Moonlight on the CW, Ep 3: Dr. Feelgood

[allegrita]

And how did Coraline manage to get blood all over him, and all over the bed, but not one drop on her white dress? Seriously.

Lucky

Lucky, when Mick wakes up in the morning, Coraline's wedding dress is flung over a chair, with bloodstains on it. She's wearing a pegnoir in the morning. However, the amount of blood she spilt on the bed and on Mick, and the amount on the bosom of her dress, don't match up at all. I guess she is a drama queen.

[wpgrace]

Definitely a cool scene... also love the scene where he's running after the docvamp at the hospital and runs up the wall. Totally cool. My daughter particularly likes that stunt.

[norsmyth]

I always loved the beginning and the end of this episode, the serious and trusting talks between Mick and Beth. Didn't care much for the "Dr. Feelgood" part of the story and after watching (for about the 10th time) it tonite I'm thinking the title should have been "Stake and Bake"

[jen]

Stake and Bake That is wonderful!

And as to Coraline not being covered with blood, she wasn't wearing the wedding dress in the morning when Mick woke up with fangs and sun sensitivity. After a couple of hundred years experience with draining people, I suppose she gained some skills. Also, there is the basic vamp cool factor(?)

[HotMicks]

Brilliant... stake & bake! Luv it.

Yeah, the vamp doc story wasn't very dramatic or riveting, but served its purpose. Now the Mick/Beth moments... divine. Her facial expressions when she pulled the stake out were really well done. That was the moment I really fell in love with her character. After she asserted herself by going in and shooting Lee Jay in OOTP, I was already liking the smart, spunky, MODERN reporter... but after her bucking up to knock again at the beginning of this episode, and then acting the sh*t out of overcoming her fear to pull that stake out (not sure I could), I knew I liked this chick. And I loved Sophia for taking them to task for not following up on the psychological aftermath of her shooting. I miss Beth (and Sophia!).

[wollstonecraft61]

I love the humorous banter at Pollock's house between Mick and Beth; that comment about staying in the car and the stake being like a piece of glass crack me up every time I watch this.

[allegrita]

My local CW station pre-empted Moonlight tonight! WTF, man. Just because the local team won the NBA championship! (see my thread about that...)

So I didn't get to watch in real time, but I plan to watch it tomorrow and I will be posting more reactions at that time.

And... my memory of this episode is that I really enjoyed watching it. It seemed to be a consolidation episode, but somehow it managed to have some really memorable bits, too... like the staking (and unstaking), and that first conversation... and the wedding/aftermath flashbacks... and the amazing wall-hop Mick did... and the meeting with the Cleaner... and Josef's story about the monks... and oh, that final meeting between Mick and Beth...

More tomorrow when I'm not silly...

[redwinter101]

Definitely a cool scene... also love the scene where he's running after the docvamp at the hospital and runs up the wall. Totally cool. My daughter particularly likes that stunt.

Petite Grace has great taste. It's a small shot but so very, very cool. Never gets old.

I'm surprised at how many of you have this down as an episode you didn't really like as it's always been one of my faves. Perhaps that's because it was the first one after I knew I was totally and utterly under the Moonlight spell (and consequently my critical faculties went right out the window).

I adore the opening scene. It's perfect in the way it walks the line between giving information, revealing hints of character (I still wince every time Beth presses Mick for more info after he's already told her he can't tell her about how he was turned), a little humour ("I get it. It's a lot to... get.") and a dose of angst. How could anyone watching that not be desperate to know what happened to Mick?

And then, just like in OoTP, we aren't left hanging - we see Mick's turning, we see his horror and we see that he killed to survive. I loved that.

I thought Stovsky was a good character. Nerdy, awkward, a loner, a total contrast to the other established vamps we've seen (could a vamp be ANY more different from Josef, for example, than Stovsky?); combined with the Cleaner and the delightfully matter-of-fact way he talked about having drained Pollock, it all created a feeling not just that there are vampires among us, but that there is an entire world, a sub-culture, with its own rules and hierarchy, and that within that exist characters with the same quirks and vagaries as humans.

