lackwing
lackwing
A court battle over Native American land leads to betrayal and murder, as the loss of an ancient document naming the rightful owner threatens to derail the Native Americans' case. Nick gets directly involved when his powers converge with those of the Native Americans' culture. As he embraces this new spiritual world, in his continuing quest to cure his "darkness", Nick soon realizes he has transferred his evil and desire to kill to an innocent member of the tribe.
I could have liked this episode. But unfortunately the entire episode felt a lot like the pre-intro sequence (where Marion meets her grandfather in the "spirit world" and sees his murder). Disjointed, confusing, and not at all satisfying in terms of resolution.
The way Marion sees who Nick really is when he touches her strongly reminds me of some previous episode, where there was a psychic involved in an investigation, and she saw similar images from his mind. I can't recall which episode, though; it must have been in the first season.
Every time Tracy tries to bring up the occult, she's sort of brushed aside. Odd, considering how much of it is floating around. Like when she asks why the "sacred Raven knife" was used to kill Blackwing, she's told "probably because it was sharp and handy". And she's totally ignored at the station when she asks if there's some way Marion can talk to her grandfather in the spirit world and find out who killed him. At first, I thought they were just teasing her, since she obviously knows something about their culture, but not very much.
Why does Nick appear in his normal garb when he's in the spirit world? All the others appear in more traditional clothing. I would have expected Nick to appear either as he was when he was mortal, or as something else, but not like he currently looks.
This new style of interaction between Nat and Nick is getting rather old. How many times has she told him that there are no easy outs this season? And yet we're treated with two such discussions in this episode. (ok, so I rather liked the "so, how much does it cost to get your soul dry-cleaned these days?" comment...) Certainly these are things she should be saying, given Nick's frequent lapses of reason and wisdom -- but I don't understand those, either. Excitement at getting closer to mortality? Fine. But he was so much more philosophical last season (compare this with the end of "Near Death"). Still grasping at any chance he could, but not with such fervor.
I also expected more of a jealous reaction from Nat towards Marion and her 'cure'. Instead, she calmly notes that the cure isn't doing too much for him, and that he shouldn't expect too much from this "spirit world". Somehow, she doesn't seem to notice Nick's quick fling with Marion. Hmm.
Vachon's brief appearance was more like a token appearance; sort of a "well, he's a star, so we have to give him a scene every couple of episodes...". Aside for providing a good reason for Tracy to be interested in this case, it didn't add anything to the story. LaCroix, of course, has similarly short appearances in many episodes, but his scenes are always excellent at providing a dark mood. His reading of the story of the Raven was exceptional; the "black you are, and black you shall remain" bit was very chilling.
When Nick decides that he's the killer (the later murders, not the first), it was neat, but extremely confusing. Especially when he arrives at Blackwing's place and encounters both of the real killers (Marion and Buckwater). It just adds to my feeling that I didn't really understand what was going on.
But by far the worst factor was when we learned that Marion had taken some aspect of Nick's killing instinct into herself. As she's dying, she claims she'll take the "killer" with her, to get rid of it. Does she? Or did Nick stop her? After all, he leaned down over her neck just before she died, and rose up with the vampire in his eyes -- but no blood on his mouth. It was hard to tell. Should we expect a change in his behaviour? Is his killing instinct really gone, or not? If there had been a scene at the end where he talks to Natalie and describes the change (or lack of change), we would know; but as it stands, there's no way to tell.
Episode rating (0 to 10): 4
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