Being Human (USA) season 4 episode 12 review: House Hunting

This review contains spoilers.

3.12 House Hunting

In this week’s episode of Being Human… pure psychological torture. For both the characters and the viewers.

The plot of this episode is pretty simple: it is revealed that Ramona was offered as a sacrifice by her parents to the demon Paimon and is not actually a ghost, but rather the physical embodiment of evil in the house. And as the gang attempts to move on into their post-murder house lives (Josh and Nora into Nora’s apartment, Aidan and Sally into the werewolf camper), Ramona laughs her evil laugh and proceeds to psychologically torture all of them into a giant murder-suicide pact that they don’t quite manage to escape; Aidan ends up staking Kenny, who uses his last few moments of life to tell Aidan that Josh has destroyed Sally. Predictably, this spins Aidan into the future that Sally saw when she returned to the original timeline: Aidan reaches out to snap Josh’s neck as the screen abruptly turns to black.

I just ran through that plot pretty quickly, but the thing that this episode did so well was take a reasonably thin plot like that and turn it into truly compelling television; it wasn’t great so much because Ramona psychologically tortured the house’s inhabitants, it was great because of the performances every single actor put in — Alison Louder, in particular, was perfectly controlled as a dark version of Emily slicing Nora’s fears open with a terrifying level of precision.

Watching her throw Josh’s unpredictability in Nora’s face was haunting not only because of Louder’s performance but because of the history the writers have taken care to give each of those characters. We know it’s all a trick from the beginning, but watching Emily, who reacted so poorly to learning the truth about werewolves (understandably so, not poorly nonetheless) lay out those dark thoughts about Josh… it’s not that hard to believe that the real Emily might’ve had those thoughts herself when she first heard the truth. And for Nora, who fought and clawed her way out of an abusive situation, to now be taking Josh back… of course those things would make her question her own judgement by making her wonder if she’s making excuses for a guy who she fears might be, underneath it all, just like her ex. All of the characters had visions precisely tailored to target their fears (except for Sally, but that’s why she was able to so easily break out of her hallucination), but Nora’s in particular struck me as cutting right to the core of who she is. And on top of it all, we learned that there’s an impending Levison-Sergeant baby! (As telegraphed as it might be thanks to their friendship with the pack members earlier this season, I don’t even mind. There is nothing to dislike when a Levison-Sergeant baby is on the line.)

And then there’s Aidan, who had what is probably my favourite line of this season: “You were there when I discovered how perfect the popcorn setting was to nuke blood. And it was awesome!” That right there is proof that this show’s cancellation is a travesty beyond measure. But on a serious note, between his vision of Henry and the fact that he stakes Kenny, Aidan is having a really bad year. It doesn’t really matter how anyone felt about Henry or Kenny, but when the guy lost Henry to the virus and Kenny to his own hand on top of just finding out that his wife killed their son and then having to stake her…Aidan Waite is having a rough year. But despite how depressed and angry he is, I am so, so thankful that it turns out Sally’s “flash-forward” to what is now the present has been revealed to be Aidan under the influence of Ramona’s manipulations and not him in his right mind; Sally was right when she told alt-verse Aidan that the Aidan she knew and loved (that we know and love) would never, ever turn his back on Josh. Kenny said it himself in this episode: “Josh is what’s between us and you choose him again and again.” Those two would do pretty much anything for each other and I can really only think of one person for each of them who would come before the other (Nora and Sally). So I’m relieved that the writers didn’t try to make Aidan suddenly turn on Josh while under his own power; it would’ve been too quick to be believable at this stage in the season.

It was really nice to see such a great batch of beloved guest stars one final time before the show ends, and this was a clever way for the writers to bring them back without resorting to fan service type cameos. Next week is the finale, so grab your tissues and pick your poison as we say goodbye to Aidan, Josh, Sally, and Nora one final time.

Read Kaci’s review of the previous episode, Ramona The Pest, here.

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