I had hoped to write this earlier, but unfortunately with Snowpocalypse, I couldn’t get to a wifi area that would download the episode in a reasonable amount of time for the rewatch. Instead, I had to deal with my subpar broadband tethering Blackberry as modem through Verizon Wireless…I know, get on with it!
Monday the third episode of the U.S. version of Being Human aired. This is actually the second “story”, as the pilot was a two parter. It was written by the same two people as the first two episodes, Jeremy Carver and Anna Fricke. The director was Jerry Ciccoritti, a Canadian director with beaucoup credits to his name although I can say I have never seen any of the shows listed.
The episode starts with voiceover from Aidan this time. With the visual, we see how each of the three is haunted by his or her past. Aidan’s two hundred plus years as a vampire has left him with a lot of skeletons in the closet, one of which comes back in full force in this episode. Because he has decided to try to find some sense of normalcy, or humanity if you will, he decides to have neighbors over to organize a “neighborhood watch”. This “party” has consequences for them all: Aidan is “made” by someone who saw his father get killed when he was ten, Josh gets dragged in to assisting in the neighborhood watch, and Sally seems to realize what she is most afraid of may be that Danny may move on and forget about her. Aidan and Josh attempt to find someone to keep Sally busy and maybe help her move onto the next plane of existence.
And on to the analysis…
Now admittedly, I could probably find some deep philosophical importance in a Velveeta commercial, but I do really like the depth in this show. In the three episodes, Carver and Fricke have done a very good job with balancing out characters and making this a true ensemble show. I hope this continues, although provided, the only compelling story for me so far seems to be Aidan’s. I like how much depth they are giving the vampire storyline. In this episode, all three of the characters are working with fitting in. As Aidan alludes to, the only real way to be in the world is to actually be in the world. They cannot hide out in a house and expect to feel normal. Unfortunately, the longer they are in the world, talking to people, living life around people, the more they realize how different they are. As Josh says, “We’re not quite real are we?” The more they try to be human, the more aware of the differences they becomes. Also, they put other people’s lives in danger by being there. They are all dealing with this on one level or another. Of course the most extreme version is what happens to Aidan…
How traumatic was it for Aidan that he goes out of his way to try to save this guy from being cursed like he is, only to have the guy kill himself? It appears to have been because of the hypnotizing job that Aidan did, although since I have trust issues, I still question of Bishop didn’t do something to make that happen…and speaking of Bishop, how traumatic was his hair? Yes, I must comment on my dislike for the Mark Pellegrino hair…But back to Aidan, I liked finding out more about the vampire myth in the Being Human-verse. Good with the daylight, but a bit photosensitive. We know from Bishop asking Officer Garrity if he could come in that the whole vampires need to be invited into dwellings is still in effect. We also know from Bishop that although vampires can live off of “blood bank” blood, it is not as powerful as taking from a live source. Bishop remarks on how Aidan is weak from not drinking blood from live victims, and so he may not be able to pluck just a memory out of Garrity’s head. We also know that even when he was drinking blood from live victims he wasn’t very good with hypnotism. Interesting. So if Aidan was one of the best, which has been alluded to, and clearly Bishop remains interested in what Aidan is doing, what IS Aidan’s vamp specialty? Interesting to note too that Aidan comments that it is “impossible to live life forever perfectly”, but really, what human lives life perfectly? He talks about the weight of memories, no real end point, but how many humans really think about when they are going to die? We don’t know how much time we have. Sadly, many of us live life like we will live forever, so I guess I don’t quite see what Aidan is getting at here. He does take an impaling and keep ticking, so it would be interesting to see if we find out how vampires can die. He told Rebecca in “There Goes The Neighborhood Part 2” that it wasn’t exactly true that they couldn’t die, so what can kill vampires in the Being Human-verse? Can they die by stake to the heart like in Buffy? Or does it have to be by beheading like in Supernatural?
Josh gets stuck with Aidan’s neighborhood watch gig and interesting things happen…First off, his wolfiness gives him the ability to smell the paint and find the tagger! But then the wolfiness makes it nearly impossible for him to back off from killing the guy. Overreact much? Josh thinks so, and has a very difficult time dealing with that. But he has Jesse and militant neighbor woman over to watch tv, so isn’t it strange that he is the one that had made the determination to completely let go of his previous life. He also told Aidan in this episode that he wasn’t going to be changing in the hospital any more, he was just going to go back to the woods. So Josh is happier in the woods where he could potentially hurt someone than on lockdown? Josh seems to have embraced his lycanthropy, but only in the way that Tony has embraced being a ghost. He has ditched everything else figuring what is the point, but it seems that he is just fooling himself. Really, what he is NOT dealing with is actually keeping him from moving on in life.
Sally finds out she CAN touch other ghosts when Aidan and Josh introduce her to Tony, a ghost who died in 1987. Now 1987 was before I was even a teenager, so I may be off. I remember the mullet thing was big at that time. I thought black jeans were a little later…although I remember high tops, I don’t remember gleaming white high tops EVER being in…but regardless, the complete picture, with the guyliner was pretty funny.
Sally: Why are you wearing makeup?
Tony: Why aren’t you?
In my humble opinion though, the whole Tony fiasco could have been funnier, and I felt that there were missed opportunities for bringing a tad more lightness to the show. That is one of my “problems” if you will…The show is very dark and it has just begun, we have barely touched the surface of the angst that I am sure is on the horizon. I feel the show is lacking humor to offset that angst. Without the humor, the show is in danger of becoming too heavy and angsty to grab and hold audience members looking for escapism…I’m just saying. I could be wrong.
What I did think really worked about the Tony/Tony as teacher storyline was how we found out a lot more about ghosts along with Sally. Ghosts over time go crazy…makes sense—if no one can see them or hear them I imagine they would go mad after a while. Ghosts are energy, and apparently self limiting. Sally seems to have limited herself to that house for some reason. She mentioned to Tony that when she tried to leave the house she started to feel horrible and the bottom fell out from under her. Tony however teaches her how to zip around the house with her thoughts, and even go off the premises. Again in this episode, especially with her reaction to Brigitte coming over, the question really is if Sally is unable to move on because she is afraid if she does that Danny will move on. From what I have seen so far, Sally’s motives do appear a bit selfish. Does she want Danny to know she is still around so that he can’t move on? I can’t tell yet, but I don’t think that knowing that she is a ghost haunting their old house would help Danny overcome his grief and learn to live his life without her.
I usually am a stickler for detail, even little things like were something is actually happening, so I am in awe that it took me until episode three to figure out that they are in Boston. I don’t remember any references made before this episode, but here we got two. So Being Human and Fringe both happen in Boston…hmmmm, lots of supernatural activity going on in Massachusetts…
As always, feel free to leave me your thoughts on what you think of the show so far!
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