Being Human (USA) season 2 episode 4 review: (I Loathe You) For Sentimental Reasons

This review contains spoilers.

2.4 (I Loathe You) For Sentimental Reasons

This week’s episode of Being Human was all about temptation, but unfortunately turned out to be not-so-tempting. Last week’s episode was great because it focused on the core characters, and I expressed a desire for that to continue. Unfortunately, we almost immediately veer back off the path through a series of vampire flashbacks, werewolf identity debates, and Ghosts Anonymous meetings.

Picking up last week’s plot in which Aidan lost his access to hospital blood, we quickly learn that he has been visiting the blood prostitute so often that her body isn’t reproducing its own supply fast enough to keep up with his demand. She asks him to come back later, when she will have a replacement ready, but when Aidan returns, he finds that the replacement is a child.

Meanwhile, Suren wants to turn a local low-life who can give the vampire community influence over politicians and a constant supply of nubile young ladies for their blood dens, but Aidan resists since they do not know the man that well or be able to control him. However, as he becomes more and more desperate for blood, he agrees to do the honors of turning the man. As he starts to feed, however, his blood lust takes over and he begins drinking far too much.

Parallel to this action, we run through a series of flashbacks setting up Aidan and Suren’s past. At one time, they were very interested in each other, but Aidan maintained a wary distance due to Suren’s status as a royal and the fact that Mother would disapprove. Aidan’s progeny repeatedly encourages Aidan to go for it, but when he doesn’t, Aidan finds them in bed together instead.

As Aidan considers this, Suren joins him in draining the man they’re supposed to be turning and they begin to kiss. Blood drips everywhere as they kiss and drink, leaving the man dead as they collapse in an over-stuffed and satisfied heap. We were told that feeding would turn Aidan into someone we wouldn’t want to meet, and it looks as though that someone has arrived.

Sally, meanwhile, is spending all her time with Zoe, trying to live vicariously through her. This fails for the most part, as Zoe isn’t good at flirting and doesn’t know what she wants out of life, but things briefly seem to be improving when Sally attends a Ghosts Anonymous meeting with Zoe and runs into Nick, the ghost she dated last season who couldn’t stop reliving his death by drowning.

Nick asks Sally to accompany him to a restaurant, which Sally assumes is a date, but when she happily reveals this to Zoe, Zoe informs her that she is actually already dating Nick. This is thanks to Sally pushing him into dealing with his death, and encouraging Zoe to decide what she really wants out of life. Sally confronts Nick, who tells her that he asked her out to thank her for dumping him, because since he’s been dating Zoe, he’s stopped reliving his death.

Heartbroken, Sally finds a couple kissing under a tree and possesses the woman, despite knowing what doing so will cause. Not realizing that the woman he cares about is no longer in control of her own body, the man keeps kissing Sally.

Josh, on the other hand, spends most of the episode trying to be a good guy, but failing miserably. When a woman comes up to him and informs him that she knows he’s a wolf and requests his help in freeing her brother from the psych ward, as they are both also werewolves, Josh rescues the man to prevent him from turning at the moon and harming the other patients.

They later track him down and ask him to come out with them so that they can thank him properly, revealing that they are both pureblood werewolves – they were born with their curse, not turned later on in life. This manifests itself as their senses and instincts being heightened all month long, rather than just at the moon, and they are eager when Josh reveals that he’s been searching for a cure.

Initially put off by their rude, entitled nature, Josh reluctantly agrees to accept their financial help, right up until they reveal that while they’re happy to support his finding a way to turn the transformation off, they intend to use that information to turn the transformation on, permanently. Believing their true form to be the wolf because their human bodies hold back their senses and instincts, they want to take wolf form for the rest of their lives.

Josh is disgusted, as the wolf represents everything he hates, but they point out that what they feel isn’t that different from what he does, that their bodies are being taken over by something that isn’t really them. Only instead of having to deal with that one night a month, they are forced to endure it all the other days. Josh finally calls Nora for her advice, stating that he thinks they all want the same thing, and that maybe they really should work together.

One of my biggest complaints with this show is when it forgets what its core premise is supposed to be: a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost walk into a Boston apartment. I seem to recall only one scene with all three of our main characters, and it was extremely brief and not particularly relevant to any of the plots.

It’s not that other characters shouldn’t be included, but that the outside characters should affect the core relationships. For instance, last year, Josh’s maker Ray had an extended arc on the show, but it served to create tension between Josh and Aidan rather than pull Josh completely out of storylines with his friends. I’d like to see something similar happening this season with characters like Suren, Zoe, or the pureblood werewolves, rather than each of our characters being pulled off in different directions and not really interacting with each other.

Overall, I didn’t care for this episode and I miss the dynamic that worked so well in last week’s. This show is at its best when it gets its main characters in a room and lets them fondly snark at each other. It would be nice if the writers remembered that.

Read our review of the last episode, here.

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