Beauty and the Beast - Recap: Just Under the Upperhand

Credit: Ben Mark Holzberg/The CW

By the same token, some of us spend our lives trying to live up to the standard set by our families, while some of us do our damndest to forge our own paths. But no matter what we do, we're still bound by those familial ties, whether we want to (or even can) acknowledge them or not. It was Anthony Brandt who wrote, “Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.” What's interesting, and often so poignant, about "Hothead" is not just how Vincent (Jay Ryan) rediscovers his connections with his flesh-and-blood family, but also in how he continues to reforge connections with the family he's created for himself with people like Catherine (Kristin Kreuk), who continues to struggle with the changing definition of her own family after discovering the truth about her parentage. "Hothead" is a deceptively simple, yet stunningly effective episode, among the best of the brief season so far.

The big threat of "Hothead" is the Beast of the Week, a Muirfield asset named Eddie Long, an arsonist and "brilliant structural engineer" whom the organization handpicked from prison. They experimented with Long and transformed him into a beast with pyrokinetic abilities, making him the most dangerous specimen Vincent has had to hunt yet...except her doesn't actually have to hunt him. In fact, everyone from Cat to Agent Reynolds (Ted Whittall) is insisting that Vincent not track this guy. The only person encouraging him to pursue the lead is Gabe (Sendhil Ramamurthy), who still feels a sense of obligation to Cat for how she saved his life. As we learn, the explanation for how Gabe was cured is fairly simple, if not somewhat ridiculous -- his "death" after being shot by Reynolds' men in last season's finale killed the "beast" part of him. When Cat brought him back with the defibrillator, he was revived as a human, without that pesky beast part of him. Gabe thinks the process might work for Vincent, but they need to test it on another beast first, hence Gabe suggesting to Vincent that he take down Long and bring him back alive. Of course, this is easier said than done, since Vincent isn't exactly a match for the pyromaniac, whose fiery powers make him difficult to defeat. When Vincent tracks Long down to a burning building he's set ablaze, he barely gets a word in edgewise before Long takes him down with a burst of flames and a few well-timed kicks, leaving Vincent for dead.

Credit: Ben Mark Holzberg/The CW

Luckily, Vincent is saved and rushed to the hospital where he's questioned by the fire marshal, whose plucky young investigator seems a bit eager to see action. The kid's name is Aaron Keller, and the revelation that this is actually Vincent's nephew sends our titular Beast into an emotional tailspin. He experiences flashbacks to his past as a firefighter alongside his brother, William. In particular, Vincent recalls a particularly perilous fire in which William was nearly killed before Vincent braved a burning building to rescue him. It was this moment that led to Vincent's journey to med school, as William decided Vincent was far too reckless, and doesn't want his baby brother getting himself killed. So William outright tells Vincent he's leaving the firehouse and enrolling in medical school. Unfortunately, while Vincent eventually becomes a doctor, we know that his brothers aren't there to witness the sort of man he would eventually become, having been killed while attempting to rescue victims from the World Trade Center on September 11.

This rush of resurgent emotion nearly drives Vincent over the edge, especially since he can now remember cookouts with his brothers, and football with his nephew. For Vincent, this strikes more of a raw nerve than memories of Catherine, since this is a more primordial kind of emotion for him. These memories represent a less complicated, artless kind of happiness, the sort that he hasn't really known since. It's tragic, in a way, and Jay Ryan does tremendous work embodying Vincent's damaged psyche without a whole lot of dialogue. Which is not to say that he isn't given plenty of expository lines to get the point across, but it's becoming increasingly apparent from one week to the next that he doesn't actually need to be fed those lines, since he's more than capable of conveying the story simply from a combination of his reactions and the flashes of memory we're seeing. The episode races along at an urgent pace, since Long is interested in continuing his path of destruction. And to make matters more complicated, Aaron is caught in the middle of it all when he overzealously charges into the burning building to confront Long on his own. With Aaron in peril, the episode acquires a vibrant sense of purpose, since one of Vincent's few (if only) remaining blood relations is being threatened.

Ultimately, Vincent is able to save his nephew by cleverly opening a coolant pipe with his claws to neutralize Long's powers, before taking him head-on. It's a great action setpiece, largely thanks to its primary grounding in character. Sure, it's exciting enough to have a second fight scene in a burning building, but there's a lot more at stake here than just Vincent's well-being. Aaron is unconscious on the ground after being subdued by Long, and with smoke gradually filling the environment, it won't be long before Aaron ends up succumbing to inhalation, to say nothing of the possibility that Vincent himself might not make it out alive. And so there comes a crucial point at which Vincent must decide whether to pursue Long or rescue Aaron. Unsurprisingly, Vincent chooses Aaron, and though the boy doesn't recognize that his mystery rescuer is his uncle, it's enough for Vincent to have rescued him in the first place. For someone who's had it as rough as Vincent, life becomes a game of small victories. And there are enough small victories here to add up to a feeling that something huge was accomplished. Vincent rescued his nephew and has come closer to winning back Cat, admitting that he wants nothing more than to remember their past life together, and then poignantly kissing her before rushing into the building to rescue Aaron. In four episodes, this is our most substantial link to the Vincent of old so far. Unfortunately, it can't all be good news for Vincent: Cat shoots Long in self-defense, and then brings in Gabe with the defibrillator. However, the treatment doesn't work -- Long's beast side dies, but so does his human half.

Credit: Ben Mark Holzberg/The CW

Yet Vincent seems to take it all in stride. He's come substantially closer to getting things back to the way they were with Cat, who is also more open to giving Vincent another chance (after spending half the episode trying to get over him, resulting in a priceless scene in a bar in which Cat gets hit on by an overzealous, drunk bar patron who won't take "no" for an answer, leading to a bar brawl that ends with Cat kicking a federal judge in the face). Vincent and Cat discuss their relationship, and it leads to the episode's most affecting moment: Vincent takes Cat to the National 9/11 Memorial and, choked with emotion, explains, "My brothers are here." Cat comforts Vincent by assuring him that his brothers are heroes, but the assurances are a hollow substitute for family. Yet Cat provides something more than words -- another person to hold onto in an increasingly difficult and lonely circumstance. Vincent vowed that he would do his best to neutralize the rest of these beasts so he can finally be free to live his life with Cat, yet I somehow doubt it'll ever be that simple. Even if Vincent has no family, Cat still has a biological father out there -- one who's turned her boyfriend into his own personal soldier. Other things may change us, but we start and end with family.

"Hothead" continues to build considerable narrative momentum for this season, an urgency and purpose that comes through in each episode, and rarely as effectively as here.