and Natalie is reading a part of the note that was left to her. And it's like, do as I ask, not as I've done.
Rachel:Don't let yourself become empty. And Natalie goes, you know, I've never lost a friend like that. I've never had a suicide note addressed to me. Guess this is a night of firsts.
Natalie:Do as I ask, not as I've done. Don't let yourself become empty. First time I've lost someone to suicide. It's the first time I've had a suicide not addressed to me, a night of firsts.
Rachel:1st and last. Night of firsts.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:And then it's actually her last night. And Natalie goes, you know, she knew I was a kindred spirit. That's why she sent this to me. I mean, how did she know that? You guys weren't in communication.
Matt:Right. I can see where Laura had this connection with Natalie years ago, like, when they were in school,
Rachel:I guess.
Matt:But and maybe that's, like, the last close relationship that she had.
Rachel:I mean, Natalie used to have people in the morgue that would come in like Grace, and over time, we filtered them out. So, yeah, she is kind of alone right now. But
Matt:Yeah. But I don't know that Laura would have known that.
Rachel:Yeah. That's what like, how if they're out of touch, how did she know that Natalie needed this?
Matt:Right. And maybe she's just writing a letter
Rachel:didn't need this.
Matt:Maybe she's just writing a letter to the version of Natalie that she knew back when they were friends. And
Rachel:Yeah. You know, I think that's probably a good summary of it is that she remembers the version of Natalie that she was friends with, and she thinks that that version of Natalie will respond positively to this.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:And she's just not in a place where she's checking in to make sure that her mental model of Natalie is still accurate. But Nick, actually, he clocks into the fact that she is, putting out some emotional bids almost immediately. And he's like, reep, reep, reep. Like, damage control mode because he's like, Natalie, she took her own life because she had really big problems. And Natalie's like, okay.
Rachel:You know, I used to think that suicide was a sacrilege, but now I don't know.
Matt:She's seen some shit.
Rachel:Yeah. And Nick goes, do not talk like that, Natalie. I don't wanna hear that. And Natalie's like, oh, okay. Well, you've thought about yourself.
Rachel:I mean, what do you think the quest for mortality is? Not everyone commits suicide quickly.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And what is a quest for mortality, but asking for the ability to die? Because right now, he can only die violently.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And he doesn't wanna die violently but he does wanna die. That's what the quest for mortality is. But what we put in here is a flashback to last act, which last act is the season 1 episode 4 episode where his former lover has taken her own life because she felt like she was no longer contributing to society. And he goes on a bit of a tailspin, and this is the section when he comes back to his apartment, and he's acting very cavalier with his own personal safety. And Natalie has to, like, push him out of the sunlight, and he's just being really he's really acting like it doesn't matter.
Rachel:Like, he wouldn't care what happened to him. And Natalie confronts him about it, and he says, you know, I lost an old friend the other day. And this is when he Natalie says, well, how long did you know them? And he was like, oh, I don't know. 300 years, something like that.
Rachel:And she's like, old friend with you takes on a new whole new meaning. And this is the section where he has, like, the doll, and it this is this that whole episode was him confronting the idea of should I take my own life? Is that a form of mortality that I feel comfortable with? Then ultimately, he decides no, and he moves on, so to speak, to a more, like, a slower form. I don't know what to do.
Rachel:He doesn't decide to walk out to the sun that day. That's what he decides. Right. And then we come back to what's actually happening in the episode, and Nick is like, maybe you shouldn't work on this case, Natalie.
Matt:Which fair? She shouldn't.
Rachel:No shit.
Matt:They her boss shouldn't let her work on this case. But as far as we know, Natalie does not have a boss.
Rachel:I don't know if she's the head coroner. If she is, she may not. But she would have, like, the the city commissioners or something who could say, no. You gotta be off this. You're too close.
Rachel:But Natalie says, no. Like, I owe her this. I can handle it. I can handle doing this to her. I can handle doing this to a friend, but what I can't handle is that I understand her, and that scares me to death.
Nick:Maybe you shouldn't do the work on this case.
Natalie:You know, Laura never reached out to me in life for help. I owe her this much. To see that everything is properly done now that she's gone. I can handle it, but you know what I can't handle? I think that I understand her, and that scares me to death.
Rachel:Because she gets it. It doesn't feel mystifying. She understands it, and that is a powerful line. It's like, it's not her saying, I've thought about doing this. It's, oh, wow.
Rachel:I see where she's coming from, and I don't know how that fits into how I feel about myself and how I feel about my life. And then we cut to Reese and Tracy at the precinct, and Reese is like, well, how's Natalie talking to Tracy? And Tracy is like, not well. The whole suicide note addressed to her was kind of a dick move. So Tracy's on our side.
Rachel:Yeah. And she tells Reese, listen. There was no sign of foul play. No 1 disagrees with what happened here. So can I just wrap this up early and go home?
Rachel:I I don't feel great. And then a screaming guy comes out from the back, and we find out that this is a transfer that they're holding for pickup. And he's like, I don't wanna go back, and he's just shouting really loudly. And Reese kinda gets in his face, and he goes, you know what? You settle down.
Rachel:I'm gonna have you cuffed. This dude should be cuffed.
Matt:Why is this guy not
Rachel:already cuffed? Man not already cuffed? This guy is clearly showing, like, violent, chaotic tendencies. He should be
Matt:He's already resistant. Yeah. So need to restrain him.
Rachel:Yeah. Yeah. What are you gonna restrain him with? A harsh look? This man needs, like he needs to not be able to use his hands.
Matt:Reese wrote him a strongly written letter Yeah. And expected it to work.
Rachel:Yeah. Expect my complaint in the mail if you don't quit doing what you're doing. It's I get it. I get why we don't do it because it leads to where it ultimately leads to, but also, like, would it have killed them to cuff him so that they didn't have to keep pushing him around and slamming him in the walls and shit? We go back to Nick and Natalie at the morgue, and Nick is holding this journal.
Rachel:And he goes, you know what? It's amazing how something so personal can become just a piece of evidence. And Natalie goes, it's not just evidence to me. I think Nick was like, Wow. Look at this thing.
Rachel:It's just evidence now. We don't need to keep reading it and talking about it, Natalie. And Natalie's like, oh, no. No. No.
Matt:Oh, you think Nick was making an attempt to
Rachel:I think he was just gonna think to distance her from it. Yeah. To to create, like, a verbal distance. Like, you know, she's gone, and the this is her journal and, yes, it was addressed to you, but in the end of the day, it's just evidence. Like, it's not it doesn't have to be the Bible by which you live your life, and it doesn't have to determine your decisions, and we don't have to belabor this anymore because
Matt:Right. Just like not everything you read on the Internet is true, not even I guess, most of these thoughts that pop into your head, not necessarily true. Yeah. The things you read from an emotional, former friend. Not necessarily true even if they are emotionally significant.
Matt:So Natalie, I guess, needs to maintain some emotional distance, some not necessarily skepticism, but, you know, read into it with the context of this was an emotionally troubled person
Nick:Yeah.
Matt:Who wrote this.
Rachel:And I think Natalie's troubled right now. She's in a vulnerable place, and this is speaking to her in a way that Nick does not feel comfortable with. And so he's trying to objectify it for her.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:He's trying to you know, this is just a journal, Natalie.
Matt:Just like all the other cases that you've handled, this is just another personal effect for the person whose case you are handling.
Rachel:Yep. And now it is just evidence just like all other personal effects, end up as evidence. And she's like, not this time. I'm not willing to let it go. It's, it's basically, I'm not willing to let this go yet.
Rachel:Yeah. And she says, you know, years ago, we used to get together and we would talk for hours, but only about our careers. Our personal lives were nonexistent. And once we realized that, we lost touch. This is when you start a podcast, can confirm, when you find you are only talking about work or the kids and you don't interact otherwise.
Rachel:Highly recommend, just go ahead and
Matt:start podcasting. Get a shared hobby Yeah. With with a an acquaintance, a close friend, a stranger with a shared interest, or a spouse.
Rachel:Or a Patreon member. I just you know, if you're a good friend and you're you find that you're only talking about 1 thing, then do you just go, well, this relationship isn't working, or do you take the time to go, hey, Natalie. We're gonna hang out today. We're gonna go see a movie, and then we are we can talk and but we cannot talk about work.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And maybe we work together and we support each other to try to find more friends and maybe branch out, and maybe we create a life for ourselves.
Matt:You can do a shared activity that you then relate with each other about, or you can say, okay. Instead of spending time together today, let's each spend time apart doing something where each mute like, individually interested in, and then we get together tomorrow.
Rachel:Yeah. And We
Matt:talk about it.
Rachel:About it.
Matt:Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel:Let's let's join a cooking class. Let's go to the library and sign up for a book club. Let's let's figure this out, instead of just being like, well, you're a bummer. I don't wanna be with another downer. I don't wanna be with another Debbie Downer.
Matt:Bye, Felicia.
Rachel:Bye, Felicia. I just I have a feeling that the problems with Laura started long before, and that Natalie just didn't have the she didn't have a way of seeing it. And then by the time it would have become obvious to her so that she would have seen it, they were no longer in touch. And then when it comes back and she finds this journal and she gets this letter, it feels extremely sudden, and I doubt it was very sudden. It was just that this was the you know, them her ghosting Natalie because Natalie reminded her too much of herself was probably the beginning of a spiral that ended in where we are now.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:And the only reason it feels sudden to Natalie is because she had lost contact for so long. And Natalie says, you know, her leaving me this note and her journal was so that I would learn from her mistakes. It's my wake up call. It's time to get a life. And Nick goes, you have a life.
Rachel:You have got 1.
Nick:You've got 1, and it's not empty.
Natalie:Not now. 6 years ago, April 14th.
Nick:What's that?
Natalie:Day they brought you in.
Rachel:And I think what Natalie is saying is I need a lot. I need a life. I need something that isn't work. I need a hobby. I need friends.
Rachel:I need someone who loves me as much as I love them, and what Nick is hearing is, you are not enough. You don't count because you aren't giving me what I want.
Matt:Right. He's not really in a reciprocal relationship with Natalie.
Rachel:Yeah. It's a very
Matt:He wants to be, but he's deliberately stopping it from developing.
Rachel:Where it almost feels accusatory on Natalie's part where she's like, no. I don't have a life. And it's like, Nick is there. Nick is giving all Nick can give. The fact that Nick has continued his relationship with her as long as he has, even though it's a platonic relationship, is that is as close to intimacy as he is comfortable giving her.
Rachel:And instead of recognizing that he's never gonna be able to give more than that, and then, well, I guess a couple times she tried to move on. But it ends up like he isn't giving me what I want, and so I'm going to discount him completely. Like, there has to be some sexual tension here or
Matt:it doesn't count. Expecting him to fulfill her emotional needs even though he has communicated, I can't do that for you. Yeah. Clearly, repeatedly. And she hasn't looked anywhere else.
Rachel:Yeah. To be fair, the last couple times she looked, they were like serial killers
Matt:and stuff. Yeah. And so She does have a type. At a certain point, you can make the claim that you don't have the chance. Like, you don't have the opportunity.
Matt:You don't have the capacity anymore to to do the thing. And it's not anybody's fault. It's just circumstance. It's
Rachel:Well, why is the only, quote, life she's supposed to get romantic life? That's the only thing we focus on. Oh, Natalie doesn't have
Matt:a boyfriend.
Rachel:Natalie doesn't have a boyfriend. Oh, I mean, okay. Lots of people move through life without a significant other, and they have what 1 would consider a life.
Matt:On the other hand, most people need at least a couple, like, close personal friends to fulfill your emotional needs. And they need to
Rachel:be like relationship. Relationship. Right. Yeah.
Matt:But Natalie doesn't have any other clusters.
Rachel:There is a spectrum of intimacy. There is emotional intimacy sans physical intimacy. There is physical intimacy without emotional intimacy.
Matt:Made some friends at the what was the conference she went to? Oh, the coroner's conference.
Rachel:Yeah. And she's like, oh, it's a bunch of coroners in a room. I don't know. It wasn't that great. It doesn't have to be about work.
Rachel:It doesn't have to be a coroner's conference.
Matt:But I what are what is her hobby? Her her special interest is vampires.
Rachel:But it's not like it's gonna get air dropped to her house or something. You go out and you find the thing. You start the podcast. You make the friends. You do
Matt:the shit. Have become a guest on LaCroix podcast.
Rachel:Exactly.
Matt:Yeah. And she could have built a community around that. Yep. I mean, the
Rachel:1 time she went to the bar and tried to meet people, the guy took her home and almost raped her, so that didn't work out either.
Matt:Yeah. And then the guy she raped too.
Rachel:If we unpack this for too long, we're gonna get a lot of Natalie trauma on the plate. Okay? So we can't keep going for too long. I mean, Natalie has a lot of reasons why she doesn't branch out. And when Nick is like, you have 1, she's like, I mean, yeah, kinda.
Rachel:And then she goes, 6 years ago on April 14th. So, y'all, April 14th is forever night this week. April 14th, 6 years ago, which means it's really interesting that they used the date. Like, they included the intervening years that the show was off the air because it was 2 years it was, like, 2 years prior when we watched Only the Lonely, and that was in 1992. Yes.
Rachel:And this is 1996, so they actually count the all 6 years.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:As if the time in between seasons was, like, shit was happening. We just weren't getting video of it. But Nick doesn't know. He didn't know their anniversary. He's like, well, what?
Rachel:What happened 6 years ago? I mean, time is meaningless to him. So Yeah.
Matt:For 6 years for him is like is like her saying, yeah. Remember 5 and a quarter months ago when this thing happened? Yeah. No. I'd Yeah.
Matt:I don't remember.
Rachel:I just read The Last Unicorn by Peter s Beagle, and there's a section where he's describing how time feels to the unicorn because the unicorn is immortal. And, he ends up describing it as, like, there's no sense of passage, so everything feels like 1 long day. And so she literally cannot remember how long it has been since she's had contact with another unicorn because it doesn't feel like any time has passed since she had a contact with the last unicorn that she talked to. But time she knows time has passed because she understands time as a concept, but she can't feel the passage of time. Yeah.
