Well, once I download “Dog Eat Dog”, I will be working on that review too! This episode, which aired not this past Monday, but the Monday before, was written by Nancy Won. Nancy wrote another episode I really enjoyed this season, “The End of the World As We Knew It”. She really knows how to get an emotional reaction! The director of this episode was Paolo Barzman, who also directed “Dog Eat Dog”, the episode that aired this past Monday. Although there aren’t any other Being Human credits for him yet, he does have quite the imdb list, including “18 To Life” and “Highlander the Series”.
Accused of being a pervert by Bernie’s mom, Cindy, Aidan is careful to stay away from Bernie. Unfortunately, the bullies, fuelled with the knowledge that Aidan will NOT come to Bernie’s rescue, have gotten quite merciless with their harassment. During one of the altercations, Bernie backs into the street and is hit by a car going way too fast for driving through a residential area. Sally goes back to the haunted hospital wing and finds a name she recognizes on the wall—a T.A. she had a crush on in college is also a ghost! She meets up with him and finds out he has a ghost problem like no other she has seen…Josh is having serious concerns regarding whether or not he really should be with Nora.
And on to the analysis.
First off, I must say, I really liked this episode! This was nice after not being overly happy with the last episode. I am seeing a theme developing here... I think that we—and by we I mean me-- have a tendency to want to like our main characters all the time and see them as heroes. On this show, our characters are NOT heroes. They ARE the things that go bump in the night. Sometimes we sympathize with their plight. Other times, we see them as the monsters they are…
Aidan’s storyline: The death of a child is always hard, and seeing a child in a pool of blood was even more difficult. The truly terrifying thing about it was that Bernie wasn’t killed by some supernatural monster. He was in a horrible situation with human children where he was being bullied and wound up out in the street where he was hit by a car. My first reaction to that was-- Where was mom a few seconds ago when Bernie was being bullied? I thought the only time the bullies got him was when he was locked out of the house and couldn’t get in? I guess she could have been on her way home. Or maybe he just went outside to play. But why didn’t he decide NOT to go out to play if they were out there? Of course he shouldn’t HAVE to hide from them, but he doesn’t seem like the type who was going to stand up to them either…which apparently would have had to happen for him to be out there playing without them bullying him. Before Aidan saved him that one time, how was Bernie getting away from the bullies? I don’t have the right answer on how to prepare kids for dealing with bullies. Should kids evade them? Challenge them? We could probably debate for days on the pros and cons of every approach and still not have a definitive answer. I think that when something truly horrible happens like this, we want to find somewhere to put the blame, or something we could have done to have made things work out differently. Suffice it to say that school bullying has been a real hot topic of late. Congrats to the writers for working it into the storyline!
On a side note, I would like to take a second to comment on Cindy Sampson’s performance in this episode. Her scenes were very emotionally charged, and she did a wonderful job with showing the pain of a woman losing her son.
On another note… WHAT WAS REBECCA THINKING? I liked how she came in and stopped Aidan when he fell off the wagon and nearly did in that hors d’oeuvre at Bishop’s pleasure palace. Then she went and turned Bernie. Of course I was thinking how unhappy Bernie would be to be stuck as a kid for the rest of eternity. I also feared his mom would see him all vamped out…or that he might kill mom! Thankfully none of those things happened. Again, there were some moments in here where I felt sorry for Rebecca. Does she really love Aidan and she is just very delusional? Or is she just amazingly duplicitous? How about Bishop having Marcus kill those two bullies? What was the end game there? Part of me feels that Bishop did Aidan a favor, taking the guilt away from Aidan. Bernie couldn’t stay a vampire, but making him seem feral gave Aidan a reason for killing him—turning it into a mercy killing. Did Bishop truly believe that Aidan turned Bernie? The two of them seem to know each other very well. I wouldn’t think that Bishop would be fooled. Is it possible that Bishop planned the whole thing? That he got Rebecca to turn Bernie? Maybe Rebecca thought it would be to create a family, but Bishop may have actually had the intent of pushing Aidan to kill Bernie. Bishop wants Aidan back, and this may be another thing Bishop did to make Aidan see that he can never get away and never really have a normal life…
Rebecca’s motives may be highly questionable, but one of the ongoing themes this episode involved girl power. Rebecca seemed to be taking a stand…a weak one, but a stand none the less! And that brings me to Sally. I really liked Sally in this episode. A commenter a couple reviews ago felt I had mischaracterized Sally. I am fairly confident I did not use the appropriate politically correct term. What I wanted to express was that Sally in her relationship with Danny seemed to be perpetuating her lack of agency by making excuses for his behavior. She was staying in the abusive situation, which unfortunately lead to her demise. I loved how in this episode she took the power back. She saw the relationship with Nick as being all about him. She understood her part in it, and that it was not an ideal relationship for her. All those ghosts in the hospital writing on the wall, searching for pieces of the puzzle that no longer exist, they are comfortable, complacent in a sense. Nick has accepted his death echo, and even seems to like the fact that when it happens he feels alive. Sally in this episode showed an unwillingness to fall into old routines. She showed an ability to grow, despite her post-mortem state. Eventually, she may find a way out of this. I also will mention here that I thought it was a very interesting usage of the “death echo” idea with Nick. He relives his death every day but “lives” a fairly normal ghost life otherwise.
More girl power came in the form of Nora who, by the way, is a nurse. I don’t think I mentioned that before. Josh has a horrible dream when he and Nora fall asleep on the couch watching a movie. In the dream, he starts wolfing out in front of her. Mortified by the possibility of Nora finding out the truth, he decides that he needs to pace back the relationship. Nora is not pleased. I definitely like her character, and think she is great for Josh. She has been giving him a lot of chances, but in a very real way. I like that she is balancing accepting that he needs space, and still keeping her own strength in the relationship. She is calling him out when he is not being fair about his expectations. I liked Josh a lot in this episode, but I do feel she deserves to get a little more from him! He is not happy about her seeing other people, but he won’t be honest with her. I can understand her confusion regarding what Josh wants out of the relationship.
Lastly, we saw some serious strain on Aidan and Josh’s friendship. Josh was understandably upset that Aidan only seems to tell him things when they become dire and unmanageable. I can understand Josh’s frustration over this, but I also can’t help but see the parallels between how he is distancing himself from Nora and how Aidan is distancing himself from Josh. Nora showed Josh her scars, but Josh will not show her his. He is afraid that if he tells her about being a werewolf, she won’t understand, will probably think he is crazy, and will run away. Likewise, Josh has shown Aidan his scars, but still Aidan holds back what it really means to be a vampire, afraid of how Josh will react if he knows. Josh was mortified about the snuff film, and that Aidan seemed to get off on it. Maybe Josh understands what a vampire is, but he doesn’t really understand what a vampire DOES. Based on Josh’s reaction to the DVD, Aidan is understandably worried about how Josh will react.
The new episode has not finished downloading yet. Apparently, a glacier moves faster than my connection. Next episode review up soon! Check the Paley Center website for possible video feed from the Being Human panel tonight!
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