Moonlightaholics

That episode had my heart pounding the whole time, from the get-go, for different reasons. It was high-octane. First Mick working out (and not only was he a joy to look at, his emotional anguish at the same time had me get all motherly feelings). Then Josh doing a great job and being in danger. Then it's Beth who is in danger. I think my heart stopped for a moment when I recognized her in the photo. I knew immediately that it meant danger.

I was impressed with Josh in the beginning of this episode. Tejada is seriously dangerous and he was not going to back down, no matter the danger to himself. Not too shabby.

PNWgal wrote:Mick's in an incredible bind when Beth asks him whether or not he would have "saved" her. If he says "no, I would have Turned you", it says to Beth that Josh isn't worth saving, but she is. It cheapens Josh's life. As it was, it had to be the most painful thing in the world for him to tell her that he would have let her die as well. I honestly think he didn't know what he would do should he be faced with Beth's demise.

Hi P-gal, I'm just going through all the posts now, so not sure whether this point has been picked up on or not, but I think you're right about the bind (hadn't really thought about it before) and I think it goes even further. If he says 'yes' to turning Beth, it not only cheapens Josh's life, but also raises the possibility that maybe he didn't want to save Josh, that maybe this was a way of clearing the playing field for himself with her. an ugly possibility and not one Mick would want Beth contemplating in her grief.

Luxe de Luxe wrote: If he says 'yes' to turning Beth, it not only cheapens Josh's life, but also raises the possibility that maybe he didn't want to save Josh, that maybe this was a way of clearing the playing field for himself with her. an ugly possibility and not one Mick would want Beth contemplating in her grief.

EXACTLY - I completely agree with this point. That's definitely not a path Mick wants Beth to go down...that he wouldn't save Josh so that he could have Beth for himself.

(sorry...I had to get past Mick working out. For some reason my mouse kept scrolling up to the top of GA's post. )

Right out of the gate in this episode, we get an even deeper feel for Josh's sense of justice, for his tenacity for upholding the law. But...danger to him is one thing. Danger to Beth is a completely different story. No man could be faulted for wanting to walk away from something that could get someone close to him killed.

I have to say, I'm so sorry I missed out on the bulk of this discussion. there have been some amazingly insightful exchanges. I'd love to comment on the ones that particularly struck me, but I don't know how to do the thingy where you respond and all the different posts have people's names attached.

PNWgal wrote:

Luxe de Luxe wrote: If he says 'yes' to turning Beth, it not only cheapens Josh's life, but also raises the possibility that maybe he didn't want to save Josh, that maybe this was a way of clearing the playing field for himself with her. an ugly possibility and not one Mick would want Beth contemplating in her grief.

EXACTLY - I completely agree with this point. That's definitely not a path Mick wants Beth to go down...that he wouldn't save Josh so that he could have Beth for himself.

(sorry...I had to get past Mick working out. For some reason my mouse kept scrolling up to the top of GA's post. )

Right out of the gate in this episode, we get an even deeper feel for Josh's sense of justice, for his tenacity for upholding the law. But...danger to him is one thing. Danger to Beth is a completely different story. No man could be faulted for wanting to walk away from something that could get someone close to him killed.

You know what I don't like about that workout scene, P-gal? It's not long enough!

Yes, I came to a new found respect for Josh in this episode and thought if was a huge mistake to bump him off. It was the easy way out. So much better to have had them all struggle with it, so much room for dramatic possibility.

I was shocked that they killed Josh off, or at least that they did it so soon. I know they could have had Beth break up with him but I don't think that would have moved her and Mick's relationship forward. I know Mick was contemplating telling Beth about his feelings but I don't think he would have gone through with it. As long as Josh was in the picture, Mick would have thought Beth belonged with him.

Josh, feeling threatened by Mick, was moving ahead and was going to propose. I think that Beth, even if she was unsure, would have said 'yes'. I don't know that she would have actually married him but she would have stayed. It took his death to really make her admit that they didn't have a future together, that her feelings for Mick had derailed it.

So, I get why the writers chose to eliminate Josh altogether. I just thought it was a might soon.

GuardianAngel wrote: So, I get why the writers chose to eliminate Josh altogether.

I'm not sure I follow you, GA.

She's saying that Mick wouldn't have "gotten in the way" as long as Josh was around, and that Beth might have not been able to admit her real feelings for Mick, with Josh still there.

Lucky

Thanks, Lucky. I guess with the looming possibility of a cancellation it makes sense that perhaps they wanted to fast forward the on-screen possibilities for Mick and Beth.

Waaay back when ML was still on the air (not sure if before or during the writers strike), Alex was being interviewed about the show and the discussion turned to the storyline, in particular about Mick's relationship with Beth. Two things struck me: he (Alex) believed that Mick would never turn Beth, unless she was dying (I think he used terminal cancer as an example). The other was that he felt the speed of the developing relationship between the two was moving too quickly. Keep in mind, that at the time they were still thinking a second season was likely.

Well, I think, dramatically speaking, Alex was right. That is where all the dramatic tension was... well, that and the would he/ wouldn't he with Cora...

But I guess with the looming Big C, and the writers' strike messing up the flow in the first place, and the parade of show-runners, they went for it. I GUESS we can say it turned out for the best, as we got something of a resolution.

On the other hand, viewership dropped with those final four... and I've always wondered if the new but not improved nature of the show CREATED the cancellation... if they'd stayed the course, would we have HAD the second season after all?

We'll never know and folks probably have many different opinions about that, but I've always felt that final four kinda gave the net a reason and an excuse to bag the whole thing.

Mick is at Beth’s place. He has a vial of blood sitting on her counter. She wants to know why Mick took Coraline’s blood.



