“Being Human” Review: “(Dead) Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”

“Being Human” – “(Dead) Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”

This week’s episode of “Being Human” begins in the woods where the vampire Aidan was left. There, he is left bleeding and crawling from the van accident he was in. His addiction to blood is portrayed very realistically as he sucks on shards of broken glass with the desperation of an alcoholic drinking hard liquor poured down the gutter. He makes it out alive eventually, but the other vampires in the beginning aren’t so lucky. Not too far away from Aidan’s whereabouts, Amish vampires die at the hands of an elder werewolf named Liam. He’s kills them to start his trail of revenge for the deaths of his son, Connor, and his daughter, Brynn.

This leads Liam out of the Amish countryside and into Nora’s life. He looks for her at the hospital where she works and searches out other leads, until he finally reaches her at the storage unit where she holds herself captive. She lies to him about being responsible for Brynn’s death. She can’t persuade him, so he challenges her to transform and spar together in their wolf forms.

Little else happens for Nora in this episode, except that she tells Josh to embrace the fact that he’s now free from being a werewolf. Of course, there are obvious hints that his mortal state is temporary. In one daydream he has, he holds an engagement ring for Nora, only to transform impulsively and attack an innocent bartender. Nevertheless, he overhears some drunk frat boys howling at the full moon and looks up at the moon, being full of gratitude that he is human once again.

Sally’s part in this episode could have been expanded upon. Aidan treats her with the most scrutiny because she is between two realms of existence. She has been reanimated back to human form, even though he knew her well as a ghost. Donna, the witch, said in the past episode that she should not communicate with anyone who she knew before she had died. That would open up a paradox that would mean imminent doom, although that’s only implied. The audience is led to believe that things are about to get ugly on no other bearing except that the characters have a supernatural background and Aidan is a very old, wise, and stoic vampire (which apparently is enough to mean that he knows what’s up).

There are other reasons this is very flawed writing. Sally’s return to mortality makes her a human gag reel for the show. When she goes out on the town she does nothing more but sling enough great one-liners that would put Bill Murray to shame in “Ghostbusters”. She does take an old flame home though, and he dies. He is not shown actually dying on the show. Instead, there is the implied suggestion that since she was a ghost and she had contact with an old flame against the orders of Donna, Sally must have something to do with causing him to die. While the show is good about making the special effects natural and not holding back, this is one instance where special effects could have drawn viewers closer into understanding exactly what makes Donna that toxic and why.