If you think about Beauty and the Beast Season 2 Episode 8, it took Cat and Vincent to a place that, logically, they were heading for a long time. 

While viewers didn't want this development and would have preferred that love prevail, the writing has been on the wall since the beginning of Beauty and the Beast Season 2 that Cat and Vincent are unable to see themselves through the same perspective they did at the end of Beauty and the Beast Season 1. 

Once Vincent was a marked man who was destined to kill his own kind, everything changed.

Somehow, after learning right in front of the man that Bob was Vincent's handler, Cat and Gabe were able to keep their reactions silent. We also learned that the improved prowess Vincent received as a result of the proximity to Tori allowed him to save both of their lives and they escaped the blast.

Bob, however, didn't know that and Gabe thought it was the perfect opportunity to use every legal angle (except blackmail, which - the last time I checked - was still illegal) to bring him to justice and toss him into prison. The medical examiner's office has a backlog of bodies and Zach was still among the frozen. 

Blahdiddy blah... a plan was put into action. But it wasn't a plan that Tori was on board with. She's a brand new beast and in her first week out of the gate she was nearly killed for being something over which she had no choice. Unlike Vincent, it seems she was born into it. She didn't even agree to trials that went haywire. She was being judged based upon something completely out of her control. 

The more Cat talked about Vincent losing his humanity if he killed a human the more obvious it became that she was going to lose him. Essentially, she was telling him that his life was not as important as hers because he was no longer human. There was no other way to look at it, and Tori wasn't hearing it through the love-tainted ears of Vincent. Or of this reviewer. 

Killing anything should be frowned upon, and yet Cat somehow found it just fine to overlook all of the killing Vincent did for her father as possibly encroaching upon his humanity. Does killing a human/beast mix, when you are one yourself, only damage your beast psyche? That is the worst logic Cat could have used. 

Watch Beauty and the Beast Season 2 Episode 8 Online

Gabe must have understood how Vincent was feeling hearing her say that, as he was once a beast himself. Being a beast and killing a beast damages your humanity just as much as killing a human does. By making a distinction, Cat decided that beasts had less of a right to live than their non-beast counterparts. It was a rather disappointing conclusion on her part. 

Of course Gabe would be torn on jumping in and offering up another viewpoint. He's in love with Cat. If he stands up for Vincent in any way, he might have pushed her away and it wouldn't have been his arms into which she was crying after arresting her dad at the end.

Bob wanted to kill Vincent and Tori and all the beasts (except apparently those who could help him, such as the bomb maker) to atone for helping create them in the first place. He also claimed to want to give Cat a normal life. Vincent wanted to kill Bob. Tori wanted to kill Bob. Cat wanted to arrest her dad. Cat shot Vincent so she could arrest her dad. That's going to put a dent into her future with Vincent. 

Cat has now proven that she cannot love Vincent for who he is. She wants him to change. He's not good enough for her as he is now. Tori is dangling out there, just like Vincent. As much as I didn't want the show to change so drastically, Cat has made so many poor choices after Vincent's capture and reprogramming that there was really no choice. 

She tried to force memories on him, was angry when he didn't remember and seemed to blame him for the change, when it was her own birth father who did it to him. Her very own mother and father who created the beast inside him in the first place. A beast that is the very reason she knows him at all. If he wasn't a beast, she would have never met Vincent Keller. 

Cat cannot have everything Cat wants all of the time. There has to come a time when she is willing to bend a little instead of everyone always bending for her. I haven't seen a lot of that, and until I do, I don't want her to be with Vincent. There. I said it.

There was some good to the hour. Guess what it was! Tess and J.T. searching for Zach in the morgue. So J.T. couldn't help himself and even though they had decided never to talk about it again, he had sent her 11 texts to which she had yet to respond. But all hope is not lost! She said just because it happened once, it didn't have to happen again, but she was smiling and being flirty. They are still so darn cute together and match snarky comments very well. More please!

We're heading into a hiatus, and it's always possible The CW could choose to move Beauty and the Beast to another night given the poor ratings before its return in January.

What are your thoughts as we come out of the first half of the season, especially on Cat's emphasis on the importance of human life over that of beasts?

Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic. She's a member of the Critic's Choice Association, enjoys mentoring writers, conversing with cats, and passionately discussing the nuances of television and film with anyone who will listen. Follow her on X and email her here at TV Fanatic.