Being Human (USA) season 4 episode 1 review: Old Dogs, New Tricks

This review contains spoilers.

4.1 Old Dogs, New Tricks

Being Human (US) is finally back and hitting the ground running. It’s been three months since the last episode and Josh is still a wolf…mostly.

First things first: Aidan and Nora are friends again! After their fall out last season, it made me really happy to see the two people who care about Josh the most come together to take care of him in his, uh, “time of need.” That time of need happens to be every day of the month except the full moon — which is the only time he’s human. He rehumanizes thirty minutes before Nora wolfs out, which means they really only have half an hour per month to be together. Happy honeymoon, right?

After Nora has to leave for her turn, Josh has apparently been spending the rest of the full moon catching up with Aidan. This time, that “catching up” involves pleas for Aidan to just stab him with a silver knife already and put everyone out of their misery. But bless Aidan for refusing, insisting that he and Nora care too much about Josh for losing him to be a blessing.

Resigned, Josh sends Aidan off to go on a date with Kat to a work party, since at least one of them should be with the person they love, and then he says what may be my favorite line of the entire show: “You are a very high maintenance vampire and I just don’t have the energy required to deal with your nonsense.” It harkens back to the comparatively innocent dynamic these two friends had back in season one, when their interactions consisted of more jokes and less discussions of suicidal tendencies.

At the party, Aidan’s wife (ex-wife?) Suzanna is lurking around and introduces herself to Kat as “Diana.” She pries a little about Kat and her relationship with Aidan and maybe I’m giving her too much credit, but so far I don’t sense anything “evil” about her: when Kat’s back is turned to her, Suzanna seems almost… glad that Kat is so nice and funny and assertive, almost like she’s making sure Kat is good enough for Aidan. Granted, this is Being Human and the first rule of Being Human is that Aidan is never allowed to be happy, ever, so I fully expect to be wrong about this, but so far, she doesn’t seem to have bad intentions.

Meanwhile, Sally is chilling out, hanging with Donna in… a spa. Which is hardly what any of us probably expected after the earth literally swallowed her whole at the end of last season, but Donna reveals that she’s imprisoned them in some kind of supernatural jail because they’ve both messed with two many lives and been too reckless with their power. Sally’s smart enough to figure out the solution, though: if Donna destroyed Sally’s death spot when she dragged them both into the prison, then Donna’s own death spot must still be open. She uses it to escape back to our world, where she finds herself in a chain store that stands on the place where Donna was once burned as a witch.

She heads straight for the house, where Aidan is happy to see her but worried about logistics and danger. Sally clearly doesn’t give a flying cupcake about any possible danger, which kind of proves Donna’s point about her. I kind of like that Sally is so relentlessly flawed when it comes to this one aspect of her character. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the bubbly happy girl practically chirping at Aidan about how happy she is to be back is capable of some pretty messed up things.

Aidan agrees to take her to see Josh, but when they arrive they find that Josh purposefully left his cell unlocked so that he could run away from Nora and Aidan once he turned back into the wolf. When the three of them eventually find him, however, Aidan refuses to stab him with the silver knife (revealing to Nora that Josh thinks it’d be best for everyone if he died in the process), which causes Sally to encircle him in a ring of fire until Nora can use the tranq gun to put Josh to sleep.

Using her powers has some unexpected consequences for Sally, though, who finds herself transported to another part of the forest and then wanders into a bedroom where a group of witches stand over a young girl, holding candles and chanting, “The blood of the child revives us,” as she begs for mercy. They grant none, stabbing her brutally while Sally screams out in horror. Maybe this is the coven that Donna was a part of before she was hanged?

After putting Josh back in his cage, Aidan heads into work, where he runs into Blake. The vamps, it seems, are back to using the funeral home cover again. Aidan warns Blake away from the hospital, asking her to have some respect for his vamp-free zone, so she heads back to vamp headquarters…where Kenny, now looking perfectly normal (so no longer a werepire then?) and running Boston. It’s strange to admit this, but he’s legitimately creepy in his scenes with her and it’s hard to believe that this was Bubble Boy last season.

That surprise will come to Aidan later. For now, he’s got to deal with Kat telling him that she loves him (and can wait for him to be ready to say it back) on the same morning that Suzanna shows up on his doorstep.

I have so many questions about the hows and whys of Josh’s new wolfing out schedule, Kenny’s rise to power (and lack of werepire-ness), and Sally’s powers, but for now, let’s all just take a moment to remember that little thing Aidan did with his hand as Kat left the room after telling him she loved him. We deserve to rejoice in the incredible dorkiness of that moment. Aidan Waite, everyone. Thousand year old vampire.

Read Kaci’s review of the season three finale, Ruh-Roh, here.

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