Sappy Sleeping Beauty ? Episode 1.10

Someone posted this on another board, likening MickBeth's romance to Josef and Sarah. Well, look beyond the surface and you see so much more.

Sleeping Beauty" also had a lot of stuff going unsaid between Mick and Beth... but it was simple and predictable: they were thinking that their situation parallels Josef and Sarah and... that's it. No mystery. So the writing didn't feel as strong (at least, to me).


I saw that differently. Major subtext for me here. Beth's current inner life was exposed thru the Sarah and Josef love story (her naivete particularly [and starkly] thru the lipstick smooch on the diary).

Mick, on the other hand, was a bit of an enigma. He didn't give her any swoony, meaningful looks. He never, ever responded to Beth's glances at him while Josef was explaining what went down with Sarah. Mick's unfolding was in the realisation that even a hardened vamp like Josef was capable of some kind of love. Mick is naive, too, but in a different way; and he had lost hope. Josef's story was a release for him, rather than something that paralleled his life- that was not the emphasis. Mick has hope, but hope for what? We don't know. Hope for connection, at the very least. But most importantly Josef's story somehow rekindles possibility for Mick's own life. And he finally decides to go for it. In spite of all the fears and horrors and reasons why it could never work roiling thru his mind and heart.

Moreover, he never responded to Beth in a swoony way because as Josef is telling the story, Mick never, for a single instance, gives thought to turning Beth. There is never a reaction to indicate that this is what he is thinking. And in fact, the facts warn both of them that there can be unpredictable consequences, dire consequences . It is Beth who has been thinking about being turned; in Mick's mind that reality is simply not possible. Mick is adamant about that, always has been, it's part of who he is- it's non-negotiable (even tho he may entertain the thought). It's confirmed later on when he refuses to turn Josh, in the face of the most heart-rending pleas from the woman he cares about most in the world..

And it's my impression that when he is so joyous, it is his release we see, and the flood of light and aliveness that comes with it. His inner life is right there, in his responses to Josef, in his later response to Beth. The desire to hang out with Beth had way more to do with feeling free to feel what he does than any parallel love story. Beth, on the other hand, had to step back and reassess. The SarahJosef love story had consequences (ones which Mick already understood, far too well).

This story mirrors Beth's inner life, her desire, her fantasy, but not Mick's, and it doesn't remotely begin to mirror the MickBeth story except on the surface.