Moonlight: Is Mick St John Finally Warming Up?

Ah, Mick St John. The deadest private dick in Los Angeles*. I’ve been watching this series on Living for the last few weeks, waiting for a glimmer of hope that the hammy plot and acting would turn a corner. And I think it just happened tonight.

In this fourth episode, Mick - who can survive in sunlight, but not strong sunlight - gets stranded in the desert with a pregnant girl he’s protecting. And it couldn’t be a cloudy day, could it?

No prizes for guessing that Mick forgot to pack the factor 2000 sunscreen. So, forgetting the rest of the plot for this episode, he gets roasted in the sun and comes close to death. He and the girl stagger through the desert until they finally find shelter in a conveniently placed Motel.

Where this episode shows improvement is that Mick is at his lowest ebb. The vampire instincts that he can normally resist look certain to take him over and he hallucinates that  he’s bitten her.

Beth manages to track them down and tries to help Mick (who is by now submerged in an ice bath - the girl he’s protecting doesn’t think this is weird at all). Seeing that Mick’s in a bad way, Beth offers him a sup of blood. And when a cute blonde offers you some warm arterial blood, it’s only polite to accept.

Unfortunately, Mick experiences the vampire equivalent of regret after a one-night stand. So he decides he needs to break contact with Beth and avoids her.

We’ve been waiting for the slow burning sexual tension between Mick and Beth to reach some sort of climax. Didn’t expect it to be a blood transfusion that would do it, but there you go. I had a sneaky peek at the CBS Moonlight website, and it looks like there’s going to be an interesting dynamic between Mick and Beth.

And that, I think, is going to be one of the most gripping things about this series of Moonlight.

* Note that the Buffy spin-off, Angel was also about a vampire private detective in Los Angeles.