RECAP: Beauty and the Beast – Season 2 Episode 20– Ever after

Fish are wiser than birds

Cat pretends to be Richard Castle and Vincent pretends to be a normal Canadian dude? Not exactly sure, but he was watching hockey. In any case, they discover the grass is not greener in suburbia and that fish are excellent listeners. Meanwhile JT & T attempt to face the big evil alone while overdosing us with cuteness.

The episode starts with Cat standing in the middle of an abandoned garden staring at a golden bird like the Disney Princess she is [she is actually a re-used CBS character…] Her fugitive Prince startles her and she proceeds to knock him down to the ground. OK…I didn’t necessarily hate the Disney vibe with the bird, but they never used that type of symbolism before so I didn’t see the point. Also, Belle wasn’t even into birds, she was into books. So it wasn’t even a good reference… But let’s move one.

After Vincent recovers from the Cat attack, they proceed to recap the last few episodes. In summary: Vincent is still a hunted man, Cat is willing to run away with him and they are still hoping to get rid of Gabe and figure out “their normal”. Unfortunately, that is not happening any time soon because WATSON THE CINDERELLA WITNESS disappeared and won’t testify against Gabe. Vincent stupidly volunteers to track Watson.

Tess is not so happy about her witnesses disappearing either. She goes to Gabe’s apartment and he is either having a psychotic break or had 10 too many espressos. Either way, he is getting arrested. In the meantime, Cat and Vincent go to the motel where Watson was last seen. Vincent has a BEASTMONITION and thanks to the wonders of Beast-Green-Sight he realizes Gabe killed Watson [Ug… *tracking logic* won’t even bother complaining].

BACK AT THE PRECINCT, Gabe tells Captain Ward that Vincent killed Watson and is trying to pin it on him to divert attention from his manhunt. [That is a thin theory. Gabe is seriously off his game] Tess points out that Gabe’s theory doesn’t make any sense. So Gabe’s all “she is just defending Vincent because he is her BFF’s boyfriend!” Wardy is all “Let’s just chill for a minute…” and then Gabe leaves. That wasn’t the best interrogation…

Meanwhile, Vincent is on a mission to find WITNESS WATSON. Because that’s what you should do when you are a wanted fugitive: Get involved in ANOTHER crime. Anyway, he follows Gabe’s trail to a crowded NY area, where he gets confused by all the smells and people [tracking is magic, but not perfect]. Since Vincent is a… hmm memorable man, he quickly gets recognized by one of the passerby. Fortunately he manages to avoid the NY Mounties and doesn’t get caught.

Agent Knox just put Beast in the corner

At THUNDER G-MAN’S OFFICE (AKA the FBI), Vincat get scolded by Agent Longshadow [yes I am trying out a new nickname]. Catherine tries to explain the situation: “They were tracking Gabe to find where he stashed Watson’s body”. Agent Knox is all “Tracking? What the hell does that even mean?” I wonder that every single week, Agent Knox. EVERY SINGLE WEEK ! Cat gives him a really stupid explanation about tracking, which only pisses Agent Knox [and me] more.

Cat begs for a solution. She is desperate because there is no safe place for them anymore… I don’t want to argue with her but… Vincent did live underground for 10 years… maybe he should just... find a nice warehouse and stick to tunnel/rooftop night outings for a while. He did it before! Guess he got used to walking under the sun or something. Anyway, Agent Knox suggests WITNESS RELOCATION and they decide to go for it.

Vincent and Catherine break the news to Tess and JT. Tess takes it much better than JT who shrewdly points out city people can’t survive in suburbia [SO TRUE]. But since they don’t have a choice they decided to ship out to Suburgatory that same night. JT promises to continue the Gabe-investigation and Vincent is all “Hmmm you don’t exactly have my never-explained-and-always-confusing beast abilities”. JT gives him the BEST answer ever “I may not have Beast-sense but I have common sense, all right? Plus my girl here’s got a badge and a gun” POINT JT. Move away Vincat, there is a new power couple in town.

