Forever Knight (Season 3 Ep 3) - "Outside the Lines"
This the part where I'm supposed to confess that I've slapped around some street trash? That I've been a bad boy? Look, you gotta be tough. That's what the trash knows. That's what they respect.
Tracy:No. It's not.
Tracy:It's what they get.
Tracy's Friend:Look. I
Rachel:Hi. I'm Rachel. And I'm Matt. And this is Come in, 81 kilo.
Matt:A forever night podcast.
Rachel:Alright. We got that out of the way. Welcome back, friends.
Matt:Welcome back.
Rachel:It's time for another episode of Forever Knight episode. Forever Knight season 3 episode 2.
Matt:Episode 3.
Rachel:Episode 3. Thank you. Outside the Lines. Was that a good who? Was it just a hoo hoo?
Matt:That was, both.
Rachel:This is our first legit episode of season 3. This isn't a transition episode. This isn't a bridge episode. This is episode 3.
Matt:Yep. This is a standard formula episode. Was it? Was it? I would, kinda.
Rachel:I I like
Matt:We start with the crime Yeah. And then we cut right to the intro. Yeah. And then we come back, and they start investigating the crime.
Rachel:But we actually had some it wasn't just golly gee, who done it and what does this remind Nick of in his past? It was like, how can the characters grow and learn something from this situation? And it brought me to a point I wanted to clarify. In black Buddha, I made some allegations about Tracy's mental competence. I wasn't calling Tracy dumb.
Rachel:Tracy is not dumb. Tracy is impulsive and youthful. I think she's supposed to read as young and impulsive.
Matt:But she's not the aged cunning of Skanky.
Rachel:It gives us something that Skanky never had, which is
Matt:Room to grow.
Rachel:Room to grow. Thank you. That's exactly where I was going. We start her out here so that we can pick her all the way up to somewhere else, but we have to start down here. I'm not saying she's dumb in perpetuity, but you have to admit that in black Buddha, her storyline isn't so much shoehorned in as it is, like, crowbarred in, where they're like, would this police officer report seeing a dead body get up and run away at an air at an airplane crash?
Rachel:No. Maybe not. Maybe. Would she go and investigate this dark abandoned church that was his last known residence by her self without a flashlight, without telling anybody where she's going. She's inexperienced.
Rachel:Maybe if she was youthful and impulsive, she would. And if you, say, saw the same gentleman reattach his own hand, had him steal your car, would you take him to your house and offer to give him a shower without telling anybody he was with you or that you were taking him back to your house? Maybe if you were youthful and impulsive. I don't know. That's what I'm getting at is in order to get her to the knowledge, like, to shorthand her all the way to Tracy knows vampires exist, we really have her make some questionable choices.
Rachel:And from then on out, she really does improve. I think she's fine in this episode. I like her as a character, because it gives Nick something to play off of. It gives him someone that he can really push. He can.
Matt:Oh, yes. Absolutely. Because with Skanky, it was, there wasn't really much criticism
Rachel:Right.
Matt:For him to get He
Rachel:did whatever the fuck he wanted, and Skanky either was on board or was not on board.
Matt:Yeah. And he just expected Skanky to keep up Yeah. Because he trusted Skanky. They had a good relationship.
Rachel:Right.
Matt:But he can't trust Tracy to just keep up with his shenanigans.
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:So he has to, what? Train up the new partner.
Rachel:He has to dig deep for some daddy energy.
Matt:Oh, big daddy mode. Big dad energy. Sorry. Sorry. We we agreed.
Matt:No. No. No. No.
Rachel:Yes. No. Dad would imply he's fatherly. This is like a who did that to you situation. Yeah.
Rachel:That's what we're getting at here. So we open in a club, a night establishment of some description.
Matt:Rachel said, is this a rave? Like,
Rachel:I don't know. It's, you remember in Atlas Shrugged, there's that bar that everybody goes to where it looks like a basement, but it's at the top of the skyscraper?
Matt:Oh, yes. The one that James Taggart likes Yeah. To go to?
Rachel:That's what it felt like. It was like, this is probably a really high end club with a lot of cool kids that go there to get
Matt:it locked in. Like an abandoned warehouse that they're squatting in.
Rachel:It's scaffolding and tarps and shit, and that's the decoration.
Matt:And Is this the same establishment as blood money?
Rachel:Paparazzi? Maybe they cracked down on paparazzi. They closed it. This is what it looks like after it's closed, and they just reopened it as is. They just left all the scaffolding and construction and shit.
Rachel:I don't know. I don't know. Tracy mentions that she's heard of this place, which implies it is at least there semi permanently, whether or not it is a approved location where they can have a nightclub. It is it's been there long enough for her to have heard of it. But we get our setup, which is there's a little tarped off room, which is like a private, like, VIP room, and this lady walks in and she's like,
Matt:oh, great. Me of, like, the cabanas that you can rent at, like, water parks.
Rachel:Like Great Wolf Lodge
Matt:or something. Like Great Wolf Lodge, where it's just a tent that's set up, like, onto the side of this big open space.
Rachel:Yes.
Matt:And you can rent it and close the
Rachel:there's, like, red fabric draped across the back. Clearly, this is, this is a cool place to hang out. Okay? It's like 8 by 10, and there's a bunch of people in there.
Matt:And there's like 2 couches.
Rachel:Well, I agree with Cass, because her first line is, oh, great. Another night in hell.
Matt:I I sympathize. Here's to you, Cass.
Rachel:And they're all like, Cass. We're here on business. And she's like, I know, but I don't want. This isn't the business that I wanna be doing. I wanna be doing some other business.
Rachel:And they're all like, oh, okay. Okay. It's like the 3 dudes stand up. It gets really confusing. She's actually with one of the guys who's sitting down, but the character that stands up and at first gets in her face is Stu.
Rachel:And he's like, oh, I'll give you whatever it is you're asking for. And he gets pushed out of the way by another guy who I don't think we ever see again, but he's the one who pulls out the straight razor. And he's like, oh, I'm gonna cut you for her or whatever. And he's like, no. I take your razor, and he takes his razors and takes his razor.
Matt:Male posturing
Rachel:Yeah. Exercise. Yeah. I don't I don't know. It's just a it's the setup.
Rachel:It is what it is. But immediately, we get distracted because some of the women that are dancing outside Things
Matt:are getting exciting outside on the, like There's a cat fight. On the folding tables that people are dancing on.
Rachel:There's 2 women fighting, and I was like, wow, USA paid extra money to be able to have at least partial nudity because immediately this woman gets her skirt ripped off. It just it doesn't even make sense. This is like, yoink at me. What's the skirt off?
Tracy's Friend:This is
Matt:a breakaway skirt. Yeah.
Rachel:It's like a breakaway skirt, and this poor actress immediately checks to make sure her underwear is in place. She, like, reaches around, like, okay. Alright. I don't have a wedding. Oops.
Rachel:Alright.
Matt:So that gets everybody out of the tent.
Rachel:Yeah. Because then they're fighting and screaming and whatever
Matt:it is. We get to see, like, each of the main people from the tent are out by the, I don't know, the platform watching the show.
Rachel:The dance floor.
Matt:And then and then a woman walks out of the tent, like, dramatically. And she's
Rachel:like
Matt:Kinda shaking.
Rachel:Oh my god. Cas is dead. And then they go in, and, of course, Cas is dead. And then badam we go immediately into our intro. But during this whole opening sequence, we meet a character whose name is Bruce Spencer, and this actor was actually in Battlestar Galactica.
Rachel:And I remember recognizing him and being like, oh, that's the guy. Yeah.
Matt:He's one of those guys.
Rachel:And then this time I watched it, I was like, I don't remember what he was from, but I remember being very sure of what he was from. The same thing happens to me in sense 8. There's that officer Korski, one of the sense 8, one of the main 8. The first time I watched it through, I was like, oh, I'm not I'm gonna have a hard time seeing him in this because I know him from I could I could not you know what he's in? He's in Stargate Universe.
Matt:Yes. Well, they're on the intergalactic ship.
Rachel:Yeah. The really cool one where they're, like, 1,000,000,000 of light years from Earth. But Nick and Tracy arrived together, and this is when she's like, oh, I've heard of this place. And Nick goes, and you say I never take you anywhere, which is just this, like, and you say I never take you anywhere. And then they just keep walking into the room.
Rachel:I don't know. It just felt like a alright.
Matt:I think he he's trying to, like, keep the the partner energy alive
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:That he never really had to work at with Skanky.
Rachel:Well, he's establishing it. They gotta yeah.
Matt:Yeah. You you need the witty banter.
