Beauty and the Beast - Recap: Vaughn But Not Forgotten

For instance, Vincent (Jay Ryan) never did get his full memories back, yet that didn't negate his fundamental desire to be with Cat (Kristin Kreuk). He spent the first half of this season fighting against being the Vincent of Season 1, but he inevitably came back around. By that same token, Cat has been seeking a version of herself that can exist independent of Vincent. In many ways, she's looking to define herself on her own terms; yet, while she does find some measure of success in illustrating she can be her own woman, with her own life, and her own strength, she still does need Vincent to feel complete. This is evident from how the entire back half of the season has played out. Vincent and Cat try to run from who they are, but there is no running. Not for long, anyhow. And that's the strength of "Ever After," that it illustrates how "happily ever after" is a fiction at this point in time. Until Vincent and Cat settle up accounts, so to speak, they'll never have the freedom to pursue the quiet life they want for themselves. And that conflict makes for resonant drama, even as episodes continually restate this conflict with incremental depth.

Well, I'm finally back from my trip, but I kind of liked the format of the past few weeks, so if ya'll don't mind, I'm bringing it back! And if you do mind, please let me know in the comments. I just find that there's so much to talk about that sectioning it off does wonders for flow. Let's get to it!

Credit: Ben Mark Holzberg/The CW

SUBURBAN COMMANDOS

Vincent and Cat are moved to witness relocation in the suburbs by Agent Knox, who still isn't entirely convinced he can help them. However, he's still their best shot at clearing Vincent's name, so I guess they'll be working with him for the foreseeable future, even if that future involves short-lived stints in the middle of what looks like Chester's Mill from Under the Dome. This sojourn in the suburbs starts out peacefully enough, although it's a bit of a rough transition for lifelong city girl Cat, who is used to the hustle and bustle of New York, and has trouble acclimating to her quieter surroundings. I mean, even while he can be a bit stern about it, I can see why Vincent feels the need to get Cat out of the habit of being a New Yorker, since one slip-up could compromise their cover. So that means no checking crime logs in the NYPD database, no looking at weather reports for Manhattan, and absolutely, positively no rooting for the Yankees. "You're Veronica Vaughn from San Francisco," Vincent reiterates, and I find myself wondering if it's Kristin Kreuk's lot in like to play characters with alliterative names (Lana Lang, Catherine Chandler...okay, maybe the last one doesn't work, but hey, they start with the same letter!).

For a brief time, it seems like Vincent and Cat are going to have their opportunity at a normal life, even though it means they have to be away from all their friends and the lives to which they've grown accustomed. Say what you will about freedom, but there's also something to be said for routine, and just how hard it is to adjust to something new when it's not what you're used to, no matter if the new thing is idyllic. But while the newly-minted Tim and Veronica Vaughn seem open to their new surroundings, justice pulls them back into their old, crime-fighting ways via the case of their next door neighbors, a husband and wife who don't seem to be having the best of marriages. When the husband turns up dead as the result of an accidental police shooting, Cat suspects foul play, and Vincent finds, to his disappointment, that she's right on the money (in one of the funniest little bits of the episode, Vincent confronts the wife and asks her, point-blank, if she had her husband murdered, so he can use his beast senses to gauge her reaction and ascertain whether or not she's lying. After he reads her reaction, he mutters, "I hate it when [Cat's] right.").

Credit: Ben Mark Holzberg/The CW

This case is a bit of a throwback to those first thirteen episodes of Season 1, where each episode featured an unrelated crime for our heroes to solve, not unlike CSI, Criminal Minds, or other modern crime procedurals. I wasn't a fan of that formula at all at the time, but I find it's better employed here, as the case in question forces Vincent and Cat to choose between solving the case and exposing their cover, or maintaining their cover and denying who they really are, which would lead to a murderer getting away scot-free. Naturally, it's no choice at all for Cat, who decides she's going after the killer even if it means their cover gets blown. And Vincent isn't far behind in backing her up, as they're a duo. As goes the head, so goes the body. And, although they're working on the case separately, they both reach the same conclusion: the wife was sleeping with the patrolling officer who shoot her husband, and they conspired to have the husband killed by cooking up some faux-intruder lie, made all the more believable by the husband needing to break into his own house since his wife locked him out. It's quite the circuitous case, but it mostly works because it's rooted in real storyline stakes. This was probably going to be Cat and Vincent's best chance at getting away from all the drama in New York, but they chose to give it up in order to make certain a killer was brought to justice. And it speaks a lot about the types of characters Vincent and Cat are. They're principled to a fault, even as they try to deny their core characteristics by contemplating running off together. You can only pretend for so long before the real person underneath the daydreaming comes to the surface.

