Moonlight, S1, E1: No Such Thing As Vampires, Triumphant Return Edition

SNOWFLAKES! IT HAS BEEN A VERY LONG TIME! I might write about why I've been absent - it involves autism, too many jobs, my weird-ass personal life, and a broken brain - but for now! we have! NEW RECAPS!

MOONLIGHT ran for one season in 2007-2008. It stars Alex O'Laughlin, whom you may know from his recent (very long) stint on the rebooted Hawaii 5-0 (Five-Oh? 5-Oh? Five-0? whatever, it was copaganda anyway) as our Nick Knight main vamp, Sophia Myles as his human love interest, and Shannnnnnyyynnnyynnnyyynnnn Sossamon as - I forget, honestly. His dame, maybe? Or some girl he turned? I'm like 80% sure she's a vamp at the start, but it's been over a decade since I watched this, and my memory is shit at the best of times, so! Oh, there's also this dweeby little vamp guy played by Jason Dohring who was in Veronica Mars, so some of you may know him, but I never got into that one.

Anyway. Alex is Mick St. John, a private eye. You know, there are so many things vamps could do for jobs. I mean, anything on a night shift should be pretty good, depending on your sun sensitivity. Anything at a hospital would get you access to blood, probably. You could be an influencer or a freelancer or a novelist. You could run a company on the bleeding edge of logistics. You could draw nothing but furry porn and rake in the cash!

But no. They have to be cops and private eyes because... I don't know. And I'm not down on the vampire PI idea, it's just that I think P.N. Elrod did it best in her book series, and I'm frankly concerned that a PI named Mick is just Forever Knight 2: Electric Fangaloo. At least his love interest is a reporter and not an ME. That would be just too much of a ripoff.

All right, now that that's all out of my system, let's get started!

oh, wouldn't I?

Obligatory "don't steal this!" ad, since I'm watching blu-rays, which...sure, guy. That worked out well for y'all.

We open on a voiceover; a woman is thanking Mick for joining them, as we see his body in a ...coffin? chest freezer with a clear top? Man, that's a great idea, isn't it? No more digging around to see if you still have that box of pizza rolls, just glance at the top? Are we making those?

Sorry, I got distracted. The freezer/coffin thing is in a...bathroom? I mean, there's a urinal, so I'm guessing. Just a huge bathroom with a urinal on one wall, and a coffin/freezer in the middle of the room. Super normal. Is this how you live, Mick?

Cut to Mick being interviewed about vampirism. We haven't seen the woman yet, she's still just a voice, but he's got a travel mug and a pair of sunglasses on a table in front of him. He says "being a vampire sucks" and that he's "got a guy" for blood.

NEVER FORGET.

Is, uh - Is that your guy, Mick?

He says he never bites anyone, and he sleeps in a freezer. So that clears that up. Garlic, holy water, crucifixes, bat-turning, all fake. Sunlight? Not great, but not flame-worthy, as it were. Fire and decapitation are it. The woman asks about killing, about hunting. He says that other vamps don't have rules, but he does. "I don't hunt innocents, but there's predators who need to be dealt with." In other words:

but you just said - nevermind

Oh, that's why he became a PI. And this is just a dream: he sort of wishes he could explain himself, but obviously he can't. No one's actually as open-minded as they think they are, so he can't tell them the truth.

He drinks some blood out of test tubes - just three little test tubes for the whole night? That doesn't look like enough - and catches up on the news, which in 2007 is the world's most chaotic website with a teensy little video player right in the middle. He watches Beth Turner (Sophia Myles) talk about the death of an as-yet unknown woman as his voiceover tells us that every good crime story starts with a girl. And then we switch to the crime scene and Beth, as Mick leaves his apartment, presumably to end up at the murder scene.

Beth signs off her report and tells her cameraman that they need a shot of the body, but he says the cops aren't letting anyone get close. "I'm not leaving without my money shot," she says, and then follows up with, "I became a news whore overnight, didn't I?"

your likeability is...not high, Beth.

She accosts a detective for some inside info, pointing out that she gave him the tip that lead to the capture of a freeway shooter. He relents; the vic is probably a Hearst College student. She had the school mascot tattooed on a "very discreet" part of her anatomy. Which causes Beth to ask, "Front or back?" and, like, girl. Please stop talking. I do not remember you being this awful.

