Another glorious week in a panini, my lovely little Snowflakes, and not much is going on. I am getting to be an entirely adequate baker; we’re considering starting an herb garden; I have been watching too much 80s tv. But the weather as I write this is grey and cold and lovely, and I’m in a good mood because now I’ve got Guns N Roses in my head, so let’s begin!
Beth paces outside Mick’s apartment while Mick watches her on the security system. She gets up the courage to knock, and he lets her in because she’s here to talk to him about…him. She is freaking out. She asks Mick to tell her it was all some kind of trick, and he looks pissed. Because obviously, she should just believe you. I mean, that’s what y’all vamps have been doing for centuries, right? Preparing humans to believe in you? Not, like, hiding from everything and everyone and denying your very existence?
She asks if he’s the only one, and he says there’s a couple hundred of them in Los Angeles alone and, like, whut.
That seems like a lot of vampires, especially without any sort of formal structure. Nick Knight at least had The Raven club; it doesn’t seem like there’s any sort of anything in LA. I had the distinct impression that it was Mick and Josef and that was basically it. I mean SPOILER ALERT Coraline comes back, but I think I assumed she literally came back, that she had been elsewhere in the world, and she comes back to LA. And for people who keep talking about secrecy (despite never showing them actually being discreet), it seems like a couple hundred is too many to keep from blabbing.
Mick stresses the secrecy angle to Beth, too. Then explains he gets his blood from the blood bank, and Beth asks how one becomes a vampire, and it’s FLASHBACK TIME! At least for a minute, when he remembers his wedding night with Coraline. Mick tells Beth he doesn’t want to tell the story, and hustles her out the door. She keeps asking about it, and he won’t answer her, but it does set us up nicely for the next scene.
A man is reading a book on the street, and he glances at traffic, then crosses. He gets hit by a car that just keeps going, but the next vehicle stops. Another man gets out, checks the guy’s vitals, tells him he’s a doctor and he’s going to check his neck. The injured guy gets him nice and close, and then vamps out and bites.
The guy who got bit is in a convenience store, shoving chips in his face. The clerk goes to see wtf is going on, and bitten guy says their food is bad, it “doesn’t have any taste!” Clerk tells him to scram; there’s a scuffle; clerk gets cut; bitten guy eats him.
Beth shows up at the store for Buzzwire, of course, because every rando murder definitely gets screen time on the news? She eavesdrops on Cop Carl talking to another cop, and hears that the vic was “chewed up”, like it was a wild animal or something. Carl catches her and she pulls her “I won’t talk about what I heard if you give me something I can use later” and he tells her that the body was completely drained of blood.
Mick shows up at the morgue after Guillermo leaves him a dozen messages. The clerk is on the slab, and though it doesn’t look like a traditional vamp attack, it is one. No smell of decay, so it’s a freshly turned one. But why wasn’t his sire controlling him? Guillermo offers that the sire might have changed his mind, but, like, dude. That’s like having a baby and then letting it just wander off one day and hoping for the best. Mick says it’s against every rule they have, and I again wonder who enforces them, and that a sire has to be responsible for baby vamps, and have to see them through the transition. They’ve got a rogue on their hands.
Beth has shown up at the morgue, and Mick tries to do damage control. Beth says she was told something sliced the guy open and drained all his blood, and Mick is immediately defensive. “What, something like me? This is nothing like me!” kinda shit. Mick is so fucking touchy about things, damn, son. Toxic vampiricity.
He wants Beth off the case, and she’s laughing about it, “Why, because there’s a vampire involved?” He tells her it’ll get dangerous, and she says that it’s good she has him around then, isn’t it? But that’s not fair. Mick can’t be everywhere. Take the warning and be careful, Beth! You don’t have to give up the case, but you can be sensible. These two are made for each other, clearly.
Mick agrees to let her in on what he knows about the case, so he can keep close. He tells her how turning works, and she asks him to ask the other vampires if they know anything. “There’s not a big clubhouse where we all hang out”. Okay, Mick, but then, how are they supposed to know what the rules are?! There’s vampires, and there’s rules, but no one is set up to tell the vampires the rules? There’s no committee or group leaders or, hell, even just some rando who likes teaching? No chat boards, no letter writing, no subreddit?
HOW THE FUCK DO SEVERAL HUNDRED VAMPIRES JUST INTUIT YOUR WHOLE CULTURE?!
Mick walks the crime scene, telling us about newborn hunger. It’s pretty standard; I’ll probably leave a lot out unless something is weird. Mick follows the trail of blood to the first scene – where the vamp got hit by the car and turned the guy who ate the clerk. Then he goes into Flashback Time! Coraline has turned him without knowledge or consent, and Mick is freaking out, because of course he is. Coraline insists it’s a gift, the greatest she could give him, why doesn’t he like it? He says he never asked for it, and then commercial.
