This week gave us an answer to the question of Beth's job search, as well as a look into Mick's pre-Coraline past and gave the couple a few questions to chew on about the meaning of family. All while they thwarted a serial killer/kidnapper.

The show opens with a truly scary sequence in which a little boy in an old, creaky Victorian house is hiding under his covers, apparently scared of the dark in the most well-lit bedroom I've ever seen. He gets up, shuts his door and then runs back to bed, only to be snatched from above by what has to be another vampire. Because as we've already established, LA has a vampire on every street corner.

Someone call Sam and Dean Winchester. Because that opening? Scary.

Okay, now that I'm truly terrified, the sequence cuts to a reassuringly bright, sunny day. ADA Talbot is meeting Beth for lunch again. Why? Who knows? She's no longer working for Buzzwire, so presumably their professional relationship is over. Not so, it seems. Talbot says that he needs her help. She's done stories on similar kidnappings in the past. So Talbot wants to bring her on board as a profiler. Also presumably so that ADA Sneaky pants can continue to gather information on Mick. It's better than baking, so Beth agrees.

Over at casa de St. John, our favorite vampires are returning from a night out with Mick sniping at Josef that he thought they were going out for cigars and sangria, while Josef wanted to go couch hunting. Sounds like manly bonding and family bonding are two different things. Josef complains about having to fire his designers, Mick pokes at him about hiding their bodies in the tar pits too.

Pardon me while I have a moment of fangirl delight over the continuity.

Mick complains that after a few weeks of being human, his body can't make up its mind if it wants juice or blood. But the banter is cut off when he sees a news report over the missing boy named Jacob. Josef assumes that Mick is watching the report because Beth is in the background. Which provides him material for a last jab about Mick, Beth and Pavlovian responses before leaving.

At the house, Beth spots Mick and asks why he's there. He tells her he grew up in the neighborhood. Cue the flashback.

In sepia tone, we see a young Mick in uniform with the house's former occupants, Ray and Lila, as Mick and Ray prepare to leave for war. Mick tells Lila that he'll look after Ray. Then, in a flashback-within-a-flashback, we see that Mick and Lila slept together at one point. Mick tells us through voice over that he loved them both, but that he betrayed them.

Mick tells Beth that the folks who lived in the house were family. As his story spills out, we get another sepia toned flashback, in which Mick and Ray were caught in a firefight near Florence. Ray gets hit by shrapnel. While he's dying he makes Mick promise to tell Lila that he loves her. Then Mick also gets hit by shrapnel.

Mick tells Beth that he woke up two weeks later in an army hospital, the only survivor from his patrol. Eight months after that, he was discharged from the army. Immediately, he went to see Lila. One thing led to another . . . and now it might be possible that the kidnapped child is Mick's grandson.

Beth wants to know why Mick left. He tells her that Ray survived. He had amnesia and lost his dog tags . . . and this is starting to sound like the plot to Pearl Harbor. Only I don't think we'll get to see Alec Baldwin in this one.

Beth brings Mick back to the crime scene where his maybe-son Robert thinks he looks familiar. Go figure. Mick thinks it's strange to have a son who looks older than him. Mick looks around the child's bedroom, then does his smell-o-vision thing to find out that there were no vampires involved. The kidnapper was human. Way to fake me out, show! The kidnapper isn't a vampire, he's just Spiderman! (Oddly enough, there are spiders all over the kid's wall. No wonder he was afraid of the dark. I couldn't sleep in a room with dead framed spiders either.)

Mick finds powdered metal on the Venetian blinds which prompts them to go up to the attic for a look around. Once up there, they find a trapdoor through which the kidnapper grabbed the kid. Then they track his route through the coal chute to the outside.

Meanwhile, up the street, someone is watching the house from a truck.

After they call the cops, ADA Talbot wants to know how Mick knew about the coal chute. And again, I'm wondering what the District Attorney's office is doing directing the case. Shouldn't that be the job of the primary detective? Or the FBI, since it's a serial killer taking children? At least, that's the way they do it on Without a Trace.

Mick deflects his question by telling him that he grew up in an older home. The ADA pumps him for more information on his background with all the finesse of a water buffalo in ballet shoes. Beth shows up to defend her territory . . . er, boyfriend and share that the other two kidnappings that she worked were also in old Victorian houses with coal chutes and that the police should check to see if they were all related.

Mick comforts Robert, and snags a hair sample to determine if they're related. Beth then tells Mick that the DA's office will be able to narrow down the renovators as suspects because “Ben” has a good team. Mick picks up on the casual use of the first name. Cue the green eyed monster.

