Beauty and the Beast (1987) S1 E2

## Plot

On an abandoned, dirty, vandalized subway, two men are reading the paper, and a woman is sitting by herself. Seriously guys, if this is how subways really looked in the 80s, then those stories I heard about rats the size of cats might actually be true. The light occasionally goes out too. I think if my mom ever saw a place like this, she'd faint. Given the normal social issues tone of the series though, it's probably to demonstrate that people are too scared to clean it up, because of gangs or something. I bet this train goes to all the "sketchy" neighborhoods. The ones filled with minorities and violence, where there's at least one murder a day, which goes unsolved for all eternity because nobody else cares. Well, that got dark fast. I'm gonna be honest, I wrote the first draft of this while shirking off my college homework and waiting for the new Elena of Avalor special episode to air on TV, all while trying not to go crazy from that stupid squeaking noise the dryer and/or washer was making, because my little brother kicked me out of the basement. Anyways, one of the men reading the paper gets off, and two menacing guys get on. They leer at the other man reading the paper, who heads to another car. They then try to rob the woman, but she only has $19. Before they can beat her up, they're attacked and killed… by someone that looks a lot like Vincent, but wearing a mask. The media are calling the vigilante the Subway Slasher. And now I want fast food. It turns out that Joe was in the army. Catherine is given the case, and it reminds her of how Vincent killed the men in the previous episode. See? The continuity is there, and you don't need it to understand the plot of each episode, at least not until things become more serialized, but it's there. They suspect it's someone who was the victim of a recent crime, or lost a family to crime, with a background in self defense, kung fu, karate, etc. Catherine visits Isaac… who is portrayed by a different actor. I know he's not an important character, and only showed up in two scenes in the previous episode, but come on! Oh well. He'll only show up in one more episode anyways, played by this guy. He doesn't know anything, and even if he did, he wouldn't tell the D.A. Whoever the vigilante is, they're protecting innocent people. He takes her to a friend's self defense training dojo. They teach anyone who wants to learn, even old women, so no one can be victimized again. A bullet is still faster than a hand though. Catherine meets the owner, Jason Walker. He's on the vigilante's side. Yeah, it's pretty obvious that it's him. He ripped two teenagers to pieces. A cop would've at least tried to arrest them first. The system is far from perfect, but it's Cathy's job to enforce the rules, not change them. Most of the time though, the system works, and they don't know a better one. Without laws, things would be in a state of constant anarchy, fighting, chaos, looting, killing, paranoia, distrustfulness, unrest, etc. Catherine asks Isaac what he'd do if he suspected the vigilante was someone he knew. Blatant foreshadowing. He'd ask him point blank, right where he lives, but first, he'd make sure he wanted to know. Cathy taps on the pipes, but no one comes. Vincent arrives on her terrace… and attacks her. It was just a nightmare. She talks to the woman who was saved by the vigilante. Her name is Beatrice, and she's a cleaning lady. I'm definitely reminded of my mom. No, her name is not Beatrice, nor is she African-American, but she does clean houses. Come to think of it, she would've been 17 when this show started airing. Ew, gross, no, weird train of thought, weird train of thought! Anyways, Beatrice claims she never got a good look at the vigilante. Catherine tells her that she's not even supposed to be here, but this is personal for her. She has a friend, and is worried that he was involved. Beatrice tells her that he had claws, and wasn't a man. She describes him as a terrible angel. Catherine says she won't tell anyone else. She goes down into the tunnels to see Vincent, but got lost offscreen. The people of the World Below found her. He never came the night before. He could feel her fear. He can tell that she's frightened of him. He tells her that he isn't the vigilante, but if she has to hear the words before she trusts him, then nothing he could say would put her at ease anyways. She has to leave now. Later on, Father finds Vincent by a chasm, listening to echoing sounds from the World Above. He can still feel Catherine's fear. Father tells him that her world is built on fear, and it's all they know. Catherine has another nightmare, and seems to have the rather obvious revelation that Jason is the vigilante. Now she just needs to prove it. She visits him again, and he talks about rumors of a monster that people claim they've seen. It looks like he was inspired by Vincent to create his costume after him. Heck, they even namedrop Batman! She examines the weapons on the walls, and finds a pair of sharp brass knuckle like objects that could be confused for claws. Jason knows she suspects something though, because subtlety is not one of Cathy's strengths, and has a man follow her. She wants to move in on Jason, but he's been sued many times by perps he's brought in on citizen's arrests, and he has an alibi. He's been under police surveillance 24/7 since the investigation began. On the same subway train as before, another guy harasses a woman, and of course the transit cop is in another car. An older man leaves to go get him. While he does though, the vigilante kills the leech. The officer pulls a gun on him. The vigilante disarms him, and smashes a window to escape. The officer grabs him, and the vigilante mauls him to escape. He disappears into a tunnel, which a girl named Lana from the World Below sees, and she tells everyone else. The cop was critically wounded. Vincent visits Catherine. She apologizes for doubting him, saying that her heart knows how gentle he is. He tells her that the vigilante is using the older tunnels to get around. She can't go to the police, because they'll search all the tunnels, and discover the World Below. She assures him that he and the vigilante are different, and he agrees to tell her where the older tunnels are. The man from before is spying on Catherine, and sees Vincent. Edie looks up the building Jason owns. It was built in 1887, and was a seedy rooming house for fifty years. Before that, it was a cheap hotel for sailors. She only found the name, because the stories aren't on the computers yet. Catherine looks through the archives for them. She finds a story from Saturday, June 30, 1888, about people being murdered in the hotel, and twenty sailors thought the culprits escaped through secret tunnels. She gets in a cab, but the driver works for Jason, and a woman gets in with her. They take her to Jason. He didn't know when he bought the building. They discovered the tunnels when they were doing renovations in the basement. He knows about Vincent, but Catherine says she has no idea what he's talking about. He pulls a samurai sword to reveal a hidden entrance behind a shelf to a tunnel. He changes into his vigilante outfit to intimidate her. She tries to ask his people to talk sense into him. Vincent hears her from the chasm. Jason himself said she doesn't scare easily, which is probably why the bond didn't work this time. Catherine still refuses to tell him anything, so he decides to get tougher. Vincent appears, and he and Jason fight. The other man is scared off, and Cathy knees the woman and shoves her. Vincent unmasks Jason, but he puts up a good fight with his fighting prowess. The bridge can't handle the weight, and Vincent falls through. Instead of killing him or trying to double back, Jason tries to swing over the chasm to another tunnel, but the rope snaps, and he falls to his death. They never found a body, and the children say it goes down forever. It's too dangerous for them to map. Vincent tells Catherine that he's definitely dead though. The killings will stop, but no one else will ever know what happened to him or his persona. He had so much courage and empathy, but so little mercy. Vincent says he lost it along the way somewhere, but found it again in the end.