Well, Picard Day was yesterday, but still! Happy Thursday, Snowflakes! I have a snazzy new haircut (very welcome as it hit 104 yesterday) and a little sunburn from actually leaving the house this week! Looking forward to some beach time this weekend, once my new umbrella gets here. I hope y’all are enjoying your summer so far! Let’s get started!
Continue readingYes, that’s right, I will be fully vaxxed tomorrow! I plan to celebrate with the first haircut in 16 months and perhaps a walk through a bookstore. But for now, let’s celebrate with bad TV!
Coraline’s lung and heart have been stabbed, and infection has already set in, so she’s in bad shape. Coraline lied about what happened, saying it was an accident, and Beth wants to know why she lied. Beth is pretty torn up about it, but that doesn’t stop her from accusing Mick of still like-liking Coraline. He shoots back, “She’s my wife,” and, like, sure, dude, but also she turned you without consent? she tried to kill you? she kidnapped Beth? Choose from the menu of bad decisions Coraline has made, my good bitch.
But of course, Mick isn’t really interested in any of that, wife notwithstanding. What he really wants to know is how Coraline managed to become human again, because it’s not a vampire story if some whiny crybaby man doesn’t want to be human again!
We’re in New York City as Mick’s words fade out. An apartment full of “old” pics of a woman: they’re meant to look like she’s in the 50s, I’m guessing, based on the hair, but lemme tell you, I’ve been doing 50s hair care this whole pandemic, and that ain’t it, chief. Also, the quality of the photos themselves looks too new. I know, I know, I shouldn’t ding them for props, but I can’t help it! An old man on oxygen looks up as a younger man comes into the room and hands him a photo. The younger man – who played someone on Spartacus, god I loved that show, so much eye candy – says he’s found him, “him” being Josef. Old guy wants him dead, and reminds Assassin that it must be fire, no money unless it’s done with fire.
Josef is playing poker with vamps, I guess, because they’re betting with little vials of blood, anteing up “B+” and “O-” like it matters, before some dude in a ski mask walks in, starts shooting, and we get our opening sting.
I had to rewind, but shooter dude threw in some grenades, too, and Josef’s whole floor has gone kaboom, and presumably him along with it. Josef’s head of security (who is Not John Goodman) fills Mick in – it was definitely professionals, and they really want Josef gone, but no evidence so far that he is.
Beth is filling her editor in on Coraline’s condition, or her version of it: no one knows what happened to Morgan, and she’s still unconscious. Did you want Beth to get a doctor’s note, Useless Editor? Do you have a lot of absentee paperwork to fill out or something? (Ugh, I hate that I noticed how shit she is.) No, no, she wants to put Beth on the case of Josef’s building blowing up. Beth says it’s a conflict of interest, this is Mick’s best friend, she’s too close – but Bad Editor is bad, so she sends Beth right over.
This ep is trying hard to make me care about Josef, but the time to do that was several eps ago when he was being disgustingly sexist. Or in any of these episodes, honestly, because he’s been trash the whole time, come on. I’m not going to change my mind because of a low angle shot of Mick looking pained and talking to Beth about poker night.
Mick’s pissed she brought a cameraman, obviously, so he takes off, because she should “stay and get your story”. He goes to look at the security footage with Not John Goodman. Josef had infrared, so he could see if his visitors were human or not. They have the shooter on film: he’s a human. They zoom in on the grenades he used – “incendiaries”, Mick calls them, and says they look military grade, so that’s probably a lead. And then Mick gets a call: Coraline is awake.
He goes to talk to her and tell her Josef died. I for sure thought there would be some amnesia, but she seems to remember just fine. She wants to talk about Josef, but Mick wants to know how to become human, and she thinks it’s fuckin dumb, because it is, and is sure that it all has to do with Beth, which, yeah, it does! But of course that’s just gonna make a crazy bitch crazier, because that’s Coraline’s whole purpose in this show, and she goes off on a tangent about getting Mick back before lapsing back into unconsciousness. No worries, though: Mick takes a sample of her blood for his own purposes! He’ll get that secret no matter what Coraline wants!
