Review: Being Human (US) – I Want You Back (From the Dead)

When we left off last episode, Josh and Nora were kissing out by the steps, Aidan was staring moodily out the window at Bernie because Bernie’s mother had forbidden them contact and Sally was in the hospital’s Hallway of Ghosts in a plaintive attempt to learn how to move on.

The following contains spoilers for this episode of Syfy’s Being Human as well as series one of the BBC original.

Josh gets voiceover duty this week. He talks about the need to touch and be touched and how Frankenstein’s Monster couldn’t stop trying to reach out. Dracula had it easy because he just drank and killed and wasn’t interested in being friends. Sally is wandering through the Hallway of Ghosts, looking at the messages left on the walls. One in particular catches her eye: “Mom, Dad – are you out there? I’m by the Charles most days. come find me. Love, Nicholas Fenn.” Josh is having a pleasant conversation at work with Nora. And Aidan struggles to ignore the two bullies picking on Bernie right outside the house.

Inside, Sally is watching poor Bernie and asks why Aidan isn’t going out to “kick their little sociopathic asses.” The boys have been torturing Bernie all week but Aidan won’t help because if he even goes near Bernie, his mom will call out the vigilantes with torches and baseball bats. They’re both still watching from the front window as Bernie steps backwards, away from his tormentors and into the street. Aidan runs for the door, but he doesn’t reach Bernie before the car hits him. He’s first on the scene though, shouting for someone to call 911 as he checks for life signs and begins chest compressions. Bernie’s mother arrives right after and her look of shock and horror speak volumes to Aidan.

Later, Bernie’s in a hospital room with a breathing tube and hooked up to life support. Cindy sits by his bedside, not even looking up as Aidan enters the room and places a cup of coffee on the table beside her. He asks if she slept but she says she couldn’t, because she kept hoping Bernie would wake up and she could take him home. She tells Aidan Bernie’s organs are failing. He offers to get a doctor but she tells him about trying to keep him in the house and safe, but kids ought to be able to play in front of their own house. She blames herself for not keeping Bernie out of the street or keeping the boys from attacking him. Aidan says he wishes there was something he could have done, wishes there was something he could do now. “What could you possibly do? It’s out of our hands now.” Aidan leaves the room and goes into another room. He’s visibly conflicted and clamps his hands over his mouth, stifling a scream. He knows there’s something he could do for Bernie but his conscience won’t let him.

Sally’s on a path next to the Charles River. She’s finds the man she’s looking for: Nick Fenn. She apparently knew him from a Marxism class in college. She’s more than a little thrilled to find he remembers her, too. When he asks if she’s dead she says, “I like to think of myself as ‘forever 23′.” She tells him she saw his note in the hospital and he said he wrote that for his folks for when they got there. They discuss Sally’s plans from when he knew her. She was going to go to India, but she met her boyfriend who didn’t want her to go. Boyfriend became fiance, they bought a house, were going to start a family. Yet she left out the part where Danny killed her. Nick says she’s done a complete 180 because she railed against marriage in her student days. “Guess I rebelled against rebelling,” she says. She asks about him and he says his death was “pretty hairy.” “Mine too. I guess that’s why we’re here, right? Because it did not end well.” Nick leaves a dramatic pause and Sally asks if he wants to go watch people drink coffee but Nick says he has to go. But he does say he’s there most days and she should come back. He then walks briskly away and Sally notices he leaves wet footprints behind him on the gravel path.

Josh and Nora are cuddled on the couch watching a movie. Bloody heads are flying and Nora doesn’t like it. Josh digs a little saying, “This from a woman who’s obsessed with extreme surgery.” He corrects her when she calls the characters Chinese. “Mongolian. This is their preconception of the Chinese state.” [author's note: at least that's what I think he says.] She calls him a nerd and he says he’s a sexy nerd so he’s a living oxymoron. She gets up for more popcorn and warns him not to pause it. He scratches his arm and cries out in pain because he’s got bloody clawmarks where he just scratched. Puzzled, he looks at his other hand and panics when he sees both hands are now clawed. Nora walks back in and Josh turns, but his mouth is full of growing teeth. Nora shrieks and backs away from him. Then Josh wakes up. He fell asleep watching the movie and Nora is curled up against him, also asleep. He calms himself down, but he’s still visibly shaken.

