Moonlight Episode Discussion - Ep 8: 12:04AM

[GuardianAngel]

Thank you grace and Luxe.


Beth arrives home and she has Audrey in tow. It's 5 am and Beth offers to let the girl crash at her place, knowing that she's not going to want to be alone. I thought this was a bit odd but, hey, they're okay with it.



Beth tells Audrey to make herself at home and leaves the room. While alone, the young woman receives a call. It's Donovan's voice and he croon that awful phrase "Hello sweetheart, I see you." She drops the phone and looks out the window.



There's the shadow of a guy on the corner looking up at her. You can't see details but it looks like Donovan.



A truck passes in front of him and then he's gone. Beth must have heard the phone hit the floor because she comes in asking if Audrey is all right. The girl tells Beth she saw Donovan, that he was standing right out there. So Beth takes a look but doesn't see anyone.



They must have gone to bed because suddenly it's the next morning. Or maybe they just sat there and had been talking the whole time. (Yeah, like that girl was going to get any sleep). But Beth had on different clothes. Well, anyway....they are both sitting on Beth's sofa and Audrey is insisting that she saw Donovan. She told Beth how he said those same words to her on the phone that he said 14 yrs. ago when she witnessed him kill her parent. She never told anyone so it has to be him. Right? Beth says maybe not. It could be some form of post traumatic stress.



Audrey offended - it's not her imagination. Beth says no she didn't mean that (but, really, she did), that maybe seeing Shepherd's execution brought back memories (so, like, Audrey didn't really see him. She just imagined she did). Audrey gets the impression Beth might know a little about this so the reporter talks. She tells the girl that she'd been kidapped as a child. She doesn't remember much but she does have dreams, flashes. Sometimes they feel very real.



Audrey comments that Beth keeps reliving her past but Beth says no, that she blocks it out otherwise she'd go insane. Audrey shares her need to feel safe.



Beth smiles. Hmmmm....wonder what she could be thinking.

[wpgrace]

You are so right! Beth DID mean that Audrey imagined it, no matter that she says she didn't... I always giggle at that too...

It is also odd that Audrey would go back to Beth's... one would think, this execution having been years in the making, that Audrey might woulda made overnight plans at some point in the past...maybe even had a friend or relative or hired protective escort take her to the execution and then to her overnight lodgings... she HAS had time to plan this out after all.

But that little blip in logic is so Moonlight...

[GuardianAngel]

We know that Beth has always had nightmares. But I wonder if they've intensified since Mick met her at the fountain. Part of her brain knows who he is even though she hasn't faced it yet. Wouldn't his appearance in her life now likely trigger something?

[wpgrace]

We know that Beth has always had nightmares. But I wonder if they've intensified since Mick met her at the fountain. Part of her brain knows who he is even though she hasn't faced it yet. Wouldn't his appearance in her life now likely trigger something?

It's a good question... I kinda got the sense that, in that scene in OOTP, at the beginning with her in bed with Josh and having the nightmare, that we were to infer that they had been triggered again... and that Mick was now a part of them.

But yeah, that would make sense cause she's now being forced, subconsciously at least, to face the memories.

I know we aren't there yet... but I love his line during the balcony scene where, when she says she knows who rescued her, he says he thinks she's known for awhile... she knows; she's just not ready to deal with what that means... difficult and complicated, right?

Tho I was never one who thought that was icky. I know some folks thought him dating her was gross and kinda molester-y. But why? He's ALWAYS gonna be older than any mortal he meets, whether he happened to meet them first as a child or not. And Josef dates Simone at the end... he's waaaaaaaayyyyyy older than her. Plus, as I've said before, if Jack Nicholson at 85 or whatever the hell age he is, can date a 25 year old, why can't Mick???

[mwj01]

I know we aren't there yet... but I love his line during the balcony scene where, when she says she knows who rescued her, he says he thinks she's known for awhile... she knows; she's just not ready to deal with what that means... difficult and complicated, right?

Tho I was never one who thought that was icky. I know some folks thought him dating her was gross and kinda molester-y. But why? He's ALWAYS gonna be older than any mortal he meets, whether he happened to meet them first as a child or not. And Josef dates Simone at the end... he's waaaaaaaayyyyyy older than her. Plus, as I've said before, if Jack Nicholson at 85 or whatever the hell age he is, can date a 25 year old, why can't Mick???

I think it's more that he knew her as a little child and watched her grow-up than the age difference. I personally don't think it's gross and certainly not molester-y, but at the same time I think it presented some barriers for passion from his perspective.

