Being Human (USA) season 2 episode 3 review: All Out Of Blood

This review contains spoilers.

2.3 All Out Of Blood

This week’s episode of Being Human is all about temptation. Each character experiences their own form of longing for something they can’t or shouldn’t have, and all but one of them rise above it. This episode also serves to prove why this show is so much better (and why Aidan is so much more likable and relatable) when it doesn’t focus on vampire politics. By giving Aidan a storyline that ties in with the house and his roommates, he’s instantly more interesting and enjoyable.

Aidan’s storyline this time revolves around the woman he hooked up with in the bar at the end of last week’s episode. Julia, as it turns out, has just been accepted to complete her residency at the hospital, and is making Aidan very happy. Josh encourages this, saying that as long as Aidan has his blood-drinking urges under control, then he should be enjoy it. That is, right up until he actually meets Julia, at which point it is revealed that Aidan’s current girlfriend is Josh’s ex, the one he left upon discovering he was a werewolf.

Josh tries to apologize to her, but Julia shuts him down over the way he abandoned her, and later tells Nora that she can’t forgive him for being selfish and cruel.

One of the things I enjoyed most about this was that Julia was never painted as a bad person for her opinion of Josh. As much as Nora (and we, by proxy) might feel sympathetic towards Josh for what he felt he had to do, it is equally important to acknowledge that from Julia’s perspective, her feelings are valid, too.

Aidan, however, finds his temptation when he discovers that the blood supply at the hospital has been locked up due to disappearing units of blood. Unable to get his supply of non-live blood, he tells Sally that his only choice is to eat live, which will turn him into someone she wouldn’t want to know, or to get sick, give in, and binge.

This temptation, as well as the temptation of keeping Julia in his life, despite promising Josh that he will never see her again because he doesn’t want to hurt his friend, haunts him for the rest of the episode, until he finally gives in and visits what can only be described as a blood prostitute. She comes with a burly guy to serve as her ‘protection’ should Aidan get out of hand as he feeds. He ultimately does, and has to be pulled off of the woman, laughing in that giddy way vampires on this show sometimes get after they feed.

Nora’s temptation takes the form of freedom. Excited by her heightened senses just before the full moon, she becomes frisky and wild. She initially turns down Josh’s suggestion of the two of them being locked in separate storage units during the moon, insisting that she wants to be free to run in the woods. Josh tries to persuade her, finally telling her that he saw her kill Hegeman. She reveals that she already knows about that, and that she resents Josh not only for infecting her with his curse, but for having the compassion to run from Julia before he could spread it, but not having the same courtesy to run from Nora.

Back at the hospital, she sees Julia again. She proceeds to stalk her all the way back to Julia’s apartment. But as she crosses the street, apparently with the intent of attacking Julia once she’s turned, she is nearly hit by a car. This seems to snap her out of whatever mental state the wolf has put her in and she returns to the storage unit, agreeing that she needs to be locked up. She and Josh turn inside their metal cages, putting dents in the doors as their wolves take over.

For Sally, temptation comes from her discovery that reincarnation is an option for ghosts, facilitated by nurse Zoe Gonzales. Able to see ghosts because she encountered one as a child, Zoe has decided to use her gift to help match up ghosts who wish to be reincarnated with infants.

Sally is immediately intrigued by the concept, having died so young and before she got to really experience life, but after interviewing Josh and Aidan, Zoe turns Sally down, explaining that Sally is too angry. Sally begs, saying that she is afraid of the dark figure that’s been haunting her ever since she tried to dream, but Zoe points out that the figure would follow her anyway. Only if she were reincarnated, she’d be a defenseless infant against it.

Sally heads to the nursery on her own to find a baby to bond with, but the figure appears in the nursery and scares both Sally and the baby. Seeing how scared she is, Zoe asks her about the figure, saying that maybe she can help Sally get rid of it.

Josh experiences temptation in this episode as an echo. There’s real regret in his eyes as he chases after Julia, and the look he and Nora exchange when he returns to the house speaks volumes.

It’s a contributing factor to Nora’s behavior for the rest of the episode, particularly her stalking of Julia to her apartment. The fact that Nora felt threatened enough for her wolf to do that says all we need to know: Nora, or at least her wolf, is fearful that Josh is being tempted by the human life he could have with Julia that he can never have with Nora now that she is also a werewolf.

While this episode had a few week points (for instance, I am desperately trying to forget the “bedding our women” line, although thankfully Josh acknowledged that he was being “douche-y” almost immediately after), it was actually the strongest so far of the season.

Sally’s story was wistful and gave us new information about ghost culture, Aidan greatly benefited from a storyline that wasn’t about vampire politics, and Josh and Nora continue to be the emotional core of the show.

Nora’s growth into her new life is fascinating to watch: she offers us a new take on being a werewolf as she tries to reclaim her agency in the face of one of the most agency-denying things a person could ever face in this universe: having control of their body regularly taken from them once a month.

The season is getting better and better as the pieces fall into place, although I suspect things will take a turn for the worse when Aidan is plunged back into the vampire hierarchy as we move forward. Still, this was a solid episode, and my favorite one so far of this season.

My only wish is that the writers would learn from the success of this episode and try to focus more on interactions and conflicts between our main characters rather than Boston’s latest vampire drama. Perhaps I’m cynical because vampire politics have been so overdone as of late, but I just don’t find them interesting and I enjoy Aidan so much more when he’s interacting with his friends than when he’s interacting with the Big Bad Vampire of the Week.

Read our review of the last episode, here.