BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: Hostage to Misfortune

Episode 211: “Held Hostage”

[photos: Ben Mark Holzberg/CW]

I have a confession to make. Leading up to “Held Hostage,” episode 211 of Beauty & The Beast, I was kinda done. Done with the jerkiness, done with the adversity, done with the antipathy. I mean, come on, the strength of this show was the romance factor. Remove that, what’s left? I really dreaded trying to muster a new and unique way of saying that, well, Vincent and I are no longer friends. And yet, just when I had lost hope…

Cat and Gabe prepare for a surprise party for our dear Tess. During the prepwork, Cat grumbles that not only are Vincent and Tori yet again splashed all over the gossip column in the newspaper, but Tori also brazenly sports the necklace stolen from the Russian consulate. Cat reasons that Vincent must be dangling the necklace as bait. Gabe steers the conversation back to birthday preparations, and elicits an attempted kiss from Cat; Gabe doesn’t close the distance to return the kiss. Cat is puzzled, but Gabe explains he’s concerned about her unresolved anger, an anger which Cat denies.

Agent Landon later directs Cat, Gabe and Tess to question Tori, based on the pictures of Tori wearing the stolen jewelry. Our triumvirate of law-enforcers head to Vincent’s houseboat, where a group of Russian thugs also gathers. Tori and Vincent are ready for said thugs, just as Cat/Tess/Gabe burst in, and Tori attacks Cat. I’m sure that it doesn’t help that Cat’s a bit jealous of Tori, but in fairness, it doesn’t usually go over well when one attacks an officer. Add on a refusal to surrender the necklace, and Cat places Tori under arrest for stolen property and assaulting an officer. Good. The Russians show up after Tori’s departure, and Vincent and Gabe make short work of them.

After returning to the precinct, Cat and Tori engage in a delicious game of verbal volleyball, before Agent Landon boots Tess and Cat out of the room. Later, she sends a uniformed officer into the interrogation room to forcibly remove the necklace from Tori, when said uni flies through the glass of the one-way mirror of the interrogation room. Seems our young beast takes none too kindly to being manhandled by a man in uniform. Who knew?

Cat rushes in to check on Tori, just as a scuffle breaks out in the bull pen when a skeevy-looking dude claiming to be from the evidence department goes for the necklace taken from Tori. Seems our Russian friends have infiltrated the precinct; everyone is taken hostage. Cat tranqs Tori (with her too conveniently available tranq gun, kinda weird) for Tori’s own protection. Uncontrollably beasting out in a police station could conceivably be bad mojo.

Cat talks her way into staying with Tori in a holding cell; Cat eventually revives Tori and suggests they team up to take out the bad guys, but Tori beasts out and leaves her behind. Outside, Vincent and Gabe discuss what can be done. Vincent actually shows some concern over Cat being held inside; could it be that Vincent isn’t quite as douchey as he’s been acting?

Vincent uses the ductwork in the building as his way in, and he also uses the phone of one of the dead Russians from his houseboat to lure one of the hostage-takers down to the basement. Now, I’m no expert on Russian accents, but I’ve definitely heard way worse attempts at a foreign accent. Maybe it helps that Jay Ryan has to fake an American accent for his day job anyway. Tori and the dumb Russian show up at the basement approximately the same time, and the dumb Russian only has a moment to regret it.

When Tori tries to leave with the necklace without any further aid to the rest of the hostages, Cat tries to block her departure. The long awaited Cat fight breaks out, and dang, it’s gratifying, primarily because Cat inexplicably kicks Tori’s butt.

Vincent arrives and is perplexed by Cat’s victory over Tori, although any reader with a pulse has figured out by this time that the necklace somehow drains beast power. Cat attempts to persuade him to stay and help with the hostages, but he doesn’t want the exposure risk, and he doesn’t trust Cat to protect him like she has in the past. Something about a silly little gunshot and a recent arrest of his new girlfriend. So testy!

When the other hostage-takers discover Vlad is dead and Cat and Tori missing, they grab Tess and threaten her. Vincent, who has stayed behind to help out after all, jumps into the fray and stalls for time, trusting Cat to find the circuit breaker to the building and kill the lights, so he can beast out in the cover of darkness. Cat delivers, the lights go out, and fighting and gunshots ensue. Vincent tries to beast out, but he has the necklace on him, and it interferes. Cat grasps the issue, yells at Vincent to lose the necklace, and Vincent saves the day. Just after, the police storm in, and Gabe sees Vincent and Cat laying on the round together. They aren’t together-together, but they’ve made their peace.

Afterwards, Cat decompresses with Gabe. She does her usual “here’s what I learned” monologue, in which she acknowledges she did have unresolved feelings, just as Gabe suspected. Cat, however, qualifies it: she was unresolved because she was angry at herself for falling for such a jerk, but Gabe reminds her that Vincent wasn’t the same when she fell for him. Cat agrees and essentially asks Gabe to wait for her, so she can spend a little alone time and make sure that when they do come together, she doesn’t screw it up.

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[Official Show on CW]   [Previous Recap: “Ancestors“]

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