By Heather Cee
The most exciting thing that happens this week is in the episode’s first few minutes, with Mick demonstrating the unique nature of vampire physiology. If you’ve ever wondered what happens to those bullets after Mick gets shot and his body heals, it involves a scalpel and a souvenir jar of the suckers.
I repeat: the dude keeps a jar of bullets that he’s sliced out of his body. And it’s half full. That’s a level of cool we’ve never before seen on this show. Even last week’s performance piece from the vengeful Coraline pales in comparison to this subtle and macabre touch. Show, I barely know ya.
But as expectations are elevated, they’re squashed yet again. What’s scarier than a vampire? A psychotic, mass-murdering, Charles Manson figure as a vampire of course. Go ahead and stifle that yawn. It’s an hour of snooze as Donovan Shepherd is strapped to the execution table, declaring he regrets nothing and those who betrayed him will die screaming his name. Witnesses to Shepherd’s death by lethal injection are Beth, covering the story of BuzzWire, and Audrey, the sole survivor of the killer’s stabbing spree and the primary witness in the trial that sent him to jail. Shepherd’s followers – his Family with a capital F – stand in vigil outside, snapping photos as Beth guides a shaken Audrey out of the prison and cheering as Shepherd’s last words are relayed to the throng.
Out of concern, Beth takes Audrey in for the night, but it doesn’t take long for the newly dead Donovan to ring her cell phone with a “hello, sweetheart” (his words to her after murdering her parents) and the outline of his bad hairdo to appear beneath Beth’s window. Beth chalks this up to the girl’s paranoia and calms her down by relating her own childhood trauma – which will become their mutual bond as Beth does some long-delayed reflection on the events surrounding her kidnapping. And once Beth puts Mick on the trail of Shepherd’s fanatical Family, his protective influence does not go unnoticed by Audrey, who gives Beth the third degree on their relationship and takes a highlighter to all those little details that have been staring the reporter in the face. By the time she finds the file with her name on it in Mick’s ‘80s case cabinet, we can see the teary-eyed exchange on the balcony coming on the horizon.
[nms:moonlight,2,0]
Oh, right. The psycho. Donovan, the freaky cross between Kurt Cobain and Donald Trump (Mick’s words), may have his followers working through a hit list on the web courtesy of a producer “friend” who wants to tack a dramatic, murderous ending on his Shepherd biopic. When Mick calls the sleazeball’s bluff, he begins to piece together that Donovan and the producer aren’t friends at all and that Donovan’s share of the film money isn’t going to a survivor’s fund but was the pay-off to a vampire priest. And that money bought Donovan a nice turn just before his execution. With Beth’s address on the internet, Donovan a vampire, and a missing and dead DA in place of Shepherd’s body at the morgue, Mick relocates Beth and Audrey to his place as a precautionary measure. He instructs Beth to keep Audrey out of his stuff, but Beth goes snooping and discovers the file on her kidnapping. And to make matters worse, Mick drops his iPhone after a confrontation with vampire!Donovan, a big fight at Mick’s apartment ensues, etc.
Lives are saved, secrets revealed. Beth and Mick have a conversation about Coraline and feeling safe and why they will never, ever work as a couple. It’s about as painful as slicing your own flesh open and digging out the bullet.
Thank god Coraline’s coming back next week.
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Heather Cee has been writing for music sites for several years but genre media is her original fandom. She’s a History major dropout, loves music, Batman, and the color green, and thinks Laura Roslin is the most kick ass woman on television. She currently works as a website editor in Tucson, Arizona, where she lives with her husband and a ridiculous amount of CDs, records, books, and DVDs. One day she hopes to own grown-up furniture and pants other than jeans.
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