IT’S OCTOBER!!!!!! Official spooky times, Snowflakes, and I am pumped. I bought myself a witchy cup for the season, dressed my house skeleton, David S Pumpkins, up in his pumpkin suit, and I am ready for candy – and badly written vampires! Let’s see what Vicki’s a bitch about this week!
Henry and Vicki are talking about the stars; Henry explains how he sees the sky, how everything is lit up like daylight, how people glow. Vicki – who in the books is struggling hard with losing her vision to a degenerative condition – says she’d love to see like that, which segues into a discussion of vampirism. Apparently Henry’s species are viciously territorial, and end up killing each other when they stay too close for too long.
I prefer commie vamps, but hey, the aughts were a disturbing and different time.
A woman is burgling? searching? a house – she’s all in black, with a flashlight. It seems she finds what she’s after when she comes upon a jaguar’s head, mounted on the wall, but of course that’s when the presumed homeowner comes back. He looks like Sal from Mad Men in this light.
He hears her make some noise and loads a gun to go looking, and ends up attacked by something snarly – presumably an animal. As he lies dying, the woman cleans out a bunch of artefacts, and we cut to credits.
Mike and Kate are dragging a woman in black into the precinct. “Melville” has been killed, he’s a drinking buddy of the mayor, the woman was last seen around his house… blah blah. I assume Melville is the victim we saw before, but that isn’t at all obvious or clear. Crowley is already on Mike about getting this case right. They have to tie her to the animal that killed Melville – “he was torn apart” – but Mike doesn’t even think it was an animal, because Melville’s head was left neatly on a table, separate from his chewed-up body.
Kate is also giving Mike the business this episode, and while he’s been better lately, he’s still Mike “Goddamn” Cellucci, so I’ll allow it. She doesn’t necessarily think the woman – Felicia – is solely responsible, and she doesn’t think Felicia will give up the partner and the animal. But Mike is convinced, so they go in to interrogate her.
I do really have to give credit to the writers, here. I assume the strike ended and everyone went back to work at some point before these last few episodes, because we are getting mostly excellent exposition at every turn. Snappy dialogue, lots of details, and even the character bits – like Henry talking about stars – have been engaging and worth watching. I’m excited to see what our monster is this week, and I like that we’re letting Mike be an actual cop, instead of an adjunct to Vicki.
Felicia was home watching TV, obviously. Cop show. The one with the forensic guys? Mike says that’s a good guess, because that one was on that night, and hoo boy, this is one of those moments when you realize how much society has changed in a short time. “On TV that night”. Amazing. Not a usable metric anymore, not even for boomers who still watch cable (because they only do Fox “news”).
Anyway, why was she out? Got a burger. Why did she run when the showed their badges? No answer to that, but she definitely didn’t kill anyone, especially not Melville, whom she doesn’t know. Honestly, she doesn’t seem guilty, but I’m pretty sure she was the lady who took all the artefacts. Also, she looks like Donna Murphy, it’s amazing.
Mike heads to Vicki’s, to hire her to work the homicide. That’s weird enough, but obviously you have to get the star of the show involved in the episode. No, what’s remarkable about this scene is Henry, lying on a light table, looking like he’s gonna seduce anyone who walks through the door like the weird little twink he is. Delightful, please give me more camp in this show, it’s begging for it.
Henry is drawing Mike, who says he doesn’t want to be in Henry’s “funny books”. I was going to make a crack about it being 2008, Mike, don’t you know what a graphic novel is? …but, uh, well…
Mike tells them about the case – since Henry is now also working with Vicki – and Henry perks up at the mention of the head on the table, but what’s driven Mike here was that he thinks he saw Felicia’s eyes glowing at the end of the interview. So he thinks this might be more up Vicki’s aisle, so to speak, but balks at paying Vicki, and all I can say is that’s karma! Vicki doesn’t pay Coreen, Vicki doesn’t get paid.
Henry and Vicki head out, and Mike is right back to the interrogation mines with Kate. Felicia is giving them bupkis, talking about “dark sides” and other creative interrogation licenses do not advance the plot. Felicia is calm, unflappable, even, though odd. I wonder if she’s a shape shifter.
Henry and Vicki break into Felicia’s place. They find pics of her family in front of their house, so obviously that’s their next stop – after the apartment complex’s storage room, where they find a putrid smell and a bunch of claw marks.
So, basically, Mike has outsourced the investigation so he can just keep Felicia in the box all night? I mean, interesting concept, but usually there’s a ticking clock or some other impetus to these kinds of cases. Did Mike just… want a bunch of dialogue this episode? Did he sprain something? I suppose it doesn’t really matter, and the dialogue between him and Felicia is, admittedly, pretty good. He finally gets the tiniest reaction out of her by mentioning cats – specifically, she’d “be surprised at the size of cats some people keep”.
