Saint James Infirmary 148: A Scent from the Past

[Daphne]

Coming January 1, 2013.

(And Happy New Year, everyone!)

[GodWilling]

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[mns_95125]

Perhaps both, maybe neither.  Speculation is fun!   

[Prezfevr18]

Yay! I was wondering if the calendar was going to be updated or if it would just freeze today.

[Daphne]

Yay! I was wondering if the calendar was going to be updated or if it would just freeze today.

It was a near thing.

[GodWilling]

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[jmundt29]

That's the only confusing thing?  Really?  Have another look.  Look at EVERYTHING Q did up to this moment.

It looks like Pink Clouds is probably an MC perfume that Yves (and family?) stumbled upon years ago, and Q got carried away using it and got caught.  Hence, his stay in the clink.  Now Vik seems to have stumbled on a similar formula, but here's the thing.  Q's conscience is there--we've seen it in that moment at the sink, but it's losing.  If this is really the stuff that caused him to end up behind bars and he knows how it works, alarm bells should have been going off in his head after a maximum of two commands he gave Kanti that she followed.  He continued to use it after that, though.  We haven't seen his conversation with Kanti, so we could end up with a more altruistic look, but at the moment, the full vial of perfume in his hand suggest not that he was interrupted, disposing of 49, but that he swapped out new 49 for a fuller sample of Pink Clouds itself.  If I cut him the most slack I can possibly cut him, I'd say that he went into the Hzmat locker, did some sort of chemical comparison and discovered that it was virtually identical and was interrupted as he was considering going back in to dispose of 49.  But if that's really what he's doing he could just say

"I have the sample right here, would you mind if I kept it in your Hazmat storage facility for security purposes?"  It would seem that he's taking either 49 or Pink Clouds back into the world for more fun--unless he suspects Yves of manipulating Wilmot research and he's playing liar's poker here.  He doesn't strike me as the whistleblower type.

As for Yves' reaction--presumably Pink Clouds is proprietary, but he's not funding or directing Vik's research, he's not responsible for managing or disposing of samples and this isn't a copyright or patent infringement that he wants to call any attention to, probably because only he and Q know the true properties of Pink Clouds.  However, if he's manipulating research at the college to recreate Pink Clouds from an untainted source and Q just caught him at it, that puts an entierely different spin of Q's arc (but as I say, he doesn't strike me as the whistleblower type).

[GodWilling]

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[jmundt29]

Pink Clouds is stored in a Hazmat outfitted facility with redundant keycoded entry.  It's not like he's breaking into a gym locker or a padlock or a typical deadbolt lock.

I get the sense that the...er, mischief that landed Q in the clink was the result of him getting carried away using Pink Clouds.  However, just because he used Pink Clouds to bend a situation to his will doesn't mean that that he was busted with it in the room or that any witnesses connected any of the behavior to Pink Clouds.  It's entirely possible that whatever sample he used was recovered by Yves and is now or was 'til recently on ice in that Hazmat storage facility.  Pearl probably never saw the vial, and the blonde's testimony (manifestly NOT Rain) would have been extremely disjointed and patchy.  Whether Pink Clouds or even perfume would have been mentioned isn't a slam dunk.  It wouldn't have helped Q's cause to turn state's evidence about the perfume because without corroboration he'd sound delusional.

It's been assumed that Yves is loyal to Q and offered him a job out of loyalty...what if it's blackmail or an unsolicited payoff?

There are a number of ways you could spin this.  Q could be wrestling with the idea of disposing of 49 and just lacked the will to do it, he could have discovered that 49 is chemically identical to, or a beta-version of Pink Clouds and assumed or determined that either

A. This is a new source of Pink Clouds and he can swap the Vik sample for an old, more plentiful or potent sample and done it or

B. Yves is manipulating research at the college to reintroduce Pink Clouds into the population and that he's being set up for something (the whistleblower possibility).

[GodWilling]

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[jmundt29]

I accept that there are legion theories, logic chains, and suppositions that could explain what we've seen so far, but in order for Q's explanation to Yves to seem remotely plausible, some of whatever samples still exist of Pink Clouds have to be stored in that Hazmat room, or Q sounds patently ridiculous and an even moderately responsible version of Yves would have to call him on his B.S. immediately.  So, for Q's story to hang together for een the two minutes it would take him to get out of the building, there have to be samples of Pink Clouds in that room which would suggest that Yves or whoever runs him is trying to appear responsible.  As I said, Yves doesn't have the look or bearing of a midsize entrepreneur, but the bearing of a hardscrabble foreman who answers to a boss.

[GodWilling]

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[laguna85]

As I said to laguna85, it isn't clear that the vial is different or is any fuller than the one he nearly emptied down the sink. If it were at least half full then the liquid could present a rectangle equal in width and length to the inner dimensions of the vial. It depends on how you draw it - you could draw a half full vial and end up with something that looks exactly like the picture in ep 147. Is the upper part of the vial filled with liquid as we look down into the palm of his hand? I can't be certain that it is. We're too close to the vertical and we can't see enough of the end of the vial.

you are right the way draw the tube is hard to tell is half or full