RECAP: Beauty and the Beast – Episode 8 – Trapped

Do Beasts dream of electric sheep?

Looks like we are still stuck in CSI territory, opening the episode with a CASE OF THE WEEK teaser; except, this week, there isn't even a murder! However I have to confess… at several points in the episode I sort of wished Jake Riley was dead. Anyway, all you need to know from the teaser is that JAKE RILEY is a Justin-Bieber-type teen idol. He navigates a sea of screaming teen girls and when he is about to reach his limo someone shoots him, but misses [unfortunately].END OF TEASER.

At the WAREHOUSE, Vincent and JT are discussing the Beastie-fugues and both have changed their tune since the last episode. Remember last week JT was totally “stay away from Catherine” and Vincent wanted to tell her everything? Well this week, JT has figured out that Cat is “officially obsessed” with Vincent and he thinks it is a good idea to have her around to trigger the blackouts without using synthesized endorphins. Vincent just wants to keep her away to avoid hurting her and also, I get the sense he is afraid to scare her away forever. For what I understand, the working theory is that the blackouts are triggered by ENDORPHINS. All I know about endorphins is that “Exercise releases endorphins, endorphins make people happy and happy people don’t kill their husbands” and yes, I got that from Legally Blonde, don’t judge. Before I watched the episode, my personal theory was that the blackouts were caused by lust/sexual arousal and the release of pheromones or something. In that context it made sense Vincent blacked-out when he was around Catherine, don’t you think? But, what the hell do I know? JT is the biochemist and he is giving Vincent a cocktail of endorphins + Lorazepam. Also, he has a REALLY BAD cell phone plan.

Back at the PRECINCT Cat is checking her phone and being disappointed by the lack of Beast-contact. Tess meets up with her and it is time for the CASE OF THE WEEK.

Victim: A singer, JAKE RILEY

Suspects: Haters, Lil-tap-that a tween-sation in a twitter war with Jake, Chris Miller the BRIT MANAGER

Tess introduces Cat to Jake and his manager CHRIS MILLER. Jake promptly gives Cat the nickname [because that’s what he does] of “Cat in the Hat”… he obviously doesn’t have Nicki Minaj’s ability to nickname people. I had no idea of who this kid was, but apparently he (Max Schneider ) is a singer and a relatively known actor. The character was an annoying punk; but, I have to admit, he was SO annoying it was actually funny. While Jake is talking on the phone with one of his “shawties”, BRIT MANAGER informs Cat and Tess that he has been getting a lot of hate mail [I totally get that]. Brit Manager also calls Tess “Diversity Barbie”… see? Now, that was a funny nickname. I wonder what type of Barbie Cat would be… “Undetermined ethnicity Barbie”? Anyway, Joe mandates a protective detail on Jake and I guess he likes Latinas more than Asian chicks because he vocally expresses his preference for Diversity Barbie Tess.

Cat goes to see Evan and she discovers that he went back to the subway tunnels where Vincent saved his life. Evan can’t get over being kidnapped by his PSYCHO INTERN and then saved by a “mysterious vigilante” Er… Please, Evan, he is a “mythological protective beast”… OK? Cat’s only input is to clarify that the vigilante isn’t a “something” rather a “someone”, how is that useful? Since Evan has the hots for Cat he fails to notice that she is OBVIOUSLY hiding something and then he also agrees to do her the annoying favor of testing DNA from all the hate letters Jake Riley got [there were a LOT].

At the WAREHOUSE, Vincent is locking himself inside the cage and JT is injecting him with his déjà-vu cocktail. Suddenly, Vincent starts having very well structured and conveniently edited flashbacks to his time in Afghanistan. We get to see Vincent in his military uniform and surprisingly it is not my favorite look on him. I assume he is wearing a wig… maybe that’s it. In theory this look should really do it for me… I have a thing for soldiers… and every woman loves doctors, right? So a doctor soldier is like the sexiest combo you can get. Well… for some reason not his hottest look, in my opinion, but he still looks good… what am I even saying? He always looks good. So, IN THE FLASHBACK they are giving Vincent the “Beastifying injections”. He is with his fellow platoon member, a pretty girl named Lafferty. They start discussing the effects of the cross-species DNA vitamins they are giving them. He says it’s like drinking 1$ tequila shots or having a million ants crawling all over his body… well, he used less colorful descriptions… but he is a doctor not a writer. He also says he is “ready for action”… lol… yeah, my mind went there. Most importantly we discover that the doctor administering the bestifying shots is none other than VANESSA CHANDLER! Dun dun dun Once Vincent is out of BEAST DREAMLAND, we learn that he barely remembers anything from his time in Afghanistan. JT suggest the memories might have been suppressed. Vincent is unsure of whether or not he should tell Catherine about his flashback starring Mommy Chandler. JT points out that when it comes to him, Catherine wants to be involved. JT can be so insightful sometimes…

