RECAP: Beauty and the Beast - S3E8 - Shotgun Wedding

Nothing ruins a wedding like peonies... and criminal wedding-crashers

After a decade of one-sided stalking and a few more years of angst, amnesia, death threats and epicness [yes, I’ve decided that is a word], Vincent and Catherine are FINALLY getting ready to walk down the aisle.

With FAUX-BIG-BAD JULIANNA out of commission [courtesy of Cat], the happy couple don’t have any imminent threats to worry about. However, Heather is worrying enough for all of them. Turns out that Heather can out-paranoid JT! Who knew? Little Chandler is not all about rainbows and sunshine, especially when they send her peonies instead of Orchids! The nerve! [I wonder how Heather would feel about petunias]. Heather is also adamant about Vincent NOT “kissing the bride” before the wedding because that would jinx it. Oh Heather… don’t you know that Vincat are inherently jinxed?

Another source of drama are JT & Tess who attempt to keep their break-up a secret until after the wedding. They do a pretty terrible job at hiding their feelings and most people with “eyes and ears” figure it out eventually. But it’s the thought that counts, right?

So… peonies and break-ups threaten to damper the mood… but hey! No-one is dying or in danger of dying so I’d call that a win. That is until… Julianna wakes up from her coma. Vincent and Tess pay the faux-villain a visit. After another round finger-pointing, Julianna finally accepts that Vincent and Cat are NOT working for the mysterious BIG BAD who now has a name: LIAM.

Here is what we know about Liam so far:

1)      Liam is a bad bad guy with bad bad intentions to take over the world, eliminate human kind or something nefarious of the sort. [He is wearing a long black trenchcoat for God’s sake, you don’t get any more troperific than that!]

2)    Liam forced Julianna to enhance him with her serum and then escaped. I am assuming that they were a couple and I am wondering what happened between them that made Liam want to kill Julianna so bad. Or maybe they were not a couple and he just found her annoying… who knows?

3)     Finally, Liam is Jason Gedrick! And haven’t we all been waiting for him to show up since he went on a one-man twitter campaign to promote the show? Yes we have… Welcome to the show Jason!

Whatever their relationship might be, Julianna is convinced that Liam is going to kill her and the only way to stop him is with a super-enhanced BEAST. She offers to “enhance” Vincent so he can go kill Liam for her. Vincent’s all “I’ll pass, I am kinda busy getting married”. And that would have been the end of it, but Julianna is so desperate and paranoid that she escapes from the hospital.

JT & T convince Vincent to keep this new development from Cat. So Vincent and Tess decide to go fight crime together for the first time and have some bonding conversations in the process. Meanwhile, JT looks for a superhuman called “Liam” and Cat… well, she gets a massage with Heather. Unfortunately, Julianna manages to steal the serum from the police evidence room. How the hell did she get in? I have NO IDEA. Is she also enhanced? Can she walk through walls or something? Because that would be the only explanation.

In any case, Cat finally finds out that Julianna is on the loose and that everyone kept it from her. She immediately goes to the precinct but her call of duty doesn’t last long. Tess convinces Cat to let them handle it and puts her on a limo to head over to the church. That’s when Cat gets jumped by Julianna [you know… in front of the precinct, not like there are cops around or anything like that]. They fight in the back of the limo [behind the oblivious driver] until Vincent arrives and captures Julianna. Then…  I have no idea how but Julianna ends up with JT & T at the church [can she also teleport on top walking through walls?]. JT ties her to the radiator and tells her to just look pretty and shut up. She doesn’t comply so he tranqs her. To increase the “character bad decisions count” JT convinces Tess to put a pin on the arrest until the wedding is over.

Except, they can’t really have a wedding because Vincent and Catherine are not there. After the limo attack, Cat leaves outraged. Vincent comes after her and begs her to come back with him. [Was Cat seriously considering it? Let’s assume she was just teaching him a lesson]. Whatever the case, it’s romantic speech time! Vincent tells Cat how he was living in the shadows for ten years and he felt lost… except for her… It’s obviously impossible to be mad at him when he says stuff like that [with that voice] so Cat agrees to go back to the church and get married!

