Ill Met by Moonlight
My pleas for reasons to watch Moonlight went unheeded which I take to mean that all of you have more sense than to be watching it. This makes you smarter than me. This will never do. Therefore, I have concocted the following which serves both as a reason to watch and to lower your collective IQs. I present...
The Sceptic's* Recap of Episode 4** "Fever"
Warning: This episode is Dohring-free. This is why it's taken me a week plus to watch it.
Previously: Mick St. John is a pretty vampire who wants to help people because...no idea. He became a P.I. instead of a doctor, priest, or vampire-maker to the terminally ill because...no idea. He gets his dinner from a blood bank because people in surgery and emergency rooms don't really need it, do they? Too much direct sunlight will kill him but a pair of sunglasses appears to work a treat. In 1952, his bride turned him into a vampire during foreplay. He is seriously into an intrepid internet reporter who, contrary to expectations, is not a four-hundred pound hairy geek but a cute little, personality-free English girl who he rescued as a child and has been stalking ever since. Cool, right? Oh, and he trusts her because...no idea.
Techno-goth music introduces a sweating, jaundiced Mick, shivering in a bathtub filled with ice. The yellow in his eyes is the yellow of putrid pus which, as an image of what I'm watching, works for me. Even the cockroaches in the room don’t find Mick sexy and high-tail it out of the seedy bathroom. They are lucky enough not to have to listen to a line so flatly delivered and so cheesy that my mouse grew legs and pounced on the screen: "What do you do when the one thing you need to save your life is the one thing that would make life unbearable." This tribute to Dan Brown is accompanied by an image of Mick sinking his teeth into Beth's neck. Anybody want to bet that this isn't going to end with Buffy forcing Angel to drink from her? What? My anticipation that Beth dies and Mick kills himself in grief is cruelly dashed by the revelation that the Beth part is a dream. The flicker of hope that this is nearly the end of the episode dies when Mick says we're probably wondering how he arrived at this happy juncture. No, Mick, no, we're not, really. This could all be over...damn.
Helpfully, words on screen tell us that it's twenty-one hours earlier. I think they got that wrong as I swear it seems more like twenty-four hours watching an episode, so 24x21 equals...oh, never mind. Mick opens the fridge. His blood supply comes in three sizes - super-sized (two litres or thereabouts bottle), regular (bag) and soupcon (test tube). Perhaps vampires have a Mcdon('sdead)ald's. Mick voiceover blah blahs about the joys of blood and how humans are envied because they can make their own. Humans can make their own shit too (resist, resist) but it hardly merits an ansty exposition. Fortunately, Mick's reverie is interrupted by a Buzz Wire internet newsflash as Katie Couric-lite expositions on the case of the week. Arms dealer, yadda, yadda, trial, yadda, yadda, boyfriend Josh is prosecuting, yawn. Switch to Beth and Josh in bed. This is not a reason to stop yawning. The whole exchange is forgettable and merely serves to introduce...
...Josh's secret weapon, a bratty witness who doesn't like being cooped up. It is a truth universally acknowledged that actors playing cops on witness protection duty must be in want of a better agent. The brat pickpockets a phone from one of the red shirts and retiring to her room gracelessly, she makes a call. Is there any way this is going to lead to something unpredictable? No. As the cops are nearly slumping, suddenly there comes a thumping, as of someone high and jumping, thumping at the hide-out door. Two dead cops later, the brat is on the run, conveniently (for vampires) leaving blood on a window frame out to the fire escape. The hit man gets out there but she's gone. Why, on a fire escape that goes both up and down, doesn't he bother to look up? Nobody heeds Mr. Muggles.
Mick's chest appears. It's both hairy and smooth. It's very odd, like he wimped out on the waxing as the strips moved up to his nipples. His chest tells us that he and Beth can't be a couple because she has a boyfriend and he has trust issues what with being turned into a vamp and all. He doesn't mention the paedophile vibes. She hasn't spoken to him in a week, since he told her his death story. Hey, maybe she thinks you are all bite and no future, bat boy! Despite this, he'll always take her call and cue...
