Beauty and the Beast - Recap: My Funny Valentine
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Recap and review of Beauty and the Beast - Season 2 Episode 13 - Till Death:
Trust is a hard thing to earn, and an even harder thing to maintain. And once it's lost, it's a long road to winning that trust back, if you can win it back at all. It was Ernest Hemingway who famously posited, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them,” but the characters here constantly face barriers to that impulse due to past actions on the part of the people asking to be trusted. "Till Death" is a solid episode of Beauty and the Beast for how illustrates that while it's easy enough to forgive, it's virtually impossible to ever truly forget. Whether or not Gabe (Sendhil Ramamurthy) is what he appears to be, it makes perfect sense, given his actions last season, for Cat (Kristin Kreuk) to have doubts. But this episode is about more than that, as we explore how trust is compromised by those whom we least expect. All told, I found this to be an engaging hour of TV, thanks largely to a theme that worked on both surface and subtextual levels, since sometimes being trusted is every bit as valuable as being loved.
Credit: The CW
So the hunt for the real Tony Barnes continues, although Cat and Tess (Nina Lisandrello) can't really work on the case directly, since their new boss is giving them a hard time for closing so few cases over the past year (which I took as a kind of meta-joke about how little actual, rank-and-file crime-solving Cat and Tess have accomplished since the show moved away from being a "Case of the Week" police procedural midway through season one and instead became a straight-up serialized drama; one of the show's smartest decisions, by the way). And so Cat drafts Vincent (Jay Ryan) to look into a series of perplexing clues that she's encountered: during an innocent coffee date in the catacombs, Cat spills her coffee into a crack in the ground, and the dripping sound coming from the other side implies that there's some kind of cave hidden underneath. When she and Vincent investigate the cave, they discover a furnace housing incinerated human bones. Basically, there's no way that Sam (Tom Everett Scott) could have been imprisoned for over five years without having the smell of scorched flesh seared into his memory, and so Cat hauls him in for interrogation, since Tess has used a loophole to get the Barnes case officially added to their workload. Once there, Sam recalls the presence of a dark-haired associate of Barnes whom he identifies from a photo hanging in the precinct: Gabe.
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Naturally, this plays directly into Cat's inherent distrust of Gabe, since she's started to have flashbacks to his time as a beast last season, when he not only tried to kill Vincent but also succeeded in holding her hostage. These flashbacks are a pretty helpful visual aid, if only because it's easy to forget just how bad Gabe used to be; which is not to say he might not still be bad now, since so much of the episode relies on fans' similar distrust of Gabe. I've been a fairly big Gabe defender this season; I have no real desire to see him with Catherine at all, but that doesn't mean I think he's a bad guy. At least not this season. Chalk it up to Sendhil Ramamurthy's earnest, forthright performance, but I've come to believe Gabe truly does want to make amends for his past actions. But I'm generally on an island alone on that stance, for the most part, and "Till Death" suggests that maybe I'm wrong for being so trusting. The episode takes a hatchet to Gabe's innocent excuses: we see him getting a new passport photo while giving Cat some glib excuse about why he can't help her obtain a warrant for Sam's apartment, and he later explains this away by saying he had planned on taking her to Mexico for Valentine's Day, and needed to renew his passport for the trip. At the very least, this explains away the suspicious-looking transaction for plane tickets to Mexico that Vincent and J.T. (Austin Basis) discover. But this doesn't really explain why the burned bones in the cave all belong to people who grew up with Gabe in the same orphanage. Nor does it explain why he has a vial of J.T.'s beast serum hidden under the desk in his own apartment, and it's a discovery that pits Gabe and Vincent against each other, with Catherine firmly in the middle.
