RECAPLETTE: Beauty and the Beast – S3 Episode 1 – “The Beast of Wall Street”

You can get beasts out of the picture, but you can’t get the beast-slayer out of the girl

After what felt like a never ending “beast-hiatus”, Beauty and the Beast is back and in some ways, better than ever. So let’s get down to it.

It has been two months since Gabe’s [overdue] demise, but no-one wasted one second mourning his death. Instead, Vincent used the time to get reinstated as a Doctor [that was an easy process] and Cat got a nice haircut, but somehow refrained from redecorating her apartment or going car-shopping [guess she only doesthat when she is suffering]

Vincent and Catherine seem happier than ever. Lame work and traffic may get in the way, but nothing a police siren and some old fashion beast-rooftop hopping can’t fix. To make everything even more perfect, Vincent dug up his mother’s ring [which he never gave to Alex?] and plans to ask Cat to marry him. There is only one problem... Remember FRINGE dudes from the S2 finale? Apparently, they have been phone-stalking Cat, wanting their services as a supernatural crime-fighting duo [guess the Winchesters were otherwise engaged]. Cat isn’t completely against the idea because she is convinced that they have a greater destiny to fulfil, but Vincent just wants to live a normal life. Except… he is not normal, because he is extraordinarily hot a beast.

Meanwhile, JT has been suffering from PTSD after his near-death-and-subsequnt-mysterious-possibly-beastly-resuscitation experience. And turns out that Tess isn’t winning the “patient girlfriend” of the year award any time soon. She grows tired of JT’s self-pity party and tells him to snap out of it and start living instead of wondering why he didn’t die. It was a little harsh, but maybe JT needed a wake-up call. I think Tess did want to see JT get better, so I am going to cut her some slack. On unrelated beast news [as far as we know], Heather is getting ready for her wedding. She can’t wait for Cat to meet her fiancé [I can’t wait either!] Do we know anything about this guy? Has he been cast? I may have missed the casting news, but I feel Heather’s fiancé is surrounded by mystery and I really hope he doesn’t end up being a random unimportant extra. There is potential for a storyline there! But I am getting ahead of myself.

Back to the episode. Catherine decides to pay Agent Thomas and Barnett a visit and hear their job proposal pitch. Catherine wants proof before bringing Vincent in; so, FRINGE DUDES take Catherine to see the wife of a stock broker: TYLER ZANE, who they think may have developed supernatural abilities.

SUPERNATURAL BEING OF THE WEEK: TYLER ZANE Fastest rising star analyst

Powers: Super speed, strength and graceful building-climbing skills (he may or may not drink blood and/or eat brains)

Code-name: “The Wall Street Crawler” [Fine, so I am not as good as Cisco with the nicknames]

Catherine is not convinced, but she has trouble walking away [“serve and protect” is part of her official job description after all]. The choice to tell or not to tell Vincent is taken away from Cat when Zane attacks her and the DHS posse. Agent Barnett dies while Agent Thomas and Cat wind up at the hospital where Vincent works, effectively ruining his restaurant-proposal plans; but giving him the chance to have a superhot/superdoctor moment. 

Vincent doesn’t understand why Cat would want to go back to the life they worked so hard to leave behind. Vincent’s meltdown, however, has a fortunate consequence and his misfortune awakens JT’s “best-friend-extraordinaire” instincts. JT snaps out of his trauma and makes V understand that his beastliness is not a burden, but a gift [as Cat later points out]. JT also concludes that his purpose in life is to be the greatest sidekick he can be and that he is saving the world by proxy. Armed with his recharged hero impulses, Vincent goes back to the hospital just in time to find Zane doing… something to Agent Thomas. I can’t decide if he was just chocking him, drinking his blood or trying to eat his brain… Hey, it’s not my fault that he is an UNDEFINED SUPERNATURAL BEING. I am just covering all my bases.

Agent Thomas manages to gather enough strength to guilt-trip Vincent: “If you don’t stop him, who will?”. So Vincent beasts out and goes after the WALL STREET CRAWLER. They end up on the roof of Zane’s office building, where he wants to set off a bomb to fulfil his undisclosed terrorist agenda [not much of a clue given how many people wanna blow up Wall Street]. Vincent attacks Zane and is about to kill him but Cat stops the beast by appealing to his “human side”. In the end, Vincent chooses not to cross over to the beast-dark side and doesn’t kill Zane. I think this scene was necessary after everything that happened with Bob on S2. Vincent has changed, he can choose MAN over BEAST and the reason for that is Cat [and her love]. Having said that I hope they don’t go into an endless season long rant about “humanity” [losing it, keeping it and whatnot], we had more than enough of that on TVD. 

The episode ends at the ROOFTOP OF IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP MILESTONES. Vincent acknowledges that no matter how much he wishes he could be normal, he is not. Cat agrees, but she makes it clear that she is planning to stick by him during their “abnormal life” because “her normal is when she is with him”, remember?. She also points out that he made the decision to join the army and became a doctor [and a firefighter]; so he clearly wanted to “save” people. He has no reason to avoid “saving” people as a beast too. That was a solid argument, Cat.

Vincent can’t argue with Cat’s logic, so he opts for a [great] topic change. He tells Catherine that they might have a greater purpose but without her love he would be lost. Nervously he gets down on one knee, takes out his mom’s ring and asks “Will you marry me?” [that voice] Cat cries and says yes… because, come on, who could say no to him.

END OF EPISODE

No long recap, I am afraid [I still might be persuaded to write those during the hiatus]. But most people probably appreciate something you can quickly read. 

I enjoyed this episode very much. I felt it was well structured [which we shouldn’t take for granted]. I thought the characters were true to themselves and that they avoided unnecessary relationship conflict [which is one of the things I loved the most about S1]. At this point their relationship is strong and they love each other, it wouldn’t make sense for them to pull apart at the first sign of trouble. The premise change really worked for me. It made the show feel fresh, without feeling like a different show. I can’t promise I won’t get bored with the SUPERNATURAL BEING OF THE WEEK, but it could be interesting if handled properly.

QUOTES

"What are you doing here McBeastie? Aren't you supposed to be playing doctor or something?" - JT
"For the record, he is my perk, not yours" - Cat to Heather [about V]
"Is this a beast case?" - Heather
"Of course I want you, that's never gonna change. You know that" - V to Cat
"You just made my day suck less" Tess to JT

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TVEmpress

The TV Empress is a Media Management graduate, screenwriter in the making (and financial engineer in the meantime). She has serious plans to take over global television. You can follow the TVEmpress on twitter @TVRepublik