So I have finished watching the second episode of Being Human (the US version) for what is now the third time. I would say that for me it is a little early still to give a proper assessment of how I feel about the show. This episode is the second part of the pilot, so really the first full cohesive story of the show. It went into more depth about how each of the three wound up the monsters that they are, and how the three are dealing, or not dealing with it.
This episode was directed and written by the same people as the first part, which is nice for continuity’s sake. I wrote about Jeremy Carver in my last review, so it seems fitting that I write a little about the other listed writer, Anna Frick. Her biggest credits appear to be as producer on Everwood and Men in Trees. She also wrote many episodes for those two shows. The director, Adam Kane did a lot of work in the past as Director of Photography on various movies. Thank you IMDB for the intell!
The last episode ended with Josh in the horrible position of turning into a werewolf while locked in a room with his sister...and Aidan was getting a blood high in Bishop’s fancy nest! But…we don’t start there in this episode. We start with Sally, in a pool of her own blood on the landing between the first and second floor of the house. We then go back to the after funeral reception for Sally where Dan is mourning her death. Sally, in voiceover, is acknowledging that some people just move on after death, but for others there is a bigger question. Along with seeing Sally’s reception, we get a glimpse of Aidan in Revolutionary War wear, freshly turned by Bishop. We also see Josh waking up around mangled bodies, himself torn up. So now we know how each woke up to their new lives—their lives as monsters.
And then we are back to the current time, seeing Josh stuck in the room with Emily and Aidan getting there just in time to save her…but this is quickly becoming a summarization, so now that I have given the set up for the episode, some observations…
The episode really seems to be about accepting, or refusing to accept, this new life. The whole idea that Sally still exists in some capacity shows her refusal to accept her death. She seems to want to talk to Danny another time, but she doesn’t really say what about. What is unfinished in her life in which she needs to let go? She talks of needing to see him, that she has been dead six months, and that if he rejects her again, then it won’t change her status. But what exactly does she expect to gain from this hopeful meeting with Danny? He has admitted she was the best thing that ever happened to him. Is she afraid he needs to see her one last time to move on? Does she want him to stay in love with her and in mourning? She doesn’t really seem that selfish. Especially with what Danny said about her. She seemed from what was said in the kitchen to be afraid that maybe Danny was staying around, attempting to fix things, because he couldn’t let her go. She asked if maybe he was looking for her. I guess I need to see a little more about what she is about before I can make a determination if her motivation is selfish. I liked the moment where she was trying to blow a page of the magazine. A cute little thing that shows her inability to direct energy…my guess is an inability to direct energy YET. She seemed to have been the cause for the lights popping, as well as the sink going totally crazy. So high emotion times she seems to have some ability to “Swayze” things. Sorry, I tried not to, but I had to make one Supernatural reference!
Josh seems to have come to the conclusion that he is a monster, and that his old life is gone. We find out that he was engaged, and planning on going to medical school. By the way—Josh is an orderly, so a nursing assistant at the hospital. Not a nurse. Glad we straightened that out. Now back to my point…When Josh found out what he was, he just up and left everything. He didn’t tell anyone about his new lycanthropic nature, he just took off. Didn’t tell his fiancée Julia where he was going, or his parents or his sister. He didn’t go to medical school. He just dropped everything. So apparently, according to Emily, everyone thinks he had some kind of a breakdown and decided he didn’t want to go to medical school and get married. He didn’t even try to explain things to Julia or his family, he assumed no one would understand. So of course he is clearly baffled as to why Sally is so hell bent on talking to Danny and letting him know what happened to her. Josh indicates to Sally that she is a monster now. So that is what he sees himself as. At the end of the episode, he tells Emily that he isn’t the same person, she can’t help him, and he wants her to go away. This trip down memory lane has told him that he was right in leaving that life behind. He is something else now and he needs to accept that. Interesting that Sally’s struggle is entirely the opposite, her inability to accept death has left her in this limbo of sorts, but they are both in the same place…
And I haven’t mentioned Aidan, other than to say he fought in the Revolutionary War! I do have to admit that after seeing this episode, of the three of them I like Aidan best. He really has this tortured bad boy trying to be good thing down. I like the lighting change to show how he sees fresh blood. In this episode we see a lot of Aidan’s struggle with being a monster. It reminds me of the episode of Angel where he mentions that he had a demon inside that had been itching for a fight for a long time. In the end of the episode Josh comments that they take for granted Aidan is the way he is, that they don’t understand the struggle that he has every day against his “nature”. I loved in the Angel episode when Angel alluded to the internal demon. Because Angel’s struggle was so internal, it was easy to forget that it was a constant fight for him. I felt that sometimes Angel’s struggle wasn’t shown enough. Here, I like that Aidan’s struggle is identified and respected by those closest to him. And how about when he stood up to Bishop! So proud of him!(SIDE NOTE: Did Mark Pellegrino get a better haircut between the filming of the pilot and the second episode? He looked better this week!)Aidan’s struggle was seen very much in this episode through the reintroduction of Rebecca. She wasn’t dead like we thought in the first episode. When Aidan called for a “clean up” Bishop turned her into a vampire. Rebecca admits that half the time her skin crawls with what she is, but the other half of the time she realizes how powerful she is now…and we all know what they say about power…Aidan sees his vampirism as a curse and will not “save” Cara by turning her. I do have to admit that I question this newfound way of vampirism…In the past, vampirism really seemed to represent that whole idea of what were you willing to do to be young and beautiful forever. Were you willing to kill? Were you willing to give up your soul? Say goodbye to daylight forever? But we have these “Twilight” style vampires now, that don’t feed on living humans, and they can go out during the day, and it makes me wonder…so I don’t have to give up my soul, I just have to learn to feed off cattle, or off blood bank blood, but I will still be young and beautiful forever, where is the bad? Hell, sign me up! So I like this idea of showing his struggle, his inability to “stay on the wagon”. It furthers that “monster” image that was talked about all episode long. He is more animal than human now. He cannot control his urges.
We also learn a little more about the vampire “networks”. It would seem that vampirism is a bigger problem than we thought, although this is not really a surprising revelation…
My personal thoughts on the show thus far--it is well written, and I like the parallels brought out for each of the three characters. I hear that these three were casted because of their chemistry, and that shows with how they play off each other. I am hoping that future episodes, now that the groundwork is down, will have a bit more humor to contrast the dark drama this is definitely cooking itself up to be. I still haven’t seen the UK version. I really wanted to be able to view this without any preconceived notions! Let me know what you think about the direction of the show, and what you saw yourselves!
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