Rachel:And so she has no metric for understanding except in the abstract, and it has to kinda feel like that. Like, 6 years ago, I don't know. Was that, like, Wednesday? Oh, it
Matt:I have some experience with this.
Rachel:You're like, oh, so he's like, they're all ADHD. I got it.
Matt:Time blindness is a thing. There's right now, there's, like, recently, which can come from, like, a couple weeks. And then there's before that, which is what all 1 long blur.
Rachel:Or last yesterday.
Matt:I was I was thinking about Anchors.
Rachel:Okay.
Matt:Like, time anchors.
Rachel:Okay. Like tent poles.
Matt:So 1 of the ways that I keep track of, like, what time range did something happen in, Like, when I remember something, I can remember context of what what was going on around then. So when I, like, when I'm remembering something, I can remember some context of what else was happening in my life at the time. I I can't necessarily put things in order very well, but I can remember, like, when this happened, where was I living? And having moved a lot in my life, it gives me these nice, like, 1 to 4 year chunks
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:That when I remember something, oh, I know I was living here at the time, and I've memorized I guess, I've memorized the dates for when I moved to different places because I've applied for some things
Nick:Yeah.
Matt:And, like, security clearance, whatever.
Rachel:You gotta put your You
Matt:have to
Rachel:last 10 years of addresses.
Matt:Spreadsheet of every time I've moved and the relevant addresses for the moves, and I've had to, like, reference this spreadsheet often enough that I can remember, like, oh, I lived in this place between this year and this year. And and I was thinking a couple weeks ago that it was it's actually really useful for me to move every few years because then that it puts bounds on Yeah. Okay. I'm having a memory. When that happened, I was living here.
Matt:So I know it happened between, like, 2016 and 2020. Yeah. Maybe that's what it was like for the unicorn a little bit.
Rachel:Yeah. Except she lives in the same forest.
Matt:Exactly. For her. Yeah. She never lived.
Rachel:And it's also probably like Nick. Nick, it's like 30 year chunks. Like
Nick:Yes.
Rachel:If I'm in a place for oh, that was when I was in Singapore the first time. Okay. Well, that's, you know, whatever. So we get the whole only the lonely flashback because Natalie's like, oh, that was the day they brought you in. And we get him coming in in the body bag.
Rachel:They actually clip all the flashback clips together, and we get the whole thing. We get him coming in. We get his cheek healing. We don't get the blood going back into the body bag. Right.
Rachel:And we get the him drinking from his Capri Sun juice pouch while making really uncomfortable eye contact the whole time. What are you? Something very different from you. The whole thing. And then we come back, and Natalie's like, my life changed that day, and I don't wanna end up like Laura, Nick.
Rachel:And Nick says, I won't let you.
Matt:That's that's not your call.
Rachel:This is a fallacy. You can be there for your friends. You can support your friends. You can go out of your way for your friends, and you should, but you ultimately have no control over other people's emotional states.
Matt:Right. This is
Rachel:I can provide you with the opportunity to be happy, but I cannot make you happy.
Matt:I would say this that's a maybe not gaslighting. Any kind, anytime you're you are telling somebody what emotion they are feeling or what their motivation was, like, you are making statements about their emotional their internal state, that's that's, like, the worst way to have any kind of conversation. They either have to squash their own feelings and agree with you
Rachel:Yeah. They have to make a liar out of themselves. Themselves. Make a liar out of you.
Matt:Or they have to call you a liar. Yeah. And so that's not a way to have a a good converse that's not a way to really have a conversation. You just end up in an argument.
Rachel:You end up not being able to be truthful with each other. Right. And when Nick is like, I won't let you, she fires back.
Matt:Yeah. He's kinda gaslighting her.
Rachel:Well, no. She fires back with, okay. Then it's real simple. You just have to love me as much as I love you.
Natalie:I don't wanna end up like Laura, Nick.
Nick:I won't let you out.
Natalie:Well, then it's simple. You just have to love me as much as I love you.
Matt:Which is a banger.
Rachel:Natalie. Hot damn. She said the quiet part out loud, y'all, After
Matt:You know what's going on in my head? Alright.
Rachel:Okay. Fine. Oh, no. You're gonna you're gonna save me from myself? Cool.
Rachel:Here's the road map right here. You just gotta actually love me. And Nick looks fucking terrified.
Matt:As he should.
Rachel:That face is like, oh, shit. Oh, shit. But luckily, saved by the bell. Ring. Ring.
Rachel:Telephone. And so he picks up his phone. Natalie looks pissed. Like, she can't believe he just answered his phone, but he is on call. He is on call.
Matt:Right. But she's she just gained control of the conversation. Yeah. And then his phone rings.
Rachel:Right. And we actually fade to black, and here we go to a commercial break. And when we come back, we get another weird Lacroix filming thing where he's monologuing again. And this is the 1 where he's like, love. It warps our senses, twists our souls, can take us past hope, past cure, past help.
Rachel:He's got a lot to say about love. Heaven makes means to kill our joy with love, and yet we must have it at any cost.
Matt:I know about love. It's suffering, it's anguish, It's pain. Heaven makes means to kill our joy with love, And yet we must have it at any cost. But are you so enamored that you will overlook your love of life? And you do love it.
Matt:I've seen you snow the sea, gaze at the stars at night. Are you willing to sacrifice 1 mistress for another? Look into your heart and tell me that you're willing to make the choice.
Rachel:And this is really good because what he's saying is, you have to choose between your life or your love. Your love of your life or this kind of love. Which 1 will you choose? Because you have to sacrifice 1 mistress for another. Because as a vampire, you don't get to have your cake and eat it too because you only wanna eat the fucking cake.
Rachel:You don't just wanna have it. Right. So if you decide to love her, you will kill her. You will harm her. And then you will never feel the same way about your life as you did before.
Rachel:I know. I fucking know because stars are the only comforting light, motherfucker. I lost Fleur because I chose to leave her. My love was strong enough to leave her behind, which I think we actually get a flashback.
Matt:Yes. We get a flashback with Flurb. Yeah.
Rachel:And Nick tells Natalie, you know I can't do that. I cannot love you. You do not understand. Natalie has never fully understood what Nick was talking about when he tried to explain what it's like to be a vampire. She either is willfully not willing to understand him, but also her insistence that this is a physical condition and not a metaphysical condition means she is looking at it like a set of needs.
Rachel:Yeah. Like, you have a disease. It requires a specific kind of medication, but it doesn't change who you are fundamentally. Get over it. Except, it is obviously not just a physical condition.
Rachel:Motherfucker can fly y'all. If I got a cold and suddenly I could levitate, I would be so happy. That's not how that works. And yet, she she insists that this is a physical condition, physical only, and that is how she's going to cure it. And when she she literally blocks everything out in her mind so that she has never fully understood what he goes through to be with her.
Rachel:Even when she had him turn her brother into a vampire and he immediately started doing the kinds of things that he would never have done when he was alive. She was like, wow. I didn't know he had that in him. He didn't. He didn't until Nick put it in there.
Rachel:Do you not get that, Natalie? And yet she she just never has. And so this is another moment where she fundamentally misunderstands. He's trying to tell her, I do love you. That's why I'm not with you.
Matt:I love you enough to keep you safe from me.
Rachel:Yeah. And I think what she's thinking is, well, Janette, look what look what Janet did with Bob. And it's like, yeah. But that was a risk. That was risky.
Rachel:And And Jeanette is not Nick.
Matt:Right. And we know that Jeanette is a risk taker.
Rachel:Yeah. And she's she is a different vampire from Nick. Right. So
Matt:And women have differences from men.
Rachel:I wasn't gonna say anything about it.
Matt:Oh, okay. I mean, like, personality wise
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:Somebody who is temper temperamentally masculine and someone who is temperamentally feminine, which Nick and Jennette are kind of archetypal masculine and feminine Yeah. Temperamentally, they are very different personalities. Yeah. So there are things that Jeanette, as a very temperamentally feminine person, there's things that she can do that Nick cannot do.
Rachel:Right.
Matt:They're not available to him.
Rachel:She's also spent a lot more time learning to control her herself when she's drinking human blood.
Matt:There are some statements in the show that when Nick goes to her Okay. To talk about turning somebody, it's just like
Rachel:Think of it this way.
Matt:I've never been able to hold back.
Rachel:Alright. Think of it this way. Okay? You eat a lot of chocolate. You eat chocolate every single day.
Rachel:If you get special talk chocolate and you have 10 pieces and they tell you you can only eat 5, it's gonna be really easy for you to only eat 5 because you get chocolate every day. If you only eat carrots, you eat nothing but carrots and somebody gives you 10 pieces of special chocolate and says you only can eat 5 pieces of chocolate and you haven't eaten chocolate in so long, you forgot how fucking good chocolate tasted, you're gonna eat all 10 pieces of chocolate.
Matt:He didn't he didn't have any problem turning Natalie's brother even though he had not been drinking his blood.
Rachel:Look. Listen.
Matt:He had not killed anybody with his teeth for a 100 years.
Rachel:I know. I know. And I'm sorry to tell you this, and I really but forever night can't keep a shit together. Okay, honey? It just can't.
Rachel:And that doesn't reduce my enjoyment of it in the slightest. However, the fact that Nick is successful, all the time except, every other Tuesday
Matt:is He chokes with the ones he loves.
Rachel:He does. Yeah. He didn't know Richard.
Matt:I think the last
Rachel:name was Richard. He didn't know Richard.
Matt:It was no other person that he had attempt okay. Okay. Every other person that he has successfully turned, like, he just met him on Thursday or whatever.
Rachel:Yeah. He didn't have any involvement. It was fine.
Matt:The 2 people that he did try to turn that he was actually in love with.
Rachel:That's because the hungers get conflated. Okay? That's because the
Matt:hungers don't they I I brought up I brought up this topic the other day. It was called?
Rachel:Dimorphous expressions. Yes. I'll eat you up. I love you so?
Matt:Yes. And it's a psychological phenomenon where
Rachel:Cute aggression.
Matt:Yes. Yeah. Cute aggression is, like, the most common dimorphous expression, and it's where, like, your internal representation of something is expressed with the opposite seeming emotion. Yeah. And so you see a cute baby, and you express it as I want to eat this thing.
Rachel:Or I wanna squeeze it so hard.
Matt:Right. Yeah. Because it's so cute. Right. You see a fluffy kitten.
Matt:I want to hug you and squeeze you.
Rachel:Yeah. And name you, George.
Matt:And and so Meg said, that is very apt for a show about vampires where the the urge the hungers get conflated.
Rachel:Get yeah. They get all mixed up. Yeah. 1 hunger feels much like the other. A hunger for a person feels like hunger for their blood.
Rachel:It all kind of runs together. So it's almost better if he doesn't know the person.
Matt:Okay. So there's there's 3 types of love.
Rachel:Okay. Right. No. No. I'm here.
Rachel:I am
Matt:there's platonic love.
Rachel:Yes.
Matt:I forget what the technical name or the, like, Greek names are. I know it's eros and agape.
Rachel:And then 1 other 1.
Matt:But eros is the root of erotic. Yeah. But eros is a, like, consumptive love, consumption love. And it's Consuming love. And it's related to, like, I'm consuming this tasty food.
Matt:Yeah. I'm consuming, like like, I'm having that person.
Rachel:Eating them. Yes. Feasting, 1 might say.
Matt:And and so that is an actual way that the the, like, consumptive pleasure of being with another person and the consumptive pleasure of, like, consuming sustenance Yeah. Are linked. They're linked. They're internally like, the internal representation is overlapped.
Rachel:Yeah. And I think for a lot of people, they're linked too. They just don't actually like, for a vampire, that's dangerous because your food is the person you love. And yeah. So Nick is like, I I literally can't.
Rachel:Like, we've converse. I can't.
Matt:I guess the difference so the difference between humans and vampires on this topic is for humans, the those 2 pleasures are overlapped for, like, the internal representation, but not as the external action. Right. But for a vampire, they they carry over the internal representational overlap.
Rachel:But now they are also
Nick:But now they
Matt:are Yeah. The external activity is the same thing.
Rachel:Right. And after he's like, I I can't. My eros is too strong. Natalie is like,
Matt:My erotic love for you.
Rachel:Natalie goes, I have been wrong about a lot of things, but I don't think I'm wrong about this. I need a resolution, Nick. I need an end. I need a clarifying climax. I need a clarification.
Rachel:I need to know a climax. Thank you. Yes. No. He should've just bought her some really good toys.
Rachel:That's what he should've done. But he's like she goes, I need an end. I need to know. I need to
Matt:This is why we need more sense positive communication.
Rachel:What is this? Between us.
Matt:Because Nick could have been like, I'll buy you toys and watch.
Rachel:Oh. See, now that's not a nineties show.
Matt:That's not a nineties show.
Rachel:That did things. I need a minute.
Matt:But that could work in the reboot. That it's like in The Dresden Files.
Rachel:Oh, god. The reboot's gonna be it's gonna have to be on HBO. No. That's not a thing anymore. Used to be if you wanted to have sex, had to be on HBO.
Matt:So in, like, the Dresden Files, there's these 2 characters. Yeah. 1 of them is, like, an energy vampire, but it's like life energy. Yeah. And, it's kind of like being a succubus, incubus, whatever.
Matt:The way that you give somebody's life energy is by performing sexual activity with them, and you suck the life out of them. But there there's these 2 characters. 1 of them is 1 of these energy vampires, and then there's this girl lady, that, he likes to feed off of.
Rachel:He falls in love with
Matt:And they end up falling in love with each other. Yeah. And they've been together. They've they keep going on these benders where because it's pleasurable for the other person for the person that's getting the energy removed. It's it it feels good both ways.
Rachel:It's mutual.
Matt:Yeah. So they're in love with each other. They wanna be together. But
Rachel:Love is toxic.
Matt:They can't they can't be close to each other and not indulge.
Rachel:Well, and love is toxic. Yeah. Yeah. And so Like, it burns
Matt:him. Oh, yes. Yeah. Right. Because once once they're both in love with each other, he can't touch her because it would hurt him.
