Beauty and the Beast - Recap: Just Trust Me, Okay

But "Cat and Mouse" is much more interesting and complex than all that. The characters are no longer the ones being asked to "Just trust me, okay?", as Vincent (Jay Ryan) asks of Cat (Kristin Kreuk) in the climax of tonight's episode. Now the audience is being roped into the game: we're forced to question whether a possible lifeline offered to Vincent and Cat is legitimate, while also coming to grips with the possibility that Tess (Nina Lisandrello) is firmly, as a matter of unfortunate necessity, on Team Gabe (Sendhil Ramamurthy). Things are pretty bleak for VinCat as the episode rolls on, but the inherent sense of danger is also what makes it thrilling. It's hard to imagine how the rest of the season will top this, given that this easily could have served as a season finale. Was it the best of the season? Eh, I'd have to think about it. But, for the most part, this was among the most breathless, narratively propulsive episodes of the season. Seriously, this moved at the speed of light, with only those crucial questions of trust, and the ongoing threat to VinCat's stability, to ground us.

Credit: The CW

So before I get to the proper review, here's the deal: I'm on the road for the next two weeks for a work project that I can't really discuss, but which I'd love to share with you all someday. Of course, the issue here is that, while I'm gone, I won't have consistent internet access, which will make it difficult to...well, do my job. This means I, unfortunately, won't get to be live-tweeting with you all. Moreover, my reviews will be a bit late. And due to the rigid time schedule I'm on, they'll also be a bit shorter than the usual massive tomes of reviews past. But I do plan on making it up to you after I return. Once the season ends, I plan on doing another special article in the vein of my "Five Reasons BATB Deserves a Third Season" editorial. I'm not sure what it will be about just yet, maybe a retrospective of the season, or a thematic analysis of where the show has gone and where it could be going in season three (still so stoked to be typing that, even if we do have to wait until midseason for new episodes). Either way, I want to interact with ya'll more, even if I can't always get back to everybody. Anyway, I'm mostly just going to touch on what I thought were the highlights of the episode, from both a dramatic and thematic standpoint. Let's get to it:

Credit: The CW

"Just Trust Me, Okay?":

So here's the deal with trust: Even while you might end up getting bitten in the ass by putting your faith in the wrong person, the person who inevitably wronged you might not always have had bad intentions in betraying you. Granted, by the end of "Cat and Mouse," it becomes pretty apparent that Gabe no longer has Cat's well-being at heart. That is, if he ever truly had her best interests at heart at all. Instead, his goal to remove Vincent from the equation is less about keeping Cat safe than it is about exacting revenge on the man who won the heart of the woman he loves. It's bitterness, put plain and simple. Sure, Gabe used to have the armor of "Well, I'm doing this because Vincent is putting Cat in greater danger with each extra day they're together." And he might not have been far off the mark (although it's not as though Vincent WANTS Cat to be in danger. And hey, they're both grown adults. If they want to be with each other, even with all the danger that relationship implies, Gabe should probably just suck it up and step off).

Credit: The CW

But now? Gabe basically comes across as a sore loser, and that's a bit of a shame since I think he's not as one-dimensional as all that. Of course, my issues with the story are immediately offset by the strength of Ramamurthy's performance. The man was just born to play righteous villainy, and he makes an excellent foil for Ryan and Kreuk -- the latter, in particularly, as she gets to punch him square in the mouth after learning he ratted Vincent out to the Department of Justice and got his exoneration rescinded. We'll get to that in a bit, but the big takeaway here is that Gabe's manhunt for Vincent has caused a rift in our team, as Gabe forces Tess to choose sides. Will she help Vincent and Cat continue to elude law enforcement, even as her superiors are beginning to suspect Cat isn't exactly an unwilling accomplice? Or will she turn Vincent in to spare Cat from a possible prison sentence?

Either decision Tess makes carries real weight: on the one hand, she would essentially betray the principles of justice for which her badge stands; but in upholding the law, she also would be condemning her best friend to misery. Sure, Cat would be free, but Vincent wouldn't be. And I'm not sure Cat wouldn't see that as worse than just going to prison herself. Now, one of the things I find interesting is how J.T. (Austin Basis) and Cat insist to their interrogators, at various points of the episode, that Vincent is innocent of killing Curt Windsor. They insist it was self-defense, and that he's a fugitive wronged by the legal system. But here's the thing...it's not exactly true.

