Moonlight: Fated to Pretend
April 26th 2008 06:48
6 days 8 hours and 42 minutes since Mick to the cure that changed him from a vampire back into a human and he’s thoroughly enjoying every minute of it. He’s swapping the fridge for the couch and his breakfast blood for good ol’ orange juice and coffee. We’ve never seen him so happy.
He heads off for the beach to enjoy a hot dog with everything on it. (“Sure nobody knows what’s in it, but I used to be a vampire! You think I care?”) Today he doesn’t feel like he’s 85 years old, and he’s going to make the best of his human time. And that means a picnic at the beach with Beth. In the sun!
He lies down on the blanket, enjoying a strawberry (Beth brought a little bit of everything since she realized she had no idea what he liked), and Beth tells him how good it is to see him so happy. When she comments that it’s like a whole new Mick, he tells her that no, it’s actually the old Mick. The one he was before he turned into a vampire.
Beth asks him how long he thinks the cure will last and Mick says he doesn’t know, maybe six months? In any case, he’s definitely not letting any moment pass him by.
He tells her he’s glad she called, and she lets him know that she wanted him to know that she doesn’t blame Mick for Josh’s death. When he brings up the fact that she was wearing his engagement ring at the funeral, she tells him that, “Even if he had been able to propose to me, I wouldn’t have been able to say yes...” She then goes on to tell him the reason is because “there’s someone else. There has been for a while…I care about him a lot. And, I think it’s time he figured out what he’s gonna do about it.”
Mick takes the hint, and smiles.
Mick heads on over to Josef’s to find his best friend trying to deal with his new interior decorators (Josef is not liking their “think Clooney” idea at all). Josef tells the decorators to leave, looks at Mick and asks, “Are you…are you tan?” Mick answers, “Am I? I had lunch at the beach with Beth. Not something you’ll be doing any time soon.”
Josef asks Mick if he’s sealed the deal yet and Mick argues that it’s not about sex. Josef argues that it always is, and Mick insists that it’s not that simple. “I’m 58 years older than her, okay? I sleep in the freezer, I drink blood I buy from the morgue, and I have this tendency to bite down when I—”
“Some women like that,” Josef interrupts. “You keep coming up with all these excuses. You’re not afraid Beth’s gonna get hurt, you’re afraid you’re gonna get hurt.”
Mick laughs it off, then thinks a second. “I, am in love with her.”
“Yeah,” Josef smiles and gently answers. “Yeah you are. Now go do something about it before it’s too late.”
Beth enters her apartment ally smiley and looking at a picture of Mick on her phone. She plugs it into her I-phone speakers and starts listening to music. The music is interrupted by a call, and it’s Maureen ordering Beth to get down to Buzz Wire in 20 minutes. Beth tries to get her to wait for the morning, but her boss will hear none of it. She hangs up and Beth sighs and heads back out.
Down at Buzz Wire, Beth enters telling Maureen that, “If this is one more Brangelina alien baby thing I swear—” She stops dead in her tracks when she sees that the entire building has been ransacked. Her gaze drifts towards Maureen’s office. The door is open…No!
Beth runs in and finds her friend and boss murdered. Shot through the head.
The cops show up along with Assistant DA Ben Talbot. He asks about Maureen and puts the magazine down as a trashy tabloid. Beth defends Buzz Wire, “We cover serious news stories here, one of which just got Maureen killed!”
Enter Mick. She tells him what’s going on and Talbot asks Mick who he is. When Mick tells him he’s a PI, Talbot frowns. He’s heard of him, and those “things” aren’t really good ones. Talbot leaves and Mick asks Beth if she’s alright. Her answer? “Not really.”
Mick visits his morgue buddy (completely freaking him out that he’s not a vampire anymore) and gets a look at Maureen’s body. He and Beth find out that Maureen was definitely around a vampire at the time of her death. They start to leave and Guierrmo calls out, “Hey what about that gallon of A Positive I got stocked up, man. You’re the only one who drinks that stuff!”
Mick and Beth break into Maureen’s apartment, where she tells him that it was a lot more fun when he was a vampire.
Beth: *whispering* It’s a shame you can’t still do that sexy vampire jumping thing.
Mick: *whispering* Yeah well the jumping thing was kinda tied to the blood-sucking thing.
The killer has Maureen’s laptop, but Beth is convinced she had to have a USB backup hidden somewhere. Mick starts to look and tells Beth that people hide things in the last place they think anyone’s going to look. Beth has an epiphany, “Tampons!”
Mick: Excuse me?
Beth tells him that that’s where she hides all her good jewelry and runs off to get a box. When she returns with the USB drive, Mick can’t believe it. Maureen’s cat wanders in and Beth picks him up, pets him and tells him they’ll find someone good to take care of him, then sets him on Mick’s lap. Mick tries to stop her as cats instinctively hate vamp—oh, look at that. Mick is amazed and grins as he starts petting the purring cat.
They hook it up to the computer but find the entire thing password protected.
It’s okay. Mick knows a guy.
Guitar Hero time! Mick takes Beth to visit computer wiz Logan, who, unlike Mick, the cat hates (I mean why wouldn’t he, Logan thought he was lunch). Mick shouts over the music, “Is that all you do?”, to which Logan scoffs, “No! Tuesdays and Thursdays when I rule World of Warcraft!” Mick introduces Beth and Logan and gets Logan to look at the computer files.
Logan has a tough time. It’s not only password protected but also encrypted by a novice who thinks they knew what they were doing. Logan tries everything, her phone number, SS number, driver’s license…Mick interrupts, “Try her cat’s name, Travis.”
Logan just laughs. “No one every uses their cat—”
Beth: It worked! We’re in!
