SGRoA: Moonlight: S1 E7: The Ringer

Welcome back, Snowflakes! Another Thursday, another recap, and this time we finally get to meet the main antagonist of the show! Only six episodes in to a 16-episode season! The writing on this one is just

when Forever Knight starts to look Pulitzer-worthy

This show's beginnings are always very strange, but I hope they stop escalating after this: LA, on fire, helicopters circling, while Mick does pull-ups in front of what could be called either a "post-apocalyptic" or "Summer 2020" aesthetic. All while he monologues about how change is the only constant, and a vampire better get used to it. (I know some vampires who would tell his young ass to wait a minute. He'll be surprised how much things stay the same.)

He goes to the scene of the fire, because of course, and Beth is there, because of course. But props to the director, I guess? because they filmed this scene to enhance the chaos that you would have at an actual disaster, and it works! It's not cinematic-quality or anything, but I absolutely get what they were going for, and I think for a TV show, it works really well.

The building is historic, built in 1927; Mick's parents used to bring him there after church on Sundays, so I'm guessing there's a restaurant? a store? It looks like an apartment building, but who knows. Mick and Beth talk about this in the middle of a bunch of people, by the way.

And there she is: Coraleeeeeeeeeeen, taking photos of the disaster, and it's Flashback Time! We're somewhere gorgeously mid-century, and I'm jealous. Coraline is wandering around with a lit sparkler, which makes me exceedingly nervous, because how are you not burning yourself? your clothes? the house? Sparklers are yard toys AT MOST, and honestly, just don't, burning a house down isn't worth it, my god do I hate fireworks.

ANYWAY, looks like Mick is the hired help at the party, and he and a musician have a conversation about how pretty Coraline is and how they really want to know what she thinks about this post-war economic boom and - LOL, no, it's definitely a wink-wink nudge-nudge about her fuckin tits.

In the present, Mick goes up to her and calls her Coraline, but she says no, he's mistaken her for someone else. SPOILER: It's her. Like, I remember this ep, and it's telegraphed to hell and back, and if you can't see it coming, I don't know what to tell you. So she's lying, and she accuses Mick of using it as a line to hit on her, which he's not doing. "Morgan" is a friend of Beth's - Beth buys Morgan's photos for Buzzwire. Mick asks some anodyne questions about where Morgan is from and how long they've known each other, and Morgan demands to know why he's "interrogating" her. Look, Morgan, I want another reason to hate Mick as much as you do, but this ain't it, sis.

Beth tells Mick that the fire department thinks it's arson, but Mick barely acknowledges her: he's too obsessed with Morgan/Coraline. Morganaline. She's her own Couple Name! (Not as good as the Winters', which is Cake, so, I win.) Mick reminds us that he killed her, and then it's opening sting time.

Mick goes to see Josef, and most of the scene is just a rehash of what we just saw. Don't know why, except to show off that neither Josef nor Mick have any understanding of how memory or trauma works. Josef thinks that Beth would recognize Coraline again, because Coraline stole her when she was 4? IIRC? But, like, what? I barely remember shit from when I was four, and I don't have a whole lot of trauma from that time fucking with my memory of it. There's no guarantee that Beth remembers anything that wasn't told to her later; there's no way to know how her memory might be skewed, or any way to determine if her memory is blocked or it was simply just too long ago, or too early in her life, for her to remember any of it at all. Beth not recognizing Coraline - when Coraline looks exactly the same as she did 20+ years ago, and she met her in a completely different context - means exactly jack shit.

PLOT TWIST: Morgan's NOT A VAMPIRE! Hold the fuck up, I did not remember this! Mick, you should have fucking led with that, man! We already saw you meet her; the new information should come first! Josef is just like, "Well, then she's not Coraline, so move on," but, like, WHAT.

the 10th doctor looking confused, with the caption "What?"