...longing glances between them over coffee cups, one of which is for said boyfriend, standing like a spare wheel on the other side of the room. Spare wheel says that he and Mick didn't get off to a good start. Really? I don't remember them particularly clashing before but I do need drugs to watch so maybe I missed it. Long story short, because I'm kind, Josh wants Mick to look for the brat - who is the ex-nanny to the evil arms dealer and saw him kill someone - as there's a leak in the plot, uh, department. Between listening and ogling Beth, Mick agrees.
Back to the unsafe safe house where angry but lucky and possibly suspicious female cop says she was due to take over "the graveyard shift" from one of the actors with a lousy agent. Mick says she probably shouldn't use that term. I think this is what passes for wit on this show. Josh sends angry but lucky and possibly suspicious female cop back to the precinct to file a report, refusing to answer her possibly suspicious questions about the strange vampire in their midst. Mick does his bloodhound thing. He sniffs out that the brat got to the bottom of the fire escape and took the truck of one of the red shirts. Mick himself gets down to the bottom by jumping off in slow motion with sound effects that say "Be impressed!" The fact that the brat had to have done the same thing to get away from the hit man means no one is impressed, except Josh who can't figure out how Mick did it while his back was turned. But then Josh isn't too smart as is proved moments later when he can offer no better solution on how to follow up a major clue than to try and get a warrant - a lengthy process. Josh, this is your bloody key witness who you must find stat, remember? Show some ingenuity! Blah. He heads back to the office, telling Mick to keep him informed. About what? You've just stalled him until YOU get a warrant, you disposable boyfriend, you. It's up to Beth to call in some favours to follow it up.
Mick and Beth find the truck but no brat. They perambulate up the avenue, Mick's sunglasses proving most effective save when he steps out of shade, whereupon a file on his brow works to protect him. Shipper hearts skip a beat when Mick asks Beth what her deal is with Josh. Beth says Josh is smart which just goes to prove that love, even fading love, is blind. Mick quickly clarifies that he's referring to the deal they made about this case which he overheard them talking about. She giggles in a way that's probably supposed to be abashed, but isn't, before going on to explain that in return for an exclusive story on the brat's rescue, she's to be Josh's line of communication with Mick to avoid those who can't be trusted within the DA/police departments. Mick's getting a bit hot - no, not like that - okay, maybe like that too - and Beth wants to know how much sun he can stand. Could it be that this might be relevant soon? Gosh, I've no idea. They banter a bit before Mick heads for a house he thinks is where the brat went. How so? Not a clue. They break in.
Of course, he's right. Ah, there's more of her blood on tissues on the floor. Damn that smell thing is useful. A bit of snooping reveals that the brat has grabbed herself a gun and that the house is of the man the evil arms dealer killed, allegedly, and who the brat didn't know, allegedly. A convenient stack of photos show that the brat and the murdered man were "in love." Almost as if he knew it would be needed one day, the murdered man not only has a filing cabinet in his lounge with all his bills, but has a bill for a different address that matches one seen in the photos. My goodness, how not contrived and neat is that? It gets even better, but not before I'm distracted by a really gross ring that Mick wears on his index finger, some gothic monstrosity that covers the entire joint. He tells Beth to cross her fingers, as God knows he can't with that weight on his digit, and gravity works to enable him to press the recall button on the phone, leaving the phone surprisingly intact. Like magic, up pops the bus company which has buses running to the home of the lover's loveshack. Beth's impressed then pouts when Mick says he's going alone. There's more banter about how fun it is to hunt and I'm fighting the urge to kill something.
