>"is that he stashed it there in the very process of dumping the rest."
This takes care of the physical angles -- age, heat -- and I like that very much! I don't, of course, exactly as you suggest, feel good about the sad possibility of Nick sabotaging himself that way in the face of what seems, in the episode, a concerted commitment to an action.
The ghost/delusion urges Nick to "remember" where he hid the last bottle, after Nick tears through the empties. I've previously interpreted that to mean that the bottle was hidden well before, and went forgotten during Nick's purge of the other bottles of blood.
If Nick stashed that bottle while dumping the others... Perhaps it was less than conscious, a deep-set training or even compulsion, to never be entirely without, and thus the need for Lacroix (ghost or delusion) to reveal it. That's terribly contrived, of course. But the possibility that Nick had no faith in himself and didn't really commit to the program and forgot that he had is also contrived. Oh, TPTB...
I'm trying to think how I can have it both ways -- Nick stashing the blood during the purge, as you astutely suggest for the chemistry, and yet also sincerely carrying out the purge, as we've always believed for the emotions -- and what I've got is: an interruption. Someone (Schanke may be best, but Natalie, Janette, census survey representative, anyone will do) comes to the loft (or phones?) while Nick is carrying out his purge, and, feeling "caught," Nick hastily stashes the bottle currently in his hand in the fireplace, perhaps in a long habit of such hiding for secrecy, and he forgets about that bottle during the course of the visit -- Coleridge's Person from Porlock syndrome -- and then resumes the purge after, leaving that one bottle accidentally behind, forgotten.
:-) Too much?
My additional layers over your simple solution are a fanfiction patch, not an interpretation. But I'm reluctant to recast Nick's efforts, so otherwise I may have to resort to the very weak: we don't know the chemical make-up of bottled wine-mixed blood, so perhaps it was there all along without harm.
no subject
This takes care of the physical angles -- age, heat -- and I like that very much! I don't, of course, exactly as you suggest, feel good about the sad possibility of Nick sabotaging himself that way in the face of what seems, in the episode, a concerted commitment to an action.
The ghost/delusion urges Nick to "remember" where he hid the last bottle, after Nick tears through the empties. I've previously interpreted that to mean that the bottle was hidden well before, and went forgotten during Nick's purge of the other bottles of blood.
If Nick stashed that bottle while dumping the others... Perhaps it was less than conscious, a deep-set training or even compulsion, to never be entirely without, and thus the need for Lacroix (ghost or delusion) to reveal it. That's terribly contrived, of course. But the possibility that Nick had no faith in himself and didn't really commit to the program and forgot that he had is also contrived. Oh, TPTB...
I'm trying to think how I can have it both ways -- Nick stashing the blood during the purge, as you astutely suggest for the chemistry, and yet also sincerely carrying out the purge, as we've always believed for the emotions -- and what I've got is: an interruption. Someone (Schanke may be best, but Natalie, Janette, census survey representative, anyone will do) comes to the loft (or phones?) while Nick is carrying out his purge, and, feeling "caught," Nick hastily stashes the bottle currently in his hand in the fireplace, perhaps in a long habit of such hiding for secrecy, and he forgets about that bottle during the course of the visit -- Coleridge's Person from Porlock syndrome -- and then resumes the purge after, leaving that one bottle accidentally behind, forgotten.
:-) Too much?
My additional layers over your simple solution are a fanfiction patch, not an interpretation. But I'm reluctant to recast Nick's efforts, so otherwise I may have to resort to the very weak: we don't know the chemical make-up of bottled wine-mixed blood, so perhaps it was there all along without harm.