Being Human (Season 1, Episode 3)

Original airdate: August 8, 2009

Summary:

Annie’s wedding date with Owen is coming up and she is having a breakdown.  Mitchell introduces her to another ghost, Gilbert, to help her cope with being a ghost.  Annie has some unresolved issues that prevent her from moving on.

Annie, still so painfully in love with Owen, decides to haunt him, being his ‘ghost-wife’, but Owen thinks that it is his new girlfriend doing these sweet things for him. This doesn’t make Annie happy at all- she leaves Owen a message on his bathroom mirror and is pleasantly surprised to see him come round to fix the house’s troublesome plumbing.  What he finds in the pipes triggers Annie’s memory and she remembers exactly how she died.

Points to Know:

• Gilbert takes Annie to see her grave in an attempt to give her peace with the fact that she is dead and should embrace being a ghost.
• Gilbert, who’s been dead since 1985, is a hoot in that he is completely frozen in his 80’s ways (“Fun is such a bourgeois concept.”) and hair!  By the end of the ep, his time with Annie has changed him.  He discovers that he can actually love. A door appears when he realizes this.  His death has come for him.  Now Annie needs to find out how to resolve her issues in order to move on.
• Owen killed Annie after an abusive argument with her where he accuses her of cheating on him when he finds a thong amongst her things.  He was the one who pushed her down the stairs!
• It was like the house was acting as part of Annie, holding onto the thong in the plumbing, so she would remember.
• Lauren was made to make that vamp-porn by Herrick, the leader of the local vampires & Mitchell’s maker. Lauren comes to Mitchell desperate for help to deal with her need for blood.  This ep heavily looks at vampirism as a form of addiction.  Mitchell loses her to Herrick’s people again.
• Both George and Mitchell are trepidatious about becoming involved sexually with women for fear of losing control and killing them.  Mitchell says that he can control himself, but his eyes tell another story.  George finally has a passionate quickie with Nina, a co-worker, before he changes on a full moon night and is ecstatic!
• Blood from the hospital will not sustain a vampire.  It does not have enough life left in it.

Commentary:

• This ep revolves around the power of love and the painful wreckage it can wreak when love gets corrupted.  I find that with each ep, the writers tackle themes with such insight and twists.  This show has me riveted!
• Finding out that Owen had killed Annie shines a new light on what Owen might have meant when he told Mitchell that “[Annie] was mine”.  He doesn’t even seem remorseful for killing her!
• Owen’s insistence on fixing the house’s plumbing himself wasn’t because of fond memories of Annie or was it?  Even after finding the thong that he flushed. He seemed… pleased with himself!
• I’m still laughing at what ‘Gilbert fun’ is- looking for old records, reading Nietzche, yelling at The Establishment, and dancing with foliage?

Being Human (Season 1, Episode 4)

Original airdate: August 15, 2009

Summary:

Everyone wants to belong.  There is comfort in company, boundaries, and labels, but where do a vampire, werewolf, and a ghost fit?

Mitchell helps out a neighborhood boy, Bernie, run off bullies and ends up befriending him.  Bernie reminds Mitchell of himself as a young lad and all seems fun and games until Bernie accidentally sees part of the vamp-porn DVD.  Bernie’s mother goes ballistic and the neighborhood turns on Mitchell and George, thinking that Mitchell is a pedophile.  One night, an angry mob gathers at their doorstep and Bernie is hit by a car.  At the hospital, Mitchell presents Bernie’s mother with an option for her dying son.

Owen and his girlfriend give Mitchell and George notice to move out because of the pedophile scandal and also because they want to move in.  Annie finally moves beyond her shock of the truth and firmly decides that Owen will not be taking her housemates or the house away from her.

Points to Know:

• Mitchell comes for Lauren at Herrick’s but leaves empty handed.  Herrick taunts Mitchell about his abandonment of Lauren and responsibility of being a vampire’s maker.  Herrick assures Mitchell that there will always be a place for him with the vampires.
• Lauren tells Mitchell goodbye and that Herrick and the others will not bother him anymore about coming back to the fold.  She also reassures him that she has come to terms with being a vampire and that she sees that they just do things differently than he does.
• Herrick offers to clear up the situation that Mitchell is in with his capacity as a police officer and even gets Mitchell to reminisce with his about the good ‘ole days.  Mitchell still refuses the help.
• Mitchell tried to save Bernie, but wasn’t quick enough.  He was also hit by the car, but no one seemed to notice that he was not hurt until he points it out to Bernie’s mother at the hospital.  Mitchell offers to turn Bernie and Bernie’s mother lets him.  Mitchell returns to Herrick, saying that he is back ‘in’.
• George is afraid that Nina likes the wolf in him more than she does George, but is relieved to know that she wants to rewind a bit back to flowers and romance rather than keeping with the carnal quickie they had the other night.
• George regrets them being a part of the community as they had been of late and is of the mind that they deserve to be cast out for the monsters they are.  George tries to protect Nina by pushing her away, but they come to a mutual understanding about secrets in the end. Nina reveals a large burn scarred area on her belly.
• Annie now has poltergeist-like tendencies with the house, but cannot control it since finding out that she was murdered by her fiancée.  After she decides that Owen will not be taking anything else away from her, she finds that she is able to be heard and even bumped into by humans!

Commentary:

• Wow, Herrick, good brain-washing job on Lauren!  Way to tow the party line!  Throughout the ep Herrick plays with Mitchell and you can just see under the surface how Herrick is gnawing at Mitchell’s resolve.  I must say, well played Herrick!
• I’m interested to see what would happen to a vampire if he were ‘on the wagon’ for a prolonged period of time.  Just how was Mitchell surviving if he didn’t kill?  Mitchell seemed to be able to withstand the sunlight more and more and even seeing blood on Bernie’s forehead didn’t phase him.
• Are there no laws against making child vampires amongst the vamp community?!?  Has Mitchell really gone over to the dark side?  Does Bernie and his mother really understand what they lives will be like now?

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“Being Human” airs on BBC America on Saturdays at 9/8 C.

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