By Brandon Nolta

Cult leaders, vampires, violence … oh, my. While Mick (Alex O’Loughlin) does a little housekeeping by pulling bullets out of his limbs and body (yeah, I don’t know what’s up with that, either), Beth (Sophia Myles) is covering the execution by lethal injection of a cult leader who combines all the charm of strep throat with the people skills of Chuck Manson. Before Psycho Killer gets the needle, he promises that his reign of terror will continue, particularly against Audrey (Sarah Foret), the young woman whose testimony 14 years before got him the long walk in the first place. This turns out to be prescient, as Audrey now has an unwanted accessory: a long-haired stalker who casts the same shadow. Of course, the fact that said psycho has gathered a type of cult about him that call themselves his “family” ensures there will be a bunch of suspects to check out.

Anyway, Audrey is staying with Beth until the furor dies down a bit, and Mick is doing a little sleuthing at Beth’s behest. Soon enough, he finds a Web site listing all sorts of inside info on the people who put the psycho, ominously named Shepherd, in the pen. To Mick’s dismay, he finds Beth’s address. Thus warned, he puts on his superhero face and busts ass over to the apartment just in time to save Audrey from a Shepherd wannabe. An impromptu interrogation catered with Mick’s homemade knuckle sandwiches leads Mick to a Hollywood producer with past ties to Shepherd. Mick makes with the ominous, then spots a handy package mailed to the producer from Shepherd. Turns out that it’s Shepherd’s memoirs, which has a clue in it that implies Shepherd’s joined the bloodsucker nation. A little bit of followup confirms the worst, and now it’s a fang hunt.


Now, Mick gets to find the vampire who turned Shepherd—ironically, the priest who counseled Shepherd in the pen—and hunt down the psycho. Whee! Luckily, Mick’s up for the task, but with Shepherd on the prowl and eager for vengeance, it becomes more of a race against the psycho clock than a hunt of any sorts. Unluckily for Mick, Beth does a little snooping in Mick’s files and discovers the old case file he had on her. If Beth and Audrey survive getting a visit from the nutjob, Mick and Beth have some issues to resolve.

Despite the stereotypical serial killer portrayal handed in for this episode, I probably enjoyed this episode more than the others I’ve seen so far, mostly because it showed a lighter, more human side of Mick. Voiceover narration is a cliché of crime drama and detective stories, but O’Loughlin’s delivery raises the material above what you’d expect. Really, CBS doesn’t need vampires to make this show fly; it’s pretty clear the long-term focus is on the romance aspect of it all, and there’s a million ways to go with that. But, as long as the writers and actors keep MOONLIGHT on the finely balanced path it’s on, my interest will be kept.