Credit: The CW

GABE OF THRONES

So Gabe (Sendhil Ramamurthy) doesn't appear to be turning back into a beast at all. But he's gone full-on Game of Thrones in the Manipulative, Psychotic Supervillainy department. Really, it's not a good look for him at all, as he continues to push the story that Vincent is framing him. Tess (Nina Lisandrello) and the police captain aren't exactly buying his story, since it's all too convenient that the witness against Gabe has mysteriously vanished just as he was about to testify in front of the grand jury. But Gabe makes a stellar observation in his own favor, noting he wouldn't be as stupid as to obviously incriminate himself by getting rid of the witness against him, since he knows exactly how that would look to authorities. Of course, we know he's full of it, but it's still a pretty genius plot, after-the-fact: it's easier for Gabe to argue that Vincent is framing him because the crimes so clumsy that it's hard to believe anyone as smart as an A.D.A. would be that stupid as to so obviously incriminate himself.

Granted, this doesn't stop Tess and J.T. (Austin Basis) from suspecting Gabe anyway, and so they immediately get to work. I found that I enjoyed this a ton, largely due to the chemistry between Lisandrello and Basis, who already feel like a lived-in, natural couple. They also work well as convincing partners, as Tess discourages J.T. from tracking Gabe the way Vincent would, and instead encourages him to do it his own way. Ultimately, this leads to Tess and J.T. discovering the catacombs where Gabe arrives and holds them both at gunpoint. If nothing else, the show has pushed how completely unhinged Gabe has become, but the story really takes it a step further here, as Gabe flat-out explains that every single thing he's done, and every single thing he continues to do, has been about protecting Cat. We already knew that was his motivation, but after the past few weeks, it was hard to believe that Gabe himself still bought his own line of bull. Yet that's exactly the case here, as he still seems to believe he can win Cat back, failing to recognize that she's irretrievably lost to him. J.T. isn't far off the mark when intimates that Gabe is just a sore loser, and that his actions are only putting him in a deeper hole. Tess and J.T. are able to escape the situation, while Gabe remains on the loose, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility that what J.T. said stuck in Gabe's craw. Though damaged, Gabe is still an irreducibly complex character, caught between the desire for self-preservation and the desire to be with Cat again. And at the center of all that festering bad blood is his compulsive need to see Vincent taken down. It makes him a formidable villain, and Sendhil Ramamurthy does a great job, playing him as a mentally unstable sleazeball who still has just enough acuity to occasionally get the better of our heroes.

Credit: The CW

ROMANCE LANGUAGES

Not as much on the romance front this week as in weeks previous. You'd think, at some level, we'd have gotten a scene in which Vincent and Cat christen their new home, newlywed-style, but I suppose getting him carrying her over the threshold was as good as we could have expected. I think we've just come to expect a lot more romance given how the past several weeks have gone, with a VinCat scene capping things off. But this week, it was J.T. and Tess who got the more substantive show-closing romance scene, as they basically canoodle on the couch with snacks and illustrate why they're such a stunningly good match. It's something that makes far more sense if you see it, because there's an undercurrent there that echoes Vincent and Cat's narrative throughout the episode: J.T. might have been running from who he was by trying to track like Vincent, but he didn't succeed until Tess encouraged him to be himself and to do things his way. Like Vincent and Cat, Tess and J.T. work because we're given to understanding that they feel comfortable being themselves around each other. I still expect something awful to happen to one of the two couples in the season finale, but whatever, that's in two weeks. I'm enjoying the NOW.

Credit: The CW

Ultimately, "Ever After" isn't perfect, but it's by no means a bad episode. In fact, it's part of a trend of episodes all exploring a separate, but distinctive, facet of the interpersonal relationships on this show. Identity is just one part of a relationship -- finding comfort and confidence in being yourself around another person -- and it compares favorably with last week's analysis on secrets, and when it's necessary to tell the truth. I remain fully convinced that this show has a solid endgame in mind, and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if next week's episode explores some other vital thematic component to the Vincent/Cat relationship. Either way, it should be a good time.