Rachel:Right. And Tracy walks in and she's like, oh, Natalie. Hey. Because Natalie's with the body. And she's like, oh, Nick immediately goes, there there's not very much blood.
Rachel:And Natalie's like, oh, yeah. It's all in her, like, her dress. It's all wadded up in her neck. And he's like, oh, okay. And then Tracy goes, oh, was she?
Rachel:And Natalie goes, right? Like, really loud. Natalie keeps, like What?
Matt:Like, doing a little pause to the side to, like, explain things for Tracy.
Rachel:First of all, she screams that word Right. Really loud. And Tracy's like, yeah, that. And she's like, yep. She just says the back, Like, you got it in 1, kiddo.
Rachel:It's just like
Matt:Maybe Katharine Disher was trying to remember her line, and she was, like, psyching herself up. And then she's like, okay. Q. Ripped.
Rachel:Oh, god. It's so loud. And every time, like, oh, god. Okay. And then she goes, is that rigor mortis?
Rachel:And Natalie's like, nah, not really. Like, sometimes when you die of violent death, lactic acid builds up in your muscles, and you just kind of do that. And I thought this was interesting because it really feels like we have finally bridged the gap from early 1992 when they could have told you that, they could have given you any CSI fact they felt like telling you, and you would have been like, that checks out. That's fine.
Matt:There's no other place to do fact checking Yeah. Except for your TV shows.
Rachel:And we finally hit, but it really feels like we've bridged the gap between a uninformed audience and an informed audience. We are, like, 2 or 3 years away from CSI.
Matt:Right. We're we're getting to an audience that we'll call bullshit publicly.
Rachel:Right. And we've gotten to the point where you can call bullshit on the Internet. Like, you can go on a forum and be like, I don't think that that's how that works. Because she tells her, yes. She's very clearly been the word that we screamed, like, 6 times, and we know that because, she did a phosphate test.
Rachel:And Tracy goes, oh, okay. So, like, what's the blood type? She goes, no. It's not a blood type thing. It's just a phosphate test.
Rachel:It just tests for whether or not it's present.
Matt:So, ostensibly, to become a detective, you have to be a police officer for some amount of time. Yeah. And this, despite Tracy's,
Rachel:I lost the word. Insistence?
Matt:Yeah. Despite Tracy's insistence in Black Buddha that she's a good cop, she's, you know, worked her way up, and she just she wants a chance to prove to everybody that she's a good cop and kind of get out from under her father's shadow. She should know this stuff by now.
Rachel:Well, if you're a beat cop, you're not necessarily standing there with the body. You're out getting you're out getting, like, statements.
Matt:Right. But you you get gradually more exposed to it before you get promoted to detective.
Rachel:Well, there it's very possible that there are people that don't give a shit about that. They're just like, okay. Emmy said yes. She'll get me get back with the blood type. I don't know why she didn't do it right now.
Rachel:Kinda feels like it's a thing we don't do right away. I don't know. Whatever. It just feels like something that I mean, even at this point
Matt:Maybe despite her perception and her
Rachel:she deserves to be there. She's worth being there, but it all gets kinda muddled up with the fact that her dad also pushes her through to get there. Right. But it doesn't make her a bad character, which I think is a is a really nice we could have made her a very annoying character, like, the character that doesn't deserve to be there and that Nick gets saddled with. But instead, she's just trying really fucking hard, but in fact, having a dad in these places
Matt:trying to earn her way up
Rachel:the ranks,
Matt:but that's not, like, available to her.
Rachel:Right. She can't. She's nepotism is being forced thrust upon her. She's the victim of nepotism instead of the but but also the beneficiary all in all at the same time. So, anyway, I think that's that's partly why is we're getting a more informed public.
Rachel:We have to be a little more informed. And then Natalie is being, like, super nonchalant. She's like, looks like I got more lab work to do. Bye. And she, like, walks off after having screamed the r word, and everyone, she just leaves.
Rachel:And then Nick comes out to check on Tracy because, well, actually, Nick has a moment of I want to point this out. He has a moment where he's sitting in the tent with Cas, and he has, like, a, like, it's a lot of blood that's leaking out of it. And then this guy comes in and takes a picture and, like, snaps him out of it. He's like, oh, okay. And he goes out and checks on Tracy.
Rachel:And Tracy's like, yeah. No. I'm fine. And then she looks over and freezes because she sees this guy walking around on the other side of the bar, and Nick immediately goes into daddy mode. He's like, who is that?
Rachel:Do you know him? And she's like, yes. And he just marches over there and strong arms this guy.
Matt:Be calm, Tracy. I shall protect you.
Rachel:What did he do? Don't worry. I'll take care of it. And he just goes over and, like, strong arms this guy out of where anybody like, into, like, an alcove. And immediately he's like, button.
Rachel:And he gives Tracy a hug, and Tracy's like, this is my best friend, Bruce Spencer. And he's my dad's best friend too. He's like the best cop. And Nick's like, oh, okay. Hi.
Rachel:I'm detective Knight. And Bruce actually goes, with a k? And he goes, yeah. Like, yes, with a k. And he's like, well, what do you know about what's going on out here?
Rachel:What do you know about this murder? And Bruce goes, well, I know who did it. And Tracy's like, oh my god. I told you he was like the best cop.
Matt:He's so good at this.
Rachel:And Nick is like, okay. Who did it? And he's like, well, the guy JT. JT did it. You know, Cas really wanted to be with him.
Matt:Well, he really wanted to be with Cass. Right?
Rachel:Yeah. That's right. He really wanted to be with Cass.
Matt:Was shutting him down.
Rachel:Yeah. So, you know, that's how that worked out. He just took what he what she wasn't giving him. And Nick is like, cool, cool, cool. Do you have any evidence?
Rachel:Humor me. Give me something that will hold up in court. Bruce, are you sure it was him?
Tracy's Friend:Yeah.
Rachel:Okay. I'm just asking.
Nick:How about some evidence? Do you have any evidence to back this up at all? Evidence. Look. You take him down to the station, lean on him, he'll fall like a town.
Nick:Why don't you just humor me and give me something that'll hold up in court?
Tracy's Friend:Look. What part of this don't you
Rachel:And Nick is like, the fuck is wrong with you? He's like, you need to give me evidence. I can't just take this guy in and be like, sorry. Spencer said he did it. I don't need evidence.
Rachel:I've got Spencer's word on this. And Bruce is like, I haven't been out here 7 months undercover setting up this big sting for you to come in here and throw the textbook at me. And Nick turns around and goes, I'm talking about law, law book. Bless. You're trying really hard for that.
Rachel:He's like, it's not about textbooks. This is about law books. Really, he's just like, one monster recognizes another. Oh, yeah. I see your mask.
Matt:Immediately is onto this guy. Yeah.
Rachel:He's like
Matt:And this guy
Rachel:knows it. He's like, you smell like bullshit. I am over you already. Yeah. And this guy's like, oh, no.
Rachel:This guy knows exactly who I am because one monster recognizes another. Yeah. And so Tracy calms them both down. She's like, would you guys put your dicks back in your pants? It's gonna be all right.
Rachel:Like, thank you so much for your help, Bruce, but this is our investigation now. We are homicide detectives. This is a homicide, you go.
Matt:You you go maintain your cover, and we'll do our jobs.
Rachel:Thank you so much. Bye bye. And so he leaves, and then Nick goes, come on. We've got work to do, button.
Nick:We got work to do, button.
Rachel:Because that's what he called Tracy. And she's like,
Matt:The witty banter begins.
Rachel:And we go back to the con to the station, and for some reason, there's more construction. So for we didn't paint and we didn't build and then paint. We painted, and then now we're building Because we were painting in Black Buddha, and now we're, like, hammering and nailing
Matt:walls. They have to repair the damage from the explosion in the captain's office.
Rachel:Well, Reese goes, what was wrong with the old walls? And I'm like, didn't they get blown up? Did we forget? Did we just we just totally were like, it's fine. It's fine.
Matt:He's still having some side effects from Nick memory waving him.
Rachel:Oh, it could be. Yeah. He went he went too hard. Yeah. Could be.
Rachel:Yeah. But Tracy's, mad at Nick. And so she comes in, she sits down. At first, she
Matt:had a giant typewriter. You did that?
Rachel:She has a giant typewriter, which I mean, this was common to keep for filling out forms because then you didn't have to use your handwriting. You could just put the thing in there and type out in the form. And so she's trying to put the form in there, and he's like, wrong form. She pulls out another one, and he's like, wrong form. So she gets up and walks around him, and he's like, alright.
Rachel:And so she goes, what was that? And he goes, what was blood?
