Probably the most heartbreaking moment of the first season of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was when Catherine Chandler (Kristin Kreuk) had to decide whether to inject the man she loved with the serum used to change him back into a beast. Then just minutes later he was ripped from her life as a helicopter airlifted him away in a net. Unable to live with herself for having to condemn Vincent (Jay Ryan) to a life as a beast and letting someone snatch him away from her, Cat is determined to get him back and to save him from a life as a Muirfield lab-rat and military experiment. So when Season 2 opens, Cat is singled-mindedly searching for Vincent. In a recent press interview from the set, star Kristin Kreuk dished on how fractured Cat is in her life now that she feels she cannot move forward without rescuing Vincent and what hope lies ahead for Cat and Vincent when she ultimately does find him.
We’ve heard there is a bit of time jump. How much of a time jump is there between Season 1 and Season 2?
KRISTIN: We’re three months ahead and we pick up and everything is kind of a mess in Catherine’s world. We don’t know where Vincent is. It’s crazy.
So for three months, she’s been going out of her mind wondering what happened to her boyfriend.
KRISTIN: Exactly. As you know from watching the first season, she’s very obsessed with him. She loves him deeply.
So the search is on, or is she moving on?
KRISTIN: She’s not moving on and that’s part of the problem. To the chagrin of her friends, well, she only has one friend. But there’s all this stuff happening in the meantime. Heather (Nicole Anderson) still hasn’t told her about her dad not being her dad.
That’s a bombshell waiting to go off!
KRISTIN: Oh yeah, that’s going to be huge.
Assuming Catherine finds that out pretty quickly in the next season, will that distract her from the search for Vincent?
KRISTIN: That’s going to be a big thing for her at a certain point and it will have effects. Catherine very much does have a full plate and it’s been at the expense of herself.
How’s her job? Is she able to focus on that or is she distracted?
KRISTIN: Tess (Nina Lisandrello) has really picked up the slack at the job, as you’ll see in the first episode. She hasn’t been as focused on cases, and as we’ll see as the season starts to unfold, she’s got her mind in other places. There’s all of these new problems to deal with.
Are we still seeing the counterbalance with the job and her personal life, or is one overtaking the other?
KRISTIN: It’s going to be very much this year about the mythology and, when Vincent is found, what surrounds him. So all of them are dealing with a very different beast, so to speak, than a case thing. It becomes very centered on the mythology.
When they do find Vincent, is there going to be repercussions for that shot Catherine gave him which may bring out more of his beast side?
KRISTIN: No, but there are other things that will be going on.
What about J.T. (Austin Basis)? Is he assisting in the search?
KRISTIN: Yeah, J.T. has obviously been searching too. He has been very focused on Vincent his whole life. I think we’ll find out more about as the season goes on, but he’s been helping Catherine and they’ve been a team. They’ve become actually a lot closer in the last three months. They are not as adversarial.
So Cat and J.T. are starting their own Dream Team to track down Vincent. You and Austin [Basis] must be having a blast doing that.
KRISTIN: Exactly! We didn’t have a whole heck of a lot of scenes together last scene, but when we did, we always bickered. Now it’s still bickering, but Catherine is on a mission and he’s like, “Okay, whatever. We’ll do what you say.”
One of the things we enjoyed is Tess brought in on the secret and she’s a part of everything. So is she part of the trio to track down Vincent?
KRISTIN: Tess is definitely the one for Catherine — who cares about Catherine more than she cares about Vincent. Catherine is her friend and she’s worried about Catherine’s health and her mental health. So while Tess is very supportive, she’s also the voice of reason — always going, “What are you doing? Pay attention to you and your life.”
So would you say that Cat and Tess’ relationship is in a good solid place? They had some rocky moments last season.
KRISTIN: Yeah, they are in a good place, but they are in a very different place — ’cause Tess has dealt with Joe and the relationship ending. So she’s almost further along than Catherine, in a sense, because she’s actually found a sense of herself apart from him, whereas Catherine is completely absorbed.
So the search for Vincent is consuming all their lives at this point.
KRISTIN: Very much so.
Are they worried that Vincent may be a different person than who they lost?
KRISTIN: I don’t think Catherine thinks about it at this point, because she can’t. I think that would be too much for her to consider. I think she really does believe that if she finds him, he will be as he was and they will be together and everything will be okay.
Going forward, where is Catherine at in her mindset?
KRISTIN: Catherine is in a dark, dark place. She’s kind of consumed with finding Vincent and it’s become her entire life. She hasn’t paid her bills. She hasn’t taken care of anything. Her sister hasn’t had the opportunity to tell her about her dad not being her dad. All of that stuff is up in the air. And everyone’s kind of in different places. Tess had her relationship with Joe end. She’s trying to get Catherine to move on with her life and everyone’s kind of in different spaces.