At the PRECINCT Jake Riley is singing a song for Tess, he also gives her a nickname: “Manslayer” OK, that’s much better than “Cat in the Hat”, but not as good as “Diversity Barbie”. Cat arrives to do her 5 min of police work for the day. She tells Tess about some twitter feud between Jake Riley and tween-sation “Lil-tap-that”. Then she gets a text from JT and leaves Tess alone to baby-sit the backstreet boy wannabe. Seriously, she just leaves… with no good explanation. If I were Tess, I would be pissed!

Back at BEAST CENTRAL, JT and Vincent are updating Cat on their theory that Mommy Chandler was a player with Muirfield. Cat is not so shocked because Ari Muirfield already told her that much on Episode 4, remember? Information she apparently didn't see fit to share with Vincent. He is a little upset or rather hurt that she withheld this from him, but he doesn't stop to argue because it is time for another induced flashback. JT injects Vincent again and… to be honest I got a little distracted by the size of his arm… damn. Anyway, Vincent conveniently blacks-out/flashbacks again. Also, his flashbacks are really comprehensive and contain nothing but useful information; that must be some killer Lorazepam cocktail. In the FLASHBACK Vincent is hanging out with Lafferty and I thought she was totally flirting with him. A lot of people told me they didn’t get that vibe, but come on… how can you not be at least a little bit attracted to him? They talk about how the bestified soldiers of their unit are starting to exhibit increased strength. Vincent jokes about a fellow soldier’s beast strength display saying it was like “WWE comes to the desert” Aw… so he had a sense of humor before he was turned into a beast and was perpetually brooding. After Lafferty tells V he wasn’t “too bad himself”, she blacks-out. See… my sexual arousal theory would have made perfect sense… just saying… Vanessa comes to Lafferty’s rescue and…

JUMP CUT to Vincent’s second flashback. He is working out when Vanessa approaches him. It’s a nice scene, I got the feeling that they liked and respected each other. Vanessa, or “Dr. C” as Vincent called her [cute], explains the reasons why she got into the project. She says she wanted to make the world a better place, to protect her daughters and save lives. And, as naïve and idealistic as that sounds, I actually believed her. Then Vanessa explains the blackouts are basically a random side-effect and that everyone’s DNA responds differently. I personally like my “sexual arousal” theory better… but whatever. We also learn that there is a serum to cure the side effects.

At the WAREHOUSE, Vincent is having trouble snapping out of the blackout and Catherine fearlessly enters the cage to wake him up; which she does, pretty easily. Catherine is processing that her mother wasn’t just a regular doctor, but Vincent is all over the fact that Catherine is not the cause of the blackouts. He tells her “We don’t have to stay away from each other anymore”. Catherine is not as charmed as I was by that line. I guess discovering your mom worked for a secret organization that created cross-species beasts may cause you to miss out on things. She is also feeling responsible for what’s happening to Vincent, and I think she’s being a little too hard on herself, but that’s the way she is.

Catherine goes to her FATHER’S HOUSE to look for her mother’s old notes. Before going through the beast research, she talks with Daddy Roan. I know we’ve established Roan and Mr. Chandler… not the same person, but the reason I am calling him Daddy Roan now is because this was the only scene where I had serious suspicions that he was working for Muirfield or at least that he knew more than he was telling Cat. I guess it is the latter. My new theory is that he knew all about the research and kept some files that Cat never found. However, I don’t think Mr. Chandler is evil. I think he was trying to protect his daughter from the truth, unaware that she was already deeply involved.