TV news shows up, Cop Carl goes to deal with them, and Mick has shown up to see how pretty Beth is as she takes phone photos of the victim - who has what appears to be puncture wounds on her neck. Mick isn't in the fray just yet; he's waiting for an opportunity, I guess, to declare he's going to investigate this case on... his own behalf, I guess? Like, is that the protocol for PIs? It's not Sue Grafton, is what I'm sayin'.

Beth is working on her headline, "something with vampire in it" and almost bumps into Mick, whom she thinks she knows. He won't give her a straight answer, but she tries her headline out on him anyway. He tells her there's no such thing as vampires.

eh? EH?!

Beth says the victim might disagree, what with her neck and all, and then we get a very boring intro of a shot of the moon with "Moonlight" written on it. No theme song? No explainer? I expect more of a pilot!

It's day now, and Beth and her cameraman are still at the scene, looking for the victim's car. They find it, seemingly before the cops did, and take pics of the inside. They head back to the Buzzfeed offices and Beth's editor says she got a ton of clicks, and she's going to let Beth run with this vampire angle. Beth says she got the vic's address from the parking sticker on her car, and she's going to head over there to check it out.

Now, look, I know this is TV and all, but is this how reporters actually work? Like, TMZ just sends you out into the field to disturb crime scenes and not share info with the authorities? It feels wildly inaccurate to me, and I'm wondering how far off I am in that assessment.

Beth heads out, but instead of following her, we catch up with Mick, who's stopped by his friend Josef's house up in the hills overlooking the (ridiculously smoggy) city of LA. (I mean, I know it looks like that sometimes, but also, I feel like I haven't seen a pic of it where the sky wasn't blue in ages. It simply isn't represented as this bad on television anymore, or in people's photos I catch on social media. Did we actually clean up the air in the last decade? Or do they fix it in post or something, so it looks as fakely pretty as all its actresses do?)

Anyway. Josef (Jason Dohring) is the oldest vamp in LA at 400, and he's on the phone barking about business while naked girls swim in his pool. He's got a bunch of computers and guys standing around in his living room, doing business shit, I guess, and he gets off the phone to talk to Mick about the vampire killing and how it looks bad for them.

In front of the business guys.

Grant Black would never.

He offers Mick "liquid refreshment", and an incredibly bored-looking woman walks up and offers Josef her wrist. "1982 was an excellent year," he says, and they reminisce for a minute. You know, I'm not mad about the writing, here. At least, not the dialogue. It does reveal a good bit of character without being an infodump, and that's a difficult thing for a pilot to manage, IMO.

Mick passes on the live food, Josef ribs him for it and says it won't last, but, you know, Mick has PRINCIPLES and will not be swayed. And then Mick just leaves? Like, was there a point to this visit? You just felt like driving two hours or whatever in LA traffic to trade memories of the '82 Superbowl? And then we're back downtown at the morgue, which I'm sure is not convenient to the rich people houses, where Mick talks to "his guy" Guillermo.

Guillermo seems also to be a vamp, since he's drinking blood, and thinks there is some taste difference in blood types. Sounds fake, but ok. Mick is here for blood, obviously, but also to see the body of the "vampire" victim. She doesn't smell like a vampire, she only has 40% blood loss (enough to kill, but a vamp would have drained her), and the wounds aren't from teeth - too clean.

We cut to Mick in his GIANT, MIDCENTURY, AMERICAN CONVERTIBLE (I'm just sayin'!), driving with the top down and thinking about his life. This one's black, not turquoise, but I can't tell if it's a Cadillac yet. He voiceovers about how he used to just look out for himself, but then 22 years ago, he took a case that changed his life forever.

IT'S FLASHBACK TIME, Y'ALL!

I know that vampires would have long lives, and long memories, and yes, they obviously would think about stuff from the past when it's like stuff in the now, but you have got to be fucking kidding me! THIS IS JUST FOREVER KNIGHT ALL OVER AGAIN.

So excited. So scared.

ANYWAY. So, 22 years would have been 1985, but for some reason the flashback has this weird sepia filter. Mick is hired to find a missing kid, the police have nothing, and then we're right back in his giant car.

