Beauty and the Beast - Recap: VindiCated
Recap and review of Beauty and the Beast - Season 2 Episode 11 - Held Hostage:
If last week's episode of Beauty and the Beast was about Vincent's gradual descent into darkness, this week's episode was about vindicating the fans who never lost faith that he would eventually go back to being the Vincent Keller of old. Granted, he isn't all the way there yet, but "Held Hostage" posits that there's more of that old Vincent in there than even he himself realizes. It's a potent bit of character development, and it's the centerpiece of an episode that is basically a containment thriller, as our characters are all trapped in the precinct and held hostage by the same group of armed thugs that attempted to steal the gem back at the curios shop (well, not the exact same group, but they're pretty much from the same shadowy organization. And between these guys and Muirfield, I'm guessing New York is some kind of melting pot where shady-ass men hatch shadier-ass plans). Over the course of the hour, Beauty and the Beast pretty much becomes a mini action movie, and I can't really say I was surprised at how well it worked, since it forced the characters into a situation where they had no choice but to address the lingering issues between them. "Held Hostage" depicts the search for closure, as well as the eventual realization that gaining closure doesn't necessarily mean one has to move on. Sometimes closure simply means you can let go of old feelings, and approach the situation again from a new perspective.
Credit: The CW
We open the episode to find that Cat (Kristin Kreuk) is genuinely considering a relationship with Gabe (Sendhil Ramamurthy), apparently having been charmed by the fact that he went through the trouble of buying a banner for the birthday party they're throwing for Tess (Nina Lisandrello). However, while Gabe's heart is eager to dive in, his head is telling him Cat isn't ready. Thus begins the episode-long character arc in which Cat is constantly confronted with her "unresolved" issues, accused of being incapable of moving past Vincent, despite her insistence that he's old news. Of course, whether she has moved on or not, it doesn't help Cat to have to see Vincent (Jay Ryan) on the front page of the tabloids with Tori (Amber Skye Noyes), who is flagrantly wearing the gem to social events covered by the media. Things get worse soon enough, as Agent Landon (Elisabeth Röhm) has seen the tabloids in question, and wants Cat and Tess to arrest Tori for possession of stolen property. But it turns out that having Tori wear the necklace in public wasn't some brazenly stupid mistake on Vincent's part, but rather a calculated ploy to lure out the mysterious group that's after the gem. Vincent is hoping he can take one of the henchmen and interrogate them, learn who they work for, and discover what he or she wants. And hey, it's a plan that almost works -- until Cat, Tess, and Gabe blow it by showing up to arrest Tori, leading to a tense standoff after Tori mistakenly attacks Cat. Tori is arrested and hauled off, while Vincent and Gabe stay behind and are nearly killed by the mercenary group, which suddenly shows up after all, since that's exactly the kind of luck these two have.
Image: Beauty and the Beast - Recap and Review - Season 2 Episode 11 - Held Hostage
Credit: The CW
The split storytelling of this first act of the episode mostly works to illustrate the different ways in which Vincent and Cat are working (or not working) through their breakup. Gabe tells Vincent that watching him and Cat fight is like watching a couple going through a divorce. In his analogy, Gabe likens the necklace to a beach house they're both fighting over, with Gabe rationalizing that if Vincent were to just "let her have the beach house," he'd find Cat far more agreeable. However, Vincent has no real interest in giving up the necklace, not even after he learns that Cat's ancestor has a connection to the mysterious artifact. The two men reach a standstill, and nothing whatsoever can be done about it. Ultimately, Gabe's attempts to get to the root of Vincent's unresolved issues don't work, but at least Gabe works with a lighter touch than Tori: back at the precinct, Tori basically rubs it in Cat's face that she's gotten to go on public dates with Vincent while Cat's relationship with him was confined entirely to the shadows. She accuses Cat of being jealous of the "primal" connection she and Vincent share, and if battle lines hadn't been drawn before, Tori pretty much toes a line in the sand right then and there.
