Being Human (Season 1, Episode 5)

Original airdate: August 22, 2009

Summary:

“Our lovers sculpt us, they define us for better or worse.”

Annie decides to haunt Owen and practices with George on her techniques to get Owen to confess to murdering her, but she is sort of rubbish at it.  Owen, the black-hearted bastard that he is, sees through the ghostly parlor tricks and can still render Annie utterly impotent by doing what he does best- tear her down with just words.  She is devastated by his reaction and feels like he is killing her all over again.

Mitchell is welcomed with open arms by Herrick and the vampires, but it is clear that Lauren is not one of Herrick’s true believers. Herrick has big plans for the vampires and rallies them with the motto of “No One Gets Left Behind”.  Mitchell’s previous reputation makes him a powerful figure for Herrick’s plans.  They begin actively recruiting people with skills to become vampires at the hospital where Mitchell and George work.

Mitchell discovers Herrick’s feeding den where there are people are kept to feed hungry vampires and is horrified.  George and Annie go to the vampire headquarters, an undertaker’s, to save Mitchell with limited success (“We’re like the world’s gayest ninjas!).  They are cornered by the vampires, but Lauren saves them.  Lauren has come around to her condition.  She sees what she is with blinding clarity and demands that Mitchell return the favor by killing her to save the girl that she was.

George and Mitchell back Annie up to deal with Owen once and for all.  She poses the question of “If I exist, what else does?” and she tells him something that only the dead know.  Owen completely freaks out and turns himself in at the local police station.

A door appears for Annie.  Death has come for her, but her goodbyes are interrupted by a knock at the front door.  Unexpectedly, it is Herrick and he stakes Mitchell through the open doorway.  Mitchell is dying but Annie cannot leave him in this state!

Points to Know:

• Meanwhile, the neighbors are apologetic about what happened to Bernie and keep delivering jars of jam to George and Mitchell.
• Herrick sees his place in the world to start this movement for the vampires- that he was chosen for this work.
• The first vampire to lead a double life lived in Bristol in the 1630.  Richard Turner was a politician, ran for Parliament, was a slave trader, and killed around a thousand people.
• Mitchell bumps into an old flame at the hospital, Josie, who he had dated in the 1960’s.  She is dying of lung cancer and also aware of his supernatural nature.  Josie serves as a voice of conscience to Mitchell to see through Herrick’s propaganda when Mitchell asks Herrick to recruit her.  She goes to warn George that Mitchell is in trouble and that they must stop Herrick’s plans.
• Annie decides to go see if she can warn Janie, Owen’s girlfriend, but it turns horribly wrong as Owen interrupts Annie trying to talk to Janie.  Owen taunts Annie by saying that he doesn’t see anything at all and that Janie must be seeing things because of her guilty conscience of having an affair with Owen while Owen and Annie were together.
• George and Annie don’t understand why Mitchell has gone back to the vampires.  Mitchell is so hurt by humanity in what had happened with Bernie that he rejects humanity.
• Seth, one of Herrick’s not-so-bright henchmen, is staked by Lauren in her move to save Mitchell and company.  We do not see him die though.
• Mitchell reluctantly helps Lauren stake herself.  She dusts!
• George calls the hospital to help save Mitchell.
• Owen is presumably locked up for being crazy.

Commentary:

• So it seems that Herrick did not brain-wash Lauren after all.  She was coming to terms on her own with what she had become.
• Is it just me or does Herrick look like a boar when he bares his fangs?
• I’m glad that the writers stuck with dusting as the death for a vampire.  It’s a traditional piece of mythos that I find comfortable. 
• The scene where Owen taunts Annie and reveals his affair with Janie while they were together was a great piece of TV drama.  His abuse of Annie was well performed and made for a powerful scene.  Owen’s own evil and belittlement of others makes him the monster of the show.
• I wonder what it was that Annie said to Owen to make him freak?  Mitchell shook his head ‘no’ when George asked.
• This ep made me cry, laugh, and scream at the TV all in one hour!  I cannot think of another show that’s made me do all that with a single ep!

Being Human (Season 1, Episode 6)

Original airdate: August 29, 2009

Summary:

In this season closer, Mitchell is in hospital, having been run through by Herrick’s stake, Annie has missed her ‘flight’, and George is scared of what this means for them.  Herrick is confident in his mission that he takes his time to eliminate Mitchell like a cocky villain should.

