Moonlight: "Love Lasts Forever"

"Series Classic"
Josh-heavy installment. The show just keeps getting better.

I'm impressed with how the series producers are taking a familiar concept to a good place. Too bad the bloody writers strike is keeping production on new episodes from going ahead.

Just one more left after this episode.

Speaking of which, "Love Lasts Forever" opens with Josh pressing Chemma Tejada, an El Salvadoran drug lord, to either help bring in some Latin-American drug dealers in the US or face a grand jury.

Tejada tells Josh to do what he has to do and be ready for "a miserable future." Tejada took out the wife of the last prosecutor who went after him back in El Salvador. I guess the guys from the Colombian Medellin cartel don't have anything on Tejada. Josh's prospects aren't looking bright.

Mick and Beth are in her apartment kibitzing over a blood sample he got from Coraline before she vanished. They decide on a private lab when Josh shows up to warn Beth about Tejada. He also signs Mick up for her protection detail.

Some goons in mask beat on Josh in a parking lot as he goes from his office to his car. When they have him curled up on the ground, they leave a picture of Beth by his face and warn they'll see her next if he doesn't back off of Tejada.

Josh hightails it back to Beth to tell her that he's recusing himself from the case to save her. Beth then goes noble and selfless, saying how her safety doesn't matter against the need to put Tejada behind bars. Josh muses how he'd forgotten about how cute she was when she crusaded. A spark's rekindled, they kiss, and...spend the night together.

Tejada is holding his daughter's quinceanera (15th birthday party), a Latin-American sweet sixteen gala. As they dance, he tells his daughter nothing's too good for her. Too bad he's a ruthless thug. Josh crashes the party with Lt. Davis and a few squads of cops. Josh says Tejada shouldn't have made things personal. Tejada tells Josh he doesn't have much time left. Looking like bullyboys, the cops haul Tejada from his daughter's party. Ironic.

Josh goes ahead with pressing charges and gets a judge to set a bail of $5 million dollars.

Meantime, Nick and Beth're getting the low down on Coraline's blood, which is...normal.

Aside from the fact that it's like a child's sample, being free of toxins and free radicals that adults inevitably gather (unless they eat well). And the sample is A-negative, extremely rare. As in less than 15% of Americans rare. It's also Beth's blood type. Outside the clinic, Mick reveals that children's blood is the best for vamps, especially if it's the same type as the vamp's original blood. I'm speculating here, but I won't be shocked if Beth turns out to be a descendant of Coraline's. Another reason Coraline singled her out as a potential vamp daughter?

Mick comes up short when he hears a high-powered automatic rifle being assembled and loaded. Supersonic vamp hearing is so handy. A sniper targets Beth in the head with a laser scope and fires--

Nick drags her down at the last millisecond, then dodges superquick toward Tejada's goons, who bug out. Nick goes back to Beth, who only has a few scratches. She worries when she sees he has blood on his chest. It's not his blood. It's Coraline's. Damn.

The vial's crushed. But Mick and Beth have more pressing concerns right now.

At Beth's apartment, Josh makes sure Beth is OK and that her police escort has been suitably beefed up. He and Mick have a nice bonding moment over how they want to keep Beth safe.

Josh steps out to his car, where Tejada's thugs grab him and stuff him into their car's trunk. Pretty blatant. I would've nabbed him out of sight of Beth's police detail. Nick and Beth jump into her car and go chasing after 'em. But they're out of sight. So Nick calls a hacker friend (human?) to triangulate on the GPS locater in Josh's cell, which Beth calls. As she assures Josh, who's gagged, that she'll find him, Nick's hacker friend triangulates the return signal in a remote corner of Griffith Park somewhere near the observatory. Nick and Beth peel rubber and call the police to meet 'em.

Tejada's thugs pause in the park as they wait for a park ranger to drive away. They're just about to bump Josh off when Nick and Beth come barrelling. Nick shrugs off a few hits and takes the thugs down, while Beth keeps her head to the ground.

They open the car trunk and are about to get Josh out when a thug revives, gets a spare gun, and pumps a few rounds into Josh.

Nick knocks him out, gets Beth to call an ambulance, then does first aid on Nick, revealing he was a medic in WW II. In a sequence worthy of "House" and "Grey's Anatomy," Nick puts pressure on a belly wound, uses a neck tie as a tourniquet to bind Josh's leg, and cauterizes a severed artery on Josh's neck with a car cigarette lighter.

But Nick senses that Josh's leg wound is still bleeding, so he bums Beth's necklace to tie an artery off. But Josh goes unconscious and Nick hears his heart stop. He and Beth're doing CPR when Davis and the cops show up. Late.

The ambulance shows up even later. The medics put paddles to Josh, but no joy. As the cops cuff Tejada's thugs and the medics look 'em over, Beth begs Mick to "turn" Josh.

Mick can't, and Josh is gone. Beth glares daggers at Mick.

At the police station, Davis gives up trying to pump Tejada's goons for their jefe's whereabouts. With his back to Davis, Mick turns vamp, and asks the goon where Tejada is.

The goon freaks out and tells the "diablo" where to go to a bar. Mick sends Davis off on a wild goose chase and goes to the bar.

Nick himself monologues on how things go the same in every bar fight, like when the barkeep pops up with a gun in hand. He goes vamp, beats down the patrons, and gets Tejada's location in the oficina, where Mick finishes him off. We only get to see Mick start to bleed him dry.

Mick shows up at Beth's apartment to let her know Tejada's been taken cared of. He tells her he couldn't inflict the curse of vampirism on Josh (not to mention reveal his secret in front of the cops and medics).

When Beth asks why he keeps "living," Nick says to himself it's because of her. Aloud, he mumbles, "I don't know." She then asks if Mick would let her die, and Nick says "Yes."

Things don't end on the best note here.

Which is perfect.

How can one not feel for Nick and Beth?

Once the strike ends and the second half of season 1 (the first half of season 2 more like) kicks off, I do wonder how things can keep going at this pitch? I totally understand why Josh had to die, but there were some interesting possibilities here. If Josh had lived, it would've made things even more interesting for Nick and Beth.

And if Nick had "turned" Josh, we would've gotten to see Beth torn between two vamps--and gotten a whole new storyline with Josh getting used to being a vamp and Nick bringing him into the fold as his sire and maybe seeing those two come to blows over Beth.

I can hardly wait for the season finale.

If only it weren't for the bloody writers strike. Too bad no one can lock the negotiators for both sides in a room and keep 'em there on bread and water till they stop acting like kids holding their breaths and make a reasonable deal.