Logan: We shall never speak of this again.
In Maureen’s files they find an article about Jill Button who died of a heart attack after eating some new diet doughnuts. She was their spokesperson. “Killer doughnuts…” They move on to the next article, which is about Kent Morrow. A guy who’s running for mayor. He’s expected to win.
Apparently Maureen received an e-mail from a Luis Perez who claimed that Morrow’s wife was killed in a car accident that wasn’t an accident. They figure this is the right article. Logan says his money is on Josef Kostan who’s been running some sort of charity scam. When Mick says it can’t be Josef, Logan asks him why Mick hasn’t introduced him to the richest vampire in town. Mick simply answers, “Logan, you never leave your basement.” Logan can’t argue with that!
Mick insists that Josef didn’t kill Maureen, it’s not his style, I mean Maureen? Beth argues that she was near a vampire when she died and vows that she’s not letting whoever killed her friend get away with it.
They pay Josef another visit. “Oh look, it’s my two favorite humans.” Beth immediately gets to the point and after joking when they first entered, Josef tells Beth he’s sorry when Mick explains Beth’s editor just died.
Josef: Am I a suspect? Cool, it’s like role-playing, only without the leather.
Mick tells Josef his name came up in connection with the story Maureen was working on. When Josef asks if her body was found in the tar pits and they say no, he says, “That was the only person I killed this week.” Mick tells him that, “This is serious,” and Josef just says, “No, this is stupid.”
Josef goes on to tell them that Maureen was the one to tell him the charity was bogus. He didn’t know until then and immediately backed out when he found out. He even set up another charity for the victims of the people who fell for the first. Why would he want to kill Maureen? He tells them, “I know it’s always tempting to blame the vampire, but I think this time you guys are going to have to look for the killer someplace else.” They leave.
Mick goes to one of Morrow’s press speeches, where he runs into Morrow’s very bored daughter who complains that her dad’s speech is exactly the same every time. Mick jokes, “Maybe he’s lip-syncing.” Bonnie laughs and tells him he must be lost, he seems way too cool to be hanging out with these losers. Mick tells her appearances can be deceiving and goes off to try and talk to Morrow. He’s stopped by his campaign manager though, and when they find out he’s a PI they tell him to leave and walk off.
Mick follows, asking Morrow if he knew that Maureen was looking into his wife’s accident. Morrow asks him again who he is and Mick asks him if he knows Louis Perez. He tells him that Perez is claiming his wife’s death wasn’t an accident. Morrow stares at Mick. “I have nothing to hide.” He exchanges a long glance with his daughter and walks out.
While Mick is off following Morrow’s lead, Beth heads to check out the killer doughnuts. The woman behind the desk insists that their doughnuts are perfectly safe. Beth argues, “Yet your spokeswoman is perfectly dead.” The woman argues that she had a heart attack that had nothing to do with her diet. She tells Beth that’s all she’s getting without lawyer, and offers a box of doughnuts on the way out.
Back in Logan’s basement, he’s found out that the company offer is legit. Beth tries the doughnuts and makes a face. Mick comes in and sees the doughnuts. His eyes light up and he grabs one, taking a bite. “Mmmm, that’s not bad!”
Beth just looks at him. “When was the last time you had a doughnut?”
“1952.”
Beth stares at him. “I have two words for you. Krispy. Kreme.”
Mick continues to eat his doughnut telling them that he didn’t have to be able to hear Kent Morrow’s heartbeat to know he’s hiding something. He asks Logan what he found out and he pulls up the report about the accident. Morrow’s wife was driving and she smashed into an oncoming car, killing both her and the other driver.
When they ask about Perez, Logan says the guys a ghost. The best he can do is try and trace the e-mail sent to Maureen back to the computer that sent it. Mick hands over some more cash and he and Beth start to leave. He explains that they’re going back to talk to Guierrmo because he got him to let them have a look at Jill Button. When Beth says, “I thought he was mad at you,” Mick explains, “I bought up all the A positive he couldn’t unload.” When she points out that he can’t drink blood anymore, Mick tells her he sent it to Josef as a “sorry you were a suspect present.”
At the morgue, Mick and Beth examine Jill Button. They find strange marks on her that Beth IDs as liposuction scars and both men just look at her. Mick asks, “Really?” and Beth explains defensively, “I have friends.” They determine that the liposuction didn’t kill her, and Mick gets a text from Logan with an address for Perez.
Mick heads off to the address and Beth sticks around to see what she can find out about the coroners report. She runs into the DA in the hall and he warns her not to continue with Mick. Even if they do find evidence, he’s still going to need to have it be permissible in court. Does she really want Maureen’s killer to get off on a technicality? Beth hates it but realizes he’s right.
Mick shows up at Perez’s house, knocks on the door…”Mr. Perez?”…muffled running…Freeze on Mick’s face: ”I’m actually gonna have to chase this guy? Crap.”
Mick takes off as his Voice-over explains, “I haven’t had to run like this for a long time.” (Lots of running, jumping, smashing through fences and over a kid’s wagon, “Hey! Hey!”) “The first few minutes were fun…And now?” (Mick leaps over hedges, still chasing Perez.) “Now let’s just say I do feel like I’m 85 years old.” (Freeze. He’s almost on him!) “And I really am gonna have to cut back on all those hot dogs and doughnuts.”
Mick finally catches up to Perez and smashes him through the white railing by the stairs. Perez yells, “Please! Please!”
Inside the house he and Mick sit in the living room and Perez explains that he thought he was INS. They came by this morning. Mick says it was Kent Morrow. They start talking about the night of the accident when Perez was the valet who handed over the keys…not to Morrow’s wife, but to Kent Morrow.