Beth and Morgan are working on the hotel fire story. Beth notices Morgan's arm is bandaged: someone broke into her apartment and stole her cameras, and she was injured scuffling with him. Beth asks if she went to the police, and Morgan says of course, but since it's not actually their job to retrieve stolen property or solve crimes, she doesn't really know why she bothered. But now that you mention it, Beth, what about that PI friend of yours? What was his name? My Husband?

ned flanders, fry, and other memes looking suspicious

$20 says there aren't any missing cameras

This ep is so weirdly directed/edited/something. I don't know enough about visual storytelling conventions to know whom to blame, but every scene is rehashing every other scene? Like, after we leave Buzzwire, Beth and Morgan go over to Mick's, so Morgan can hire him. And instead of just cutting to Mick saying he'll take the case, or him working it, or him talking to someone else about working it, we have to hear Morgan TELL THE WHOLE STORY OVER AGAIN. Just like Mick telling the whole first scene to Josef! WTF is this?! Even my memory is not this bad, and I'm high right now.

Flashback Time! Same party, same red dress, Mick is the singer for the band. They banter about rock and roll ("the devil's music"), and Mick says he'll play something "shocking" on one condition. She says her name's Coraline, and that that's always the condition. She looks pissed about it, but kisses his cheek. I wonder if that's bad acting, too many fillers, or just another strange-ass choice in this strange-ass episode.

Mick, Beth, and Morgan go back to Morgan's so she can tell us the story one more time, just with extra details, and we all finally are dragged to the conclusion that the burglar was looking for the photos, like we could have all figured out about three seconds after we heard the story THE FIRST TIME.

Turns out Morgan keeps all her photos on a zip drive on a chain around her neck, so even if it were the arsonist who stole her cameras, he wouldn't be able to get rid of any evidence, because she still has it. So they go through the photos, looking for anything that seems weird or incriminating, and they find the world's worst special effect of a hetero couple struggling in a window. It looks like someone left a cardboard cutout of a stock photo in the window, there are flames in front of them and behind them? Like, the room is fully engulfed, and they're struggling but perfectly clean, faces unblurred, just breathing supes norms. It is the worst thing I have seen in a very long time, and I am thoroughly enjoying it.

woman in a green top doing a spit take

no screenshots, alas

And of course, Morgan recognizes the guy from the cardboard cutout as the thief who took her cameras. And of course, Mick is thinking about how he killed Coraline 20 years ago and how that looks just like the arsonist's struggle.

Josef is still convinced that Coraline is dead, though Mick says he "never saw the ashes", which makes me think that ash-scattering is necessary for true death. Josef says that Mick just needs to let her go, so Mick immediately goes to see Beth at work and ask her more questions about Morgan. Mick claims it's "due dilligence", Beth says he's "after" Morgan, and we're derailed by Mick being happy that Beth is jealous. But we bring it back to the case: Beth asks if he's going to turn the photos over to the police, but he says he's going to check if there's a body in the hotel first.

Which is ridiculous - fire investigators would already have been through and already found her, it's been like two days since the fire, how does he think he's going to find a body? But he does, of course, because that's what the plot requires. So he goes to Morgan's place to tell her that, and that he forwarded her photos, and then he takes prints? Again, days later? I mean, we know that he's looking to run her prints, not the thief's, but he even tells her that the cops will want the prints, even if they didn't dust for them before.

As he's "working", Morgan plays a song from back in the day that apparently is Mick's fave. He asks about it, and she says she just feels like she knows him. She's working with the photos again, and we get a different angle on the terrible cutout in the window. Somehow, Morgan took such good resolution shots that they can see an inch-wide tattoo that looks like a bird on the woman's shoulder. Morgan talks about how fire is a terrible way to die, and then it's Flashback Time again!

End of the party; an expressionless Coraline asks Mick if he wants to "get wet", presumably in the pool. He unzips her dress and finds a fleur-de-lis tattoo on her shoulder, which apparently is also what the cardboard cutout woman's tattoo is? Because the plot demands it, I assume.

Morgan bugs Beth about dating Mick; Beth denies there's anything there. Mick runs the prints he picked up at Morgan's place, and they're actually the thief's? what? why? he took them from the front door handle, like the dude just breezed past Morgan and left, which is not what was described earlier. But another plot twist: the dude's been dead for two full weeks! Mick is all "AHA!" and Josef is like, "What, more Q nonsense?" and Mick is all, "Dead guys committin' crimes says vamps to me!" and Josef needs a few more details, so:

Dead Guy (his name is Motolla) is a vampire, and he's working with Coraline to stage a murder and a fire that exactly parallel how Coraline died, and it's exactly the kind of mind-game she'd play, so clearly, she's doing all of this at Mick.