Meanwhile, Tess is stuck at the PRECINCT interrogating Lil-tap-that. She discovers that the whole twitter war was staged so we can rule Mr.tap-that out from the list of suspects. In the meantime, Cat has started going through her mom’s boxes and JT is joining her via video-conference. After pointing out that her mom was hot, they find the OLIVE NOTEBOOK Vincent remembered from the BLACK AND WHITE flashbacks. Cat shows JT the notebook through her cell-phone camera and not only he manages to actually read it, but he also understands everything he needs to know about the blackouts. That must be one high resolution camera and Vanessa must be the only doctor in the history with perfectly understandable handwriting. However, JT needs a “Spartan RX real-time DNA analyzer”. He doesn’t have one, but conveniently you can find one at a POLICE FORENSICS LAB. How about a university forensics lab? Wouldn’t that have been easier for JT?

Logic doesn’t really matter as long as we get to see the return of “JT-international-man-of-mystery”. JT is terrified of infiltrating Evan’s lab because he is not “Sarah Connor with the kung-fu grip and all” like Cat. In the off chance you missed the double-reference there; Linda Hamilton (the original Catherine Chandler) was also Sarah Connor on Terminator [I am pretty sure everyone got that]. Tess walks into the precinct and she is finally properly annoyed about Cat disappearing every 5 seconds for no good reason and sticking her with Jake Riley. Cat’s really bad advice is: “Think of him like he’s Pinocchio. You know, he just wants to be a real boy”. I usually think the dialogue in the show is pretty natural, but I don’t see anyone using that “Pinocchio” line in real life! Also, Cat needs to stop getting her fairy tales mixed up… “Beauty and the Beast” that’s the only one we care about!

Cat invites Evan to raid BRIT MANAGER’S APARTMENT [does she even have a warrant?] and I guess he thinks it’s some sort of foreplay, so he accepts. In reality it is just an excuse to get Evan out of the lab and give JT-international-man-of-mystery the chance to break in and use the beast-serum-making machine. So, Cat and Evan go to Brit Manager’s apartment and they actually find some useful information to solve the case. Brit manager is writing a book which ends with Jake Riley’s assassination. [If I were him, I would have killed him off in Chapter 1]. Meanwhile, JT is wrapping up his beast serum vials when Tess and Jake Riley decide to go look at dead bodies. Luckily, Jake was annoyingly singing on the way which alerted JT and gave him enough time to hide his stuff and put on a lab coat. However, Tess notices him. She will later tell Evan making him realize that someone broke into his lab. But that storyline ends up going NOWHERE (a little disappointed about that).

JT goes back to the WAREHOUSE to test the serum on a mouse and then Vincent. Unfortunately, Vincent is in the middle of one of his “Terminator episodes”. Side note:  “Stallone”, awesome name for a mouse! The latest flashback/blackout came with a fully beasted-out Vincent who is sort of re-enacting his memories. Vincent is remembering the day the beasts went out of control and they decided to take them out. He finds Catherine’s mom who is arguing with a general. He tells her that the “monsters she created” are out of control and they will kill them all. Mommy Chandler is against the massacre, she wants time to figure out how to manage the side effects. The general isn’t too impressed with her “How to train your Beast” idea and he decides to kill her too. At that moment, Vincent beasts-out and attacks the general. He gets out his knife and cuts Vincent’s face creating the nasty scar we all know and love. I remember, in an early interview, Jay Ryan said he imagined he got the scar from a fight with another beast… that sounds more interesting, doesn’t it?

Anyway, as Vincent is remembering this whole scene, he is unconsciously re-enacting it at the WAREHOUSE… with poor JT trying his hardest not to be confused with the evil general… or a sack of flour. Flashback Vincent kills the general? I guess… and Vanessa escapes. Isn't it nice that he saved both Cat and Vanessa’s lives at one point? Present Vincent is still beast-jumping around the warehouse and JT is trying to fend him off with a… chair? Cat arrives and brings him back to himself, establishing once and for all that she has an especial beast whispering power. Cat is relieved that he is OK and JT’s injuries are nothing that can’t be fixed with a “care-bears band aid”. However, you know how prone Vincent is to hate himself so he impulsively injects the untested serum on his arm; hoping it would either cure him or kill him. Good for Stallone, I guess. Cat races to his side and I mean she SERIOUSLY runs to stop him from injecting himself. She was freaking out more than JT; never thought I would see that happening. However, Cat is unable to stop Vincent and only thing left to do is wait…

