'Moonlight" Addicted to love

I have to say, that for a show that started off on the bottom of my enjoyment, riddled with story inconsistencies, questionable camera work, and flat characters, Moonlight has really been coming to life for me these last few episodes. Poor pun intended. Tonight's episode saw Beth covering a fashion photo shoot, much to her chagrin, which turned more interesting when one of the models collapses into a seizure and dies. She probes another model for info on the dead girl and finds out that she had stayed out all night at a new club called Valis and shown up this morning declaring modeling no longer mattered to her. When the cops and Josh show up, declare it a crime scene and confiscate her tape, she's a little miffed. Until Josh tells her they are following a drug operation and believe the model over dosed on an unknown drug. Guess who is going to Valis tonight?

Meanwhile, Josef has asked Mick for help. Mick is as surprised as the rest of us, but Josef needs his help in finding Lola, the oldest vampire he knows with whom he has had an on-off relationship with for the last few centuries. It had recently been on again, but she suddenly stopped calling him and he had no way to contact her. Mick asks Josef how much she owes him and he admits a cool million was siphoned from his accounts and that she recently bought a ton of silver. Mick does some digging, which delivers the only inconsistency in the episode. Last week Josef had his own personal phone hacker tracing calls, this week Mick had to do it on his own. All the same, he finds out where a ton of silver is connected to the phone number she was calling Josef from and goes to check out the storage facility. He finds a dirty operative chair in dirtier room filled with something that apparently smells god awful. He opens the lid on a large blue container (of the type police removed from Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment several years back) and it's no surprise that there is a corpse inside. A corpse covered in burnt flesh and traces of silver dust.

Elsewhere, Beth is out at Valis, but denied entrance to the VIP room by a smarmy doorman. Frustrated, she leaves and heads out to the morgue to find out what she can on what killed the model. Also at the morgue is Mick, of course, who is trying to find out more on his own corpse. Which is dry of all blood. It's pretty easy to put together what happened to that body - paralyzed by the silver, drained of blood and set afire. Not a nice way to go. Beth's body is less forthcoming, with the only oddity being dangerous levels of silver in her bloodstream. And not the kind of silver in supplements, the pure kind. However, they also removed a microchip from her hand. The sort of microchip that is most often used in pets to trace back to their owners but might also be used by a nightclub to track is VIP members. There is no club I want to join that badly, but that's just me. It's not much of a stretch to believe there are people who would. Beth steals the chip of course and runs into Mick in the hall. She tells Mick about the model and the nightclub, but when she gets to the part about death by silver, he's intrigued. He helps her implant the chip under her skin with the use of a giant needle (which may or may not be feasible, but all the same - gross!) and Beth chooses this romantic moment to bring up last week's kiss. Mick lets her off the hook by telling her he thinks it was an accident and she agrees. Well, as much as "Oh.....OK" is an agreement. He also tells her he is going to the club with her. When he tells her he thinks "she" might be there, Beth seems to get a twinge of jealousy.

Beth gets into the VIP room this time, but since the chip identifies her as Rene, she is soon confronted by none other than Lola, who insists she consume the vial of "Black Crystal" she put in her purse. Beth demurs that she is waiting for her friend and just like that Mick appears and Lola comments "I knew I should have closed the window". There is some interesting back and forth between our vampires but Lola soon turns her attention back to Beth, telling her that Mick can't care about her if he hasn't turned her. Beth replies she doesn't want to be turned but Lola launches on to a description of what being a vampire is like that is so enticing just about anyone would be looking for a pen to sign on the dotted line. Before Beth can think of another response however, the cops bust in and a raid is on. Lola disappears in a flash and Josh rushes in just in time to see Beth. With Mick. And loses his cool.

Mick contacts Josef and tells him Lola is running a drug operation using vampire blood as her main ingredient, meaning she's killing vampires and humans alike for profit. Josef admits that she didn't steal his money, but rather that he gave it to her thinking she had limits, before telling Mick they have to handle her themselves because she won't hide what she is from the cops. I am guessing this means Mick will have to handle her. During this time, Beth has been studying how drugs taste and decides to give Black Crystal a shot. Next thing you know, she's at Mick's door trying to be as seductive as possible. Mick manages to be a perfect gentleman, against all odds, refusing to turn her and instead holding her fully clothed under the shower, telling her it's the drug making her act like this. When she wakes up in the morning she remembers enough to recall how good it felt, but Mick brings up all the negatives of being a vampire as a counterpoint. She doesn't seem to necessarily agree, instead announcing she has apologies to make and leaves.

She goes to Josh to apologize for following up on the story despite him asking her not to and tells him that being at the club was just her following that story. For his part, Josh apologizes for trying to tell her not to do the story and for over reacting to seeing her with Mick. He also tells Beth the sting was a bust as the toxicology report on the drugs they confiscated showed nothing illegal, but that the doorman agreed to lead them to head of the operation. Lt. Carl pops his head in long enough to to tell him the doorman is ready to take them to warehouse and Josh kisses Beth good-bye. It is a friendly kiss, at best, and comes no where near what we saw last week. That relationship is not long for this world! And as soon as he is out of earshot, Beth calls Mick and tells him what is going down and where.

Mick gets to the warehouse first and after roughing up the chemists making the drugs, he finds a long row of tanks holding vampires hostage in silver baths while their blood is drained away. Lola confronts him, telling him he is self-righteous - just like Josef. Wait, what? Mick doesn't have time to dwell on that, because he has to fight her and she is a good deal older than him, but eventually he gets the better of her and manages to dunk her into one of her own tanks before opening a few gas tanks and lighting them up, blowing the building up just as the cops arrive with the doorman and Beth in tow. The episode closes with two interesting moments: Mick telling Josef that Lola is dead and what she said about him being like Mick. Josef looks pained through the entire discussion, even though he denies he has anything in common with our hero. Moment two? Beth keeps the remaining vial of Black Crystal, hiding it from Josh and studying her reflection before credits roll.

Best line of the night was Mick to Josef "Thanks to your once a century booty call, a dangerous vampire has an arsenal of silver!"  Do you suppose that is better or worse than the walk of shame most people get?

So, what did you think of tonight's episode? Is there a kinder, gentler side of Josef that we don't know? Will Beth take the Black Crystal again? How long until Josh leaves her?

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