Matt:Yeah. So she ends up getting a full body latex suit and saying, okay. Now we're gonna have some fun. And now, like, she figured out a way to protect herself And they can still
Nick:be together.
Matt:Being able to, like
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:Have a physically intimate relationship without the danger. Right. They just have to, like, prepare properly.
Rachel:Right. Well, I don't think this is about preparation. I think this is about Nick has, like, he personally has hurt people he's loved or he's seen the people he's loved be hurt repeatedly over and over again for 100 years. Sometimes by him, sometimes by other people. And he's literally done.
Rachel:Like, this isn't a moment where he wants a full body latex suit. This is a moment where it was like, I gave you the with affection card. I already told you how this works.
Matt:They they make those cut proof gloves
Rachel:For the
Matt:love of could get a leg bodysuit made out of that No.
Nick:And he
Matt:could not bite through it.
Rachel:This isn't the what what he's saying is I can't and I don't wanna.
Matt:Right. He doesn't even wanna try.
Rachel:No. I don't wanna. I don't wanna work this out.
Matt:She just needs a chain mail, Nick.
Rachel:I don't want you any closer. I don't want it is what he's saying. That and those are the thoughts that are going through Natalie's mind is, like, what if I've just got a lot of garlic? I'm at yeah. And he literally says, I can't.
Rachel:Goddamn it. Like, I, like, fucking can't, Natalie.
Matt:Right. He's learned his lesson from indulging as many times as he has.
Rachel:He's like, stop. Please stop. I have already told you where my boundaries are, and you can't stop pushing it. And you kinda understand where Natalie is coming from too, which is he gives some pretty mixed signals sometimes. And so she's like, I just need to know what what is happening here.
Rachel:I need to know where we stand. And I think he cares about her enough that he doesn't wanna harm her by just outright rejecting her or leaving her. Although, he did try. Although, we we kinda talk about that because we get that Buddha black Buddha flash that flashback. But there's a lot happening in this conversation.
Rachel:There's a lot of, we've never been clear with each other and look where it has now gotten us, and we both wanna be together. Like, Nick wants to be with her and feel like they have this emotional intimacy without actually providing any emotional intimacy for Natalie. And yeah. And then finally, Natalie is like, look, there's a way that we can be together, and I have faith in you and in whatever follows. I think we can do this.
Rachel:I think we can make this work. I think we've got something going on. I think you love me more than you know. And then we get the flashback to Alyssa and the wedding night where he, whoopsies, kinda kills his wife a little bit.
Matt:Just a little bit.
Rachel:And that's from dead of night. And then we come back and Nick is like, you are asking too much of me. If I kill you, you're dead. But I now have to carry your death for eternity. You are asking too much, which I have to imagine that is 1 of the reasons why Lacroix cautions him against getting too close to mortals because eventually, they are going to ask you for something you don't wanna provide.
Rachel:And here we are. And then we go back to the precinct in this whole weird slow motion moment where Dawkins, who's the transfer guy, breaks free to some reverb, and everyone draws a gun on him, even though he has a hostage. And he threatens the hostage, and he pulls her into the back, and he kicks the evidence guy out of the evidence locker. And we end up in the locker room, but he loses the hostage, and then he pulls all the power and he breaks the breakers and cuts power to the station. So shit is going down at the precinct while Nick and Natalie are having a super intense conversation in the morgue.
Rachel:And Nick is like, whether I bring you across or not, this is a death sentence, Natalie. I may look alive. I may walk around. I may appear human, but I am not human. And you actually cannot conceive of what it's like to be a vampire until you are a vampire, but you won't be you anymore.
Rachel:Either I kill you when you die or I turn you into a vampire and you are now no longer Natalie. Those are the 2 options. And Natalie's like, a life like Laura's is a death sentence, and I'm not afraid to try. Join a cooking class, Natalie. Go do some correspondence courses at the local, like, community college.
Matt:Your portfolio. First Life experiences.
Rachel:First go to is, well, I guess I need to get fucked by my vampire boyfriend.
Matt:Yeah. 1 piece of advice I've heard is have multiple things that you're mildly competent in. So that way, if you have a failure in 1, it's not, I literally failed at everything I do the 1 thing. Yeah. Because you spread it out.
Matt:You have multiple things that you can do, that you do do, that you can maybe enjoy a little bit. And then, like, if you lose your job, it's not your life. Yeah. If you crash your car and that's, like, your thing
Rachel:Yeah. It's not It's
Matt:not the
Rachel:end of everything.
Matt:Everything that you do.
Rachel:It's
Matt:And with Natalie, it feels like she has her job and Nick. And that's literally her entire life.
Rachel:1 of the complaints about this episode, contemporary criticism of this episode, was that it felt like a betrayal of the characters, and the only character I really believe about that is Natalie. I don't really believe that Natalie in 1 night gets this note from her friend and is like, well Right.
Matt:Because they've had this this interaction, this conversation a bunch of times.
Rachel:I do think it picks off the scab. I do think this is like a, Nick, I love you more than you love me, and I need to know where this is going. I got I need
Matt:to know. The believable part is it does provoke her to confront Nick about it.
Rachel:Yeah. Not having an honest good. Not having an honest conversation about who we are and what our relationship is with each other is actively harming me.
Matt:Right. But she's always been grounded in us to be able to, like, step back and have some perspective and say, oh, yeah. I recognize that what I'm asking Nick to do is dangerous for both of us and would harm Nick if, like, he hurt me.
Rachel:I think from my perspective, I think Natalie's been doing a lot of it's fine. I'm fine. How are you? I'm fine. It's fine.
Matt:Right. She's
Rachel:Oh, you don't wanna change me right now? It's fine. I'm fine.
Matt:She's deluding herself.
Rachel:Is she fine? No. Not fucking fine. Just I'm fine. It's fine.
Rachel:It's fine. Oh, okay. We can't be together tonight? K. Cool.
Matt:If you don't pay attention to the the hurt in your life, is it really real? Yeah. If you just keep deliberately paying attention to the other things and letting that wound fester, Is the wound even really there?
Rachel:Yes. It is.
Matt:It is. Yeah.
Rachel:And you go see a psychiatrist, but definitely not Laura.
Matt:Or some type of therapist Yeah. Or counselor. Not every psychiatrist is a therapist. We don't know
Rachel:Or you journal that shit out. I don't know. I don't know that I would ever benefit from talk therapy. I know that about myself. I'd be sitting there like, it's fine.
Rachel:I'm fine. But you're here for a reason. Yeah. But it's fine. We can talk about you.
Rachel:I don't really wanna talk about me. That feels selfish. Like, it would be hard for me to do talk therapy, but I love a good journal. Like, I'll journal shit out of shit and stuff. But however you need to work it out, she's that's what she's doing right now.
Rachel:She's like, listen. We need we got some dirty laundry. It's about time. We got we gotta hang it out. And here we
Matt:go. Gotta scoop the cat litter.
Rachel:And I think that this is a wake up call, which is exactly what she says, and this is what she's using it for.
Nick:But I don't think where we
Rachel:ultimately lead feels consistent with the character. Right. I ultimately lead feeling like that's where we were going all along, which I totally believe, but some of the steps feel a little bit forced. Does that make sense?
Matt:Yeah. Yeah. I don't think this is what Natalie would actually do as far as just ditching everything. Like, I'm literally I have my bags packed. I'm going to Knicks because I'm never going home again.
Matt:Yeah. I'm never going back to this job again.
Rachel:That in a more permanent hell. In a more permanent hell, as soon as she realized she was gonna die, she started smoking, and she went out and tried to bang another vampire and get him to bring her across.
Matt:Well, that's because the world was literally going to end.
Rachel:Yeah. It was imminent. Anyway, this is when Nick actually gets the call. This is when he actually gets
Nick:the call, and it's about the situation at the precinct.
Rachel:And Natalie looks super disappointed, but she's like, it's cool. It's fine. I'm fine. We could talk later. She's not fine.
Rachel:A woman who says it's fine, I'm fine is not actually fine. Sometimes
Matt:Can concur.
Rachel:Sometimes, It's fine. I'm fine. It's the repetition. The it's fine. I'm fine.
Rachel:Sometimes,
Matt:from my experience, the I'm fine, it's fine, is I'm trying to get you to stop asking me about it because the thing that I'm getting upset about is that you keep asking me about it. Yeah. That happens sometimes. But then I keep getting asked, are you okay?
Rachel:Fine is just a loaded it's a loaded I'm fine. Yeah. You know, it's fine. I'm fine. It's a throwaway of it.
Rachel:You know? And, and it it covers up a lot of I don't really wanna communicate because if I say too many words, I don't know what's gonna come out of my mouth. So it's fine. That's where I'm gonna leave it right now. And so Natalie's like, it's fine.
Rachel:And Nick actually leaves because he's working, and he flies off. And he arrives
Matt:And he's a break, so he takes a look.
Rachel:I mean, he knows. He knows. But, also, he's still kind of at work, and they're having a nonproductive conversation
Matt:right now because he's like that she's temporarily terminating the conversation Yeah. By saying there's nothing I'm there's nothing else for me to say to you right now, and I'm kind of letting you go deal with what had just came up. Right. And it's I will be okay in the meantime while you are busy taking care of your responsibilities.
Rachel:Feels like that moment in a conversation where you have a natural break because you both need a minute to think about what happens next, because he keeps saying, I can't do that for you. I'm not that for you. I don't wanna be that for you. I can't be that for you. And she's saying, it's cool.
Rachel:I have faith. It's cool. I have faith. It's cool. I have faith, which is like, I'm trying to tell you no.
Rachel:I'm trying to be clear. And you're like, but, baby, come on. Don't you think we could make this work? Baby, come on. And so he's, like, this is nonproductive.
Rachel:I'm leaving. So he goes off. He arrives at the precinct, and he actually runs in, and Reese tells him it's Dawkins. You know, they were holding him for a transfer. And Nick's like, oh, yeah.
Rachel:Dawkins? I know him. I arrested him. And Nick goes into the back room, into the locker room, and he ends up even though they're waiting for a negotiator, he just goes in there.
Matt:He knows that he's got should have been in there. Nick and Tracy should not have been in there. No. They should have been following procedure waiting for a negotiator.
Rachel:Yes. They're
Matt:supposed to be kinda hotheads.
Rachel:I mean, they're supposed to be waiting for a negotiator, but Tracy has already snuck in there. I'm not even sure she heard the part about how they were waiting for a negotiator. And then Nick just runs in there, and nobody fucking stops him. But Dawkins recognizes Nick. He's like, oh, officer Knight.
Rachel:And Nick goes, you don't wanna die. Do you, Dawkins? And Dawkins puts the gun to his head, and Nick ends up trying to hypnotize him into pointing the gun at the floor. But then Tracy appears behind Nick and distracts Dawkins at just the right moment, and he shoots at Nick just as they get the lights fixed. And then Nick rushes him, but he ends up shooting a couple more times and Tracy takes the bullet.
Matt:Yep.
Rachel:And he turns around all vamped out, and Tracy sees that he's a vampire. And then starts to fall down the wall, leaving a trail of blood on the cinder blocks behind her. And there are 2 parts of what happens after this that just break me every fucking time. And it's when he grabs her and he's like, can we get some help in here? And then she goes, you could have trusted me.
Nick:We need some help in here. Right. You could
Matt:have trusted me.
Rachel:You could have trusted me. And then Nick holds his hand up and his hands are very literally covered in blood. Because how would this have turned out? Did that bullet that hit her, was it the bullet that passed through him? Because bullets just go straight through him.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Did she stand behind him thinking he was a viable shield? Like, he was providing partial cover? Because she's not wearing a vest. He could have been wearing a vest. Mhmm.
Rachel:And yet him being there, her I mean, she's not totally not at fault in this, but the actions that he takes directly lead to her getting shot. And she would have done none of that had she known he was a vampire. She would have just let him handle it.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:But because he didn't trust her, she dies. And he very literally has blood on his hands. And I would like to propose that everything that happens in season 3 is because he should have left in Black Buddha, and he overstayed his time. And these are all the ultimate consequences of what happens when an immortal stays too long.
Matt:The immortals around him got too comfortable with him?
Rachel:They began to care about him too much, and he started to care about them too much. And then they started asking him for too much. Not that Tracy ever did. Poor Tracy never asked him for anything. She just wanted to be a good partner, and she wanted him to be a good partner.
Rachel:And she thought she had this super special secret that he wouldn't understand, and it turns out, voila, he was 1 of them all along. And those are the last words she says to her partner is you could have trusted me. And I wanna point out that Dawkins also wouldn't have been there if Nick hadn't arrested Dawkins, then it's the exact same scenario that he was in with Skanky where he used his vampire powers to arrest the bomber.
Matt:And then his partner accompanied the person that he'd arrested while they were getting transferred
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:And died because of it.
Rachel:So this really feels like a y'all having a vampire be a part of humanity ultimately leads to like, does it ultimately lead to suffering? Is the fact that he tries to be involved in the mortal world what causes these tragedies? Well, I mean, the bombing thing was sort of outside of his. Yes. He would have gotten away otherwise, but he didn't make the bomb explode.
Nick:Right.
Rachel:And ultimately, he didn't shoot Tracy. But it feels like more of a coincidence and more than a coincidence that both of his partners died.
Matt:It's weird that it happened twice.
Rachel:It's weird that it happened twice. I'm just gonna leave that there.
Matt:Okay. A counterpoint. There was a really good line in 1 of the Dune books about the character acknowledging that sometimes there are coincidences.
Rachel:Okay.
Matt:And it's important to be able to acknowledge that and discard the assumption that something
Rachel:Had to have led to this?
Matt:That something was correlated or Yeah. Causally related.
Rachel:Sometimes random shit happens.
Matt:Yes.
Rachel:Yeah. Twice. But then we go immediately back into a LaCroix monologue because this feels like the right moment for it, and it is, and it always is. And the answer to that
Matt:question is yes. 2 points is enough to generate a pattern. Yeah. But sometimes it's a false pattern, but sometimes it's a real pattern.