Meanwhile, Gabe coffee-bribes the guy who spotted Vincent on the street. The witness “guesses” where Vincent escaped and mentions he was with a “cute little brunette”. OK, so what was the point of this? The guy had no useful information and it is not like Gabe didn’t know Vincent was with Cat… Anyway, after learning… NOTHING from the witness, Gabe goes to Cat’s apartment. He finds her wallet, car keys and cell phone. Unfortunately he doesn’t assume she is dead, so he turns on the charm and goes to question the neighbor. Like everybody else in this episode, Cat’s flirty neighbor provides completely useless information: She tells Gabe that Cat goes up to the roof a lot to spend time with her fugitive boyfriend plants. She does, however, mention that Cat will be out of town for a while. Finally some relevant info, sadly given to the wrong person.  

"Real Houses..."
"And fresh air..."

Vincent and Catherine finally arrive at SUBURGATORY and marvel at the size of their new house as any normal city person would. The neighbors instantly notice them and start waiving. New Yorker Cat has no clue of what is going on. Shockingly Vincent seems better adjusted to suburban life [I guess suburbs are more beast-friendly in general]. They have a cute moment that ends with Cat telling Vincent she would give up anything and go anywhere with him [wouldn’t we all?]. And then, something BIG happens [OK big for me]. Vincent and Catherine reveal their ALIASES which are MR. AND MRS. VAUGHN. I am sorry… if that ain’t an Alias reference, I don’t know what is. So yeah… you’ll have to excuse me while I go geek out [and rewatch the episode where Sydney and Vaughn go undercover in suburbia]

The day after, Vincent and his bathrobe wake up happy to find out that what happens in Manhattan, stays in Manhattan. Meanwhile, Cat is trying her hardest to become “Veronica Vaughn: Mystery Writer”, but she is clearly longing for the polluted, crime infested big apple she loves. [Sidenote: No-one would ever believe Vincent’s name is Tim].

Back at New York, JT is frustrated because he hasn’t been able to pick up Gabe’s trail like he promised Vincent. Not having illogical-maybe-magical-tracking-abilities makes finding people harder. Tess tells JT that he should stop acting like Vincent’s side-kick and find Gabe using his “big professor brain”. So JT comes up with a techie-type plan that has something to  do with cell towers. Filled with confidence he kisses Tess and tells her she is a “genius”. Tess seems to enjoy that.

"Hello Humans..."

Meanwhile, Vincent has his first close encounter of the neighbor kind. The friendly dude is FRANK. Vincent is terrible at pretending he is NOT a wanted fugitive fleeing New York. I thought no-one could ever look more suspicious… until they enter the house and run into “Veronica”. Cat looks like she doesn’t know how to make small talk, shake hands or be around people she is not about to arrest. The poor girl has lived in the city for too long. [Seriously, it’s like she is on an episode of The Neighbors]

Vincent and Catherine also meet APRIL, Frank’s wife who just… walks into their house. Do people do that in suburbia? Walk into stranger’s houses? April asks Vincent if they’d met before. Vincent is convinced she is on to him; Cat thinks she is just being suburbanish and I thought she was trying to come on to Vincent. We also learn that Snotty April hates nice Frank, that they have a son in NYU and that they recently got robbed [two out of those three facts are important].

Later that day, Vincent starts feeling paranoid. He sees a cop, DEPUTY LEWIS, going into SUBURB FRANK’S house. Vincent panics, but Catherine thinks he is exaggerating. However, looks like he isn’t because, a second later, a gunshot is heard. Vincent and Catherine run towards their neighbors’ house and find a desperate April crying on top of her dead husband’s body. DUN DUN DUN.

*Sighs* This just turned into the CASE OF THE WEEK. I thought we were done with those…

Oh well…

It’s time for the “Veronica Vaughn Show”: A former cop goes into witness protection as a mystery writer and solves crimes in suburbia. Think about it as Castle meets In Plain Sight meets Veronica Mars. It would actually be a good show… but probably not the best idea for a single episode.

Anyhow…

Crime of the week: Frank Harris [ha wonder if they picked the name on purpose], nosy suburbanite killed in his own home by… a cop.
Suspects: Well… we know Deputy Lewis shot him so? Are we trying to figure out why? God… is this something like Motive now?

The day after, Catherine wants to go out and play with the other cops. Vincent protests but she doesn’t listen and just runs out. He tries to go after her but realizes he can’t possibly go out wearing HIS HUMONGOUS BATHROBE.

Outside, Cat decides her cover as a nosy neighbor allows her to ask the lead detective lots of questions. He doesn’t appreciate that and he is about to get mad, but Vincent finally comes out of the house and drags Cat inside. SUPERCOP CAT explains she just uncovered a murder plot [yes, she did that by having one conversation with the victim and eavesdropping for 5 seconds on the witness interrogation].

