Greetings SciFi/Fantasy Fans!
This week’s episode of Being Human was full of drama. All of our characters had their—well, we cannot say lives, exactly—their existences turned upside down with startling revelations. This was a week for turning inward, for self-reflection and decision-making, and once decided, acting with the force of commitment.
While watching this episode I also decided to try the Shazam app I have been seeing during the commercial breaks. Even though the ads say it is for iPhone, I was able to download a working copy for my Android phone. I have really enjoyed the song choices so far in all of the Being Human episodes and was not familiar with many of the artists. Syfy also provides song lists but is not quite as up to date as the Shazam tag results.
But music aside, this week’s episode definitely raised the stakes a bit and gave us something a little juicier than usual to sink our teeth into. (Okay, no puns were actually intended but there they are, just the same!)
Spoiler Alert: The following is a complete recap/review of Being Human, Episode 105 (The End of the World As We Knew It). If you have not yet seen this episode and prefer to watch it without spoilers, stop reading now and go to Syfy.com where you can watch the full episode online. You can also watch it for free on iTunes.
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The End of the World As We Knew It:
And now, on with the show!
As usual, the episode begins with a voice-over sequence intended to set the stage for what is to come. The music track during the opening sequence is a song called “Dead Letter & The Infinite Yes” by Wintersleep, which I liked a lot. This week’s voice over is by Sally’s (Meaghan Rath):
“Every culture has its own way of saying goodbye.”
[Aiden (Sam Witwer) is at work at the hospital, ministering to a man (Alex Ivanovici) who is clearly gravely ill. We see his name on the I.V. bag, “C. Sarin.” Aiden places the morphine button in his hand.)
“Comforts in the rituals that prepare the living for death. They ease the journey into what comes after.”
[Now a priest (Eric Davis) is at the man Sarin’s bedside, administering last rites.]
“Assuming there is an after.”
[Sarin’s body, wrapped in a sheet, is wheeled out by two orderlies.]
“In the end, death is a journey you take alone.”
[Sarin’s body, unwrapped, lies on metal table in the hospital morgue.]
“For some of us, that journey takes us on a hidden path…”
[Sarin’s eyes open.]
“…through a darker forest, where instead of answers, we find a whole new set of questions.”
[Someone else is there in the room with Sarin, we can’t see who it is. And then the room is empty.]
+ + + + +
To the tune of “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” we find Sarin being given his vampire orientation by the very priest that administered his last rites. The lesson has to do with the location of the carotid artery (one on each side of the neck) and how one should properly use it as a portal for good eatin’ (“You hit it clean and it’s like tapping straight into a geyser”). Yum! And yes, the priest is also a vampire, and he shares Mr. Sarin’s first vampire meal, some poor freaked-out guy strapped to the table with his mouth taped shut.
Meanwhile, back at the house, Josh (Sam Huntington) is frantically scrubbing his bloody clothes in the bathroom sink. He really must have done a number on those vampires last night with Ray because there seems to be a lot of blood. Josh looks at his reflection in the mirror, and we get the idea that he is not happy with his behavior.
[The song playing might be T.H. White’s “Floating Way Up” but I can’t be sure. I was not able to locate a copy of the song for verification purposes, although I did find a song on T.H. White’s band page that makes me think it might be his.]
Downstairs, Aiden and Sally are experiencing what appears to be an angry house. There are certainly ominous sounds emanating from somewhere nearby. Aiden says he feels like he is “in a submarine that is about to blow” and tells Sally that she has to stop it. He says that ever since she got back from seeing Danny and Bridget together it has been “Amityville Horror plumbing” and that she has been “poltergeisting “ her own house. Sally protests that she has made her peace with the Danny/Bridget situation but Aiden wonders if that is true: “Then why does it sound like the house is gonna eat us?” Another horrible sound comes from the vicinity of the kitchen and they run in to find nasty, black water backing up into the sink.