Matt:As they're having this conversation, he just very calmly reaches over, grabs a blue folder, and hands it to her
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:While she's, like, being, like, pissy at him.
Rachel:Yeah. This is the correct form, Tracy. Which has to be, like, oh, god. Fucking damn it. He knew where the forms were.
Matt:And he didn't even have to look. He was maintaining eye contact with her. He's like, you you yeah. You need to practice your forms.
Rachel:Get it out. And she's like, I've known him for 18 years. He is the best cup ever. My dad just loves him. He has a great arrest record.
Rachel:Everybody will tell you he's just the best. And Nick goes, well, guess you know him better than I do. And she's like, what does that fucking mean? I mean, it's he has so many moments in this where he just lets other people dig their own.
Matt:Right. Right.
Rachel:He's like
Matt:He's he's literally saying polite things. Yeah. But he's he's really delivering on the the timing and the inflection.
Rachel:Well, what he does is he goes, well, you know him better than I do, and then he just gets up and goes into the, to the captain's office and shuts the door without inviting her to follow him. And she just watches him walk in there, like, what's he gonna talk to Rhys about? But Rhys is under the desk, and he's like, you're a thump. And then he goes, my orthopedic shoe keeps coming untied. And I don't know
Matt:So we are we are quickly dismantling the this facade on top of Reese.
Rachel:Maybe there's a reason he schmoozes so hard. Okay. So he's like
Matt:Or or maybe this is all a character that Reese plays.
Rachel:He's like, why are they hammering? What was wrong with the old walls? They got blown up, Reese. Do you know what happened then?
Matt:I'm I'm sorry you don't remember that. That's my bad. Yeah. That's a skill issue on my part.
Rachel:Yeah. And Nick is like, okay. Well, the victim from our groceries and case was a Cas Purcell, but in you know, she ran with some pretty heavy people. They, like, a lot of drugs. It was a pretty heavy scene she was in.
Rachel:But luckily, we have an undercover cop who was in the group that she was in. And Reese is like, fucking great. That's just great. And he goes, yeah. It's Bruce Spencer.
Rachel:And Reese goes, great.
Nick:They had an undercover cop for them. Great. Bruce Spencer. Great. My opinion too.
Matt:And Nick says, my thoughts exactly. Yeah.
Rachel:He goes, heard. And then he goes, you didn't hear this from me. And Reese goes over to his filing cabinet, just reaches in and pulls out a file. Like, it's the only file in the filing cabinet. I mean He
Matt:he has the personnel files memorized as well as Nick has the forms memorized.
Rachel:I also think it's legal height. It's like 11 inch high paper.
Matt:Mhmm.
Rachel:But it's in a regular size filing cabinet, so it's actually laying
Matt:Oh, so
Rachel:it sticks
Matt:out. Okay.
Nick:Well,
Rachel:he hands it to him and he's like, he opens it and he goes, is this his record? And then he just pulls a piece of paper out and sets it on top, and he's like, this is his official record as if there may be more.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And he goes, Tracy's dad has been covering for him for years. And Nick is like, yeah, I can see that, you know, clearly, something is going on here. He's just planting these seeds, like, yeah, covering for him, Must be pretty bad. Just bloop, go put that right there. And then Reese goes, he has a great arrest record though.
Rachel:And Nick goes, yeah. Well, things aren't always as they appear. And Nick ought to know because I would love to know what his record would have looked like had Skanky not been the master of fiction that he was.
Matt:He would be gone. Nick would be fleeing.
Rachel:Can you imagine Nick's record must be stellar. And then there's just he's like, wait. So he you said he was with you in this location, and then 5 minutes later, he's halfway across town, and he just nabs the guy, and he's like, yes. His Cadillac is extremely fast.
Matt:He's a very good driver.
Rachel:Very aerodynamic. Yes. Well, things aren't always as they appear. But then Nick is like, oh, this reminds me of that time I was hit the French resistance in World War 2. He just like I mean, this flashback is fine.
Rachel:It's good. It kinda relates, but it's not one of those flashbacks.
Matt:His hair and his outfit look really nice.
Rachel:Hot damn do they look nice. But, like, thematically, you're just like, oh, okay. I mean, okay. That's that's fine. It's not a okay.
Rachel:That's fine. It's fine. It is not the Titanic or anything.
Matt:And the the analogy or I guess the the relation between the current plot and the flashback isn't exactly one to 1.
Rachel:I think Nick is comparing himself to Bruce Spencer to acting first without thinking about the consequences of his actions.
Matt:That that puts it in perspective. Yeah. Okay.
Rachel:As opposed to, oh, the series of people that he murders because he thinks that they're traitors, that they are the bad guys. It's more like, I have been Bruce. I know what that looks like.
Matt:Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot more sense.
Rachel:Yeah. But he comes in in this flashback, and his hair looks so, like, you just wanna be like, can I touch it? Because it looks so soft. And then he has these, like, belted pants with this slightly undunned up shirt.
Matt:High waisted pants with a tight belt. Yeah. And then he's got a couple buttons undone on his.
Rachel:2 guys wearing an undershirt, which also has buttons, by the way. But there's no vest. So
Matt:He's gotta wear buttons on buttons.
Rachel:It's fine.
Matt:I think Gare Gare's just comfortable with that now.
Rachel:Yeah. But we find out, uh-oh, they were betrayed, and the Gestapo trapped some of their members and killed them all. Or as the guy says, they cut us down like dogs, because this guy comes in, he's like, bleeding, because he's, they apparently had a raid. The raid was, someone knew the raid was happening, so they were ready for them, and they killed everybody. So this guy comes back to tell him that this raid failed.
Rachel:And my favorite part maybe about this whole sequence is his magically appearing and disappearing smear of blood on the side of his mouth. Mhmm. So in the close ups, he has this really prominent, like, trail of blood from the corner of his mouth down to his chin. And then in the the, like, faraway shots, he has no blood on his face. Not new in the error.
Rachel:But then we come back, and Natalie's like, well, I feel like Natalie should, at this point, just be, like, eating popcorn or something. She's very nonchalant during these first couple of scenes because she's like, well, she was 10 weeks pregnant. And they're like, oh, okay. And she goes, yeah. And she had a prescription from a gynecologist, so I went ahead and called them.
Rachel:And she gave them the name of the dad, and they're like, okay. But, like, they wouldn't tell us. Right? And she goes, no. She's dead, and her doctor gives a damn.
Rachel:So it was JT. Like, yeah. No. She told us. Do you guys know a man named JT Gary?
Rachel:And they're both like, oh, because remember, Bruce Spencer told them that Cass would not give JT the time of day. And as Nick puts it, it takes a whole lot of touching to make a baby. And so, yeah, we cut from here to Bruce, and Bruce has JT, And they're up on the roof of the police?
Matt:No. They're this is JT's apartment building because
Rachel:Oh, they were going to talk to him. Yeah. Nick and Tracy
Matt:are going to see JT
Rachel:and talk to him. I was like, why is he up? Okay. So they're up on the roof, and Bruce goes and sits on the edge of the roof, and he's like, JT, come look over it. Look, come look at this thing.
Rachel:It's like you got something on your shirt. Right. Come look.
Matt:The oldest trick in the past. Wow. Look at that.
Rachel:Oh my god, JT. You need to come take a look at this. And JT's like, what is it? And so he walks over. And this, he, like, folds him.
Rachel:He kicks him in the stomach to fold him down, and he, like, pushes him down against the edge of the roof. And he's like, okay, you killed Cas. And JT's like, no, I didn't. He goes, wrong. Try again.
Rachel:And he's like, I didn't kill anybody. And he goes, come on. It's not worth my time to hear you lie to me. And he's like, are you a cop or something? And he's like, wrong again.
Rachel:And in the meantime, he cuffs him, and so he's got him pushed over the side of the roof in handcuffs yelling at him, and Nick and Tracy arrive at the apartment building, and they're getting ready to go in, and Nick just stops. And he's like
Matt:because he can hear what's happening on the roof.
Rachel:He goes, they're on the roof. And Tracy goes, who? And he goes, JT and Bruce, they're on the roof. She doesn't question it. It's fine.
Rachel:She hasn't gotten enough weird stuff for her to be like, are you a vampire like my friend
Matt:has gone? Been enough dots for her to connect and
Rachel:You may just have really sensitive hearing. I don't know. Who knows? Whatever. It's not that tall of a building.
Rachel:They're in the, like, a spot where you could
Matt:possibly hear them. Her to take the elevator.
Rachel:And I'll take the fire escape.
Matt:He's gonna take the fire escape because he can't say go around because that's for skanky only.