Josie, an old flame from Mitchell’s past, gives herself to save the dying vampire.  His body cannot make new blood so he feeds on her with great reluctance to survive.

Mitchell decides to bring the fight to Herrick and intends to take him on one on one on the night that George changes so that George cannot interfere.  Mitchell sees no other option and is willing to sacrifice himself to save George and Annie.  Annie still wants to fight, but George is falling apart.

It looks like they must part ways from here.  The three unconventional roommates have had good times together, but this is the end of their journey.

George tries one last stab at diplomacy and tries to talk Herrick out of the death match.  Herrick’s mind is unchanged and George tells him where the fight must take place.

Annie is empowered with other ghostly strengths and she is bombarded with the voices of other ghosts, including one from the vampires’ feeding den.  She saves the people trapped in there all by herself!  Annie comes across the lunch-lady-vampire who boasts how Herrick will destroy Mitchell, but a detail she mentions tips Annie off.

George had changed the place of the death match between Herrick and Mitchell.  Herrick had pushed George too far and George intends to use himself as the weapon and change with Herrick trapped with him.  Mitchell and Annie attempt to change George’s mind, but George reminds Mitchell of their past and that he owes Mitchell.

Nina discovers what’s happening and tries to stop George as well but is thrown back by him in mid-change.  Werewolf-George kills Herrick.  The vampire did not stand a chance.  Nina is witness to it all.

Owen speaks to an elderly man in a secure mental facility.  Owen definitely seems off his rocker, but the old man is understanding and gentle with his questions.  The old man rings someone he calls Professor Jeanette and says, “We found them.”

At the season close, Mitchell, Annie, George, and Nina are all alive, but what now?  Are they safe?  Who are these people seeking our roommates?

Points to Know:

• In a flashback, we see how Mitchell and George met two years earlier.  George is being beat up by Seth and two other vampires for being a werewolf.  Their meeting was like “two lost souls lost in the dark”, “united by fear and solitude”.

• Herrick’s men come for Mitchell at the hospital but George and the hospital vicar manage to repel them.  The vicar is understandably confused at what happened.
• Josie is at peace with her decision to save Mitchell, saying that “death is not always the unwelcomed visitor.”
• Herrick tells George that his problem is that he is too human.  Later, when it is only the changing-George and Herrick in the closed off room, George holds his head strong amidst the pain of his change to tell Herrick that humanity is about love and sacrifice.
• All this drama is going on and George’s girlfriend, Nina, is left out in the cold.  She is very uncomfortable with this.
• Other vampires have tried to quit drinking human blood in the past, but it is always the guilt of what they have done that drives them back to drink.  Mitchell does not want to exist as a vampire any longer.
• After a chat with the hospital vicar, George points out to his roommates that he is the only one with a real chance at a future.  He has to think about that and Nina.  Annie cannot believe that he is being this selfish, but Mitchell agrees with him.
• Since Annie turned down death, she has gained a whole new skill set.
• After ripping apart Herrick, werewolf-George now turns towards the door where Nina stands but does not attack.  George did not hurt Nina when he saw her through the window in the door while in full change because he loves her.  He is unaware that the real reason is that he had scratched her when she tried to stop him.  Nina is now a werewolf, too.
• At the end of the episode, George now speaks of the werewolf as ‘I’ instead of ‘it’.  He now owns the werewolf side of him.
• Just who is this Professor Jeanette and what is she after with?

Commentary:

• These last two episodes really pack a punch!  The writing on this show is superb!
• Their roommates’ parting is one of the most moving scenes on this show.  I dare you to watch it without shedding a tear!
• Is it sad that Herrick turned the hospital lunch lady?  I mean, she’s nuts and has the skills of a lunch lady.  Really, Herrick?  You’re building a vampire nation with the likes of her?  Methinks your plan is unsound!
• Wait a minute, how is Nina scratched by George when her sleeve is intact?  A bit of a continuity error guys!
• We now have two werewolves, a ghost with extra special powers, a vampire that’s cheated death again, and a vampire community without a leader.  What they said at the end of the ep is what we’re all asking, “What happens next? Is it safe now?”  Who is this Professor Jennet and what do they mean by “We found them?”  I hope next season is just as good as this one!

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