So, Beth knows Mick St. John is a vampire, but I still don't know how I feel about Moonlight. I felt the pilot had too much information crammed into its hour and resolved too many stories that could have possibly been interesting, and the second episode did the unexpected by revealing Mick's nature so early as well. All the same, I am curious where they take us this week, so let's get to it!

Beth comes back to Mick's home because she needs reassurance that she did not see what she thinks she saw, but Mick tells her again that he is a vampire. He also reveals that there is a few hundred of them in LA and that since they've been hunted for so long it is very important that she keeps the secret. Is it wise to share your secrets with someone who works for a tabloid? I appreciate that they pause and have Beth admit that she is struggling with all the information before they have her start peppering him with questions. She asks how he became a vampire and he has a brief flashback to promising her new wife that he will love her forever before she takes him literally and bites him. He doesn't answer Beth and she asks what it's like to be a vampire, but he apparently has no stomach for recounting the specifics and sends her away.

Elsewhere on the streets of LA, there is what looks like a hit and run. A good Samaritan who happens to be a doctor stops to help and gets a mouthful of blood coughed in his face and bitten for his trouble. He stumbles to a nearby convenience store and rips into the snack aisle, trying to satiate a new hunger and ending up ripping into the clerk instead. When the murder is discovered, Beth in on the scene reporting, and her detective informant, Carl, lets her know the body was drained of blood. Her new information that vampires are real propels her to the morgue, where Mick has already arrived having been tipped off by Guillermo that a vampire murder arrived. Mick has already determined that the killer is a newborn vamp who is not being led by his sire when he meets her in the hall and decides to tell her about how they are made, and it is the standard story: the victim is drained to nearly the point of death and then is fed the blood of the vampire that is turning them. We see another flashback of his pale bride trying to reassure him that his turning was a wedding gift. Unfortunately for Mick, there is no return policy.

Up on his hill, Josef remembers his own turning and his first feral days with joy. I remain confused about his connection to Mick. It seems all he does is serve as a counter point to Mick, a vampire who enjoys what he is, juxtaposed with one who is tortured. But he tells Mick to visit the cleaner, who turns out to be just what she sounds like - she cleans up the bodies vampires leave. She admits she was called to the scene the night the rogue vampire appeared, but there was no body to clean. Mick convinces her to give up the name of the vampire who called her and he pays the sire a visit. The vampire in question, a rocket scientist by trade, admits to a solitary life and that he doesn't typically feed on humans. When he finds out he didn't manage to kill the good Samaritan that tried to help him, but turned him by accidentally coughing blood into his mouth, he seems appropriately shocked and tells Mick he only knows the man was a doctor. The logistics seem sketchy to me. The doctor wasn't drained to the point of death and then fed the vampire's blood, after all.

Speaking of the doctor, he's running around, arms flailing wildly and covered in a good amount of blood, until he comes upon another hapless victim in a car garage. I laugh out loud when he says "don't worry - I'm a doctor" before he attacks. I do love dark humor! When this body is found, Beth is on the scene again, and so is Carl. He lets slip that the two murders might be related and asks her not to report her findings. He chastises her for not listening when he asked her not to report on the earlier murder and I still don't understand why he talks to her at all. Just to give her something to do when she's not following Mick? But, Mick is there too, watching her report on his phone. He defensively comments that her reporting that official didn't know "what" id the murder was awfully close to outing him and she points out that she didn't say "vampire" and he grouses that it was close enough. All the same, Beth tells him what Carl told her. Mick asks if she can use her police contacts to get info on random crimes in the area. She asks if he is a P.I., why doesn't he have contacts of his own, which is a very valid question. He explains that he doesn't age and cops tend to catch on to things like that. Soon enough her contacts have turned up a likely fit in an abandoned car belonging to a Dr. Pollock having been recovered. At the Pollock homestead we see the Mrs. arrive home to find  groceries all over the garage. She opens the spare fridge to find her husband inside. She asks him where his clothes are and he admits that he didn't need them and I wonder why she isn't closing the garage door.

Speeding down the roads, Beth offers Mick some potato chips, adding she got the kind without garlic. He defensively tells her he can eat garlic ... if he ate food. Which sort of contradicts what he said in the first episode, that he likes garlic on his pizza, but at this point an error in tense is a small offense comparatively. The best exchange of the night is when she asks if he can fly and he replies "Yup, just like superman." "Really?" she asks, and he dryly responds "No." But he does admit that he's about 85 and she tells him immortality looks pretty good to her. I think it's more that Mick looks pretty good. I actually enjoy the light give and take in their conversation though, and that she again disobeys when he tells her to wait in the car, pointing out what happened last week as why she is tagging along.

In the good doctor's house, they find his wife, dead. As they wander through the house, Beth asks Mick what his life was like before he was a vampire and if he was married. He tells her his wife died and when she asks if he ever tried to turn her he snaps that she is dead. A noise in the other room stops them both and Mick goes to investigate. It seems the Rocket Scientist is back, having had a change of heart. He now wants the vampire he created as a companion, so he stops Mick with a stake through the chest, before going out to find his new son. Beth hears the front door close and goes to investigate, finding Mick with a sizable piece of lumber through his ribs. She rushes over and apparently the paralysis isn't strong enough to keep him from telling her to take it out. She does and he coughs and sits up, telling her he heals fast before suggesting they go to the hospital.

