I know this one is late. I know I didn’t do one last week. I have no excuses: I’m just super lazy. My bad.

Anyway, we open with Nick and Schenke trying to convince a vice cop to jump to homicide, but Vice isn’t having it. Which is kind of a change: every Law & Order I’ve seen, Homicide’s right under Major Case Squad in the hierarchy, with vice coming in third, if at all. Oh, Canada. You also have the most wholesome-looking hookers I’ve ever seen.

And then Vice gets shot, of course. Apparently in the back, even though Nick then points his gun across the street. But who needs continuity? Apparently the guy was across the street, on a roof. He killed Vice with one shot, making him – according to Natalie – “one hell of a shot”. Nick and the Captain think Schenke should go home, but Schenke’s having none of that. He’s going to solve the murder of his friend.

Stonetree tells a boring story about how his partner was killed, too, and he got revenge, but it wasn’t worth it, and it didn’t bring his partner back. But he’s going to give the case to Nick and Schenke anyway, as long as they promise to…(giggle). Sorry. As long as they – *snort*. As long as they promise to – Oh, hell, I can’t even.

As long as they promise to follow procedure to the letter. 

Okay, now that’s out of our systems….

Schenke’s telling stories about how Vice used to use unreasonable force on suspects – oh, that scamp! – and BORING. Get to The Raven already.

Since it’s 1991, they’re just installing a computer system at the precinct, but it’s not running yet. Nick asks for all Vice’s files, and Schenke comes in and gets his mail, which contains a photo proving that whoever shot Vice was after Schenke, too. Stonetree offers protective custody for Myra and Schenke’s kid, and suggests that Schenke get out of town, too. Schenke’s having none of that, of course, and now it’s Flashback Time!

Men on horseback are hunting something in the sunlight – Oh, it’s crispy vampires, smoking through their cloaks. They find shelter and send the horses on, then barricade the doors and windows with a lot of very convenient tables that are lying around a one-room clapboard building in the middle of the forest. Lacroix gets shot through the wall, and then we’re back to the precinct.

The computer tech is wearing a white coat. Like, a lab coat. I am not shitting you even a little bit about this:

Did they think computers needed doctors in 1991?

He tells – Norma? The receptionist, at any rate – that “The database is set now”, which sounds incredibly vague even to me, and all I know about computers is how to be funny on the internet and what Mr. Winters says to me before I stop listening. He’s shifty, is what I’m saying, here.

Nick takes Schenke to a motel for protective custody, and he’ll be watched by a cop who looks approximately twelve. Chinese food is on the way, and Schenke guilts Nick into staying for it. Also, this is the single cheapest motel in the history of the genre. They have a Craigslist free couch and walls painted nicotine-stain-yellow so they never have to paint again. Lovely. Why didn’t Schenke go to the mountains with his family, again?

Intercut with this is someone making a bomb on a windowsill, and then the motel goes BOOM as Nick walks to his car.

Don’t worry, guys. Schenke’s alive. It’s just, you looked worried, so I wanted to reassure you.

Don’t worry, it’s not a kissing episode.

So obviously, there’s a mole or something. Schenke doesn’t want to believe it’s a mole, because if that’s true, he has nowhere to hide. To which Nick says, “That’s not exactly true.”

AWWW, YISS.

Janette doesn’t want him, because duh. You don’t drop a human in the middle of a coven when that human has no idea what’s going on. No matter the comedic possibilities.

Back in the past, hunters are hurling themselves through windows and getting eaten. Seems fair.

Janette says yes, and Nick tongue-kisses her, and then he’s off to investigate. Oh, he does tell Schenke not to touch the women. Charming.

Nat’s helping Nick go through Vice’s files at Nick’s apartment, while Nick is working on a laptop from the stone age. They’re getting exactly nowhere, but at least they’re not as bored as Schenke, who’s just wandering around the empty club after dawn, making noise and touching all the chandeliers and shit. Poor Schenke. If this weren’t going to be hysterical, I’d feel bad.

Schenke calls Nick to complain that he’s not doing anything. He wants to act as bait, but Nick vetoes it. Schenke gets off the phone when some “sexy” blonde walks in, so he can go stalk her. Maybe this is a kissing episode. At least this time, Schenke’s not trying to put the moves on a vampire while wearing grandma’s sofa.

He wanders through the “wine” cellar and into a room full of coffins, and he’s just about to wander into another room when Janette grabs him. Schenke says he saw someone “lurking”, and Janette assures him she can take care of her club and hustles him back upstairs – dismissing the coffin as “catering to the occasional fetishist”.

Back at the precinct, Norma is printing out all of Vice and Schenke’s records in common on a dot-matrix printer. All she has to do is input a badge number and she gets all of someone’s records, so of course she types Nick’s in for kicks, and there’s no record besides his last couple of years in Toronto. “Must be a glitch.” Oh, humans. You never see what you need to.

