Beauty and The Beast- Means To An End

By: Stacy Miller

After a week hiatus, “Beauty and The Beast” returned and viewers learned Vincent’s (Jay Ryan) fate after he turned himself into Graydal. We also saw Team Beasties’ final showdown with Graydal as they helped bring them down.

The episode opens with Cat (Kristin Kreuk) and Heather (Nicole Anderson) having coffee as Cat tries to show how confident she is that Vincent’s plan for coming clean to Graydal will work out. Heather tells her big sis about her recent conversation with Kyle (Michael Roark), but when they learn from JT (Austin Basis) that DHS is raiding Graydal looking for Vincent, they wonder if he will be found. Special Agent Olivia Dylan (Anastasia Barzee) tells Graydal CEO Braxton (Marc Singer) that they are looking for fugitive Vincent Keller. Braxton assures Dylan that Graydal is not in the business of hiring criminals. “We have enough of those in charge of the company” is what I was thinking as I watched this scene. Anyway, the search turns up empty and DHS leaves. Watching the scene via the security monitors that JT was able to tap into, he, Cat and Heather are surprised that DHS didn’t find Vincent. If he’s not at Graydal, where is he?

Actually, Vincent is still at Graydal. Braxton heads downstairs after DHS leaves and opens the locked door to a hidden room where we see Vincent chained up. “Let’s see what kind of beast you really are,” Braxton says. Let the torture begin, poor Vincent! Braxton insists to Vincent that when Graydal was hired to capture the beast, it wasn’t to torture him, but to see scientifically what made him tick. It sure didn’t look like science experiments to me, especially running powerfully strong electrical currents through Vincent’s body. Braxton tells Vincent that he is being let go, for now, but they need him to do a few things for them, including stealing evidence from Cat’s old police precinct. If he doesn’t, the video tape footage that Graydal had recorded exposing him as a beast would be turned over to the police for the whole world to see and he’d be caged as a murderous creature. Crap, Vincent was between a rock and even harder place!

So, Vincent returns back home and Cat is relieved to see that he is okay. He reveals that Graydal wants him to steal evidence from the police precinct that implicate big fish criminal Erick Lee (Adrian Nguyen) who the police have been working to bring down for years. In fact, this is one of Tess’ (Nina Lisandrello) major cases. Cat tells Vincent that is too risky for him to break into the police department to steal the evidence, but she could do it because she still has contacts at the department.

She’s right as an officer allows her to take the evidence without all the red tape that is usually involved. Cat tries to leave quickly with the evidence, but runs straight into Tess. Fortunately, she is able to cover and Tess doesn’t know her real reason for being there. Cat meets Vincent and gives the evidence to him. (Okay, I have to digress for a moment: Cat meets with Vincent out in public in broad daylight and all he is wearing is a baseball cap as a disguise and DHS is unable to find him?) Cat feels guilty for ruining her friend’s case, but she had no choice.

Vincent later hands over to the evidence to Erick Lee, but the exchange is secretly being photographed. Agent Olivia Dylan comes to Tess’ office and shows her the photographs (which had been mysteriously delivered to her) of her former partner Catherine Chandler’s husband meeting a known member of the Triad, Erick Lee, and handing over police evidence to him.

Catherine is at home when Tess arrives with other police officer and arrests her! At the police department, Tess berates Cat for crossing the legal line and involving her. Tess tells Cat about the photographs of Vincent meeting with Erick Lee that Olivia Dylan had received. Cat convinces Tess to release her so she could find out who had wanted to set Vincent up. She could help the police nail both Erick Lee and Graydal. Tess agrees giving Cat 48 hours.

Meanwhile, JT wasn’t having any success hacking into Graydal’s computer system to erase the beast footage of Vincent as it seemed that their firewall was impenetrable. So, JT came with another plan that involved gaining access to Graydal’s computers from the inside. To that end, he interrupts Heather’s date with Kyle and takes her to Graydal where they pose as a married couple, Mr. and Mrs. King with the pretext of wanting to hire Graydal.

Kyle comes to Cat’s office at DHS to find agents searching the place. When he is questioned as to why he’s there, Kyle tells the agent he’s dating Agent Chandler’s sister Heather. The agent goes to get Agent Dylan and Olivia says, “I thought Professor Forbes was dating Heather Chandler.” Kyle is even more confused when Agent Dylan adds she thought they were married and shows Kyle security footage of JT and Heather at Graydal offices.

Braxton sees right through JT and Heather’s ruse and they are captured. Vincent uses himself as bait by being caught on camera. With DHS in hot pursuit, Vincent lets them chase him to Graydal. Cat arrives first and draws her gun on Braxton and demands he release JT and Heather. Vincent arrives way ahead of DHS. Braxton admits to all his crimes and he even tells him that there was never a benefactor with a bounty out on Vincent – he was behind the whole thing. He needed the beast to come out because there’s an even more dangerous beast out there. Not sure whether they believe him, Cat shoots the security panel and locks Braxton in a cell. Then Cat, Vincent, JT and Heather leave before DHS arrive and arrest Braxton.

Even though Braxton’s confession was recorded and it also is enough to bring down Erick Lee because of Graydal’s connection to him, JT didn’t have time to erase the video footage of Vincent beasting out. But Vincent tells Cat that whatever happens, happens because he could never take another live or risk others to save his own.

Tess comes to their apartment and tells them to come with her. She brings them to the morgue and shows them Braxton’s body. Apparently, he was killed while in police custody by what looks like a beast. So, it appears Braxton was telling the truth and there is another beast out there. Will Vincent find him and stop him before he kills again?

We’ll have to wait until August 25 to find out as there is no new episode of “Beauty and The Beast” until then.