Beauty and the Beast (1987) S1 E21

## Plot

Catherine and Joe are meeting with Elliot Burch, and they mention Max Avery, who they were able to put away thanks to him. That being said, they refuse to silence his critics, who are protesting his latest project, Burch Tower. He points out that people have been sabotaging the project and stealing equipment. It's because he took Max Avery down. If he really is the cause, the D.A. office will see what they can do. Catherine tells him that she's not his enemy, but she thinks his tower is a bad idea. He wants a chance to change her mind. He's waited his whole life to build this tower. It's his dream. It'd be a city within a city. Change isn't always bad. He remembers when he first came to New York and saw the Empire State Building. He knew he belonged there. It's a place where anything is possible. Vincent takes Catherine to a tunnel full of beautiful paintings. A woman named Elizabeth made them. No one knows when she left the World Above or why. There's lots of shaking and blasting due to the dynamite being used to excavate for Burch's tower. It's going deeper than any building has ever gone before. It's estimated that they'll break through in less than a week. If nothing stops it, it could be the end of the World Below. Vincent visits Elizabeth, who's working on a painting of him. Mouse brings her paints, and sometimes Mary and Sarah visit too. They tell her stories, and then she puts them on the wall. She doesn't want to leave, even though her life will be in danger if she stays. She says her art is her life, and she has to finish what she starts. The excavation will reveal at least four levels, maybe even five or six. Even if they seal up all the surrounding tunnels, there's no way to minimize the explosion. Relocation is the only answer, but Elizabeth will never agree to it. Also, Rutanya Alda returns, but as Sarah this time. Mouse comes up with a plan to divert an underground river, but he's told that it's impossible. Catherine asks an Edie knock off woman about Luz, someone she went to law school with. She can't imagine her getting involved with Max Avery. They meet up, and Luz points out that the rent in the neighborhood will skyrocket, and push the elderly and minorities out, as well as get rid of small businesses. The whole neighborhood is going to take Burch to court. Catherine is concerned that the donations they're getting are coming from Max Avery, as revenge against Burch for taking him down. Luz storms out in anger, but says she'll look into it. Vincent is packing his things. If they get below the levels of the pipes, they'll have no communication. Everything they've built is being taken away from them. Vincent tells Father that they can build again, as long as they have each other. He wishes he could believe that. While delivering paint to her, Mouse and Elizabeth are caught in another explosion, which is much closer than before. It cracks the walls of the tunnel, which ruins the paintings. Elizabeth says it's not fair, and Mouse tells her that he's going to stop it. He says Vincent's not the only one that can do things. She tells Vincent and Father where he went, and Vincent heads up to try and stop him. He's caught by security guards at the construction site. Vincent asks Catherine for help. She confronts Elliot about his men holding Mouse against his will. She says he won't bother him again. Elliot finds it odd that he knows her. He tells her that trust is a two way street, but she says you can't barter for trust, and she can't tell him what he wants to know. She made a promise. When asked why he should let Mouse go, the only reason she can give is because she's asking him to. Father says they should focus on raising his bail money, and Vincent tells him that Catherine won't fail them. Mouse survived on his own for years and took things from them until Vincent caught him. Catherine returns with Mouse. Father leads him away for a long lecture. Vincent can feel that Catherine's heart is in turmoil. It was easy when she thought she was falling in love with Elliot, and even easier when she hated him. Now she sees him the way he truly is, good *and* bad, strong *and* weak, capable of great deeds and great wrongs. In short, a human being, with human emotions. Catherine feels like she's using him by playing on his feelings for her. When she heads back to her apartment, she finds him waiting for her outside her door. They hang out on the balcony. She tells him that he did the right thing by letting Mouse go. He seems to be making a habit out of that for her. He says he's in love with her. She says it was because she left him, which is obsession, not love. He admits that it was like that at first, but when she came to him and asked for help, he knew he could make her his. He knows desperation when he sees it. Normally, when he sees something he wants, he takes it, but he didn't this time, and asks her why. She says he's a decent man who wouldn't turn his back on a friend, but he says he doesn't have any friends. Somewhere on the way up, friends became inconvenient. She says love can be inconvenient too, and he tells her that he knows, but he can't help how he feels about her. He asks her to marry him. He tells her to sleep on it and think about it seriously. The next morning, she's thinking about what everyone has said to her about the tower throughout the episode, when Luz comes up to her. She accuses her of leaking the news of the D.A. investigation of her group to the press, which made everyone back out, so they have no choice but to drop the lawsuit. Joe points out that they've found out that at least seventy of her newest members have ties to Max Avery. Catherine is sure that Elliot leaked the story himself, and tells Vincent about it. She decides to marry Elliot, on the condition that he stop construction of the tower. It breaks her and Vincent's hearts to do it, but it's the only way to save everyone below. She leaves in tears, and he yells in grief. She heads to Elliot's office and agrees to marry him, but only if he halts construction on the tower. He doesn't take it well. She says that people are more important than buildings, and even dreams. He says he can't. She tells him that she understands, and leaves. However, in a Deus ex machina to find an easy solution to this impossible problem, the computer woman found out that almost two hundred people were being paid by check. They froze Avery's assets though. He's getting the money from a holding company in the Cayman Islands. Avery isn't that smart… but Burch is. Catherine tells Joe, who tells Moreno, and they decide to file an injunction against Burch Tower. The World Below is saved, including the painted tunnels and Elizabeth, as well as Catherine and Vincent's happiness. He thought he'd never see her again. When she walked away from him, he sensed great resolve in her heart. It's the hardest thing she's ever done in her life. Vincent tells her that it was also the noblest. She says that Elliot has lost himself as well as his tower, and she feels bad for him. The episode ends with Elliot despondent, and Vincent reciting the titular poem Ozymandias, which describes the self-made man to a T.