Beauty and the Beast Boss: Cat and Vincent Are Meant to Be Together -- Just Not Right Now

[WARNING: The following story contains spoilers from Monday's episode of Beauty and the Beast. Read at your own risk.] 

How do you recover from shooting the love of your life? Beauty and the Beast's Catherine Chandler will soon have to find out.

On Monday's midseason finale, Cat (KristinKreuk) had to make a tough choice: watch a beastly Vincent (Jay Ryan) kill her father (Ted Whittal) or shoot Vincent to save him. Cat ultimately chose the latter. 
In the closing moments of the episode, Cat — who still ultimately put her dad in jail —was being consoled by Gabe (Sendhil Ramamurthy) while a shirtless Vincent was seen cleaning his wound as Tori (Amber Skye Noyes) walked in on him. So, where does this leave the couple? Is there hope for reconciliation, or will Cat and Vincent both seek love in other places? Executive producer Brad Kern shared what's to come with a select group of reporters below.

How will Cat shooting Vincent affect their relationship?
Brad Kern: Hugely. What we've played in the first eight episodes was that Catherine is someone who was all in to saving Vincent, but it was coming at a pretty big expense to her. The question she's had to ask over the eight episodes was, "How much do you keep trying, even though you love this guy more than anything, before you're sacrificing too much of yourself?" Shooting him was really his choice as far as we're concerned [because] she begged him not to do it. How it will affect them is fundamental because in the "Who am I?" of it all, he's chosen to go beast. It's hard to shoot your lover and get away with it, but again he made the choice.

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Why break them up so soon after they got together?
Kern: You can't put two people together and keep them together because there are no legs to a series if you do that. So, the challenge was, "How do we build a show that might last five years?" To really reward the epic romance. [you have to] challenge that relationship ... and you have to overcome obstacles to test the relationship to see if it really is worthy of being together. [They have] an epic love and they're meant to be together, but [we're] asking our audience to go along with us for the ride to explore what happens when a relationship comes together too fast. Separating them for all these very emotional, practical and moral reasons will help them learn more about who they are separately, and the plan is to make them stronger as individuals and to ultimately find their way back to each other stronger than ever.

What's coming up for them if they're apart?
Kern: We've had a lot of fun playing them on opposite sides of a case where they're running into each other. It becomes a little Mr. and Mrs. Smith. There won't be many scenes when they're not together. Vincent, now separated from Cat, has to make a choice if he wants to remain hiding in the shadows or remain in the public. That will affect Cat from afar. They'll also discover there's more than just love that binds them. They're destined to be together for more than just romantic reasons —there's a mythological reason we'll discover too.

Do you think Reynolds thought he was doing the right thing by going after the beasts?
Kern: I do. He's a guy who screwed up. He saw a great way to leave his legacy at 22 years old, and he helped create this monster called Muirfield. As the time went by, he certainly realized he made a huge mistake and that his daughter was caught up in this. So, I think the whole season has been about ... [him] going to make his own amends. He has to put the genie back in the bottle, and that is what his mission has been. He looks at beasts as demons that he helped create, and he has to get rid of them, which is why Vincent was supposed to be the last one on the list. He may not have success in that way, but he did succeed in getting his daughter away from Vincent, which is what he wanted all along.

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Can Cat ever forgive her dad?
Kern: I don't have an answer. When I came onto the show, I saw this tragic back story for Cat. She had just lost her mom, her sister has to leave, she's in love with this beast and now her father is in prison. It's a lot to ask her to forgive. I think over time she will understand what he was saying, which has merit. No father would want [his daughter] to be with a crazy maniac, which is the way he looks at beasts. It doesn't matter that she loves him. He has a line at the end where he says, "You'll thank me someday," and that's what fathers say.  Someday, Cat will find a way to understand that this is daddy caring about protecting her.

Will Catherine become even closer to Gabe now?
Kern: It's fair to say their relationship will grow. How far it'll grow and how fast, I'm not saying. He's really reformed as a character. He had a second chance and he took a noble path. After he was saved by Cat, he wanted to make amends and he's proven himself this season to be a good guy even at his own expense. He's a handsome ADA, he has money, he's willing to sacrifice himself — he's a catch. That's hard for Cat not to notice. Does that mean their relationship will build into something? Remains to be seen.  It certainly is something Cat organically will and should explore.

And what about Tori and Vincent?
Kern: She's going to play into [his separation from Cat]. Whatever their relationship turns out to be, they do appear to be the last two active beasts in the world. So, it's binding and they must work together. Her pheromonal powers also amplify his powers. It'll create problems for him because it's hard to find yourself when you're being affected by someone else's aura and power. From her point of view, she's all alone in this world. She looks up to this hot guy and likes him and wants nothing more than to have a relationship with him. But Cat is still in the back of his mind, which puts he and Tori in conflict with each other.

What did you think of the Beauty and the Beast midseason finale?

Additional Reporting by Kate Stanhope

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