The next day, Josh is rummaging around for sandwich fixings as Sally tells him all about Nick. He was the sexy TA and they would have coffee and hot, stifling, paper-editing sessions in his office. If she hadn’t thought he was so out of her league, she probably wouldn’t have shacked up with Danny after five dates. But she feels Nick was always the one she was supposed to be with. She asks Josh if it’s crazy to pursue a relationship when they’re both dead and Josh says he doesn’t think any of them should be in relationships. Any time they try to connect, people just get hurt or worse.

Speaking of getting hurt, Aidan’s trying to drown the pain of losing Bernie by heading back to the vampire brothel. He picks two girls and proceeds to drink one to the point where someone has to come in and drag her out. So he goes after the other girl, covering her mouth so she can’t scream for help, but someone throws him off before he has his fill. That someone is Rebecca, for once acting the model of restraint. Aidan confides that he’s torn up because he could have helped Bernie and he didn’t and now he’s going to die. Rebecca says he could turn Bernie. Aidan says look what that’s done to her and she replies, “we manage.” “What is the point of having this power? I could save that little boy’s life, but I’m not going to! I’m just going to sit there and watch him die!”

Josh and Nora are in the hospital cafeteria discussing the latest work party. Nora suggests they carpool, meaning Josh drives so she can get tipsy. Josh isn’t too sure they should be seen showing up together. Nora asks why he’s being weird and at first he denies it, but then he says they should “pace it down.” She wonders if he’s breaking up with her and he adamantly disagrees. “Okay, we went from animal sex in the break room to a frozen pizza and cuddling in front of a movie that I had to read. I think that’s slowing down.” Josh wants to dial it back so they don’t ramp it up and get too intense. [LOLwut?] Josh then tries to change the subject by getting obsessively engrossed in his cafeteria pudding, leaving Nora absolutely baffled.

Nick and Sally are strolling through one of the busiest restaurant kitchens in town, a place Sally tried for eight months to get a reservation. They discuss taking advantage of being a ghost to go do fun things. Sally says she mostly hangs around the house and he’s surprised she hasn’t even tried to see a Red Sox game from the dugout. She jokingly asks if he’s reading the complete works of Aristotle and jamming with Yo Yo Ma but he says he is actually learning intensive Arabic with some Egyptian ex-pats who don’t know he’s there, but he talks at them. Sally admits she’s a slacker, shut-in ghost and Nick says she’s new. He spent the first six months of his death crying and haunting his ex-girlfriend. Sally admits she had a violent crush on him but before they can go further with the gooey flirtation, he begins coughing. He excuses himself. Sally waits then follows him out into the alley. She sees sodden footsteps and turns the corner to see Nick struggling upside down in a bubble of water, which then explodes, showering Sally with water droplets that disappear as soon as they touch her.

There’s a makeshift memorial on the curb where Bernie was struck by the car with pictures and candles and heaps of flowers. Cindy is there and so is Aidan, most everyone dressed in black. She goes momentarily crazy with grief, lashing out at Bernie’s picture until Aidan steps in to take hold of her.

The next day, Sally is there waiting at their river meeting spot when Nick shows up. She says she thought he evaporated and he’s embarrassed and says he hoped she wouldn’t have seen that. Turns out, he drowned when the boat he rented capsized. His leg got caught in the anchor rope and that’s how he died. And every day he has to relieve it but he doesn’t know why. She’s amazed he can stay sane reliving his death over and over, but he’s taken a very zen approach: it’s only five minutes of his day and the rest is his time to do as he pleases. They resume their flirtation and they kiss. Sally is amazed because she felt it when she kissed him. They kiss again, deeper, and their forms seem to start blurring into one another.

Sally reconnects with the ghost of an old flame. Credit: theloveumake.com

Aidan’s moping on wet bleachers at the park where he and Bernie kicked a soccer ball around last episode. Rebecca comes to find him there. She tells him life shouldn’t have to be this miserable, but someone calls Aidan’s name from the other direction. Bernie tackles Aidan and says Rebecca fixed him. Aidan can’t believe what Rebecca has done. There’s a reason they don’t turn kids. Children have no impulse control or idea of consequences and that makes them even more dangerous than someone turned as an adult. Rebecca rationalizes it by saying Bernie didn’t deserve to die and she’s only been feeding him hospital blood. She says they could go away together to stay clean and raise Bernie right. She did this for Aidan, she says, not because she wanted to. Then they realize Bernie is nowhere to be found.