Anyway, here is what happened according to Cat: April wanted Frank dead. Frank went out armed because April told him there was a suspicious vehicle outside. Meanwhile, April called the cops and hid Frank’s keys. Frank, still holding his gun, had to climb the fence to get inside just as the cop arrived and shot him thinking he was an intruder. OK, that is a REALLY bad mystery. Vincent gets mad at Cat because they are in hiding and solving murders doesn’t help them stay under the radar. Cat says it is their responsibility to get involved and she is all “I may have a self-righteous hero complex… but you totally do too!” And yes, it was a little bit annoying that Cat was endangering their cover like that to solve a crime but… she was ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. Vincent likes to get involved and do the right thing too. After the war, he was supposed to be hiding, in the shadows… yet he kept exposing himself to save innocent people around Manhattan. He did that for decades and I think eventually he would have started doing it again. He was trying to stay off the radar harder this time because of Cat, but turns out, Cat has the same chronic need to help people he has, that is part of why they are great together.

Using a “cell tower road map”, JT figures out that Gabe brought Watson’s body to the dungeon, which has a convenient crematorium. I don’t know why they don’t start ALL their investigations by going to the dungeon. JT gets kidnapped? DUNGEON Vincent disappears? Cat locked him up in the DUNGEON. Heather is abducted? DUNGEON Bodies need to be disposed? DUNGEON. Seems like the logical step without having to go through tracking of any kind.

So JT & T arrive at BEAGONSTONE. They find Watson’s remains, but also find Gabe. Well, technically Gabe finds  them [and points a gun at them]. Tess takes out her gun as well. Gabe demands to know where Vincent is and then goes into a rant about how he is the good guy protecting Cat and man… he has completely lost it. He sounds absolutely crazy. He also threatens to blow the whistle on the entire beast conspiracy exposing EVER YONE (including JT and Tess) in the process. Finally, Tess lowers her gun and Gabe leaves. I am surprised he didn’t kill them… I assume he took all of Watson’s remains?

Unable to stop Cat’s law-woman instincts, Vincent stays home. He decides to eat some cereal and have a relationship talk with… his fish. Yep… Vincent should never ever move away from where JT lives, he can’t function without him. Finally, Vincent concludes that he should pay attention to Catherine’s concerns. OK, maybe the fish was good surrogate-best-friend material after all.

Vincent walks across the street and knocks on April’s door. She is talking on the phone and as soon as she sees Vincent she is all “I’ll call you back, my super hunky new neighbor is here and I should see if we can have an affair”. Unfortunately for April, Vincent is there to find out if she had her husband killed with a simple YES or NO question. April obviously denies it, but lie detector Keller knows better and realizes his girlfriend is ALWAYS right.

In the meantime, Veronica Vaughn finds DEPUTY LEWIS to tell him her conspiracy theory. He is about to go on patrol so he asks her to join him. While on patrol, Cat realizes a few things are off about Deputy Lewis. He notices she is on to him and they start a fight inside the car [“It’s never safe in the car”]. They struggle and crash the car. Cat runs, the deputy finds her and shoots at her, Cat finds a shotgun in the trunk AND… Vincent comes and knocks the deputy out. Hmm… that was kind of a bummer… After Cat had to fight him off it would have been cooler if she was the one to take him out. Last minute beast rescues feel anticlimactic sometimes…

Cat wonders how Vincent found her. See? Even Cat doesn’t buy the “tracking B.S.” Vincent explains that he scared April into a confession. He acknowledges Cat did the right think, even if she blew their covers. They hug and Cat begs to go home to a place where the air smells and people don’t waive.

In NEW YORK, Vincent mentions that wherever they are Cat will always have the need to “kick ass”. But he doesn’t mind because it is part of what he loves about her. I thought Vincent’s speech was sweet. This side of Cat can be frustrating sometimes. The fact that can accept that and even admire her for it just shows how perfect they are for each other. END OF EPISODE.