Enter Ray (Andreas Apergis), the unwelcome werewolf, with his usual crude manner, making jokes about the plumbing. Aiden suggests that it’s time Ray moves on (he has been with them for a month now) but Ray has no intention of going anywhere. As Ray makes veiled comments about late night exercise being good for stimulating the appetite (the exercise being beating up vampires), Josh slips down the stairs and slides a plastic bag into the trash before anyone notices. I’m thinking it’s the bloody clothes he couldn’t get clean in the sink. Josh is obviously not happy with his part of the evening’s activities and is trying to hide it from his friends. But Aiden does notice Josh’s bruised knuckles and wants to know how they got that way. Josh’s response: “Oh, that was just some drunk idiots, being idiots.” True enough.
Ray keeps saying way too much to Aiden and Sally, which makes Josh uncomfortable so he takes off. But Ray follows him outside (in his short bathrobe, carrying what looks like a beer and a chicken leg) to remind Josh that they have plans to meet at the cabin later for a little transformation togetherness. Josh doesn’t say anything either way, probably still undecided about what he is going to do.
Later, at the hospital, Aiden hurries into a treatment room to assist with an emergency patient. Apparently, Sarin (the new vampire that was turned by the priest) attacked this guy and bit him in the neck, but something went wrong. The man’s neck is bleeding badly and Aiden struggles momentarily with his own bloodlust. Sarin is in the next room, being treated for a knife wound. He is raving and out of control, asking for the priest. He keeps saying, “I screwed up,” something about not seeing the knife and then the cops showed up. Aiden tries to get Sarin to tell him more about the priest, but Sarin breaks free and escapes, running through the hospital at superhuman speed. I wonder why no one says anything about that. Maybe he moved so fast that no one could see him? I don’t remember Aiden being able to do that, though. Curious.
Danny (Gianpaolo Venuta) brought a plumber to the house to deal with all the backed-up drains. While Danny talks to the plumber about the proper use of drain cleaner and snake thingies, Bridget (Angela Galuppo) goes to the bottom of the stairs to the spot where Sally died. Danny joins her there and they have a little intimate moment. Sally is at the top of the stairs watching them but soon she has had enough of that and drifts away.
Back at the hospital, the priest stands in a crowded elevator, enjoying the overwhelming sensation of having so many people’s hearts beating so close by. But when the elevator empties, Aiden is there too, at the back of the car. They go to the chapel where the priest tells Aiden he just transferred to the hospital a couple of days ago. He really is an ordained priest (except for the being dead part, which the Church must not be aware of). He tells Aiden that nothing has really changed. He says, I’m still saving souls, just in a different way.” He tells Aiden that six years ago he was 34 and dying of cancer. He said God spoke to him and told him that there is no afterlife and that this is the only life we get. He said a sympathetic doctor offered him “another option.” He tells Aiden, “Don’t you see? God saved me.” He goes on to say that “Jesus himself rose from the dead.” Aiden, in disbelief, says “so you think that Jesus was a vampire?” to which the priest responds, “Gets you thinking, doesn’t it?” Giving up, Aiden tells him, “I don’t care what your perverted theology is, there is no ‘turning’ in this hospital.” But as it happens, Bishop is the one who brought in the priest so Aiden will have to take it up with him.
Josh is at the hospital talking with one of the patients, a middle aged lady. Remember the blonde doctor he tried to pick up with Ray’s less-than-subtle technique (followed by her threat of a sexual harassment complaint)? Well, she sees Josh there and wants to know what he is doing “bothering” her patient and suggests he might just be there to avoid doing his regular work. But Josh is there on his day off, visiting the lady because she told him she didn’t get any visitors. Josh is smiling as he walks away, knowing he won that round, and she looks like she is changing her mind about him.