I was about to say that now it really does get silly but of course the episode started (only!) fifteen minutes ago so...Mick takes the bus to Xville. What? What possible reason does Mick have to take the bus when he has been issued with the standard convertible vampiremobile? Oh, wait. My bad. The brat's on the bus and Mick's lounging against the said standard convertible vampiremobile waiting for her as she gets off the bus at an on-road diner in the desert. He looms over her in a way guaranteed to freak her out and she duly shoots him in panic. The end. Hey, maybe this show's not so dumb after all! No, it is. Mick absorbs the bullet in his arm and tells the brat she missed. That softens her up to accept his invitation to dinner and a movie. I may have imagined the movie.
Back in L.A., Beth twitters about Mick's confidence in finding the brat. Josh says "seems like he could get the jump on just about anyone." That's either significant or terrible dialogue. You choose. Beth does an "oh, no, I don't believe you said that" face but further discourse is interrupted by jovial porcine friend and colleague of Josh. Stereotypically, he's going to be either a buffoon or evil. Or both. For now, he's there for exposition. Blah, blah, red shirt's cell phone called a number that's paid for by evil arms dealer, blah, blah, red shirt's the leak and didn't expect to get shot, blah, blah. We know it's a crock because it was the brat who used the phone and in a rare (or another, depending on the conclusion of the significant vs. terrible debate) flash of insight, Josh is not 100% convinced either. Josh is all Action Man again and picks up the phone to get another warrant, this time for the cell phone call. Oddly, Beth doesn't step up this time with one of her nefarious sources, even though the judge is unavailable to relieve Josh's hard-on for a warrant.
Mick bemoans the absence of blood in the vending machine. Suck it up, vampire. He gives the brat a bottle of water and tries to talk her into going back to testify. She's not interested in justice for her dead lover anymore. Mick, who has super-hearing as well as a super-snout, works out that it's because she's realised she's pregnant and that her priorities have changed.
Josh rolls up at the evil arms dealer's big house accompanied by an entourage of cops and Beth, because internet reporters really belong on searches. Two heavies block Josh's way but once they see Beth, they run off to find their boss because she's just that scary. Josh showing a warrant might have an impact too. As they wait for the evil arms dealer to let them in, Beth (and only Beth) spots a young girl who happens to be hanging around in plain sight. Before Beth has the chance to scare her too, Mick calls.
Mick says he's bringing the brat back and Beth wonders why she wouldn't want to. Maybe she's thinking of getting a better agent too, Beth. Beth passes the phone to Josh. Josh and the jovial porcine friend say that Mick must wait for the local cops. Mick's not keen on that idea and hangs up. Mick follows the brat to the toilet. He promises to protect her and persuades her to return to LA. In there somewhere is supposed to be a revealing character moment as to Mick's regret at not having children but it's so clumsy that it's really not worth the mention.
Josh, the angry but lucky and possibly suspicious female cop, and the jovial porcine friend face the evil arms dealer and demand all his people show their phones. Outside, Beth talks to the little girl. The child says she knows the brat is safe. Inside, Josh calls the number the red shirt called but none of the phones on the table ring. Outside, the child's phone rings. Aha. Beth answers the phone and tells Josh that it wasn't the red shirt that used the phone, but the brat who rang the child she used to nanny.
Back at the diner, the hit man turns up, dressed as a cop. He knows Mick's name and says he's been given the job of escorting him and the brat back to L.A. Mick is suspicious for no apparent reason. Maybe Mick recognises him from the smell-o-vision. Hey! I am at least trying to make sense of it. Mick tells the guy to hang on while he talks to the brat in the restroom.
At the mansion, Beth explains that the phone call on the red shirt's phone was not the source of the leak. Josh tells her to call Mick. Despite their earlier phone call, Beth says that now there's no signal.
The hit man gets impatient and bursts into the ladies room. In the meantime, Mick and the brat steal the cop car. Why, when Mick's own car is there too? Who knows? The hit man races out and sees the car disappear. He uses his cell phone. Oh, so the signal's fine again.