-- So… I thought this was an average episode, not awesome, not awful. Nevertheless, after it aired, I realized it generated a VERY negative reaction. I admit, some scenes were completely unnecessary, but there were also quite a few good lines/moments. Even though it is not my favorite, I still don’t think there was anything terribly wrong with this episode. I’ll explain why:

Reused CBS character having a Disney moment

Writing-wise: Technically speaking, I don’t think this was the worst episode. The structure was adequate [it followed a three ac structure] and no basic screenwriting rules were butchered. Most scenes were well-written and short, but others didn’t move the plot forward [that’s my main criticism]. The storyline wasn’t stellar but I think it is unfair to blame the writer of the episode. She was probably tasked [by the EPs] with writing a filler episode where ”X happens” and I think she did an OK job. The idea to send Vincent and Catherine to suburbia was good, but I believe the mistake was trying to cram a “mystery of the week” in less than half an episode. The “mystery” was VERY weak. There were too many other things going on. We had JT & T chasing Gabe, the set up for the suburbia story plus Vincat’s relationship drama. I am not a fan of cop shows, but they are certainly great at creating complex mysteries with lots of twists. They do that by focusing 90% of the episode on the mystery and probably have 2 scenes that deal with the personal lives of the continuing characters. The idea of a standalone episode at this point in the season was never going to work on BATB. Maybe… If this had been a two parter, they could have pulled of the suburbia storyline while tackling all the other beast stuff.

Vincat’s attitude-wise: Unlike a lot of people I did not have a problem with this at all. Yes, both characters [especially Cat] were frustrating at points, but I thought it was realistic. They can’t be pretty and perfect all the time [OK maybe pretty]. Real characters are supposed to be difficult and irrational [it says so in the books]. That’s what gives them dimensions. In this context I didn’t mind the bickering, I simply thought it showed they had moved past the honeymoon stage. Whatever your feelings about that, I believe the episode had some important takeaways: Vincent and Catherine had been suffering because they could never have the white picket fence. It was their ideal. Suddenly they got a taste of it and realized that it is not who they are [the grass maybe be greener but not better in suburbia]. Vincent and Catherine have something in common. They are people who need to do the right thing and can’t avoid getting involved. Their life may be full of trials, but “being a hero” is deeply embedded in who they are. I quite like that message and… as a city girl I completely understand why Cat was so restless! The nice house in the suburbs is not for everyone! [So no… I didn’t feel Cat was OOC] Also… small towns aren’t really safe… not if Veronica Mars, Twin Peaks, Bates Motel, Broadchurch and Fargo have taught me anything.

Had to be done

Lack of fluff-wise: I think the lack of sexy time in this episode was the main complaint among viewers. Hey… I wouldn’t have minded a steamy scene at all! But that’s easier said than done. Yes, the setting was conducive to such a scene… but think about all they had to do in this episode! You had Vincat tracking the Cinderella witness and getting shipped to suburbia. In addition, they had to solve a lame mystery of the week. Plus you had JT tracking Gabe while having a confidence crisis then Gabe going all psycho on JT&T. Whether or not it was a good idea to include ALL that in one ep, the decision was made at some point and it had to be done. So… I understand why there wasn’t enough time to write in a sexy scene. Regardless, I don’t think that type of scene was absolutely necessary in this instance. On the other hand, there is no reason we should assume they weren’t having sex off-screen. For all we know a scene like that may have been written but cut. When writing you are forced to cut a lot of lovely scenes because they are not absolutely necessary or mess up the pacing or many other reasons [the term “kill your babies” is often used]. As a general rule scenes should 1) Provide background info 2) Reveal something about the character and 3) Move the plot forward [ideally all three]. Scenes that don’t do that… however great, have to go. So... I guess what I am saying is that we should cut the writers some slack… I don’t think any unforgivable crimes against screenwriting were committed in this episode.

Till next week. By the way, I am considering [no promises yet] recapping other shows and taking suggestions. I would rather start with something that is airing at the moment, although I am willing to consider a rewatch of an old show. So far suggestions include Revenge, Outlader, GoT, Orphan Black and Banshee.

And finally… TV Republik is on tumblr now! I am still learning the ropes so… bear with me. But I will be posting all sorts of TV news, original articles and micro-blogs. So CHEK IT OUT.

MORE RECAPS

QUOTES

JT: We are all city people; you can’t just leave Manhattan you’ll get bored!

Tess: Less Robin, more Batman

Cat: If I am gonna be Barbie, you can at least be Ken

Vincent: This is completely out of curiosity but, did you have your husband killed?

Vincent: I hate is when she is right.

Tess: You can take the girl out of the city, but you can’t take the city out of the girl.

Tess: Now give me a gummy