Yes, 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!