Thursday, February 20, 2014

Beauty and the Beast, Season 2, Episode 14: Redemption


Opening eye candy! And why not, it’s not like they hired the actor for his amazing thespian talents. Alas, it’s a very brief montage of Vincent working out which is interrupted by Cat who brings the relationship drama - does Vincent want there to be an “us”. A kiss follows…

And Vincent wakes up (kisses from Cat are apparently like being pinched). At least it’s just a dream and Cat has some class and isn’t rekindling her romance with Vincent while Tori isn’t even cold and Gabe is in hiding. That would be tacky.

To ~Cat and Tess! Who are talking about men – how shocked are we with this discovery? Anyway it seems Cat called Gabe “Vincent” over dinner while on a romantic holiday in Mexico and he was so gracious over it while Tess would have totally eaten Cat’s liver. Cat has decided to avoid Vincent for a while so we can really ramp up the angst

To Gabe’s fake funeral! Tess isn’t exactly reverent since Gabe isn’t actually dead and they make a note not to tell Gabe how poorly attended his funeral was. Vincent and JT arrive and there’s more whispered small talk while the priest drones on in a rather melodramatic fashion. Tess and Cat make nice with the evil Sam (since Dana is also faking her own death) and Vincent and JT talk about getting Cat back, which includes Vincent convincing her that he won’t choose Beast over her again (ugh, are we really going to say Cat was right about all that?)

Cat goes to see Gabe and tries to sugar-coat his poorly attended funeral (personally I think they booked too large a venue for a man with no living family and a very small social circle) and discuss what they know about the mysterious and menacing Barnes – mainly that he liquidated his fortune and is now playing hidden paymaster to secret evil plotz. As you do, everyone needs a hobby

Tess is stalking Sam and has followed him to a hospital where he’s visiting someone in quarantine. Doesn’t that defeat the point of quarantine? Gabe says “quarantine what does that mean?” and I don’t know whether to despair or call in the cast of Helix to explain it in agonisingly painful detail. Which would serve him right.

Cat wants to check it out but Gave is horrified that she’s going to go alone. To a hospital. A public hospital. That Tess has already been to.  Of course, this ridiculous turn of events is just an excuse to make Cat take Vincent with her.

In the hospital, someone dumps a kid on a gurney and Vincent flies into doctor mode, not approving of the neglectful treatment and deciding his several-years-out-date-medical-skills and completely unsterile-street-clothes are exactly what is needed. Cat, of course, loves seeing the “old you”.

He did, apparently, save a kid from a ruptured spleen while Cat, alas, couldn’t get into quarantine. Because it’s quarantine. If you could get in, it wouldn’t be quarantine. The CDC has taken over and the patient has memory loss, fever and psychotic rage and for some reason she mooted the possibility of a designer drug (which the CDC decided to… quarantine?) and apparently he’s the second victim of the same ailment – the last one is dead. Interestingly, they both were the same age and had the same name – Jacob Sutter. They also have a brief meeting with Vincent’s old mentor who wants Vincent to become a doctor again.


Gabe recognises the name as someone who was in the orphanage with him – the same orphanage that Muirfield used for human guinea pigs; they suspect that Barnes is running through the Jacob Sutters until he finds the one Gabe was a child with – injecting them with the serum that JT made in the hope of making a Beast. Cat’s curious as to what made these kids in this orphanage so special.

Tess follows Sam to where he speaks to another Jacob Sutter while Vincent disguises himself as a doctor to question the grieving mother and give her some hope

Cat goes to see daddy dearest who, in between ranting about murdering all the beasts (especially Vincent) and Cat slapping him down for being a murderer, tells her that her mother selected the test subjects; a small percentage of the population have a gene that makes them susceptible to beastliness. Without the gene the serum is just deadly.

Cat joins Tess, watched secretly by Sam. This Jacob Sutter looks like he was the right one – he’s been turned into a Beast. After fleeing Cat and Tess (knocking Cat over) he is tranqed by Sam and presumably captured.

To Gabe and some more “I must keep you safe, oh delicate lady person” before Cat points out that Gabe has the gene and is, therefore, susceptible to rebeasting.

Vincent takes some of the quarantined man’s blood to JT who is not amused by the theft of sick people’s blood (and what if it has nothing to do with beasts? Quarantine? Hello?) Vincent thinks more about becoming a doctor (despite, y’know blood stealing and quarantine breaking) and JT confirms that the sick Jacob was injected. Cat arrives to fill in the gaps and enlist Vincent’s tracking skills. Vincent is upset because he wanted to do the doctor thing and cure the patient while Cat wants his beastliness. JT says “it’s hard to be Dr. Jekyll while everyone wants Mr. Hyde”.

