Being Human US: Turn This Mother Out

“Some people think it’s exhilarating, not having your future mapped out … others start to drown. Freedom is just that moment of calm before the dread sets in.” – Aidan

SO glad to be back! It seemed like forever until we were reunited with our three fave ghouls but now they’re back to take away the January blahs with another exciting season of Being Human.

“How important really is it that the blood is warm?!?” – Sally

AIDAN

The bulk of this episode focuses on Aidan. It’s been a month since Bishop’s demise and this episode saw Aidan reluctantly saddled with the job as caretaker of Bishop’s newborn vampire army. They’re newbies, starving and looking for answers about the afterlife and Aidan doesn’t have the answers. When he killed Bishop, it really threw a wrench in the vampire order of things and now he has to deal with the fallout. Sometimes, even when you’re doing something good, there are still dire repercussions to your actions.

“I thought you said there were vampires who could clean this stuff up – like Merry Maids!” – Josh

Poor Josh. He gets to work and finds a newborn munching on one of his patients. He’s not impressed. He’s pissed that Aidan had them milling around the apartment for the past month and even more annoyed that Aidan can’t seem to control them. It’s putting a damper on the whole premise of “being human” when you’re the default vamp-daddy to a bunch of orphaned vampires. Aidan has to clean up the vampire’s mess. Josh is baffled as to what happened to the secret vamp “Merry Maid” clean-up crew but he’s finding out that after Aidan took out Bishop, all that fell apart and it’s DIY for now.

“No. They will be culled.” – Mother

Heggeman tells Aidan the council wants to give him the Boston coven out of vampire tradition. Aidan doesn’t want this and doesn’t think he would do a good job anyway since he’s been half-assing it and unable to control Bishop’s brood the past month. It seems that the harder he tries to be human, the more he’s sucked into vampire politics. All will be decided once “The Mother” – the head of all vampires – comes to Boston to make her decision.

The Mother? She’s is not very impressive. Scary? Not at all. I was kind of hoping for a vampire that looked like something out of 30 Days of Night and instead we get a poor imitation of Anna Wintour. During council, Aidan recommends mercy on the newborns when the council recommends culling. She decides that Bishop’s orphans are to be culled and calls Aidan’s beliefs a heresy. Instead of giving Aidan Boston, she gives it to her daughter. We think that Aidan is off the hook but then she announces Aidan will be her daughter’s “second”. If he wants Mother to overlook his heretical beliefs and be free of the coven, he will have to cooperate. What a nightmare for poor Aidan … freedom, but at what cost? As he said in the opening scenes: “Freedom is just that moment of calm before the dread sets in.” How fitting.

In the meantime, Mother adds a wee twist to the plot. In order to ensure Aidan’s success, she plots with Heggeman to kill Josh so that Aidan has no “distractions”. That was a shocker. I have to say this though – did you really think they were going to let Aidan off so easily? Other than Josh being a “distraction”, if Josh is gone, Aidan wouldn’t have that anchor or 12-step buddy to keep him on the straight and narrow. They can’t kill Sally – she’s already dead, and she has no power to help Aidan in the real world. With Josh gone, Aidan would be much more likely to just stay in the lifestyle once his obligations to Mother have finished. What else would he have to strive for at that point? Ok, so Mother’s not scary looking, but I will give her points for being smart.

“Josh, I’m going to need you to somehow remind me where we started” – Aidan

Unhappy about being saddled with all this responsibility and with no choice in the matter, Aidan tries his best to change the outcome of the culling by warning the newborn who was feeding in the hospital to get out of town. Then comes one of the best scenes in the show: Aidan has to tell Josh, in a heart-to-heart, that in order to gain his freedom, he might become something Josh won’t recognise and someone he won’t want to know. He asks Josh to ground him and remind him of why he’s doing this, to keep him human and remind him of the promise he made. The acting here was amazing; the friendship between these two is so believable and honest. I love their funny scenes together because of their chemistry but I also love Sam Huntington and Sam Witwer’s serious scenes. They nail the emotions and struggles of their characters incredibly well. Aidan asking Josh for support is an example of why people tune in to this show every week. The supernatural premise gets you there, but the acting will keep you hooked.

In the end, all is for naught. The newborns don’t heed Aidan’s get-out-of-town-by-sundown warning and come to attack Mother. Aidan is forced to defend her and stakes one of them. The other two overcome him and Mother saves Aidan by decapitating them with her fabulously manicured nails! Great – now he’s in her debt, too. In the end, they go out to dig up her beloved daughter and unfortunately, that tantalizing morsel is kept away from us until the next episode.

JOSH

“You want to hold my hair back while I vomit … essentially?” – Josh

Just like last season, Josh gets the best lines of the bunch and doesn’t miss a beat.

Nora’s getting her “Coles Notes/Cliffs Notes” on being a werewolf from Josh. He describes his feelings, cravings and behaviour right before he turns. He really has no idea why she’s asking but Nora is quickly doing her homework for what she perceives will be her fate later on that night.

Uh-oh … at work at the hospital, Nora is caught eating – or sniffing – raw meat by another nurse. She’s having the cravings Josh mentioned – raw meat, and a strong sense of smell. She tries to play if off as some new crazy palaeo-caveman diet and lucky for her, the nurse buys her story.

Nora wants to drop Josh off in the woods before he changes and Josh refuses. She manages to convince him that she wants to be there for him and he finally relents. The truth is Nora thinks she’s going to change. Josh goes into the woods and starts to transform, Nora thinks she’s dodged the proverbial bullet and goes to drive away but suddenly doubles over as her own transformation starts to take hold. She calls out to Josh and he hears her screams and runs, half transformed, to her rescue. I was surprised he could stop mid-way and go to her, but I think they have to do what works to make the show run smoothly. It’s just I was under the impression that once you start turning, you can’t stop. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Heggeman shoots Josh, yet he continues to transform! So while most of the show seems centered on vampire politics, Nora’s transformation and Josh’s shooting give us the most exciting scenes and the dramatic cliffhanger of the night!

SALLY

Sally’s scenes are the shortest and the least interesting until the very end of the episode. She’s still desperate to touch things and has a cute scene where Nora tries to talk to her in the kitchen. Nora finds an invitation in the trash to Sally’s high school reunion and convinces Sally to go to and check it out. What’s the worst that can happen, right?

Sally spends the reunion with “Suicide Stevie”, a classmate who overdosed at 16. He didn’t really think it was going to work and did it in hopes that someone would find him and stop him at the last second. Eeeech. He’s basically there to explain more ins and outs of the ghost life. He explains that she can make her door appear whenever she likes and that he has the ability to dream. They confront a girl, Diana Alcott, who was shallow and mean to him in high school and after she accepts the error of her ways, she gets her door.

Sally comes home and dreams of her door and it magically appears! She opens the door and it’s just a tunnel of light. She calls out to Aidan and Josh to come check it out but they’re not home. Suddenly, she sees someone approaching at the far end of the tunnel. It’s not something nice. The tunnel gets creepy and dark. Sally quickly realizes this was a mistake and tries to slam the door shut but the presence pushes its way through and into her! Great, she’s just let something sinister into the house and is quite possibly possessed. Another exorcism anyone???

This was a great opener to the new season! With all the vampire politics, Nora’s new status as a werewolf and Sally’s further forays into ghost life, we can expect to be well entertained! Tune in with me next week to watch Episode Two, “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?”

Photo Courtesy of Syfy