Well, our love geometry is alive and kicking (boooo!) as we met Vincent’s former fiancée, and I guess, technically, still fiancée, Alex, since his presumed death is what ended their engagement. Sidebar: the engagement reveal via Catherine finding letters between Alex and Vincent was beautifully done by Kristin Kreuk. I was annoyed that the PR around the intro of Alex told us what their relationship had been out of the gate.
So, I liked Alex, but I think she’s been shoehorned in unnecessarily. I have a general dislike for love triangles and my biggest nit with introducing a past love interest for Vincent is twofold–it’s too early and it immediately made Vincent lie–to her and to Cat, and I think to himself about where he was emotionally with both of them. Vincent and Cat have raised secret-keeping to an art form–but they don’t keep secrets from each other, so that felt off to me.
It also came off as goofy to immediately imperil Alex–and to have Vincent kiss her when he rescued her–especially when that’s pretty much the thing we’ve been waiting (and waiting) to happen with Cat. (Also, wouldn’t Vincent at some point have kept an eye on Alex and taken care of a stalker earlier?) I did like that by the end of the episode, Cat put Vincent on the spot to sort out his feelings for his ex out before they go any further with whatever it is they’ve been doing/not doing.
In “On Thin Ice,” we followed Cat into therapy (with a guy, which seems a potential setup), to whom she confessed that she loves Vincent. Not sure how that fits her HR-appointed therapy to get unbenched, but there it is. She also happens to see Alex stealing supplies from the hospital, which she tells Vincent. That’s a lost leader to try to throw shade on Alex when she’s actually been doing free clinic work and taking what she needs from the hospital and she ropes Vincent into helping out.
After Catherine finally says “love” out loud in her session, she decides to nut up and tell Vincent that she wants to be with him, but he tells her he’s not so sure he can’t still have a life with Alex, who’s dangled a carrot of running off to the Southern hemisphere where nobody can find them to do relief doctor work. So, we’re back to geometry.
I get that Vincent has been in limbo for a decade, and probably very easily turned his feelings for Alex onto Catherine when he saved her life, so the thing with Catherine has its own issues. But if he’s really going to give things a go with Alex, there’s still the whole rageaholic thing to deal with, and that will be on the table soon enough.
Elsewhere in the show, Evan invited J.T. into his research, and J.T. isn’t totally confident (nor are we) that this is a stellar idea. We know Evan wants to do everything by the book and potentially capture the creature, but that seems a terribly naive agenda. Also in the mix is that it would seem that Evan mysteriously abandoned a medical career–in the opening minutes of “Seeing Red,” he does a roadside tracheotomy that saves Cat’s life.
We also found out that he’s still stupid about girls because his seemingly perfect girlfriend shows up for a tryst (in his sterile lab) only to be revealed at the end of the episode as another Muirfield operative. There’s no mention of J.T. when she debriefs (to another Nikita alumn-ha!), so I don’t know if they don’t know that yet or just don’t know who he is to begin with, which seems unlikely.
So we have a lot going on. Thankfully, we also have another new episode tonight. And I was remiss when I teased “Seeing Red”–I neglected to mention that the show won Favorite New TV Drama at the People’s Choice Awards in early January, so audiences are slowly but surely catching on. Bonus!
Here’s a preview of “Cold Turkey,” which airs tonight at 9 pm ET/8 pm CT on The CW and 9 pm ET/6 pm PT on Showcase. It looks like a weekend in the woods maybe wasn’t the best idea.
Photo courtesy of The CW.