Mick can't get a signal. Logic and consistency - rest in peace. Mick and the brat are chased, this time by a helicopter with missiles. The first one misses. As the chopper turns around, Mick pushes the brat out of the car, and then puts it on autopilot before jumping out himself. They hide behind a convenient shrub. The second missile destroys the moving car and the helicopter flies away. Mick checks his phone again and because he's not evil, he still has no signal. The sound of approaching sirens proves not to be comforting and the two of them race away from the road and into the desert.
In Josh's office, he puts down the phone and tells Beth that Mick and the brat are dead. Beth turns her back on him so she can twist her face in grief. She covers by getting angry in noting that the leak has to be within Josh's team. Oh, honey! Implying your boyfriend might be the leak is a sure way to break up fast.
Uh oh, Mick forgot his sunglasses! He grabs the brat's sweater, which is tied around her waist, and uses it to cover his head. The brat does not find this strange.
Beth arrives at her apartment. The actress sits down, considers what this show is doing for her career and weeps.
Mick contemplates feeding on the pregnant brat as when it's a matter of survival, vampires need blood. Hang on. Didn't they say before that direct sunlight was supposed to kill them, blood or no? Oh yeah, logic and consistency are not in the writers vocabulary. The brat is however saved from being bitten by the sight of an abandoned motel. They break into a room and Mick tells the brat to find ice. The place is abandoned but the ice machine works. Right. In the meantime, Mick heads for the bathtub. The brat adds the ice to the cold bath and finally recognises that it's more serious than mere dehydration. Mick tells her to keep trying to get a signal and to call Beth, the only one he trusts. He sends the brat away to stop himself feeding on her.
The writers need the signal to work now and so it does. The brat calls Beth. She learns the brat and Mick are okay, but that Mick is not doing too well. Beth demands to know where they are. Umm, Beth, given that they were walking in the desert, how exactly do you expect her to know where she is? Oh, not an issue, it seems.
The brat goes back to the bathroom to tell Mick. He fantasises about biting her. He shouts at her to get out. And finally we are back to where we started.
Back in L.A., the angry but lucky and possibly suspicious female cop and the jovial porcine friend enter Josh's office to be told that the brat is still alive.
Beth arrives at the motel. She reassures Mick that he hasn't bitten the brat. Mick tells her to get the brat away. Beth refuses to leave as he's dying. She takes off her coat and bares her neck. Oh, lord. We get the cheesy line again. Mick stares at her, takes her arm, tells her that at some point she'll have to stop him, and bites her wrist. Outside, the hit man turns up at the motel. How'd he find them? No idea.
The angry but lucky and possibly suspicious female cop and the jovial porcine friend leave Josh's office and are followed by another cop and Josh respectively. Josh overhears the jovial porcine friend called the evil arms dealer to tell him where the brat is. Caught red-handed, the jovial porcine friend tries to justify his behaviour until Josh punches him in the face.
At the hotel, Beth steps out of the bathroom, a handy, abandoned, clean towel wrapped around her wrist. The room seems empty and she calls for the brat. The room is not empty and the hit man steps out of the shadows, grabs her from behind, pulls her back against the bathroom door, and demands to know where the brat is. Mick's hand breaks through the door and breaks the hit man's neck. Mick's chest enters the room. He and Beth stare at each other as the brat steps out of the shadows and gives him a hug.
In the boredroom of Josh and Beth, Beth is watching herself on the computer as she reports the successful conviction of the evil arms dealer. Josh enters and sits beside her on the bed. She is not thrilled. He kisses her arm which she declares was hurt by her own clumsiness. Josh says he and Beth make a good team and kisses her. She is not thrilled but smiles indulgently.
In his own apartment, Mick broods. There's a knock at the door. It's Beth. Mick knows it's her but doesn't open the door because being near him puts her in danger. So instead they do a Buffy/Spike heads-pressed-on-either-side-of-the-door thing before Beth walks away. Mercifully, it's over.
*English spelling. Honest. Spelling this with a K looks all sorts of Bart Simpson to me.
**This should have come out last week but I've gone ahead on the basis that there might be somebody only watching Jason's episodes who needs to catch up on any plot, uh, character, uh, developments *cough* who might find a recap of an episode they missed helpful.