Rachel:He had to retire that phrase. Yeah. So he tells her to go take the elevator. He'll go to the fire escape, but, of course, he just forces off. And so he actually arrives on the roof pretty quickly.
Rachel:He, like, floats up, whatever. And he's in this cool, like, red and blue lighting area, which is behind some scaffolding, and he's watching, Bruce and JT, and he's watching Bruce be really aggressive with JT. And he actually ends up up there. He's about to intervene. Well, he sees Bruce throw JT off the roof, and he's like, oh, shit.
Rachel:But, of course, this is a softer, more mature Nick, so he doesn't immediately rush out. He's like, I can't plausibly you know what? Tracy isn't going to put up with his shit as much as skanky did because Tracy's already in on the secret. So she's like, how did you climb that fire escape faster than I went up the elevator? And you're, like, 40, he's gonna be, like, I'm a vampire.
Rachel:He's he doesn't have as much smoke screen. You know? So he can't pop out and be like, ta da. I got you.
Matt:I got If if it was skanky, it's like, oh, you're you're trimmer and taller than me. Of course, you could make it faster than I do.
Rachel:He's just gonna be like, oh, fucking naked. But if
Matt:it's Tracy, like, this isn't checking out.
Rachel:So he hides, and actually, Tracy comes out and sees Bruce just after JT falls. And Bruce is like, no. JT jumped off the roof. And she's like, oh, no, honey. Did he jump off the roof?
Rachel:And he's like, yeah. He didn't. It made me really sad.
Matt:Accident.
Rachel:Really? I handcuffed him, and he ran up to the roof instead of out the front of the building for some reason. And then he, like, tripped and fell and fell over the side of this wall, and he fell
Matt:through. They keep mentioning he's in handcuffs. Yeah. But when his body is on the ground, his left arm is up above his head and his right hand is down.
Rachel:Okay. Well, they were enhanced.
Matt:They weren't maybe all the way on?
Rachel:I think he has handcuffed on one hand or something. Yeah. It doesn't really matter because she's just like, oh, no, Bruce. Terrible things keep
Matt:happening to you. So hard for you. Oh, and
Rachel:then we cut you.
Matt:I'll call daddy.
Rachel:No. She to her credit, no, actually. I I
Matt:I know. I just wanna Yeah.
Rachel:She's just being a good friend. She's not being a good cop.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Yeah. So we cut to Bruce's statement about how JT killed himself, and it's basically, I confronted him. I broke my cover because I knew he killed Cass. He ran to the roof. He jumped off the roof because I put handcuffs on him and whatever.
Rachel:And Tracy and Nick are, like, right behind him while he's talking, and Nick just storms out. Like, this is such bullshit. I can't stand here and listen to this even for one more minute. And so Tracy comes out and she was like, why are you so negative? And he goes, why are you so blind to who he actually is?
Rachel:And they're about to get into it and resticks his head out, and he's like, Nick and Tracy, Natalie called from the morgue, and she wants you down there right away. And so they go, and, Tracy is actually not very nice to Natalie in this moment. Like, I get you're having some personal problems right now, Tracy, but you don't get to take this out on Natalie. Natalie is literally a third party. She's not even, like, a member of the investigation, except that she's giving you information about this body.
Rachel:Because they go into the cooler, and Natalie is like, yeah. So your baby daddy, definitely JT. Definitely JT. And Tracy's like, this is news.
Matt:But he's also the rapist. Right?
Rachel:Well, she's like, this is news. You called us all the way down here to tell us he was the dad. We knew he was the dad. And Tracy or Natalie says, yeah. He was the dad.
Rachel:He may have even been the murderer. That's your fucking job. But he wasn't the rapist because the blood types don't match.
Tracy:Mister John Thomas Gary, purported father of the baby that Cas Purcell was carrying.
Rachel:And was he? Blood type is right. Is that it? Your big news?
Tracy:We got the blood typing results back on the sperm sample. Mister John Thomas Gerry may have been the father. He may even have been the killer. That's your department, detective. However, he definitely was not the rapist.
Nick:The blood types didn't match.
Tracy:The rapist is AB neg. John Thomas is b positive, not even close.
Rachel:And Nick is like, okay. So they had different blood types. She's like, yeah. Ab negative was the was the sperm, and then JT was b positive. They don't get much farther apart than that.
Rachel:And Tracy goes, yeah. Could you be wrong? And Natalie's like, no. And I have to think that this attitude directly correlates to the fact that Natalie uses her to demonstrate how the throat got slit. She's like, actually, here's probably how it went down, and she's like, here.
Rachel:And she just covers Tracy's mouth with her hand, like, shh, Tracy, stop talking. And then she tips her head back, And then she shows him, you know, he held the knife in his left hand, and he slit like this. That's why the deepest part of the cut's on this side. And, you know, we know people don't hold knives in their weak hand, so he must be left handed. And Nick is like, wow.
Rachel:This really reminds me of that time I was in the in the resistance
Matt:in Rump 2. From later in the flashback, I thought part of the insight was going to be from the flashback because when Natalie demonstrates the the killing slice, whatever, it's from in front of Tracy using Natalie's right hand to hold up Tracy's chin so that her left hand could slice. Yeah. And go deeper on the left side of the slice, which would be the right side of Tracy's body. Right.
Matt:But then in the flashback later, the one guy gets behind the lady, and he uses his left hand to hold up the lady's chin and uses his right hand to hold the knife, which would produce the same same direction of
Rachel:the
Matt:cut that's deeper on the the victim's right side. So I was, like, I was thinking Oh. Oh, Natalie said the person must have been left handed, but Nick is gonna say, nah. I've seen this done before. If the person was behind the victim, they could have used their right hand.
Matt:No. So our our perp is actually a right handed person.
Rachel:I'd say season 1 flashbacks are largely unrelated. Season 2 flashbacks give us insights on the case, and season 3 flashbacks are personal enrichment. They're
Matt:Self reflection.
Rachel:Self reflective. Yeah. That that's more what they use them for. Less of I'm solving because he really gets to be the competent, put together
Matt:Daddy cop. Daddy cop
Rachel:for most of season 3, for lack of a better term, because he's now the mature member of the party. Right? Right. Before, he got to be the rogue, and now he's got to be the paladin. If we want to put that in terms that literally everyone's gonna understand.
Rachel:Right? So just gonna put them in character classes. He's gone from he's matured from rogue to paladin is what he's done. But the flashback, poor Giraud. Okay?
Rachel:Because first of all, they're trying to figure out who did it, and they have, like, 6 people, and they're like, okay, Marie Claire? No. It couldn't be. Well, her brother was one of the people that got killed. Okay.
Rachel:How about this guy whom we never bring up again? And he just shows up and he's got like a mustache and a, like, a low hat. So it must have just been like a throwaway character. They're like, what about Bob? And he's like, no, Bob hates the Nazis more than anybody else.
Rachel:Okay. Well, it can't fucking be Bob. They're like, okay. What about, me or you? And the one guy goes, how does a man judge himself?
Rachel:And the way they decide that neither one of them is the traitor is Nick takes the gun from him and he's like, oh, a traitor would have never given up the gun. And then he hands the gun to the guy, and the guy's like, I was just thinking the same thing. And they're like, well, clearly it's neither one of us. And they're like, okay, well, Giraud was an idiot. Like, he was a thief.
Rachel:He has no honor. He was a bad dude before the war. So clearly, it's him, because the tiger can't change its spots.
Matt:Nice one.
Rachel:Thank you. So they're like, okay. Okay. They're coming back. Can they get this, like, okay.
Rachel:We've got a plan together. I feel like, okay. They're coming back. We're gonna tell them that the raid failed and that everybody died but won, and that they came back and they told us who betrayed us. And then as soon as everybody looks at, we're just gonna we're just gonna arrest.
Rachel:Okay? They're like, okay. And so everybody comes back in. And the worst part about this is they tell Marie Claire that it's her brother who survived. They're like, your brother survived, and he told us who the bad guy was.
Rachel:And everybody just turns and looks at Giraud, and Giraud's like, the shit, what? And so he ends up grabbing a gun or grabbing a knife trying to defend himself, not because he was the bad guy necessarily, but because everybody thought he was the bad guy.
Matt:He still might have been.
Rachel:I mean, he still might have been. We don't actually clear it up because Nick doesn't interrogate anybody. He's just like, you're the bad guy. Kapoosh. You're the bad guy.
Rachel:Kapoosh. He doesn't he's just like, anyway, it doesn't matter. So, a self fulfilling prophecy, I guess, is what we're getting at. And then we come back to the present because Tracy is trying to find alternate suspects. So she's just over at the file.
