'Moonlight" Undead at hotel California

Moonlight has been slowly improving each week, though the inconsistencies still grate on occasion. As of last week, Beth not only knows that Mick is a vampire, but he also told her that she is the only human he has ever trusted to tell how he was made.  The charming wedding story just gives me more ammunition to not get married. I don't want to become a vampire!

Our show starts and I wonder for a moment if I am watching Moonlight or some new Nine Inch Nails video. But there's Mick, chilling in a bathtub.  Literally, because the tub is filled with water and ice. Beth is also there, and as the voice over lets us know how awful it is to know the only thing that can save you can also destroy something else, we watch him sink his teeth into her neck.  But how did we get here, to this far advanced flash forward?  It starts with a court case, which Beth's significant other is involved in.  They watch her coverage of the case and he grins saucily, letting her know he has an ace up his sleeve. She tries to get him to give up what he's hiding, but he staunchly refuses.

What he is hiding is a secret witness, stashed in a safe house, although from the look of the place, "safe" may not be a great descriptor. There is a young girl, Lenny, there with two cops who are playing cards. She tries to talk them into letting her leave the hotel, but that's not part of keeping her safe.  So instead she lifts one of their cell phones, goes into the bedroom and makes a call. She's not on the phone long before there's a knock at the door. One of the cops goes to answer and gets a bullet through the eye for his trouble, courtesy of the peep hole in the door. A shoot out ensues and both cops end up dead, with Lenny dropping out a back window.

The next scene we see is narrated by Mick, who mentions that when Beth calls, he always answers. Which she hasn't done in a week. All the same, she wants to come over now and he agrees. What he did not agree to was her bringing her DA boyfriend, Josh, with her. He tells Mick they are there because there is an emergency and that despite the fact that they did not get off on the right foot, he wants to hire Mick to find the Lenny. He admits that he cannot use the cops because he suspects there is a leak in the force.  He also admits the Beth had not wanted to him to hire Mick, which a nice dose of passive aggressive salt. Way to go Josh! You are still not as hot as Mick. Josh gives Mick the skinny on Lenny, such as how she was a nanny for Amir Fayed's daughter, is 22 and smart, but was in the wrong place at the wrong time and witnessed Fayed murder one of his henchmen, named Jack, thus she is willing to testify. Rather, she was, before the safe house was shot up.

Josh is being an optimist in thinking she may still want to testify, so he brings Mick to the scene of the crime.  Mick, having his super scent, quickly sees all that happened before, and goes about shooting down all of Josh's theories, such as there being two shooters and that Lenny left through the kitchen's service entrance. He quickly picks up her trail and ends up in the alley outside the hotel. He tells Josh that the trail dead ends behind a dumpster and they figure out Lenny likely stole one of the cops undercover vehicles, which has lo-jack. At this point, however, Josh seems less concerned and decides to dash back to the office. Beth puts in a cal to one of her contacts and gets a hacker to get the lo-jack info. Not so secure now, are you, lo-jack?

From here the episode gets very fast paced and involved, and I can say with complete assurance that it is far and away the best episode yet. Mick tells Beth not to follow him and for once she listens, but this means he eventually ends up wandering the desert with the pregnant witness by himself. And deserts at daytime are not a good place for vampires to be. Mick gets increasingly ragged and gnarly looking as back in the city Josh and his DA crew try to zero in on Fayed. Which they don't manage to do before a helicopter armed to the teeth shoots up the cop car Mick stole to try and escape with Lenny. Luckily they were not in the vehicle, but the DAs office doesn't know that and neither does Beth, who points out that Mick only talked to her and Josh so the leak must be on Josh's side. She angrily runs away to cry which is fine as Josh didn't exactly act supportive when telling her he got her friend killed. 

Meanwhile, Mick and Lenny have found there way to some sort of Hotel California, where he is taking an ice bath while Lenny tries to reach Beth. Which she finally does, she gives her directions while Mick fights back the urge to drain the only source of blood near him - the pregnant girl he is supposed to be protecting.  Lenny comes in to the bathroom to tell Mick she got through the Beth, only to have him attack her.  Just kidding!  It seems Mick is hallucinating, but I swear that scene made me gasp. She tells him Beth is on the way and he tells her to get out.  Through all this, Josh is closing in on his leak, but not fast enough.

Beth arrives at the hotel and seeing how bad Mick is offers him her blood, which he is reticent to accept, but eventually caves, telling her she will have to stop him at some point. Which is where I would have some questions if I were in her shoes. Such as stop exactly when, and how? He sinks his teeth into her wrist and we see Josh find his leak, but the dispatch has been made. By the time Beth emerges from the bathroom, the hotel room is dark and when she calls for Lenny, she gets a gun to the temple instead, thanks to the department leak. Thank goodness Mick is felling better, because he snaps the intruders neck handily enough, saving the day. Back at the city, Josh kisses Beth's arm and she brushes the injury off on her own clumsiness before going to visit Mick, who won't answer the door, having realized he is a danger to her.

There were a few weird moments in the episode, such as the moment during the opening where Mick's voice over tells us sunlight will kill vampires eventually, which contradicts what we heard in the pilot, but I am willing to let it slide. There is also a moment where it seems like the rogue cop who is after them is a vampire, as Mick asks him why he is wearing a heavy jacket in the desert and the cop answers that he is always cold, but since Mick kills him by simply snapping his neck, that must not have been the case.  All the same, it was a comparatively solid episode. I still think the series is moving a bit too quickly and not giving us enough time to emotionally connect to the characters, but I am slowly coming around as the writing improves.

What say you, fellow Moonlighters? Do you feel connected to Mick and Beth? Connected enough to have felt for Beth when she thought Mick was dead tonight? I wasn't feeling the amount of sympathy I think I would had this happened toward the end of the season, personally, but I am starting to have hope for this show again!

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