Beauty and the Beast - Recap: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Credit: The CW

This week, the case at the center is simply a lens through which to explore the erosion of Vincent's humanity, and on that level, I really respect what the episode tried to do. Vincent's increasingly feral nature is a genuinely interesting story, and the episode is well-served by pursuing it. But this is probably the first week in a long time where I ultimately didn't care all that much about the central case, and that lack of connection with the investigation hurt the episode, for me. But "Father Knows Best" was far from being a bad hour of TV. I'd actually argue that this was one of the more intriguing episodes this year simply for the continued exploration into Vincent's humanity, or lack thereof. There's a lot to be said for the ways in which people change without realizing it. For Vincent (Jay Ryan), it's something so subtle he doesn't even notice it -- yet we do. But in order to chart that progression, we have to backtrack a bit.

Credit: The CW

Vincent only has two targets left before he's free, and while he seems to think he'll be given a full, unconditional release from Reynolds (Ted Whittall), Tess (Nina Lisandrello) and Gabe (Sendhil Ramamurthy) suspect that Vincent will be the last target his handler intends to eliminate, since Vincent's missions have been all about tying up Muirfield's loose ends. So, for Cat's sake, Gabe proposes to save Vincent by trying out the flatline approach to curing the "beast" condition. But they need another test subject, Vincent's latest target: a first generation Muirfield test subject (same as Gabe, on whom the flatline approach worked). The man in question is a successful businessman named Curt windsor (Paul Johansson), whose beastliness remained dormant for the first three years after the procedure, only to surface with a vengeance. Windsor killed off all his business competitors and built an empire on the ashes, although not without great losses: Windsor inevitably lost his mind after his ex-wife passed away, causing him to not only further embrace the comfort of power afforded by his beastliness, but to become overprotective of his daughter, Tori (Amber Skye Noyes).

Credit: The CW

In confronting the target, Vincent is overmatched and soon realizes that Windsor, in his rage, is threatening to harm Tori. So Vincent does what anyone would do in that situation...he kidnaps her?! Okay, it might not have been what every person would have done, but Vincent's impulsive decision to make off with Tori has added benefits beyond simply keeping her safe, as he now has leverage with which to lure Windsor to his death. One of the more interesting aspects of the episode is in how calculating Vincent becomes. There's a wonderful scene in which Vincent takes Tori out into the woods, where he's placed several booby traps to capture and kill Windsor. He knows full well that Windsor has planted a tracking device in Tori, and he's essentially preying on one man's love for his daughter, using it as leverage to achieve his own ends. But that, in itself, isn't what's chilling. We essentially have Vincent befriending Tori here, explaining the difficulty of a life with a "beast" living inside you, before getting into the ethics of a father's love. Tori doesn't believe her father has been abusive to her, yet Vincent insists that she's been caged like an animal and watched like a hawk. Vincent essentially argues that the father she loved is gone, that Curt Windsor prefers the "beast" within to the daughter without. Yet the two share moments of tenderness, as Vincent alludes to the ways in which Cat (Kristin Kreuk) has helped him hold together. As Vincent explains, "People like us either get better or worse. There's no status quo." In the episode's most chilling moment, Vincent sharpens a stick into a spear and says, through gritted teeth, "I want your father to find you. So I can kill him."

Credit: The CW

It's a subtly sinister turn that carries on throughout the episode, as Vincent justifies his actions by rationalizing that not only is this a man who's hurt innocent people, he's a man who, unlike himself, actually volunteered to become a beast. Sure, Vincent's volunteered too, but he did so without the knowledge of what he would become. Windsor, however, knew full well what would happen and pressed forward anyway. So Vincent has less sympathy for Windsor's plight, and far fewer qualms about killing him than anyone else we've seen so far. And so Cat, recognizing that Vincent's humanity is gradually sliding away, decides to take matters into her own hands. She sets up a meeting with Windsor, giving him an ultimatum: either submit to Gabe's flatline experiment, or lose his daughter forever.

Credit: The CW

Credit: The CW

Windsor tries to be macho about not caring, but he ultimately gives in. He returns to the flat and submits to the testing, telling Tori that he's sorry for what he's done to her, and that he'll always need her. It's an emotional parting for father and daughter, and it ends up being permanent, as Windsor breaks free of his restraints and Vincent is forced to kill him. Yet he doesn't exactly do it in the most humane way. In yet another moment that exposes the shockingly dark depths to which he's fallen, Vincent goes into beast form and rips Windsor's beating heart right out of his chest. It's perhaps the most fitting conclusion to an episode-long arc in which Vincent's humanity is slowly eroded. Sure, he's getting memories back one at a time, but with each memory he regains, he seems to lose some semblance of the individual he'd once been, a man who would look for reasons no to kill, instead of just going straight for ripping another dude's heart out. Vincent is essentially taking one step forward, and two steps back, and it's becoming harder and harder for Cat to justify his actions to herself.

Credit: The CW

Credit: The CW

As we see this week, Cat confronts Reynolds with the truth, and they grab a cup of coffee to talk it out: it turns out Reynolds and Cat's mother were involved prior to her meeting Cat's dad. Things ended badly, but by that point, Cat's mother was pregnant. She inevitably became engaged to Cat's dad, who'd decided to adopt the unborn child as his own. And so Reynolds stayed away from Cat, vowing that he would come back into her life once she turned eighteen. However, that ended up being the same year Cat's mother was killed, and he didn't want to seem as if he was taking advantage of that tragedy, so he continued to stay away. Naturally, much of the tension here springs from the fact that Cat doesn't know Reynolds is Vincent's handler. In essence, Reynolds is in the position of power, as he has all the information he needs to subtly manipulate his daughter. Case in point, he knows she's seeing Vincent, and so he tells her that he hopes she'll avoid her mother's propensity for falling in love with "lost causes". The "lost causes" tag haunts Cat throughout the episode, just as Reynolds knew it would, as she struggles to continue justifying Vincent's behavior to herself and others, hoping that the man she fell in love with hasn't faded away completely. Yet with each passing week, Vincent slips deeper and deeper into an inhuman persona, with an ideology of "by any means necessary" justifications. Vincent is arguably more dangerous now than he's ever been, and the show asks a genuinely compelling question about whether we should even still be rooting for Cat to be with Vincent. Yes, he's still Vincent, but until he's back to being the old Vincent, how much can he really be trusted? Maybe father really knows best after all.

Credit: The CW

Of course, all these questions of Vincent's character ignores the biggest twist of the episode: as Tori returns home after her father's death, finally realizing the true gravity of his loss from the emptiness of the penthouse apartment they shared together, she begins to feel a change coming on. As she looks into the mirror, her eyes glow, a development that shocks and horrifies her as much as it does us. It's a wonderful twist to close out the episode, as it looks like we have our first female beast, and if she's anything like her father, she'll be out for blood.

Credit: The CW

"Father Knows Best" is an episode that is compelling largely through its examination of how Vincent's humanity is slowly eroded, and the lengths to which Cat will go to justify him to others. Vincent is still a good person, but we're losing that good man with each target he's tasked with killing. It's becoming apparent that the only way to get Vincent back is to break the cycle and cease the killing. But with one target left, it's easier said than done.

So what did you think about the episode? And does anyone else miss JT? Sound off in the comments! I'm always anxious to hear your opinions about the episode!