Recap: BATB S4E9

The Getaway

Vincent refuses to let go of his mission to kill the last beast-hunter, but ends up killing his last hope instead. At least Cat has an epiphany that should put the normalcy quest into perspective. We also learn that nets are deadlier than bullets, mercenaries don’t have smart phones and that the District Attorney’s office is not the best place to get a boyfriend.

It is a new day in the land of circular plotlines. And since all the characters keep having lengthy conversations about recent developments, chances are you remember exactly what is going on. But in the spirit of BATB S4, I am going to tell you anyway.

Cat is still pretending to work for the DHS [I think], even though a countless number of suits are hunting down Deputy Hill’s killer (Vincent), yet none of them seems bright enough to realize that “Agent Chandler” is not really going to betray her hubby in the name of national security. Meanwhile, Vincent is playing double agent hoping the Graydale folk  will lead him to whoever is after him so he can finally put an end to his beast misery. This plan is obviously dumb. Even if V kills this particular [faceless, nameless] nemesis, there is ALWAYS going to be another one. So… Finally, Tess is dating again. She’s dating an A.D.A…. you know … because things worked out so great for Gabe and Cat.

There is also a new issue: Reporter GRACE ROSE, who has been collecting information about Vincent and was able to put together quite a few pieces of the puzzle. She confronts Cat and claims to know that V was part of a super soldier military experiment gone awry. Grace also concludes that Cat is still helping V, so she must think he is innocent. Cat denies it.

In the meantime, Vincent meets with Tahmoh and the Graydale criminal crew [sans Vaughn, because she died and no-one cared, she’s in a better place with CYLON TYLER]. Their team leader gives them some tough love in order to motivate them to go get the beast… alive. They are quite insistent on the alive part, so I guess that will be important later. Then, a bunch of stuff happens that isn’t fundamental to the plot but I will briefly summarize. Grace gets a tip about the Graydale meeting - a fact she shares with Cat - and decides to show up at the bar looking for Vincent. Out of desperation, Cat crashes Tess’s date and convinces her to order a raid at the bar to give V the opportunity to escape Grace [because a “get out of there” text wouldn’t have sufficed?]

All this unnecessary plot twists basically bring V back home where Cat informs them about their new precarious relationship with mass media and convinces him that they need to get out of town and go to the CABIN OF BEAST EPIPHANIES. It’s there that FINALLY Cat says what should have been obvious 9 episodes ago. Whatever happens, they will never be able to recuperate their “normal life”. In Cat’s words “Normal is lost”. Sad, but true. This epiphany leads to Cat suggesting that telling Grace their story may not be the worst option. And you know what? I said ‘Why the hell not?’ It’s not like they had many other options, so I was actually on board with the plan.

And here is where the plot gets more circular than a badly written excel formula. Tahmoh follows Grace, who leads him to Cat, who leads him to “the beast” who… shocker, turns out to be his new Graydale colleague. Now let me ask you this. Why was this news to Tahmoh? Didn’t anyone think of running a background check on Vincent before letting him be a part of Graydale’s operations. Surely it would have been easy to find out that he was married to Cat (a DHS agent) and that he was a suspect in Hill’s murder! Which led straight to a connection to “the beast”. [I am really confused about this and can’t be bothered to go back and watch all Graydale scenes, so if you have the answer do let me know in the comments]

Elsewhere, Tess was starting to contemplate a beast-less life, but still struggling with the moral implications of her past actions. She seeks comfort in her new beau by asking him a hypothetical question in the form of “my friend is a good cop but broke the law for good reasons”. She was obviously talking about herself but ADA handsome didn’t seem to notice [Seriously, dude there is NEVER a friend], so he tells Tess that her “friend” should be arrested and that the world has no shades of gray or something along those lines. This makes Tess suddenly feel all guilty and decide to quit being a cop, but JT convinces her not to do it by promising to keep her away from all things beast. JT’s promise was kind of sweet, but this storyline was ANOTHER circle that ended in the exact same place. Tess is a cop, she doesn’t want to be involved in beast stuff.

BACK TO THE CABIN OF PREDICTABLE DEMISES. Vincat ask Grace to come over and they tell her their story but do a crappy job at explaining Vincent’s motives. [You’d think they would have coordinated their story before Grace arrived, right?]. Grace is not sold, so she threatens to leave, which pushes V to reveal his true nature. But Grace’s beast awakening is interrupted when Tahmoh crashes the party and goes into a shooting spree. Grace gets shot and dies, shocking precisely NO-ONE. There goes their last beast-redemption hope.

V runs away into the woods to lure Tahmoh away from Cat. This week Vincent has no trouble being “faster than a speeding bullet” [unlike when he was shot by the accountant], but Tahmoh came prepared with… a net. Yes, a net. That was the beast’s undoing. A NET. So, anyway, Tahmoh catches Vincent with the net and texts the big bad to let him/her know he has the most wanted beast in the world. All seems lost until Cat arrives and points her gun at Tahmoh. He goes all cocky-mercenary on her and calls her bluff, concluding she is too good to kill him. And Cat actually lowers her gun [which was incredibly stupid]. It takes Tahmoh less than a second to pull his gun and shoot Cat, she evades the bullet and this time she shoots Tahmoh dead. But it was in self-defense, so “Cat is still a good person”, which felt like an overly simplistic set-up, in my opinion.

 

Random Thoughts

• I wonder if people don’t run background checks on V/don’t fire him from jobs because he is so good looking.
• Vincat keep talking about “normal”, but to be fair, how long did they actually have a “normal” life? Probably for a few months between seasons at most. Technically, they never really had normal. And it was kind of their thing…Cat didn’t “need walls or doors” her normal was when she was with him. So, even though I understand the impulse to aim for “normal”, I think it should have been established by now that they ain’t getting it.
• Reporter “Grace” kept making me think of Grace Park, wouldn’t it have been cool if she had played Grace Rose? [raise your hand if you are geeky enough to get why that would be cool]
• I think it would have been 10 times more poignant if Cat had just shot Tahmoh from the get go. He was baiting her and what he said was right. She had no choice, to save Vincent she HAD to kill him. She couldn’t let him go, she couldn’t arrest him, she had to kill him. And I think Cat loves V enough to actually do it. Plus the moral implications would have been better (and yes grayer). The self-defence thing felt like a cop out to me.