Being Human (USA) season 4 episode 4: Panic Womb

This review contains spoilers.

4.4 Panic Womb

This week’s episode of Being Human USA… this one’s for the ladies.

We open with Josh doing crunches while hanging upside down from the bar in his and Nora’s closet. You know those scenes in action films where the lead female character is in her underwear and the camera practically makes love to her body in a completely gratuitous manner? It feels like Josh is that lead female character this week. I’m definitely not complaining, mind.

Meanwhile, Kenny shows up in Aidan’s bedroom out of nowhere with some handwaving about the fact that he was “born” in this house and therefore doesn’t need to be invited in. He calls Suzanna “Buffy” and I like him a little bit more than I did before. Aidan sighs and decides he’s tired of having secrets. A few episodes ago, he chose to live a real human life, to be happy with Kat, and this secret business is holding him back. He’s done with that. So he drags Kenny down the stairs and pleads for his friends to understand that he couldn’t bring himself to kill his son (wow it’s going to be a doozy when he finds out about Isaac). He reminds them how many second chances they’ve all afforded each other and promises that Kenny has himself under control. And Nora gets that. Nora, who has been victimized by far too many men in her life, knows when to grant amnesty and when to hold a grudge. And she knows what it’s like to be out of control in your own body. She forgives. Josh isn’t granting his forgiveness so easily; he has to go jog it out.

While on his run, Josh randomly smells a female werewolf and creeps up on her like so many park-based serial killers. She’s startled, needless to say, but so is he: she’s three months pregnant, but looks ready to pop. They’re both fearful of what she might be carrying: a wolf, a human, or something in between, given that her husband is also a wolf. Josh offers to take her to Nora for an ultrasound to settle her mind… and the baby has claws. Let that sink in.

Elsewhere, Zoe is back! Zoe is one of my favorite recurring characters on this show, so it’s always a good time when she shows up. This time, it’s because Sally needs a go-between to help her track down “Lil Smokie”… who turns out to be named Beatrice, and not only alive and well, but a mother herself

Zoe tells Sally to let it go, but of course Sally can’t; she tracks down Zoe again at the hospital and not only finds out that Zoe is dating someone new (a lady!) but that Zoe didn’t do what she did to help Sally; she did it to protect Beatrice from Sally. She tells Sally that she ruins everything she touches by obsessing and being nosy, constantly rationalizing it by telling herself that she’s just trying to help. And…yeah, that’s Sally in a nutshell. Zoe brings the real talk.

Back in vampire land, Aidan pays Suzanna a visit to ask her nicely to stop killing vampires and she gives him a choice: help her or be on her list. He tries to remind her that she’s a vampire, too, but she insists she’s on a diet that sounds a lot like the vampire equivalent of anorexia and she thinks all other vampires should be on it, too. It’s kind of sad when you put it into context with her flogging herself as punishment for killing Isaac.

Meanwhile, Kat and Aidan are planning a vacation together, and it’s really sweet in the way that you know will have to be destroyed because nothing is ever allowed to be that cute without also being deadly. Aidan is cagey as usual about his past and Kat laughs and says, “Why do you know everything about two hundred years ago and nothing about your childhood? You’re lucky I don’t think you’re a sociopath!” Aidan laughs and says, “Yeah, I would totally never brainwash you into forgetting some very important things about me! Never!” You can tell his heart’s not really in it, though.

At home, he hands Nora a box and asks her to memorize the contents. She opens it and covers her mouth with one hand to hide her giggles and looks at him like he’s the most adorable thing she’s ever seen. “You wrote an autobiography for your fake human life! And made a family tree!” Them being friends is possibly the only thing cuter than Aidan’s fake life box, and I love it.

She asks him why any of this is even necessary and he tells her that he’s getting serious about Kat. She looks him square in the eye and tells him to make sure he keeps Kat out of his vampire life, since she knows how dangerous it can be. Nora is like the patron saint of women on this show and while I’ll admit that sometimes it leads to disaster (like with Erin last season), it’s kind of wonderful to see a woman who’s been through all the things that Nora has come out the other side and become a protector. Aidan takes her advice to heart and turns Suzanna into the vamps before helping her leave the city.

Josh’s eighteenth workout scene of the episode is interrupted by Caroline and her husband arriving; she’s gone into labour and with nowhere else to turn, they came to Josh and Nora for help. Nora steps in like the boss she is and delivers Caroline’s wolfspawn. There’s no kind way to say this, so I’m just going to be upfront with you about it: there have been a lot of disturbing images on this show, up to and including a grown man being literally cut out of a werewolf corpse due to some magic that involved menstrual blood, but none of it has made me recoil in as much horror as the sight of Caroline’s baby. But she cuddles it anyway because she’s its mother, and it slowly morphs into something more human looking, so at least there’s that.

Downstairs, Josh and Nora are like, “Wow, what a nightmare…who knows if it’ll even be human most of the time?” And then, “She’s beautiful, though…” They don’t look at each other as it’s clear they’re both thinking about their earlier conversation about how their miscarriage might’ve been a blessing in disguise. It’s pretty clear, looking at them now, that they might not really believe that. And not that I’m not totally down for a Josh and Nora baby, because I am, but this episode felt kind of… out of place. I feel like they have bigger wolf-related issues right now, and this sort of crept in as a distraction from their main plot.

With Suzanna gone, Aidan heads to Kat’s and stammers at her awkwardly about how he’s been alive for two hundred years and he fought the red coats while she just stares at him, nonplussed, so finally he sits down and spells it out for her: “I’m a vampire.” Considering that he’s probably had that conversation with one or two other human women in his life, it’s hilarious (and yet so completely Aidan) that he’s so bad at it. Apparently Kat thinks so too, because she bursts into laughter as the screen fades to black.

As far as the plot goes, I felt like not a whole lot happened this episode in Josh and Nora’s stories, and Sally and Aidan’s stories both moved rather slowly. But I was undoubtedly entertained the entire time, so I can’t really complain. I just hope next week sees a bit more progress.

Read Kaci’s review of the previous episode, Lil’ Smokie, here.

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