Sam has beasty Jacob in a cage so has changed his plans – he now wants to see Jacob fight Vincent and see if the new super serum will give him the upper hand. Vincent arrives, following the trail and tries to talk Jacob down – allowing Jacob to ambush him and half throttle him with a chain. Beast fight

Out of which only Jacob emerges. He follows Sam at Sam’s command.

Vincent returns to JT complaining about how strong the serum made Jacob – he should still have won, but Vincent’s attempt to talk him down (act human) allowed the surprise attack. Again, Vincent’s human side is getting in the way of him being effective. JT thinks he’ll win next time but Vincent doesn’t want to – he doesn’t want to keep giving in to his beast and he doesn’t want to kill Jacob since he’s human as well (JT, bemusingly, says this is more like Cat talking. Which is ridiculous – Cat never gave a damn when Beasts were murdered, only humans). He’d rather use the cure and save the ill Jacob than kill the other.

Of course, at the hospital his mentor, Dr. Marcus is not happy to see not-practicing Vincent inject a mystery substance into a quarantined patient. Vincent speaks fast, begs Dr. Marcus to give him a chance – and he agrees

And JT tells Cat about Vincent going human to try and win her back. Which she calls ridiculous and he points out that that is precisely the reason they broke up. Which is when Gabe calls with a new theory – maybe there is no Barnes. Maybe Sam killed Barnes and took his identity. The dates fit and, it being Beauty and the Beast everyone jumps on this potential theory as the one truth. Gabe wants to go help – since Vincent won’t fight Beast!Jacob he can talk him down since they were in the same orphanage – despite Cat’s protests

Cat, hearing everyone making plans without her, decides to blow everything up in an act she calls “hail mary” but I call petulance. She calls Sam and not only reveals they know he’s the bad guy but also reveals they know about Barnes AND that his fake dead wife isn’t dead. Yes she made the call on all of these decisions. Yes, Dana at least has the full right to kick her arse to California and back. Sam is apparently doing all this for revenge for his son (which is convoluted but hey) and finds Gabe messing with Jacob’s chains – and tranqs him

If that tranq is set to beast strength, Gabe’s dead. Just saying

At the hospital the cure is a success and Dr. Marcus is both praiseworthy and willing to do some cover up. When Cat arrives to tell Vincent she knows he’s trying to redeem himself and de-beastify but she needs the beast right now for Gabe, so come along.

They arrive in the nick of time to save Gabe from the needle and Vincent and Jacob have a beast fight while Sam runs. When Jacob is about to inject Gabe, Cat shoots him

Killing beasts? Never a problem for Cat.

For some reason Vincent’s beastisenses don’t let him track Sam – story based power loss! Gabe tries to comfort Cat about her having no choice about killing Jacob but that isn’t bothering her (of course not) – she didn’t hesitate. She didn’t even think of him as human. Uh-huh, and this is a shock?

Sam goes to visit Xavier Wright – another person from the orphanage.

And back home Gabe is finally tired of Cat being so upset about Vincent, says he’s a beast not a man and generally says for their relationship to work, Vincent has to go. Uh-huh, twice in this episode he was happy – nay, eager – for Cat to whistle up Vincent as support.

She goes to Vincent and tells him they should never see each other again. Vincent says "hell no" he loves her they're destined to be together - he grabs her and she pushes him away. When he holds on she pushes much harder, knocking him back where he hits his head on the table and falls to the floor. Dead.

Another dream.




JT’s line “it’s hard to be Dr. Jekyll while everyone wants Mr. Hyde” is the best this show has ever produced. It shows so much about the hypocrisy of the other characters – especially Cat. She wants Vincent to be human, she hates his Beast, even shot his Beast – but when Beasti-woo-woo is needed he’s called in to let it lose. It also has an interesting question of duty – when you have unique skills and abilities how obliged are you to use them even when you don’t want to?

It looks like it's going to be developed as well!

And Cat? I don’t even have words for her deciding to shred all their plans, all that effort and Dana’s effort to keep away from an evil husband on her own unilateral decision.

Can we also not even try to play the whole “I’m becoming a monster, I don’t feel guilty for killing beasts” game because we’ve gone a whole season with beast bodies hitting the ground and Cat not even blinking until an actual human whose crimes far outstripped theirs was in the firing line.