Sally and Nick are snogging away in the kitchen. Josh is irrationally upset by their “sex cloud” steaming up the kitchen because he’s afraid to inhale part of them. Sally explains Josh has girlfriend issues but the mood is broken and Nick figures he’d better “go die again”. Sally thinks he could work through his echo at the house and maybe she could give him something else to focus on instead. He grabs his throat and begins gasping for air, she tries to talk him through it, but to no avail. Josh comes back in and wonders what’s going on and Sally explains he’s drowning. Nick chokes up some water and vaporizes in a puff of…whatever ghosts are made of in the Being Human US universe. Josh jokingly suggests he’s the ghost of a merman but Sally’s not in the mood so he leaves.

Bernie’s over on the other side of the playground sitting on the swings. A little red-haired girl sits on the swing next to him and offers him some licorice. Bernie doesn’t speak, he’s concentrating on the sound and smell of her blood and is milliseconds away from attacking her when Aidan scoops him up with the excuse that he can’t have sugar. Aidan takes him aside and tries to explain why he can’t act on his impulses because he could hurt someone. Bernie thinks he’s a superhero now and superheroes only go after bad guys, like those boys who used to tease him. He’s hungry, but Aidan has to go to work so he goes to find Rebecca to take care of the boy.

Josh sees Nora talking with Dr. McDreamy in the hall. He immediately breaks up their conversation with waffle about an all-inclusive holiday party. Nora and McDreamy are dumbstruck by his asshattery so Josh ups the ante with a report that Mr. Beckly thinks he has Guinea worms in addition to H1N1. Taking the (rather odd) hint, McDreamy goes off to check his patient, allowing Josh to lay into Nora about presumed non-exclusivity. Nora says he doesn’t get to harass her about seeing other guys if they’re “dialing it down”. she says Josh’s idea of less intense is “no sex, dinner out once a week and no sex!” Josh isn’t helping his cause by saying he wants them to be “less invested in each other, less intimate” and Nora counters by proclaiming (at the nurses’ station) that she’ll have to get reacquainted with her vibrator because they’re not having sex but she’s not allowed to see anyone else.

Aidan’s walking home after his shift and sees police cordoning off an alley near home. He ducks under the tape and gets to see the bodies of the two bullies with their throats torn open before someone grabs him to take him away from the scene. Bishop is there in an official capacity to help clean up the mess. Bishop is uncharacteristically angry as he confronts Aidan: “Those two boys nearly had their heads chewed off by some vicious creature with tiny, sharp fangs. What could have done that, I wonder? Did you really think I wouldn’t find out, Aidan? A spanking new vampire running around the city?” Aidan says it wasn’t his choice, but Bishop continues. “There is always a choice. And there are rules. Considerations, and yes, even compassion amongst vampires. That [points to the two corpses] is why we don’t turn children.”

Bishop lays down the law on Aidan. Credit: CinemaBlend.com

At home, Aidan gets much the same treatment from Josh. He’s angry because Aidan started the chain of events that’s killed so many people: Rebecca, Cara and the three boys are just the most recent fallout. More than that, Josh is angry because Aidan keeps things from him and only sees fit to tell him when it’s raining down on their heads. Aidan admits it’s gotten out of control and suggests he should maybe leave for a while Josh agrees. Aidan goes to a cheap motel where Rebecca and Bernie are holed up. Bernie won’t eat the bagged blood anymore and Rebecca has lost her temper. The whole situation Aidan walked into has spun dangerously out of control. Bernie wants to go home and see his mom, but Aidan bars the door and Bernie bares his fangs. Rebecca says she can’t take care of Bernie by herself, she wants Aidan to quit his job so he can help her full time. Aidan says he’ll take Bernie out to get something to eat.