Rachel:She's like, oh, this guy likes knives and leather. And Nick's like, yeah. And he's been in prison since 19
Matt:Oh, yeah. They've built up a profile for for the the rapist.
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:Yep. Blades, leather, rape. Right. It's the profile. Right.
Rachel:And so we turn around because we hear Reese yelling at somebody. He's like, well, then why haven't we arrested anybody already? Jesus. And he, like, turns around and walks back into the precinct. And he goes, counterfeiting hockey cards.
Rachel:How low can you go?
Nick:I don't know. I don't know. It's not an answer. Get this to fraud squad and find out why the hell they haven't made an arrest yet.
Rachel:Yes, sir.
Nick:Counterfeiting hockey cards. How low
Matt:can you get?
Nick:You really wanna talk about it? None on your life.
Rachel:What? And Nick goes, do you really want me to answer that? And he goes, no. I do not want you to answer
Matt:that. I missed that part.
Rachel:I really think one of the criticisms was like, guys, it kind of appears that Cohen just floats about the office doing nothing, but waiting until she can interact with Nick and Skanky. Maybe we need to, like, create other things that Reese is doing when he's in the precinct. He's literally like shouting at the wall. He's like, then why have we arrested anybody? And then he's like, ah, counterfeit hockey cards.
Rachel:And Nick's like, oh, okay.
Matt:The most Canadian thing to be upset about. Yes.
Rachel:And this is when Nick is he's trying to water the seeds that he planted earlier, because he's like, yeah. So we're just gonna buy that Spencer That's that Bruce, Spencer, and JT, like, we're gonna buy that whole thing. Right? We're just gonna assume that that's all the truth. And Reese is like, what what are you getting at?
Rachel:And he's like, I just think it's kinda weird. You know? Like, when was the last time you handcuffed a suspect, and they ran up instead of running out of the building, and then they jumped off the roof. It just kinda seems really striking, John. I just don't think they
Matt:And then Reese is like, hold on. Hold on. Let me let me just clarify. You weren't there. You didn't see it.
Matt:Wink. Wink. Yeah. You didn't hear anything of what happened. Wink.
Matt:Wink. And Nick's like, yeah. Yeah. I didn't I didn't see or hear anything. Wink wink.
Rachel:I saw nothing.
Matt:But I'm suspicious.
Rachel:I'm awfully sus. And he's like, well, Tracy backs him up, and she was first on the scene. And Nick goes, I know. And he's like, well, what does Tracy think? What does Tracy think about him?
Rachel:And he goes, she thinks he walks with the angels. And so she comes in and she's like, hi, guys. And, Bruce Spencer walks in, and he has a brief exchange with them. He's like, hey, I checked in with my captain. Can I go now?
Rachel:And they're like, yeah, you can go. And Tracy's like, hey, buddy. Bye. Have a really great day. And they like point at each other, and when she turns around, she's just smiling at both of them.
Rachel:And they just had this conversation that was like, yeah, this dude shit. She's just like, he's the best. And I just want to point out that Bruce Spencer's initials are BS, because I abbreviate in my notes, so I don't have to keep writing everybody's names. And so I was like, BS. And then I chuckled to myself.
Rachel:I'm like, well, it's BS.
Matt:How fitting.
Rachel:He leaves from there to go call somebody on the pay phone, and he's like, yeah. I was at the cops, but, like, I didn't call I didn't tell him squat. I'm a big tough dude or whatever. You know, I'm gonna come join up with you guys. We'll get booked the old gang back together, whatever, whatever.
Rachel:And so he, like, as soon as he hangs with the phone, he pulls his gun and turns around really quickly, and it's because Nick is standing right outside the pay phone booth, and he's just standing there. And Bruce is immediately like, oh, you know, I was just calling my people because my people are nervous. You know, I was just reassuring them, and Nick's like, yeah. There's a lot of that going around. Guilty people tend to get nervous.
Nick:You startled me. I was just reassuring my people. They tend to get a bit nervous.
Rachel:Yeah.
Nick:There's a lot of that going around. People with a guilty conscience, they tend to get nervous. Yeah.
Rachel:And he just he just stands there, radiating daddy cop energy, just like, I know what you did, and I'm just waiting for you to tell me because it'll be better if you tell me with your own words than if I find out on my own. And so Spencer starts spinning his wheels. He's like
Matt:Spencer falls for it.
Rachel:He's like, you know, I got you know, this is a really big sting that I'm setting up. You know, like, I could get you in on this. I could get you and Tracy in on this. Like, there's gonna be commendations and medals and gold watches, and the mayor's gonna shake our hand and shit. Like, it's gonna be great.
Rachel:I, you know, I could get you in on this, and Nick's just staying there. And then he does this, like, eyebrow lift smile thing, like, you are full of shit, and he just turns around and starts walking off. And Spencer's like, really? No, seriously. I could make you famous.
Rachel:Like, we could be best friends. And Nick's like, whatever, motherfucker. And he just leaves. It's the best. It's the best scene of him just being like, I smell everything you have stepped in, and I don't believe a word out of your fucking mouth.
Rachel:And then he just leaves, but he doesn't say anything. He just lets him be nervous because guilty people tend to get nervous. And from here, we go to Nick and Tracy actually doing, like, on the ground police work because they go to talk to sex workers or, as Tracy refers to them, hookers. She's like, are we gonna have to talk to them again tomorrow night? And Nick's like, well, if we didn't get anything tonight, then like, yeah.
Rachel:What are we gonna do? How else are we gonna find out information that we need to find out? And she's embarrassed because some of them thought that she was soliciting them. She's like, they said things to me. Oh, Tracy.
Rachel:You know, it's like she she's a good cop. She has the potential to be a good cop. She just didn't have the street experience. Right. And here she is doing this stuff out.
Rachel:I would be there too. Like, okay. You want me to talk to these people? Oh my god. They thought I was they thought I wanted to hire them.
Rachel:It was really creepy. And, like, I had to go talk to them again. No. And Nick's like, you'll get used to it. It's being on the street.
Rachel:Like, this is what we do. We gotta talk
Matt:to the people that know.
Rachel:Yeah. And then he just he doesn't even say anything, but because all of the guilty people are a little bit nervous, Tracy is immediately like, what is your problem with Bruce? And he's like, I don't what are you what are you talking about? And she's like, did you know that straight out of the academy, he was working undercover busting sex workers? I can't say the word.
Rachel:I can't. He was working undercover, busting sex workers, and he got a tip and he followed it. And he ended up breaking up an entire white slavery ring all by himself. My dad prosecuted it, and they've been tight ever since.
Matt:Right after this, Nick should say, did you know that I saved the world
Rachel:Like a butt.
Matt:When an asteroid was going to we all thought the an asteroid was gonna hit the Earth, and I was pretty suspicious of it. And I found out it was just a, like, financial stock scheme. Yeah. And I exposed it, and I saved the world.
Rachel:Let's see. Nick's taken down a porn ring. Nick got Elon Musk arrested. Nick
Matt:Does this save the world from societal collapse?
Rachel:I was on the fucking Titanic, Tracy. Okay? You think I don't know when something's going down? Alright? I can't talk about it.
Matt:Pete. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Tracy, I'm the one who shot Hitler in the head.
Rachel:Not yet, anyway. No. Actually Wait a minute.
Matt:I have that flashback yet.
Rachel:We meet Hitler. He met Hitler. What'd you call that? Oh my god.
Matt:I thought it was the most outrageous historical event for Nick to be directly involved in, and I went with it.
Rachel:And here we are.
Matt:I'm on the same page as the writers, apparently. Did he arrest Napoleon too?
Rachel:Did he meet Napoleon? Jury's out. I don't remember if he's met
Matt:Napoleon. Napoleon's
Rachel:I can't immediately, like, I can't immediately say he didn't meet Napoleon. Can't disprove it. I do think he's in okay. There's this there's one where he's in I think it's the Napoleonic wars, but I don't think he meets Napoleon. He just saves Lacroix's life, but that's different.
Rachel:I don't know. That's different.
Matt:Did he really? Or did Lacroix just let him think?
Rachel:Oh, no. No. He did.
Matt:Saved him. Because Lacroix can survive anything. Right? We've established this. He's an elder
Rachel:vampire. But it's inconvenient. Look how long he was gone last time.
Matt:So he he saved LaCroix his convenience.
Rachel:Yes. He saved him some mild inconvenience.
Matt:This is
Rachel:exactly what he did. Okay.
Matt:I just wanted
Rachel:to put that in
Matt:the right perspective.
Rachel:Okay. It's fine. It's, yep, completely, totally fine. Okay. So anyway, Tracy's like, yeah.
