trings
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Intense therapy for a debilitating drug addition has popular singer Christie Black staying at the home of controversial psychotherapist Dr. Ben McGee. When Christie's mother is murdered, her brother Matthew becomes Nick's prime suspect, though he doesn't have enough evidence to hold him. As Matthew is leaving the police station, he is fatally shot by Christie who quickly flees the scene. Frantic to prevent yet another murder, Nick focuses his investigation on McGee who he believes has programmed Christie to be a robot killer.
A very nice opening sequence. A bizarre murder, a nice, artistic cut to the opening credits, and then the introduction of a seemingly disjoint subplot (Tracy's job change) which turns out to be somewhat relevant later on. This kind of opening draws you right in, and is usually the sign of a good, if not excellent, episode.
As it turned out, the flashback was quite good, even if it was a bit far-fetched. The confrontation between Nick and Rasputin over the tsarina's mind was so true to Nick's modern-day character: Nick is much weaker, since he is unwilling to lie so blatantly a friend, even to save her from what he knows is evil. Nick's "I can help Alexi" just isn't as convincing as Rasputin's "He is an evil man... I am the salvation of Alexi".
Some of the slides into the flashbacks were quite smooth, too. LaCroix's radio monologue about "bumping through history" pushes Nick into a reverie which has LaCroix saying exactly those words... and then LaCroix goes on to describe how many humans need their lives to be controlled, which relates to Tracy's problems with her dad in the modern-day scenes.
And even though there's a strong parallel between McGee's hypnotherapy and Rasputin's vampiric control, they don't force their victims to do similar things, or even have the same goals in mind. The parallel is there, but it isn't overwhelmingly obvious to the point of ruining the episode.
McGee is clearly a reprehensible person, even at the very beginning. When we first see him, he's reluctant to let Nick and Tracy talk to Christie at all. He's condescending when he talks to her, and after her attempted suicide, he blames her and complains about the way she's paying him back. Even without Natalie's critical comments about McGee's treatments (which was a but too simplistic and long-winded, considering who she was talking to) it's clear that his therapy is a scam of some sort. And then his feigned surprise at the detectives' questions about Matthew... how fake can you get? I'm surprised they fell for that.
Well, I guess I'm surprised that Nick fell for it. Tracy is another matter. Time and again she makes blunders that would put any cop to shame. They break into Matthew's apartment, look for him, Tracy gets a call from her dad, and what does she do? She slaps her bare hand down on a dresser (leaving prints everywhere), picks up a piece of paper at random, and waves it around while she's on the phone. Okay, so it turned out to be a lucky clue, leading them to Christie -- but her careless disregard for covering her own tracks is almost scary.
When Tracy seemed to be leaving for another job, it seemed almost too good to be true. I had this sinking feeling that she end up returning, just as Schanke did in "The Code". And she did. But I was really proud of Tracy when she stood up to her boss, destroying her own chances at her new "dream job" -- even though she had to lean on her father's position to do so. It was the first real backbone she's shown to anyone else all season.
Nick, though, isn't doing quite so well. He's using his vampiric powers a lot more. He flies off to catch first Christie, and then her brother, and once more at the end of the episode to somehow find Christie (which, again, is an old plot twist). At the very end, he hypnotises Christie in an attempt to overcome McGee's suggestions. He listens to McGee's tapes using his improved hearing to catch the subaural messages (which he had already guessed about). He even tries to do so when they first meet McGee (or he tries something... it wasn't clear). Nick isn't even making pretenses of trying not to use his powers.
It's too bad the killer was quite so obvious. After seeing the face of the second victim on the video tape, it was no surprise when she opened the door that she would be killed, and that the killer would be Christie. Similarly, the scene at the police station where she kills Matthew was fairly obvious. But perhaps the catharsis of knowing what was going to happen, and wanting to tell the characters how they're failing, was more of a boon than a hinderance.
Episode rating (0 to 10): 8
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