The doctor is there and so is the professor who created him, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize insanity. Our last glimpse of the prof. is of him running down a hallway and calling out to Mick, who is running in the opposite direction that the doctor is crazy. Beth steps in the professor's way and yells "you created a killer vampire and just left him! What's wrong with you?" and I think she may want to keep her voice down or else risk being admitted to the psych ward herself. Mick has already found Dr. Pollack and they get into a predictable but well choreographed fight that ends with Mick staking him rogue and taking his paralyzed body to the incinerator.  Back at Josef's estate, the older vampire tries to comfort Mick, suddenly spouting Buddhist wisdom. It doesn't seem out of place, because the character of Josef is so bare of dimension, but the scene ends too soon. And the episode isn't over yet. They go for the sappier ending with Mick going to Beth's apartment and telling her how he was made and then admitting to her that she is the first human he has ever confided in, telling her that he trusts her before we go to credits.

Honestly, it was the best episode yet. There were fewer glaring inconsistencies, but the show still suffers from trying to pack too much into it's time slot. I think a better ending would have been extending the final scene with Josef and fleshing out his relationship with Mick a bit more while maintaining at least a little tension between Mick and Beth, regarding whether or not he can trust a trashy-news reporter with his secret. I feel like Moonlight is constantly revealing it's hand to us, and I am just as constantly wishing it would play it's cards closer to it's vest.

What say you, fellow Moonlighters? Are they not leaving us with enough mystery? Are too many characters serving merely as convenient story devices without dimension? Is Mick hot enough to make us not care?

Comments

i think the show is getting better....they still need more scenes with jason dohring though.

saney | Oct 12, 2007 11:54:58 PM | #

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I adore this show, probably because Alex O'Loughlin is such a babe! As to whether or not there is enough mystery, I have to say that the show somehow manages to make me very impatient in waiting for the next episode. So the suspense and wonder is there, who cares if the mystery is not? This is by far my favorite show! LONG LIVE MOONLIGHT!

VAsusieQ18 | Oct 13, 2007 6:14:31 AM | #

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I agree the show keeps getting better and I also agree that we need more Jason/Josef. With that said, I'm pleased with the mythology they are creating and the actual bloody, feral nature of the vampires is a nice touch. I like the way they are plunging into various things and not dragging them out, especially Beth finding out about Mick.

The scene in the car was great. They have a nice chemistry going.

Harper | Oct 13, 2007 6:29:47 AM | #

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The show is indeed finding its footing, but it's not quite "must-see tv"... yet. i've always said, even though the pilot wasn't that good, that the show has a lot of potential. i guarantee, if the show gets a full season, those that stick around are going to get blown away. i really think this show needs at least the first 13 or so episodes to find itself and what stories are worth telling before it becomes pretty great. just look at Jericho last season. the first few episodes were good, then they got a little too wrapped up in the subplots. but when the show came back from its winter break, it was stronger than ever. i think Moonlight can be in the same boat, in time. Right now, the show is just "okay", but again... it's getting there. Hopefully the ratings stay as good as they have been.

Charles | Oct 13, 2007 8:17:05 AM | #

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I think Moonlight is really good and I love how Mick and Beth get along. I'm hoping that this show continues on because Mick is so hot. I really love this show. I really don't want this show to cancel like Jericho did. So bring on some more Moonlight.

Allison | Oct 13, 2007 8:28:52 AM | #

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I know a lot of people are panning this show, but I think it keeps getting better and better each week. It'm my Friday night guilty pleasure!

Renee | Oct 13, 2007 1:22:33 PM | #

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I think part of why Mick is reluctant in telling Beth about his sire/wife Coraline is he doesn't want her to put 2 and 2 together and realize Coraline is the woman who kidnapped her. Beth knows Mick saved her, but she doesn't realize his connection to Coraline yet. And I think that scares him - of how Beth will think of him after that.

Donna | Oct 13, 2007 1:37:10 PM | #

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mmmm.....still liking it. just what I need on a Fri night. something a little light weight and entertaining.

everwood | Oct 15, 2007 3:51:32 AM | #

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I'm liking it and first I only started watching it because of Jason/Logan/Josef but his scenes in the pilot left something to be desired. Anyway his scenes have gotten alot better but I'm actually really liking Mick and the general storyline. Hope it stays awhile..

luz | Oct 15, 2007 9:32:35 AM | #

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I do think the show is getting better with each episode, and I look forward to watching future eps to see where they take things.

I think it is interesting and different that they are not dragging out the mystery between Mick and Beth. Shows don't typically do that, and I am willing to see where that heads before getting too worked up about it.

The thing I find a bit disturbing is that in the pilot the Mick/Beth relationship seemed to be going in a fatherly protector direction, but now they seem to be rewriting it with a potential for romantic interest.

Note to showrunners: More Josef!

Jen | Oct 15, 2007 9:54:01 AM | #

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i like this show a lot too... but maybe coz i have a fascination for vampire stuff... i was a big fan of Buffy and Angel. The writing isn't like those two shows, but they have a good cast. Next week looks supergood although it looks like a show that should be shown during sweeps.

leslie | Oct 15, 2007 10:34:42 AM | #

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I love the "Moonlight!" Ok, I admit, it does seem like the show has been done before. In all honesty however what show hasn't. TV has been around for a while.

Moonlight does at times remind me of another show, Forever Knight, form time to time. But Moonlight is much lighter on its feet. This new show has fast become a guilty plessure. A Friday night addiction.

Renee | Oct 17, 2007 7:38:24 AM | #

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The show does remind me of Forever Knight too. But as with Forever Knight this show also deals in intellegence which is good considering not many shows have not one speck of intellegence around it.
I also think of the show as a fine wine it will only get better with age. So here is to many Moonlight seasons to come.

Melissa | Oct 18, 2007 6:23:02 AM | #

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