Mick leans forward, “Kent Morrow was driving that night?” More than that, he was drunk and angry. When Mick asks Perez why he didn’t tell the police, why contact Buzz Wire now? Perez just looks at him confused. “What’s Buzz Wire? I didn’t contact anybody.”
Mick asks to see his computer and calls Logan. Together they figure out that someone was routing the e-mails to look like they came from Perez, when in fact they came from somewhere inside Kent Morrow’s offices. From his campaign manager actually.
When Mick confronts the two, the campaign manager insists that a lot of people use her computer, and that it wasn’t her. Beth and Ben Talbot enter and Beth asks to talk to Mick.
They step outside the office to talk and Talbot joins them. Perez won’t testify for fear of being deported and now it’s just his word against Kent’s. Suddenly Morrow’s daughter, Bonnie, gets up and runs out of the room. Mick turns around, “I’ll be right back.” He rushes out after her.
Mick comes out on the roof and, “No! Bonnie!” He rushes over to where she’s about to jump and she tells him to go away. She’s crying. Mick tells her just to step back and she asks, “Are you gonna give me the, ‘there’s so much to live for’ speech? You have no freakin’ idea.” Mick tells her no, but people are going ask why she jumped and he’d like to be able to tell them that she made an informed decision.
Mick steps onto the ledge with her and she asks, “What now you’re gonna jump to?” He answers, “I’d really rather not. I’ve never even had a Krispy Kreme doughnut.”
Bonnie: Are you nuts?
Mick: Yeah.
Bonnie: No you’re not. But you know what is? Living every day with a secret that you want to tell someone—that you want to tell but can’t.
Mick: Listen to me, okay? Secrets are like a disease, and if we don’t share them, they eat us up on the inside until there’s nothing left. Until it feels like we’re already dead.
Bonnie looks at him. “You have a secret too, don’t you?” Mick admits that he does and that it ate him up until he told somebody. When she asks if it turned out for the best, he answers, “You know what? I think it did.”
Suddenly the roof door busts open and everyone else comes running out, yelling. Mick immediately tells them to back off, and Bonnie cries harder, telling them to get her dad away from her. She doesn’t want him here! Mick talks her down, “Hey, hey, hey, it’s just you and me up here okay? You talk to me.”
Bonnie tells them all about the night of the car accident (“I woke up in the car…and mommy was dead.”) and how she doesn’t want to be by the man who killed her mom and then forced her to keep it a secret.
Kent: *being held back* Bonnie you’re all I got left!
Bonnie: Because you killed my mother!
Mick: *softly* It’s okay…it’s okay…
Bonnie: He was driving, but he said to say that she was. And he said that if I didn’t, that he would…go to jail and I-I would be all alone.
Mick: You wanted people to know the truth right?
She tells him she just wanted people to know the truth about her mother, but she was too chicken to tell, and then she tried the e-mail thing and screwed that up to and—NO!
Bonnie jumps and Mick leaps at her, grabbing her and pulling her back just in time. They both fall to the floor. Bonnie looks at him, breathing hard, shocked, and Mick just keeps telling her she’s okay. She starts to cry again and leans into him. Mick stays on the ground, pulling her into a hug and holding her as he continues to tell her it’s okay.
Kent Morrow tries to get to his daughter and Talbot stops him. “If you cared about your daughter you wouldn’t have lied.” He drags him off as Morrow yells Bonnie’s name. Bonnie would rather stay with Mick.
Morrow’s campaign manager goes over to get Bonnie and Beth rushes to Mick. “Are you okay? For a second I thought…” It’s only then that Mick recalls, “Yeah I just remembered that I don’t like heights.” Beth tells him she’s not used to having to worry about him dying. Mick grins, “Me neither. It’s kind of exhilarating.” She tells him that’s not exactly the word she would use.
They decide that if Kent didn’t kill Maureen, they’re left with the doughnut queen. Talbot tells them later on the phone that he found out that the coroner was paid off by Jill Button’s plastic surgeon, Dr. Pierce Andrews. His patients have been hospitalized after procedures for unexpected blood loss. Mick wants the address and he’ll give text it to them as long as they meet him in the morning. Beth decides Talbot is starting to grow on her.
They head for the car and Mick stops her, “Hey. You want to come over to my place for dinner tonight? I’ve uh, figured out how to work the over.”
Beth looks at him, surprised. “You’re going to cook me dinner?”
Mick grins. “Yeah I’m gonna try.”
“Are you asking me out on a date?”
“Why isn’t that what humans do?” Mick heads for the car and Beth gives us the biggest Yes! smile ever, before turning to follow him.
Mick, Beth, and Talbot all go to talk to the plastic surgeon. He tells them he considers himself an artist, blah, blah, blah, and when they start to push and Talbot threatens to get a warrant, the vampire attacks. Mick tries to fight him, but seeing as how he’s human again he’s no match. Both he and Talbot are thrown across the room (Mick into a glass table) and knocked out and the vampire goes after Beth (after she shoots him twice with Mick’s gun to no avail).
He licks her bloody lip. “Type AO negative. Unusual. Tasty.” Beth looks for Mick but he’s still unconscious.
Mick goes to Guierrmo to get the giant glass shards out of his leg and his friend argues that he should be at the hospital. Mick doesn’t have time for the hospital, he needs to find Beth. Guierrmo tells Mick that he knows about the guy who took Beth. The plastic surgery thing is just a front, he takes extra (usually rare) blood from his patients while he’s out. Not good. The rare blood thing is describing Beth perfectly.
