Beauty and the Beast (1987) S1 E9

## Plot

A black man is serving people at a fancy dinner party. One of the men, William, has clearly been poisoned. He starts sweating profusely and hallucinating. He thinks there are cockroaches everywhere, and when he flails everywhere to get them off, he accidentally flings himself through the skyscraper window to his death. Shouldn't glass be sturdier than that? Catherine receives the case from Joe. The suspect is the black man, Hector Ocala. The poison was in his room. He's from Haiti, a notoriously poor country. William left him $50,000 in his will. It was an open and shut case until an hour ago, when the public defender said Hector was incapacitated and unable to stand trial. Hector is a Vodou priest, and he's apparently gone into a trance. Catherine talks to Professor Ross, a white man who has some knowledge of Vodou. He tells her that if the man has committed a crime, then he's not a priest, but rather, a sorcerer, or Bokor, a servant of evil. There are spirits called Loa, which have a variety of different spellings. Ross says they can possess people. He also says that the mind rules the body. If faith can heal, then fear can paralyze, or kill. He gives Catherine a shell for good luck. She asks him to see Hector and determine if his trance is really a front to avoid prosecution. Meanwhile, Vincent has a strange dream about Catherine's death (Don't think about season 3). Ross tells Catherine that Hector is reciting a protective spell against evil. He mentioned a beast, and Ross says it was a hallucination of his worst fears, but to him, it was really there. Um, thanks, I've taken psychology, and even if I hadn't, I know what hallucinations are. Catherine and Ross bump into another black man on the way out. Catherine talks to Lindsay Gates, the woman sitting next to William at the dinner party. She says that William was terrified of Hector, and came into her store looking for a charm or spell to protect him. She's not an expert, but everyone thinks she knows more than she does. She thinks William died of a curse, pointing out that it wasn't poison that threw him through the window. Catherine tries to visit Hector again, but he suddenly dropped dead. There's no marks on him or drugs. When Catherine goes back to her apartment, she finds that it's been ransacked, and her name is written backwards on the wall in red paint or liquid, like in *The Shining*. There's also a drawing of Vincent, and what appears to be a dead bird. Vincent shows up, and learns about the case. He tells her that whoever did this is trying to scare her. Ross comes over, and tells Catherine that they did the same thing to his place. He tells her that it's likely Hector's followers, and they will avenge his death. She refuses to drop the case. She agrees to have dinner with Ross. Vincent is researching Vodou to help her. He decides to go see Narcissa. She believes in Vodou, but Father thinks she's irrational. She lives away from everyone else, down in the catacombs. Catherine visits the man she bumped into at the jail. It turns out that he's Hector's brother. He tells Catherine that his brother wasn't a Bokor, since they wouldn't work as a servant, and that William and Hector were friends. Hector must've had a very powerful enemy. The autopsy report says he died of a heart attack. Hector's enemy killed William to get at him. Vincent visits Narcissa, and tells her about Catherine and what happened to her apartment. She says that Catherine has been placed under a curse, and the drawing summons an evil and powerful demon. She tells Vincent to watch her carefully. The murderer is performing a Vodou ceremony involving Catherine and a snake. She finds it in her car, and throws it out. She tells Ross about it, and says she's not scared of Vodou curses, but she is terrified of snakes. Ross tells her that he found out that Hector was advising some Wall Street financiers on business decisions. Catherine feels hot, and Ross takes her home. It's revealed somewhat anticlimactically that Ross is the bad guy. Yeah, I called that. What's slightly more surprising is that Lindsay is working with him. They try a spider next. Catherine sees a bunch of them in her bed and freaks out. She doesn't get any sleep. Vincent feels her fear. Ross comes in, and spikes her drink with a hallucinogen. He massages her upper back until she falls asleep, and when he leaves, he kisses her. Joe doesn't believe her about the spiders, and thinks Hector killed William, and since Hector is dead from natural causes, that's it. He decides to put her on another case. She hallucinates blood coming out of the case files, and then Joe's hands being covered in blood. In the bathroom, she hallucinates cuts on her face. She calls Ross, but he's not there. Joe and Edie are worried about her, and tell her to take the rest of the day off. She agrees, but continues to hallucinate. She goes back home, but still sees cuts on her face. Vincent visits her, but she thinks everything that's happened to her is real, and that he's the demon. Even Linda Hamilton can't make this ridiculous and stupid scenario entertaining or convincing. Still, I'm sure she tried her best. Or at least 70, maybe 75%. Catherine tells Vincent to leave and never come back, saying that she hates him. He says that even in this terrible darkness, he's still with her. She goes back inside and calls Ross for help, which Vincent hears. Just eight more minutes of this insanity, and some of it is credits. Catherine appears to have been flat out hypnotized by Ross. Except you can't hypnotize someone to do something that they would be unwilling to do. Lindsay comes over, and he kisses her. Two timing bastard. Because being a murderer and committing sexual assault wasn't bad enough, I guess. Vincent visits Narcissa again, and she says that the shell opens the door, and the powder takes away the soul. As Vincent oh so helpfully translates, it's a drug. Narcissa says that Catherine will die. Vincent wants to go to her. Narcissa says that the evil one will take his soul away, and that he has great power. Vincent says he preys on weakness, so he has no power. Ross puts a knife by Catherine's photo. She shows up in a red dress. She sees the other photos, and finally snaps out of it enough to try and fight back. It's two against one though, and she's drugged. Ross starts cutting her dress with the knife, and asks the evil spirit to possess her. Right on cue, Vincent crashes through the skylight. Lindsay is scared and knocks over a bowl of something, starting a fire. Ross thinks that Vincent is the real evil spirit though, and thinks the fire can't harm him. He's burned alive. Vincent rescues Catherine. It turns out that Ross really did belong to a cult, and Lindsay agrees to give the D.A. the other names. Joe tells Cathy that she did good work, and that he was worried about her. She's feeling much better now. Lindsay also admitted to poisoning William. The why is still unclear to me, but it was probably an extreme religious rivalry with Hector, if that makes any sense. On the balcony, Vincent crushes the shell into powder and throws it over the edge.

## Review

Okay, I have no idea if anything anyone said about Vodou during this episode was accurate at all, or if they were just perpetuating racist stereotypes. I know there's some New Orleans voodoo stuff in *Cloak & Dagger*, but I'm not particularly interested in that kind of stuff. First off, there's the spelling, not to mention that there's probably some differences between Louisiana voodoo and Haitian vodou. For starters, Louisiana voodoo is more of a set of African spiritual folkways in culture form, whereas Haitian vodou is a religion. Dreams have a habit of being really weird and generally silent in this world, and usually don't advance the plot. Also, I highly doubt that there's any hallucinogen out there that could kill someone, or cause them to have a heart attack, assuming that's even how Hector was killed. This wasn't a very good episode.