Rachel:But also the universe is weird. So Yeah. Haven't you tired of this incessant guilt? Hasn't it swayed your back and stooped your shoulders to the point of shrugging it off? You insist on taking responsibility for the actions and emotions of those around you when they are when they alone are responsible.
Rachel:It is so foolish. It is so unnecessary. It is so mortal. And then we see Tracy getting taken away by the paramedics. And Reese is like, you sure you're alright, Nick?
Rachel:She made the call on this 1 to don't blame yourself, which is actually thank you, Reese. That was insightful and useful. She made the call on this 1. Don't blame yourself. And the paramedic comes over, and she's like, yeah.
Rachel:Tracy took 2 bullets to the abdomen, and then there's a bad head wound. But, like, where'd the fucking head wound come from, though?
Nick:Oh, I
Matt:thought it was 2 bullets. 1 to the abdomen, 1 to the head.
Rachel:No. Okay. I
Matt:don't know
Rachel:where that is. There's 2 bullets in the abdomen, and then there's a bad head wound. Did they maybe the concussive force threw her back against the wall? Okay. It's fine.
Rachel:And then we go to the Nick go to Nick, and he's at the hospital with Tracy. And Reese goes, they've done Reese comes into the operating room or the room where Nick is sitting on Tracy's bed and he's just sort
Matt:of staring at you. Yeah.
Rachel:I see you. And Reese goes, they've done everything humanly possible. Now we wait. And then he tells Nick, sorry dog, but Dawkins didn't make it. And you're gonna take some heat on this 1.
Matt:You threw him too hard.
Rachel:Yeah. Trucked him into a wall, and the dude died. This could get really rough. And Nick's like, I can handle it. It's fine.
Rachel:Planning to leave tomorrow anyway. It's fine. I can handle it. And Rhys goes, I mean, she might be okay talking about Tracy, but I know what it's like to lose a partner. Nothing rips you apart like that.
Rachel:You know that, Nick. You lost skanky, which is the first time anybody has said his name in like 20 episodes. Yeah. And then we get a flashback to Black Buddha, and it's just for Nick goes skanky. That hurt.
Rachel:I'm not gonna lie. It hurt to see that again after so long, and then we see it in this episode, and I had forgotten. I don't think I've watched this episode, maybe all the way through since I watched it the first time. And Reese goes, there is life after this once you get through, Nick, so just remember that. And Matt thought this maybe was foreshadowing.
Rachel:He was like, I think they live at the end because reset it. There's life after this once
Matt:you get through it. What what I meant was Nick knows there's an afterlife. Yeah. And so I said this was foreshadowing because
Rachel:I liked this as an Easter egg of Reese telling the audience that once we get through this, everyone lives at the end. There's life after once after this once you get through it. Like, Nick like, LaCroix holds the steak up, and he's like, goddamn it, Nicholas. And he just tosses it to the side, and he's like, this isn't how we're ending tonight. And then he just changes Natalie, and they leave.
Rachel:Right. That's how it goes in my head. And then we go to the black and white flashback. Every time we do these flashbacks, we kinda start in black and white and then we fade to color, which is, oh, god damn it. This is amazing.
Rachel:And why didn't we do this every single time? And it's black Buddha again. And it's when Nick is blaming himself because he caught the bomber. And then we come back, and Nick is looking at Tracy, and then he vamps out as if considering turning her. And he starts to lean over her just as Natalie comes in, and he ends up, like, shaking his head side to side.
Rachel:Like, he's getting closer to her, but he's also shaking his head as if he's fighting himself, like, fighting the urge to save her. And then he ends up turning and kind of hisses at Natalie because he's, like, in vampire mode right now.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And Natalie's like, the fuck? And Nick goes, if she dies, it's my fault. And Natalie goes, how do you know that's what she wants? And why is it so easy to consider bringing her across and so impossible to consider bringing me?
Matt:Honestly In this scenario, Natalie's like, you were gonna like, I want you to do this thing with me, and you're gonna fucking cheat on me for Tracy.
Rachel:Do the thing with Natalie that if you think of it as sex every single time.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Sure. But
Matt:It's a it's a transformative experience.
Rachel:Honestly, this is my least favorite Natalie moment, basically, ever. Because this could just be a character call. Tracy would make a better vampire than Natalie. I'll say it. Tracy is pragmatic.
Rachel:Tracy learns quickly. Tracy is really young and flexible. Tracy would make a good vampire.
Matt:Compassionate.
Rachel:Natalie, not so much. I am not sure how good of a vampire Natalie would be. I'm not sure Natalie would ever be able to fully accept what she was. I mean, she has encountered demons, ghosts, and actual ghost that followed her back to the morgue, and she ended up having a great resolution with her weirdly Russian, like, grandmother, vampires. I mean, a lot of weird shit.
Rachel:And yet, every time another supernatural thing came up, she's like, I don't know. I just don't know.
Matt:Whereas Tracy absorbs it and moves on.
Rachel:Tracy just rolls with it. I honestly think this is a character call on Nick's part. I think Nick I think after 800 years, you have an intuitive sense of who makes who would be able to handle it.
Matt:Having turned so many people into vampires and observed their what they are like as a vampire after observing them as a human. Nick has a better sense or he has more experience with a to b comparisons than Yeah. Like anybody else.
Rachel:I mean, I think he knows if he turns Tracy, Tracy it's Tracy as a vampire. If he turns Natalie, it's gonna kill her. It's gonna fucking kill her.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:And he's well aware of that. Look at what he has. Look at the burden he has to bear. Right.
Matt:It took him literally 100 of years to build himself up to be able to resist the vampire.
Rachel:Yeah. Yeah. And I think Tracy would be able to work with that, and I don't think Natalie ever would.
Matt:Right. He might have to take Tracy off for, like, 10 or 15 years to help, like, build her up. Yeah. Build up her
Rachel:She's gonna get her shit together. Natalie is it would kill her. It would literally just destroy her spirit to be turned into a vampire. And because of who she is, because of the fact that she she refuses to believe that anything could be metaphysical. She is going to get turned into a supernatural being and then all of a sudden, she's just gonna accept that the supernatural exists, it's not gonna happen.
Rachel:She's too rigid to ever make a good vampire. And then, Nick just walks off. He does not answer her, because she's like, are you are you fucking kidding me? You're gonna turn her into a vampire? You're not even gonna consider turning me into a vampire?
Rachel:Nick storms off, which means he doesn't turn Tracy. So Natalie being hella jelly in this moment keeps Nick from saving Tracy. And I'm not happy about it. I'm not. I am not.
Rachel:And I know why they did it. It's because it's a series finale, and we wanted to be done. We ended season 1, and they weren't sure if they were gonna get to come back, and it was in this limbo. And everybody was, are we still under contract? Are we not?
Rachel:Are we done? Are we coming back? Oh, we're coming back. And then we did season 2, and then the end of season 2, it was like, I don't know. Are we coming back?
Rachel:Are we not? And then season 3, it was like, y'all, we're gonna burn it all down. We're gonna burn it to the fucking ground. And to do that, you
Matt:had to get to know kind of symbolic to say that life is not worth living. The life of the show Yeah. Being in a state of, oh, are things going to work out? Or should I just end it now Yeah.
Rachel:Myself? Or they end it. Right. They end it.
Matt:Which is symbolic for the character arc.
Rachel:That's why they do it, but also, I'm not happy about this. I'm not happy. Because Natalie makes the choice for Tracy. Right. Natalie chooses for Tracy.
Rachel:Yep. Natalie takes away Tracy, whatever agency Tracy may have had. I think you can extrapolate from the fact that she was willing to have a relationship with Vashon, that she was at least willing to entertain the idea of being a vampire. So you turn into a vampire, she doesn't love it, and she ends up like Nick? Okay.
Rachel:Well, at least she gets that chance now. She doesn't. She just dies. And Nick goes to the raven, and it's closed, and it's empty. And Lacroix has his bust out, which Matt was like, didn't that fall and break?
Rachel:Has he been lugging that around this whole time? I'm telling you, there is a vampire storage guy, and he stores your shit. And that is probably the he's probably the most lucrative dude. You just call him and you're like, listen. I don't I gotta bust.
Rachel:I don't I don't really wanna drag it around. He's like, no. Say no more, fam. And he's just got a giant warehouse where he sticks everything. Yep.
Rachel:As if there's not, there should be. That's all I'm saying. And there's like a glass, like a glass of wine or glass of blood, obviously, next to the bus. Like, is it drinking? I don't know.
Rachel:Whatever. And Nick goes to the back and LaCroix is getting ready to leave.
Matt:That's where they insert the Gollum arc.
Rachel:I mean, y'all, LaCroix just lost somebody too. LaCroix just had
Matt:to construct as supernatural creature art.
Rachel:I I got you. Okay. Yeah. I heard you and then just rolled right along. Y'all, LaCroix just lost somebody too.
Rachel:He had to kill his own daughter in the Raven. He doesn't wanna stick around. He's done. He is done. He recognizes that it is time to move on.
Rachel:He knows that all of the pain that's happening all around them is because it is past time for them to move. And so he's just gonna do it. He's gonna leave. And he tells Nick, it's time for both of us to leave. We've come full circle in this life.
Rachel:We are back to where we started, and shit's gonna start going down. We gotta get out of here. And Nick is like, LaCroix, I'm in trouble. And LaCroix knows what he's talking about. He goes, yeah.
Rachel:I know. I know. Like, I get it. Your partner, is she and Nick goes, no. No.
Rachel:But her chances aren't good, especially since I left and didn't turn her into a vampir. Motherfucker. And then Lacroix is like, Nick, can't you see that you've overstayed your welcome? They no longer find the pain that you caused them to be acceptable, and those that do survive will not let your relationship remain as it was. They will demand change, and you will be compromised because they can't change.
Rachel:Not to the extent not with the same rapidity as a human being can change, as a mortal can change. They're you're asking the glacier to move faster, and it can't. And so now you're gonna know it's a glacier and not a person. Mhmm. And Nick's like, no.
Rachel:There's too many loose ends. And Lacroix is like, you've lost looser. You've like, we fled Paris 1 time. Remember when you killed Franchesca, my daughter, that I really liked and had the nice house? So I'm pretty sure we can just go.
Rachel:And Nick's like, no. No. I need to be here for Tracy. Natalie needs me. And like, shh.
Rachel:That's all bullshit. Nicholas, your time has come, and I will be at the loft tonight for your decision. And then I am leaving with or without you. Like, I'm gonna go. I can't stick around.
Rachel:But Nick is, like, pacing back and forth, and LaCroix is just standing there leaning on his luggage like, Nick, you need to get some perspective. This is a life. It's a play thing. It's a thing we create and we have fun with, and then we throw it away and then we leave. And I get it.
Rachel:You're attached to these people. Dude, I get it. It's fine. But, like, we gotta go. Or these people that you have come to love, you're gonna hurt.
Rachel:But Nick isn't really hearing him. He's not here to hear him. He was here for comfort, and he came and found Lacroix being like, alright. I'm gonna dip, so you better dip with me. I dip, you dip, we dip.
Rachel:Let's go. Like, come on. Let's do this. And it just you know, This isn't the good moment for Nick. It's a great moment for Nick, but he doesn't think it's a good moment.
Matt:No. No. He doesn't.
Rachel:We've all been there. He knows he knows deep down exactly what he needs to do, but it's not what he wants to do. And so he is lying to himself. And Lacroix is not letting him lie to himself, so he leaves because this is he didn't this isn't what he came here for.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And so then we get another LaCroix monologue. And it's the 1 for all the things that we are, there's a price to be paid. Love may be tasted, but never savored. Guilt is a poison and staying past our time is death.
Matt:Haven't you tired of this incessant guilt? Hasn't it swayed your back and stooped your shoulders to the point of throwing it off? You insist on taking responsibility for the actions and emotions of those around you when they alone are truly responsible. It is so foolish. It is so unnecessary.
Matt:It's so mortal.
Rachel:Yeah. And that is, the entire theme of season 3, basically. Just all rolled up into 1 neat little package.
Matt:Does that explain vampire dog, though?
Rachel:Nothing explains vampire dog. And he says, but if we truly care for a mortal, if we love 1, then we must go.
Matt:If we truly care for a mortal, truly loved 1, then we must go. Isn't that something that you taught me?
Rachel:Isn't that what you taught me?
Matt:Well, it depends on what kind of love.
Rachel:Which is an interesting admission that Nicholas has been changing La Croix just as steadily and surely as La Croix has been at least trying to change Nicholas?
Matt:Right. The La Croix at least been, like, slowing down his descent towards humanity.
Rachel:In you, like, towards yeah. Yes. Yeah. Nick's descent towards humanity. I thought you're talking about LaClaza.
Rachel:I was like, no. It's not. It's away from humanity, maybe. I think Nick acts like a tether.
Matt:Yeah. I think they're anchors for each other.
Rachel:Yeah. And I think the push and pull, 1 pushes the other and 1 pulls the other, and in the end, they find balance.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:It keeps Nick balanced on that precipice of, I'm a vampire wanting to be a mortal, but I'm not quite ready to take that final step. And then Nick keeps LaCroix on that. I am a vampire who's ready to do away with all morality and feeling and just become completely monstrous like my daughter. But, you pull me back and you keep me anchored. Yeah.
Rachel:It's okay to be as weak as those we prey upon is where they keep each other. And then we get our be my Valentine flashback, because this episode was not painful enough. I had not been stabbed directly in the chest by the plot knife enough.
Matt:They had not twisted it enough.
Rachel:We had to throw in the fucking Fleur flashback. The 1 where it's like LaCroix who trying to say, yeah, I'm gonna turn Fleur into a vampire so we can be together forever because I love her desperately. And the only way that we get to be together is if we're the same. So I'm I'm a do this. I'm gonna turn her and Nick being like, no, you're not.
Rachel:Because if you do, she won't be the woman you love anymore. You're gonna be killing the woman you love.
Matt:Which is the argument that Nick and Lacroix are having now reversed.