Meanwhile, Beth is breaking into the victim's apartment. It's the middle of the day, but she has a flashlight? The room is very dark and very purple, and from one shot to the next we've gone to nighttime, and then Mick is sneaking up on her and she's breaking a vase over his head. So, like, where the fuck has she been all day? She was filming the scene in the wee hours of the morning, she found the car at, like, 10 AM, based on the light, she left the office shortly thereafter to do this snooping, and now it's...8 PM, or something.

Y'all, I'mma go be a journalist. This schedule leaves so much more room for activities!

Beth thinks Mick's the murderer, he says he's a PI, he shows her his license, she relaxes a little. But doesn't Mick want to know who she is? Maybe she's the killer! "You work for Buzzwire," he says, and I'm like I KNEW IT WAS BUZZFEED! She tries to say it's hard-hitting journalism, but you're like a decade early on that claim. Mick does say she's the best thing they have, and then they start going through the victim's stuff with their bare hands.

not like the cops haven't been here yet or anything!

They find something in her jewelry box - looks like a necklace - that's from an Egyptian blood cult, according to Mick. Keep looking: y'all might find some Mayan blood cups, too! Beth says they should take it to the police, and then her phone rings. She tells her "honey", Josh, that she can't talk right now, and when she turns back, Mick is gone. With the necklace full of blood. (Was the vic Angelina Jolie?)

Mick and Beth go to the victim's - Kelly Foster's - funeral. A lot of variable-tiddied goth girlfriends in attendance, and a dude who looks like the guy who played Dracula on Buffy. Hang on - *fires up IMDB* - YUP. Totes Vlad. Was also in a biopic of Dracula and was on an episode of Quantum Leap: Enterprise as well as Stargate: SG1. Dude gets around.

Here, he's Christian Ellis, Kelly's social anthropology professor. He's giving a eulogy at the gravesite, which seems weird, but sure. Lots of talk of "physical bodies" and how Kelly is alive as their "sister in blood". The goths and Vlad leave black roses on her coffin, and then I guess the funeral is over? because they're all walking away. One girl in front turns around and slashes Vlad's neck with some sort of ring-knife; she doesn't do much damage. She's pulled away by another student and Vlad says he's fine, but Mick knows now that his blood - which he can smell on the air - is the blood in the necklace Kelly had.

Beth suggests splitting all the students into two groups, so she and Mick can interview them. He says he works alone, but she keeps divvying. She also says they should take the necklace to be analyzed, see whose blood it is. Mick gives it to her - it's been in his glovebox - and says, "It's the professor's," right before he pulls away from the curb.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Beth meets up with Chloe, the girl who attacked Professor Vlad. Chloe accuses him of being a Svengali, of brainwashing Kelly "with all this literary crap about vampires and sex". The study group is a blood-drinking cult; Vlad thinks he's a real vampire; the cult is mostly women, but he does attract other "disciples".

Kelly was super into it, and Chloe says that she was, too, but she didn't attract Vlad's attention, so she was jealous of Kelly. But no, she didn't kill her, and Beth can go write her "little vampire story" elsewhere. Chloe's got some rage issues, man. Just sitting there, calmly having a conversation, and then she's sticking her finger in Beth's face and telling her to pound sand? I'm guessing someone didn't know how to act hostile and still answer questions.

Mick is sitting in his car near Vlad's house for surveillance. He says when he was turned, all his senses went up to 11. So are mine, Mick, you're not special. Though I do wonder how you can sleep IN a refrigerator, when they're so fucking loud all the time. He can smell the past and glimpse the future -

https://www.youtube.com/embed/x1hLREgL194

...and he can hear a marriage imploding at 100 yards. Vlad is arguing with his wife, who wants to talk about the murder, but Vlad of course doesn't, and says he had nothing to do with it. "Oh, is that what we're telling people?" Wifey says. Vlad says she can tell them whatever she wants, and then gets in his VW Golf and burns rubber out of the house.

He thinks he's a vampire. He runs a blood cult full of young, nubile, college-age women. He drives... a Volkswagen.