Rachel:He and my dad are tight because they took down a white slavery ring together. Okay. And Nick is like, yeah. And he's been covering for him ever since. And Tracy literally goes, you never let up, do you?
Matt:Nick's like So she stomps her foot
Rachel:Nick's like and
Matt:walks off.
Rachel:Did you just meet me? Like, no, I don't. She doesn't walk off. She keeps going. She's like, everybody makes mistakes, Nick.
Rachel:You make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. And notably, at this point, he does not rise to this bait. He literally
Matt:is like Tracy because he's got righteous daddy energy.
Rachel:Well, he's like, Tracy, listen. I did not want you for a partner. I didn't want another partner after skanky, but I got you, And I don't mind having you around, because I think you are a good cop. You can be a good cop. You have good instincts.
Rachel:You need to listen to them. Stop being a good friend and start being a good cop. And she's like, oh, I am. I am.
Matt:And then she immediately realizes that she hasn't been.
Rachel:She goes, covering for him. What do you mean covering for him? And he's like, yeah. There's been reports of excessive force. She's like, that's not Bruce, and he's like, okay.
Rachel:Well, you know him better than me. Whatever you say, Tracy. Sure. You can say that with a 100% confidence. Right?
Rachel:On LA, 80%.
Matt:80% confidence is pretty good.
Rachel:I mean, she idolizes him, and she idolizes her dad, and it's hard to take people off a pedestal. Because if she admits that Bruce has been doing all of this stuff, she has to admit that her dad has been allowing Bruce
Matt:to do all
Rachel:of this stuff. Yeah. That's a big ask. It's a big ask. And she's like, you don't know what it's like to question your friends like this.
Rachel:You don't know what it's like to be confronted with the fact that someone that you love might be might have betrayed you. And he's like, yeah. Well, one time, when I was in the French with the French resistance in World War 2, he just actually, he, like, remembers Giraud getting slapped. And every time Giraud gets slapped, Nick tosses his head side to side.
Matt:Nice touch.
Rachel:It is. Except if you're Tracy and all of a sudden, Nick is dead.
Matt:Maybe he's just doing this internally.
Rachel:Maybe. Sure. Sure. Okay. Whatever.
Rachel:And this is when I mean, through a series of events, he kills Giraud. Giroux's like, I'm not the bad guy, but I knew you all would think I was the bad guy because I used to be the bad guy. And you just don't think a tiger can change its spots. Okay? Sorry.
Rachel:I'm not gonna use it correctly. I'm just gonna use it the way I want to. And he ends up, like, grabbing him with his arm across his chest and, like, breaking his neck, after Marie Claire tries to kill him, tries to kill Giraud, and then he ends up knocking Marie Claire out kind of to the side because Giroux had grabbed her and put a knife to her throat, and then he vamps out and he breaks Giroux's neck. And then we come back to the present. And this is when Tracy goes to her car during the day, so she must be getting ready to head into work or whatever.
Rachel:And Bruce is waiting in her car. Who
Matt:Hop goes the weasel.
Rachel:Who hasn't broken in to her car at this point? Perhaps she could consider getting a better car lock or a car alarm because Vashawn broke into her car.
Matt:Skeezy looking guys. Ugh, I guess.
Rachel:I mean, this guy's at least he's got a haircut. I don't know. I don't know. But Sean's not in this episode, so we can't compare. But he pops up because he's like, hey, Trey.
Rachel:Hey, button. He says, hey, button. And she goes, don't fucking call me that. I don't. I can't right now with that.
Matt:Nick's Nick's seed is growing Yeah. In her mind.
Rachel:And he goes, well, you know, I just wanna talk to you about maybe could you get Nick off of me? Because he's trying to set me up. And Tracy goes, no. He's not. He's investigating a murder case.
Rachel:And he goes, oh, I see he's gotten to you. And she's like, he hasn't gotten to me. What the fuck is wrong with you? Like, I'm not gonna warn him off.
Matt:Keep gaslighting me, Bruce.
Rachel:Yeah. Could shut the fuck up, Bruce. And he goes, well, I could get you credit. This is gonna be a big bust. This is gonna be a feather in everybody's cap who's involved with it, and I could get you and Nick in on it.
Rachel:Same same deal he offered to Nick. And Tracy goes, if I'm gonna impress my father, it's gonna be because of something I've done.
Nick:You get them off me and and I'll write you into the report. Your dad would like that.
Rachel:If I impress my father, it'll be because of something I've done. Thank you.
Nick:But you will talk tonight.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:Thank you, Tracy. This is why I like Tracy as a character, why she could have easily been she's not even tempted for a moment. She's just immediately, like, no.
Matt:Right. Because she she gets this offer, like, twice a day.
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:Hey. I know you and your dad. I can hook you up on this thing that'll make you look real good. Yeah. And so her entire career, she's been turning down.
Matt:Yeah. No. I'm not doing that. Because I'm proving myself.
Rachel:To appear like she's gotten there on her own merit, she has to work twice as hard as everybody else. She's already working twice as hard as everybody else because she's a skinny blonde young woman.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:And now she has to work twice as hard because her dad is on the police commission. So yes, it was easy for her to get there, but proving that she deserves to be there way harder And she's willing to put the work in and she doesn't want any shortcuts. And when he offered her a shortcut, it was like ding ding ding red fucking flag. Because if you knew me, you would know I don't want to get by on my dad's name. And this is when he's like, okay.
Rachel:Well, it's nice to have friends, Tracy Button. Nice to have friends. And she's like, whatever. Get the fuck out
Matt:of my car. I'm done
Rachel:with you. And he immediately leaves and breaks into a woman's apartment to beat her up.
Matt:He does not hesitate one bit. Yeah. Has has Tracy already talked to him about
Rachel:No. That's immediately after this because she catches him.
Matt:She follows him.
Rachel:Yeah. Because he's pulled a gun on this woman. He's beating her up. He's trying to
Matt:do information, but ready to hit her and then Yeah. Behind him with the gun out.
Rachel:She's like, put the fucking gun down. And then she
Matt:Freeze, sleazebags.
Rachel:She tells the woman, you can press charges if you want to. And he goes, I didn't hurt her. And she just goes, shut up. Like, shut up. Fuck up.
Matt:You're, oh, you're digging your hole even more.
Rachel:You just your mouth, zip it. Just stop. Stop talking. And when they go out, she's like, the fuck is wrong with you? And he's like, what?
Rachel:I get results. And she's like, what kind of results? At what cost? And this is when he has a really interesting line because he says, they're just trash. Like, are you gonna make me feel bad?
Rachel:You can't make me feel bad for beating up street trash. It's all they deserve. And she goes, no. It's just all they get. Because he's like, you don't know the streets.
Rachel:And she's like, yeah. I fucking know the streets. Don't don't do that. Don't infantilize me. I might not have as much experience as you, but I'm out here.
Rachel:Okay? And she goes, everything they said about you is true. And he's like, oh, has Nick been talking to you? And she's like, I didn't need Nick to talk to you, which in fact, Nick did not. Nick was like, there were reports of excessive force.
Rachel:And then after that, he was just like, use
Matt:your noodle button. Like, that's so good. Keeps bringing up Nick.
Rachel:Yeah. He's like, Nick didn't actually tell me to do anything but think. He just told her to think, and she did. And she put the pieces together on her own, and it's that Bruce is not a great guy. And he doesn't help himself by immediately being like, oh, who told you?
Rachel:Who told you that I'm not very nice? Well, I also just saw you grab a woman by her hair and throw her face down on her own couch and then threaten her with a weapon. So I think I can make my own judgment call on this, Bruce. But while she's having this revelation with Bruce, we cut to Natalie because Natalie is talking to Nick and she goes, well, you know what? Your rapist is a pretty sick guy.
Rachel:And Nick goes, oh, I need a lab report to tell me that? And she's like, no, I mean, like physically sick. Like there was a significant amount of strychnine.
Matt:He has medical conditions.
Rachel:Yeah. There was a significant amount of strychnine in his tox screen. And Nick is like, oh. So we see Tracy pull up, like, pull her car up, park it, open the car door, shut it, which she left her car window open, which is probably why those people keep getting in. And then she just walks down.
Rachel:Nick intercepts her, and he's like, okay. We got it. We know this guy does drugs, and he cuts them with strychnine because it makes your heart race and it ups the rush. And we're gonna go, like, this means that there's a special kind of lady that he sees, which means we know exactly where we need to go. And while he's talking, they walk, like, 15 feet down the sidewalk, and they just get in his Cadillac and drive off.
Rachel:So they must have just rendezvoused to get in the same car?
Matt:I guess.
Rachel:And they were like, should we take hers, which gets maybe 25 to 30 miles per gallon? Or should we get the one that we have to carry gas tanks so we can make it between gas stations?
