Catherine Chandler’s life has been turned upside down. At the end of the first season, not only did she lose her father in a brutal hit and run, but the love of her life, Vincent, had been captured.
When the show returns this fall, it will have advanced three months after the events of the season finale and at this point, Kreuk says Catherine is going through a hard time. “She’s messed up,” she says about her character. “She’s shut down, she’s driven, she’s probably not eating, hardly ever sleeping, drinking a lot of coffee. She’s still trying to find [Vincent]. It’s everything in her life. [Her sister] Heather hasn’t even had the chance to tell her that the man that Catherine thinks is her father isn’t her father. She’s kind of a wreck without letting herself be a wreck.”
Eventually Catherine does get reunited with her beast of a boyfriend, but there will be some bumps in the road ahead. “There’s a little bit of turmoil,” Kreuk explains about Cat’s relationship with Vincent. “Katherine has been kind of obsessed with him and has sacrificed a lot in her life. They’re going to be falling in love and also pulled apart by so many forces [this season] including Catherine’s real father.”
Kreuk expressed her enthusiasm about the show’s new season and some of the changes. “Our show is going to be very, very different this year,” she explained. “We have a new showrunner on board who’s amazing. The really cool thing is this [season] has a full arc; like beginning, middle and full season character arcs already kind of mapped, which is so wonderful to me. I’m so excited about it and I love where it’s going. It’s really about self definition.”
Of all the characters to die last season, one will be returning. “Gabe’s alive after being shot 16 times in the chest. [laughs] You will have to watch it to find out how and why,” she teased, “but they’re going to be at odds, obviously. He is in the process of proving himself. Nobody trusts him, so it’s kind of a relationship of him trying to prove that he’s trustworthy and Catherine being like ‘Go away.'”
Beauty and the Beast returns this fall on The CW.