Rachel:Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder if this is another temperament thing. He's thinking Fleur is too delicate. Fleur is too delicate's a terrible word, and I hate that I said it out loud.
Rachel:Fleur is too, sensitive. Fleur wouldn't handle it well. We don't know that. Nick doesn't know that. Nick hasn't seen her in, like, years years years years years.
Matt:Well, it hasn't been that many years.
Rachel:It's been a while.
Matt:We get the idea that she was, like, fully grown, which means, like, 11 in medieval times. So so it's been, like, minimum 9 years. Maximum I don't know how old she's supposed to be here. Like, 20 years?
Rachel:Yeah. She's gotta be early twenties.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:Late teens, early twenties. Otherwise, she'd already be married or dead, which means very shortly after this, she gets married and then she gets dead. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I still don't love it.
Rachel:I still think this is I but I have said my piece on the Lacroix Flour conundrum. If you don't know what I'm talking about, feel free. Go back. Listen to the Be My Valentine episode and pretty much every episode thereafter, which I watch.
Matt:Anytime the floor comes
Nick:up.
Rachel:Anytime the floor comes up. It's just because, I think, the way vampires are portrayed in this show is like, if you aren't Nick and you aren't constantly, like, abrading yourself with, being too close to mortals and sort of flying too close to the sun and constantly They hang out at a club
Matt:all the time. Bottling process that introduces the possibility of not killing people Yeah. Like, as an industry standard.
Rachel:I think that's probably the 1 weakness of this show is it didn't sell me on the drawbacks. Yeah. It didn't sell me on the oh, no. That would be terrible. Like, oh, no.
Rachel:I don't have to get up and go out in the sun every day. Oh, no. What will I do?
Matt:What would I do if I just had to stay in my house all day long?
Rachel:Oh, wait. I do that.
Matt:I never leave. Oh, wait.
Nick:You could do that already.
Rachel:I would never have to cook. I wouldn't ever have to clean up the kitchen. I would live like I'm sorry. We're hashtag where's the bad part? Right?
Rachel:I mean, I get it. They're it's killing people. Right? It's killing it's the urge to kill people. It's the fact that
Matt:It's the hunger.
Rachel:It's the hunger. Right? But The hunger is the trauma. Because we don't have a main character who is actively involved in conquering that. Because Nick is like, well, I've figured that out.
Rachel:I drink cow's blood. And, like, that's the 1 thing I have been reading some of the books, that's the 1 thing I do like is being in his head.
Matt:Mhmm.
Matt:And I
Rachel:think it's intimations of mortality, especially, is really good at portraying his struggle. Like when he goes to the Raven and he's talking to Lacroix, Lacroix has a blood, like a a blood. He has a cup of, human blood. And Nick is, like, listening to LaCroix, but also thinking, like, 1 sip. 1 sip's fine.
Rachel:Is 1 sip too many? No. It'd be fine. I could have a whole cup. No.
Rachel:It'd be okay. Like, I'd be alright if I just had. It'd be fine. What's 1 cup? Humans eat candy.
Rachel:It's okay.
Matt:That sounds like a day tripper, and I'll just have 1 drink.
Rachel:Yeah. 1 drink. It's fine. I'll have 1. And okay.
Rachel:Great. Like, okay. Good. Now I get the drawback. The constant intrusive thoughts of, like, it's okay.
Rachel:Just kill her. It's fine. Just do it. That's why I like, Chuck Wendig's double dead because we get his vampire voice inside his head.
Nick:Mhmm.
Rachel:So he's trying to have a relationship with these people. He's trying to not be a complete asshole. But in his head, his beast or his vampire is like, rip their arms off. Beat them with it. It's okay.
Rachel:Why don't we just kill all these people and then we'll be free? We can do what we want. These people suck. They're not nice to you. Let's just go ahead and kill them.
Rachel:I like that. You need that. Because we know intellectually, because Nick has tried to explain it to Natalie and by extension tried to explain it to us, that there's a lot going on that we aren't aware of. There's a struggle that we aren't seeing. But because of the limitations of a visual medium, we don't
Matt:see it. And the constraints of broadcast media in the nineties?
Rachel:Yeah. Yeah. We're not seeing it.
Matt:If we could have had at least a few scenes as flashbacks or even, like, imaginings in the moment of what it would be what it was like for Nick to just go full vampire Yeah. Inhuman vampire that looked like the new, interview with a vampire. Yes. Just just to set the tone, just to give us an anchor point, a reference for what the experience would be like
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:To just full out vampire violence, blood fountain Incinerator in the backyard.
Rachel:Whatever. Yeah.
Matt:Yeah. And I think that would have been a useful tool for, like, storytelling wise to convey what is actually going on in Nick's head
Rachel:Right.
Matt:And what he actually did in the past so that he knows what he's capable of.
Rachel:Right. Yeah. If we get a little bit more I mean, this is a note for the reboot. This is a note for the reboot.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:We get a couple moments. There's that 1 where I remember LaCroix has been like wining and dining that lady and Nick goes into savor and he oopsies, kills her instead. Oops. Because she smelled too much like bacon or something. I don't know.
Rachel:Like, he just couldn't handle it. And then we get the, like, oh, shit. I didn't mean to do that. Okay. But we need it to, like we gotta go hard.
Rachel:We gotta go, like, there's a couple scenes of the Being Human UK where Mitchell has gone a little too hard and he, like, wakes up completely covered in blood.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:That's what we need. Like, we need a their urges are incredibly powerful and incredibly violent and violent. And what he violet. That was the most psycho southern harassment. I gotta dial it down.
Rachel:Alright. Incredibly violent. Violet. Violent. I'm owing the o, the violent violent violent.
Matt:Viola. Thank
Rachel:you. I know, but I'm doing the violent. The, like, adding an extra so the
Matt:The VAYY.
Rachel:The diabetes. Yeah. Alright. Incredibly violent. You get what I'm saying?
Rachel:Like, we gotta know. We gotta know what he's fighting, and we can show that now. We couldn't show that in the nineties.
Nick:Yeah.
Rachel:We did our best. They did their best. They really did. And that's why I think you're like, it falls flat when he's like, no, Natalie. It would kill you.
Rachel:And you're like, but how though? How how hard would it really be? So you have to kinda in your mind, you have to fill in that canon, and then it makes a lot more sense.
Nick:Right.
Matt:And I think storytelling wise, the writers are trying they're working from that starting point
Nick:Yeah.
Matt:Of we have an idea of how bloody and violent Nick's history is and what it's like inside of his head. But every time they try to convey that through the writing, they're they're, you know, held back by the red tape of
Rachel:Yeah. You can't show blood on television.
Matt:Ratings.
Rachel:You have 1 you can 1 have 1 decorous red blood drip come out the side of somebody's mouth, and that is about as good as it gets. Yep. And yeah. So when we do it again, that's what will will strengthen the the drawback. And then then I won't be sitting here going, but, like, why though?
Rachel:And we wrap up this whole be my Valentine flashback, and we come back to Lacroix saying, leaving is the purest form of love. It's the get away from me. I'm not safe.
Matt:Right. So the on the on the types of love, another 1 is agape, and the, like, shallow explanation is unconditional love. Yeah. The more nuanced version is something like the relationship that you have with someone where you are facilitating them growing as a person into a better person or just growing in the best way you can imagine possible. And that type of that perspective on on Nick loving Natalie is he wants if he if he loves her that way, he wants to facilitate her growing into the best version of Natalie and recognizing that him being around is holding her back.
Matt:Yeah. So if he wants to facilitate her actually growing as a person, he needs to get the fuck
Rachel:out. Yeah.
Matt:Yeah. Because her attachment to him change. Right.
Rachel:He will always be an anchor in time that cannot change, and it will only ever make her feel more and more aggressive.
Matt:I think he can change. It's just
Rachel:They don't change it in the way a mortal would.
Matt:He has a lot more inertia. Yeah. So it takes longer to change the direction of that ship. Right. She she's a little surfboard on the waves.
Matt:It's like an ocean liner.
Rachel:It's kinda like having a friend in high school and they're your best friend, and then you go off and you get married and you have kids and you go to college and you do all kinds of stuff, and you come back and they're still the exact same friend that you had in high school.
Matt:I've I've had that experience a couple times.
Rachel:And then it's like, okay. Well, either I have to be the person I was in high school so that we can stay together, and I don't get to grow and change in the way I normally would, or I have to let you go. But the opposite, the high school friend has to be like, I'm holding you back.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:I'm gonna have to let you go. Because mortals have a very short time on this earth, and ultimately, them dying will bring the vampire guy pain, but also, like, you're taking up a lot of their time. He's taken up 6 years of her time, which means, canonically, she's 35 now because she's oh, no. She's 28. She's 28.
Rachel:It's her 28th birthday.
Matt:When they meet. So she's 34.
Rachel:Oh, which means her birthday is April 14th.
Matt:Yeah. Happy birthday, Natalie.
Rachel:Almost happy birthday, Natalie. And she's 28, and so that means she's 34. That's a those are some crucial years, for Natalie that she has spent investing a lot of her time and emotional energy in Nick. And he he can never echo that back, not in the same way that a mortal can.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And so she's still reading this notebook, and she reads a whole passage, but the end of it is really the most poignant part. And it's, I'm not coming. I'm going. I'm gone. And the letter also says, like, everyone else's pain is my problem, but mine is only my problem.
Rachel:And, of course, that's a psychiatrist thing, but I also
Matt:think a lot of women feel
Nick:that way.
Matt:Problem when you're a counselor or therapist
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:Is monitoring or, like, that you getting trauma done all
Rachel:the time.
Matt:You have to set up some kind of environment where you have somebody monitoring you as a therapist because it is, like, established. It's known that you're vulnerable Yeah. To to exactly Laura's situation. You know, you are getting exposed to some really nasty parts of the human psyche, and you are a human person, so you are susceptible to the same things as Yeah. The people you're helping.
Matt:And just like they can't get themselves out of the situation that they're in mentally, psychologically, So they need someone external to to push them. You also need someone external to push you sometimes Yeah. When you get into certain mental states.
Rachel:Right. Just because you're a psychiatrist doesn't mean you're healed. Right. Yeah. And Nick is driving.
Rachel:Like, we cut from Natalie to Nick, and Nick is driving around in his Cadillac because he just left Lacroix, which was a very unsatisfactory meeting. And there's a report coming over the radio, and he turns off the cop radio. And pretty much that's him being done because we never go back to the precinct. We never turn it back on. We never check back in with any cases.
Rachel:We never do any more police work. That's it. He turns the cop radio off and click click. That's it. Finished.
Rachel:Done being a vampire detective. And he ends up turning on the regular radio, but, of course, there's no nightcrawler. It's just a lady and somebody calls in and he's like, where the hell's the nightcrawler? And she goes, he just said it was time to move on, man. And that's it.
Rachel:So the nightcrawler
Matt:is So now we've we have confirmation that
Rachel:All the status quo
Matt:is on the way out.
Rachel:Is no longer a status nor quo. Like, it's done. All the things that we've relied on for the last 70 some episodes are finished. And then we get the black Buddha flashback to when Nick was gonna just dip and leave Natalie behind, and she shows up at the loft to yell at him. And, honestly, he should have just left.
Rachel:Like, he should have just left.
Nick:Mhmm.
Rachel:Natalie could have moved on. Tracy never would have had him as a partner. He could have just gone and been done, but we wouldn't have gotten season 3. So okay. And we also get a little bit of the clip from human factor where it's Jeanette, and he's telling Jeanette, you know what?
Rachel:Ghosting me was, like, wrong. I did not like it. That was the wrong decision. And Jeanette's like, I left you. I left because of you and because of your quest, because a vampire's heart must be cold.
Rachel:It has to be. That's how we survive immortality. But a 1000 years is a long time to live with a cold heart. So he's wrestling with, like, why did I stay? And if I stayed for Natalie, doesn't that mean that I should choose Natalie?
Rachel:I should choose passion. I should choose to not have the cold heart anymore. And while he's wrestling with this, he shows up at his loft, and Natalie is waiting for him. And she stands up and tells him that Tracy Vetter passed away 20 minutes ago.
Natalie:Tracy Vetter passed away 20 minutes ago.
Matt:Yep.
Rachel:And then we cut to a clip of seeing her get covered up with a sheet and wheeled out of the hospital. And I'm not gonna revisit it, but that's Natalie's fault. Like, it's not Natalie's fault. It's not. It's not.
Rachel:It's It
Matt:is positively related to Natalie's actions.
Rachel:I'm just mad at the way that that whole that I'm mad because they squinted at Natalie's character in that moment.
Nick:Mhmm.
Rachel:Because she was completely willing to have Nick turn turn her brother. But then when it came to Tracy, she was like, but what about me?
Matt:Right. Which
Rachel:And that doesn't feel like Natalie. No. And that's the only reason I'm mad at that that whole scene because we squinted at Natalie's character. And, honestly, you owed us a little better than that. But okay.
Rachel:And then Nick is like, Laquotte thinks I'm a fool for feeling guilty and for trying to atone. This must be what's on his his heart, his mind right now, because he just comes right out with it. He's like, Lacoste thinks I'm being an idiot. He thinks he has thought for 800 years that this guilt, like, holding on to guilt and trying to atone is me being me being foolish. And I'm starting to think he might be right because all it has ever caused me is pain and death.
Rachel:In the 6 years that I've known you, Tracy has died, Cohen has died, Skanky has died. Like, a bunch of love interests of mine have died over the entire series.
Matt:And then even Natalie's brother Yeah. And he died. That wasn't Nick's fault. But then Natalie's probably a little traumatized by the whole seeing her brother transformed into this violent creature Yeah. That's pain that is caused to Natalie because
Rachel:of Nick. There's been a lot of hurt to Natalie. Right. He's also helped Natalie. He's also saved her, but he's hurt her a lot more than he saved her.
Nick:Yeah.