Credit: The CW
Credit: The CW
In a peculiar bit of character rationalizing, Vincent had been spending much of the episode, up to that point, defending Gabe to Cat. In his opinion, Cat is using Gabe's past actions as a rationalization for why she doesn't trust him, when it's really a matter of Cat being overcome by her own fear of getting hurt. Vincent is trying to play the friend role, and he does a pretty good job of it, even if Cat doesn't think so, as he lends her an ear for her grievances while also providing real talk about the excuses she's making for herself as a defense against intimacy. Of course, as Vincent reveals to J.T., this friendship is exceedingly difficult, since he's still in love with Cat. It's a realization Vincent spends most of the episode fighting against, as his guilt over Tori's death is still as potent now as it was last week. But J.T. stirs him towards the recognition that his feelings haven't gone away; if anything, they've resurfaced all the stronger (and because he's J.T., he explains Tori's dying words by awesomely equating them to Eponine's "Little Fall of Rain" from Les Miserables. I swear, J.T. Forbes is a man for all seasons).
Credit: The CW
Credit: The CW
Although he does his best to bury his feelings and convince Cat to give Gabe a second chance, in order to not only give her the stable relationship he couldn't provide, but also to take the romantic option of Cat off the table so he can be a better friend to her, Vincent immediately jumps to Cat's defense after discovering the vial of beast serum in Gabe's apartment. He demands to know the truth, but Gabe seems as confused about the discovery as everyone else. Worse, he's outright offended that Cat would distrust him after all he's done to prove to her that he's changed. Gabe looks into Vincent's eyes and tells him, beast-to-beast, that he never set eyes on that vial in his life, and it's an admission Vincent has no choice to believe, since he would have been able to detect Gabe's lie with his abilities (however, in a throwaway line of dialogue, Cat mentions, when referencing the possibility of other beasts being out there, that a former beast would know best how to avoid another beast's methods of detection. Did Gabe just game the system?). Cat tries to make amends, and I just kept waiting for the moment at which Gabe's true colors would be revealed. Lord knows, the story offers plenty of opportunities for a possible betrayal, by having Gabe come up with a plan to play the villain in order to lure Sam into a false sense of security. The working theory for our heroes is that Sam is the one behind everything, and that he's framing Gabe to play on his past as a beast, along with the unfortunate Muirfield connections that past entails. But not everything seems that cut-and-dry...
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Sam and Dana (Elisabeth Röhm) are renewing their wedding vows in upstate New York and invite Cat, Vincent, Tess and the others under the pretenses of providing security, since an attempt was made on Sam's life. This subplot gives us a bit of background into the marriage of Sam and Agent Landon, as their relationship went through an unfathomable hardship when their nine-year-old son, Adam, passed away from leukemia. Or, rather, he passed away from complications surrounding a clinical trial spearheaded by Sam. This clinical trial ends up being a key piece of evidence: earlier in the episode, Dana recalls having heard the name Frank Darnell (the fake Tony Barnes from last week) before. As we inevitably learn, Darnell was on the board of trustees for the clinical trial, and Dana would have inevitably come into contact with the man, explaining how she knew the name. While this doesn't really explain Sam's motives for capturing beasts or why he'd pretend to be a captive (unless he was simply brainwashed by the real Barnes, since I'm not sure if the show was trying to sell us on the idea that Sam was the real Tony Barnes), it does illustrate that Sam is the guy they should be going after. And so it is, as Vincent and co. attend the vow renewal, only to discover a bomb underneath the chapel. Gabe tracks Vincent down to the corridor with the bomb, and the episode does a tremendous job building this shadowy tension around Gabe. I swear, I expected him to make a move on Vincent and reveal that he was somehow responsible for planting the bomb, and I admit that while I brought some of my own uneasy dread into that narrative, the cinematography does a great job of subconsciously prompting us to suspicion: when Gabe isn't being filmed at long angles, he's being filmed in shadow, cloaked by darkness so that at least half of his face is concealed, hinting at a dual nature yet to be revealed.