There was the first great car conversation (without the dreaded green screen backdrop ), which as well as being delightful also set out some more of the key info about these vampires' abilities and then whole scene at Pollock's house was wonderful, from "And stay in the car means?" to the brilliant conversation about family and Coraline, to Beth pulling out the stake. Marvellous.

One other thing I loved about this was Mick's line to Beth at the hospital, "Suggestions like that are why you shouldn't be here." Mick was brutally practical; he'll do what needs to be done when he has to, even if, as we find out at the end, he has definitely not consigned Coraline to his past.

Red

[lunalux]

This is the first episode of Moonlight that I watched, so it will always have a place in my heart. I love the opening scene, Beth both ambivalent and determined, and Mick pretending to be surprised when he opens the door. I also love how she stares at him for most of the scene, and he avoids looking at her until he can't any longer. It seems to me that this episode's underlying purpose is to tell us more about vampires in LA, but the banter between Mick and Beth - I thought I told you to stay in the car, - Yeah because that worked so well the last time- or Keep it up - Why don't you trust me? kept it from being an information dump and gave us a clue as to how their relationship would be.

[wpgrace]

I'm surprised at how many of you have this down as an episode you didn't really like as it's always been one of my faves. Perhaps that's because it was the first one after I knew I was totally and utterly under the Moonlight spell (and consequently my critical faculties went right out the window).

I adore the opening scene. It's perfect in the way it walks the line between giving information, revealing hints of character (I still wince every time Beth presses Mick for more info after he's already told her he can't tell her about how he was turned), a little humour ("I get it. It's a lot to... get.") and a dose of angst. How could anyone watching that not be desperate to know what happened to Mick?

And then, just like in OoTP, we aren't left hanging - we see Mick's turning, we see his horror and we see that he killed to survive. I loved that.

I thought Stovsky was a good character. Nerdy, awkward, a loner, a total contrast to the other established vamps we've seen (could a vamp be ANY more different from Josef, for example, than Stovsky?); combined with the Cleaner and the delightfully matter-of-fact way he talked about having drained Pollock, it all created a feeling not just that there are vampires among us, but that there is an entire world, a sub-culture, with its own rules and hierarchy, and that within that exist characters with the same quirks and vagaries as humans.

There was the first great car conversation (without the dreaded green screen backdrop ), which as well as being delightful also set out some more of the key info about these vampires' abilities and then whole scene at Pollock's house was wonderful, from "And stay in the car means?" to the brilliant conversation about family and Coraline, to Beth pulling out the stake. Marvellous.

One other thing I loved about this was Mick's line to Beth at the hospital, "Suggestions like that are why you shouldn't be here." Mick was brutally practical; he'll do what needs to be done when he has to, even if, as we find out at the end, he has definitely not consigned Coraline to his past.

Red

You know... you are so right, Red. I adore all of this from this ep... just adore it... for exactly the reasons you post. And as you and Alle both have said, the ep advances the thesis of the show so well, too. So I've been thinking about why some of us have hesitation with this ep, cos I am one...

I think the reason is the guest lead, pure and simple. The guy who played the rogue vamp just did not pull that part off at all. He didn't seem like a vamp. All the grace and physical power and speed and quiet, dark, menace that our vamps showed; he, in contrast, was clunky and ridiculous. Alex and Jason have mentioned channeling birds, or raptors, or snakes, or cats in their heads when they vamp out... this guy seemed to be channeling an angry, sh!t-slingin', arm-flappin' chimp, complete with the high-pitched, high-strung vocalizations. Totally different effect.

He's a rogue, without tutelage from Stovsky, I know. So appearing out of control is part of the gig. But that is inside his head, the out of control. His bod would have gained power and grace and swift, quiet movement; this guy flapped and stumbled around like a clumsy, drunken sailor. Aside from the fangs, he didn't seem to be playing the same species as the show was pimping. So every time he came on-screen, he pulled me out of the magic of the tale I was watching. When he was NOT on screen, I was totally enraptured by this ep.