Beth and Ben are on the floor in some surgical lab tied up back-to-back and blindfolded with medial gauze. Beth says that Mick will come and Ben argues that Mick is probably dead, “No one is coming to save us, we’re on our own.”
Leg is sewn up, Mick heads back to his apartment and starts pulling the weapons out from behind his super-cool black bookcase. Suddenly Josef appears, “What are you doing?”
Mick: Don’t do that!
Josef: *grinning* What? Use my crafty vampire abilities to sneak up on you?
Mick: What are you doing here?
Josef: Guierrmo called me, said you were about to do something incredibly stupid. I said, ‘Wait, that can’t be the Mick I know’.”
Mick: You should come, you love a challenge.
Josef: No see, I’m a lover not a fighter. Besides I’d just get dead trying to protect you, the human liability.
Mick argues that he can take care of himself, and suddenly Josef goes all vampire and attacks Mick. He knocks the weapons out of his hand, throws him across the room, and pins him to the wall, shouting, “Is this how you’re face them? This how you want it to end?!”
Mick yells at him to get off him, and Josef backs down. He’s proven his point. Mick takes a deep breath and turns to his friend. “You were right. I can’t save Beth as a human. But I can save her as a vampire. You have to turn me back.”
Josef can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. This is not—”
“Just turn me back.”
Gone is the usual teasing Josef. “Mick. You’re human again. After all you went through to get the cure you’re gonna give it all up this easily?”
Mick’s anger and emotions are quickly building. He breathes hard as he answers, “You think this is easy? This is not easy, okay? I don’t have a choice.”
“What you’re asking me to do—” Mick cuts him off by grabbing Josef by the collar.
“Listen to me! Alright?” Mick begs Josef. “He has Beth…He has my Beth. So please….please brother…”
“Mick.” Josef looks at his best friend. “Forgive me.”
Josef attacks Mick, biting him on the neck as he begins to drain his blood. Even in his vampire eyes you can see that it’s killing him to do this. Mick staggers and Josef holds him while he continues to suck, gently lying Mick on the table as he turns him back into a vampire.
Now that is one loyal friend. (Note: This is also the first time we actually see Josef turn vampire! We get just a glimpse of how powerful the guy really is!
)
Mick lies on the table and Josef takes off his jacked and rolls up his shirt. He bites his arm and dribbles his own blood into Mick’s mouth.
A single tear slides from Mick’s eye.
The blood hits his tongue and he barely moves. “Come on Mick, rise and shine. ” Josef continues to drip his blood into his friend’s mouth, arm shaking. Finally Mick takes Josef’s arm and starts to drink. He lies back for a moment, then sits up. When he opens his eyes, he’s back to a vampire.
Mick and Josef bust down the door and find a bunch of vampires lounging around drinking blood in the room where Beth and Ben are still sitting on the floor. One of the vampires looks at them, “You’re, a—”
Mick: Oh yeah.
Josef: It is so on.
*Cue awesome Mick and Josef team vampire fight!!*
Mick throws one of the vampires through a glass wall into a bunch of blood, then stakes two of them while as Josef watches his back. When it’s all over Josef jokes, “Woo! Very dramatic. I like it.”
Mick unties Beth and takes off her blindfold. She sees him and asks, “Your face, what happened?” Mick’s only reply is, “Like they say, life is short.”
Josef pulls Ben to his feet, keeping him blindfolded and reminding him that they’re saving his life. They leave the staked vampires and head out.
Later on, Mick and Beth sit on the roof in a candlelit night picnic. Beth explains that she told Talbot she was unconscious for most of the time and doesn’t know what happened, and Mick assures her that the cleanup team does a very good job. He won’t find out about the vampire part.
Beth takes a bite of a strawberry and Mick asks her if the food is okay. He wasn’t sure about the seasoning…Beth can’t get over what he did for her, what he gave up. She tells him, “part of you must hate me.”
Mick just looks her in the eye. “I could never hate you.”
He tells her he doesn’t have any regrets, and Beth says this isn’t exactly how she pictured their date either. She’s back to being a human, he’s back a vampire. He won’t look at her as he mumbles, “I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”
Beth says softly, “Maybe you’re afraid of getting hurt.” She tells him she knows what it’s like to lose someone you love. Mick argues that human-vampire relationships are too complicated.
“I know, you told me.” Beth stands up, tired of this. “If you hadn’t have been a vampire, I’d have died today. I’d have died 23 years ago.” Mick stands up as she adds, “Being a vampire isn’t all you are. It’s not what’s keeping us apart…It’s just you.”
She starts leave and Mick suddenly grabs her and pulls her into a passionate kiss. Finally, he pulls back to look at her. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t know. But just give me a chance to figure it out…okay?”
“Just don’t take too long” Beth whispers back. “You may have forever, but I don’t.”
Beth steps back, her hand slipping out of his. Mick watches her go then jumps up onto a pedestal on the corner of the roof, wind blowing around him, full moon in the background…
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Whew! Okay, this was a fantastic episode. I don’t know if it’s just because it’s been forever since I’ve seen a new one, or if they’ve just stepped it up a notch, but I really thought tonight’s episode was very good.
There were more than a few scenes I sat telling my TV, "I love you Mick!!" (The saving-the-young-girl-from-ju mping anyone? The tear? The kiss?) And I now have a renewed attachment to and appreciation for Josef. I do believe I even uttered a few “I love you Josef”s during that whole turning scene. It was so sad! But so very good.
Poor Mick. Still didn't get his Krispy Kreme doughnut.
Great job Moonlight! I can’t wait for next week!
Quotes of the week:
Mick: Do I miss sleeping in an industrial freezer? Would you?
~*~*~
Mick: You look good.
Beth: So do you. Mortality suits you.