Meanwhile, Bridget is once again drawn to the staircase. She calls out softly to Sally. But once again, Danny joins her there and this time he is becoming angry. He tells Bridget that Sally isn’t there, and asks her, “do you even think about how this makes me feel, you constantly bringing her up?” Bridget immediately regrets talking about Sally (guilt trip: successful). Just then, the plumber comes down the stairs and reports that he has snaked all the drains in the house but all he found was some hair in the shower and… Sally’s engagement ring.
Suddenly it all comes rushing back to Sally, how she had taken off her ring to wash her hands in the bathroom sink. How the ring fell down the drain. How angry Danny had been with her for taking it off. He started acting crazy, accusing her, asking her when else she took it off. When she went out with the girls? Maybe she left it in some guy’s bed?
As Sally begins to remember, the pipes open up, and all the dirty water flows down the drain.
Sally remembers Danny yelling at her; at the top of the stairs he pushed her, and she fell to her death.
Bridget wonders aloud what Sally’s ring was doing in the pipes. Danny claims that he doesn’t know but he is clearly shaken. Bridget thinks the house might have wanted Danny to have the ring. Danny lies and tells her that Sally was always losing the ring and that she could never keep it on.
Sally believes the house was trying to tell her how she died.
Aiden goes to the vampires’ funeral home hangout to talk to Bishop (Mark Pellegrino). Aiden is angry that Bishop ignored his insistence that there be no “recruiting” at the hospital. He asks Bishop why Sarin was chosen in the first place, since Sarin is not one of the politically powerful people Bishop has favored for turning most recently. It turns out that Sarin had a lot of money but no friends or family to miss him or to interfere. And as for the priest, Bishop says, “Nobody sells eternal life like a priest.” Bishop tells Aiden that he is only turning the “willing” now, “the influential, the useful.” He goes on to remind Aiden how religion and religious leaders have been used throughout history to serve political aims. And what might Bishop’s political agenda be? Bishop wants to come out of the vampire closet. He is building a strategic army, believing that “when we have the numbers and we have the power, we won’t have to hide. We can live right out in the open.” Aiden thinks Bishop is crazy and basically tells him so. Bishop responds to the criticism by beating Aiden up and, while he’s doing that, he tells Aiden that vampires are “evolution, and that it’s nature taking its course.” Bishop also suggests that Aiden is confused about his own state of being, saying, “You’re a vampire, playing a human, shacking up with an animal—and a rabid one at that. Of course, how could he tell you?…Your wolf has a taste for vampires. Muzzle your dog, Aiden, or we will.” Obviously Bishop knows that Josh was pounding on vampires the night before.
It is nearing time for Josh to transform into his werewolf form and, despite some obvious misgivings, Josh goes to meet Ray at the cabin in the woods.
Aiden arrives home to find Sally moping and the house shaking like crazy. Sally realizes that it wasn’t the house trying to tell anyone anything, it was Sally trying to tell herself how she died. She tells Aiden that she didn’t just die, that Danny killed her. She said that when she was alive she made excuses for Danny’s behavior, telling herself that Danny was just passionate. But the truth was that he had a temper. She said that even now he doesn’t take responsibility for what happened. Instead, he blames Sally as if it were her fault that he killed her. Aiden gets up and heads for the door, intending to make Danny pay, but Sally stops him.
At the cabin, Ray exhorts Josh to enjoy the transformation, but Josh can never embrace what has happened to him. As they talk, Ray reveals that he has big plans for their future. He and Josh will go in search of more werewolves and form a pack, “running together, living together, like nature intended.”
It is interesting that both Aiden and Josh are confronted with the idea with what they have each become is somehow natural, and both completely reject the idea that nature has anything to do with it. The priest’s argument to Aiden was that God created everything, including vampires, ergo vampires are a natural part of the world. Ray thinks of werewolves as being so like wolves that their natural state is to be wolf-like. But both Aiden and Josh see themselves as monsters, not natural or even supernatural, but altered by an infectious disease.
