BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: Been There, Done That

Episode 222: “Déjà Vu”

[photos: Ben Mark Holzberg/CW]

Hey there, my fellow beasties.  Any of you fans of Fight Club?  I’m still working on moving, and Brad Pitt’s line about how the things you own end up owning you is really starting to hit home.  I’m 1.5 weeks into the move, and I still have a pantry, a laundry room, a garage, my back yard, and my closet to move.  Last week’s write-up format worked really well for me to communicate quickly the high and not-so-high points of the episode to the fans; hope you agree!  Let’s use the same format this week, pretty please?  Awesome!  Away we go!

Worst moments of the show:

1. Pretty much any scene depicting Cat and Vincent as Rebecca and Alistair.  KK looks beautiful no matter what, and if you’d asked me last week if you could make Jay Ryan look dippy, I’d have said no.  Do you think they used a curling iron on his extensions?  Anyway, I stand corrected on the dippy issue.  And jeez Louise, the accents.  Oh, oh, and Rebecca was kicking butt back in 1854 when women were never trained in hand-to-hand combat?  Yes, I know it’s fiction.  And no, it doesn’t have to make complete sense.  But I want it to make sense a little.
2. JT strung up like a Christmas stocking.  That was a level of morbidly scary we don’t normally get on this show.
3. Cat’s obsession with the journal.  I wish the producers could have found a way to communicate that Cat was focused on the diary and the parallels with her own life without sounding like a broken record.
4. Every single time Tess is bitchy to JT.  Did that seem totally out of the blue to anyone else?  Just last episode, Tess was cooing about how she and JT are sexually compatible.  Did not compute.
5. Gabe kills Agent Knox, and growls at Cat over the phone.  Sad for a good ally to go out that way.
6. Alistair talking while in beast mode.  Did they use auto-tune?  For a second, I thought Jay Ryan channeled Brittney Spears.
7. Cat and Vincent spend much of the episode making plans and schemes that affect one another without involving one another.  Oh dear, this is so tired.  Been there, done that.  Thank goodness Cat figured it out in the end.
8. Cat asking her dad for advice.  What the heck, Cat?  You can’t trust that guy as far as you can throw him.  (And with your bad knee, Ed…)
9. Gabe’s smarmy taunting.  He’s so horrible, he’s great.  Gabe’s performance is so Snidely Whiplash, I nearly expected him to twirl his pencil mustache.
10. Tess’s captain just blindly has SWAT ready to go in case Gabe happens to get delivered on a platter?  But if Vincent doesn’t deliver Gabe, SWAT plans to arrest Vincent.  Is this really how our justice system works?  If so, color me a concerned citizen.

Best:

1. Instead of blindly following the journal, which would have been more predictable, Cat does the opposite, which is honestly a little more intelligent than this show typically is.  And then when Cat lets Vincent out of the prison cell where she was keeping him safe and asks for forgiveness, he just says, “Mmm-hmm.”  I was tickled.
2. When JT says “Maybe we can talk about us…hello?”  Another funny moment.  Sad, but simultaneously funny, and well delivered.
3. When both Rebecca and Cat say that the situations they’re in are their destinies, too.  Girl power!
4. When Tess realizes that her worries about whether JT is the one or not is not the priority.  Yet another super well-delivered line!
5. When Tess freaks out over JT’s injuries.  Totally believable; I felt Nina Lisandrello showed off some acting chops this episode.  I would so like to see her get some movie roles.  Something Quentin Tarintino-ish would be great.
6. I totally fell for it when Vincent acted like he was going out on his own.  Then Vincent battled Gabe, and Gabe did his taunty thing to Vincent, and Cat jumped in with the collar.  Booyah!  I was actually surprised, and this jaded viewer doesn’t get caught off guard too much.
7. Death by pool cue!  I was mixed about whether this was a good moment or a bad moment, but seriously, Gabe attacked JT.  Gloves came off; Lowan got what he had coming to him.  I like that Cat was the one to take him out.  She would have been left wondering about Vincent’s humanity all of next season if Vincent had done it.
8. JT doesn’t die.  Yay!  Can you imagine if only Tess was around to deliver the good one-liners?
9. VIncent describes himself as Cat’s “kick ass boyfriend/bodyguard/destined love.”  I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure that any girl could fall for one of those.
10. Cat and Vincent have a really cool new season ahead of them, if the writers do it right.  I’m thinking there the possibility of a little X-Files or Fringe, which could be really fun.  Thank you, BATB writers, for tying up season 2 with a nice, neat bow, and for giving us something to look forward to in season 3.

What are you guys looking forward to?  And what are your favorite moments from season 2?  See you guys in the new season!  And wish my crazed little family good luck as we finish our move.  ‘Til September/October, friends!

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