At the end of the two-hour Season 1 finale of The Catch, I watched Shonda Rhimes‘ tough heroine Alice turn into a Disney princess, being rescued by the man who conned her into believing their yearlong love affair was real and then stole everything from her. This is not the woman-scorned-and-gets-revenge show I signed on for.
Shame on you, Shonda.
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Here’s a quick review of the season: When we first met Alice, the co-owner of a detective agency, she was karate kicking the crap out of some thief at a cocktail party. We got a glimpse of her softer side when she met her soon-to-be lover Ben; of course, we already knew he was a con man. As the story quickly went on, Ben asked Alice to run away with him (before she knew he was a criminal), but she understandably said no. Why would she leave her friends, her successful business and amazing life, which, by the way, she built herself?
Since she wasn’t into the runaway life, Ben went back to his con-artist life and former lover Margot (I like to call her the psychopath).
Alice found out who and what Ben was and the emotions started to surface: pain, because she had fallen in love with him; shame, because she got her colleagues into financial trouble; embarrassment, because she was a detective and her job was to spot the bad guys; and last, but not least, vengeance, because she had a badass, mess-with-me-I-mess-you-up-worse credo.
Yes, Alice was going to be the role model for every woman who’s ever been screwed over. She was going to chase Ben down all over Los Angeles — and the world — and put him away. At least, I thought that was going to be the story in the finale and all future seasons to come.
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But, alas, that didn’t pan out. Throughout the first season, The Catch transitioned from a complex cat-and-mouse game to a simple story about love. After all the back-and-forth, Ben proposed to Alice and (gasp!) she said yes.
I have to admit, I’m a bit disappointed that someone in law enforcement like Alice wouldn’t understand that there is a high rate of recidivism for career criminals, especially one as successful as Ben. I mean, even Anne Hathaway knew that. Remember when she got caught up with a suave Italian guy who turned out to be a con man? You don’t see her married to him, do you?
Here’s my problem with the ending: Ben doesn’t know what love is. And on top of that, Margot’s still on the run. Who needs or wants to deal with all this shit?
With the show’s renewal, and Alice and Ben now on the same side of the law, I can only imagine that Season 2 is going to look like a remake of that early ’80s dramedy Hart to Hart with Robert Wagner and Jill St. John as husband and wife sleuths.
Will Alice and Ben solve crimes as they talk over the case through Plexiglas? Or will she bust him out of the big house à la an episode of Prison Break? Will she help her lawyer get Ben out of jail on a technicality so they can go to Turks and Caicos and start over, only to find themselves on the run from Margot with nothing but Ben’s con-man skills to help them survive?
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On the other hand, it did take quite a few seasons for Rhimes’ other heroine Olivia Pope to get out of her will-we, won’t-we relationship with Fitz on Scandal. Perhaps next season, common sense will prevail for Alice as well.
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