I mean, yes. That's how it all ends up, I think - I know it's Coraline, eventually - but it is so fuckin' dumb, you guys. It's all so - I don't even know. It's like the writers are given an end-point and absolutely zero guidance to get there, and then locked in the writers' room for the next few hours with nothing but cocaine and the threat of death to get them to write a script. The characters aren't people, they're pieces - but someone wants them to be people, so we have a lot of moments that should be character-building or character-revealing, but aren't, because the plot demands other things, so we just keep re-telling the same stories and rehashing the last scene and it makes me want to shake someone! I really feel like all the actors are doing their best, and this show seems to have decent production values, and sometimes the visuals are interesting or weird or whatever - but it all falls apart the second you let yourself have a question about the details.

This show would be amazing to watch while you scroll Instagram; too bad it was made before most, if not all, of what we would consider social media.

Josef and Mick go to Motolla's place to snoop. He has the same edition of Remembrance of Things Past that Morgan does, though his has a hollow with a key in it. Apparently it was Coraline's favorite book, and now I hate her for being pretentious, too. Mick finds the safe that goes with the key, and Morgan's cameras inside it.

Morgan comes to Mick's to get the cameras, and Josef's sitting in to get a look at her for himself. He ends up coming off super creepy: leering at her, standing too close, smelling her, weird "predator" shit like that.

They confront Morgan with the death certificate for Motolla; they act like it's a gotcha moment but Morgan says they should go see if his ashes really are at the cemetery where they should be. Mick says the police should handle it, but Morgan's aghast that they don't seem confused by or interested in the weirdness of a guy faking his own death just to commit arson and steal her cameras! Mick and Josef both look put-out, like they thought she'd just crumple under that death certificate and go, "Yup, it's me, Coraline, you caught me!" Two days ago, she's a master manipulator. Today, she should give up the ruse entirely because they found a death certificate.

I guess Morgan goes on her own? Because Mick and Josef are talking about her in the next scene. Josef says Morgan is human, so she's not Coraline. Mick says that Coraline must have figured out how to reverse vampirism, and come back to have her revenge on Mick, because she can't stand to see him "happy". I - do - do you think you're happy, Mick? Is that what *gestures vaguely to everything* this is? Happiness? I mean, I guess I have to take your word for it, man, but it doesn't seem very nice to me.

Oh, they go to the cemetery at night to check. And leave Josef at home, thank god, so I don't have to watch him leering anymore. And have a boring conversation about Beth having a boyfriend, and then it's Flashback Time! Mick has shown back up at Coraline's I-am-willing-to-die-for-it house. He wants to know why she left the other night when they were just starting to have fun, and he goes to kiss her, but she pulls away and opens the door more fully to reveal another man on her sofa. Mick gets pissed and leaves. Should have left it there, Coraline, and saved us all some trouble.

Mick follows Morgan into the cemetery and into the main crypt - it's that Hollywood cemetery, where you can actually visit famous people? with the crypty thing that has all the urns? It's not, like, a Buffy cemetery or anything - but Morgan doesn't seem to be there, and he keeps hearing shit, and then Motolla comes outta nowhere with a tire iron and beats the crap out of Mick and runs away. So Mick runs after him and they vamp fight, and of course Morgan finds Mick just as he's bitten Motolla and sees him all vampy and runs away. (Motolla also runs, the other direction.)

Mick goes after Morgan and starts talking like she's Coraline, going on about revenge, then wanting her to explain how she turned human, then tearing at her clothes to see her tattoo. He re-injures her arm, and she starts bleeding, which he also wants her to explain. He lets her go, and I guess drives back home by himself.

Beth is at Mick's place demanding an explanation, because Morgan isn't talking. Mick finally tells her about how Morgan looks like Coraline, about how his and Coraline's relationship was shitty. (We get a flashback of Mick being a drunk stalker, and then there's some weirdness with Coraline and him with the windows between them, and then they're tearing each others' clothes off.) Mick says he "went crazy" when Morgan showed up, but he was wrong, she's not Coraline. Beth asks if he was disappointed, and then just leaves? Before he can answer?

idiot plot goes brrrrrr

Beth does her little wrap-up for Buzzwire: police think Mottola faked his own death to cover up the murder and arson. And Morgan sits in front of her mirror, takes down her bra strap, and removes her tattoo coverup to reveal a fleur-de-lis.