Mick finds Beth waiting in his hallway. They apologize to each other, though honestly, Mick was justified in being angry: it *is* ghoulish to bring a cameraman to your maybe-boyfriend’s best friend’s death scene. Mick starts crying about Josef and they hug and then go inside –
where Josef is patiently waiting at Mick’s desk. I knew it! I knew Mick was being premature. You can’t count on a vampire dying just because it looks like he should have. That’s just Vampirism 101, there.
Mick shows Josef the security footage; Josef doesn’t recognize the guy. Someone knew about the fangs, because fire was used, but it’s unclear if that was the shooter, or someone who hired him. But Josef has bigger problems: he’s dead, and therefore has no access to any of his money or stuff.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhh, whut? No, come on, really, what the actual fuck? Regular ol’ millionaires have dozens of lawyers on retainer and keep liquid funds and shit and you expect me to believe that a 400-year-old billionaire who has to keep his identity mostly secret and pass his own property onto himself every so often and, yes, HAS TO DIE ON THE REGS –
You want me to believe that this person, who by any shred or tiny speck of logic would have backups upon backups upon backups to ensure that he has access to what he needs to live, THIS PERSON HAS NONE OF THAT?
And I mean, okay, yes, I write a 600-year-old billionaire. I have thought this through. You know all about Grant’s lawyers and forgers and bankers and accountants, the endlessly well-paid people who can help make his life happen. But even if I hadn’t thought through this exact scenario, I know that regular humans – especially those engaged in, let’s say, morally-grey enterprises – will keep liquid assets in several places so that they can access them when shit goes pear-shaped! Mobsters have cash! There’s all those movies about diamonds! My god, just when I think the writers are starting to get their shit together! Josef runs out of money because he only has one identity and no hidey-holes?! What the fuck, y’all.
I had to go take a smoke break. Sheesh.
So, Josef has no money, and that’s not gonna get fixed until they take out the assassin – or whoever hired him. Josef has to stay dead until they find him. Mick and Beth head out to Beth’s hacker friend to have her go through the military databases looking for the dude. Mick is surprised the hacker is a woman, because of course, but she finds the dude! He’s gone private after duty in Afghanistan with Special Forces. Again, because of course. At least I haven’t had to make a bunch of assumptions. Yet.
Mick comes home to an apartment full of women; Josef’s “ordered in”. Mick is pissed. Josef’s put them all in danger, just like he did his other friends. Josef says he’s sorry, but “I get lonely”. Mick returns: “I’m beginning to see why.”
Oh, Josef DID hide money – in his safe at his office. Which he wants to go to now, to get the cash, because bottled blood isn’t good enough for him.
Mick goes to bed. I would be exhausted too, Mick.
Coraline still has a raging infection – but her body temperature is going down. I’m guessing that vampirism “cure” isn’t going to be one much longer. I mean, she almost eats the nurse, so….
Josef, predictably, leaves Mick’s place.
He runs into Not John Goodman, whom he tells to keep it on the down-low, because no one else can know he’s alive. But we all know where that’s going, yeah? Yeah. Assassin kills Not John Goodman in the next scene, because of course NJG has been in on it this whole time for cash. But good news, everyone! Mick has realized Josef is gone and shows up just in time to keep Assassin from shooting Josef while Josef is dicking around with some locket he had in his safe.
Mick and Assassin fight, and Assassin wisely tells Mick that he was hired by John Whitley to kill Josef. Josef says he’s never heard of the guy, but is gone as soon as Mick turns around. Mick turns the assassin over to the cops while Beth looks into Whitley: he had a daughter who disappeared in 1955, which seems sus. They head for New York to track down Josef.
Y’all. We are only halfway through this ep, and I swear enough shit has happened for a two-parter. Let’s breathe for a moment.