Mick goes to talk to the wifey. He offers to come back some other time, but she seems very eager to talk about Vlad. He's got a PhD in "mythological anthropology", used to publish every year, but this whole cult business is new. She says he's very charming, like a snake, and he tells the girls he's a vampire to seduce them. She totes thinks he killed Kelly.

Vlad is teaching night school, I guess, because we're in his packed class as he tells them they've all drunk blood - all of them in this room, all of us on earth, because, like, food chains, and stuff. Supes deep. Beth is sitting in in the back as he says we're all just trying to get back to the womb: "that perfect world of blood and darkness".

fake profundity gives me a headache

That's enough "class" for tonight, and Beth lingers to flatter him and get an invitation to the "study group" cult. He refers her to his TA, Daniel, which he pronounces Dan-YELL every time, and I have a feeling that DanYELL is probably our perp.

Mick stands on a rooftop, wind dramatically blowing his long coat, as he muses for like point-3 seconds about how there's a killer out there, and Josef wants him to keep the secret, but Mick just wants to stop the killing.

Mick finally goes to see Vlad, and it finally comes out that Mick thinks he's working for Kelly. So... does he not need to get paid for this stuff? Why have a job if you don't have bills to pay? Or, you know, a desperate, driving need to never for a moment be alone with your thoughts? Or a desperate, driving need to "atone" for your sins? Mick doesn't seem tortured, not even a little, and you know that at 90 years old, he must have had shitty parenting happen to him, right? Like, I feel like the 20th century was nothing except successive generations taking their undiagnosed PTSD out on their kids, so Mick seems to have done exceptionally well, is all I'm sayin'.

He gets in Vlad's space, starts touching stuff in his office, you know the drill. Bobby Goren does it better on Law&Order, but that's fine, this is a vampire show! Vlad's got a bunch of vampire artifacts, weird gothy shit, books. He makes fun of vampires, delineating them from "real" vampires, who just siphon energy off of people. He mentions a ceremony to transfer energy, and Mick asks if the health effects kick in before or after the sex with students. Vlad kicks him out of the office.

Beth catches up with Cop Carl - remember him? He's our one cast member of color! - at a diner that looks, no lie, amazeballs. There's like three stools and a counter and everything is cheap as shit, and you know that's where the good food gets made. The blood in the vial is Vlad's, and he volunteered a DNA sample at the start of the investigation. I'm telling you, it's DanYELL. He's barely said a word, he's had thirty seconds of screen time, it's a Murder, She Wrote villain, but I'm convinced.

some of these episodes are...not good, y'all

OOOOOH, HOT GOSS ALERT: Kelly filed a stalking complaint against Chloe! They had been best friends, according to Chloe, but Carl says they found another blood pendant in Chloe's apartment. "Threesomes never end well," he says, which has not been my experience, but sure.

Mick comes home to his ridiculous apartment - this is the first time we're really seeing it, and Mick clearly has buttloads of cash to afford this in LA. Unless he's just held onto it all this time, but still. Josef is waiting for him, and has poured himself a "drink", which he complains about being "nonfat, soy, vegan blood". Good to know that joke isn't going to die in my lifetime, I guess?

Josef's mad cuz the news is talking about vampires. Well, fuckin' duh, my man! Of course they are! People talk! Look, you both know that a human did this. The police - with Mick's and Beth's help, of course - are going to figure out which human it was. This is not something to worry about! You sound like an idiot, talking about "the food mouthing off about the farmer" and shit.

That's it. Josef's on my list.

Josef wants to go after Beth, because that'll be real inconspicuous. He tells Mick to get this all under control, and Mick rightly tells him that people aren't going to start believing because of a Buzzfeed article. Josef insists that people will start noticing them because they'll have vampires on the brain, but dude, no. That's not how that works. If anything, vampires are a perennial Someone Else's Problem. No one wants to believe in them, and therefore, they simply won't. It's a problem that solves itself, and you interfering is what will fuck up your secrecy.

Chloe's closing up the diner, when someone comes into the kitchen. He walks into the light and is wearing a vampire mask from Vlad's office. She goes, "Oh, it's you," but he says nothing to her, only advancing, until he brings out a stabby thing. Chloe screams as we're treated to a shot of the outside of the diner.

