Trophy Girl (TG)

(Not aired yet)

Week starting October 29th, 1995

Michael Sadowski

Terry Steyn

Alan C. Peterson as Christopher Scheer

The episode begins with a shot of the body of an apparently dead young woman. A man dressed in surgical garb puts on a pair of latex gloves and then uses surgical scissors to remove her lacy black underwear. He marks her wrists and neck with a pen, and then gets out the surgical saw. A while later he appears to dump her body off a bridge into a river or lake.

Meantime, Nick and Tracy are pursuing suspects down an alley. During a brief shoot-out, Tracy kills one of them. Afterwards she seems upset but won't admit it. On the way back to the station, Nick and Tracy get a call � the body dumped in the river has been found. It had been decapitated, and the hands are missing. Tracy is sick. At the morgue Natalie tells Nick the killer had surgical skills.

Reese gives Tracy three days off to get over the shooting, but she can't accept it. She thinks it's a suspension and that Nick and Reese think she can't handle her job. She refuses Nick and Natalie when each offer their sympathies and help.

Natalie identifies the victim as Deena Ellis, an employee of a local escort agency. Nick visits the agency and questions the owner, Ingrid Marr. He wants a list of all her employees. Ms. Marr seems defensive and is reluctant to help. (It's hard to run an escort business with the police snooping around!)

Tracy decides to go undercover on her own, and gets herself hired at the escort agency. Left alone for a minute her first day on the job, Tracy has a look around Ms. Marr's office. What she doesn't know is that someone is watching her through a telescope from a building across the street.

Nick visits an insane asylum, to talk with Christopher Scheer, a.k.a., "the Mortician," a psychopathic serial killer. Nick wants to know why serial killers do the things they do. Scheer agrees to lend his insight only if he gets his online privileges back. He misses communing on the Internet with his friend, the mysterious "Rosebud." Scheer knowingly recognizes that Nick is a kindred spirit. Nick contemptuously denies that he is anything like Mr. Scheer, but Scheer knows better � he can see right through Nick!

Tracy's first assignment is a date with a man who likes to go about with a pretty girl on his arm (a "Trophy Girl," says Tracy, under her breath). They meet at the Raven, where they are noticed by Urs and Vachon. Vachon follows them outside, and thinking Tracy might be in trouble, uses his hypnotic powers to persuade Tracy's date to "get lost." Indignant at being considered a damsel in distress, Tracy stomps away from Vachon. Then she discovers that her car has a flat tire. She tries to fix it, but it's kind of tough to change a tire wearing a skimpy gown and high heels. A very creepy man offers to assist her. When Tracy accepts his help, he jabs her with an hypodermic needle and she collapses in his arms.

Back at the asylum, Scheer tells Nick the killer is a "collector," a man of means who moves nervously from place to place, fighting his sickness for a while but eventually giving in. Scheer then proceeds to describe the very sensual process of stalking victims. Nick seems to be squirming � he knows exactly what Scheer is talking about!

Later Vachon tells Nick about Tracy's undercover assignment. Nick tries to track her down but she doesn't answer her phone. Eventually Tracy's car is found abandoned. Nick returns to the escort agency, and after scolding Ms. Marr for not notifying him that she added an employee, Nick gazes out the window, and spots the telescope in the office across the way. He rushes over and finds a posting for a recently sold house that looks like a perfect hideout for a serial killer.

Tracy regains consciousness in the basement of the house, tied up and at the mercy of the psychopath. While Nick is flying through Toronto to save her, Tracy gets free of her bindings and almost escapes. But the psychopath catches up with her. As she struggles with him, Nick arrives on the scene, grabs the guy from behind and throws him against an electrified grid. Tracy doesn't notice that Nick seemed to materialize out of nowhere and that he's wearing his other teeth! Nick returns to normal to face Tracy, and the psychopath comes up behind him, ready to knock him over the head. Tracy shoots the psychopath and kills him. (That's two in one week � way to go Tracy!)