Oh, of course, Josh suddenly reappears as Beth’s packing. We needed more subplots in this episode. Beth has forgotten movie night, and Josh mentions that she’s going out of town with Mick, and she says she was gonna call him from the airport, and they break up. I mean, almost? maybe? It doesn’t seem terribly official, but that’s probably so they can make more DRAMA later.
Assassin has escaped from custody in LA, and has some questions about Josef. Old Guy spills the vampire beans, as it were, and Assassin only has a brief moment of doubt because he’s now been involved in two impossible incidents. He wants to know everything – but most of all, he wants to know how to kill them.
Beth and Mick get into Old Guy’s place, and of course, it’s all about the daughter. He thinks Josef is responsible for her death because of a diary she kept and that he read after her disappearance. He hands the diary to Beth as they’re talking, and she walks out with it. It reads like a 12-year-old wrote it, it’s kind of gross, a lot of “our love will overcome anything” and “we’ll be together forever”. Even the handwriting is childish, not the Copperplate grace I would expect from a 21-year-old writing in 1955.
They head to Josef’s place in NY (that Beth’s hacker found for them), and discover Old Guy’s daughter unconscious, still young, in a bed. Josef tells their story, and I’m okay with it now, because he also tells it like he’s 12. The turning went bad; she’s been in a coma since he attempted. I don’t know why all these other vamps have such trouble turning people. It seems a weird piece of lore to recycle so often.
Since there are now only five more minutes in this episode, Assassin breaks in, shoots Josef, then stakes him, but Josef luckily doesn’t die. Assassin’s surprise at that allows Mick to pick him up and break his neck, all so we can see him nearly naked on Starz. (worth it, trust me)
Blah blah wrapup inanities from Josef and Mick. Beth gives Josef his lady’s diary, and Mick and Beth head back to LA while Josef is taking the opportunity to stay in NY a little longer. There’s a motherfucking montage of Josef and his lady, and Beth and Mick talk about a cure as they wait for a cab. Mick wants to go out on the town, but Beth is worried about missing their flight – because she has to get back to Josh.
And Coraline leaves the hospital – AMA all the way.
That’s it till next week, Snowflakes! Come back to see my cool new haircut, whatever that is!
Didn’t Forever Knight have an episode titled Fleur de Lis? The one about Nick’s sister, Fleur? or maybe I’m just remembering what Lacroix called her…. Anyway, Snowflakes, I’m here, I’m high, I’m ready to recap!
Ooh, it’s a Beth voiceover! She’s talking about memory – as a concept and her specifically traumatic ones of her abduction – while she pounds on Mick’s door. He finally lets her in, and she waves a file at him. She has proof that Morgan is Coraline. Mick says he knows, and then Coraline comes down his stairs – dressed only in his shirt, and both of them still wet from the shower. He says it’s not what it looks like, but Beth doesn’t care: she’s already staking Coraline.
We then get a “24 Hours Earlier” on the screen along with Beth staking out Coraline’s apartment.(heh. “staking”.) Mick shows up and they have a weirdly jealousy-laden convo about Morgan/Coraline. Turns out, Beth now thinks that Morgan is Coraline, and she’s trying to convince Mick to look into her background a little more closely. Mick agrees to keep Morgan busy, but warns Beth that if Morgan is Coraline, and if she suspects, it’ll be very bad for Beth. Beth is super fucking pissed about the abduction, and determined to get the truth, so she’s fine with that.
So it seems that we’re finally getting some real episodes in here! I wonder if the earlier half of the season was why this got cancelled: no one should have to put in 7 episodes before things start to become sensical. I’m thrilled that this ep picks up where we left off, and that it all makes narrative sense, even going so far as to make narrative sense with the entire previous episode! Like, you know, a story!
Now, why exactly Beth has decided Morgan absolutely IS Coraline suddenly, I don’t know, but it feels like getting ahead of myself to wonder about it at all! I actually have faith that it will be explained momentarily, so let’s press PLAY again.
So, it’s daylight again, and I assume this is before the events in the opening bit (this is after the sting). But I hate that I have to assume again. Bad writers! No cookie!
