aby, Baby
aby, Baby
Serena, a victim of Nick's immortal bite from the past, has a plan to regain her mortality. According to ancient legend, a vampire will become mortal if she bears a mortal's child. But to conceive, the mortal must possess an extra chromosome and will be murdered soon after conception. When Trilling, who possesses the magic chromosome, is arrested for murder, Serena provides an alibi to get him out of jail. Fully aware of Serena's plan, Nick struggles to solve the murder -- torn between reconciling the wrong he did Serena and preventing yet another murder. But his actions, along with the reasons behind them can never be revealed.
While watching this episode, I suddenly noticed that almost all of the vampires use just one name. At first I attributed this to the fact that there aren't many of them, and just one name should suffice -- but they were all once human, and (in recent times, at least) should have a surname. But then I realized that most of them find new identities frequently, and so might not have a predictable last name (I assume they keep their given name as a matter of pride). So much for that grand observation.
Both Serena (played by Denise Virieux) and Nick want to become mortal again, but strangely, they won't work together to achieve this goal. Sure, they had some bad history, but the flashbacks showed that it was an accidental misunderstanding, so why does Serena dislike Nick so much? As Janette noted, "you said you share the same goal; why not the same quest?"
More and more, LaCroix's talk-show monologue reminds me of the chorus in ancient Greek plays. It's the way he talks about what's going in in Nick's mind, or what's happening to him, even though LaCroix is locked up in a small room miles away. I'm sure LaCroix has a strong empathic link with Nicholas, but I wouldn't think it was that strong. This "chorus" theory is supported by the scene where Nick is driving along, listening to the monologue, and images of LaCroix seem to be floating across his windshield, or sitting next to him in the car, as though he really is there (in some spiritual sense).
Nick and LaCroix are still slightly at odds, even though Nick seems to have overcome the hatred he showed in early episodes (or in the first season). When LaCroix asks "could it be that you're finally beginning to appreciate my wisdom?", and Nick scoffs "your knowledge... your age...", he's just making a petty semantic distinction. Nick isn't very reluctant to ask for, and accept, aid from LaCroix, even if he's trying to downplay it.
So why did Nick actually bring Serena over? Even at that time, he was trying to regain his mortality. He shows great reluctance to make Natalie a vampire (or anyone else, for that matter) -- so why Serena? If he really thought she knew what he was, why not talk her out of it? Especially if he felt they were soulmates in some way.
I also couldn't accept that Trilling would be so far under Serena's spell that he wouldn't worry about suddenly being transported from the bottom to the top of the tower, and that he wouldn't react adversely to Nick's sudden appearance up there. If you've gone to the top of a tower to have sex, and the officer who arrested you shows up, you'd probably be angry or afraid -- especially since he basically broke out of jail. And you certainly wouldn't let the officer watch you.
Nice premise, good imagery, decent plot, but a poorly developed concept.
Episode rating (0 to 10): 4
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