Moonlight: Fated to Pretend

By Lisa Fary (Heather Cee is out this week)

That’s how you come back from a long hiatus: with Alex O’Loughlin walking around half naked for as long as possible.

I thought for sure that Mick St. John would be blood sucking again by the time Moonlight came back. but in Moonlight-land, only a few days have passed and Mick is still living the human effects of Coraline’s compound. He’s sleeping in a real human bed instead of his freezer, drinking coffee instead of blood, and eating hot dogs. . . and doughnuts and pretty much anything that comes his way.

Possibly even Beth, who he meets at the beach for a picnic.

It’s all very romantic in a generic sort of way. And nauseating. Luckily, Beth’s boss gets shot in the head before the opening credits.

Most of the episode is spent contrasting PI work as a vampire with PI work as a regular guy. As a vampire, Mick can move at inhuman speeds, allowing him to apprehend perps quickly. As a human, Mick has to actually put effort into chasing the perp; an action hindered by his hot dog habit. As a vampire, Mick can take on other vamps and usually win. As a human, he gets thrown through a glass table and knocked out while the opposing vamp makes off with Beth and the new DA guy who will no doubt develop a crush on her.

Yep, there’s a new young and moderately attractive DA guy to take the place of Beth’s dead boyfriend. But, this one has a scruffy little half-beard contrasting with his otherwise cream cheese looks. Perhaps it’s supposed to make the DA look haggard or somewhat tough. Really, it just looks like dirt on his face.

But, who killed Beth’s boss, Maureen? Since the boss died right after calling Beth in for a hot story, she thinks it’s a work related murder. Beth and Mick barely beat the cops to Maureen’s apartment where they look for a back up USB drive (hidden cleverly in a box of tampons) for clues. And then, since the cops could show up at any minute, Mick and Beth. . . sit down on the couch to see what’s on the tampon drive.

Maureen’s murder is connected to one of three stories on the tampon drive: a mayoral candidate whose wife was killed in a car accident, a doughnut diet spokesmodel who died of a heart attack, or Josef Konstantin’s involvement in a phony charity.

Yes. That Josef.

The morgue guy could smell vamp on Maureen’s body (which Mick couldn’t because of that whole human thing he has going on), so Beth and Mick investigate Josef first. Josef is already annoyed by his half-completed office remodel and is only more annoyed when Beth and Human Mick waltz in with accusations. He can’t be behind the murder – he’s a series regular.

[nms:jason dohring,1,0]

Mick then investigates the mayoral candidate and guess what? The candidate has a secret. His daughter has the same secret and it makes her do things like jump off a building and act badly. Mick managed to save her from the jump, but not from the acting.

He also managed to uncover that top secret secret: the candidate was driving drunk, causing the accident which killed his wife. He then guilted his daughter into keeping quiet. Pretty bad, but still not related to Maureen’s murder.

That leaves the dead doughnut diet spokesmodel, who has some mysterious liposuction scars. Mick and Beth get the name and address of her plastic surgeon from the Scruffy Bearded DA, but put off the visit until morning.

What ever will they do with the evening?

Mick finally invites Beth on a dinner date. At his apartment. Where he sleeps in a real human bed now. Mick may as well have said, “Do you want to come to my place for dinner? The entree is my junk.”

[nms:alex o'loughlin,1,0]

No, we’re not treated to the date. It’s suddenly the next day and they’re at the plastic surgeon’s office with the Shaggy DA. This is the last lead, so it’s not that surprising when the surgeon vamps out, throws Mick through his glass desk and advances on Beth.

Mick wakes up in the morgue, where his morgue friend informs him that the plastic surgeon harvests his patients’ blood and sells it to vamps around town. Mick is getting ready to storm the plastic surgeon’s den when Josef shows up to demonstrate the extreme stupidity of that idea by vamping out and throwing Mick against the wall.

Point made, Mick is still determined to save Beth and put this plastic surgeon vamp down. He asks Josef to turn him back into a vampire.

And thank god. Mick the Vampire is far more compelling than Mick the Regular Guy, and the MIck-Josef ass kicking team is nothing short of awesome.

The duo hit the plastic surgeon’s base of operations and rescue Beth and the Shaggy DA. There’s a lot of snarling and growling and throwing vamps against walls and into glass things. What I don’t understand is why Mick and Josef left the plastic surgeon staked on the floor. It was made clear early on that the staking doesn’t kill vampires – it only paralyzes them.

“Fated to Pretend” ends with Beth and Mick picnicking on the roof of his building. Given the romantic setting, their conversation turns to Mick’s reluctance to get involved with Beth. Beth calls him on his BS, saying that the vampirism isn’t the problem, Mick is the problem. Mick gives in and kisses her.

Moonlight’s come back was really sucking up until the Josef-Mick vampire conversion scene. Had “Fated to Pretend” aired the week following the last new episode, “The Mortal Cure”, it would have been a stronger episode because Mick’s newly minted humanity still would have been new to us. By the time this aired, Mick had been human in my mind for months and I was ready for him to get back to his vamp roots.

The current status of Josef’s office set – it’s being played as a remodel, but it looks like the set was being torn down, which doesn’t bode well for Moonlight’s 2008-2009 chances. Back in December, CBS announced that Moonlight would be renewed for another season, but the show didn’t make the network’s renewal list that came out in February. If you’re a fan, enjoy Mick St. John while you can – he may not be back.

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Lisa Fary is a graduate of the creative writing program at Florida State University and holds an advanced degree in Special Education. Her early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl.

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