Matt:He can file, mileage. Oh,
Rachel:can you imagine?
Matt:On duty.
Rachel:They're like, why are his so high? They're like, well, first of all, he just drives around to think all the time, but, also, he drives a non regulation issue vehicle. What does he drive? He drives a 1962 Cadillac, sir. What?
Rachel:And then they look up his stated reason, like his exemption that he was granted, and on the bottom, it says the 1962 Cadillac has the largest truck space of any car made.
Matt:It's a sweet ride.
Rachel:A rolling condominium. It's like, feel that cushion of air. It's just all these lines.
Matt:Just the sales pitch.
Rachel:But, sir but sir, the trunk space. Why does he need trunk space now?
Matt:Because my skin can do it's it's a medical accommodation.
Rachel:Medical accommodation.
Matt:There you go. There the the box is checked, medical accommodation.
Rachel:They're, like, well, what's it for? It's for his allergy to commitment, sir.
Matt:I mean, sunlight, sunlight, sorry, slip of the tone.
Rachel:I love this cause Tracy's talking to these sex workers and she's like, hey, can I just have a conversation with you guys? And they keep walking off and Nick is pestering this woman in this purple leather. I don't even know what this is. It's not a dress. Dress is generous.
Rachel:It's a choice. That's what it is. It's a purple leather choice. And he's just, all these other people are walking around. He was literally like, that woman's wearing leather.
Rachel:She knows what I need to know. I'm gonna get it out of here.
Matt:They're trying to find a guy that has a fixation with leather.
Rachel:Yeah. Well, not leatherness. Oh, is it leather, but mostly, like, knives. Because he she asked
Matt:They said blades, leather
Rachel:Yeah.
Matt:And How
Rachel:did we know leather?
Matt:Where did leather come from? Even know where the leather came from, but it came up in the profile.
Rachel:What? Hang on. I got nothing. I just remember the blades. I don't remember where leather came
Matt:from. Leather rape.
Rachel:Sure. Whatever.
Matt:That was the profile.
Rachel:It's fine. He's asking her because he's like, do you know anybody who's into sharps? And the lady says, yeah. If they're into leather, they're usually into sharps. And he's like, cool.
Rachel:Do you know anybody who's also into, like, strychnine drugs? Like, that kind of stuff. And she's like, well, I know a couple of women because he won't leave her alone. She ends up taking her sunglasses off and she's like, fucking what? And he's like, hey, babe, just tell me what I need to know.
Rachel:And she's like, oh, I thought you were after me for my personality. And he's I mean, her tits are like right there. No one's there for your personality, especially not Nick who historically cannot resist.
Matt:Although, Garrett keeps his eyes on her face.
Rachel:He does. You know what? He does. He's got
Matt:800 years of learning self control.
Rachel:Gentlemanly daddy cop. It's it's the flick and look away. You can't tell if your face is still pointed at her. You can do the, like, flick flick. Anyway, he gets what he needs to know from her, which is that there's 2 women in this apartment complex who specialize in the kind of thing that they're looking for.
Rachel:And in the meantime, Tracy, hears Bruce. Because Bruce Someone
Matt:goes, hey. Psst, from an alleyway.
Rachel:And she's like, what? Hello? She walks over, and she's like, oh, do you need directions? Sprint. She walks over, and she, like, I don't know, makes this suit one of several poor choices towards the back half of this episode because she sticks her head around the corner.
Rachel:And luckily for her, it's Bruce. And Bruce is like, look. I'm sorry that you were uncomfortable with my methods. And she's like, you don't need to do that. Like, you can be a nice guy, and he's like, yeah.
Rachel:Sure. So what do you guys what do you what do you do now? What's what's going on? She's like, yeah. Well, we found out that the, you know, the rapist had, strychnine in their blood.
Rachel:So we think that they were doing drugs with strychnine in them, and he's like, okay. Gotta go. And he just leaves, and Tracy's like, thank you. That's not suspicious. See you later.
Matt:Thank you for acknowledging that you may be using excessive force.
Rachel:Yeah. And that it's making me uncomfortable. But Nick, in the meantime, has slipped into a flashback, probably just to pass the time at this point. And it's him talking to the other leader of the French resistance, and he's like, listen about Jerome. And the guy's like, no.
Rachel:It's fine. I would have killed him with my own hands if I could have done that. I said, no problem. And Nick's like, we've made the world a safer place, and then the guy leaves. And so Nick is standing there, and then he sees this door open, and so he runs over to the shadows and out comes a Nazi officer.
Rachel:Actually, the Platzkommandantor.
Matt:So According to the sign, I don't know.
Rachel:To the sign. And out behind him comes Marie Claire, and they make out and Nick is like, oh, that bitch. And as soon as she comes down, he shows up and he actually kills the commander, the plus commandantur, the guy. He kills him, and then he goes after the out out to the alley to find Marie Claire, and she stalks around the corner followed
Matt:by Lacroix.
Rachel:Lacroix in his very fancy black hat, which you can go on the way back machine and find Nigel Bennett's old website that he used to host for himself.
Matt:Bennett had a website?
Rachel:Yeah. And it was the black hat productions. And it's a picture of himself with this black hat, like this junky angled black hat. So a black hat, and Nigel was like a thing. So anyway, he looks nice in hat, so it works.
Rachel:He comes around the corner, and he was like, look, I caught her. So Nick is like, yes.
Matt:The traitor.
Rachel:And he immediately is like, send her over here. I'm going to take care of her. And Lacroix is like, I fully approve of you killing of this woman. I just don't really approve of your reasons, because as soon as he kills her, he's like, yes, I'm doing the right thing. I'm making the world safe.
Rachel:No more innocent people will die because of her. And Lacroix is like, well, it's true. I mean, that's sure. But did you consider maybe that she was undercover?
Tracy's Friend:And yet,
Tracy's Friend:one can't help wondering what an effective strategy it is to work to destroy your enemy by providing him with his every wish, save the granting of sexual favors to elicit trust in your enemy, to learn his secret.
Matt:May maybe she was using her feminine wiles to extract secrets from the enemy.
Rachel:Maybe oh, god. We can't Oh,
Matt:but you you really jumped on that one. Wow. I'm proud of you, Nick.
Rachel:I mean, oh, well, I guess we'll never know because you went ahead and killed her with your tea heath. And then he says, don't you find it tiring playing it being omniscient? And Nick's like, oh god. I really should have thought that through. And so you, like,
Matt:collapse this. Need to do the opposite of what Lacroix wants me to do.
Rachel:Well, you think I would have learned and he, like, collapses next to this woman. And actually her fang makeup is not terrible. Matt goes, oh, that's actually
Matt:not bad. Spacing and position is plausible. It's not bad. Great.
Rachel:But that's the resolution of that flashback. We don't actually find out who the trader was. We don't know. Either one of them could have been the trader. They could not have been the trader, but it's not what it's about.
Rachel:The point is Nick made decisions and acted impulsively and used excessive force, and that wasn't justice. It was just murder. But we come back to a dominatrix on the phone because Nick and Tracy are looking through these apartments to try to find the 2 women that they got tipped off might be there and might be catering to the type of clientele that they are looking for. And so there's this dominatrix on the phone. She's like, yeah.
Rachel:You're a bad boy. Mommy says you're a bad boy. She's just doing this like very naughty. If you looked up dominatrix in the dictionary in 1990, this is what was there. It was, like, mean mommy.
Rachel:Like, play with your mommy issues. Sure. Okay. Fine. No kink shaming here.
Rachel:You do what you want. As long as everybody's playing the same game, that's fine with me. But Bruce doesn't think that because he immediately walks in. He grabs her phone and throws it. And she's like, great.
Rachel:That was my best client. And he goes, $20 a minute. What do you care? Well, if it was $20 a minute and you just lost me my best client, I care a whole fucking lot. Okay?
Rachel:I care like a bunch. That's like $1200 an hour
Nick:Yeah.
Rachel:In 1996. I care a lot. I did that math on the fly, so I don't know. I could be wrong. And he's like, don't play games.
Rachel:Tell me where he is. Is he here? And she's like, he's not here, and you couldn't afford my games.
Matt:And he's like He's tired of people not taking his bullshit.
Rachel:Well, he's tries to, like, get rough with her, and she's like, what are you gonna do? Beat it out of me? Which okay. This that's that's all. I mean, okay.
Rachel:I can't even oh, not even. It's fine. It's fine. A lot of assumptions were made about BDSM and what it looks like in the community, and that's fine. You know, we're just gonna leave it right there because it was the 1996 interpretation.
