Beauty and The Beast: S01E08 - Trapped.

And so we arrive at the end of another midweek TV clusterfuck. No Supernatural now until next year and next week will be my last Arrow review. Anyway, Beauty and The Beast!


JT uses a drug cocktail to allow Vincent to get back his suppressed memories, allowing both Vincent and us, the audience to learn more about his whole super steroid soldier program and how quickly everything turned to shit. It's nice that the show largely gets on with things, the whole 'why am I blacking out, I must discover my past' stuff is the kind of stuff American TV producers like to stretch over several seasons, piling on the questions without providing any real answers, this is a show happy to provide answers, while still keeping an air of mystery sustained. Like we learn that Cat's Mum really was involved with these experiments, but we don't really learn how much so, so we can feel satisfied here but with enough room to have it explored in later episodes.

The flashbacks also feature the lovely Bianca Lawson playing Lafferty - one of the soldiers with Vincent in Afghanistan, who doesn't take to the super soldier steroid well at all and sadly vanishes as quickly as she comes, I really do hope we get more of her in the future, maybe as a potential villain, since we've yet to see anyone really match or challenge monster Vincent, meaning so far the greatest threat he has had is himself. This is fine for now but actual villains with actual provided threat need to step up eventually to keep things interesting. And no, the agents don't count, Vincent monstered out and annihilated them with ease.

Thankfully what Cat's Mum does provide us with, is the knowledge that Cat isn't the reason for the blackouts at all, it's just a random side effect of the steroid. So that means Cat and Vincent can finally fucking get together, until the writers make up another bullshit reason to stop it. I mean hell it's only taken eight episodes for our central couple to get together but you know, whatever.

What Cat's Mum also provides, is a cure which Cat stumbles across in a notebook, only problem is...to make it, they have to break into the police station and of course plot devices say this can't go smoothly, so JT gets caught to further increase Evan's paranoia. After Cat saves JT from monster Vincent, Vincent decides to inject himself with the cure, without being tested first - but of course the serum worked...well for now, with how much this show likes to shit on Vincent, who knows what twisted ways this will fuck him up in the future.

This weeks case is hilarious in how little it has to do with anything, I really don't know why it is here. Cat is busy moving the plot along, so she walks out of the case plot for long stretches, just to walk back in and be caught up to where the audience already are, just to walk back out again and get on with the actual plot, it's pointless. It involves a Justin Bieber rip off almost getting assassinated. The rip off is a seemingly deliberate parody of the kind of sensationalised hatred on those kind of performers and so he becomes pretty amusing in the process. This leads Vargas into discovering just how far a manager will go, to sell records, eventually leading her to kick the shit out of a hitman, which is pretty awesome.

Sadly, despite the show constantly telling us that Evan is obsessed and traumatised by what happened to him last week, it never shows us it. Evan is just the same in this episode as he has been in any other, I was really hoping last week would change his character, give him some sense of identity. But, nope! Although he does get to work on a case with Cat, which was fun but also kind of sad too, he was clearly enjoying himself and had no idea that Cat was just using him. She is so horrible to this guy and this guy doesn't have an ounce of nasty in his being.

Although there is little in the way of action this week, the episode comes together thrillingly with a certain amount of cheese too, to give it that traditional, Hollywood happy ending. We both simultaneously learn who the killer of the week is and get to see him have the shit beaten out of him by Vargas, have JT fight for his life against Monster Vincent and Vincent having his most epic flashback yet. The juxtaposition of all the action at once is awesome and we have some of the best monster effects this week too.

This show is simply getting better and better, as ever the case of the week crap is largely the main thing letting the show down, especially during an episode that is trying to move the plot forwards but pointless cases aside, this was another strong episode for the series, a series which is easily turning into my favourite one that I do on this blog.

Pros;

• No cockteasing, the show just gets the fuck on with it, without handing us everything on a platter. This shows the kind of strong writing so many American shows lack, who only care about money and have no interest in story integrity.
• Bianca Lawson! 
• Will Cat and Vincent finally get fucking together?
• Jake Riley was kinda funny.
• It wraps up awesomely. 
• Evan is so lovely. 
• This show is just getting better and better.
• Vargas gets to kick some ass!

Cons;

• Bianca Lawson needs more screentime! 
• Vincent needs a genuine threat, other than himself, or this show will get stale quickly.
• Since Equilibrium is largely found in this episode and we aren't even at any kind of midseason finale, I'm just waiting for Vincent to get shit on.
• The cases of the week are so fucking pointless, why are they still here?
• Cat needs to treat Evan better!

Think About It!

-Locke