Rachel:He has with affectioned her a lot more than he has I loved you. And she comes back with, I mean, you've more than made up for all of the the deaths that you've caused over the centuries. And, I mean, you've saved some lives. Yeah. You saved like if he is saved
Matt:That's a very tongue
Rachel:in cheek statement. Generously a 100 lives in the time that he has been a police officer in Toronto. If you do the math, Natalie, that is not anywhere near the 1, 000 upon 1, 000 upon 1, 000 of people that he has murdered in his life
Matt:I I propose this. Nick saved the whole planet in the meteor episode.
Rachel:No. That's what you said during the watch along too. You're like, you saved the whole planet. That counts. That all counts.
Rachel:He didn't save the planet. They weren't gonna die.
Matt:He was crucial to the cessation of riots. Okay. I would give him credit. Worldwide rioting.
Rachel:I would give him credit if he had gone full on Armageddon and been, like, I can survive the trip into space. I'm a vampire.
Matt:Except in space, there's nowhere to hide from the sun.
Rachel:I don't wanna laugh right now. That's why you're doing this. I know what you're doing. But honestly, that was a this just illustrates how little Natalie understands. If he had killed 2 people a year in 800 years, that's 16 a 100 no.
Rachel:If he killed 2 people a month, that's what I was gonna say. If he killed 2 people a month, 30 people. Say he killed 30 people a year over 800 years. That's 24, 000 people.
Nick:Yeah.
Rachel:I'm pretty sure even if he'd saved the entire planet from worldwide rioting, that doesn't make up for the wanton slaughter of a small town. That's a not even a town. That's a city. He's killed That's a small city. You could populate a city with the people that he has killed.
Matt:Which is the graveyard that we see when he's in the afterlife.
Rachel:Yeah. And he's gone to the afterlife, and the people in the afterlife are like, yeah. No, man. You're fucked. That ain't Uh-huh.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:So not only does he have intimations that he's screwed, like, existentially. Yeah. He has firsthand experience that he is screwed, but eternally.
Rachel:Right. Right. Because he went to the afterlife, and he was like, cool. I'm ready now. And they were like, what?
Rachel:No. You had your shot, man, and you fucking blew it. And he's like, what? No. And then they showed you your own soul, and it was covered in maggots.
Rachel:Remember the squelching sound? I remember the squelching sound.
Matt:So on on that topic, maggots are historically a medical treatment to remove the dead flesh and, like, prevent slash recover from infection.
Rachel:Okay.
Matt:I think in the US, maggots are actually an FDA approved medical treatment, for, like, infections for, like, rotting, like, gangrene and stuff. But it just doesn't get applied because people everybody's like It's gross. Maggots. Yeah. Right?
Matt:What if the maggots on his corpse that he sees
Nick:Yeah.
Matt:In this vision, The maggots represent his redemption arc. Oh, like they're cleaning all the dead, rotting tissue from his soul Okay. To leave behind the squeaky clean.
Rachel:That's not what the show was going for, but I like that better. So let's just go with that.
Matt:And, sure, there's still a lot of, like, rotting tissue on there. Yeah. But it's on a trajectory.
Rachel:Right. Well, that's
Nick:yeah. But,
Matt:like, where's the intersection of atonement equalization?
Rachel:Right. I like that better because that would that would involve him having some agency in his afterlife instead of just, the Lacoste spirit guide going, nah, man. Nah. You fucked. And him going,
Nick:la la la la la la la la la la. Right. I think
Rachel:I can be with Natalie in the afterlife.
Matt:You always need the possibility. Yeah. Otherwise, there's no point. Right. And even if it's the what's the dumb and dumber?
Matt:So you're saying there's a chance. So, narratively, just as, I guess, as humans
Rachel:Right.
Matt:Like like, for the human perspective on what you can be as the in the future, you need a chance. You always get another try Yeah. You know, to a certain point. But I think, like, on the eternal time scale, there always needs to be the option the the an opportunity Yeah. For redemption.
Matt:And and so I I try to take that perspective when I'm Yeah. Looking at a narrative.
Rachel:There's a place for positivity in this without it being toxic positivity. It's not like I'm gonna be fine because I believe I'm gonna be fine. It's like I've been working really hard, and I have to believe there's a payoff or what's the fucking point.
Matt:Right. And the experience is not a positive experience for Nick Yeah. To go through all the struggle and pain of resisting his darker urges
Rachel:Right.
Matt:To say that, oh, yeah, Nick. All that suffering and pain you've been putting yourself through for, I guess, like, a 100 years is when it was his last, like, cutoff point. Yo yo. Been yo yoing. Like, yo yoing.
Matt:Voluntarily morality. Like, participating in this suffering and pain, and it's working. Yeah. Now he's motivated to continue doing that. Right.
Matt:But if someone says, oh, yeah. You're on the right track. You're doing a good job.
Rachel:You left the station, but you're not at your destination.
Matt:That might invalidate him a little bit if he got too much encouragement. Oh, yeah. And so yeah. Like, symbolically, that was my interpretation from the the afterlife experience I like it. It's good.
Matt:The maggots were a
Rachel:I like it.
Matt:Representative of his redemption
Rachel:art. Because on the surface, it's like, oh, gross. I'm being eaten by maggots, but it's like, oh, no. Maybe they're only eating the parts of me that are bad.
Matt:Right. And I may be overall diminished, like Yeah. In quantity. I don't know. Like, soul value.
Matt:Be. Whatever. Soul mass. But I'll be clean at the end.
Rachel:Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I like it. I like it.
Rachel:And it gives you hope for the end of this episode, kind of, because he tells Natalie, I'm leaving. And she goes, not without me.
Matt:And we already know Natalie is leaving too. Natalie has packed her bags. She's going.
Rachel:Yeah. Because when we see that that scene of her in the morgue where she's reading the notebook and she puts it in the evidence box, everything's packed up. Like, she's quit. She's ready to be done. And Nick tells her, no.
Rachel:I'm leaving because of you. You don't want my love. You don't want this. You don't understand what you're asking, and it will only destroy you. And Natalie's like, cool.
Rachel:Cool. I hear you. But can we do the whole Janet and Bob thing? Like, I think we could make this work. She loved him so much, it cured her, and I think you love me that much.
Rachel:And I love Natalie a lot. But honest to God, he has done nothing to justify this belief. No. No. And I think that this is her gaslighting herself.
Rachel:Like, she's calling her own bluff. Like, either this works and that means he loves me, or it doesn't work and that means he never loved me. But either way, I get what I want because I either get out or I get Nick.
Matt:Right. And she wants she just wants an end to the She wants a resolution. The uncertainty.
Rachel:And what's a greater resolution than this? And Nick is like, it's a lot more complicated than that, which is hashtag he's not that into you. This scene is this part is tough. It gets continuously tougher, because then Natalie is like, I'm willing to take my chances. I made up my mind.
Rachel:This is how we're gonna do this. Either it's suicide by vampire or you get better, and I cure you with my love blood, and we get to be together forever.
Matt:Right. There's 3 options. She dies. She cures Nick and helps him turn into a vamp helps him turn back into a human Yeah. Like Janet, or she herself gets turned into a vampire, which not the greatest outcome, but she still gets to be with Nick, and she actually gets to learn from firsthand experience the struggle that he's been going through to, like, stay with her.
Rachel:Yeah. Yes. We know Janet is Jeanette. We're just being funny.
Matt:Yeah. So human Jeanette
Rachel:is Janet. Janet. So Natalie says I'm willing to take my chances, and Nick is like, I'm not I'm not willing to do this. This feels vaguely nonconsensual. Like, not nonconsensual in that how do I wanna phrase this?
Rachel:It's like she keeps asking him until the part of him that has wanted to do this the whole time just completely overrides his self control.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Because he's like, no. I don't wanna do this.
Matt:And I think in that think
Rachel:we should. And he's like, no. I don't think I should.
Matt:I think we could say or because of how she's persuading Nick Yeah. To do it, that kind of implies that she does have a better understanding of Nick's internal experience than we've been arguing.
Rachel:Well, she may have a better understanding than even she knows.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:Yeah. Because then she says, you know, it's my choice too, Nick. And, yes, it is her choice to be with him. It is her choice to become a vampire, possibly. It is her choice to commit suicide or complete suicide via vampire.
Rachel:But Nick, ultimately, is the 1 who gets to say no in this. She would yeah. He is not obligated to provide her with services because she has been helping him out? This feels a little creepy. This is when you have to squint as a viewer, and you have to kinda ice skate over the top of all of these themes.
Rachel:Because if you look too deeply at anything that's about to happen, it all gets a little it gets a little murky. And I don't I don't honestly mind the murkiness. What I mind is that none of this makes sense from Natalie's character up until this point. We know she is vaguely religious. She is agnostic at best because she has mentioned god or nature or whatever.
Matt:Spiritual, but not theistic.
Rachel:But we haven't had any real good evidence that she every time she comes up to, like, a supernatural or a spiritual barrier, she's like, nope. Science. Except right now. And it's I get it, in the context of she is acting irrationally. This was the final straw.
Rachel:This was the final fucking straw in a house of straws that she has been building around herself regarding Nick.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:And, finally, Nick is like, look. You got me to stay 1 year longer, and look what happened. Tracy died. And, yes, again, nobody killed Tracy except the guy who shot her. But I have to imagine Natalie feels at least slightly culpable in all of the things that have happened this season as well.
Matt:Right. You can you can be involved in something and and legitimately ask the question, what could I have done differently to prevent the outcome? Yeah. And And he has to know that being a partner to somebody that does not know he is a vampire. And then, well, every time they get into a violent situation, a risky situation, like, as a team, he just runs in and, you know, runs straight towards the danger.
Matt:And his partner is like, shit. My absolutely human partner is just running straight into the face of danger. I need to back them up. He should realize at this point that that way of behaving with a human partner is dangerous to the human partner because they're gonna try to back him up. And when he doesn't need it Yeah.
Matt:Because they don't know any better. Except skanky didn't, but skanky. Skanky Skanky kinda did.
Rachel:To be fair to Nick, we started out this whole series. He didn't have a partner. He intentionally didn't have a partner.
Matt:That's true.
Rachel:He only ends up partnered with Skanky because he's he's not solving these murders quickly enough.
Matt:And it's getting so much bad press that the police station, the, Stonetree is like Yeah. For the sake of getting this actually solved in a timely manner, I'm pairing you up with a daytime cop Yeah. So that someone is always working on the case.
Rachel:Right. And they intended intended originally to have Skanky as a daytime cop and him as a nighttime cop and them just be switching off, but it got too complicated trying to film both things.
Matt:And we got the buddy cop situation.
Rachel:The buddy cop, and Skanky was a great partner for him because he was like, Skanky, go around. And Skanky was like, heard, sir. And he would just go around.
Matt:Right. And Skanky trusted.
Rachel:Right.
Matt:Trusted that when Nick said, I'm going into danger, but I can handle it, Skanky is like, okay. I'm here
Rachel:to back you up.
Matt:I trust you.
Rachel:Yeah. Because Skanky wasn't hungry for it like Tracy is.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And then he sort of falls into having Tracy as a partner because Tracy is supposed to be his partner for the week that Skanky is gone.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And then Skanky dies in the plane crash, and, well, I guess Tracy is your new partner. And what's he supposed to say? I don't want the commissioner's daughter as my partner?
Matt:Right. And so then he starts to act more like a mentor to her.
Rachel:Right. And so I think he's like, well, I'm gonna make the best of a bad situation. But in the end, he still he still has a lot of collateral damage just because of what he is, and she ends up being collateral damage. Yep. And Nick is a simple beast, and Natalie knows it.
Rachel:And that's when she's taking advantage of him in this moment. She comes in. She tells him Tracy is dead. And that immediately puts him in, like, a headspace where he's extremely susceptible. And she's like, this is my choice too.
Rachel:Did LaCroix ever talk to you about faith? Faith is a buzzword for him, and she knows it.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:And she's like, how about love in afterlife? Anything. And Nick fires back with faith is a mortal folly, which is him attempting to distance himself in this moment. He's like, I keep telling you no and you're not getting it. And so I need to not act human for you right now.
Rachel:I need to drop the mask a little bit. And he's like, sorry, but faith is a mortal thing. I can't think of faith in the same way. I'm not human. And Natalie's like, okay.
Rachel:Yeah. Well, you sounded like LaCroix right then.
Matt:Right. And I think in this situation, Nick is trying to Nick is leaning on his, like, Lacroix rhetoric, but he doesn't have Lacroix's state of mind.
Rachel:Well, as soon as Natalie is like, well, you sound like Lacroix, he ditches it.
Matt:Right. And I think here, Natalie is a lot more verbally fluent Yeah. In in an argument, like a debate situation.
Rachel:Well, she knows he doesn't wanna be Lacoste that he spent a long time not Right.
Matt:Apparently not being Lacoste. Knows exactly what buttons to push.
Rachel:Yeah. It's like when you tell me, okay, Becky.
Matt:Natalie was on the debate team.
Rachel:It's like when you tell me, okay, Becky, and I'm like, oh, god. Okay. Because that means I'm being my mother. And, you know, she goes, are you sure that's how you feel? Because she knows that losing himself in Lacroix's whole thing is 1 of his fears.
Rachel:And I don't wanna make it sound like Natalie is being the villain right now because she's not. I don't think in her own mind that this is what's happening. I don't think she's seeing herself as manipulating her. I think she has a thing she wants, and she has never pushed Nick before. But, apparently, he needs to be pushed.
Rachel:And so
Matt:And and part of their relationship is her recognizing that Nick needs to be pushed, which in their history has been Nick needs to be pushed into doing things that line up with his ultimate goal of becoming human.
Rachel:In her mind, this is the same. Yes.
Matt:And so she's recognizing, okay, here's a thing that Nick can do to make himself human. It's the most plausible.
Rachel:It's the only proven method we have seen.
Nick:Right.
Rachel:It's work. We've seen it work. This could work. I'm running out of time. I have spent 6 years trying to save him.
Rachel:And he's about to leave, and that'll be it. I'm done. I can't do anything more. I will not have another opportunity to try to save him and to be with him. Right.
Rachel:And so my only options right now are to try to save him with
Matt:Right. And so the entire history of their relationship has been Natalie from a more objective perspective, recognizing this is the thing that Nick needs to do. He's not doing it by himself.