Credit: The CW
Credit: The CW
But they don't really have time to work through the issue, as the precinct comes under attack from the band of rogues seeking the necklace for their mysterious boss. The bad guys infiltrate the precinct disguised as NYPD officers, which is kind of a ridiculous conceit, but whatever, I'm onboard. Tess, Landon, Cat and the rest of the precinct are placed in handcuffs, while Tori -- having earlier been tranquilized by Cat (just roll with it) -- is tossed into a jail cell after she failed to control her beast side and attacked one of the hostage-takers. Cat volunteers to keep a watch over Tori in her cell, and like that, we have our divisions: Tori and Cat in the cell, Tess and Landon in the precinct, Gabe monitoring things from the outside, and Vincent infiltrating via the air ducts. The stakes are pretty high, even though I never really bought that anyone of any importance was going to die. The hostage-takers shoot and kill kindly old officer Freddie, but he was a goner the minute they started giving him screentime, since these guys needed to kill someone to establish their threat, and it certainly wasn't going to be the Drunk Tank Guy (for reasons we'll get to later).
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So Tori eventually uses her beast powers to break free of her restraints and escape the cell, but not before killing the guard and leaving Cat behind. In some ways, you could argue that Vincent has been a positively terrible influence on her, and vice-versa. Vincent's recent nonchalance when it comes to killing is reflected in the flippant approach Tori takes to twisting people's necks like bottle caps. Similarly, Tori's brash nature seems to affect Vincent by making him a bit more callous. I don't think it's a coincidence that he starts to become more like the Vincent Keller we used to know once he's separated from Tori for longer than just a few minutes. And this crucial turning point comes about halfway through the episode, as Cat tracks Tori down only to find that she's retrieved the necklace from one of the rogues by snapping his neck.
Credit: The CW
Cat tries to plead with Tori to help rescue the other hostages, but the beast side of her is having none of it. And so we get the throwdown that's been a long time coming, as Cat and Tori brawl in the crowded storage room. Cat quickly gets the better of Tori, knocking her out cold with a well-placed kick. Vincent arrives to find that Cat has somehow managed to knock a Beast unconscious, and he's every bit as perplexed as she is, wondering if perhaps her talent for incapacitating beasts might have some connection to her ancestor. It's a theory that's ultimately more interesting than the truth, as I was totally read to hop aboard the "Cat is special too!" train before we learned the actual truth. But before we can get to that reveal, Vincent and Cat have some things to work through...
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Vincent lays out his rationale for why he's been so strenuously working against Cat, at least where the necklace is concerned. He feels he's essentially been wronged by Cat's entire family tree: her mother altered his DNA, her father tried to use him as a private assassin, and Cat -- well, Vincent clearly hasn't taken their breakup well at all, as it's fairly clear that Cat still means a lot more to him than he's leading on. In Vincent's mind, Cat's attempts to obtain the necklace are less the act of a woman attempting to do the right thing, and more an act of sabotage against him. Of course, it's not entirely fair for him to see it this way, since I don't think anything Cat has done in trying to retrieve the necklace has been out of personal malice. But that's kind of the entire point. Vincent isn't thinking clearly, and he hasn't been for a long-ass time, and so he's processing his emotions in a different way, filtering his pain through an emotion that matches the anger boiling beneath the surface: betrayal. If he can rationalize what was done to him as a betrayal on Cat's part, then he can paint Cat as the bad guy, allowing him to avoid having to confront the fact that he still has feelings for her.
Credit: The CW
This is a character arc that's built into the climax, as Vincent obtains the necklace and could easily leave, but has a crisis of conscience when Tess is taken at gunpoint by one of the hostage-takers, who threatens to blow her brains out in 15 seconds unless the necklace is returned. Cat crouches in a safe spot and essentially starts praying to Vincent, whom she suspects can hear her, pleading with him to do what's right, and apologizing for everything that's happened between them. She even goes as far as to admit that she does have unresolved issues, and this recognition suggests that Cat really isn't past Vincent at all. I mean, I'm not sure anyone really expected she was, or really ever could be (at least not 100%), but this moment served to get the show back on the track towards reuniting Vincent and Cat, as the two seem to share an awareness now that they're far from over each other. And so Vincent returns to save the day, although we later learn that it was a decision he made independent of Cat's "prayer," which he didn't even hear. Although he tries to say he only returned because Cat guilt-tripped him earlier about no longer being the Vincent she knew, one could argue that it was a more introspective realization. Perhaps it's as simple as Vincent recognizing that he didn't like what he'd become. Maybe a stretch, but then, I get paid to play armchair psychologist for TV shows I love, so I might as well give it a shot for #BATB.
