Beauty And The Beast season 2 episode 14 review: Redemption

This review contains spoilers.

2.14 Redemption

Goodness gracious, this episode was just a festival of domestic violence issues wasn’t it? That’s something Beauty And The Beast does that constantly shocks the hell out of me. Catherine is just as likely to have a nightmare about abusing her ex as Vince is about abusing his. This is a story that you do not see on TV. You just don’t. Girls aren’t ever the abuser not even in their own minds. It’s just not a Thing That Happens. The flip side of that coin is that Beauty And The Beast tends to take the emotional upheaval mixing love and violence together and turn it to eleven, doesn’t it? 

I mean for heaven’s sake, we had to sit through Gabe’s funeral this episode which was, admittedly, hilarious. Not that I would laugh if something actually happened to Gabe because his pretty face and good heart has wormed under my skin but the set-up was glorious. Tess was again our Goddess of Good Sense (all hail!) and TJ was right there reminding us “he’s not actually dead” and trying not to get what many a comedian including her gingerness Kathy Griffin have dubbed the Church Giggles. 

I will say, points to the new boss for making the girls get their asses back to work. You are cops, ladies. Act like it. Do cop stuff. Solve crimes. The fact that he commented on them being the lady team meant the PC element of it was particularly stinging in a good way; here have one more reminder from Beauty And The Beast that we live in a sexist world and sexist workplace and have to deal with sexist treatment. However, in this case it turned out that New Boss was right: Cat needs to save the drama for your partner or your hot lawyer boyfriend.

To the dissenters in the comments – I’d like to address your complaints by saying that to me, it seems like the show is yo-yoing both relationships with equal fervour. Cat can’t trust Gabe because he did stuff in the past he’s made great amends for, but he is now acting like the kind of man I would want to be in a relationship. Then there is Vincent who we have the star-crossed love with but who is kind of waffle-y and doesn’t always make sense yet they have that snap-crackle-pop connection. I get a strange feeling they’re not sure what they want relationship wise. That said – feel free to take me to Cancun Gabe, I will never call you Vincent. Mohinder, maybe, but not Vincent.

Speaking of people who are now someplace sunny, I miss Dana. She was growing on me but she gave us Sam who I think I like  but I can’t tell if that’s because I liked him in That Thing You Do and every time I see him on screen I expect him to put on sunglasses and say “I have led you here, sir, for I am Spartacus.” Probably the latter.

The Villain bouncing this season has been odd. From the FBI to the Gem to Sam. You’d better have a really solid thread guys because at the moment it’s just a hot mess of explosions and, as the new boss at work pointed out, hot mess FBI threads are not Cat and Tess’ real jobs. I just have to trust the writers. They’re already better than most of the rest out there just by existing. They’ll pull all the threads together. They will. At least I cross my fingers they will.

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