Schenke’s boring Janette with self-aggrandizement and then it’s back to the past, where it’s a pitched battle between hunters and vamps. Janette tells Schenke the story, calling the hunters a Chicago gang, and saying that Nick took them all on by himself. Then she gives Schenke some terrible advice about striking back at people who’ve taken from you.

Oh, snap! I knew computer doctor was bad news! He’s checking on the status of an ad in the police weekly – under the name “Alan Smithee“, which is awesome on so many levels. The ad is running tonight, which pleases evil computer doctor.

Nick doesn’t think the shooter is anyone Vice and Schenke busted. He thinks it’s a cop or an ex-cop. OH. I remember this one now. I won’t spoil it till the end, don’t worry.

Norma comes in carrying a sheaf of dot-matrix paper. Nick listens outside the door as Norma tells Stonetree that Nick doesn’t seem to exist. Then what’s on all that paper? Nick calls Janette and gets the name of a forger, or a hacker – I guess he’d need a hacker at this point, yeah? I don’t know, Grant just calls all his guys “forgers”, so, you know.

Schenke’s still at Janette’s, still alive, and still pissing her off. I love it when she’s annoyed. She’s so good at it.

And now it’s time for my least-favorite scene, the “Nick does something weird while staring into space and thinking voice-over thoughts” scene. Why are these necessary? Couldn’t you show us something sexxxy, Crimetime After Primetime? Some more demurely-dressed strippers or whores in full-length coats and sensible shoes?

Computer doctor has some weird ideas about decorating…

and after spending some time on his Teeter Hang-Up, he loads a gun and is on the road.

Nick’s driving all over Toronto with some truly heinous “rock” “music” playing, and I wish the voice-over thoughts would come back. Someone had a lot of stock footage to use up. This scene is two full minutes long. TWO MINUTES. Good God.

He ends up at The Raven, and the forger is telling him it’s going to be a week and a ton of cash for him to backfill an entire history. Oh, the guy’s name is Merlin. Ha-ha. You vampires and your senses of humor. They’re so, so bad.

Schenke complains that if Nick thinks the shooter’s a cop, Nick has another think coming. He also wants out of The Raven, but tells Nick he’ll stay put.

Show of hands: Who thinks Schenke’s going to stay put?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Schenke starts to get a good drunk on until he figures out it’s Friday, and the new police paper is out today. Janette lets him go across the street to the newsstand and buy one, and Schenke knows the newslady by name? Because he hangs out at The Raven so often?

Whatever, he sees Smithee’s ad for him, which threatens his family and suggests a trip “down Memory Lane”. So of course, Schenke commandeers a car and is off to the races.

Janette calls Nick and tells him Schenke’s missing, just before Stonetree walks in with a report of a commandeered car. Nick leaves to find Schenke, who’s just pulled up at … a condemned building? Half a building? They could have thrown us a signatory bone, here, because turns out it’s the Police Academy firing range. Smithee starts shooting, and taunting Schenke over the loudspeakers.

Nick talks to the newslady, sees the ad, and calls Stonetree to find out what “Memory Lane” is, which – see above. Solid detecting, Nick. Good job.

Schenke’s been shot – grazed, I suppose, because he’s still running around and stuff. Turns out, Smithee’s scores on the range were better than Schenke’s and Vice’s, and Smithee’s pissed that they could be cops, but he couldn’t. Dude. They have a psych test. I don’t care how well you shoot – well, no, I take it back. I don’t want psychos with good aim, jeez.

Smithee gives Schenke enough info to figure out who it is – someone named McAvoy. Schenke’s working his way to the loudspeaker booth or whatever while McAvoy complains that “that whole mess at the Academy” is still in his file, and he didn’t get a promotion to Chief of Computer Surgery because of it.

Nick’s standing outside, maybe listening for Schenke, but mostly flashbacking to killing all the hunters that were after him, Janette, and Lacroix. Meanwhile, McAvoy has crept up behind Schenke with a gun. Nick finally goes inside, sees this, and yells “SCHENKE!” McAvoy turns, Schenke turns and shoots him, and that’s the end of that.

Back at the precinct, Nick’s computer files have mysteriously appeared. He was born in Chicago in 1957 – “58,” Norma corrects him.

Nick is old, guys. Nick is practically a Boomer. I feel really inappropriate about having a crush on him when I was 14, y’all.

I don’t think we’re quite here, yet, but it could be close.

Blah blah, wrapup scene, blah. Schenke doubts how good a cop he is; Nick reassures him. Coupla jokes, and that’s all she wrote.

Not a terrible episode, but I wanted more Schenke in The Raven and less Toronto stock footage and people being adorable with olde-time computers. Like, I do not need to be reminded of the horrors of dot-matrix, okay? Bad enough my kid would look at it all scrunchy-faced while I tried to explain. You do not need to throw the sound-effects on there, too.

Next week: Oy, this piece of crap. “Adorable” child is a witness. Barf. Barf right all over that premise.

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