Josh rejects Ray’s plan for their future and tells him that it is time he moves on. They argue, and Ray blurts out that he has been looking for Josh for two years. That gives Josh a pause. Two years? As many of you have probably guessed, it is now revealed that Ray was the one that turned Josh into a werewolf two years ago. The good news for us is that some of those little nagging questions are cleared up from the pilot episode. Remember the flashback scenes from when Josh became a werewolf? It was not at all clear where he was or who he was with when he was attacked. All we saw was Josh injured, another man dead on the ground next to him, and police officers with flashlights. Now we get more of the details about that night, as Ray tells the story to Josh:
Ray: “I’m the one you met on that camping trip. I’m the one who turned you. I’m the one who gave you this gift….I was roaming the forest in Maine. I attacked two backpackers. One of them died, one was wounded, a scratch on the shoulder. I checked the paper for days after. I found your name.”
Josh is furious. He screams, “You killed my friend!”
Ray: “But you survived. You’re the only one, Josh. I’ve been trying to find you. I’ve been tracking you ever since.”
[Okay, that part bothers me a little. Don’t they have heightened werewolf senses, especially near the full moon? Ray had Josh’s name and a starting point to pick up his scent. Why did it take him two years to find Josh?]
Josh: “Why? Why wouldn’t you just leave me alone?”
Ray: “I couldn’t. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw you, lying there, in the woods. I couldn’t stop thinking. I had to see what was your life like?”
Josh: “ My life? I don’t have a life. My family, my fiancé, my whole future. You should’ve killed me….Why didn’t you?”
Ray: “There were voices, screaming, men coming. You know how it is. It’s just flashes of memory. The wolf is a gift, Josh. I was just like you at first.”
Josh: “This is not a gift! It’s a curse!….All this time you’ve been coaching me to manage my condition, and you’re the one who did this to me. What kind of sick freak are you?”
Ray: “I’m your friend.”
Josh: “What do you want from me?”
Ray: “I thought if I helped you, if you needed me, you’d let me in….I saw what you have, your house, your friends, your job. I wanted that too. I wanted what I used to have. I had a wife, a son. I lost everything.”
Then Josh starts to transform.
Aiden goes back to the chapel to speak again with the priest. Aiden has been a vampire for 200 years, the priest was just turned 6 years ago. Aiden tries to explain that when enough time has passed, and there are so many people you have killed that you can no longer remember their faces, that is when it gets scary. But the priest loves being a monster and looks forward to forgetting the faces. He thinks it will be liberating, not scary. Aiden asks him if the church means the same thing to him as it did before he turned. The priest replies that when he is alone in the church, he can feel God there with him. Aiden tries to explain that in the same way the church can be a sanctuary for the priest, Aiden needs the hospital to be his sanctuary, a place where there are no other vampires. But the priest mocks him, saying, “So you pick a place full of bleeding bodies to go straight?” and Aiden responds, “I can help people move on to the death that I will never have.” But the priest tells Aiden that he is lying to himself, and that if he truly wanted to die he could make that happen at any time. In fact, they could do it right now—and he rips off a piece of a wooden pew, prepared to stake Aiden.
Sally is at Danny’s place looking at pictures of Danny and Bridget on a shelf. She moves further into the room, stands still, and by the force of her will, everything begins to shake.
Darkness is descending over the woods. Josh hasn’t completed his transformation, but screams with the pain of it. Ray encourages him as his own transformation begins, advising Josh not to fight it, but to let it take him. [I notice that the werewolves’ teeth are very much like the vampires’ teeth. Is this intentional or just because all the teeth are made by the same people?]
In the chapel, the priest still holds the stake as he is talking to Aiden. He tells Aiden that he knows Aiden wants to live and that’s okay, that God intended us to live forever. He says, “Adam and Eve were immortal before the fall. It’s our natural state.” [Again with the “natural” references.] The priest quotes from the Bible, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” But Aiden finds the priest’s thoughts disturbing and says, “I get it. You’re completely unhinged.” Aiden attacks the priest, takes the stake from him and tosses it aside.