Doing this was kind of fun and gave me succour to watch a Dohring-free episode. Anybody want more?
The Sceptic's* Recap of Episode 4** "Fever"
Warning: This episode is Dohring-free. This is why it's taken me a week plus to watch it.
Previously: Mick St. John is a pretty vampire who wants to help people because...no idea. He became a P.I. instead of a doctor, priest, or vampire-maker to the terminally ill because...no idea. He gets his dinner from a blood bank because people in surgery and emergency rooms don't really need it, do they? Too much direct sunlight will kill him but a pair of sunglasses appears to work a treat. In 1952, his bride turned him into a vampire during foreplay. He is seriously into an intrepid internet reporter who, contrary to expectations, is not a four-hundred pound hairy geek but a cute little, personality-free English girl who he rescued as a child and has been stalking ever since. Cool, right? Oh, and he trusts her because...no idea.
Techno-goth music introduces a sweating, jaundiced Mick, shivering in a bathtub filled with ice. The yellow in his eyes is the yellow of putrid pus which, as an image of what I'm watching, works for me. Even the cockroaches in the room don’t find Mick sexy and high-tail it out of the seedy bathroom. They are lucky enough not to have to listen to a line so flatly delivered and so cheesy that my mouse grew legs and pounced on the screen: "What do you do when the one thing you need to save your life is the one thing that would make life unbearable." This tribute to Dan Brown is accompanied by an image of Mick sinking his teeth into Beth's neck. Anybody want to bet that this isn't going to end with Buffy forcing Angel to drink from her? What? My anticipation that Beth dies and Mick kills himself in grief is cruelly dashed by the revelation that the Beth part is a dream. The flicker of hope that this is nearly the end of the episode dies when Mick says we're probably wondering how he arrived at this happy juncture. No, Mick, no, we're not, really. This could all be over...damn.
Helpfully, words on screen tell us that it's twenty-one hours earlier. I think they got that wrong as I swear it seems more like twenty-four hours watching an episode, so 24x21 equals...oh, never mind. Mick opens the fridge. His blood supply comes in three sizes - super-sized (two litres or thereabouts bottle), regular (bag) and soupcon (test tube). Perhaps vampires have a Mcdon('sdead)ald's. Mick voiceover blah blahs about the joys of blood and how humans are envied because they can make their own. Humans can make their own shit too (resist, resist) but it hardly merits an ansty exposition. Fortunately, Mick's reverie is interrupted by a Buzz Wire internet newsflash as Katie Couric-lite expositions on the case of the week. Arms dealer, yadda, yadda, trial, yadda, yadda, boyfriend Josh is prosecuting, yawn. Switch to Beth and Josh in bed. This is not a reason to stop yawning. The whole exchange is forgettable and merely serves to introduce...
...Josh's secret weapon, a bratty witness who doesn't like being cooped up. It is a truth universally acknowledged that actors playing cops on witness protection duty must be in want of a better agent. The brat pickpockets a phone from one of the red shirts and retiring to her room gracelessly, she makes a call. Is there any way this is going to lead to something unpredictable? No. As the cops are nearly slumping, suddenly there comes a thumping, as of someone high and jumping, thumping at the hide-out door. Two dead cops later, the brat is on the run, conveniently (for vampires) leaving blood on a window frame out to the fire escape. The hit man gets out there but she's gone. Why, on a fire escape that goes both up and down, doesn't he bother to look up? Nobody heeds Mr. Muggles.
Mick's chest appears. It's both hairy and smooth. It's very odd, like he wimped out on the waxing as the strips moved up to his nipples. His chest tells us that he and Beth can't be a couple because she has a boyfriend and he has trust issues what with being turned into a vamp and all. He doesn't mention the paedophile vibes. She hasn't spoken to him in a week, since he told her his death story. Hey, maybe she thinks you are all bite and no future, bat boy! Despite this, he'll always take her call and cue...