Will we be learning a little bit more about Cat’s lineage this season?
KRISTIN: Oh, yes. We will. That’s going to be a big part of it. When she finds out, when Heather finally gets around to telling her — and Catherine’s not really easy to talk to, especially at this point. She’s basically shut everyone out of her life. You’ll start to find out, well, the audience already knows — so there’s this fun thing this season where the audience knows who her dad is and the role he’s playing and everything, but Cat won’t know. So the audience will be able to go, “No, don’t do that!” They will see these moments coming.
With all the cliffhangers at the end of last season, how many will we see resolved in the first episode as the show comes back?
KRISTIN: Most of them. There’s going to be a couple of things that just hang out there. It’s all going to be resolved, if not in the immediate first episode, it will be resolved as we go on. I mean, we’ll deal with Muirfield and all that in the first episode.
Are there any new storylines in Season 2?
KRISTIN: There’s a lot in Season 2. The entire kind of spine of the show has shifted. Like we already phased out the crime and stuff, so that will continue this year, and based on what happened to Vincent, there’s a whole different world we enter into, which opens up the scope of the show. Every episode we’re dealing with something that has to do with the mythology of the series.
What can you share about one of Vincent’s old military buddies coming into the picture?
KRISTIN: That’s a couple episodes in and the whole thing is about people coming back from Catherine and Vincent’s pasts, and she’s at her high school reunion and his old buddy shows up and mayhem ensues.
It seems like there’s now the Dream Team comprised of Catherine, J.T., and Tess all working together in the search for Vincent.
KRISTIN: And Gabe too. Gabe’s involved in their lives, which is explained very quickly.
Is it safe to say that the show is going to be a lot more ensemble focused?
KRISTIN: Yes and no. I think those storylines are going to be fleshed out. The beginning, in my opinion, is really about building the new structure of the show. Vincent is the one who is going to change the most. So you’ll see what that world looks like. Then all of the other supporting characters, their storylines will grow. Like we normally do it, it will be person-by-person. So each character will get their time.
What about Heather? How does she become part of this dynamic? She doesn’t yet know what’s really going on, but she’s surely noticed that her sister is behaving in a very obsessive manner.
KRISTIN: Yeah, because Nicole has RAVENSWOOD and she’s off busy doing her thing, we don’t get to have her as much this year. Heather will play a lot into the beginning, just for her and Catherine and they’ll have an emotional thing and the Nicole will go and do RAVENSWOOD. The thing with Catherine, and she’s always been this way, is she’s focused. So it’s very easy to blame it on work. Heather also knows that Catherine’s patterns of taking an emotional experience and just squashing it. You’ll find out more. There’s more stuff that’s happened in the three months that Catherine hasn’t dealt with at all.
How quickly does Heather reveal to her sister that they have different fathers?
KRISTIN: It will be quick. She wants to in the first episode, but there’s literally no time ’cause it’s very action-packed. There’s a lot going on. So Heather will get her chance very early on.
So it doesn’t cause a rift between them?
KRISTIN: It may for a little bit, but not for long. For Catherine, family is so important.
How long before we see scenes with Catherine and Vincent?
KRISTIN: I think this season is really about them apart in some ways. In the first bit, they kind of fall in love again and you get to experience that. But as you’ll see, there’s so many obstacles and Catherine’s real father is very actively trying to keep the two of them apart. So they still love each other, even with all the obstacles that are in the way. But there’s going to be these struggles.
How does it feel to do scenes with Jay, who you’ve probably gotten pretty comfortable with as Cat and Vincent got close by the end of last season, and then now there’s this estrangement between the characters?
KRISTIN: It’s fine. There’s an estrangement, but there’s also a connection. Like they will always have that romantic pull towards one another no matter what’s going on. So that underlies every single interaction that they have. But, yeah, it’s fun. It gives us something to play.
Do you and Jay block out, like thinking, “maybe we shouldn’t be so close in this scene?”
KRISTIN: No, normally we feel it out and it depends on the scene and it depends on what we are playing because every episode they are in a different place. So there’s a lot of funny dynamics between them.
What’s the theme of this next season?
KRISTIN: The theme of the season is “Who Am I?” So it is unlikely for dramatic purposes for things to be oh so nice and their back together and everything’s good. It’s going to be difficult.
But there will be glimpses of bits of romance in there?
KRISTIN: Absolutely. The romance is there and in some ways it’s more romantic ’cause it’s more tragic.
Love is never more powerful than it is fought for and won, and the journey for Vincent and Catherine this next season will be the search to recover the love they lost. To see how that beautifully plays out, be sure to tune in for the premiere of Season 2 of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST on Monday, October 7th at 9:00 p.m. on the CW. Love always finds a way. 
Photo Credit: Jennifer Schadel. Video Credit: Tiffany Vogt.
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