The Moonlight Blog

Written by Chip Johannessen
Directed by Eric Laneuville

“Moonlight” has been one of the truly pleasant surprises of this unpredictable season. Despite an endless array of negative reviews and portents of doom, the series managed to correct its early mistakes. Now the series is delivering strong content with every new episode, and it closes its first season with a strong finale (assuming the writers’ strike keeps production from resuming).

This episode is packed with a lot of information, but it never gets bogged down in Exposition Hell. Instead the revelations feel like the logical conclusion to the story that began in the pilot. Mick has wanted to restore his mortality, and thanks to Coraline and her “family history”, he has hope for a true cure. In turn, that complicates his relationship with Beth, as one would expect.

Setting that relationship aside for a moment, I must commend the writers for keeping the “cure” in play. It would have been easier to expose the cure as a fraud, thus maintaining the status quo while reaping all or most of the short-term dramatic benefits. Instead, they chose to make the “cure” an important part of Coraline’s personal history with a clever side trip into the French Revolution. It explains a lot about Coraline and adds depth to the vampire mythos of the series.

That family connection puts Mick in serious danger in this episode, but more than that, it sets the stage for future confrontations. Coraline’s family doesn’t want the “cure” to be available to anyone else, it seems, and Mick’s intentions will face that obstacle. It could also make for some interesting conflicts with Josef. Mick could be in a position where development of a “cure”, however temporary, could leave him unable to defend against future attacks to destroy it.

For now, Coraline made the decision to leave Mick for his own sake, granting him a taste of mortality in the process. That gives him a unique opportunity to connect with Beth, but things were left unsettled between them after Josh’s death. Beth’s subplot seemed to be about acceptance, forcing her to admit her feelings for Mick and the resulting troubles with Josh. Josh was going to propose, but he never had the chance. His death relieves Beth of the burden of making the choice between Josh and Mick, and that realization helps her come to terms with Mick’s actions.

The result is a meeting at Josh’s funeral that serves as the beginning of a new chapter for Mick and Beth. If this series has felt like the television equivalent of a paranormal romance novel, then this would be the end of the first volume. Mick has hope for a permanent cure, however slim that hope might be, and Beth must decide what that means for their future. Will Mick’s possible restoration be enough for Beth, or will she continue to be tempted by the vampire world? Hopefully the show will be given a second season so we can all find out.

Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 3/4

Final Rating: 9/10

(Season 1 Final Average: 7.5)

Written by Josh Pate
Directed by Paul Holahan

It feels like forever since the last new episode of “Moonlight”, and it did not disappoint. Under better circumstances, this would have been the midpoint of the season; instead, it’s a prelude to the apparent season finale. Whatever the case, there are major changes to the status quo, and some unexpected consequences emerge for Mick and Beth.

The plot details surrounding Josh in this episode are largely inconsequential. It only matters that Josh has invited several attempts on his life, directly or indirectly, and Mick is caught in the middle. At first, the threat is leveled at Beth, and Mick manages to save her life, at the cost of Coraline’s blood sample (which wasn’t giving him the answers he wanted anyway). This is something that continues to draw Mick and Beth closer, even if her main concern is still Josh and his safety.

Before long, however, the episode moves to a completely different level when Josh is kidnapped. Beth’s frantic chase to find and save Josh, with Mick helping in every way possible, is disturbing in all the right ways. But it’s simply a prelude; the core of the episode itself is the long and brutal attempt to save Josh’s life.

Most shows would have let him die quickly, but the writers make the perfect move by lingering over every single opportunity to keep him alive. It’s important to show Mick scrambling for every option, because it forces the audience to come to the inevitable conclusion long before Beth is ready to make her request. And of course, one realizes that if Mick was going to turn Josh, he would have done it before all those other measures were taken. It’s abundantly, painfully clear that Mick will not turn Josh under any circumstance, even with so much blood tempting him.

And it is that choice that finally drives a wedge between Mick and Beth. This is ironic, because Josh was always the annoying barrier to the two of them getting together. Fans hated Josh. Yet his purpose is now obvious, and from a plotting perspective, this is a brilliant move. The writers couldn’t put anyone else in Beth’s life in similar jeopardy without weakening the point to be made. This is how Beth learns that Mick will not turn a human (even if I believe he was glossing over a complicated truth when he said he wouldn’t turn Beth).

Looking back at the previous few, this is just another in a long string of solid episodes for the freshman series. “Moonlight” has managed to carve out a devoted Friday night audience and plenty of momentum from a People’s Choice Award. In fact, if more people came to the show after it won that award, just to see what they were missing, this was the perfect episode for them to see. There’s no reason to think that the series won’t live on for another season, once the writers’ strike is over.

Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 3/4

Final Rating: 9/10