Tonight is the season premiere of CW’s new drama Beauty and the Beast and we are excited to see the new show. Part procedural, part romance, all hot people, this drama takes the familiar storybook saga and gives it a new spin. Catherine is an NYPD detective haunted by the mysterious murder of her mother and the image of the “creature” who came to her rescue.
When he saves her life again years later, she tracks him down, only to find herself drawn into a greater mystery. “He has this interesting back-story that ties into a lot of issues dating all the way back to 9/11.” says exec producer Brian Peterson. Through the two form an uneasy relationship, love won’t blossom anytime soon. “I feel like an old lady saying this, but in modern series, the romance just happens so fast”, says Kreuk. “I think that with this and with a it if fairy-tale romance, it takes time’
On tonight’s show when she was a teenager, Catherine “Cat” Chandler witnessed the murder of her mother. Cat would have been killed too, but someone – or something – saved her. Now, years have passed and Cat is a police officer, investigating a case that leads her to the person who saved her: a doctor named Vincent Keller. With the help of his childhood friend J.T. Forbes, Vincent has been in hiding, guarding his secret — when enraged, he becomes a terrifying beast, unable to control his super strength.
Still, Cat is touched by the person that lives within the Beast and she knows she has to keep her relationship with Vincent a secret from her boss, Joe Bishop, her partner, Tess Vargas, and even from her close friend, Evan Marks, the medical examiner. Cat and Vincent are powerfully drawn to one another, but they understand that their connection is extremely dangerous for both of them.
Beauty and the Beast Season Premiere ‘Pilot’ airs at 9PM tonight on the CW and we will be live blogging it will all the up-to-the-minutes. So come back to this spot and spend the evening with us enjoying the show! Make sure to refresh often to get the most current update!
LIVE RECAP BEGINS!
We open in a bar at closing time. The young woman leaves the bar and her car won’t start. She calls her mom to bail her out. A strange car approaches and a mystery man opens fire on them. The daughter runs and is chased into the woods by the gun men. She does the standard scary movie trip and fall. Her pursuers are on her, gun poised.
Then they are attacked by a man only seen in the shadows. She catches just a glimpse of his face and it’s inhuman. Narration kicks in and the girl, Catherine Chandler (Kristin Kreuk) turns out to be our beauty. She says she was told she was imagining things that she wasn’t saved by a beast but attacked by men that were beasts.
Flash forward years forward and Catherine is a detective. Her first case of the episode – a five star hotel has a dead body in the women’s room. She and her boss Joe Bishop (Brian White) watch security footage and see that the dead woman came into the hospital already wounded.
She’s a fashion editor and they find a bloody fingerprint on her pricy suit jacket button. The prints match a Vincent Keller – a doctor and a military officer with no priors. Only problem is that he’s dead –long dead – killed in Afghanistan a decade ago. Catherine “Cat” is intrigued and can’t take her eyes off a photo of him.
They head to the hospital where Vincent once worked to ask about him. They’re told he left and joined the military after his brother was killed – walking away from his medical career at the hospital. The nurse they spoke to points them to his old roommate – J.T. Forbes (Austin Basis) – who lives in a creepy old chemical plant.
J.T. invites them in and they tell him Vincent’s fingerprints showed up at a crime scene – he tells them they need a new fingerprint machine. They ask to look around and he tells them he’s got a bio-chem class to teach and ushers them out with him.
Cat can’t shake the feeling something’s going on there – because it was – J.T. is sheltering Vincent , who’s the “Beast.” J.T. confronts him and asks “What did you do?” Vincent doesn’t answer but instead hands him a press clipping of Cat with the police when her mother was murdered. So it was him who saved her. So why’s he killing ladies now?
When we come back from the break, J.T. and Vincent are in an argument. J.T. wants to know what happens with the woman and Vincent says he was just trying to help her.
The argument progresses and J.T. tells him he needs to stay away from Cat and focus on the antidote. He also tells Vincent if word gets out that he’s alive and J.T. is hiding him they’ll both be dead – and he means it literally.
At the crime lab, Cat is told the injuries are consistent with an attempted suffocation but then there’s other wounds that indicate someone tried to save her. Evan Marks – the medical examiner asks her on a date.
The dead woman ’s ex-husband – Mr. Webster turns up at the police station. He’s got an intriguing club stamp on his wrist. He doesn’t know where his ex-wife Ashley was last night and refers her to her assistant Emily.
Tess Vargas – Cat’s detective sidekick – and Cat go see Emily who tells them the beauty editor was jealous of Ashley’s recent promotion.
Evan tells her they got DNA back from Ashley’s corpse and it’s a cross-species sample of DNA. Intriguing… Tess calls Cat to tell her J.T. alibied out, but Cat goes to the old chem factory on a hunch. She finds Vince and confronts him about the murdered girl and why he’s still alive.
He explains that he tried to resuscitate Ashley, but couldn’t help her because she’d been poisoned. She gets a call from the lab moments later and Evan confirms it was poison that killed her – a lethal dose of nicotine! Was Ashley the ultimate chain smoker?
She asks Vincent how he knew it and he tells her he has an excellent sense of smell. Back to that DNA sample… What’s he a cross-breed of? Hound dog and hot guy?