Or should I make that plural? Felicia’s family have no records: no school, no immunization, no medical records. They have drivers licenses, but that’s it, and Vicki heads off to see them in the morning. But her dad has nothing to say; his son died a year ago, and his daughter left a month after, and she’s in the city full of evil people that he doesn’t want to know about. He says all she knows about animals is standard: cows and horses, dogs and cats. She didn’t understand the virtue of discipline, and besides that, he has nothing to say. She chose evil, and now she’s paying the price.
Back at the office, Henry presents his research on shapeshifters, and says that a regular animal kills out of instinct, but whoever killed Melville was motivated by hate. Hence the beheading. And shapeshifters would fit with Vicki’s impression of the dad: he got all twitchy when she mentioned cats.
Crowley is pissed that the interrogation isn’t getting anywhere. The press is on her ass, and Mike has fuck all. He insists that Felicia is going to break, but even Kate thinks he’s wrong. Crowley says he has till morning, and that’s it. Kate harangues him about not letting anyone truly be a partner, and this is no different, and she leaves as Vicki comes in to let Mike in on the werecat theory.
Unfortunately, there is zero connection between Felicia and Melville still. So Vicki is off to find that next piece, while Mike stays in the box.
On her way out, Kate stops her, concerned for Mike. He’s starting to believe all this supernatural shit, and it’s ruining his career. Kate sounds truly concerned for Mike, truly worried that he’s fucking up. Instead of trying to allay those fears or reassure Kate that Mike is still a good cop, Vicki gets an attitude and tells Kate that if she knew anything about him, she’d trust his instincts, because say it with me now –
I… have zero idea why they’re making Vicki so unlikable. Is she supposed to appear strong, by these little fits of pique and temper? Because it doesn’t work. Is she supposed to seem vulnerable, irritable because of her eye condition and resultant disability? Because that doesn’t work, either. Vicki just reads as a cunt, and it’s getting tired, frankly. I’m not against an unlikable main character – I write them all the time – but we still have to root for them. We have to be interested, not off-put. She needs a reason to be a bitch, but all we’ve been given is that… she’s a woman, I guess?
A woman on the street sees a black jaguar and calls 911 to report it – but Felicia is still in the box?! Uh-oh. This is her dad or – more likely – the sister who briefly stood up for her to Vicki after Dad called her evil. Or maybe even the lost brother, though I’m pretty sure he ended up on Melville’s wall.
Mike is getting nowhere, at least until he mentions her father and gets a lot of anger back. She says her dad won’t even hate the people who hate him, but Mike says she wouldn’t be like that. She’d do the “right” thing. She says to leave them out of it, and then lawyers up.
Crowley says they found the jaguar, case solved! We won’t ask how a cat set a head on a table, that won’t look good for our stats, it’s fine. Just close it already.
Vicki and Henry go over to the crime scene, to try to connect Felicia and Melville. He has taxidermied heads everywhere, and a whole bookcase dedicated to lycanthropy. They find the jaguar head and make the connection to Felicia’s family. Time to go back to the farm and figure out what they’re hiding in the barn.
Felicia has a great lawyer, already threatening to sue for illegal imprisonment and demanding formal apologies. I’m in love.
Vicki and Henry immediately find a cat – the sister – and Henry has his fangs out while the jaguar actor is just… chillin’. Vibing, even. All that cat’s body language is super relaxed, so there’s a bunch of silly cuts to make it look like they’re fighting, or at least sizing each other up. It’s the goofiest, and I’m glad this show isn’t that improved.
The sister, Alyssa, was in the city to take the heat off Felicia. Melville did kill the brother. Dad says they should stay hidden, that they can’t avenge him. Melville has been killing people when they’re shifted so he can hunt the most dangerous game and still get away with it. Felicia couldn’t let it go. Dad would do literally anything to keep the secret: he’s going to kill Felicia.
But of course Mike can’t hold Felicia any longer, and he misses Vicki’s call about her dad coming to off her. Felicia leaves, Mike gets the message and goes after her – without telling Kate anything, not even an excuse.
The big showdown happens in the precinct parking lot. Lots of crying between Felicia and her dad, Mike acting as therapist and then as benevolent authority when he lets them go. There’s been enough killing, and Felicia wasn’t really murdering so much as avenging. Felicia and her dad take off, tearfully arm in arm, and Mike quips to the just-arrived Henry and Vicki that his job has really gone down the tubes, because now he’s chasing “weer” cats.
