SGRoA: Moonlight, S1 E16: Sonata, Final Edition

Do - do y'all hear that? In the distance, is it... synthesizers? Fog machines? A LASER SHOW?!

IT'S THE FINAL RECAP!

Alas, our time with Moonlight is coming to its end. We'll talk about the next show at the end here - and I'll post a poll on Twitter - but this is our very last episode. *tear* Let's get right to the absolutely-not-good stuff!

Josef is getting honored for giving a buncha money to a college. Josef has a really high media profile for a vampire, but that's what we don't love about this show: its unending inattention to making sense. This apparently is the "fancy party" episode of the series, because as we all know, every television series must produce a fancy party episode, a spooky episode (usually near Halloween), a 40s episode (almost always black and white) and a Very Special episode. Hence: Josef being honored, to give us a fancy party.

Beth loves it, because it's "just like my high school prom!"

a fuzzy orange cat with text reading "excuse me while I barf in my mouth"

Josef has a human date, one of his lawyers who is also a donor, and Scottie from Mad Men, and that lady from Suits! And I'm sure she's onto something else now, but this is just an opportunity for more ridiculous lore - this time with a side of gross! Mick explains that they call blood donors "freshies" (barf) and Beth asks if it's like sex work (barf) and then thank god there's a fight on the other side of the room.

Hank needs to "cool it", and he almost gets tossed for fighting with Dominic. Oh, these guys are basketball players (something something retiring a jersey because fancy party). Dominic is the retiree, I guess? and his managers are vampires, and Josef is a big fan. These vamp managers have been married - and I'mma guess this wet sock of a show means monogamously - for 150 motherfuckin' years.

Data the android laughing on the bridge of the Enterprise-D

Sorry, y'all, the idea of monogamously married vampires is fuckin' HILARIOUS, come the fuck on. Plenty of people can't be monogamous in a normal human lifetime, I don't understand how anyone can think that immortals hew to some bizarre and, frankly, almost impossible standard of human fidelity.

Beth and Mick dance and make small talk about the vampire marriage (snerk), and then a woman screams, and the captions tell me that "machinery whirs". Thanks, captions. I didn't hear that at all. Good job!

Dominic is dead, and Scottie - her name is Simone, here - is in the room with him. "I didn't do it!" she says, and Fancy Party Time is over.

Her story is, Josef was eating from her, and she went into the bathroom to clean up, because Josef is apparently a savage who doesn't close his puncture wounds! So she's washing off the blood (and I'm wondering how she's going to fucking hide these enormous bitemarks) when someone runs behind her, so fast we (and she) don't see, and then there's a thud and then there's a body. Dominic is in one of the therapy tubs (it's a training gym bathroom, so).

Beth is interviewing her, and of course the talk turns to vamps. Beth asks if Simone is afraid Josef will turn her; Simone says he's careful, but sometimes she wonders.... But no, no, of course she doesn't want to be turned. Because we can't have a show with unrepentant vamps! We can't have a show where vampirism looks good! We can't have a show where people have their own, individual and complicated, reasons for wanting or not wanting immortality! If we did any of that, people might think it's okay to - what? What is vampirism a metaphor for, here, exactly? Is it still sex, like it was for Stoker? All vamp shows still have to remind us not to be sluts? Is it about the killing? Since when does America give a flying fuck about violence - other than, there's simply never enough of it? It's certainly not about the wealth-hoarding, because we also have no issue with that.

I mean, I'm honestly asking, here, because I'm honestly just noticing this to the point that it needed to be a little rant. Why CAN'T vampires like themselves? Why CAN'T people want to be them, want to be with them? Why CAN'T they be shown in a variety of circumstances, not simply "evil, dead, and loving it" or "tortured soul who drinks from gravy boats"? I WANT NUANCED VAMPIRES, DAMMIT!

Google never does disappoint

Josef is... mad??? he's not in the papers?? but Dominic's death is? Again: Josef has a weirdly high media profile for a vampire! And I write a vampire with another weirdly high media profile, but I made sure he doesn't fucking like it!

Ugh, y'all, it's so hot, I'm afraid I'm just complaining. I'mma take a little smoke break... yeah, that's the ticket. OK! Let's get back into it and maybe I'll come up with some actual jokes, here, jeez.

Josef's a little squirrely about all the vampires involved, and maybe a little irrationally jealous about Simone maybe seeing Dominic. Mick is surprised he'd get that attached.

Beth goes to talk to the vampire manager couple about Dominic and Simone's relationship, and she can't shut the fuck up about her husband, but at least he asked to be turned, and she seems to have zero shame about it.

I'll take it!

Dominic and Hank were super competitive, not just on the court. Vamp lady says that Dominic was playing the field, women-wise, but Hank was convinced that he, himself, should be getting more playing time than Dominic, which is plenty of motive.

Oh, prediction: I think VampLady was doing Dominic, and VampHusband killed him. We'll see.

Mick goes to see Guillermo in the morgue. Oh, Guillermo. You were one of the most normal parts of this show. That... is depressing. Anyway, Dominic's neck was broken, no sign of vamp involvement. He also had had sex right before he died, and there was a foreign blood sample on him, presumably the partner's.