Beth and the ADA meet over lunch to go over the case. Talbot suggests that she become a 'civilian investigator,' and work for him. Since last week we saw that he's got a file on Mick, something tells me that this is a worse idea than working at Buzzwire.

Back at Mick's apartment, the vampire is starting to go through his old army trunk for DNA samples. Josef shows up and when he finds out about the possible bouncing baby St. John, admits that he might be a tad jealous. He admits that that not fathering a human child was one of his big regrets. I think at the moment I might love Mick's vampire yenta step-sire just a little bit more.

Beth walks in just as Josef is teasing Mick about the possibility of any Mick/Beth kids, creating yet another moment of awkwardness, which leads to yet another lesson in vampire/human relations: vampires can't have kids. Which I'm guessing Beth already knew, since Coraline basically kidnapped her to start a bloodsucking Brady Bunch.

Beth thinks that the kidnapper saw the blueprints to all three houses so she goes to the hall of records to cross-check. Mick goes to see Robert one more time to check if he remembers anyone suspicious. Robert all-but-confirms that he's Mick's biological son, by telling the vampire that he was 'a miracle baby' and 'the largest preemie the doctor had ever seen.'

They narrow the list down to one name: Ken, the roofer. Coincidentally, Ken calls Mick to taunt him. He was the guy watching them discover the coal chute earlier. Ken tells Mick that he's going after Beth. Cause why? Who knows? Homicidal serial kidnappers with crazy eyes don't need an excuse.

At the hall of records, Beth too busy looking at blueprints to take Mick's warning call. Until the lights go out. Beth acts like every blonde in a horror movie, by waving around a flashlight, yelling 'hello' at the top of her lungs until Mick shows up to save her. Which he does in record time. I thought vampires couldn't fly?

Mick leaves Beth in a well-lit, barricaded room to chase the kidnapper.

Beth calls Ben, for roofer Ken's address. Then she pulls his blueprints to check out his house. Mick shows up to startle her and she threatens to mace him. Mick notes that roofer Ken's address is right under the interstate, with a basement that's perfect for keeping a child and hiding any noise. That's a selling point! Mick decides to go in guns-a-blazin', while Beth is worried that he might spook Ken into doing something desperate. She's become a stickler for that kind of thing since meeting Ben.

Mick parks his not-conspicuous-at-all classic Mercedes in front of the run down house in the bad neighborhood. Then goes charging up to the house. While he hides in the shadow of a broken down car, Ken comes out of the house and opens up a trap door to a basemen in an old lot next door.

Mick tries to get Ken to give up, but Ken shuts off the lights. In the dark, the Vampire's eyes glow in a really, really neat effect.

Upstairs, the cops storm the old house, only to find it empty. Meanwhile, in the basement, Mick tries to taunt Ken into revealing where Jacob is. Instead, Ken tells Mick that Jacob will die alone and scared in the dark before shooting himself in the head.

Aboveground, the cops go rushing into the empty lot looking for Mick, Ken and Jacob. Ben tells Beth that they aren't there. Because ADA Talbot is an idiot that way. Beth replies that no, they heard gunshots. So the others are definitely there somewhere.

Down in the basement-o-doom, Mick is yelling for Jacob. He passes a brick wall, when he hears a heartbeat. He rips through the brick wall, and finds the little boy. Something tells me that in twenty years, he won't be dating this kid.

Much later, outside Jacob's house where there are party balloons, Beth gives Mick the results of a DNA test. Robert isn't his son. Mick is thrilled that his buddy Ray was able to father children. Beth apologizes. Mick tells her that this is the way it's supposed to be. But that he didn't realize how much he wanted a family until he almost had one. Beth tells Mick that family isn't only about DNA. Which goes to prove that Beth has watched Buffy more than once.

Joseph points out to Robert that Mick is in his dad's war photo. Robert rushes out just as Beth and Mick are pulling away.

The bad: I primarily watch these episodes on the Internet. Maybe it was Mother's day, but CBS didn't have the episode up on the website until late Sunday. I hope that next week is faster.

The good: Mick and Beth bantered in this episode like another detective couple that I've always loved, Dashiell Hammett's Nick and Norah Charles. I genuinely loved every exchange between the two of them.

Mick: “Should I be jealous?”

Beth: “Yes. Because it makes me feel desirable.”

Mick: “Look. If having kids is a deal breaker.”

Beth: “Don't you think you're getting ahead of yourself? You may not even be that good.”

The conclusion: This episode is mostly filler. But then again, so is marshmallow crème. I can't resist that stuff, either.