Recap: Beauty and the Beast S4 E1

"Monsieur et Madame Bete" - Web Cred won't save you from a hired assassin

Vincent and Catherine are married, but dumb tourists are still getting into car accidents. To make it even worse the Blogosphere (!) knows about Beasts. But not for long, since bloggers never learned how to use VPNs. Meanwhile, Tess just wants to be a regular cop and Heather finds a creative way to get a date.

Previously on BATB, the producers totally thought they were getting cancelled and decided to end season 3 by marrying the beauty and the beast. So...no other way to start the season than with their honeymoon. Vincent and Cat apparently had a few blissful, romantic days inside their luxurious hotel suite. Cat just wants to stay inside forever, because who needs Paris when you have Vincent? But he thinks they should do at least a few touristy things while they are in the City of Lights. And since CGI-ing the Eiffel tower is probably too expensive they opt for a bike ride in the countryside. Of course, the leisurely day is interrupted when an accident nearby forces Vincent to go into hero/beast mode. Vincent helps a couple out of a car wreck by half-beasting and since traumatized car crash victims with head injuries are totally reliable witnesses, Vincat then spend the aftermath of the accident speaking bad French and agonizing over the prospect of being exposed. In Heather’s words “What else is new?”

Meanwhile, JT is back to teaching and enjoying the beast-free life until… one of his students asks if “cross-species DNA” is a suitable thesis topic. JT is all “hell no… you should see what happened to Dr.Marks after he decided dig into this area” But the student is not easily dissuaded, especially since he believes cross-species creatures are no longer theoretical. He believes that because he read it somewhere on the blogosphere. Not the BLOGOSPHERE! In case you weren’t paying attention, the blogosphere is the new BIG BAD… OK, maybe not but they sure were making it sound like it.

JT tells Tess about the looming threat of the Blogosphere, but she doesn’t think a bunch of geeks typing away on blogger are a real threat. So JT decides to find another partner in crime: Heather. JT and baby Chandler quickly track down a particular blogger - PETER DUNCAN - who seems to know a little too much about Beasts [but not a whole lot about masking his IP address]. Heather is no stranger to breaking the law - she just got a ticket for jaywalking after all - so she suggests that breaking and entering to Peter’s apartment is the way to go. Unfortunately, when JT and Heather get there they realize that Blogger Peter is a little deader than intended. Not just that, his killer - who seems to be a Jason Statham wannabe with a Rambo complex - is there and he doesn’t seem too keen on witnesses. By some miracle, JT and Heather manage to escape through the window, but Heather misses the fire-escape and falls three stories.

Heather is transported to the hospital by a cute paramedic - KYLE -  while JT calls Cat and Vincent to tell them the bad news. Vincent and Cat fly back to NY immediately. Tess is not thrilled about interrupting their honeymoon and she is pissed that JT keeps looking for beast trouble, but has to admit that something is going on. This feeling is confirmed when the DHS Agent handling the beast cases [yes I can’t be bothered to remember his name, what’s the point?] is found dead [see? No need to learn his name now]. The Beast Hunter [I guess we can call him that?] didn’t get the info on Vincent from the DHS computer, but he did find a file on Cat. Naturally, she offers to be used as bait. Unfortunately, their plan misfires because Vincent is rusty at beasting  or something like that. So the Beast Hunter abducts Cat and takes her to his… DEN?

As he gets ready to torture her for information about the last Beast, he conveniently explains his deal. Basically, his is just a man trying to make a dishonest living as a bounty hunter. And I say “hunter” in the most literal sense. He “hunts” whatever they pay him to hunt: Animals, humans, cross-species creatures [vampires, aliens… probably too] And apparently the going rate for a beast is 5 million dollars! 1) I would totally pay 5M bucks for Vincent, worth every penny. 2) Who could have 5M dollars to spare for the last beast? Maybe Mr. Beast Sicario could have told us… but before he starts sharing his plans for early retirement Vincent arrives to the den and kills him. Let’s take a minute to appreciate that Cat didn’t give a SANCTIMONIOUS SPEECH and Vincent didn’t spent half an hour feeling guilty for beast killing a man.

So Madame et Monsieur Bete live to worry another day. And by worry I mean Cat talking endlessly about “wanting to find a way to stop the threats” and Vincent wanting to learn to live with the threats or something… blah blah blah. In the end, they agree that it is their reality and there is nothing they can do about it… Eh… here is an idea that no-one ever discusses. LEAVE NEW YORK! Seriously dudes, go to Denver or Santa Barbara or Vermont or whatever supposedly idyllic place that suits your fancy. Instead, Vincat decide to drink wine in an open rooftop… Moving on…

JT and Tess also have a talk. JT confesses that he hasn’t lived a normal life since his KIA best friend showed up at his door over a decade ago. So… he has the need to be a part of something bigger. And no, teaching undergrads doesn’t count. Tess agrees to support him in his quest,  but she doesn’t seem to too thrilled about it. She just wants to worry about drug dealers and murderers like the other lucky cops.

I didn’t dislike this episode, but I was underwhelmed by it. Nothing “stayed” with me after watching, unfortunately. But if I examine it by parts, I’d say it was better than most. .It had a clear narrative [if not very original], the dialogue was funny and they had a few cute scenes. However, there is a lingering issue with BATB. For a while now, BATB has been a show about ‘beasts’ and that is clearly not going to change this season. Trouble is, when it was first conceived, BatB was NOT a show about beasts. It was a show about a relationship between a woman and a man, who happened to be a beast. That is no longer the case. The show was retooled, the focus shifted and the relationship was resolved [I mean… they are married]. That doesn’t make everything about it bad, but it is a different show than the one we started watching four years ago. I am not expecting them to go back to the core, I don’t think they can [or know they should....] So here is what I ask from Season 4… Be a fun season to watch, get a good villain, have interesting action a decent mystery [not too optimistic about this], stay true to the characters and don’t force conflict. A few years from now I will probably remember the good moments of BatB rather than the bad… that is if they don’t completely screw up the ending!

Some random thoughts:

• Monsieur and Madame Bete is a lame episode name. I didn’t even like it when Kurt Sutter did the whole French thing on SOA, but at least it sounded kind of badass.
• I hope Heather’s new boyfriend sticks around [according to IMDB he will]. Her relationships keep ending abruptly. Plus everyone knows V’s secret so it would be nice to have a clueless person around.
• Tracking Logic still drives me insane. According to this ep, tracking works like consulting a database now. Who needs a hacker when you can have a tracking beast, right? OK, maybe a hacker is easier to come by, but still...