Rachel:Yeah. I need to make him do it.
Matt:So I need to push him to do it. And so that's what she does.
Rachel:Yeah. I mean, that that's what she does, and that's what she's doing. But, I mean, that's why you have to skate over the top of this a little bit because she's pushing him to have sex with her. And, ultimately, he chooses to do it. It's not like this isn't a assault situation or anything, but it is a a place where she is pushing him past where he feels comfortable.
Rachel:And ultimately, they both suffer for it. And we cut to the flashback of for I have sinned, and this is the Joan of Arc flashback where he's offering to make her into a vampire.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:And she talks to him about faith. And he's like, how come you're not afraid of death? And she's like, faith, Nicholas. Pure, simple faith. And this is when Matt was like, what if a person became a religious symbol?
Matt:Oh, yeah.
Rachel:He totally broke the kitchen at the moment. He was like, like, shut right now. And he's like, the flashback's gonna have a druid in it. A
Matt:a druid forest.
Rachel:I mean, the reboot. The reboot's gonna have a druid. The whole forest is the whole forest.
Matt:But It's just simple. If Joan of Arc okay. So Joan of Arc was a religious symbol Yeah. At the time. She was a symbol of religious heresy by 1 group, but then she was this, like, rallying figure amongst the opposite group Yeah.
Matt:Where she herself was, like, the avatar of, like, God Yeah. On in France. Yeah. And and what what if he tried to bite her and got burned?
Rachel:Oh, goddamn it.
Matt:Because, like, so many people are imbuing her with religious belief.
Rachel:Yeah. I don't know. It's something to think about.
Matt:Yeah. But
Rachel:but Natalie, after we come back from the flashback, she says, I won't accept that the sum of our existence can only be measured by the few short years we spend here. It would make
Matt:How unscientific of her.
Rachel:Yes. It would make everything that we believe meaningless. Would it? It depends on what you believe, I guess. It depends on whether you feel like you are living for the afterlife or whether you are living life to live the life that you're living.
Rachel:And she goes on with, it would make our lives meaningless. I know that's not true, and so do you. Faith is not a mortal folly. And if it is, then you are the most mortal man I have ever known. She is hitting all of the high points.
Nick:Mhmm.
Rachel:She's like, Nick, your faith is great. Your faith is what makes you you. I love your faith. I kinda have faith sometimes too depending on the writer for the episode. I just I get what she's saying.
Rachel:She's like, I this can't be it. This can't be it. I can't have discovered this wonderful thing exists. And then I go back to my life and I just die and it's all over and that's it.
Nick:Mhmm.
Rachel:I get it. And he gives her this look like, oh, Natalie, you're so young. And she's she's like, okay. I'm almost there. Like, almost got it.
Rachel:And Nick tells her, you know, you can't deny what I am. You can't deny that this is gonna like, I am trying to tell you something, and you are not listening. And Natalie goes, you can't deny what's in your heart. I wish. I kinda wish.
Rachel:I love Garrett when Davies is an actor. I really do. But I wish he and Catherine Disher had just a touch more chemistry.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:They're fine. They're fine. And I believe them as best friends, and I believe them as best friends who you wish would start dating and see if it could become more. But you never feel like they are just a hair's breadth away from fucking each other.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Like you get with Nick and Jeanette. Think about the fuck me energy from season 1 between Nick. This has become a retrospective. Do you know that? Because we have talked about almost every single season at least once this entire time.
Rachel:Just think about the fuck me energy between Nick and Jeanette in the first season where every time they looked at each other, you were like, they wanna do it right now. You never get that with Natalie. No. And you just don't. And so when you get to the scene where he she's like, I know you love me.
Rachel:I know what's in your heart. You're like, it feels like she's pushing him, but I think it's supposed to feel like she's pushing him.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:I think it's supposed to feel like they are both walking into a mistake because neither 1 Natalie's being honest and he's being honest, but they aren't listening to each other.
Matt:Right. They're both talking at each other.
Rachel:Yeah. And Natalie tells him, I have faith that there's a future for us here or somewhere else, and I believe in you. I trust you here or somewhere else being, like, on this earth or the next. Make love to me, Nick. Just take a little at a time like Janet and Bob did.
Rachel:And this hurts my heart so much because Natalie always believed that Nick loved her more than he actually did. And to his credit, he has given her nothing but with affection. But she wanted it to be more, and so she made it more. And this is where it led us because Nick responds with, I'm afraid of what might happen. And Natalie says, I'm not afraid of death or an eternity in darkness as long as I can spend it with you.
Rachel:All I have is faith and love, and all I'm asking is for you to make love to me. I trust you. This is where Nick needs to remember baby, baby. When the lady said, I wanna be immortal and he was like, cool. I got you, fam.
Rachel:And he needs to be like, clarification required. By eternity and darkness, do you mean death or do you mean becoming a vampire?
Matt:Right.
Rachel:I need to know that upfront. Before we do this, I need to know.
Matt:Yeah. We need to both make sure we we're using the same definitions.
Rachel:Yeah. Because she could very well have meant, I'm not afraid. If you make a mistake and I die, okay. But if I become a vampire with you, great. Or if you're, like, if, you're cured, even better.
Rachel:But, like, those are the 2 options I would like you to go with. But instead, he's like, got it. You wanna die or die or I get better. Cool. Let's do this.
Matt:Right. So from Natalie's perspective, there's 1 failure, which is she dies, and then there's 2 win scenarios
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:Where win scenario a, Nick, becomes human, is better than win scenario b. But win scenario b is better than Lou's scenario c.
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:And for Nick, there's win scenario a where he becomes human. There's Lou's scenario b where Natalie becomes a vampire. Yes. And there's Lou's scenario c where Natalie dies.
Rachel:Yes.
Matt:And it actually, if we're putting them in order, Lou's scenario b is Natalie dies, which is better than lose scenario c where Natalie becomes a vampire.
Rachel:Yeah. Yeah. And this is where I kinda wish that this show had been made in, like, the True Blood era, where we're like, oh, we can show tits on TV because we couldn't she asks him to make love to her, and he's like, k. And then he just bites her. I know.
Rachel:Okay. So there's a commercial for forever night that Kristen just put up on her night vision 1228 channel. And there's a crack about, can you imagine 800 years of never making love from the neck down? So I get it. So the female vampires in this respect, I've always felt would have an advantage because they're not required to no anatomy needs, adjustment in order to have traditional intercourse.
Rachel:So
Matt:a whole as
Rachel:a whole as a whole. You would maybe just need lube. I don't know. I just said that, and there we are. I'm gonna leave it in.
Rachel:But like a guy vampire, if the flow of blood isn't there, well, then other things aren't happening. Right? Right. And but there are other ways for him to help Natalie have as much fun in this situation as he's about to have. And win win, they still involve eating.
Rachel:But instead, he's like, cool. And he just turns into a van he just does the vampire face. Like, I could take you to the set and fuck sheets, but Lacroix is gonna be here in 30 minutes. So we gotta snap snap. Get this done.
Rachel:Right.
Matt:No foreplay.
Rachel:He does like to watch. If he shows up, are you cool with me continuing? Okay. So no. No foreplay.
Rachel:Just he goes, okay. And, like, this is where it gets serious, though. The lighting in the scene is phenomenal because they're only lit by the fire, and we keep that really intense. There's a word for it. It's not contrapposto.
Rachel:That's the, my art history left me, but there's a whole period of art which is known for its intense light and in, like, deep shadow. And that's what this feels like because we get really well soft, like soft, warm, but bold lighting on our actors, and then everything else is pretty much in darkness.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:And it makes us really, really focus on them right now. And he tells her, I won't leave you. Whatever happens, we'll be together forever. And this is where she needs to be, like, clarification. Did you understand what I was saying that I either wanna become a vampire or I wanna or you become human.
Rachel:I don't want you to just let me lay there.
Matt:Here's the written contract terms signed at the back.
Rachel:About to get into a kink scene. Let's sit down and negotiate. Okay? Like
Matt:Literally a a life and death situation.
Rachel:Done. That's how you do it. Okay. We're about to play out this scene. We need to make sure everybody knows all the rules so that everybody has a good time.
Rachel:Because does she think she's about to be made into a vampire? Did she say eternity of darkness and he didn't clarify? Did she think when she says darkness, does she mean vampire, and when he hears darkness, he hears death? We should've talked that out, but we didn't because nobody's acting rationally right now. This isn't a rational moment.
Rachel:This isn't a sit down and discuss it. It's a we're totally in our feels, and this is the ultimate this is where we've been heading all along. And I don't care that we squinted at Natalie's character earlier. I love that this show brought us here. Yeah.
Rachel:That this show promised that if he got too close, he would hurt her. And as soon as he gets too close, he hurts her.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:So they promised and they delivered. And she gets nothing. She gets no making out. She gets he kisses her wrist, and then he's like, wow. That felt like foreplay, and then he just goes straight for the neck.
Rachel:And he bites her, And then we get these moments where she is flashing to all of his flashbacks. She's seeing visions of him throughout the years. And remember in Franchesca, when he's talking to her about the blood, he says, can you imagine the temptation to learn all their secrets to let them know yours?
Nick:Mhmm.
Rachel:Implying that when you bite somebody, that psychic connection could go both ways. So not only are you experiencing their life, they are experiencing yours, which means in this final moment, Natalie, at last, understands what Nick is talking about. Because he's told her stories about his past before, but not everything. Certainly not the most painful things.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:And she dies finally knowing just how bad of a person Nick was and how hard he fought, and what he's gone through. And she finally understands what pushing him meant. And Nick lays her down, like, he lays her down on the ground, and he sits up like, oh, shit. Just as Lacroix walks in because he was like, oh,
Matt:Nicky. Lacroix was there the whole time. He was just hiding.
Rachel:Because he had xed out watch. And then Lacroix goes, great. Now all that remains is for us to turn off the lights, lock the door, and we're on our way. Unless you were planning on bringing her into the family, like, I don't hate her. We could have her around for a while.
Rachel:And then Nick just sits there and he goes, oh, Nicholas. You have thought this through, haven't you?
Nick:Well, all that remains now is to turn out the lights and lock the door on our way out. Unless, of course, you have decided to add her to to our entourage. Oh, Nicholas. You have thought this through, haven't you?
Rachel:I love that line so fucking much. I love LaCroix in this moment. This is LaCroix at his most, I love you, Nicholas. I love you like a brother. I love you like a son.
Rachel:I love you in all the ways that someone can love you.
Matt:Right. And this is Lacroix working to facilitate Nick's growth as a person regardless of the discomfort that Nick has to go through or, whatever. Just this is
Nick:This is
Matt:this is LaCroix sincerely working to help Nick grow as a person Yes. Into Lacroix's best version of Nick.
Rachel:Well, who knows LaCroix? Who knows Nick like LaCroix knows Nick?
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Nobody knows Nick like LaCroix knows Nick. Right. Nobody knows LaCroix like Nick knows LaCroix. They have been caught in this spiral of pain and friendship and pain and friendship for 800 years. They have pushed every single 1 of each other's buttons.
Rachel:They have been pushed back. They have embraced each other. They have pushed apart again. They have tested each other, and then they have traveled together as, like, best friends, more than best friends, for 800 years.
Matt:Right. They've even hated each other, and then while hating each other, saved the other 1
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:From certain death.
Rachel:Yes. For 800 years. So as soon as Nick sees that or soon as Lacroix sees that, his first thought is, oh, shit. I know what this is going to do to Nick. I know how long he is going to carry this, and I really hope he did this because he wanted to.
Rachel:Because if he didn't, the consequences are are possibly more than he can bear, and Lacroix has to have been waiting for a long time for Nick to finally come to a point where he can no longer bear it. He has been living for centuries with the knowledge that Nick is only ever 1 traumatic event away from the possibility of him losing him. Mhmm. They should be comfortable in immortality with each other. Like, they're both immortal creatures.
Rachel:He should not be worrying about it, but kind of contrary to what his nature would allow him to be able to do, he has to worry about losing Nick in the same way you would worry about losing a mortal.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And we have seen it throughout some of the episodes where he will push Nick to a certain point, and then he'll back off because it's like, I can't push you any farther. It might be too far. Right. He does that in Be My Valentine. I don't believe for a minute that he believes that Nick doesn't that Nick wants to turn Natalie or that Nick is using Natalie.
Rachel:I don't believe that, but he knows this isn't his moment. If he pushes Nick too far, he could lose Nick.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And he has to have walked into this situation and gone, oh, no. I have to navigate this carefully for us to get out of this, which is why he looks terrified through half of this scene. Because as soon as he says, oh, Nicholas, you have thought this through, haven't you? Nick goes, I couldn't stop myself. I've taken too much.
Rachel:And LaCroix He took
Matt:less than his first wife.
Rachel:Well, because LaCroix is like, oh, no. No. Like, we could still do this.
Matt:Right. Like, you left enough in there. We can turn her.
Rachel:I think what he means is I took too much to not make a decision. Like, I have to either turn her into a vampire or let her die. I didn't take too much. I didn't take just enough so that she could go back to work tomorrow. I took too much.
Rachel:Yeah. And Lacroix is like, okay. Well, we can bring her across, or we could let her die, but you need to decide. Like, this is up to you. I'm here for you.
Rachel:I'm I'll support you in whatever decision you make, but, like, you have to make a decision. And Nick goes, Lacroix, is it possible for a vampire to have faith? And Lacroix has to be like, oh, no. Oh, shit. Oh my god.
Rachel:Okay. He goes, that's a really weird question to ask at this moment. That's a that's a really weird question, Nick. And Nick goes, have you ever had faith? And Lacroix, I mean, he could lie.
Rachel:He could lie, but it's not in him.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:It's not. He goes, I've seen too much. No. I don't have any faith. Sorry.
Rachel:I've been around. I I almost overlap with Jesus, so not really. Like, I remember when this was just a little thing, and now it's way blown out of proportion. Like, I don't know what to tell you. Okay.