Credit: The CW

I mean, yeah, Vincent did have to stop Windsor. But he was completely in control of that situation when it went down. In essence, he didn't have to kill Windsor. However, he allowed his beastly urges to take over, and in the blink of an eye, he had another man's bloody, beating heart in his hand. Taking this approach with the story makes it more of an ironic struggle for justice, as we're rooting for Vincent to be cleared of a crime he actually did commit. And we're not at all ashamed for it, because it's the difference between having this season end with Vincent and Cat finally achieving what they've been pursuing all season (each other), or continuing the seemingly endless cycle of missed connections. With that sort of choice, we're obviously going to side with Vincent, and the audience is clearly going to want to believe that the FBI is telling the truth when they offer one last, desperate lifeline to an even more desperate VinCat...

Credit: The CW

Because the FBI Abducts People, I Guess

Yes, one of the tests the audience is asked to undergo is in assessing whether Cat's abductors from last week, both of whom claim to be FBI agents who had to abduct her to circumvent the NYPD/SWAT forces surrounding her building, are telling the truth when they offer her a way to exonerate Vincent. It's a bit of a complicated plan, as Cat must infiltrate a terrorist cell operating within the U.N. building to rescue an agent whose cover was blown. But the setup isn't as important as what results from it, as we get one of my favorite extended sequences in the series: the U.N. caper.

Credit: The CW

Nothing about it should work, from Cat's insane plan to allow herself to be captured, to Vincent's last-minute decision to have Cat jump into the East River with him to escape a gun-wielding terrorist madman. It's so tightly shot and edited that it feels vaguely cinematic. Cat's fight sequence in the hallway with the terrorists alone is great stuff, but there's a general mood about the piece, one of adventure but also desperation. This is, presumably, Vincent and Cat's last chance to clear Vincent's name, as the FBI agent in question, Knox, delivers a written promise of exoneration that he will hand over to the couple once they rescue the marooned agent. Again, there's almost no reason this plan should work, but several key factors go their way...

Credit: The CW

1) Tess reveals (in a double-fake) that she hasn't actually sided with Gabe, and has instead remained firmly on Team VinCat by feeding Gabe doctored security cam footage that links back to the A.D.A.'s own private computer. This means if Gabe tries to bust Tess for helping Vincent and Cat, he'll be implicating himself in the process. (This twist has the added effect of further deepening Tess and J.T.'s relationship, as they prove to have a rapport and trust with one another that's reflected in the trust shown by Cat towards Vincent in the climax).

2) Vincent is able to catch the closing parking garage door just in the nick of time. Using his beast powers, he is able to hold the door long enough for the imprisoned agent to escape, although he can't keep it open for himself and Cat.

3) Not that this is a problem, as the couple is able to make it to an office in the top floor, jumping through a window and into the East River to escape. If nothing else, they were lucky to have found an office so amenable to Vincent's impromptu plan, but also lucky to have been up against a terrorist cell who all seemed, to a man, in positively unfortunate shape. This meant that the leader of the cell was too slow to catch up to Vincent and Cat in time. Granted, it's not like the guy was fat or anything, but every single member of that cell seemed to just be a normal, regular guy. To an astonishing degree. (Okay, I'm kind of stretching with this one, but hey, if those were Foot Soldiers or something, they'd have been screwed!)

So after spending the episode hemming-and-hawing over whether it's best for Vincent to go on the run, or if he and Cat should stand and fight together, they decide to remain together. And it's an earned conclusion, since they've been through so much in this episode alone, including having Vincent's exoneration rescinded by Knox's superiors due to Gabe pressuring them. It's an unfortunate consequence, but it results in Cat getting to tell Gabe off. And angry Cat is a pretty damn good Cat. As evidenced by her earlier, badass self-rescue from her FBI abductors (and her hilarious apology later for breaking a chair over Knox's face. Oh Cat, never change).

Credit: The CW

Credit: The CW

Conclusion

"Cat and Mouse" is an episode focused on trust, far more so than many other episodes of its kind. And it works, because these conflicts of trust are deeply rooted in the season-long arc. Not trusting Knox could mean the difference between separation and togetherness, while trusting Gabe all this time has already put them in an untenable position. But the constant remains their relationship. For Beauty and the Beast, that connection is something audiences can trust.

See you all next week!