[Moonlightsonata]

I am not quite clear how these episode discussions work but hopefully I am not messing anything up.

wpgrace - The actor who played Shepherd was actually in an Eleventh Hour episode I believe. He played one of a pair of bad guys who may have been involved with pollution. To me Shepherd was probably the scariest character ever on Moonlight. That famous line - "I see you."

Not sure how many remember but on Vamp Radio they actually had a call from the actor Gideon something (sorry don't remember full name) and asked him to say the line like he said it on the show, and then they recorded it. Really interesting interview. Not sure if it is archived somewhere. The actor does a lot of character type roles and also voice overs for commercials.

I know we haven't gotten there screen cap wise, but I remember the big contrast in the balcony scene between how Mick walked away from Beth versus how he smiled after she kissed him in the episode with the teenage Vamp. In the latter case he was smiling' in 12:04 he walked away.

[wpgrace]

Now that I agree with, Sister M... about knowing her as a child... he did have to deal with his issues there... and HE had an issue with the age difference, as he mentioned to Josef, in FtP, that he was 58 years older than she... and I would think he WOULD need to think that thru a bit, as he also watched over her, paternally, when she was a child...

But I have seen fans post that to get them together was gross and creepy. For the reason you mentioned I supposed. And he was supposed to be her "daddy" had Cora been able to turn her... and all that. I never bought that reasoning... HE never intended to be her daddy and had had nothing to do with Cora's plan.

Plus, I always think of that scene in Emma, when Mr. Knightly remembers holding the baby Emma when he was himself 16 years old. Ok, not a 58 year age difference, but still, he was closing in on adulthood and he held her as a baby. So any sense of just being her protector morphed into love at a certain point... Mick should've read Emma.

And THANK YOU, MLS, for that info on Gideon whatever ... so he usually plays the bad guy, maybe... he certainly does it well....

[Moonlightsonata]

wpgrace - I remembered. While I had a "senior moment" one of many in terms of just remembering the Gideon, I did remember that his full name is Gideon Emery. If you google him, you will get a lot of information including his website. Now that I am thinking about it, since he provides an address, I just may send him an email telling him how scary he was in that role. Who knows, maybe I will get a response.

[mwj01]

Thanks for doing this GA!

[GuardianAngel]

You're welcome, mjw. Thank you for participating.

[Luxe de Luxe]

the discussion about the age difference, and the fact that he watched over her as a child is an interesting one, and an issue I was reminded of only the other day.

One of our weekend papers here runs a regular article about couples and how they got together, and last weekend the article was about a couple with a 22 year age gap. They had met when she was 4yrs old and he was her father's PhD student. Because he was from another country, they treated him like part of the family. At the age of 8 she told him she was going to marry him and he said 'maybe when you're older' and then of course he got married to another woman, left the country to work overseas etc. They met again when she was 40 and she included him in a film she was making of ex-pats. Long story short and all that.... several years later his wife left him and emailed her saying that he was free and if she was still interested she should go for it and here they are now, happily married.

All through reading that article I kept thinking about MIck's objection to their union because he'd watched over her paternally. This couple was making that work in real life!

[allegrita]

That is very cool, Luxe!

Yeah, I imagine that the age difference is much more important to Mick than to Beth. For one thing, he's the one who watched over her through the years (which she'll find out soon). For another, he looks only a little older than she does. As she said in The Ringer, "I keep forgetting how old you are." He can't forget how young she is. He's got first-hand knowledge of how young she is... (fodder for more Mick-angst, no doubt.)

[GuardianAngel]

It must be weird for him to be so much older than Beth and also to have known her since a child. He watched her grow up. But I think 'paternal' is too strong a word. He felt protective, sure - he'd saved her life and become his focus so he had to make sure she thrived.

The way I understood it, from his surprise at seeing her doing her report, he'd stopped keeping such close tabs. I like this thought because then there is a jump, he's not used to seeing her as a full grown woman. A lovely full grown woman. It's like meeting her all over again.

[Lilly]

The way I understood it, from his surprise at seeing her doing her report, he'd stopped keeping such close tabs. I like this thought because then there is a jump, he's not used to seeing her as a full grown woman. A lovely full grown woman. It's like meeting her all over again.

That was my take on it, too, GA -- that he had stepped back a bit and was surprised by what he saw during that first report. Or, maybe he had seen her grown up, but actually hearing her voice and seeing her poise and confidence in action caught him off guard.

[allegrita]

Yeah--I felt that way too. As if he went, "Whoa! What happened to her??"