Simone and Josef are waiting at Mick's place. She maintains there was no sexual relationship, and that her blood type doesn't match the sample, so OF COURSE Josef has to let Mick taste her to prove it and then Beth walks in on the weird VFV threesome. I knew there was too much relevant plot. Time for a relationship fight while they go talk to Hank!

I don't care. I cannot give a shit about this universe's vampire blood/sex mores, or Beth's weirdness, or everyone's obsession with monogamy, so. Hank's roommate says Hank hasn't been around in months, and Mick says he's lying, and so he shouts to tip off Hank, who runs only out to the lawn. Mick catches him.

Guillermo got hold of the blood sample; it's vamp blood.

I love it when I'm right

Mick goes to talk to VampHusband. The cheerleader Dominic was with on party night is a vampire, so Mick goes to talk to her next. She fucked him, but not the night he died.

They drag Hank into an interrogation with New Josh, and he says that "SHE killed Dominic", and uh-oh! I did not account for jealousy, so NEW THEORY: VampLady was fucking him, and didn't like that he was fucking other girls, and she killed him. I maintain the Leonardo is justified.

OOOOH, Hank saw VampLady VAMPED OUT! The plot sluggishly tries to thicken!

New Josh and Beth go to arrest her, and she's throwing furniture at them as Mick shows up. He's able to subdue her, and tells her to think of VampHusband, and to stop showing the humans what she is, and they take her into custody - which is the real problem of this episode, if you care about the characters.

Beth and Mick go to their house to... I don't know, tell VampHusband, I guess? because he comes out with drinks - tap water for Beth, and what looks like fuckin' cold blood in a glass for him and Mick.

Emma Stone on SNL saying "ew"

Ew.

They bring VampHusband down to talk to VampLady, and there's a weird scene where Mick eavesdrops on their conversation, which is mostly about how she cheated. Ridiculous. The musical cues tell me it's supposed to be touching, but then she's threatening to expose all the vamps in LA if they don't get her out of jail? While we're at it - why is she in jail in the first place? These people are millionaires, if not billionaires, and should have the resources simply to flee when they've killed - Was it that she didn't want her husband to know, so she just played dumb, like a dummy? The motivations here, the reactions to things - these are the decisions of foolish humans, let alone vampires, who absolutely should know better. I'm somehow amazed that this show sinks ever further into the insensible muck.

Simone and Beth have a convo about the VFV. Mick and Josef have a convo about Josef liking Simone.

you've heard of autistic excellence? autistic surliness. just as good.

Beth goes to Mick's and he can't let her in: vampire business. She's pissed because she's not involved; the vamps inside are pissed that Mick let VampLady get taken into custody. They think that the cops are going to come and round them up if she talks?

They think. that the cops. are going to come rouND THEM UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THIS FUCKING SHOW? NO HUMAN BEING HAS EVER ACTED LIKE THIS! NONE!

the inside of my brain RIGHTTHISMINUTE

And now it's a gotdamn heist! Because they have to get her out of jail! BECAUSE OTHERWISE THE COPS WILL COME ROUND THEM UP!

And in case it isn't obvious - because it might not be, and that's cool, I don't mind - the reason this is so, just, unbelievable is that cops are not going to believe her about being a vampire. They will not believe that any other people are vampires. Even if she proves it to them, vamps out in front of them, MOST OF THEM will react the way humans always do to the strange and unusual: THEY WILL LIE TO THEMSELVES ABOUT IT.

Humans will not believe the evidence of their own eyes if it is difficult, or inconvenient, or triggering, or scary, or any number of very real, very emotional, very demonstrable reasons. Eyewitnesses SUCK. People will just turn away and declare they didn't see it, and after a while, that will be the truth for them.

The cops are not going to round up vampires. The cops are not going to believe there ARE vampires. This is a non-threat, and the fact that it's the big climax of the episode, with everyone involved in this stupid escape plan, really is the perfect moldy cherry to throw on the top of the shit sundae this series has been.

Anyway. VampLady's sentenced to death - by the vampire cleaning service - and VampHusband goes with her. But in true Moonlight fashion, someone thought this was good enough to get a second season, and someone's dropped off the list of vampires to New Josh.

dun dun DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Oh, and Beth and Mick break up, but immediately get back together, because of course they do.

AND IT'S OVER! Thank god! I was gonna start looking up the writers and cyberbullying them.

So that just leaves our next series! I have three options: Blood Ties, a one-season series from Lifetime, from a book series, about a disabled woman and Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry VIII, in modern-day Toronto (home of the vamps!); Grimm, about a Portland cop who realizes the world is not quite what it seems, and among us walk shifters from fairytales, and he's supposed to kill them; or Evil, about a psychologist working with a Catholic Church team who investigate possible exorcisms.

Like I said, I'mma put a poll up on Twitter, and of course please comment here! If nobody chimes in, I'll have to ask the cards, and they're usually so obtuse it hardly seems worth it.

Have a great week, Snowflakes! I'mma go get high enough to erase Moonlight from my memory FOREVER!