Back in the present, Mick is talking to Josef about the rogue and his sire. Josef is barely paying attention, playing on his indoor putting green and talking about playing golf with Tiger, who I assume is supposed to be Tiger Woods, but, like, dude. Josef. Are you supposed to be this douchey, or is it the passage of time that makes you so gross?
Mick brings Josef up to speed on the state of the case, and Josef advises him to go see the Cleaner, who knows “where all the bodies are buried”. Mick has never had to use her services, but other vamps call, and she shows up with a whole van full of people who just clean up the dead bodies and wash down the blood and OMG, MAKE IT ALL MAKE SENSE. Is there a vampire yellow pages? And again, if there’s no “clubhouse”, Mick, then HOW DO YOU LEARN ABOUT THIS SHIT? HOW IS KNOWLEDGE PASSED? HOW DO YOUR WRITERS NOT ASK THEMSELVES THESE QUESTIONS?
He mentions the area where the clerk was eaten, and she says it was a false alarm. She got a call about an accidental kill, but when she and her guys arrived, there was no vampire and no body. “I didn’t even get out of the car.” Mick asks who called for the cleanup, and after a bit of bickering back and forth, she gives him the name.
Beth is freaking herself out with gross internet vampire research – lots of blood and pictures of stakings – at the Buzzwire offices. Josh shows up with her dinner and scares the crap out of her, so she takes the opportunity to thank him for the food to pull his attention away from the computer screen and all its vampire pics. That’s fine; Josh takes that opportunity to say they have to talk about “everything” that’s been going on: how Beth shot a guy, this new PI buddy, her traumatic memories. She tells Josh she knows it’s a lot, but it has nothing to do with him.
Like, I think I’ve heard the word “fiance” used, so…how does this have nothing to do with him? None of it is his fault; none of it should have him worried she’s leaving him or that she’s unhappy, is I think what she’s trying to say, but, uh, yeah, it definitely does “have to do” with him! He’s your boyfriend!
I’m beginning to understand why this only got one season, y’all.
Meanwhile, Mick’s at JPL in Pasadena to find the sire vamp, Gerald, who apparently doesn’t know he’s a sire. Maybe he really was hit by that car? Like, I thought it was all a setup so he could grab the next good Samaritan, but it looks like it really was an accident! Mick asks him a bunch of questions – standard investigatory stuff. Were you alone, where were you coming from, etc. Who’d you eat. Gerald thinks he killed the doctor guy, and he says he checked to make sure he was dead, and then he called the cleaner.
Mick tells him no, somehow your blood got in his system, and he fuckin’ turned, my man. While this is news to Gerald, he doesn’t act very surprised? Like, I think I would be deeply shocked and worried if someone came to tell me I dropped a baby on the street and it started killing people. Gerald. Are you hiding something? Or is that just me, giving the writers too much credit?
Mick asks Gerald if he remembers anything else, and Gerald says that the rogue is a doctor – he remembered him saying that. (Side note, Moonlight writers: my job would be so much easier if you could cast even just, like two more women every episode. Why are they always all dudes?) Mick leaves, probably off to the hospital or something.
Meanwhile, Dr. Vamp is running weirdly through a parking garage. He hides behind a car, then does this weird loping run, then hides behind another one. He looks in one of the windows, sees himself looking all vampy, and freaks out – until he hears someone behind him. He walks up to the new guy – ANOTHER FUCKIN DUDE, THANKS – says, “Everything’s gonna be all right, I’m a doctor,” and then eats him.
Beth and Cop Carl do their usual song-and-dance at the new crime scene, and Carl tells her not to make this guy into a serial by giving him a name. Mick is parked nearby, watching her report on his…flip phone, sure, okay. He chides her for saying they don’t know “what” killed these guys, and she wants to know why Mick thinks he can’t trust her. Like, I don’t know, seems like no one can, Beth. Carl begs you not to use things, gives you other stuff, you use the first stuff. Mick asks you to keep vampires under your hat, you start talking about “what things” are committing crimes. Josh asks you to talk, you tell him your life isn’t his business.
Mick asks Beth to use her contacts in the police department to see if there’ve been any reports of any kind filed in the last couple of days. I assume he means primarily missing persons, and hopefully of the demographics Gerald outlined for him, but he just says “reports” like that’s enough for her to go on. But it must be, because she’s immediately sidetracked by the fact that he doesn’t have his own LAPD contacts. He says it takes years that he doesn’t have, because they’ll age but he won’t, and cops pick up on those details. She says she’ll look into it.
Flashback Time! Mick feels bad for the rogue, because it’s not easy being a baby vamp (do do duh do doot do). Mick is begging Coraline to kill him, he can’t take feeling this way, and she offers him a woman instead. He refuses at first, and then eats her, of course, and, like,
these two are…certainly together, I guess? I mean, I know we’re seeing all these flashbacks from Mick only, and it’s probably never going to be the good stuff between them, but given his general demeanor and the way he treats Beth…I can’t really believe there ever was good stuff, you know?