In a matter of minutes, Vincent and Catherine are looking flawless and ready to say “I do”. Julianna is still tied up to the radiator… and… couldn’t Tess arrest her while Vincat were changing clothes? How hard can it be to arrest a woman in a church full of cops? To make it all worse, Tess gets word that someone matching Liam’s description just landed in JFK [from London… because that’s where rogue superhumans like to hang?]

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, that this turns into a “wedding interrupted” situation. Just as Cat is walking down the aisle every police officer gets an alert about an escaped “terrorist”. Most cops leave the church just as Julianna screams bloody murder. Vincent and Catherine run to the back room only to realize that Liam has turned Julianna into a 3D jigsaw puzzle. They try to attack him, but he is the ultimate enhanced supernatural being. He is super strong, fast and can heal! Vincent is no match for him so he ends up severely injured. Did he even beast out though? I feel like he has been half-beasting-out all season. Maybe all the sanctimonious speeches are making him have beast-stage-fright or something.

Liam leaves the scene of the crime and so does Cat. Vincent gets some medical attention and goes after Cat. JT wants to go after Vincent but Heather – who is always so wise – points out that he should let Vincent go and worry about Tess. Julianna’s murder has a lot of consequences for Tess. She didn’t follow protocol and a woman was killed on her watch. She can’t really explain the supernatural straining circumstances, and “because I wanted my best friend’s wedding to be perfect” is not a good excuse. Wardy [who is now apparently Chief] makes sure Tess understands that her job is in jeopardy. Tess’s awful day improves a little when she arrives to her office and finds a thoughtful gift from JT, which is exactly what she needed. He finally figured it out! [with a little help from Heather.

The episode ends at the ROOFTOP OF SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIP MILESTONES. This time around, Vincent and Cat are neither fighting nor making up. Cat assures Vincent that she is not mad at him, that she wants to marry him and that she doesn’t blame him. However, she is hanging up her “supernatural hunter” gloves. Bad timing because Vincent just decided that it is his responsibility to deliver the world from Liam.

END OF EPISODE

I have to say… I liked a whole lot of this episode. Every single Heather scene/line was hilarious [Nicole really killed it]. I loved the Tess/Vincent interactions. I don’t think we have seen them talk since Partners in Crime [and hug since Held Hostage]. I liked how they wrote JT’s journey to letting Vincent go and starting to worry about his own life and relationships. I loved Vincent’s speech after Julianna’s attack and I am thrilled by the arrival of Jason Gedrick. It looks like his character might actually be the baddie we’ve been waiting for! The worthy opponent we never had!

The one thing I didn’t understand was the ending. Vincent has always had a [not particularly logic] martyr/hero complex, so it doesn’t surprise me that he suddenly wants to go after Liam. Now… Cat FINALLY realizing that her quest to save the world endangers the people she loves felt a little sudden. She has a point, I absolutely agree. But she went from “we have a greater purpose” to “if they ain’t trying to kill me, I don’t care” rather quickly. Let’s say that watching the love of her life overpowered and vulnerable for the first time scared her so much that she completely changed her views. I can believe that. But if that was the case… why oh why did she LEAVE? Vincent was badly hurt and Cat needed a walk to clear her head? The normal reaction would have been to stay with Vincent and not let him out of her sight. Then they could have had a nice heartfelt talk at the church and come to the same conclusions. It was a bit of a missed moment there I felt.

So that’s the one thing that nagged me, even though I liked all the other aspects of the episode. But seriously, someone write a good Vincat scene already.

QUOTES

“I got eyes, I got ears and I am not stupid” – Vincent

“That’s not coffee” – Vincent about decaf [yes that made me love him more]

“You don’t have to do anything but sit there and shut up” JT to Julianna

“You CANNOT just shoot people at weddings!” Heather

“For ten years I was living in the shadows, I was lost – except for you” Vincent to Cat

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Alejandra

Alejandra spends her days watching TV, writing for TV, writing about TV. Hopefully, one day, she will get substantially paid for all three. Follow her on twitter @azannier