Beth comes to Mick's office to trade info. She tells him about the blood in the vial (and reveals that she has inside sources at the police department), about Chloe and the restraining order. She asks Mick to go check out Chloe. Mick tells Beth about Vlad's wife, and Beth reveals she got an invite to the study group. Mick tells her to be careful, and not let Vlad get her alone.

As Mick is on his way out, Beth again brings up that he looks super-familiar, and I realize that we haven't had anymore Flashback Time, probably because that kid he was supposed to find was Beth! And as soon as I have the thought, we get Flashback Time, complete with Shannnynnnynynnn Sossamon as Mick's dame, Coraline (pronounced Cora-leen). She is in full-on Hammer Studios Bride of Dracula drag, it's delightful! She stole Beth to make them all "one happy family" and seriously? Now we're ripping off Interview? Thank jeebus it's 2007, and I won't have to see whatever it is they'd rip off from my books.

pictured: Coraline

Beth gets wired to go to study group. Mick goes to the diner to talk to Chloe, and obviously discovers her body - dressed and posed exactly as Kelly was, and with the vampire mask left there. Mick immediately worries about Beth, who is being led into a weird basement for the ritual - he means, study group - by DanYELL.

There is studying going on, but Vlad is just lecturing about Tantra. He says that's the end of the lesson, and they say a weird prayer, and then everyone leaves, because Vlad likes to have a little "one-on-one time" with new students. He takes her even further into the basement, and there's a futon with a moving blanket on it? Man, this is some super sexy vampire shit! I can see why women are throwing themselves at you!

Vlad can tell she's wearing a wire, and he tries to rip it off her, but she runs. She meets DanYELL and tells him she needs to call the police, so they go to his car to get his cell phone, which...what? Why isn't it in your pocket? It's your phone!

Obviously, DanYELL waits till her back is slightly turned, and then injects her with a sedative. She passes out.

Meanwhile, Mick is attacking Vlad, asking where Beth is. Vlad doesn't know, so Mick vamps out - yes, his eyes change and everything! - and says he can smell her on Vlad, so tell him where she is! Vlad says she just left, and Mick can't be real. Mick agrees, because there's no such thing as vampires.

Then Mick throws Vlad across the room, and starts wandering around campus smelling Beth. But Beth is in DanYELL's car, as he tells her in an Australian accent about how he can't be wasting vital energy on women, and neither can Vlad. Without the "distractions", Vlad can fulfill his true destiny - but we don't get to know what that is because Mick t-bones the car. Not with his car, mind. Nope. Mick just fuckin' yeets himself at a moving Honda, tries to choke out DanYELL, succeeds in shoving the Honda head-on into a pole.

Oh, wait, sorry, it's a Ford. Whatevs.

DanYELL goes to get Beth out of the car, grabs a metal pointy thing instead, tries to stake Mick. Mick vamps out and sends him flying upwards, and then into the light pole a second time, this one without the added safety of a Taurus front end.

Mick grabs Beth out of the car and starts carrying her - good plan, very well-thought-out, can't see how this could go wrong, definitely she has no spinal damage from a head-on collision at upwards of 20MPH. As he's carrying her, telling her she's safe, SHE has Flashback Time: remembering Mick carrying her out of Coraline's lair, or whatever it was. I mean, they have to show a vamp battle first, even if Coraline seems to think it's foreplay, but then there's "you're safe now" and "I'll never let anyone hurt you" and all that jazz. Mick turns over an oil lamp and assumes Coraline's gonna die, and as all this is happening -

MY IMMORTAL by EVANESCENCE is playing.

Oh mylanta, that's fucking amazing.

Mick has, of course, been following Beth this whole time. He brings her back to his apartment, and she tells him she remembers him. He tries to fob it off as her having a concussion or something, and then takes her home.

AND THAT'S THE FUCKING END, Y'ALL. Just, like, a thank you hug from Beth, and then "executive producer JOEL SILVER" and that's the end.

what did I tell you!

NEXT WEEK: Episode 2: OUT OF THE PAST. Some dude just out of the pokey knows Mick is a vampire! OH NOEZ! Whatever will happen? Will there be more Evanescence? TUNE IN TO FIND OUT!