Mick is meeting with a client who wants his wife followed. He thinks she’s cheating, he’s a CEO, he’s paying Mick 50K for his expertise and his discretion. Guy’s a jerk, but obvies Mick takes the job.
And then he meets Coraline for lunch? Oh, we were off to such a good start. Anyway, Morgan orders real food and then Mick apologizes for – that night several episodes ago? in the graveyard, when he made her bleed? That must have been in the “last time on Moonlight” bit, which I skipped, so maybe I will stop doing that. Anyway, he wants her to do the photography for this surveillance job; he offers her 10K and she takes it. Morgan probes about the ex she looks so much like; Mick politely deflects.
Beth, meanwhile, is at Buzzwire, Googling Coraline. Mick texts to tell her that Morgan will be with him on the case all day, so this is…the next day. Huh. Okay, time indicators were missing, I made an assumption, but, like, also, were you going to invent a case to keep Morgan busy, Mick? And why does Morgan need to be busy if Beth is just looking up 300-year-old courtesans on Lexis Nexis?
We get some heavy metal Flashback Time of Coraline being branded with the fleur-de-lis, even though it’s actually a tattoo, and then Beth is lying to her boss about heading out to do some research for a story.
Mick and Morgan are in the park, homing in on their target. Mick has an earpiece for Morgan, who says she loves how “Bourne Identity” it all is. They’re doing okay for a while, but husband dude wanted conversations recorded, so Mick almost gets made. But Morgan gets several shots of the lady kissing her affair partner, and Mick gives up on the recording to just listen in on the convo – just long enough to hear that “if he finds out, he’ll kill us”.
Morgan is jazzed she got the shots for that easy ten grand, but Mick says they can’t turn the evidence over if husband dude is gonna kill lady and her affair partner. Morgan says that they can’t be sure that what Mick heard referenced an actual murder – she says a) it’s probably metaphorical and 2) even if it’s not, they were hired to provide information, and they can’t know, and therefore have no responsibility for, what husband dude does with said info. But Mick wants to investigate a little more – husband dude was certainly very concerned with secrecy, so much that Mick thinks he might choose murder over divorce. Morgan agrees, but wants to stop by Buzzwire to drop something off for Beth.
Beth is, of course, breaking into Morgan’s place.
Mick heads to husband dude’s office, but husband dude won’t see him, so Mick doesn’t hand over the evidence. Morgan was waiting outside, I guess? because she meets him in the elevator. On the way down, they pick up both the affair partner and the lady, and Mick has to turn his head so that Lady – who saw him at the park – won’t recognize him. So he and Morgan are basically kissing, of course. Why waste a cliche, I guess?
Mick texts Beth that he and Morgan are on their way to Morgan’s place to pick up a camera, and Beth hides, but then Mick smells her and hustles Morgan out so Beth can keep snooping. They head to across the street from the Biltmore, where the affair people were meeting, and set up surveillance on the room. Beth calls Mick, and Morgan’s giving a play-by-play of the sex, and then Mick makes it sound even pervier when Beth asks what they’re doing, so I guess I know why she was so pissed in the opener. Mick gets off the phone without doing anything to make it sound like he’s spying and not fucking, and then Beth finds photos of him from the 50s in Morgan’s drawer.
So Mick and Morgan watch people have sex, and end up kissing, because who wouldn’t? (lots of people, clearly, but they’re both single, so why not?) But the big reveal here is that Lady’s affair partner is her stepson! Remember back in 2007, before we all knew what joke I am now socially obligated to put in here? “Stepson, what are you doing? I’m stuck in the hotel bed!” Pretty good reason for murder, as 2 out of 2 private eyes agrees.
They finally end up at Buzzwire, where Beth is safely at her desk, but she can’t hide how fucking angry she is. She heads out to go do…something, I missed it, I’m not going back, and Mick of course uses that opportunity to talk about what happened at the hotel – the kiss. Morgan’s all, it’s no big, why did you even bring it up? Oh, right, because you like Beth. So, no, I won’t mention it to her. But I think I’m more your type, right? I mean, you did marry someone who looks just like me.
