Ben Mark Holzberg/The CWBeauty and the Beast is officially down one beast.
In the CW hit's season-two premiere tonight, it was revealed that Gabe (Sendhil Ramamurthy) is no longer a beast, once again giving Catherine (Kristin Kreuk) hope that Vincent (Jay Ryan), who has lost his memory and gained new beastly abilities since being captured by Muirfield. In a surprising move, Gabe, who is now the assistant district attorney, decided to stick around and help Catherine and J.T. (Austin Basis), even though we're pretty sure they'd rather stick themselves in the eye with a fork than be in the same room as him right now.
So why is Gabe really sticking around? And what can fans expect from the rest of season two, including Vincent and Catherine's relationship? We chatted with Ramamurthy about losing his beast side, Gabe's intentions and more...
"I gotta say, for me, the prosthetic makeup was not a pleasant experience for me. It's just, it's not a lot of fun. And they have changed the look of the beast this season, so it's a little bit better, but not a whole lot," Ramamurthy says of feeling relieved that Gabe is no longer a beast. "It's still a pretty unpleasant experience to sit there and have that stuff glued onto your face. You know, just from my own personal point of view, my skin didn't tolerate it very well at all. Um, so I'm actually really grateful that they went in that direction."
Ramamurthy was also glad to let go of Gabe's beast side from a storytelling point of view. "That's what I find kind of compelling about the character this season, is that he's now cured, he's not a beast, he's incredibly wealthy, and he could just go off and be a rich playboy somewhere and have a great, great life, but he doesn't," he explains to us. "He sticks around in a place where nobody really wants him there, taking a city government job as an assistant district attorney. He keeps his job because he feels that he needs to make things right, or at least make the effort to try and make things right, even if he's not ultimately successful. I like that aspect of his character, and I like to be able to play that because last season he did some pretty deep, dark twisted stuff; it's nice to see the other side of that as well."
But just because Gabe chose to stick around doesn't mean the team has forgiven him for his season one shadiness. "Well, from J.T. I don't know if that's ever gonna happen," Ramamurthy says of Gabe being accepted. "But eventually, I think they slowly do start to trust him, just because in the end, results talk. He starts to get somewhere in this quest for finding Vincent."
And though Vincent losing his memory may seem like a bad thing for VinCat, Ramamurthy explains, "In a way, that's kind of a cool thing because they get to try and explore and fall in love all over again, which is a really great thing and really exciting. In a way, you're experiencing a first kiss and all that stuff again, and that's really fun and exciting. Who doesn't want that? But then there's the other part where, you know, whatever you instilled is gone, and you're going miss that, and the writers certainly don't shy away from that."
Still, it won't be easy for the fan-favorite couple as Vincent and Catherine will both face major obstacles this season. "There are obstacles that come up from both of them in their relationship that make them question, 'Is this the right thing? Like, I'm putting all this effort.' Particularly from Catherine's point of view," he says. "She has given up everything in this whole search for Vincent and the cure and trying to cure him has kind of consumed her. On Vincent's side, you know, he's on this whole mission, which will become more clear as more episodes air, that he sacrifices a lot to kind of do what he's doing, and he's doing it for one reason, which is to be with Catherine. But there's some huge sacrifices involved, and it makes both of them kind of question...hopefully in the end find that their love becomes stronger."
Finally, Ramamurthy hints that fans will be learning more about Gabe's true intentions later in the season, around episode eight. We smell a huge twist coming, don't you?!