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Moonlight: Love Lasts Forever

“At the end of the day, not a lot separates life and death.”

A rather foolishly contrived plot of the week brought us some great emotional revelations, and even some risky storytelling devices. Moonlight probably would have been a great show if it had been given the chance: Sophia Myles was incredible.

Los Hermanos en Muerte (The Brothers in Death—gee, does that have any significance?) were storybook villains designed to allow the show to explore the deeper themes of love, life, death, and eternity. Billie has mentioned fairy tale references and themes in her reviews, and we got some of those here: not just the villains, but also the kiss that can wake someone up from a deep sleep—the kiss that Mick refused to give Josh, but may someday give Beth. He wasn’t willing to saddle Josh with the curse of being eternally tall, dark, and handsome, but Mick wasn’t looking at it from Beth’s point of view. I wonder if part of him, a tiny part he could never acknowledge, was glad to see Josh out of the way.

But wow, at what a price. Josh’s death scene took nearly 10 minutes. That’s a quarter of the episode. They really didn’t gloss over the physical agony of death, or the emotional toll that it took on Beth. Sophia Myles aced every emotion, right down to her displaced anger at Mick. I’ve never much cared for Josh, but I wouldn’t wish that sort of mourning on anyone, least of all her.

Maybe it comes down to a larger question of whether or not someone is important enough to keep us living. Mick said he lived for Beth—that could be why he might choose to turn her in the future. (I haven’t seen any episodes past this one, so I’m not spoiling, just hypothesizing.) But can Beth go on without Josh? Probably. Once she gets over his death. (I wonder how long that’s going to take—we only have a few eps to go.)

Something is keeping Coraline living, in a plot that popped up in the beginning and then disappeared—except for its thematic resonances, of course. Her blood is innocent and clean: either she’s drinking lots of green tea, or she’s been vampirically detoxified. She’s also the same blood type as Beth. Could she have known that when she kidnapped her? 30 seconds on Google did not reveal to me when ABO blood-type testing became widely available.

We’re left with two questions: would Mick turn Beth, if it was a choice between life and death? And, would Beth help Mick turn human? At what cost to herself?

Bites and Pieces:

• Mick: “When it comes to revenge and vampires, blood is vengeance.” Blood vengeance, indeed.

• Beth: “If you hate what you are so much, why do you go on living?”

• That was Chris Isaak’s sultry “Wicked Games” playing over Mick’s ripply naked body in the opening scene. Okay, I’m back now.

• As far as I know, which is admittedly just semi-informed conjecture, Hondurans hold quinceiaƱeras, not sweet sixteen parties.

• Los Hermanos en Muertos have tattoos on their eyelids. Is that even possible? I got goosebumps, just thinking about it. And then they upped the shudder-ante when Mick put a car’s cigarette lighter on Josh’s carotid artery.

• Josh’s cell phone had the prestigious 310 Westside area code, but he and Beth definitely live on the east side, if the neighborhood I spotted in the chase scene was any indication. He must have requested the fancier area code. That’s LA.

• Mick was a medic in WWII.

• Did the bar’s exterior look a lot like the bar where Drusilla met her reindeer lover?

• No Josef this week. That’s why the quote (“Bites”) section was small enough to be collapsed into the “Pieces” section.

Three and a half out of four blood types.

Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)

3 comments:

  1. Mick is so bad ass in this one, with the very Angel fight scene, the field surgery, and taking out the gang bar alone. And I liked the slow transformation into scary vampire guy at the police station, with his eyes very slowly turning white.

    I so did not expect Josh to die. Especially with Josh and Mick so cool with each other, like they were both classier than petty jealousy -- and especially after that long, bloody field medic scene.

    This episode briefly introduced David Blue as Logan the vampire basement geek. I remember when Moonlight first aired, I really enjoyed the character and hoped they'd add him as a cast member. You haven't seen Stargate Universe yet, have you, Josie? David Blue is one of the stars of SGU and plays my favorite character.

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  2. The bar exterior is in fact the same building used for Merlotte's in True Blood. Interesting, huh?

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  3. I haven't seen SGU yet. Maybe I should rent it once I get Season Four of Dexter next week. Finally!

    Lucky, nice catch!

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