Credit: The CW
And so we get our dramatic finale, as Cat cuts the lights and Vincent beasts out, beating up the remaining hostage-takers -- at least until one of them gets the upper hand on him, and it's at this point that Cat realizes it's the necklace that's inhibiting the beast power (i.e., it's pretty much kryptonite). So Cat tells Vincent to toss away the necklace to get his strength back. He does, and he quickly regains his power, grabbing one of the hostage-takers by the throat and forcing him to spill the beans about his master. But the grunt refuses to name names, and it's just as well, as he's put out of his misery by an unseen sniper under the mysterious boss's employ just moments later (Vincent helpfully tackles Cat to keep her out of harm's way, in a moment that says more about his true feelings than perhaps he intended to convey). So it's a total pro/con situation. Pro: Vincent and Cat save the day. Con: They're no closer to solving the mystery of who's after the gem than they were before. But on the plus side, they're back to being friends, at least, as Vincent recognizes that there's no way for either of them to succeed without the other.
Credit: The CW
In Vincent's estimation, they need to work together to discover the truth about the gem, and bring down whoever is after the artifact. Granted, their mission might be going a whole lot smoother if they could actually find the damn thing, but the necklace seemingly vanished during the commotion after Vincent tossed it away, and this was where I was knocking myself for not seeing the twist coming: the Drunk Tank Guy, who spends most of the episode passed out on the floor in a drunken stupor, is revealed to be one of the henchmen in disguise, simply playing the role of a drunk in order to get close to the necklace. He's the one who swiped it off the floor, and we see him handing off the artifact to his boss, who remains completely concealed (although I guess, from the looks of that arm, we can assume the boss is male. Hey, that's progress, I suppose).
Credit: The CW
Yet "Held Hostage" is less interesting for the story itself than it is for the implications of that story. Cat and Vincent have made amends, and it provides closure on the tumultuous end to their first relationship, but it's hard to imagine that the sudden clarity that closure gives them won't provide a potential starting point for a new relationship. Cat tells Gabe that she can't pursue a relationship right now because she needs to find herself, and although Gabe says he's willing to wait for her, I wonder if he might not end up waiting an awfully long time (poor, handsome guy). Vincent, meanwhile, seems to be trying to take Tori's feelings into consideration, opting to take her home instead of accompanying the rest of the group to the bar for Tess's birthday party. As Gabe later admits, it appears Vincent was the one with the real unresolved issues, and it seems apparent that while Cat has found peace with the rocky nature of their first courtship, Vincent is still working it out. It should be interesting to see how the two move forward as friends and allies first, and how long it'll take before it begins to inevitably blossom into something more. Regardless of how long it takes, I enjoyed Vincent and Cat's rapport here, as Ryan and Kreuk have built a warm, lived-in chemistry over the past two years. I'll go to my grave contending that those two are much better actors than some critics will ever give them credit for, and episodes like this certainly help their case.
Credit: The CW
"Held Hostage" is a pretty terrific hour from start-to-finish, as it gives nearly the entire ensemble things of note to do. Even birthday girl Tess gets a fairly poignant subplot in which Landon profiles her, pegging her as someone who makes a big deal out of her birthday because she's someone who's rarely ever been the center of attention (well, except for that time J.T. told her she was gorgeous, and offered her a brainy makeout buddy. And on that note, WHERE IN THE GOLDEN HELL WAS J.T.?! I'm sorry for the outburst, but seriously now, J.T. is my jam. This absence cannot abide). All in all, the past two weeks have me exceedingly confident in the show's direction: while the focus is on character above plot, the plots themselves are far from shabby themselves, at least in my opinion. Beauty and the Beast is taking a similar approach to its storytelling as its leads are taking towards their rekindled connection: tackling familiar issues from a fresh perspective.