~*~*~
Vampire: You’re, a—
Mick: Oh yeah.
Josef: It is so on.
~*~*~
Mick: He has Beth…He has my Beth. So please….please brother…
Josef: Mick…Forgive me.”
~*~*~
Mick: I am in love with her.
He lies down on the blanket, enjoying a strawberry (Beth brought a little bit of everything since she realized she had no idea what he liked), and Beth tells him how good it is to see him so happy. When she comments that it’s like a whole new Mick, he tells her that no, it’s actually the old Mick. The one he was before he turned into a vampire.
Beth asks him how long he thinks the cure will last and Mick says he doesn’t know, maybe six months? In any case, he’s definitely not letting any moment pass him by.
He tells her he’s glad she called, and she lets him know that she wanted him to know that she doesn’t blame Mick for Josh’s death. When he brings up the fact that she was wearing his engagement ring at the funeral, she tells him that, “Even if he had been able to propose to me, I wouldn’t have been able to say yes...” She then goes on to tell him the reason is because “there’s someone else. There has been for a while…I care about him a lot. And, I think it’s time he figured out what he’s gonna do about it.”
Mick takes the hint, and smiles.
Mick heads on over to Josef’s to find his best friend trying to deal with his new interior decorators (Josef is not liking their “think Clooney” idea at all). Josef tells the decorators to leave, looks at Mick and asks, “Are you…are you tan?” Mick answers, “Am I? I had lunch at the beach with Beth. Not something you’ll be doing any time soon.”
Josef asks Mick if he’s sealed the deal yet and Mick argues that it’s not about sex. Josef argues that it always is, and Mick insists that it’s not that simple. “I’m 58 years older than her, okay? I sleep in the freezer, I drink blood I buy from the morgue, and I have this tendency to bite down when I—”
“Some women like that,” Josef interrupts. “You keep coming up with all these excuses. You’re not afraid Beth’s gonna get hurt, you’re afraid you’re gonna get hurt.”
Mick laughs it off, then thinks a second. “I, am in love with her.”
“Yeah,” Josef smiles and gently answers. “Yeah you are. Now go do something about it before it’s too late.”
Beth enters her apartment ally smiley and looking at a picture of Mick on her phone. She plugs it into her I-phone speakers and starts listening to music. The music is interrupted by a call, and it’s Maureen ordering Beth to get down to Buzz Wire in 20 minutes. Beth tries to get her to wait for the morning, but her boss will hear none of it. She hangs up and Beth sighs and heads back out.
Down at Buzz Wire, Beth enters telling Maureen that, “If this is one more Brangelina alien baby thing I swear—” She stops dead in her tracks when she sees that the entire building has been ransacked. Her gaze drifts towards Maureen’s office. The door is open…No!
Beth runs in and finds her friend and boss murdered. Shot through the head.
The cops show up along with Assistant DA Ben Talbot. He asks about Maureen and puts the magazine down as a trashy tabloid. Beth defends Buzz Wire, “We cover serious news stories here, one of which just got Maureen killed!”
Enter Mick. She tells him what’s going on and Talbot asks Mick who he is. When Mick tells him he’s a PI, Talbot frowns. He’s heard of him, and those “things” aren’t really good ones. Talbot leaves and Mick asks Beth if she’s alright. Her answer? “Not really.”
Mick visits his morgue buddy (completely freaking him out that he’s not a vampire anymore) and gets a look at Maureen’s body. He and Beth find out that Maureen was definitely around a vampire at the time of her death. They start to leave and Guierrmo calls out, “Hey what about that gallon of A Positive I got stocked up, man. You’re the only one who drinks that stuff!”
Mick and Beth break into Maureen’s apartment, where she tells him that it was a lot more fun when he was a vampire.
Beth: *whispering* It’s a shame you can’t still do that sexy vampire jumping thing.
Mick: *whispering* Yeah well the jumping thing was kinda tied to the blood-sucking thing.
The killer has Maureen’s laptop, but Beth is convinced she had to have a USB backup hidden somewhere. Mick starts to look and tells Beth that people hide things in the last place they think anyone’s going to look. Beth has an epiphany, “Tampons!”
Mick: Excuse me?
Beth tells him that that’s where she hides all her good jewelry and runs off to get a box. When she returns with the USB drive, Mick can’t believe it. Maureen’s cat wanders in and Beth picks him up, pets him and tells him they’ll find someone good to take care of him, then sets him on Mick’s lap. Mick tries to stop her as cats instinctively hate vamp—oh, look at that. Mick is amazed and grins as he starts petting the purring cat.
They hook it up to the computer but find the entire thing password protected.
It’s okay. Mick knows a guy.
Guitar Hero time! Mick takes Beth to visit computer wiz Logan, who, unlike Mick, the cat hates (I mean why wouldn’t he, Logan thought he was lunch). Mick shouts over the music, “Is that all you do?”, to which Logan scoffs, “No! Tuesdays and Thursdays when I rule World of Warcraft!” Mick introduces Beth and Logan and gets Logan to look at the computer files.
Logan has a tough time. It’s not only password protected but also encrypted by a novice who thinks they knew what they were doing. Logan tries everything, her phone number, SS number, driver’s license…Mick interrupts, “Try her cat’s name, Travis.”
Logan just laughs. “No one every uses their cat—”
Beth: It worked! We’re in!
Logan: We shall never speak of this again.
In Maureen’s files they find an article about Jill Button who died of a heart attack after eating some new diet doughnuts. She was their spokesperson. “Killer doughnuts…” They move on to the next article, which is about Kent Morrow. A guy who’s running for mayor. He’s expected to win.
