Tuesday, April 26, 2016

ABC’s The Catch a Diabolical Romance



Shonda Rhimes, the ABC Prime Time Queen, has once again given us a rare gem in dramatic entertainment.  The Catch -- ABC’s Mid-Season replacement for ‘How To Get Away with Murder’ – can be seen on Thursday’s right after Scandal. 

Starring Mireille Enos, best known for playing detective Sarah Linden in The Killing and opposite Brad Pitt in World War Z.  

In The Catch, Mireille plays a successful private investigator and co private security firm owner, Alice Vaughn.  In the pilot episode Alice is glowing with happiness about her upcoming nuptials to successful business man, Christopher Hall, played by Peter Krause. Peter is known for such shows as Dirty Sex Money, Six Feet Under and most recently, Parenthood. 

So the twist in The Catch comes when Christopher wakes Alice the day before their wedding and asks her to run away with him. She laughs him off, thinking he is being ridiculous.  When she returns home she discovers he is missing, she goes to his office and finds an empty space. Finally, the 1.5 million dollars she’s given him to purchase their new house is gone. 

Alice has a good cry, a little tantrum and then picks herself up. Resolute on finding this man who has destroyed her heart, hopes and dreams Alice Vaughn goes to work. 

As The Catch plot develops, Christopher’s love for Alice is genuine, and had she said yes to him that fateful morning when he asked her to run away he would have abandoned his con-artist life forever.  But of course, that would make for a boring drama, right?
So why doesn’t he just drop everything and tell her he loves her? Well, the life of a con-artist is complicated. Christopher and his associates owe some very powerful bad guys a lot of money, 15 million to be exact.  When the ‘score’ with Alice tanked, forcing the return all of the money stolen from her and her firm, Christopher’s little con man team was left penniless. 

Christopher wants to put as much distance between Alice and  ruthless associates as possible before they find out the truth about his feelings. The most eminent threat is his dominating lover played by the glorious Sonya Walger, (known for Parenthood, Lost, and even a small 2 episode stint on Scandal).  

Christopher, despite many attempts is unable to let go of Alice, his pull to her is magnetic.  As she gets closer to finding him, he allows it, if only to give into his needs for a short time. Awwww…so sweet. 

Add in The Catch sub-plots of a French Secret Service Agent also looking for Christopher Hall, Alice’s wanting to keep her endeavor secret from her trusted friends, and her regular day-to-day job and you have the mixing of a dramatic masterpiece. To be honest, Alice is just as diabolical as Christopher in many ways and thus making the series so addictive.
Plot twists and high fashion abound in The Catch making is visually and psychologically stimulating. The brilliance of Shonda Rhimes in my opinion is nothing is ever black and white, she loves to dabble in the gray’s of the world.  

I put this new series to the three episode test, and it passed with flying colors, full of intrigue, romance, deception and uniquely flawed characters, The Catch is most definitely worth your time and DVR space!




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