Credit: The CW
But all that doubt doesn't amount to anything, as it's revealed that Sam really did plant the bomb, and he really does plan on detonating it at the wedding ceremony (although he plans on sparing Dana, because he loves her every bit as much as she trusts him). Gabe comes up with the idea to simply let the bomb go off, since Sam would realize he'd been found out otherwise. But Gabe takes it a step further, pulling Sam aside and confronting him with everything he knows, and basically reaming him out for the whole frame-up job. And if Gabe's innocence wasn't sealed before, this scene pretty much convinces me, since there would be no reason for him to continue keeping up the charade of innocence when he isn't being observed by anyone. Of course, I've been completely wrong about these sorts of things before, so I'll be interested to read your theories in the comments, since you guys tend to be far cleverer about these sorts of things. But if he were guilty, I also don't think Gabe would willingly be hanging around when the bomb goes off: he searches for Cat while Sam detonates the bomb using the trigger hidden in the box for his wedding ring, and it would have been the end for both Cat and Gabe if not for Vincent, who zooms in at superhuman beast-speed, and sends them all crashing through a window onto the snowy ground below, right as the bomb goes off.
Credit: The CW
Credit: The CW
It's not all that much of an action climax for the episode, but it more than gets the job done, as we now have an intriguing story arc for the next several episodes: in keeping Sam in play, everyone is going to pretend they don't know about his dark side. The cops will tell Sam that not only did Gabe die in the blast, Dana did too. Both are lies, naturally, but they're necessary to get Sam believing that he hasn't been found out just yet. Of course, this ignores the heartrending realization Dana makes, as she comes to recognize that the man she loved truly died six years ago; she has no idea who this Sam is, and can't comprehend having placed all of her unthinking trust into a man who would be capable of detonating a bomb in a crowded chapel (thankfully, Tess and J.T. evacuated the building in time, but Sam's intent was clearly to cause way more damage than just a ruined infrastructure). In brief, the scene further elucidates the theme of trust and whether it can ever truly be regained: Cat can identify with both sides of the argument, as she's had issues trusting others (Vincent, Gabe) while also having difficulty regaining the trust of others (as evidenced by Gabe's borderline disgust with her mistrust). Yet Cat decides that, much like with the Hemingway quote above, the only way to trust someone is to actually trust them. She recognizes that getting hurt is the risk you take in choosing to trust, and it's a risk the other person takes in trusting you. Gabe promises he'll never hurt Cat, and whether that bears out or not, it's enough that Cat believes it.
Credit: The CW
Credit: The CW
But this doesn't really help Vincent, whose love for Cat isn't going anywhere. Nor is J.T.'s love for Tess, as an amusing subplot sees him trying to win her affections by sending her flowers and, when that doesn't work, calling in a fake case she can receive credit for having solved. These romantic complications would be difficult enough for Vincent and J.T., except this is all happening on Valentine's Day, and so emotions are understandably high, particularly after Vincent talks Gabe into giving Cat another chance (after delivering a bravura speech about actually being a good friend to Cat by looking out for her the way a real friend should), only to then spy them kissing through the window of the lodge. He travels off into the snow, a lonely man, but one who's allowing his solitude to stand for the good of a woman whose heart he broke; by accepting his loneliness and braving Cat's new relationship as her friend, he feels he's giving her the second chance she deserves. Whether Gabe is worthy of being Cat's second chance remains to be seen. That's the thing about trust, generally. You never know if someone is unworthy of it until you find out they aren't.
Credit: The CW
Credit: The CW
"Till Death" is a strong examination of the taciturn nature of trust, how it is accumulated, how it is maintained, how it is lost and regained. Beauty and the Beast is getting into headier thematic territory as the season rolls on, as the show asks us just how well we feel we know these characters. Can we really trust Gabe? Is the old Vincent back? Does Cat actually want a relationship with Gabe, or is she convincing herself that this is the only way she can move on from Vincent? Do she even know, one way or the other? It's dramatically rich that the characters themselves might not even be entirely sure where they stand, as it opens up a slew of different story possibilities for the future.