...longing glances between them over coffee cups, one of which is for said boyfriend, standing like a spare wheel on the other side of the room. Spare wheel says that he and Mick didn't get off to a good start. Really? I don't remember them particularly clashing before but I do need drugs to watch so maybe I missed it. Long story short, because I'm kind, Josh wants Mick to look for the brat - who is the ex-nanny to the evil arms dealer and saw him kill someone - as there's a leak in the plot, uh, department. Between listening and ogling Beth, Mick agrees.
Back to the unsafe safe house where angry but lucky and possibly suspicious female cop says she was due to take over "the graveyard shift" from one of the actors with a lousy agent. Mick says she probably shouldn't use that term. I think this is what passes for wit on this show. Josh sends angry but lucky and possibly suspicious female cop back to the precinct to file a report, refusing to answer her possibly suspicious questions about the strange vampire in their midst. Mick does his bloodhound thing. He sniffs out that the brat got to the bottom of the fire escape and took the truck of one of the red shirts. Mick himself gets down to the bottom by jumping off in slow motion with sound effects that say "Be impressed!" The fact that the brat had to have done the same thing to get away from the hit man means no one is impressed, except Josh who can't figure out how Mick did it while his back was turned. But then Josh isn't too smart as is proved moments later when he can offer no better solution on how to follow up a major clue than to try and get a warrant - a lengthy process. Josh, this is your bloody key witness who you must find stat, remember? Show some ingenuity! Blah. He heads back to the office, telling Mick to keep him informed. About what? You've just stalled him until YOU get a warrant, you disposable boyfriend, you. It's up to Beth to call in some favours to follow it up.
Mick and Beth find the truck but no brat. They perambulate up the avenue, Mick's sunglasses proving most effective save when he steps out of shade, whereupon a file on his brow works to protect him. Shipper hearts skip a beat when Mick asks Beth what her deal is with Josh. Beth says Josh is smart which just goes to prove that love, even fading love, is blind. Mick quickly clarifies that he's referring to the deal they made about this case which he overheard them talking about. She giggles in a way that's probably supposed to be abashed, but isn't, before going on to explain that in return for an exclusive story on the brat's rescue, she's to be Josh's line of communication with Mick to avoid those who can't be trusted within the DA/police departments. Mick's getting a bit hot - no, not like that - okay, maybe like that too - and Beth wants to know how much sun he can stand. Could it be that this might be relevant soon? Gosh, I've no idea. They banter a bit before Mick heads for a house he thinks is where the brat went. How so? Not a clue. They break in.
Of course, he's right. Ah, there's more of her blood on tissues on the floor. Damn that smell thing is useful. A bit of snooping reveals that the brat has grabbed herself a gun and that the house is of the man the evil arms dealer killed, allegedly, and who the brat didn't know, allegedly. A convenient stack of photos show that the brat and the murdered man were "in love." Almost as if he knew it would be needed one day, the murdered man not only has a filing cabinet in his lounge with all his bills, but has a bill for a different address that matches one seen in the photos. My goodness, how not contrived and neat is that? It gets even better, but not before I'm distracted by a really gross ring that Mick wears on his index finger, some gothic monstrosity that covers the entire joint. He tells Beth to cross her fingers, as God knows he can't with that weight on his digit, and gravity works to enable him to press the recall button on the phone, leaving the phone surprisingly intact. Like magic, up pops the bus company which has buses running to the home of the lover's loveshack. Beth's impressed then pouts when Mick says he's going alone. There's more banter about how fun it is to hunt and I'm fighting the urge to kill something.
I was about to say that now it really does get silly but of course the episode started (only!) fifteen minutes ago so...Mick takes the bus to Xville. What? What possible reason does Mick have to take the bus when he has been issued with the standard convertible vampiremobile? Oh, wait. My bad. The brat's on the bus and Mick's lounging against the said standard convertible vampiremobile waiting for her as she gets off the bus at an on-road diner in the desert. He looms over her in a way guaranteed to freak her out and she duly shoots him in panic. The end. Hey, maybe this show's not so dumb after all! No, it is. Mick absorbs the bullet in his arm and tells the brat she missed. That softens her up to accept his invitation to dinner and a movie. I may have imagined the movie.
