EPI-LOG ARTICLE on Beauty and the Beast
review by Nina Johnson. Click here for contents.

Episode 21 (Season 1, Episode 21)

Ozymandias

Ozymandias  (airdate: April 1, 1988).  Elizabeth is an old woman who has been painting in the tunnels for years.  She is finishing a work when explosions rack the passageways.  A new building is being constructed above - the Burch Tower.  Catherine, Joe, the D.A., Elliot and Elliot's lawyer are talking about a citizen's action group that is trying to stop the construction of his building.  The group is headed by Luz Corrales and is quite immense.  Burch believes that Max Avery may be behind the group since Elliot helped to get him arrested.  Elliot just wants to be able to build in peace and Joe promises to consider investigating Avery again.  That night Elliot shows Catherine some slides of the New York skyline.  He points out to her that not one of the buildings there are his.  He then shows her another slide with his building superimposed on the skyline.  He wants to give something back to his city in return.  His building will create jobs and revitalize the neighbourhood.  Later, Vincent shows Catherine the painted tunnels.  He tells her about Elizabeth as they walk.  An explosion rattles the Tunnel World.  Vincent tells her that Mouse believes in seven days the workers will find their home.  Catherine then realizes what the construction of the Burch Tower will really mean.  At the office, Catherine has information on Luz Corales citizens' group gathered.  She discovers that they have had lots of new members and anonymous cash donations.  Luz and Catherine went to the same law school together so she invites her over that night.  Catherine asks her about the new members but Luz sidesteps the question.  She then tells Luz that some of the money has been traced to Max Avery.  Luz ends up insulting Catherine and leaving.  Mouse takes Elizabeth some new paints.  While they talk, another explosion occurs and splits a painting.  Elizabeth bemoans her life's work and Mouse tells her he knows how to stop the machines.  Elizabeth goes to father and tells him what Mouse has said.  Vincent takes off after him.  The security guards catch Mouse before Vincent catches up with him.  He arrives to see Mouse taken into a trailer.  Catherine, meanwhile, is not sleeping very well and awakens at once when Vincent knocks on her balcony door.  He tells her about Mouse's capture.  Mouse has told the guards enough for them to think he is crazy, then asks for Catherine.  She goes to Elliot's office.  After trying to bluff her way to get Mouse released, she resorts to begging.  Vincent and Father are discussing how they can raise Mouse's bail money, when he walks in with Catherine.  Vincent senses Catherine's melancholy and asks her about her feelings.  She says that she has seen Elliot's good side before and his bad.  She is just confused.  Vincent remarks that all men are both good and bad.  If you love them, you have to accept the mixture of good and bad, weak and strong.

When Catherine goes home, she finds Elliot waiting.  Once inside he asks her to marry him and promises to do anything to make her happy.  She promises to think it over.  All day long at work the next day, she ponders her situation, the Tunnel World's doom, and Elliot's sudden proposal.  Luz Corales brings her out of her musing with a newspaper story.  The D.A.'s probe into the citizen's group was leaked to the press and she blames Catherine.  Now her organization has no hope of stopping the tower.  That night Catherine goes to talk with Vincent.  He cries out "No!"   She remains strong, though her eyes fill with tears and tells him "I have to marry him." To keep Vincent and the others that she loves from being destroyed she will sacrifice herself.  Vincent tries to change her mind but she leaves him.  He collapses to the floor and lets out a heartbreaking moan.  Catherine tells Elliot that she will marry him but only if he stops his tower.  Elliot needs to think about her condition and she leaves him.  At her office, Catherine is brought a list of Luz's organization members.  Many of them were former employees of Avery and they are being paid to join the group.  She asks where he is getting the money since they had frozen his account.  The source of the funds is a bank in the Cayman Islands.  This puzzles Catherine, since Avery should have no knowledge of such matters.  She takes the file to Joe and tells him what she has learned.  Someone has been swindling Luz's organization.  The only man it could be is Elliot Burch.  With the group discredited, the building will go on as planned.  He uses the phone to call for an injunction.  Vincent and Catherine are in the painted gallery.  She has told him the good news, but she is saddened by the knowledge that Elliot is suffering since he did not get to build his dream.  Elizabeth is working on a new painting.  This one has the Burch Tower in the skyline.  Elliot is alone in his office, staring at the slide of his building.  Throughout all these scenes, Vincent is saying:  I met a traveller from a distant land who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stands in the desert.  Near them, on the sand - half sunk - a shattered visage lies.  Whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command, tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive.  Stamped on those lifeless things - the hand that mocked them and the hear that fed.  And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, look upon my works ye mighty, and despair.  Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the long and lever sand stretch... far away.

Guest Cast: Julie Carmen as Luz Corrales, Linda Porter as Elizabeth, Rutanya Alda as Sarah, Sue Giosa as Ronni, Gerald Castillo as Simmons, Alexander Folk as the guard, Carl Strano as Roth.

Writer: George R. R. Martin

Director: Frank Beascoechea.