Being Human (USA) season 4 finale review: There Goes The Neighbourhood (Part 3)

This review contains spoilers.

4.13 There Goes The Neighbourhood (Part 3)

In the series finale of Being Human… sacrifices.

Before I begin this review, I want to acknowledge something. When a show has its finale, there are always, always going to be people who love it and people who hate it, with very few in the middle. It’s impossible to please everyone, after all. Some people want a happy ending that leaves us feeling like the people we’ve come to love are in a good place and we no longer need to worry about their lives. Others want an ending that reflects the overall tone of the show and lives up to whatever attitudes it has taken over the course of its run. So in going into this finale, I recognize that some of you may have hated it and some of you may have loved it. I’m not really here to argue which position is correct, because finales are, in a way, private things. It’s almost like witnessing a death; your last few moments with your beloved are for the two of you alone.

What I am going to do is tell you this: Being Human had one thing at its heart for the last four years. What does it mean to be human? And what if you’re, actually, not?

As it turns out, it takes the same things as the rest of us.

It takes love and sacrifice. It takes learning from your mistakes. It takes putting those you care about before yourself. It takes delighting in the simple joy that is a really good cheeseburger. It takes the constant, morbid fear of your own mortality and the constant reminder that your heart can only play its rhythm for so long before the track ends. It takes looking at the sum of your life and knowing the score and still doing the right thing anyway. It takes dying a good death, or as best of one as you can manage, and finding peace in the end. It takes loving your family – in whatever form they may take – with everything in your heart, even if it hasn’t functioned in centuries.

In the end, being human for a supernatural creature isn’t that different from being human for the rest of us. That is what I take away from this show and that is what I hope all of you take as well. Because as much fun as the supernatural shenanigans have been, underneath it all, Sally, Josh, Aidan, and Nora were just people, desperately trying to find the good in a world that is full of horrors both muggle and supernatural. We loved them because we related to them, and seeing them get their happy ending felt like finding our way back to the light after so long in the dark. They deserved it, and so do we.

Assorted thoughts:

– I have absolutely no idea how Sally did what she did for Aidan and then still managed to make it to an afterlife that wasn’t Donna’s witch purgatory. It’s the finale, I’m willing to give it a hearty handwave.- There are not enough words to describe how much I love that they brought back the voice overs for the finale.- “It would be just like Sally to do something epic right now and just, like, rip her way out of your chest.” “I would love that.” The dialogue on this show is perfect.- I’ve said it before this season, but I’ll say it again since this is my last chance to do so: Sam Witwer deserves an award for the consistently amazing performances he’s put in this season.- Yes, I am overly invested in fictional characters but I have to go to work tomorrow in a world where that scene between Josh and Aidan in the alley happened and I genuinely don’t know if I’ll be able to keep from randomly tearing up at my desk. I’m not proud of this. Aidan: I should go alone.Josh: No, I will help.Aidan: Okay, but leave me alone for an hour. Sound good?Josh: Is this in any way related to our previous conversation?Aidan: …no?Josh: Okay, sounds good!(I mean, really.)- My breath caught in my throat when Ramona knocked Aidan down the stairs and it mirrored Sally’s death. I don’t even care how over-the-top it was. It was shot so beautifully that it feels perfect.- I’ve never done this before, but I feel like I need to show you the notes I took during this portion of the episode: “OMG OMG?????? OMG!!!!” That’s it. That’s literally all the note says. But be honest, you had the same thought, didn’t you?

And so we come to the end. Aidan and Sally are together in the afterlife, presumably reaching out to Josh and Nora in their dreams. Josh and Nora have a family, and they’ve named their children in honour of their fallen friends. And this beautifully ridiculous show that at one point literally had Amish vampires wrapped up in cocoons in a barn has turned out to be one of the most emotionally gripping pieces of television I’ve had the privilege to watch. This show has not always been perfect, even at its best of times, but it’s always been full of people I genuinely care about, who I will miss dearly in the coming days.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride, because I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Read Kaci’s review of the previous episode, House Hunting, here.

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