Anyway. A lady in the ‘burbs opens her garage at the end of the day to find the rogue in her garage fridge – and she calls him “Jeff”, so I’m guessing it’s her husband! Jeff says he was tired, so he went to sleep in the fridge. He’s naked because he didn’t need his clothes in there, and she reminds him that he’s been under so much stress lately. He tells her something’s happening to him – boy howdy, is it ever! – and she wants to call the hospital because he’s sick. He swats her hand away, HE’S NOT SICK, and then she hugs him, and, welp.
Beth and Mick are riding around in his Mercedes (we finally get a pic of the whole car last episode), and she’s quizzing him about vampires. Yes, he can have garlic, but no, he doesn’t eat. No, he can’t fly. No, he doesn’t age. Yes, he’s 85. She says immortality looks pretty good, he disagrees (of fucking course), and then she gets the registration address of a car pulled out of the intersection the night the vamp made the rogue. Dr. Jeff Pollock.
They go to the house and find Mrs. Jeff, murdered, of course. They go through the house, trying to figure out where Jeff has scarpered off to. Beth asks about Mick’s family; he says he gave them all up, and his wife is dead. Just dead, no details. They figure out which hospital he works at, and they’re about to leave when they hear a noise.
Thinking Jeff came back, Mick COCKS HIS GUN and goes to investigate. Now. Drawing a weapon in case it’s not Jeff? Good idea. Cocking it? Not so much, in any circumstances, but what the fuck is a gun going to do against a vampire, Mick?
It’s not Jeff; it’s Gerald. Mick tells him that Jeff killed the woman of the house, and he’s killed two others, and now he has to be put down. Gerald stakes Mick, paralyzing him, because he won’t let Mick take his son from him.
Beth, still in the other room, hears the door close and goes out to find Mick staked to the floor. He manages to whisper “Take it out!” She does, with much facial emoting to show how gross it all is, though there’s almost no blood whatsoever. Another vampire lesson: stakes paralyze, they don’t kill. But they have to go after Jeff and, now, Gerald, ASAP.
Jeff is wandering the hospital, smelling blood, seeing blood, distracted by blood. How many people does he need to eat in a day? I mean, babies eat every couple of hours, sure, but they don’t eat six liters at a go and then cry for more. Gerald shows up, telling Jeff he’s there to help, but Jeff just wants the sweet, sweet red stuff. Gerald and Jeff get into a scuffle, and just as Mick and Beth get into the hospital, Gerald gets thrown out of a patient room. Mick goes after Jeff; Beth yells at Gerald about leaving a newborn vampire alone; and then Gerald runs into The Cleaner, who apparently is also some sort of police.
Mick tells Jeff he doesn’t have to kill to survive, and Jeff says he likes it, and I feel like there are only, like, 5 main plots for vampire shows. This is one I call, “Good Vamp Bad Vamp”, and it’s always some mistaken turning, and the Good Vamp has to take out the Bad Vamp, and it’s all very boring. Look, I’m not calling for anyone taking the position that wholesale killing is good, or anything, but a little more nuance or a little less killing to begin with or, like, aliens coming down and making the vampires. Anything. Anything instead of yet another “I must kill the Bad Vamp” episode, I am fucking begging. Netflix? Hulu? I have rights, call me!
Mick stakes Jeff, of course. He loads Jeff on a stretcher and meets back up with Beth, who wonders if they should call the cops. Mick says of course not, does not ask if she’s dumb, and then says that he alone has to kill Jeff. Which he does, by loading the dude in an incinerator and turning it on. That’s it. Didn’t even have to get his hands dirty, so, like, why look so tortured about it?
In the wrap-up, Josef and Mick are chatting at Mick’s place about the whole case, and Mick brings up Coraline, and Josef tells some story about Buddhist monks? I can’t stand this asshole, and he’s literally been on screen for like, ten minutes, tops. Anyway, the point is that Mick needs to stop carrying Coraline around, and maybe, but, like, also maybe therapy?Listen to your friend when he wants to talk about his trauma, since I’m guessing therapy isn’t encouraged when you’re being all secretive and shit?
Mick goes to see Beth the next morning, just to tell her how he became a vampire. He doesn’t even go inside the apartment, it’s like three sentences, he calls himself a monster, you know how this goes. She’s the first human he’s ever told this stuff to, and he trusts her, and then he leaves, because why would anyone want to talk more about this stuff?
And that’s where we leave off! So, I am definitely realizing I did not remember this show that well, first off, and that it is not good, secondly. But a bad show makes for a great recap oftentimes, so I’mma go hunt down some refreshed memes and gifs, and next week, prepare myself to make angry jokes. If only I had a clubhouse or something to hang out at….
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