Blackwing (Bl, Bw)

(Not aired yet)

Week starting October 1st, 1995

Gillian Horvath

Allan Kroeker

Denis Lacroix as Jess & Michelle Thrush as Marian

As the episode begins, an Indian man is sitting in front of a painting and chanting. He has a dream or vision in which a young Indian man meets a young Indian woman in a forest. The young woman addresses the young man as "grandfather." Someone enters the room where the man is chanting, and coming up behind him, cuts his throat. In the vision the young Indian man is also attacked from behind, and his throat is cut. The young woman screams and then wakes. She had been in bed sleeping and somehow shared the older man's vision.

The murdered man was Gary Blackwing, an Indian leader and tribal elder representing his people in a legal dispute over a project to construct a shopping mall on tribal land. Nick and Tracy question Mr. Blackwing's friend Jess Nevins. They learn that Mr. Blackwing was to attend a hearing the next day and present a surveyor's letter proving that his tribe owns the land. Mr. Blackwing's granddaughter Marian arrives at the scene, greatly distressed. She knew from her dream that her grandfather had been murdered. Nick takes her arm to comfort her, but this only upsets her further, because as he touches her they appear to share visions of violent memories from his past.

At the precinct Tracy and Nick learn that Mr. Blackwing was a medicine man, possessed of special powers, and that his granddaughter Marian has the same gift. Their dream was to a place called the "Spirit Walk," where everyone is forever young. On their way out of the precinct, Marian tells Jess that she can sense a great darkness in Nick. She touches Nick's face and they both have more visions from his past. Jess tells Nick that Marian can heal him.

Driving home, Nick has a vision of Marian at the Spirit Walk. He leaves his car and flies over to her apartment. She wakes from another Spirit Walk dream to find Nick in her bedroom. Next they are both at the Spirit Walk, an eerily beautiful place in the forest, where they share a romantic encounter and a "blood brothers" type ceremony. At the end of this sequence they are in Marian's bedroom again. She is asleep and Nick appears to be fastening his shirt. (Did they or didn't they?)

The next day Nick thinks his encounter with Marian has affected his condition even though his hand still smokes when he holds it in the sun. He asks Natalie to come over and examine him. She reminds him that his condition is not metaphysical, but of course, he thinks it is.

That morning the hearing regarding the land-development case is held. Mr. Buckwater, another Indian, wants the tribe to accept a monetary settlement for their claim, but Jess wants to find the letter Gary Blackwing said he had. The judge gives Jess and Marian one week to find the letter.

Tracy confers with Vachon about the case. Vachon knows that the letter Mr. Blackwing said he had does exist, because he himself had been a party to the original agreement made during the French and Indian wars. In the meantime, Nick is having a nap on his couch. In another dream sequence he encounters Marian at the Spirit Walk again. This time he sees one of the lawyers from the hearing murdered, and blood on his own hands. This man also turns up dead, his throat cut.

Later Nick listens to Lacroix give his spin on this strange case, and then has another vision to the Spirit Walk where he witnesses a third murder. In this vision Marian points her finger at him accusingly. Confused by his visions and upset by Lacroix's comments, Nick goes to Natalie for comfort. She tells him there has been a third killing. He tells her he thinks he may have done it himself. Natalie questions Nick about his visions and helps him realize that it wasn't himself, but Marian who committed the third murder.

Marian finds Mr. Buckwater going through her grandfather's things, trying to find the surveyor's letter. In another vision Marian sees that Mr. Buckwater murdered her grandfather. Buckwater stabs Marian in the back and throws her on the sofa. Nick has also seen a vision of Buckwater killing Mr. Blackwing. Flying to Marian's rescue, he comes crashing in through the window, seizes Buckwater and throws him across the room. Buckwater pulls out a pistol and prepares to shoot a vamped out Nick. Just then Jess arrives and kills Mr. Buckwater, throwing a knife at him and striking him in the chest.

