Moonlight“Fleur de Lis”
Original Air Date: November 23, 2007
Jon Gus - TwoCents Staff Writer
In my humble opinion, Coraline’s the special sauce in this show. And that is not meant to take away anything from the great tension that Mick and Beth exude. It’s rare that I’ll keep a TV episode on my DVR to watch again, but I kept this one for a second watch. The episode starts at the climatic end of this chapter with Beth barging into Mick’s place, finding Morgan/Coraline slinking down the stairs wet from a shower, and then impaling her with a stake. Normally, knowing the end of a story makes it less intriguing. This is not the case here.
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Moonlight
ReplyDelete“Fleur de Lis”
Original Air Date: November 23, 2007
Jon Gus - TwoCents Staff Writer
In my humble opinion, Coraline’s the special sauce in this show. And that is not meant to take away anything from the great tension that Mick and Beth exude. It’s rare that I’ll keep a TV episode on my DVR to watch again, but I kept this one for a second watch. The episode starts at the climatic end of this chapter with Beth barging into Mick’s place, finding Morgan/Coraline slinking down the stairs wet from a shower, and then impaling her with a stake. Normally, knowing the end of a story makes it less intriguing. This is not the case here.
Below is a quick recap:
• After Mick’s confession to Beth that his ex-wife, Coraline, was the woman who kidnapped her as a child, Beth becomes obsessed with discovering who this woman was and if indeed Coraline is masquerading as Morgan.
• Fortune 500 CEO Richard Haggans employs Mick to follow his wife, who he believes is cheating on him. In an attempt to make amends for vamping out on Morgan, Mick asks her to be his photographer on the case.
• While Mick and Morgan are out tracking Haggans’ wife, Beth takes the opportunity to break into Morgan’s apartment and finds old pictures of Mick from 1952. She’s now fairly convinced that Morgan is Coraline, but digs further.
• Mick and Morgan track Haggans’ wife to a hotel room where she’s having an affair with his son (her stepson). While photographing the encounter from another hotel room, Morgan’s flirting finally takes its toll and Mick leans in for a smooch. If he wasn’t taken with this woman before, he’s fairly smitten now.
• Meanwhile, Beth breaks into Coraline’s old party house in Hollywood (I wonder if Beth’s going to eventually do any time for B&E). The house looks uninhabited except for a desk on the second floor, on which Beth finds several recent 8X10s of herself with Mick (hard to tell if this was an evidence set-up). Beth searches the rest of the house and finds a basement set up as a little girl’s bedroom. Beth freaks out realizing this is the same room she was held in as a child and clearly recognizes that Morgan truly is Coraline.
• Mick heads over to the house of Haggans’ son to warn him that Haggans may have intentions of killing him and his stepmom/lover. Before he can say a few words, Haggans’ wife shoots Mick in the head/neck sending him to the ground.
• From the surveillance audio they’ve collected, Morgan realizes that Haggans’ wife and son are planning to kill him. She finds Mick buried in leaves outside of Haggans’ son’s place, barely alive. They rush to Haggans’ office to warn him that the pair actually intend on killing Haggans. Mick confronts the son in front of Haggans just as his wife speeds around the corner in a car in an effort to kill Haggans. Morgan accidentally steps out in front of the car and in a flash Mick grabs Morgan and flies up in the air with her. In this last act on Mick’s part, he shows Morgan that he truly cares for her.
• Back at Mick’s place, Morgan slips into the shower. Mick can’t help himself and walks into the bathroom to watch her. With an alluring gaze, Morgan turns and asks him, “Is there something you want, Mick?” (SUCH a good scene here) The two embrace and Mick discovers the tattoo of the fleur de lis on her shoulder. There’s no more doubt that this is Coraline. Mick holds her, asking her over and over how she did it – how she became human again.
• Just before we get any answers, Beth arrives at Mick’s apartment and we see the scene from the beginning. Morgaline/Coragan lies on the stairs fading as Mick yells at Beth asking, “What have you done! She’s human!”
Ah, good stuff. And I almost had a heart attack when there were no previews for the next episode of Moonlight. I thought that the WGA strike might have done Moonlight in until January or that the show might have been cancelled. Instead, CBS is showing a “Make Your Own” Grammys recap show next Friday night and the Friday after that is scheduled for “Movies That Rock.” We’ll have to wait until December 14th for any kind of resolution to these events.
Here are some burning questions to ponder for the next few weeks while we wait:
• Is Coraline going to make it? We assume that she’s human now, so the stake in her chest it likely going to put a dent in her weekend plans. I assume it’s off to the hospital for the dark seductress. Hope she has insurance. Hope she doesn’t go into a coma…
• How the heck did Coraline become human again? Answering this question can make or break this show. To my knowledge from the vampire-related books I’ve read over the years, there is no given hypothesis for a vampire to regain the mortal coil. Some tales, like The Lost Boys, grant vampires human status again if the main vampire in their blood line is killed before the fledgling vamp makes their first kill. We don’t know yet how Coraline became a vampire, but I have an idea. And this idea would refute the blood line theory.
• The description for the next episode, “Sleeping Beauty,” reads as follows:
o When a dying man with a long-standing vendetta puts a hit out on Josef, Mick discovers a secret his best friend has kept from him for over 40 years and the real reason Josef believes Mick and Beth can never work.
Oh man. Are we to believe that Josef was once in love with Coraline as a human before making her a vampire? And after that is when things went awry? Just speculation, of course, but this could really stir things up. He did mention meeting her in New York when Lincoln was president, though. And the title of episode could be an allusion to Coraline’s coma state after the staking. Damn.
• The Fleur de lis - Is it a tattoo or a brand? What exactly does it mean? A reference is made that this was a mark given to courtesans in France in the 1700’s. This is not quite accurate to history but may serve to liken Coraline to Milady de Winter from The Three Musketeers.
o In the novel, Milady de Winter was once the wife of Athos, one of the musketeers. Encountering her after she had already been the downfall for many individuals, he witnesses a brand on her shoulder while they are out amid the woods one day. Identifying her as a thief of Church vessels, Athos hangs her on the spot, but does not kill her.
Milady enters the lives of Athos and the Musketeers after some time had passed and really stirs things up. Sound familiar? We don’t know if the brand was before or after she was a vampire (healing scars) and what the real reason for her branding was. Although, it looks more like a tattoo now than a scar. And the fleur de lis may even have been misused by Dumas, as it is most commonly known as a royal symbol from the monarchies of France and Spain and not the brand of a thief. It’s even referred to as a religious symbol associated with the Virgin Mary and representing the Holy Trinity. It’s actually been used in many, many ways over the centuries so without further story on it, we’re left to speculation.
• Who was the vampire that Coraline had kill a woman in that building fire? Coraline admits to becoming a human because Mick seemed to like human girls, and Josef said to Beth, “If Coraline is back, she’s after one thing: Mick.” But we shouldn’t forget that this whole thing with Morgaline started with a murder meant to re-enact Mick’s murder of Coraline. Not entirely romantic. Something seditious may still be afoot. And this vampire that Mick fought in the mausoleum is still out there.