Apparently Maureen received an e-mail from a Luis Perez who claimed that Morrow’s wife was killed in a car accident that wasn’t an accident. They figure this is the right article. Logan says his money is on Josef Kostan who’s been running some sort of charity scam. When Mick says it can’t be Josef, Logan asks him why Mick hasn’t introduced him to the richest vampire in town. Mick simply answers, “Logan, you never leave your basement.” Logan can’t argue with that!
Mick insists that Josef didn’t kill Maureen, it’s not his style, I mean Maureen? Beth argues that she was near a vampire when she died and vows that she’s not letting whoever killed her friend get away with it.
They pay Josef another visit. “Oh look, it’s my two favorite humans.” Beth immediately gets to the point and after joking when they first entered, Josef tells Beth he’s sorry when Mick explains Beth’s editor just died.
Josef: Am I a suspect? Cool, it’s like role-playing, only without the leather.
Mick tells Josef his name came up in connection with the story Maureen was working on. When Josef asks if her body was found in the tar pits and they say no, he says, “That was the only person I killed this week.” Mick tells him that, “This is serious,” and Josef just says, “No, this is stupid.”
Josef goes on to tell them that Maureen was the one to tell him the charity was bogus. He didn’t know until then and immediately backed out when he found out. He even set up another charity for the victims of the people who fell for the first. Why would he want to kill Maureen? He tells them, “I know it’s always tempting to blame the vampire, but I think this time you guys are going to have to look for the killer someplace else.” They leave.
Mick goes to one of Morrow’s press speeches, where he runs into Morrow’s very bored daughter who complains that her dad’s speech is exactly the same every time. Mick jokes, “Maybe he’s lip-syncing.” Bonnie laughs and tells him he must be lost, he seems way too cool to be hanging out with these losers. Mick tells her appearances can be deceiving and goes off to try and talk to Morrow. He’s stopped by his campaign manager though, and when they find out he’s a PI they tell him to leave and walk off.
Mick follows, asking Morrow if he knew that Maureen was looking into his wife’s accident. Morrow asks him again who he is and Mick asks him if he knows Louis Perez. He tells him that Perez is claiming his wife’s death wasn’t an accident. Morrow stares at Mick. “I have nothing to hide.” He exchanges a long glance with his daughter and walks out.
While Mick is off following Morrow’s lead, Beth heads to check out the killer doughnuts. The woman behind the desk insists that their doughnuts are perfectly safe. Beth argues, “Yet your spokeswoman is perfectly dead.” The woman argues that she had a heart attack that had nothing to do with her diet. She tells Beth that’s all she’s getting without lawyer, and offers a box of doughnuts on the way out.
Back in Logan’s basement, he’s found out that the company offer is legit. Beth tries the doughnuts and makes a face. Mick comes in and sees the doughnuts. His eyes light up and he grabs one, taking a bite. “Mmmm, that’s not bad!”
Beth just looks at him. “When was the last time you had a doughnut?”
“1952.”
Beth stares at him. “I have two words for you. Krispy. Kreme.”
Mick continues to eat his doughnut telling them that he didn’t have to be able to hear Kent Morrow’s heartbeat to know he’s hiding something. He asks Logan what he found out and he pulls up the report about the accident. Morrow’s wife was driving and she smashed into an oncoming car, killing both her and the other driver.
When they ask about Perez, Logan says the guys a ghost. The best he can do is try and trace the e-mail sent to Maureen back to the computer that sent it. Mick hands over some more cash and he and Beth start to leave. He explains that they’re going back to talk to Guierrmo because he got him to let them have a look at Jill Button. When Beth says, “I thought he was mad at you,” Mick explains, “I bought up all the A positive he couldn’t unload.” When she points out that he can’t drink blood anymore, Mick tells her he sent it to Josef as a “sorry you were a suspect present.”
At the morgue, Mick and Beth examine Jill Button. They find strange marks on her that Beth IDs as liposuction scars and both men just look at her. Mick asks, “Really?” and Beth explains defensively, “I have friends.” They determine that the liposuction didn’t kill her, and Mick gets a text from Logan with an address for Perez.
Mick heads off to the address and Beth sticks around to see what she can find out about the coroners report. She runs into the DA in the hall and he warns her not to continue with Mick. Even if they do find evidence, he’s still going to need to have it be permissible in court. Does she really want Maureen’s killer to get off on a technicality? Beth hates it but realizes he’s right.
Mick shows up at Perez’s house, knocks on the door…”Mr. Perez?”…muffled running…Freeze on Mick’s face: ”I’m actually gonna have to chase this guy? Crap.”
Mick takes off as his Voice-over explains, “I haven’t had to run like this for a long time.” (Lots of running, jumping, smashing through fences and over a kid’s wagon, “Hey! Hey!”) “The first few minutes were fun…And now?” (Mick leaps over hedges, still chasing Perez.) “Now let’s just say I do feel like I’m 85 years old.” (Freeze. He’s almost on him!) “And I really am gonna have to cut back on all those hot dogs and doughnuts.”
Mick finally catches up to Perez and smashes him through the white railing by the stairs. Perez yells, “Please! Please!”
Inside the house he and Mick sit in the living room and Perez explains that he thought he was INS. They came by this morning. Mick says it was Kent Morrow. They start talking about the night of the accident when Perez was the valet who handed over the keys…not to Morrow’s wife, but to Kent Morrow.
Mick leans forward, “Kent Morrow was driving that night?” More than that, he was drunk and angry. When Mick asks Perez why he didn’t tell the police, why contact Buzz Wire now? Perez just looks at him confused. “What’s Buzz Wire? I didn’t contact anybody.”
