Fate Worse than Death
Fate Worse than Death
Janette turns to Nick for help when Julie Beamer, a young "lady of the evening" whom she has befriended, is murdered. However, Nick finds his hands tied when there isn't enough evidence to hold the prime suspect.
Once a working girl herself, Janette is outraged by the lack of "justice" and seeks to quench her thirst for blood when she learns the killer may have been Mason, her friend's pimp. When Mason and a fellow cop turn up dead, Nick traces the murders to Celeste Morgan, a seemingly innocent girl trapped in a life of prostitution.
The first five minutes of this episode reminded me strongly of the first season. The scene takes place in a hotel room, where a scantily clad woman wanders around for a minute or so -- and then is shot. A man comes in, clearly to meet her, and is shocked to find her rapidly cooling corpse. "Oh, good," I thought.
But it turned out to be a very intense episode, with the serious parts only slightly reduced by Schanke's continually inane comments. It would be dark (and almost depressing) were it not for the occasional bits of humor (like the prostitute who, upon finding that Nick and Schanke are cops, says "$200, then. Professional courtesy."). This is the second season at its best.
Janette performs exceptionally well in this episode. Her intense emotional reactions to the plights of the prostitutes shows off a more human side than we've seen before (even Nick comments "I haven't seen you this way for eight hundred years"). She breaks her glass in her hands just after a confrontation with Mason, the pimp. At the end of the episode, Janette thanks Natalie for removing some bullets. And the flashback she experiences is to the day she was brought over by LaCroix -- the last day she was mortal. All in all, she seems amazingly alive -- and closer to Nick than in other episodes.
Celeste (played by Natalie Radford) is also convincing as a fairly intelligent, though bitterly cynical, prostitute. I didn't expect her to be the villain until just before she shot Goodman. Her manipulations were almost good enough to convince Janette to make her a vampire. Only at the end, when she broke down and started saying "I deserved it!", did she come across poorly.
I thought it was interesting that Nick went to Natalie for comfort and reason in the middle (just after talking to Janette). Natalie is an icon of goodness, being the only woman (in this show) who hadn't had to give her body to any man who desired her. Even though she works with corpses and deals with vampires, she's still pure enough to provide comfort and optimism.
I really liked when Nick drove Janette back to the Raven, and walked around the car to open the door for her -- and as she gets out she asks "living by their rules all the time - does it really make your life any easier?". This is like many of the conversations between Nick and Janette in this show; they seem to be talking on more than one level, and usually the questions can be turned back on the questioner.
Episode rating (0 to 10): 10
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