Back at the house, Sally explains why her emotions make the house shake. She thinks that maybe there’s a something within Nick that’s causing his death echoes. He said he used to try to fight his way out of the echo, try to beat his death. But then he accepted it and he still has to go through with it. Then he finally comes out with it: the only time he remembers what it was like to be alive is when he’s dying. Sally realizes the truth, he does this to himself on purpose and she finally takes a stand and won’t become absorbed in another guy’s life (or death) like she did with all her other boyfriends.

Josh confronts Nora in the darkened break room. She’s not receptive but he presses his suit. He wants to be with her, but he just can’t. He breaks out his own personal version of “it’s not you, it’s me.” It’s something private about himself that needs to stay private. He hurt his family and his fiancee and he doesn’t want to hurt Nora, too. She assures him she’s seen horrible stuff in her life too and, to prove the point, she lifts up her scrub top to reveal horrible scars all over her belly. Josh demands to know who did that to her and she says, “let’s just say I didn’t always go for the nice guy.” He looks into Nora’s eyes and tells he he never wants to let anything like that happen to her again.

Aidan takes Bernie out into the woods to kill a deer. He explains that animals are different, humans eat animals and they can, too. He’s going to teach Bernie a way to kill an animal so it doesn’t hurt. Aidan’s going to circle around it and flush it towards Bernie then Bernie will use his speed and strength to run down the deer, catch it and hold on tight. Instead of flushing the deer though, Aidan sneaks up behind Bernie and stakes him. Later, Aidan is crying at the kitchen table. Josh asks if he found Bernie and he says he took care of it. “You had to,” he says. Not knowing what else to say, he leaves Aidan to his tears.

At the funeral home, Bishop is working on some paperwork. Marcus lays some papers on his desk and Bishop congratulates him on a job well done. “If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought Aidan’s son did it myself.” “What was Aidan thinking anyway, trying to keep a child? It’s sick.” “Aidan was thinking he’d start a family of his own. But we’re his family, aren’t we, Marcus?”

Well, that was a different ending, wasn’t it? In the original, Mitchell sent Bernie and his mom out of Bristol on a train. When Adam came along, I wondered if he and Bernie might find each other and be blood brothers for eternity, because the same thing that happened to Adam will happen to Bernie eventually. I…actually think I like the Syfy ending of Bernie’s story better, though. It makes sense that a little kid still ruled by his id is going to be more dangerous and uncontrollable than someone who became a vampire as an adult. It made sense why Bernie couldn’t be allowed to continue as he was. And, while I have never liked Rebecca, her reason for turning Bernie was so true to her character. It’s just like a woman who actively tries to get pregnant to trap a man – Rebecca just took it a step further and created an immortal 10-year-old to complete their family. But she didn’t realize what she was getting into and created a monster. Literally.

But what of Bernie’s mom, Cindy? Shouldn’t she have raised holy hell when his body went missing? Why was that never explored? And speaking of the unexplored, what is up with the Hallway of Ghosts? Nick left his message for his folks there, but he died in the water, not the hospital. How did he find out how to get there? And why does he think his folks will come there when they die? Is it some sort of beacon to the ghosts of the Boston area or a nexus between worlds? We haven’t really seen the afterlife in the US series like we’ve seen in the original – we don’t even know if it works the same. It just seems odd that all these ghosts manage to make it to the Hallway and write their messages, but no one knows if they do any good or maybe those who make it to the Hallway get stuck there. It’s all a bit vague and I hope we get more. But good for Sally finally taking back some self respect and not clinging to another damaged guy who shows her affection. Breaking the cycle will help her, and maybe Bridget too, in the long run.

And what of that revelation at the end of the episode that Marcus was the one who killed the bullies and made it look like Bernie did it so Bishop could blame Aidan? That Bishop is one crafty bastard and he’s playing a hell of a long game. It’s even possible that he could have planted the idea in Rebecca’s head to turn Bernie but I think it’s consistent with her character that she’d want to do it for Aidan. That said, I won’t be the least surprised if it comes out later that it was all Bishop’s idea. But as long as we’re talking vampires, they are still not telling us what the hell is in the Amish barn! It better be a damned good reveal for making us wait so long. And it doesn’t look like they’ll get to it next week either, because it looks like Josh is going to get roped into the Boston dogfighting scene.