Avenging Angel (AA)

(Not aired yet)

Week starting February 11th, 1996

Alison Bingeman

Alan Simmonds

Diane Cary as Laura Stone

After tending to one victim of domestic abuse, Laura Stone, director of a shelter for battered women, hears a scream come from one of the other rooms at the shelter. Unlocking the door and entering, Laura finds Julie Henderson, a teenage abuse victim, sobbing hysterically, and Julie's mother Gloria Henderson, lying on the floor, dead of multiple stab wounds.

While getting ready for work, Tracy gets an unexpected and somewhat awkward visit from her mother who apparently intends to stay for a while. Then Tracy gets a call about the killing and has to leave. At the shelter, a reporter is covering the story, publicizing the place which is supposed to be a secret safe haven for women who are victims of domestic violence. Nick puts the whammy on him and gets him to leave. Gloria Henderson's husband is the prime suspect in the case because he has three prior convictions for spousal abuse.

At the precinct, Julie Henderson is questioned about the death of her mother. She says that her father, Jack Henderson, had been stalking her mother. Julie says her father followed her mother to the shelter when she came to drop off Julie's clothes. He broke into the room through a window and attacked his wife. Julie also tells them of the abuse Mr. Henderson inflicted upon his family over the years. Reese is skeptical and wants to hold Julie as long as possible.

Mr. Henderson is located at a local clinic seeking treatment for lacerations. Nick and Tracy pick him up. When they question him he says that his wife wanted the family to reconcile, and took him to the shelter so they could talk with Julie about that. But Julie was so upset at the idea of the family getting back together that she attacked and killed her mother and would have gone after her father also had he not jumped out of the window to escape. Nick and Tracy don't believe this story. Nick especially seems convinced that Mr. Henderson is guilty. Just before they finish questioning Henderson, a uniformed officer brings in a bloody knife which was found in Henderson's hotel room. At first Henderson denies that it's his, but then admits he used it to cut off his bloody clothes.

Tracy goes home and finds her mother drinking. They argue about their family problems and then Tracy slaps her mother. At the morgue, Natalie tells Nick the knife found in Mr. Henderson's room was not the murder weapon. Natalie hopes Mr. Henderson doesn't get off on this "technicality." Back at the precinct, a lawyer from the Crown Prosecutor's office tells Nick and Reese that because Mr. Henderson's room was searched before a warrant was actually issued, any evidence they found there is not admissible in court. None of it incriminates him anyway. Reese reluctantly lets Mr. Henderson go but keeps Julie Henderson in custody.

Because of the publicity surrounding the murder of Gloria Henderson, another woman is attacked at the shelter. Now Laura Stone is completely fed up with the police. Alone in her office, Laura looks at pictures which show that she was once a battered woman herself. She takes a pistol from a drawer and loads it with bullets. A bit later, while looking around the shelter, Nick finds one of the bullets on the floor and Laura gone. Then while Nick is out driving around, spacing out to the past, and listening to Lacroix, Laura takes justice into her own hands. She waits for Mr. Henderson outside his hotel and when he appears she shoots and kills him.

Nick returns to the precinct and joins Natalie observing the last part of the questioning of Julie Henderson. Julie's story just doesn't add up. The police could not find the clothing Julie said her mother was bringing to her, and the window of her room at the shelter was broken from the inside. Julie admits to Reese and Tracy that she killed her mother in a rage over the possibility of her parents getting back together. She dropped the murder weapon down an exhaust duct. Listening to this confession, Nick turns away, upset, and Natalie comforts him.

The flashbacks were to late nineteenth-century China. While watching a cock-fight with Lacroix, Nick sees a woman being slapped around by her master. Nick intervenes but the woman won't accept his help. Later she is found mortally wounded, presumably by the man who beat her. As she takes her last few breaths, Lacroix helps himself to an unexpected snack while Nick goes after the man, puts the bite on him and kills him.

Lacroix's monologue addresses the topic of vengeance and how those who pursue it can get hurt themselves.

This one was awfully dull, although the plot had a slightly different twist on the story of domestic violence. This time the abusive husband was not directly responsible for the death of his wife, but he gets his due in the end anyway � thanks to television justice. One thing very true to life was the way everyone (except Reese) was immediately convinced that Jack Henderson had murdered his wife. Like many other Forever Knight episodes, the plot had a few loose ends. First there was the whole bit with Tracy and her mother. What was the point of this little sub-plot? To demonstrate that domestic tensions cut across social class? To give Tracy a few extra lines? And in the flashback, when Nick finds the woman he tried to protect mortally wounded, he tells her that he's sorry and he should have done � something. But what? He tried to help her, but she ran away from him and went back to her master, who killed her. And it's really not clear why Nick was suddenly upset at the very end and Natalie had to comfort him. Either this was just gratuitous angst or there is a missing link somewhere. Nick seemed pretty detached right up until almost the end, and then it appeared that the old guilt-trip thing kicked in. The question is why? I guess Nick found himself identifying with Laura Stone because they both tried and failed to help victims of domestic violence, and both had sought to avenge one death with another death. Maybe Nick thought he could have somehow prevented Laura from killing Mr. Henderson. Or � this is a bit of a stretch � perhaps Nick identified with both Laura and Julie because he himself had been a victim of "domestic" abuse at the hands of Lacroix? Maybe the missing link here is an episode we never saw � the one where Natalie finally figured out the cure and turned our hero into a total wimp. In this episode Nick is only a vampire in the flashback scenes. Take them away and this is just another boring cop show.

If there is a faction that likes to see Nick as a total wimp or boring cop, this is definitely the episode for them. Other than that, I don't know who would like this one, except maybe Perkulators who get more background information on Tracy's family problems. Dark Knighties should like the flashback sequence, in which Nick does look pretty cool vamped out and on a mission of vengeance.

Mrs. Vetter and Tracy:	Mrs. Vetter: "Well, I like to have a little drink on special occasions." Tracy: "Oh yeah? And what's so special about today? Let me guess. Wednesday?"
Nick to Natalie:	"It's an old story. It doesn't seem to want to end."
Lacroix to Nick:	"After all, which is more amusing? Some tawdry domestic melodrama or a pair of prize cocks pecking each other's eyes out?"
Lacroix on the air at CERK:	"A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green."

Not available