His reply is “Answers”. He thinks it might be the key to the cure. (Good time to pursue the cure now that Beth has been spooked by what happened to Sarah)



She’s once again reminded of how much Mick hates being a vampire and says so. Mick agrees.


It can’t be ALL bad. He’ll still be alive when everyone else is gone and he’ll see things they can’t even imagine. He wants to know like what.


Cars that can fly. Diet soda that doesn’t suck (I don’t think even Mick will see that in his lifetime). Mick tells her that it’s not so much fun experiencing things alone.


Beth suggests he take a vampire wife. (I can fill a thesis paper on my feelings about her saying this)


He’d already tried that. Didn’t work out so well.


Mick gets up, playtime over. He wants to know if she’s going to help him with this or not.


She wants to knwo why he can’t just take it to Guillermo for a toxicology report.


No. Not with this one.


There’s a friend, Lynn, at Bioanalysis who can help. Mick’s good with that.


Mick tells Beth he thinks it’s better if they go outside the vampire nation with this. Beth’s already figured that but she wants to know why.


For Mick and others like him, this is a cure. But there are vampires who would see it as a threat.


From behind them, the door opens. It’s Josh and he looks like he’s been through the ringer. Beth let’s out an OMG


She wants to know what happened and if he’s okay. Josh looks to Mick and asks if he can talk to Beth. (I thought this was really, really polite of him.) Mick just stands there looking at the guy. Prompting Josh to add “Alone”. Yeah, come on Mick! Wakie wakie.




Mick seems to remember himself and sure, he was leaving anyway. As he turns to leave Beth tells him she’ll see him at Bioanalysis at 10 in the morning.


Mick looks back at them from the doorway. Doesn’t want to leave Beth? Or concern for Josh? Or just P.I. nosiness?


Alone, Josh explains that he’s recused himself from the Tejada case. But he’s suppose to file charges tomorrow. Yes, he WAS. She wants to know what is going on. He hands her the photo.


And tells her she’s been marked. If he files, they’ll come after her.

wpgrace wrote:... but I've always felt that final four kinda gave the net a reason and an excuse to bag the whole thing.

ME TOO, ME TOO, ME TOO, Grace! I am not so up on all the interviews/comments from the actors, writers, producers, etc. as some of you are, but I think the reason they said they did the one-offs at the end was partly because they weren't sure about a pick up and partly because the network wanted to attract new viewers after the strike and felt that the stand-alones wouldn't require previous viewings (I find the fact that this backfired on them tragically ironic).

However, I think just the opposite. I wish they had a taken page from Lost's notebook and done an extended recap at the beginning of FtP or a set-up "special" that would have recapped the prior episodes to "catch" the viewer up. As many of the wonderful fan vids here prove, there were ways to edit clips together into a really compelling recap and they left so many juicy storylines open that they could have notched forward into a good cliffhanger for a second season. The contortions they did at the end to avoid moving some storylines along while speeding up the Mick/Beth relationship really left me disappointed. I remember Ethan and Kira talking about the final scene (the door closing) and how they didn't know the status of their pickup at the time they wrote/filmed it, so they wanted to give the Mick/Beth shippers some kind of satisfying conclusion in case it didn't get picked up, but not limit their options too much in case there was a Season 2. Ethan's idea about the freezer would have revealed too much, I'm afraid (though I would have loved to have seen that scene!), but the door closing left many possibilities for what happened after the door closed. After the series was canceled, many of us Mick/Beth shippers of course "filled in the blanks" with the conclusion we wanted (thanks, Luna ), but it could just as plausibly been an all-night discussion of the topic they'd avoided for so long (their "relationship") that ended as badly as the first time Mick left her apartment that night.

Which gets me (finally!) back on topic here... I totally agree with Alex that any "happily ever after" scenario for Mick/Beth would have killed the show, but I do believe they could have plausibly (and repeatedly) let these two get together and then tear them apart again (and not in a soap-like fashion). Their relationship had so many obstacles and complications, there was a lot of fodder there. I agree with GA that they killed Josh off too soon. They could have done so much better with the conflicting feelings Beth was experiencing when she came back from NY, but instead we got those weird scenes where she looks like she'd rather be anywhere else than with Josh, then it's like she's back in normal relationship mode as she goes about her day accompanying Josh to the crime lord's house. I mean, that weird kiss a the beginning of LLF was so creepy gross to me that it was like watching incest or something... they just left that hanging and never really gave us much exploration of Beth going through this rollercoaster of emotions. I would have loved for SB to be followed up with a Beth V/O episode. While I was riveted by the scenes following Josh's shooting, they could have done that later, in Season 2. I just felt like we had this long, agonizing triangle and then *boom* all of a sudden in one episode it's completely wrapped and by the next episode (as others here have said), we're done with the funeral and on to Mick/Beth. I just think they went haywire with the pacing of the story arcs after SB.

The thing i did really admire about this episode was the way they played out the life/death/eternity themes and how apt the title is. When I went to create the banner for this episode, it was interesting how Beth was the target, but Josh ends up dead and Mick ends up wondering if he's lost Beth for good. The guy who has "forever" might not get the girl, the guy who ends up dead finally gets the love of his woman the way he wished he had when he was alive, the girl who's been in danger her whole life once again survives (although with a lot of pain and guilt). Then there's the most tender moment of the triangle as Mick and Beth put their hands on Josh to try to save him, and I found the screencap with the candles where it looks like one of them is blown out, and that sort of symbolized for me Beth's crossroads at that moment in her living room: focus on the life that's gone, or the "life" ahead, who is standing before her with his heart on his sleeve. Oh the possibilities, had we had more ML .

(sorry, GA, this took so long to write I'm posting below your latest update.)