‘Beauty And The Beast’: Austin Basis Talks Show’s Return

After a spring hiatus, “Beauty and The Beast” finally returns to The CW on Monday, bringing a whole lot of trouble for our heroes.

In the last episode of the series, Catherine Chandler (Kristin Kreuk) and Vincent Keller (Jay Ryan) had finally found their way back to each other, only for their romantic bliss to be interrupted by a knock at the door – from the police.

When things pick up on Monday at 9/8c, Vincent is taken downtown, and according to King Beastie, Austin Basis, who plays the most loyal and best friend a beast could ever have — J.T. Forbes — things are about to get crazy for everyone. As J.T., Austin will be dealing with more than trying to help Vincent. He’s also got to figure out what he and Tess mean to each other after waking up together. But before diving into that subject, AccessHollywood.com had to ask Austin about the show getting picked up for a Season 3.

Access: Tell me what the reaction was that day [when the show was renewed for Season 3].
Austin Basis: I think it was less than a week out of leaving Toronto, [where the show films], so we were all debating, I think, when we left, if we were going to take our stuff with us or leave it in storage. I think some people left it in storage. I think Kristin stayed in Toronto… Jay went back to New Zealand, Nina went around the world. … I always interpret that time between the finish of the season and then the news — if you still haven’t heard, it’s like, ‘Let’s distract yourself, so you’re not like sitting around checking [the Internet] every five minutes.’ Since [returning to] LA, I [hadn’t] seen my agents for months, or at least in 2014… so I was just getting ready to leave and have lunch with them, and they’re the ones who called me and said, ‘Congratulations.’ And so, it was kind of almost like a celebratory lunch as opposed to just catching up, assessing the situation.

Access: Our poor Vincent got arrested at the end of the last episode. Where do we pick up from there? Are J.T. and Catherine freaking out?
Austin: Yeah, everyone’s freaking out, probably because we don’t know who turned him in and we are like scrambling. … He’s back as Vincent Keller, alive, war veteran, but no one knows about the beast and so at any moment in jail, he could beast out and there goes the secret. I keep saying the cat is out of the bag, but it’s kind of weird because we do have a Cat on the show (laughs).

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Access: You have that line in the trailer, ‘If anything happens in there, it’s on you.’ And it looks like you’re saying that to Gabe?
Austin: Yeah, he is saying it to Gabe, but if you remember, early in the beginning of the second season, J.T. didn’t forgive Gabe for trying to kill Vincent for a while. It was months before he even felt that he could work with him on a non-emotional level and even then I don’t know that it was a true ‘friendship,’ and [everything] would pale in comparison to J.T.’s friendship with Vincent. So in this situation… [he] accuses Gabe and he doesn’t think that anyone else could have done it. He’s blaming it all on Gabe and he’s gonna hold on to that. He’s kind of almost has like a renewed animosity toward Gabe because of this.

Access: Gabe also just lost his girl to Vincent. It had to happen, because it’s called, ‘Beauty and The Beast,’ not ‘Beauty and Gabe.’
Austin: ‘Beauty and The Guy That Used To Be A Beast’ (laughs).

Access: J.T. and Catherine – is this something where we’ll see them working together again to help? They are both on the same page. Although, there have been times when they weren’t on the page, way back when.
Austin: We keep saying, ‘The Scooby Gang’ or ‘The Fab Five.’ Now it’s ‘The Fab Four’ because Vincent is in jail, so they all kind of come together and try to figure out a way and I think Gabe and Tess are less emotional than J.T. and Catherine. And Catherine, because of her the fact that she’s a detective and has access to some of these things, is able to get to Vincent and get in contact with him easier than J.T. and so J.T. is even more frustrated because he feels so helpless and it’s a panic. It’s total urgency, total panic, so no matter how good their relationship is, it’s in the face of these kind of high stakes circumstances. J.T. kind of reverts back to his old relationship with Cat for a little bit.

Access: That was fun to see on screen way back when.
Austin: Oh yeah, totally, but I’m glad it evolved. But it’s always fun to kind of bring it back every now and then where, you know, J.T. is a little belligerent to Cat. And I think there’s a different level to their relationship now where that’s on the surface because he’s frustrated and [has] no way to kind of focus his feelings and frustrations and so he takes it all out on Cat and blames her, in a way – not as much as Gabe — but blames her for things too. I think there’s a big arc for J.T. in Episode 217, but throughout the rest of the season he and Cat are constantly working together and also he has a new partner in crime, with Tess, in more ways than one.

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Access: I was going to ask, what is the status of their relationship when we return?
Austin: Well that is a question that they also aren’t sure of given the last moment you saw them in Episode 216, they… I don’t know if you saw the teaser… well, spoiler alert! We wake up in bed together and so they have consummated this relationship once again, but now it’s yet to be established what this relationship is. Is it exclusive? Are they together, and are they boyfriend/girlfriend? How serious is it? Are they telling each other they love each other yet?

Access: Will there be a ring…
Austin: Let’s not get crazy. It is TV… This ring things don’t happen overnight, or over one season. Most TV seasons, it’s either incubated or prolonged, so it either happens over the course of a couple episodes or one season, or it happens over 10 seasons like [on] ‘Castle.’

“Beauty and The Beast” returns Monday at 9/8c on The CW.

— Jolie Lash