Back in L.A., Beth twitters about Mick's confidence in finding the brat. Josh says "seems like he could get the jump on just about anyone." That's either significant or terrible dialogue. You choose. Beth does an "oh, no, I don't believe you said that" face but further discourse is interrupted by jovial porcine friend and colleague of Josh. Stereotypically, he's going to be either a buffoon or evil. Or both. For now, he's there for exposition. Blah, blah, red shirt's cell phone called a number that's paid for by evil arms dealer, blah, blah, red shirt's the leak and didn't expect to get shot, blah, blah. We know it's a crock because it was the brat who used the phone and in a rare (or another, depending on the conclusion of the significant vs. terrible debate) flash of insight, Josh is not 100% convinced either. Josh is all Action Man again and picks up the phone to get another warrant, this time for the cell phone call. Oddly, Beth doesn't step up this time with one of her nefarious sources, even though the judge is unavailable to relieve Josh's hard-on for a warrant.
Mick bemoans the absence of blood in the vending machine. Suck it up, vampire. He gives the brat a bottle of water and tries to talk her into going back to testify. She's not interested in justice for her dead lover anymore. Mick, who has super-hearing as well as a super-snout, works out that it's because she's realised she's pregnant and that her priorities have changed.
Josh rolls up at the evil arms dealer's big house accompanied by an entourage of cops and Beth, because internet reporters really belong on searches. Two heavies block Josh's way but once they see Beth, they run off to find their boss because she's just that scary. Josh showing a warrant might have an impact too. As they wait for the evil arms dealer to let them in, Beth (and only Beth) spots a young girl who happens to be hanging around in plain sight. Before Beth has the chance to scare her too, Mick calls.
Mick says he's bringing the brat back and Beth wonders why she wouldn't want to. Maybe she's thinking of getting a better agent too, Beth. Beth passes the phone to Josh. Josh and the jovial porcine friend say that Mick must wait for the local cops. Mick's not keen on that idea and hangs up. Mick follows the brat to the toilet. He promises to protect her and persuades her to return to LA. In there somewhere is supposed to be a revealing character moment as to Mick's regret at not having children but it's so clumsy that it's really not worth the mention.
Josh, the angry but lucky and possibly suspicious female cop, and the jovial porcine friend face the evil arms dealer and demand all his people show their phones. Outside, Beth talks to the little girl. The child says she knows the brat is safe. Inside, Josh calls the number the red shirt called but none of the phones on the table ring. Outside, the child's phone rings. Aha. Beth answers the phone and tells Josh that it wasn't the red shirt that used the phone, but the brat who rang the child she used to nanny.
Back at the diner, the hit man turns up, dressed as a cop. He knows Mick's name and says he's been given the job of escorting him and the brat back to L.A. Mick is suspicious for no apparent reason. Maybe Mick recognises him from the smell-o-vision. Hey! I am at least trying to make sense of it. Mick tells the guy to hang on while he talks to the brat in the restroom.
At the mansion, Beth explains that the phone call on the red shirt's phone was not the source of the leak. Josh tells her to call Mick. Despite their earlier phone call, Beth says that now there's no signal.
The hit man gets impatient and bursts into the ladies room. In the meantime, Mick and the brat steal the cop car. Why, when Mick's own car is there too? Who knows? The hit man races out and sees the car disappear. He uses his cell phone. Oh, so the signal's fine again.
Mick can't get a signal. Logic and consistency - rest in peace. Mick and the brat are chased, this time by a helicopter with missiles. The first one misses. As the chopper turns around, Mick pushes the brat out of the car, and then puts it on autopilot before jumping out himself. They hide behind a convenient shrub. The second missile destroys the moving car and the helicopter flies away. Mick checks his phone again and because he's not evil, he still has no signal. The sound of approaching sirens proves not to be comforting and the two of them race away from the road and into the desert.