So while we are waiting, Cat goes back to solving the CASE OF THE WEEK. To do so, they create the lamest entrapment ever. The objective is to force BRIT MANAGER to reveal himself as the conspirator against Jake Riley. I seriously wonder if that whole thing would hold up in court… I am guessing NOT. In a nutshell: They use a “Jake decoy”, Diversity Barbie dresses up as Homeless Barbie and Brit manager is caught. END OF CASE. Except, Jake Riley won’t go away just yet. He is sticking around for some ON THE NOSE LESSONS learned from cases. He is disappointed that his manager lied to him… you know, like Cat is disappointed about her mother’s secret life. Bla bla bla… People lie,” forgive but never forget”, don’t stop trusting people and don’t change who you are. END OF CASE. Wait, no. Jake Riley is still here. He has to show Tess her recently pimped out squad car [how did he get in the car in the first place? Do they just leave squad cars open?] and his new single “Manslayer”… OK it was kinda funny and the damn song was very catchy. Damn… I guess I have to admit, Jake Riley kind of grew on me. But now for real. END.OF.CASE.

Daddy Roan stops by CAT’S APARTMENT. She tells him that she always felt guilty about her mom’s murder. She also says, after going through her stuff [and meeting Vincent], she realizes it was not her fault. She wants to stop re-living the past and thinking of herself as a victim. In other words, instead of dwelling on her mom’s past she chooses to try to hook up with her failed military experiment. Sounds like a plan. I think what this scene is telling us is that Cat has changed her priorities. Remember in the pilot, she was completely obsessed with finding the truth about her mom? Little by little we saw that change. Ironically, by the time she started getting answers, they stopped being the most important thing. She started caring more about the consequences of her mother’s actions, mainly how they affected Vincent. That allowed her to finally move on. Throughout the scene, Daddy Roan is all fatherly and nice. All my thoughts about him being evil were dissipated … So I guess I can go back to calling him “Mr. Chandler”.

After her heart to heart with Mr.Chandler; Cat decides it’s a good time for a chat with her mom, so she goes to her grave. In a way, she forgives Mommy Chandler for what she did and chooses to believe she had good intentions. However, Cat still feels responsible and wants to “make it right”. Surprise surprise, Vincent is there, listening to the whole thing, lurking in the shadows. He tells her “THEY will make it right”, it’s a simple sentence but it tells Catherine that she is not alone on this. Catherine notices that if he is out there stalking her as usual it must mean the beast serum worked! Yey! Catherine is still upset because her mother lied to her and now she has to lie to her friends and family. Vincent of course steps in to blame himself for all the lying, because he would take any opportunity for self-loathing. Catherine doesn’t blame him though, she blames her mom because she had a choice but Vincent didn’t; but, he tells her: “If I had [a choice]… I would make that same choice again if it meant that I could be in your life” Aw… that was so romantic! And I actually thought there was no way she could hear that and NOT kiss him… but she didn’t! Looking back, the cemetery was not the most romantic place, so I guess it was for the best.  Vincent ends the conversation by telling her to let go of all her anger and guilt and live in the present. She’s not sure, but he tells her he will do it with her, which seems to convince her. He hugs her and they walk away. END OF EPISODE.

This was an interesting episode, lots of information about the mythology of the show thanks to the most comprehensive and organized set of flashbacks. As usual, I especially liked how they are approaching the Vincent/Catherine relationship. It’s moving along, but they aren't rushing it. It’s not just a fairy tale, idealistic love story. They are taking their time and creating situations that justify and explain each emerging feeling: trust, attraction, empathy and finally love.

MORE RECAPS HERE

QUOTES

JT [about Catherine]: She’s seen you Vincent…and she hasn't run.

JT: A cocktail of endorphins and my good friend Lorazepam, to keep you chill while I evaluate your “Catherine allergic ass”.

Evan: You really think your shooter is some “mall dwelling teen”?

JT [to Vincent]: Try not to kill me while I study you

JT: Being turned into a super-soldier complete with killer canines seems like a hard memory to “forget”

JT: Vincent, you know Catherine… when it comes to you, she wants to be involved.

JT: Mommy Chandler was a looker

Cat [to JT]: I really don’t need back-seat detectiving

JT: I know you’re Sarah Connor with a Kung fu grip and all, but I am pee-in-your-pants terrified!