Mick asks to see his computer and calls Logan. Together they figure out that someone was routing the e-mails to look like they came from Perez, when in fact they came from somewhere inside Kent Morrow’s offices. From his campaign manager actually.
When Mick confronts the two, the campaign manager insists that a lot of people use her computer, and that it wasn’t her. Beth and Ben Talbot enter and Beth asks to talk to Mick.
They step outside the office to talk and Talbot joins them. Perez won’t testify for fear of being deported and now it’s just his word against Kent’s. Suddenly Morrow’s daughter, Bonnie, gets up and runs out of the room. Mick turns around, “I’ll be right back.” He rushes out after her.
Mick comes out on the roof and, “No! Bonnie!” He rushes over to where she’s about to jump and she tells him to go away. She’s crying. Mick tells her just to step back and she asks, “Are you gonna give me the, ‘there’s so much to live for’ speech? You have no freakin’ idea.” Mick tells her no, but people are going ask why she jumped and he’d like to be able to tell them that she made an informed decision.
Mick steps onto the ledge with her and she asks, “What now you’re gonna jump to?” He answers, “I’d really rather not. I’ve never even had a Krispy Kreme doughnut.”
Bonnie: Are you nuts?
Mick: Yeah.
Bonnie: No you’re not. But you know what is? Living every day with a secret that you want to tell someone—that you want to tell but can’t.
Mick: Listen to me, okay? Secrets are like a disease, and if we don’t share them, they eat us up on the inside until there’s nothing left. Until it feels like we’re already dead.
Bonnie looks at him. “You have a secret too, don’t you?” Mick admits that he does and that it ate him up until he told somebody. When she asks if it turned out for the best, he answers, “You know what? I think it did.”
Suddenly the roof door busts open and everyone else comes running out, yelling. Mick immediately tells them to back off, and Bonnie cries harder, telling them to get her dad away from her. She doesn’t want him here! Mick talks her down, “Hey, hey, hey, it’s just you and me up here okay? You talk to me.”
Bonnie tells them all about the night of the car accident (“I woke up in the car…and mommy was dead.”) and how she doesn’t want to be by the man who killed her mom and then forced her to keep it a secret.
Kent: *being held back* Bonnie you’re all I got left!
Bonnie: Because you killed my mother!
Mick: *softly* It’s okay…it’s okay…
Bonnie: He was driving, but he said to say that she was. And he said that if I didn’t, that he would…go to jail and I-I would be all alone.
Mick: You wanted people to know the truth right?
She tells him she just wanted people to know the truth about her mother, but she was too chicken to tell, and then she tried the e-mail thing and screwed that up to and—NO!
Bonnie jumps and Mick leaps at her, grabbing her and pulling her back just in time. They both fall to the floor. Bonnie looks at him, breathing hard, shocked, and Mick just keeps telling her she’s okay. She starts to cry again and leans into him. Mick stays on the ground, pulling her into a hug and holding her as he continues to tell her it’s okay.
Kent Morrow tries to get to his daughter and Talbot stops him. “If you cared about your daughter you wouldn’t have lied.” He drags him off as Morrow yells Bonnie’s name. Bonnie would rather stay with Mick.
Morrow’s campaign manager goes over to get Bonnie and Beth rushes to Mick. “Are you okay? For a second I thought…” It’s only then that Mick recalls, “Yeah I just remembered that I don’t like heights.” Beth tells him she’s not used to having to worry about him dying. Mick grins, “Me neither. It’s kind of exhilarating.” She tells him that’s not exactly the word she would use.
They decide that if Kent didn’t kill Maureen, they’re left with the doughnut queen. Talbot tells them later on the phone that he found out that the coroner was paid off by Jill Button’s plastic surgeon, Dr. Pierce Andrews. His patients have been hospitalized after procedures for unexpected blood loss. Mick wants the address and he’ll give text it to them as long as they meet him in the morning. Beth decides Talbot is starting to grow on her.
They head for the car and Mick stops her, “Hey. You want to come over to my place for dinner tonight? I’ve uh, figured out how to work the over.”
Beth looks at him, surprised. “You’re going to cook me dinner?”
Mick grins. “Yeah I’m gonna try.”
“Are you asking me out on a date?”
“Why isn’t that what humans do?” Mick heads for the car and Beth gives us the biggest Yes! smile ever, before turning to follow him.
Mick, Beth, and Talbot all go to talk to the plastic surgeon. He tells them he considers himself an artist, blah, blah, blah, and when they start to push and Talbot threatens to get a warrant, the vampire attacks. Mick tries to fight him, but seeing as how he’s human again he’s no match. Both he and Talbot are thrown across the room (Mick into a glass table) and knocked out and the vampire goes after Beth (after she shoots him twice with Mick’s gun to no avail).
He licks her bloody lip. “Type AO negative. Unusual. Tasty.” Beth looks for Mick but he’s still unconscious.
Mick goes to Guierrmo to get the giant glass shards out of his leg and his friend argues that he should be at the hospital. Mick doesn’t have time for the hospital, he needs to find Beth. Guierrmo tells Mick that he knows about the guy who took Beth. The plastic surgery thing is just a front, he takes extra (usually rare) blood from his patients while he’s out. Not good. The rare blood thing is describing Beth perfectly.
Beth and Ben are on the floor in some surgical lab tied up back-to-back and blindfolded with medial gauze. Beth says that Mick will come and Ben argues that Mick is probably dead, “No one is coming to save us, we’re on our own.”
Leg is sewn up, Mick heads back to his apartment and starts pulling the weapons out from behind his super-cool black bookcase. Suddenly Josef appears, “What are you doing?”
Mick: Don’t do that!
