Beauty and the Beast: Review 308 – Shotgun Wedding

SHOTGUN WEDDING

So the Shotgun Wedding was not the story of the longed-for marriage between Vincent and Catherine, as it was understood to be for some time.

I must confess that immediately after seeing it for the first time, I breathed a sigh of relief after having believed it was all in all a misfortune or that something had gone wrong and the marriage was not celebrated.

Why? I do not know, but Catherine is a lover of simplicity and Vincent would want to seal the immensity of their love in front of friends and relatives. I imagined something entirely different from a vast nave filled with unfamiliar faces, including the entire police district.

Rather, the opening scene with the trial of the ceremony, it was impossible not be touched by the tangible emotion, the joy and the elegance of their looks while Cat approaches the altar…

It’s a perfect moment, the moment when you cannot help but think “It was time, they made it, they deserve it really.”

And had the priest celebrated there, on the spot, in front of Tess, JT and Heather, it would be almost perfect because it would be what they both wanted.

Simply.

But still that isn’t their moment, it is nothing but a test. Perhaps it’s enough to tear and throw away the prospect of a crowning of their love, of what they have experienced, who they were and who they have become.

The episode is so hectic that really it could have filled, without damaging them, maybe three more episodes. I cannot help but wonder if, with only 13 episodes available, there has been too much in each of the first seven?

The relationship between Vincent and Catherine is so wonderfully unique and intense, it could linger in their approach to live together and to marry with more intimate tones, while creating more space for the introduction of Liam. Finally we have a villain, it seems, of a certain thickness that promises a development of a storyline in intensity and importance and in complete comparison to the threats faced by our beloved in the first 7 episodes.

Returning to “Shotgun Wedding”, an episode hectic and stuffed with events……..

How not to dwell, at least briefly, on the growth of Heather and the value of a sensitive innocent, on the unassailable logic with which, smiling, she knows helping others, without exception and to focus on the essential?!

So you cannot overlook the dynamic, finally poignant, relationship between Tess and JT. How they’ve grown! Perhaps thanks to the fact that they have taken a journey together, both Austin and Nina, as actors and JT and Tess as characters.

Finally and perhaps an important point among the developments and “extra VinCat” of the episode, concerns the consolidation of the friendship between Vincent and Tess. Poignant and strongly linked by their loving and protecting the same persons, Cat and JT.

The entrance of Liam into their lives crushes at once, the expectations of happiness for Vincent and Catherine, crushed like the decorations, the benches and the walls…..

And yet, just before, these two lovers had overcome in a few words and longing looks – What words! What looks! – one of the most difficult among the many trials. Faced to forge their will to live together, to share everything and loving in spite of everything.

I’m aware that I inevitably risk becoming repetitive but in commenting on each episode, getting to the point where at the end of the games we will put in the memories box, I cannot help but recognize Kristin Kreuk and Jay Ryan for the larger, truer and deeper portrayal in giving life to what’s exciting and immortal on this show.

Very often it has been said that there is chemistry between these two actors, truly overwhelming and no doubt about it. It’s an extraordinary, intense and equally disruptive chemistry that both Jay Ryan and Kristin Kreuk have developed through the characters they are playing.

Vincent and Catherine live their heartbeats, sigh with their quivers and their eyes become inflamed with a multi-faceted wealth of emotions that never ceases to innovate and surprise us but which is consistent and a hallmark of both characters.

So, when Vincent and Catherine see marriage jeopardized by one of those mistakes from an over protective desire, (Vincent not alerting Catherine of Julianna for example, wanting nothing more than to avoid her concerns) and Catherine, furious, reacts predictably refusing the idea of marriage at that time, we see an extraordinary thing happen…..the voice of Jay Ryan broken from anxiety, his eyes bright, his features contracted from the cold and despair and we see Vincent gather in a handful of words, encompassing the emotions that surround them, standing on this New York street, two and a half seasons away from that day in the woods, he tells her how much she means to him;

“… For ten years, I was living in the shadows, okay, completely lost except for you, okay?
You-you saved me, you loved me and now here we are, finally, … ”

We will never forget these words and the intensity with which they were delivered, just as we never forget those equally powerful spoken by Vincent in the subway at the end of the episode “Heart of Darkness”.

His love for Catherine as a reason for living, the right path, but it’s not easy to understand at first the reaction of Catherine in the scene on the roof.

Catherine…..

She is distant on the roof.
She looks cool, despite the reassuring words.
She is sharp in closing the issue on Liam.
Cruel…. to leave Vincent wounded and distressed.

She cannot do anything else.

Vincent wanted to stay away from the case of superhuman assassins when Federal agents tried to involve him.
He had already paid a heavy price, which was not due, to recover a bit of his life and all the love of Catherine.
He only asked to go ahead with her at his side, living to make her happy.

Catherine had convinced him against his will and he had given in for her sake, as always.
She had thrown back him into the fray, pushed the action, endangering both of them.

As her mother.
Like his father.

However we become aware that its something that Catherine cannot accept.
Vincent would never pull himself back for her sake or for the sense of duty … ever.

And she cannot have that.
She can’t be the reason why she might lose him.
Because behind the icy armor of the warrior who stood up without hesitation or weakness to Carol and Julianna and anyone else who has found his path, beats the heart of a girl in love, who understood that love is the ink with which to rewrite the life and that the guy with indestructible courage, the superhero of her heart who loves her and wants such happiness for her, makes her his vulnerability.

Protect and defend.

She loves him just the same.
There would not be the world she has without him.
And there would be no life without getting lost in his embrace…

Federica

Edited by Lisa