BEAUTY & THE BEAST: Cooler Heads Prevail

Episode 204: “Hothead”

THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD!

[Photos: Ben Mark Holzberg/The CW]

Cat and Tess kick off episode four of Beauty & The Beast  by getting ready to go out on the town.  Alas, not for karaoke, but for a good ol’ man-forgetting game of pool.  Unfortunately, their plans run amok when a generic drunk dude decides to slobber all over Cat.  Blech.  Cat scores one for icked-out girls across the country when she pushes back, but her sassiness comes at a cost: an accidental kick to a federal judge and short stint in the slammer!  Fortunately, ADA Gabe-alicious has plans for Cat.

Seems ADA Lowan has figured out that a local serial arsonist is a beast; Gabe wants Vincent to catch the guy so they can attempt to replicate the process that Cat accidentally but successfully used to kill the beast in Gabe.  After all, if the process works again, they can use it later on Vincent.  But Cat thinks applying the procedure to Vincent is too risky, and she blows Gabe off.   Gabe’s not to be so easily swayed, and he pays a visit to Vincent to plead his case personally.  Vincent’s agenda, however, is to eliminate all his targets ASAP, so he can then be with Catherine…as if Condor will give up Vincent that easily.

Vincent dashes off to find this new beastly bad guy, and you know what happens when you go looking for trouble.  They tangle, and Vincent at first seems to have the upper hand.  Then, bad beast busts out this new trick of shooting fire, and Vincent goes down in a blaze of glory (see how I worked that in?).  Vincent is pulled from the building by firemen, and is checked into the hospital as a John Doe.  Gabe gets word and pulls Cat from a luscious day at the spa to meet him at the hospital.  Ah well, Cat was talking about Vincent way too much anyway, for a girl who claims she needed distance.

Cat admonishes Vincent for his foolhardiness; he, in turn, feels bad she had to come for his sorry lying butt, but Cat demurs that her resistance is more than just Vincent’s dishonesty.  Really, her whole life is in a spin.  Vincent wants to fix his part of it by finishing his missions ASAP and close the distance between them.

All this talk is soon interrupted by arsonist investigators from the fire department.  This is further complicated when both Cat and Vincent realize that the youngest member of the investigation crew wears a name tag emblazoned with the name ‘Keller.’  The brash young man is Vincent’s nephew, and he’s firing on all cylinders to get the serial arsonist that Vincent witnessed.  The brief encounter leaves Vincent reeling in further memory deluge.  Did anyone else notice that Vincent went all cross-eyed, just like Bella did in the first Twilight movie?  Disconcerting!  Vincent breaks out of the overly fragile hospital windows ,and high-tails it.

Cat rendezvous with Vincent at his place since she’s worried about him, and they discuss his recollections of fire-fighting with his brother.  This is news to Cat, who’s never heard these memories before from Vincent.  Apparently, he recalls a bad fire they fought together, where Vincent separated from William and got in trouble as a probie.  Vincent’s uncertain whether it’s the truth, but Cat assures him that it’s the emotions that underpins the memories that attest to their validity.

Cat and Vincent go to visit Aaron to help him find the arsonist.  They discuss how all buildings previously hit had the same owner; just as they determine that the next best target will be the owner’s HQ, the alarm goes off at said location.  As Cat and Vincent ready to join the FDNY, everyone realizes that li’l Keller is missing, and has put himself in danger.  Cat anxiously tries to delay or dissuade Vincent from joining the fray.  He plants an impassioned kiss on Cat and runs for the building.  Is it just me, or was this the first kiss that seemed like he meant it, at least since he and Cat reconvened at the start of the season?

In the building, young Aaron Keller finds the perp, but said perp pulls out a flash grenade and knocks out the hopeful young’un.  Next, it’s Vincent’s turn; he finds the bad fire beast, and the usual procedure goes down: a little Muirfield taunting, a fight, alarm goes off and perp runs off.  Vincent starts looking for Aaron, and either the memory of or the ghost of Will leads Vincent right to Aaron.  Really, that obnoxious alarm going off on his Aaron wasn’t enough to alert Vincent to his presence?  Ah well, for a brief minute, I thought we were going to see Sam and Dean Winchester jump into the mix for a CW All-Stars moment ghost-riddled moment.  Hey, a girl can dream.

Cat manages to take out the perp with her gun before he makes his escape.  She and Gabe try out the last minute de-beastifying procedure as planned, but the procedure fails.  Vincent makes his way to the ground with young Aaron Keller and puts him back in the hands of the FDNY before disappearing.

Later, Aaron finds Cat at the precinct to thank her.  Cat, in turn, later meets with Vincent and takes a stroll to discuss the previous few days’ events.  Cat, at least, has the decency to appear a touch sheepish about her laughable “need for space”  Such a pushover.  At least these two seemed to have learned that as far as the past goes, we can’t change it; we can only learn from it and move on.  The scene is punctuated by a tender but demure hand-hold and side-hug between the two lovers.  Gratifying, yet not enough!

Questions for next week: Cat, Cat…will it ever come back to haunt you, how easily you gave back in?  Grow a spine!  You’re a cop, for goodness’ sake!  You didn’t make the man work for it at all!  Did anyone else think that Aaron Keller’s acting was both a little wooden and adorable?  Not sure I would have ever expected that combo before.  Has anyone else noticed that Gabe hasn’t exactly denied that he has feelings for Cat.  When is this becoming the main issue!?  Will Vincent and Cat really patch things up next episode?  Fingers are crossed, my friends!  Leave a comment below, and let me know whether you agree, disagree, would like to take me behind the wood shed, etc.  See ya’ll next week!

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[Official Show on CW]   [Previous Recap: “Kidnapped”]

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