Now that I've thought this thru, tho, I think I will actually enjoy this ep more... I'm planning to watch it again this morning... with Alle. Any ol' excuse, right?

[wondergirl9847]

I missed the show last night, but I know it like the back of my hand. Hehe. I also love the stunt where Mick "climbs" the wall chasing that rogue vampire. I never really thought about it, but Grace, you are exactly right in that the guest vamp was very different from all the other vampires we'd seen. Not sure if that was a directing choice or his acting choice. We never saw any other "rogues" to compare.

I really like the actor that played Gerald Stovsky. He was also in another one of my fave shows, The Magnificent Seven, playing a lawyer. He was great with the arrogant way he said the Cleaner should have cleaned up his mess, he took care of his business by calling her, then, Mick saying, yeah, well, he got up and walked away. Heh.

I like that this episode was about trust because WOW, Mick and Beth had to REALLY trust each other in the next episode.

[wpgrace]

True... the trust theme was super cool.

Also the cute little jackets.
And the vamp speed; Mick disappears from the frame in vamp speed a few times... they didn't do that in all the eps. Darnit.

[r1015bill]

I thought Stovsky was a good character. Nerdy, awkward, a loner, a total contrast to the other established vamps we've seen (could a vamp be ANY more different from Josef, for example, than Stovsky?);

Hadn't really thought of how different he was from the other vampires. "Perpetually cool" doesn't describe him at all! Maybe when you're a vampire you're just a more extreme version of what you were as a human. So Stovsky would be "Perpetually geeky"?

[allegrita]

I thought Stovsky was a good character. Nerdy, awkward, a loner, a total contrast to the other established vamps we've seen (could a vamp be ANY more different from Josef, for example, than Stovsky?);

Hadn't really thought of how different he was from the other vampires. "Perpetually cool" doesn't describe him at all! Maybe when you're a vampire you're just a more extreme version of what you were as a human. So Stovsky would be "Perpetually geeky"?

I definitely think that's true, rbill. It reminds me of a thing Bill Cosby said about cocaine back in the 80's. I'm paraphrasing from memory, but it went something like this:

My friends keep trying to get me to use coke. I ask 'em what's so great about it. They say, "It enhances your personality." So I ask them, "Well, what if you're an a**hole?"

That's vampirism in a nutshell for me. It makes you what you were, with extra stuff that amplifies you in lots of ways...but leaves your basic personality intact. Stovsky is a super-geek.

About the doctor, I think the way he played it might have been deliberate. I love grace's description of him as channeling an angry chimp. That's perfect, and I think it was a broad way of showing the audience how out-of-control he truly was. The way I think about it, vampires wouldn't get the grace thing immediately. Think about the flashbacks...Mick woke up and stumbled through a sunbeam, knocking the phone off the hook. Later, when he was cowering there by the car and Coraline brought him "something" to make him feel better, there was no grace in him at all. He was confused and enraged and he didn't have his body in control at all. Now, the doctor didn't even have someone there when he woke up. He had no idea what had happened to him. He careened from one confusing, upsetting moment to the next. The sun hurt him. Everything was too loud and too bright. He was starving but he couldn't eat. And he suddenly developed this ferociousness that he could not comprehend. It became a huge wash of glorious power through him. He lost touch with all the things that had made him a caring person, all the ties to compassion that were so strong in him... and he had no one to nurture him through that overwhelming rush of hormones and fury and hunger... so his self drowned in it.

[HotMicks]

Good points all, on the vamp doc. And I did note last night as I was watching that he's not as creepy (and seems slightly better looking) in the video than he does in the stills (I was sick-to-death of looking at him in the pics as I was putting together the bingo cards).

I forgot to say this episode also has one of my favorite ML lines, during the opening conversation: "The Red Cross does not mention that in their literature." "I don't think they know."

And I also love Alex's facial expressions when he says he's gonna be 85 (thus the still I used in my DF banner).

Can you believe we STILL have all these comments (even after watching it 10 times, norsmith! )? Testament to the shelf life of this lovely little world they created.