At Danny’s, Sally has really built up steam. [The song in the background is “Broadcast to the Addicted” by Drakes Hotel.] The lights are flickering, things are flying all over the room, everything is shaking. As Sally recalls how Danny shoved her down those stairs, the wind rises in the apartment, glass breaks, doors open and close.
At the cabin, Josh and Ray are completing their transformations. Josh attacks Ray.
Aiden is holding the priest down on the floor. He pulls some kind of little hammer out of his jacket pocket (what was that doing there?) and saying “no more,” he starts hitting the priest in the mouth.
Daylight in the woods. Ray is naked and smeared with dirt, lying on the ground. Josh tosses him his bag of clothes. He tells Ray: “The first time we met, I don’t blame you. You had no control. You didn’t know what you were doing. But the second, you should’ve just stayed away.”
Ray: “All I wanted was to find the last person I had a connection with.”
Josh: “The connection of a murderer to the man he’s killed?”
Ray: “You don’t know what it’s like. I’ve been so lonely for years.
Josh: “You expect me to feel sorry for you?”
Ray: “You think you’re better than me? You think you won’t do what I’ve done?”
Josh: “I’m not like you, Ray.”
Ray: “The wolf is you, and you are the wolf. The only difference between you and me is that I know what I am. I accept it.”
Josh: “And I never will.”
Ray: “Give it a few years, or five, or ten. This is it, Josh. It’s a life sentence, brother.“ And as Josh walks away, “One day you’ll know what it’s like. You’ll come looking for me.”
Josh walks away, with Ray screaming his name over and over. [The song playing is “Shine” by Hanna Georgas.]
At the mortuary/vampire headquarters, the priest holds a handkerchief to his mouth, begging Bishop to “fix” him. Apparently, Aiden has knocked out the priest’s fangs. Bishop is gentle and reassuring, but there is no fixing the teeth. Bishop calls it a flaw in their evolution that the fangs don’t grow back. The priest panics, asking what they’re going to do, how he will be able to eat. Bishop reassures him, saying they are a family and they will take care of him. The priest continues to ask: How will I survive? As one of Bishop’s underlings ushers the priest out. [This part doesn’t make any sense to me either. So what if he doesn’t have any fangs? Couldn’t he just use a sharp object to start the bleeding, then feed from the open wound? Less convenient, maybe, but serviceable. I don’t get it.]
Danny and Bridget return to Danny’s apartment where everything inside is completely destroyed. Suddenly he sees Sally’s engagement ring, strategically placed in the middle of the floor, at the tip of a swirl of debris. Bridget wonders how the ring got there, but Danny seems to have an idea. He tells Bridget he’s going to check the bedroom.
Josh is back at work at the hospital, pushing an empty wheelchair down a corridor. The blonde doctor sees him through a window. She is on the phone, but pantomimes shooting herself in the head, smiling, sharing a little moment with Josh. He smiles to himself as he continues down the hall.
Sally and Aiden are back at home, sitting quietly with their own thoughts on the front steps when Josh calls them in to dinner. They obediently go in, even though Josh is the only one who actually eats. Josh tells them to fake it or something but insists that they are all going to sit down to a hot, delicious meal together. He says, “We have to hang onto some rituals of normalcy.” Over dinner, Josh tells Sally that he heard from Aiden what happened to her. They are all silent for a minute, then Josh tries to make small talk with Aiden about work, but that didn’t go too well. Sally asks what happened with Ray, and Josh tells them that Ray is gone. Aiden asks about the “degenerates” they rolled and Josh assures him that that’s gone too. Finally, Josh tells them, “Oh. Fun tidbit: Turns out that Ray is the one that did this to me.” He reassures them that he’s okay, though. He says, “Who wouldn’t want to meet their were-dad?”
And that’s the end of a very interesting and thought-provoking episode of Being Human. Hope you enjoyed the play-by-play.
Being Human returns on Syfy Monday evening at 9 PM EST / PST. Well that’s all for now, scifi fans.
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