Husband Dude sets up a meeting, finally. Mick says he’s taking all the surveillance – including Morgan’s memory card – back to his place before he goes to the meet, because he doesn’t want to turn anything over until he knows it won’t get someone killed.
Beth goes to see Josef, who again has an office full of people, but he actually makes them all leave before discussing vampire shit. She wants all the skinny on Mick.
Who is simultaneously getting stood up by Husband Dude, who has hired someone to ransack Mick’s office. Mick calls Morgan to tell her all their shit is gone, and he thinks that he should go to Stepson’s place to warn him and Lady. Morgan Googles the address and Mick heads out.
Morgan gets off the phone and Beth’s editor is there, handing her a sound file she asked the audio guy to clean up. Editor wants to know what story it’s for and is all weird about it, like come the fuck on, is this what they pay you for? Babysitting people about what work is for what story and why and when it’ll be done all day long? Shouldn’t you be, I dunno, like, EDITING? This suspicion just feels so weird to me, and this poor editor seems never to have any lines that aren’t “Get me a story”, “I’ll give you a story”, or “What story is that for?”. Wasted character. No one needs fuckin management up in this bitch.
Josef tells Beth there is absolutely no cure for vampirism, so no, Coraline definitely didn’t find it. He thinks Mick is still obsessed, just like he was when he first met Coraline, and that it was only when Coraline took Beth that Mick had really had it. Beth remembers the fire, but isn’t convinced that Coraline is dead. Josef says that if she’s back – and that’s a very generous “if”, for Beth’s sake – Coraline is back for Mick, end of story.
Beth goes up to the house where Mick first met Coraline on the assumption that Coraline still owns it, and finds a bunch of surveillance of herself and Mick – rather obviously.
Mick shows up at Stepson’s back door, and Stepson lets him in after Mick confesses to following him and Lady. Morgan, meanwhile, is listening to that cleaned-up audio Mick took in the park, and hears that Lady and Stepson are going to kill Husband – it’s only if he figures out that’s the plan that he’ll kill first. But Mick is on high alert because he sees all the surveillance from his office on Stepson’s coffee table, and is confronting Stepson when Lady shoots him in the back.
Morgan shows up at Stepson’s looking for Mick. The door is still open, but no one’s there, because they went to kill Husband Dude. She calls Mick’s phone, and finds him covered in blood. Morgan wants to go to the hospital, but Mick says no, it’s just a scalp laceration, it’s not that bad, let’s go save Husband Dude, so they do.
Beth has ventured into Coraline’s basement, and hoo-doggies, is this some creepy shit. There’s a whole-ass little girl’s bedroom, complete with a fake kitchen I would have killed for at age 5. It’s where she was held before Coraline took her to meet up with Mick, before wherever the fire was. Beth is working through her trauma in real time, and this is awful. No wonder she stabs the bitch – appropriately with a stake made by breaking off the leg of a chair from the room.
So the big plan was to run over Husband Dude as he left the office with Stepson. Mick fucks that up, though, by stopping Dude and Son in the street, punching out Son, telling Dude they were planning to kill him, and then saving Morgan from the speeding BMW driven by Lady by flying straight up. Everyone lives; they call the cops; Morgan has questions that Mick brushes off. They’ll stop by the station tomorrow to drop off the evidence and give formal statements, yadda yadda.
Mick takes Morgan back to his place and they do the do, you know how it be sometimes, sex with the ex just hits different. But he sees the tattoo, he calls her Coraline, she admits it, he’s super jazzed to become human and doesn’t stop fucking kissing her! And it’s then, obviously, that Beth comes in with her file and her stake and her incandescent and totally justified anger
and stabs a fully human Coraline.
lol, no, she’s not dead, they’re gonna call an ambulance, but I couldn’t resist. Come back next week and find out what happens, I hope! The box just says it’s about Josef being marked for death, but, like, so? what happens in the other 34 minutes?