Josef: *grinning* What? Use my crafty vampire abilities to sneak up on you?
Mick: What are you doing here?
Josef: Guierrmo called me, said you were about to do something incredibly stupid. I said, ‘Wait, that can’t be the Mick I know’.”
Mick: You should come, you love a challenge.
Josef: No see, I’m a lover not a fighter. Besides I’d just get dead trying to protect you, the human liability.
Mick argues that he can take care of himself, and suddenly Josef goes all vampire and attacks Mick. He knocks the weapons out of his hand, throws him across the room, and pins him to the wall, shouting, “Is this how you’re face them? This how you want it to end?!”
Mick yells at him to get off him, and Josef backs down. He’s proven his point. Mick takes a deep breath and turns to his friend. “You were right. I can’t save Beth as a human. But I can save her as a vampire. You have to turn me back.”
Josef can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. This is not—”
“Just turn me back.”
Gone is the usual teasing Josef. “Mick. You’re human again. After all you went through to get the cure you’re gonna give it all up this easily?”
Mick’s anger and emotions are quickly building. He breathes hard as he answers, “You think this is easy? This is not easy, okay? I don’t have a choice.”
“What you’re asking me to do—” Mick cuts him off by grabbing Josef by the collar.
“Listen to me! Alright?” Mick begs Josef. “He has Beth…He has my Beth. So please….please brother…”
“Mick.” Josef looks at his best friend. “Forgive me.”
Josef attacks Mick, biting him on the neck as he begins to drain his blood. Even in his vampire eyes you can see that it’s killing him to do this. Mick staggers and Josef holds him while he continues to suck, gently lying Mick on the table as he turns him back into a vampire.
Now that is one loyal friend. (Note: This is also the first time we actually see Josef turn vampire! We get just a glimpse of how powerful the guy really is!
)Mick lies on the table and Josef takes off his jacked and rolls up his shirt. He bites his arm and dribbles his own blood into Mick’s mouth.
A single tear slides from Mick’s eye.
The blood hits his tongue and he barely moves. “Come on Mick, rise and shine. ” Josef continues to drip his blood into his friend’s mouth, arm shaking. Finally Mick takes Josef’s arm and starts to drink. He lies back for a moment, then sits up. When he opens his eyes, he’s back to a vampire.
Mick and Josef bust down the door and find a bunch of vampires lounging around drinking blood in the room where Beth and Ben are still sitting on the floor. One of the vampires looks at them, “You’re, a—”
Mick: Oh yeah.
Josef: It is so on.
*Cue awesome Mick and Josef team vampire fight!!*
Mick throws one of the vampires through a glass wall into a bunch of blood, then stakes two of them while as Josef watches his back. When it’s all over Josef jokes, “Woo! Very dramatic. I like it.”
Mick unties Beth and takes off her blindfold. She sees him and asks, “Your face, what happened?” Mick’s only reply is, “Like they say, life is short.”
Josef pulls Ben to his feet, keeping him blindfolded and reminding him that they’re saving his life. They leave the staked vampires and head out.
Later on, Mick and Beth sit on the roof in a candlelit night picnic. Beth explains that she told Talbot she was unconscious for most of the time and doesn’t know what happened, and Mick assures her that the cleanup team does a very good job. He won’t find out about the vampire part.
Beth takes a bite of a strawberry and Mick asks her if the food is okay. He wasn’t sure about the seasoning…Beth can’t get over what he did for her, what he gave up. She tells him, “part of you must hate me.”
Mick just looks her in the eye. “I could never hate you.”
He tells her he doesn’t have any regrets, and Beth says this isn’t exactly how she pictured their date either. She’s back to being a human, he’s back a vampire. He won’t look at her as he mumbles, “I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”
Beth says softly, “Maybe you’re afraid of getting hurt.” She tells him she knows what it’s like to lose someone you love. Mick argues that human-vampire relationships are too complicated.
“I know, you told me.” Beth stands up, tired of this. “If you hadn’t have been a vampire, I’d have died today. I’d have died 23 years ago.” Mick stands up as she adds, “Being a vampire isn’t all you are. It’s not what’s keeping us apart…It’s just you.”
She starts leave and Mick suddenly grabs her and pulls her into a passionate kiss. Finally, he pulls back to look at her. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t know. But just give me a chance to figure it out…okay?”
“Just don’t take too long” Beth whispers back. “You may have forever, but I don’t.”
Beth steps back, her hand slipping out of his. Mick watches her go then jumps up onto a pedestal on the corner of the roof, wind blowing around him, full moon in the background…
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Whew! Okay, this was a fantastic episode. I don’t know if it’s just because it’s been forever since I’ve seen a new one, or if they’ve just stepped it up a notch, but I really thought tonight’s episode was very good.
There were more than a few scenes I sat telling my TV, "I love you Mick!!" (The saving-the-young-girl-from-ju mping anyone? The tear? The kiss?) And I now have a renewed attachment to and appreciation for Josef. I do believe I even uttered a few “I love you Josef”s during that whole turning scene. It was so sad! But so very good.
Poor Mick. Still didn't get his Krispy Kreme doughnut.
Great job Moonlight! I can’t wait for next week!
Quotes of the week:
Mick: Do I miss sleeping in an industrial freezer? Would you?
~*~*~
Mick: You look good.
Beth: So do you. Mortality suits you.
~*~*~
Vampire: You’re, a—
Mick: Oh yeah.
Josef: It is so on.
~*~*~
Mick: He has Beth…He has my Beth. So please….please brother…
Josef: Mick…Forgive me.”
~*~*~
Mick: I am in love with her.
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Unfortantly (sp) the yaoi (MaleXMale) fangirls are going to have a field day with this!