Being Human (USA) season 2 episode 6 review: Mama Said There’d Be Decades Like These

 

This review contains spoilers.

2.6 Mama Said There’d Be Decades Like These

This week’s episode of Being Human, despite suffering from a lack of Nora, was a vast improvement on the last few episodes. The show is at its best when it lets its main characters interact with each other, and this episode proved why that formula works.

Sally’s plot in this episode is a story that’s been told over and over again in multiple ways: a child finding out the truth about their parent’s hidden past. But for all its lack of originality, Being Human pulled it off quite well, thanks in large part to a lovely performance my Meaghan Rath, who hit the humorous parts as well as the dramatic parts with aplomb.

Sally’s mother passes away in the hospital during the show’s opening sequence, allowing mother and daughter to have a touching, ghostly reunion. But when Sally attends her mother’s funeral, she finds her mother “co-mingling” with the ghost of her childhood neighbour and quickly learns that the two were having an affair prior to his death.

Sally attempts to reconcile her life with this fact and even invites her mother over to the house to meet her friends, but when Mrs. Malik arrives with her ghostly companion in tow, the evening goes from uncomfortable to untenable. Sally finally sits her mother down to ask why her mum is so reluctant to bond with her and why she brought a companion to what was supposed to be their mother/daughter night.

Mrs. Malik tells Sally that, knowing how Sally died, and knowing that she died right there in the house, being forced to come back there and see that Sally is still there where such horrible things happened to her is a form of hell. It’s a reminder that she failed to protect her daughter from the world.

Josh, meanwhile, is also dealing with the theme of protection. The cops arrive at the hospital, informing him that they have found the body of Nora’s ex-boyfriend and know that he and Josh argued on the day of his death. They want to know where Nora is now and Josh answers honestly that he doesn’t know; all of his attempts to call her have been met with her voicemail.

He seeks out the twins, asking what they know, and they readily confess that the three of them killed her ex together and that Nora doesn’t want to see Josh right now. Josh blames them for what happened and asks Aidan if he can help by using the cop he and Suren turned recently to stall the case. When Aidan fails to do this, Josh takes matters into his own hands and offers her Connor and Brynn. As she is a new vampire, surely bringing in two purebred werewolves who, he lies, killed Hegeman will be a “prize.”

She agrees and compels the other cops to forget the whole thing, then demands that he follow through on his promise of the purebreds. He goes to see Connor and Brynn and tells them that he took care of the cops and asks them to tell Nora that she is safe. Then he returns to the cop and gives her the purebred’s address, as well as the gun loaded with silver bullets that Hegeman was attempting to use to kill Josh. She drives off, presumably to take out the purebred werewolves, which automatically makes her my new favourite character.

Aidan, meanwhile, has been drinking so much live blood that he’s become drunk with it, and it turns out that Aidan is a happy, giggly drunk. He’s also a drunk who hallucinates, and his hallucinations take the form of his maker Bishop. Mark Pellegrino is one of those rare actors who somehow manages to make everything better from the second he steps on screen, and this episode is no different. He manages to make an extended scene featuring a drugged-out Aidan trying to poker face his way through a conversation with Josh absolutely hilarious. There were so many one-liners in this scene alone that I stopped trying to take note of them all, and he nails every single one.

When he wasn’t giving voice to all my inner thoughts about this show, Bishop was encouraging Aidan to find and kill his progeny Henry. This was made easier when Henry showed up on Aidan’s doorstep during the awkward dinner with Sally and her mother, so naturally the two of them took a walk with Aidan’s favourite hallucination at their side. But when the fight inevitably erupted, Aidan found himself unable to kill his son, and he promised to find a way to reintegrate Henry back into vampire society.

All seemed well and good until Bishop sadly informed Aidan that the father never kills the son–the son must kill the father. It is always that way, he says, and confesses that he has never been more worried for Aidan than he is right then.

Though this episode wasn’t perfect, it was far more enjoyable than any of the recent episodes. There were multiple scenes with our main characters interacting, including a scene featuring all three of them sitting around the dinner table. Watching these three play off each other is a delight and I have missed that in recent episodes. I would love to see this continue in the future, because this episode reminded me of just what Being Human is capable of.

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