But it's too late for Marian. She is mortally wounded. Nick takes her in his arms and tells her that the killing she did is not her fault, but his. (That's right � everything is always his fault!) She took the darkness from him, and in so doing took it into herself. That is what made her kill the two lawyers. We see that her eyes are yellow, and as she gasps her last few breaths Nick embraces her and somehow takes the darkness back into himself. As he does this his eyes also turn yellow.

At the very end Nick finds the surveyor's letter hidden in the back of the painting. Nick feels guilty about what happened to Marian, but Jess tells him it really wasn't his fault � Marian never had the chance to learn the proper and safe use of her powers.

The flashbacks were to the French and Indian wars, during which Vachon the warrior was a signatory to the letter which bestowed ownership of the contested land to the Mississauga Indian tribe.

On the air at CERK, Lacroix reminds Nick that he will never be cured of being a vampire. He relates the Indian legend of the Raven, which is a story appropriate "for children of all ages." (Especially those who are about 800 years old!) In this story we learn how meddling with God's work, the Raven came to be all black for all eternity.

This is a very strange and surreal episode. Watching it the first time I felt almost as confused as Nick. But after watching it several more times it did actually begin to make sense. (I don't know if I should start to worry or what!) Now just to review, Buckwater killed Blackwing and Marian, and Marian killed the two lawyers � I think. The Spirit Walk sequences were enchantingly beautiful, though at first viewing they seemed ambiguous and difficult to follow. And it's not clear if the private interactions between Nick and Marian were all dreams and visions or if they were at least partially real. Probably only the sequence in her bedroom was physically real, and all the rest were not. But what does it all mean? Was this a demonstration of how the psychic-connection can work to help solve crimes? Did Marian somehow effect a temporary partial cure of Nick's condition? Or was it all just an illusion � yet another example of how easy it is to influence our very impressionable hero Nick Knight. Lacroix gives us the moral of the story. If we offend God seriously, we will have to live with the consequences and may be unable to obtain pardon in the end. (You know, sometimes being sorry just isn't enough!) Lacroix knows this perfectly well, but Nick consistently refuses to accept it. On the spirit plane Nick walks in the light of his hope of a return to innocence, but even here he cannot escape the blood on his hands. It won't come off any more easily than the black paint will come off the Raven. (Lady Macbeth had a similar problem.) And this is one of several third season episodes in which evil is indeed metaphysical and capable of being transferred from one person to another. Getting back to earth, I noticed there seemed to be at least one too many obsidian knives. Both Buckwater and Marian had one even though there was originally only a matched set of two, one of which was confiscated during the initial investigation. And I've almost completely ignored Tracy and Vachon, even though both were in several scenes. The truth is that these seemed to be merely token appearances and were not very interesting at all.

Nick is caught up in confusion and guilt in this one (Knighties), and Lacroix gets in a few good digs (Cousins), to make the point that Nick will never escape his darkness (Dark Knighties). But this is definitely not a good episode for Nick&Natpackers, as it appears that Nick may have had a brief physical relationship with the mysterious Marian, during the first Spirit Walk vision they shared.

Jess to Nick & Tracy:	"Dakotas have casinos. Seminoles do bingo. We've got zilch � turquoise and trinkets."
Nick and Jess:	Nick: "Mr. Blackwing � did he have a lot of enemies?" Jess: "You saw him. Would you say that's the work of a friend?"
Tracy and Jess:	Tracy: "Why do you think he was murdered with a ritual raven knife?" Jess: "Probably because it was sharp and it was handy."
Jess to Tracy:	"On the spirit walk, we are young forever. Good deal, huh?"
Tracy to Nick:	"[I] think Marian's got a little crush on you Nick!"
Natalie to Nick:	"So, how much does it cost to get your soul dry-cleaned these days? Maybe I'll send mine out too!"
Natalie to Nick:	"I don't mean to burst your morning-after bubble, but you still don't tan � you boil. And you had three pints of donated plasma this morning � for breakfast. You are still a vampire!"
Lacroix (CERK):	"Black you are and black you will stay. You will never come clean!"

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