In Josh's office, he puts down the phone and tells Beth that Mick and the brat are dead. Beth turns her back on him so she can twist her face in grief. She covers by getting angry in noting that the leak has to be within Josh's team. Oh, honey! Implying your boyfriend might be the leak is a sure way to break up fast.
Uh oh, Mick forgot his sunglasses! He grabs the brat's sweater, which is tied around her waist, and uses it to cover his head. The brat does not find this strange.
Beth arrives at her apartment. The actress sits down, considers what this show is doing for her career and weeps.
Mick contemplates feeding on the pregnant brat as when it's a matter of survival, vampires need blood. Hang on. Didn't they say before that direct sunlight was supposed to kill them, blood or no? Oh yeah, logic and consistency are not in the writers vocabulary. The brat is however saved from being bitten by the sight of an abandoned motel. They break into a room and Mick tells the brat to find ice. The place is abandoned but the ice machine works. Right. In the meantime, Mick heads for the bathtub. The brat adds the ice to the cold bath and finally recognises that it's more serious than mere dehydration. Mick tells her to keep trying to get a signal and to call Beth, the only one he trusts. He sends the brat away to stop himself feeding on her.
The writers need the signal to work now and so it does. The brat calls Beth. She learns the brat and Mick are okay, but that Mick is not doing too well. Beth demands to know where they are. Umm, Beth, given that they were walking in the desert, how exactly do you expect her to know where she is? Oh, not an issue, it seems.
The brat goes back to the bathroom to tell Mick. He fantasises about biting her. He shouts at her to get out. And finally we are back to where we started.
Back in L.A., the angry but lucky and possibly suspicious female cop and the jovial porcine friend enter Josh's office to be told that the brat is still alive.
Beth arrives at the motel. She reassures Mick that he hasn't bitten the brat. Mick tells her to get the brat away. Beth refuses to leave as he's dying. She takes off her coat and bares her neck. Oh, lord. We get the cheesy line again. Mick stares at her, takes her arm, tells her that at some point she'll have to stop him, and bites her wrist. Outside, the hit man turns up at the motel. How'd he find them? No idea.
The angry but lucky and possibly suspicious female cop and the jovial porcine friend leave Josh's office and are followed by another cop and Josh respectively. Josh overhears the jovial porcine friend called the evil arms dealer to tell him where the brat is. Caught red-handed, the jovial porcine friend tries to justify his behaviour until Josh punches him in the face.
At the hotel, Beth steps out of the bathroom, a handy, abandoned, clean towel wrapped around her wrist. The room seems empty and she calls for the brat. The room is not empty and the hit man steps out of the shadows, grabs her from behind, pulls her back against the bathroom door, and demands to know where the brat is. Mick's hand breaks through the door and breaks the hit man's neck. Mick's chest enters the room. He and Beth stare at each other as the brat steps out of the shadows and gives him a hug.
In the boredroom of Josh and Beth, Beth is watching herself on the computer as she reports the successful conviction of the evil arms dealer. Josh enters and sits beside her on the bed. She is not thrilled. He kisses her arm which she declares was hurt by her own clumsiness. Josh says he and Beth make a good team and kisses her. She is not thrilled but smiles indulgently.
In his own apartment, Mick broods. There's a knock at the door. It's Beth. Mick knows it's her but doesn't open the door because being near him puts her in danger. So instead they do a Buffy/Spike heads-pressed-on-either-side-of-the-door thing before Beth walks away. Mercifully, it's over.
*English spelling. Honest. Spelling this with a K looks all sorts of Bart Simpson to me.
**This should have come out last week but I've gone ahead on the basis that there might be somebody only watching Jason's episodes who needs to catch up on any plot, uh, character, uh, developments *cough* who might find a recap of an episode they missed helpful.
Doing this was kind of fun and gave me succour to watch a Dohring-free episode. Anybody want more?