Rachel:I absolutely maybe he might have faith in a higher power in a something else, but to have, like, the Christian version of faith, highly unlikely. And Nick goes, maybe I haven't seen enough. And Lacroix is like, okay, Nick. But, you know time heals all. Right?
Rachel:So we can just be done with her. We can be done with this life. We can kind of this was a good lesson. We learned a lot of lessons, and then, we can move on and maybe you can stop denying what you are, and then we don't end up back here again. Okay?
Rachel:And Nick goes, I can't condemn her to this. I I can't make her like me. I can't do that. Oh god, Nick. Like, you could though.
Rachel:You could. Her whole thing was she wanted to cure vampirism.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:So what if you're like, okay. I made you into a vampire. If you want, I'll give you, like, a 100 years. If you haven't cured vampires in a 100 years, we can just walk out into the sun together. Is that cool?
Rachel:Like, we cool? Cool? But no. He just kisses her, and then he turns around and looks at Nigel, at Lacroix. And Nigel, motherfucking Bennett, is crushing it.
Rachel:He looks so scared. I was actively crying during this scene when we watched it last time. Yeah. And Lacroix is like, oh, we have time for a burial. If you like, like, I will throw you a bone here.
Rachel:I will show you that I'm understanding. I get it. This hurts. My god. I am here for you.
Rachel:Like, what do you need? What support do you need from me in this moment? You wanna bury her? We could bury her.
Matt:Right. He's throwing Nick every bone, every opportunity to, okay, Nick. Let's do what you feel like you need to do so that we can tie up your loose ends and move on to the next thing.
Rachel:Yep. And Nick gets up and he grabs his stick, his, like, steak stick, and he goes, she had faith in me and in what's beyond, and that we could have a life together, and that this would be a beginning and not an end. Yeah. But did she mean did she mean you turning into a vampire?
Nick:Like, I think we should clarify that.
Rachel:But that's fine. It's fine. It's fine. I'm sorry. That, like, bubbled up and out of me right now.
Rachel:I just I mean, this is the part where we have to skate a little, because he did murder her, and now he's like, but I'm gonna join her in the afterlife. And this feels a little family annihilator.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:Like the phenomenon of family annihilators where you generally have a usually a man, usually the male in the relationship who will murder his entire family for their own good. Yeah. And just like, gosh. You're so close to that. And he says that this would be a beginning.
Rachel:It wouldn't be an end. Whatever is after this, we're gonna be together. This is this is me finally making a decision. I need a resolution. I need this to end, and I'm choosing how it ends.
Rachel:And did she know that she was willingly inviting him to commit suicide? Maybe not consciously. Because he says whatever happens, we'll be together, and she's like, cool. She has to know that there's a possibility that that means that he kills himself to follow her. She's okay with it.
Matt:Yeah. And for her, it may have been just, oh, like, he needs an out in the worst case scenario to, like, convince himself to do this.
Rachel:Yeah. And we're not gonna solve this.
Matt:To convince himself to attempt this. Yeah. And so she may have been like, but that's not gonna happen. So sure.
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:Okay. I'll give you permission for your out in the worst case scenario, but you'll you'll do fine.
Rachel:Since I'm very clearly asking you to turn me into a vampire, that's not gonna happen. So it's fine. Right. We're not gonna solve this. I'm just posing the question.
Rachel:That's something for you to think about on your own. I'm gonna put a pin in it because I don't like to think about it because it sort of makes Natalie more of the villain in this, and I think that everybody in this is a victim. And everybody in this is a victim of what happens when
Nick:a
Rachel:being that is inherently chaotic, like a vampire stays too long and creates too much chaos. And I just wanna leave it at that. But it's an interesting question. It's something I feel like it needs to be asked. So I'm gonna ask it, but I'm not gonna answer it.
Rachel:And then this is when Nick is like, I have that faith too. I believe we'll also be together. And LaCroix goes, oh my God, Nicholas, don't be foolish. And this is when he launches into his peach monologue, like, don't trade your treasure for an empty box. I have seen you love life.
Rachel:I have seen you look up at the stars. I have seen you love everything that life has to offer for you. Don't fucking give that up when you don't know where you're going. Don't you fucking do this to me. And Nick is listening and tearing up.
Rachel:He's like holding his stake and he's looking in the fire and his face is framed by the fire. And Lacroix, you can only pretty much see his face because he's wearing all dark clothing. So he's in this, like the lighting in the scene is just phenomenal. And then he actually tears up. Lacroix actually tears up.
Rachel:And because he goes, oh my god. Everybody is earning their fucking check. That's all I'm saying. Everyone is earning their check right now because he says, and so I suppose in your story, I'm the devil. Like, oh, look, LaCroix is the bad guy again.
Matt:And so in your eyes, I'm the devil.
Nick:No. Not the devil, LaCroix. What then? You are my closest friend.
Rachel:And he's actually tearing up because this is the thing that he has been afraid of for centuries, and it's finally here. And he doesn't know how to stop it. And Nick stands up and turns and faces him and says, no, you are not the devil Lacroix. And Lacroix goes, what then? And Nick responds with, you are my closest friend.
Rachel:And Nigel looks like he's about to burst into tears and fucking Christ. This is a this is this is 1 of the best acted scenes in television full stop. This moment right here where Nick turns to him, and he's like, no, man. No, bro. You're my you're my my closest friend.
Rachel:You are my brother. You are my father. You are everything to me. And I would never ask anybody else to do this for me, because he hands him the steak, and then he turns around and kneels over Natalie and takes her hand, and Lacroix raises the steak, and then we cut to the exterior and the sunrise, and damn you, Nicholas. And that's the end of the entire show of forever night, and you made it.
Rachel:You watched every single episode, And now you know why people are like, oh, isn't that the vampire show with the terrible season series finale? Like, everybody knows it ends, quote, badly. I don't think it ends badly. I don't hate this ending. I don't hate this ending.
Rachel:I don't hate this ending at all. I love how murky and dark and weird and grim dark, and, like, I love that moment and the push and pull between LaCroix and Nicolas.
Matt:Oh, yeah. Is it The character dynamics are great.
Rachel:This show has always been about the characters. It has always been about the characters.
Matt:It's all about the vibes, not the actual
Rachel:The plot.
Matt:Content. The
Rachel:plot is generally ridiculous and silly, and sometimes it doesn't even make sense. But it's the characters that pull you through the show. The characters are what make the show. And the fact that we we made the season finale, the series finale character driven.
Nick:Mhmm.
Rachel:Was a stroke of genius.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:They aren't solving some crime. They aren't finally catching some huge serial killer and everybody it it's not even
Matt:about this story even though it's the cop. It's about the vampire.
Rachel:It's about Nick and the vampire and what that means, and I fucking love it. I just fucking love it. And I know this is a hard ending. I know it is, but I would have been disappointed if this show had ended happily. I think it would have undermined what what they were saying the whole time.
Rachel:Nick doesn't have an out. He made a choice a long time ago, and he has to live with the consequences of this, his decisions. And he can try to be a better vampire, but he can never be a person, Not in the way he wants to be.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:And I think that that is but he never stops trying.
Nick:And
Rachel:that's part of it too. And that's why this show is so phenomenal. And I had a brief discussion with somebody on threads about it, and they were like, well, you know, it sets all the tropes. Like, it does the sunrise, sunset, and I'm like, yeah. It does.
Rachel:That's great. But, also, like, his quest for redemption is what we get in every and, like, that gets echoed through the genre. That's what Angel is all about. That's what Moonlight is all about. But nobody does it, like, Forever Knight does it.
Rachel:Yeah. Because they they had that nineties sincerity, but they didn't feel like they needed to give us hope. They didn't feel like they needed to give us a, oh, yeah. No. He got it.
Rachel:He's fine now. Look. It ended he's got a white picket fence, and he and Natalie have 16 kids and 3 dogs and 4 cats. And isn't that great?
Matt:Yep. And I would say that's a that's a really good narrative if you can pull it off that if you can convey at the end that even though it ended badly, the entire struggle was a worthwhile effort.
Rachel:Yeah. Yeah.
Matt:Because there was a chance.
Rachel:There was a chance. It got him the chance. If he had what
Matt:you need in a redemption arc. Right. Even if the character that is trying to redeem themselves dies, has a tragic ending, you need to feel that their whole struggle was the correct the correct strategy.
Rachel:Yeah. Yeah. Oh my god. This is my favorite. No.
Rachel:No. Season sense 8 has my favorite season series finale because it gives you everything you want in a hopeful, like amazing with an orgy. I mean, come on. But this is close. This is close.
Rachel:To me, this seals it. Like, this makes it 1 complete package. I'm you know how sometimes when a show gets canceled, they end on a cliffhanger because it's like, well, we thought we were coming back.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:They didn't. They ended it.
Matt:And this was this was the right way to go to say
Rachel:We're finished.
Matt:There's very little chance that, like, there may somebody may have had some hope, like, in
Rachel:the production chain. Start the camp there was a kick start the night campaign to bring it back.
Matt:To get season 4? Yeah. Okay. So there were lots of people that had convinced themselves that it was possible Yeah. To get a season 4.
Matt:But the writers, the production team, decided it's better to go out and complete the story than it is to end on a cliffhanger and cross our fingers for a season 4.
Rachel:Right. Yeah. I mean, this was common in the nineties where everybody kinda had to stay status quo. It couldn't be like the Vampire Diaries, whereby season 4, everyone is some random supernatural beastie, and the whole setting has changed, and, you couldn't really do that.
Matt:Right. It was the it was like the TiVo DVR. The being able to record
Nick:You were
Rachel:planning for syndication. I needed to be able to pop in in season 2 and pop in season 1 and pop in season 3 and
Matt:But feel like I'm watching this channel. Have, like, huge changes to the to the story, to the characters Yeah. Over, like, less than a season. Yeah. Your viewers have to you have to have an expectation that your audience is going to be able to watch every single episode, preferably in order.
Matt:And that didn't happen until the, like, 2005, 2006 at the earliest.
Rachel:You weren't hoping that Natalie was gonna come back as a vampire, and we were all gonna like, Lacroix just stabs him in the stomach and then, like, picks him up like a shish kebab and walks him out the door.
Matt:You could imagine, let's see. It might be reasonable to say, okay, season 4, Natalie comes back as a vampire, which is a big shift to the whole dynamic. But between a season season finale and a season premiere, you can have big changes. Yeah. But between episode 21 and 22, you can't.
Rachel:Yeah. I mean, what I'm saying is they really wasn't they were giving you no hope. They were like, this isn't ending. Right. And but they gave you just that little bit of, but we didn't see Lacosteak.
Rachel:Exactly. Nick. And so just in like, we're gonna leave you this. We're gonna leave you the tiniest of bread crumbs.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Or you can imagine that this is the final ending. This is it. LaCroix killed his daughter and his son in the same week because he kills Divya.
Matt:Oh. And then he kills Divya.
Rachel:Yeah. Nick. And he doesn't have Jeanette anymore because now Jeanette is technically Nick's. And so Jeanette now long no longer has a master, I guess. No longer has a sire.
Rachel:I mean, yeah, there's not a whole lot more to say about this. It ended. Got some banging fucking Nigel Bennett earned his money. He ate the scenery in this whole episode, and so does Gare at the end when he's staring into the fire, and he's like he's crying because it is finally too much. It is finally too far, and he can't do it again.
Rachel:And he's done. And he asks Lacroix to help him be done. And I'm less mad at this than I was about the Sean asking Tracy to stake him because this feels like you're my closest friend.
Nick:You are
Rachel:the 1 that I always saw doing this. I I've stabbed you before. Maybe you should do it now. Your turn. Your turn.
Rachel:I just, I I don't know. I the you I guess I'm the villain in your story, and then the no, man. You're my closest friend. It didn't get better than that. I'm sorry.
Rachel:I've watched a lot of television since then, and I can't I cannot think of another moment that was this, like, charged and emotional. And it's buried in there in this cheesy nineties vampire show. Maybe the season 4 finale of Babylon 5, but I'm not gonna talk about what it's meant because I'm gonna start crying.
Matt:Or goblin.
Rachel:Oh, Jesus. Yeah. I will come as the rain because then I will be able to touch your face. Yeah. No.
Rachel:It's fine. It's fine.
Nick:Yeah.
Rachel:It's fine. American Canadian Health Show. I just it's so good. It's so good, and I I haven't been able to watch it. Like, I have had to no matter how much I wanted to be like, okay.
Rachel:I'm gonna I don't quite remember what happens in the valley. I wanna go check it out. I haven't been able to watch it because I kept this a secret from you for 2 years, and I feel like somebody needs to get me cupcakes Because I didn't tell you that the entire main cast dies in the last 2 episodes of season 3, except Reese and Lacroix. And we don't know because we don't see Reese again. Yeah.
Rachel:We don't see Reese from the moment that we see him in the hospital. And he's like, there's life after this, Nick. I promise. And that's it. Mhmm.
Rachel:Because Nick is done with the whole pretending to be a cop thing. Alright. Do you have anything else to say? Nope. We're gonna do the novels, but we don't have a timeline because the novels take longer than watching an episode.
Rachel:Clearly, we can't do 1 of those a week. So the best thing to do is subscribe, and then you'll get a notification when we update this. So you won't miss it when we do those, and we may yet still at least read season 4, the fan made season 4, which you can find online and talk about it. But I don't think we're gonna talk about it episode by episode. We may just do a whole retrospective of what happens because there's some interesting plot lines, and it's all written in script form.
Rachel:Yeah. Yeah. You can find it. I think it's by Greer Watson. You can find it if you Google her and forever night fan season 4.
Rachel:And we did finally finish the merch for the vampire dog 5 k. So I'll be figuring out exactly how I wanna offer those because I wanna make them, so I make enough to be able to donate to the MS Society of Canada.
Nick:Mhmm.
Rachel:So I'll put all those kinds of updates in the feed, but you gotta subscribe in order to to see it because it won't be every Monday anymore. So I guess until next time, friends.
Matt:You were my closest friend.
Rachel:Aw. This is come in 81 kilo, signing off.
Matt:Bye. Bye.
Matt:Damn you, Nicholas.