At the epilogue, Nick and Natalie are at the scene wrapping up the case. She hands him a fax with the last little detail that Rosebud has been identified. He is Lacroix! Then we see Lacroix happily busy with his online chat group, welcoming the return of his psycopathic friend Mr. Scheer.

The flashbacks were to the Middle Ages and a time when Nick had designs on one of Lacroix's trophy girls. She was an empty-headed young thing, and Lacroix really only wanted her for lunch. Fattening the calf before the slaughter, Lacroix feeds her on wine and honey, enjoying the anticipation of the feast to come. Nick is disturbed. He decides to save the trophy. But she is even dumber than he is, and alas, he ends up having her for lunch himself. Lacroix is not pleased!

The monologue is about differences in individual tastes, how what one person likes, another person dislikes. While commenting on this subject, Lacroix appears to be reading a newspaper article describing the serial murders.

This episode is a very amusing parody of Silence of the Lambs, and it contains so many good lines there is not enough room to note them all down. This is classic third season Forever Knight. Take a riveting dark story like tracking down a psychopathic serial killer, and give it just a little bit of spin to poke some fun here and there, lightening it up so that it seems serious and funny at the same time. The actor who played "the Mortician" was extremely good, his performance single-handedly raising this episode from average to quite good. The psychopathic Mr. Scheer could have been an interesting recurring character had the series continued: a friend for Lacroix, another mentor for Nick, and a consultant to the homicide department. He may be a serial killer, but he's certainly not worse than Nick and Lacroix in terms of bad deeds. They have done far more evil, and have collected more trophies across the centuries than he ever could have in his single lifetime. This is the ironic twist of the episode. Nick, who has destroyed so many lives, is searching for insight into such deeds by questioning a man imprisoned for keeping souvenirs of the (comparatively) few he dispatched himself. It's the contrast between Nick and Scheer that is the important theme of the story. Nick, always confused, thinks himself a better man than Scheer. Lacroix has no such illusions. He befriends and does not condemn a man he knows is less evil than himself. And in his CERK monologue he reminds us that however many trophies and prizes we collect, and whatever they may be, we are still all of us, dust in the end. And poor Tracy! I was on the edge of my seat the first time I saw this one. Too bad they didn't let her get herself out of the clutches of the psychopath. The plot was pretty tight for a Forever Knight episode. The only real difficulty being Tracy's continuing perception problem. It's hard enough to believe that in the everyday course of things she wouldn't figure out the truth about her partner Nick the vampire, but when he flies through the air and vamps out right in front of her and she still doesn't get it � well, that's really a stretch! There is no question that this episode is a particularly good example of that unique blend of the ridiculous and the profound that is (or was) Forever Knight.

This is definitely a Tracy episode (Perkulators.) And of the two or three such episodes out there, this is by far the best one. The only things that flaw her triumph are noted in my comments above. Lacroix is upstaged by "the Mortician," but it's interesting to note what kind of friends you can make online (Cousins.) Nick seems rather more thick than usual in this episode, and the focus is all on the dark side of his nature, which is likened to the sickness which compels the serial killer (Knighties and Dark Knighties.)

The Mortician to Nick:	"So hard to find like-minded souls when you're unique."
Vachon to Tracy:	"You're looking uncharacteristically gorgeous tonight."
Tracy to Vachon:	"You know, you ought to keep that hypno thing in your holster!"
Tracy to herself:	"Should have taken the three days off. But no, Tracy has to keep busy!"
Lacroix to Nick:	"Tragedy, Nicholas? Tragedy is not a word that I think I've heard you use before. It is not a word that has anything to do with any of my business!"
The Mortician to Nick:	"Detective, you seem to be enjoying this as much as I. I was right about you. We are kindred souls!"
Lacroix on the air at CERK:	"Prize what you will. Prize what you can. But always remember, even he who dies with the most prizes, still dies."
Vachon to Nick:	"Cars are sexier with fins, don't you think? More predatory." (Windows AVI file available)
Reese to himself:	"Sure � I'll tell her father she turned up missing. How come I'm the captain and I always get the dirtiest damn jobs?"
Psychopath to Tracy:	"I would have fixed you dinner, but I think it's probably best that you don't eat before surgery."

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