She sees the press clipping and asks him why it’s there – he begs her not to reveal his presence as Tess shows up. Cat lets him slip into the shadows but tells him they’re not done talking. She drags Tess out and says there’s nothing there and they leave.
Cat’s on the phone looking for an FBI special agent, but is told he’s transferred. She’s looking for the investigator who worked her mom’s murder.
The cops are trying to figure out how the nicotine got into Ashley’s system – it could take up to four hours to get toxic. They’re back at the fashion mag talking to beauty editor Chloe and are checking the beauty samples for toxins.
They find out Chloe got dead Ashley’s job and office and search through the stuff she’s already packed up and find a pregnancy test box. Motive perhaps?
She gets a call back from the FBI and they want to know about the weird DNA sample she got from her crime scene – apparently it matched one from her mom’s scene. She meets the agent at the subway and gets the heebie jeebies – there’s a creepy guy lurking nearby.
Creepy guy and (maybe fake) FBI agent try to kill her – she beats them both up. But then a third assailant attacks – a chick – and there’s a kick-ass girl fight that ends with Cat on the tracks. The attackers are up and ready to come at her again when out of nowhere they are taken out. It’s Vincent!
He saves Cat and runs off down the subway tunnel with her in hot pursuit. She screams for him to come out and he doesn’t until a train bears down on her – he yanks her to safety and they’re face to face. She looks him in the eyes and says simply “You’re him.”
Back at the chem factory, Vincent is treating Cat’s wounds and she tells him she needs a drink – she asks if he can drink and he says “not a good idea.” She confirms that he kills two of her attackers and wants to know why she was attacked.
She wants to know how whatever it was happened to him.
Vincent said he should have asked more questions – we get a disjointed flashback. He tells her he enlisted after his brother died. Vincent reveals he was recruited into a super-soldier type of program and he was given “vitamins” that changed his DNA. They were faster, stronger, better soldiers. But then something went horribly wrong…
Turns out, when adrenaline kicked in, they went crazy violent and couldn’t be stopped. The program was shut down and all the super-soldiers ordered exterminated. Cat asked how he survived and he says “luck.”
He admits he and J.T. have been looking for an antidote but it’s not working. Vincent tells her helping people like her and Ashley reminds him of who he used to be. “A doctor?” she asks. “Human,” he corrects. She touches his face tenderly and tries to reassure him, but he’s obviously way too deep into self-loathing to let her caress make a dent in his wounded, sexy psyche.
Cat wants to know why he was there nine years ago and he says the agent that attacked her was from Nearfield (the super soldier project.) Cat begins to suspect that her mom may have been involved – she was a chemist of some sort.
Vincent warns her that she’s now on Nearfield’s radar and it’s dangerous for her. He tells her to leave and not come back. She goes reluctantly.
Questions I have now: Did Cat’s mom develop the super-soldier serum that wrecked Vincent’s life and in turn resulted in her murder? Was dead Ashley preggers? Who’s the dad? Is Chloe just a bitch or a killer and a bitch?
Cat tells Tess she’s found the murder weapon. Ashley took four beauty products out and all but one were found. Seems Ashley’s hair dye was infected. Meanwhile they found bedbugs in the dead girl’s bed and it proves her hubby (who’s not her ex after all) was fooling around.
They go to the club where the girl worked the hubby was sleeping with (how was her DNA on file?) they lost me there… The hostess swears she didn’t kill Ashley.
The dead bodies from the subway platform were appropriated by the FBI. Cat tries to intervene and the fibbies warn her off. She goes to find beastie to tell him about the body snatching and then also lets him know she lost her phone at the subway. Cat says if they find it they’ll know about him. Not clear how… Maybe they’ll make that clear later.
Vincent freaks out and goes all beastie and yellow-eyed on her and throws a fifty gallon drum through a car window from way far away. Ok, he’s strong. And we see we won’t like him when he’s angry.
Cat has dead girl’s hubby back at the station. She tells him she’s got proof he was fooling around with lots of ladies and she knows he was keeping them at bay telling them he had a stringent pre-nup that kept him in the marriage.
They tell him to hand over a list of everyone he’s been banging.
Next thing, they’re at the mag confronting Ashley’s assistant Emily – it was her pregnancy test! She was fooling around with her boss’s hubby, checked out the hair dye and poisoned it so she’d be free to have her baby daddy all to herself.
They cuff her and take her away.
Tess found Cat’s phone at the subway and returns it to her, no questions asked even though she tells her she knows there’s something going on. Med examiner Evan tells Cat he’s gone back through old cases and found six more cases with the weird hybrid DNA. Six!
Cat shows back up at the chem plant. J.T.’s not happy to see her, but gives her a moment alone with Vincent. She tells him she keeps coming back to ask about her mom because she feels it’s her fault her mom was dead – her battery needed a jump because she left the vanity mirror open.
She tells Vincent she knows he’s been helping people and that he should feel good about that.
Then Vincent reveals Nearfield was tracking her mom and that it wasn’t her fault.
Voice over Cat says “I was saved by a beast… and now we’re going to have to save each other.”
There’s a cut away to Vincent perching on a ledge watching her through a window…
And that’s finis for the series premiere of Beauty and the Beast. It’s a compelling premise and the actors are striking enough. I only hope episode two is more engaging. Episode one had to set everything up and establish all the characters, so it was a little clumsy. Fingers crossed for a better episode next week…