Matt:This is the same generation of, like, content creators and, like, producers and stuff that produced magic earring Ken.
Rachel:Okay. You're correct. So
Matt:So let's let's not
Rachel:We can't
Matt:let's not, like, look too deeply into the mainstream perspective on
Rachel:yeah. Just, you know, it's there. There it was. Alright. Here we are.
Rachel:So it's Stu. Stu pops out of the door, and he's like, oh my god, Burps. Because he's he's choking choking itself.
Matt:Bruce and Stu sounds like a Ren and Stimpy kind
Rachel:of thing. It's like who it is or Beavis and Butt Head. So he's choking the dominatrix lady, who I think's name is Anne, and he's like, do you know do you know this guy? And Anne is like, yeah. You mean the cop, Bruce detective Bruce Spencer?
Rachel:And he's like, you're a fucking cop. And he just like he gets distracted. Bruce gets distracted, and Stu hits him on the back of the head with a statue, and he like gets knocked out. And then Tracy just walks into this apartment, walks into this apartment, walks around the corner without checking any of her sight lines, immediately gets grabbed by Stu, and he holds a straight razor to her neck. And Nick comes around the corner because he hears all of this stuff happening, and Stu is holding a knife to Tracy's neck.
Rachel:And Nick's like, cool. Cool. No. It's cool, man. We're cool.
Rachel:And he starts to put his gun away, and Tracy actually gets herself out of this hold. Hey. She spins around and knocks the knife out of his hand and pushes him down. And Nick actually grabs Stu, and he grabs Stu in the same hold that he grabs Giraud in in the flashback. Except this time, instead of snapping the guy's neck, he just tosses him to the side, and that
Matt:And he does not vamp out.
Rachel:Is growth. That's growth. He was like, I could murder this man, but that would make me just like Bruce, and I'm not like Bruce anymore. So he tosses him to the side. But you know who is like Bruce?
Rachel:Bruce.
Matt:Bruce.
Rachel:Because Bruce immediately pulls a gun out and puts it on Stu's head, and he's like, I'm a kill him. I'm a kill this guy. I'm a kill him right now. And Tracy's like, we just fucking talked about this. Put the gun away.
Rachel:You don't need to do this. And Bruce is like, oh, I kind of think I do. He's a bad guy. And she's like, yeah. And what does killing you make?
Rachel:Killing him make you. You need to put him you need to put it away. And so he does, and he's like, oh, you're under arrest. That's the law. That's the law book.
Rachel:That's how that goes down. And then we cut to the precinct, and Nick is like, listen, I'm sorry about this, but it's the way it has to be. And Tracy's like, I know. And then he just turns around and like slaps his sunglasses on, which is probably supposed to be like, it's day and he's leaving. And Tracy goes into this little room because Bruce is in custody, and she's like, your friend, gave us you know, that lady that you were beating up in the apartment, she gave us the missing piece, and we were able to, like, go through with the bust, and it went like textbook.
Rachel:And we got everybody all the way from the bottom to the top, and, literally, somebody's gonna be made a night and, like, this is gonna be great. Okay? But you're not you weren't there. And he's like, well, great. Yep.
Rachel:I'm glad. Like, I'm glad that worked out for you because he wasn't in it to take down the he wasn't in it to save lives. He was in it for the glory.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:Which is why he thought glory was gonna persuade everybody because he didn't fully understand why they were there.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:He thought they were there for the same reason he was. But this is when he's like, I should've killed Stu.
Matt:I should've You were wrong.
Rachel:You were wrong, you know. I should've killed Stu. The bad guys won. They won tonight.
Matt:Because they're still out there. I'm I'm in here.
Rachel:Well, technically, they're not. Apparently, they got literally everybody. There's no drugs in Toronto anymore. They just they just arrested fucking everybody, and he's about to get convicted for the murder of JT. And he's like, I should have killed Stu because Stu almost hurt you, and because I didn't kill him, you could've gotten killed.
Rachel:And she's like, but I didn't. Nick was there. And he goes, yeah. Nick's always there.
Matt:Which to in my to me, in my 2023 media sensibilities, that is a plot hook for Bruce Spencer to come back later
Rachel:No.
Matt:With suspicions and accusations about Nick.
Rachel:You wish.
Matt:Yeah.
Rachel:That'd be pretty cool. I mean, that'd be great if we had, like, plot hooks and returning characters and shit. It's a dream. Okay? It's a dream.
Rachel:I was talking to somebody and they pointed out that they thought this would be rebooted better as a comic book. I think it could work as a comic book too. Honestly, I don't care how you wanna reboot it. Just fucking somebody reboot this property, please. But he literally says, you know what?
Rachel:The things that I do might be outside the law, but they get results. They get justice. You know, the things that I do, they're justice. And she goes, no. They're not justice.
Rachel:They're just murder. And then she leaves.
Matt:She pulls the neck.
Rachel:This was a big growth moment for Tracy because Tracy had to confront not everybody is who they seem, and sometimes the monsters are human shaped and human. Not every monster is literal. Some are like your friend Bruce who had everybody fooled, but in the end was just a bad dude. And I like that Nick allows her to come through that on her own. He isn't, like, grabbing her face and really rubbing it in how bad of a guy he is.
Rachel:He's like, think about it. Put the pieces together. You've got the entire puzzle. You can see this picture if you want to. You just have to put it together yourself.
Matt:Yep.
Rachel:Of course, he does the same thing to Bruce, except it's I know that you know and you know that I know, and I have all the pieces I'm gonna be getting around.
Matt:And you know that you're fucking around. And I know that you're gonna find out, but you haven't found out that you're gonna find out.
Rachel:Yeah. Basically. I mean, it's really good. It's very much like a I'm a mature cop. I had this in the bag.
Rachel:I could have made this a lot harder on Tracy by being by pushing it harder, but he pushes it just enough to keep her moving without really harming their relationship. In the end, she ultimately trusts way that he approached this, which is why I like the writing for his character so much in this season is because the impulsive fun what the fuckness of season 1 and season 2 would not have worked with the Tracy character. And he actually matures enough that Tracy gets to be the impulsive what the fuckness.
Matt:But He he had to manifest that big daddy energy Yeah. For Tracy to be able to grow.
Rachel:Well, he went through a transformative experience. Skanky died. His best friend died. And so he had to whatever mask he was wearing to be that Nick Knight, he had to set it aside, and he had to pick up a new one. And we've seen in his past before where we have these glimpses of him being, like, for lack of a better word, a daddy, like in the Hieronymus Bosch episode where he's trying to save that woman.
Rachel:He's like, there's nothing wrong with you. You didn't tempt him into doing anything. It was him who did who was wrong. I can fix this for you. Just give me time, and she ends up killing herself before he can help her, and he's like, of course, she didn't listen to me.
Rachel:I'm a man. So it's not unprecedented for him to be this character. It's just that we haven't seen him, this character, in present day in a really long time.
Matt:Right.
Rachel:So are you excited about the rest of season 3? I'm
Matt:looking forward to it.
Rachel:Yeah. It's Yeah. It's different, but it's not worse different. It's just different. You get you can kind of see thematically sort of how we're gonna be different.
Rachel:We we don't we don't always get coherent story lines. I can't promise that, but we do get, like, personal growth each episode, and possible exception being the dog, the viper dog episode. But it's okay.
Matt:Can a dog really be a character? Because dogs are perfect creatures, so they can't really grow except, like, physically.
Rachel:Oh, it grows. It changes physically. It goes through
Matt:It goes through a transformational experience.
Rachel:It goes through a transformative experience. Yes. Alright. We're not there yet. We can't talk about it yet.
Rachel:And we're so close to the native American mysticism episode. I can, I can taste it on the wind, like cheap incense? Just so fucking ready to talk about it. I've been ready for, like, 2 years. How long have we been to this podcast?
Rachel:I don't know. A year. Whatever.
Matt:1 year.
Rachel:1 year. Oh, is it 1 year today?
Matt:The 18th is when we published our first episode.
Rachel:Oh, 1 year 4 days from when we're recording.
Matt:Hey. It's probably the exact 1 year anniversary of us recording our first episode.
Rachel:Oh, it's possible. Alright. Well, I look forward to watching the next episode with you. I look forward to every bodily noise that I have to cut out. Burbles.
Rachel:Hopefully, the burbles g is working now. Cracks, swallows, sniffs, snorts, creaks, groans, shuffles. I'm gonna get you some sound resistant pants.
Matt:Well, when you drag me out to the garage at 10 o'clock at night.
Rachel:I love you. Until next time, friends. Bye.
Matt:Thank you. Denata.
Rachel:You're good? You're good? Mhmm. Alright.
