Being Human (BBC) Marathon: Season 2 Episodes 4-6 Recaps

So far the second season of Being Human has left me quite confused. Many things happen in every episode, new characters pop up and disappear, and while our trio struggles to find a way of being with a meaning, I was left sometimes to wonder what was the meaning of this character in the series, which is another way of me asking – what am I watching and why?

As I mentioned in my review of the first three episodes of this season, the second season of Being Human is much more “pop” than the first season (which was – what?- metal?). Not only the extra amounts of sex, blood and humor, but also the types of problems Mitchell, Annie and George face, and the ways those problems are solved- it is almost predictable.

The three episodes I will review here lead us from the moment where Mitchell becomes the vampires’ king tothe moment he gives up this job and wishes to lead a quiet dry life with the woman he loves. The vampires have been the main plot line in both season one and season two of the show: whatever romantic plot George is struggling, or whatever way Annie chooses to satisfy her need for resolution or meaningful existence – those are only side kicks to the main plot line led by Mitchell. And if George sometimes find a way to become a part of this vampires plot – Annie is almost always an outsider. My problem with this is that George and Annie were not given interesting enough stories of their own, and so it was the vampires in season one, and it is the vampires in season two – that define where the story goes.

Episode 4

Annie is again almost pushed to a door by another ghost. When a third ghost, Psych, saves her, she asks him to teach her how to defeat those who try to force her to continue. Psych, an army commander that feels guilty for the deathof his people, doesn’t want at first to be responsible for Annie’s life after death, but she convinces him that without his help she will go through the door very soon anyway. Psych teaches Annie how to read aura, how to control TV and Radio (that are ways of other spirits to control her), and do other ghosty tricks. At the end of the episode Annie passes the test, and avoids a door, not fooled by the image of her own dead body. Annie is finally detached from her old self, it seems.

George tries to follow Nina’s advice and lead a full life, keeping his werewolf being forjust oneday a month. He gets a job as an English teacher in a language school, and when the full moon comes he locks himself with strong anesthetics in the cage in his room. By the end of the episode, he dates the school’s secretary Sam, and fights violent impulses (including some funny tourette symptoms), caused by him putting the wolf asleep.

Nina is in the hands of Prof. Lucy Jagget and her boss, Lucy now being the ‘good cop’, saving Nina from a sure death during a useless experiment. She tells her boss that if they want George they must keep Nina “alive and believing“. She also insists that Mitchell is clean, and that he is “capable of change“. She asks her boss for a chance to prove it.

Mitchell starts the vampires rehab group, and asks Ivan to join the group, as an example for the younger vampires. Ivan agrees to play the game, but he must feed secretly. Mitchell aproves this, and becomes one step closer to Herrick, in his use of the shelter.

Episode 5

While Annie is babysitting a baby ghost, and George is trying to make friends with his new girlfriend’s daughter, Mitchell is facing a nightmare from his past, that resembles hispresent situation.

Mitchell is taken by the police to the station, there the police chief orders him to kill a suspect. Mitchell tells the chief he is clean and refuses to kill the man – but the chief pushes him. Mitchell chooses to kill the police chief instead, and arrived Lucy’s house (she invited him over for dinner) covered in blood. Lucy Jagget thinks now that her bosswas right and Mitchell is not clean, and cannot change. And although Mitchell tells her he’s a vampire, and Lucy admits she knew – she tries to kill him at the end of the episode, but changes her mind.

The flash-back of Herrick trying to force Mitchell into killing a woman (and Mitchell saving her, after she tells him she can see he doesn’t want to kill his victims) served here also to explain why he chose to kill the police chief and not the man the chief ordered him to kill – and as a hint on the future relations between him and Lucy – perhaps he will have to save her too.

Episode 6

In the pre-title sequence we understand the reasons of Jagget’s boss for wanting to kill the vampires: they have killed his wife and daughter. And while this is probably a good enough reason, it doesn’t make the priest a better man in our eyes, just more troubled.

Annie goes to see a show of a man who can speak with the ghosts. While the show is a fake, the man can indeed hear her. Annie findsout she can serve as the interpreter of the ghosts to him, and after helping some ghosts to finds their resolution, she meets with her mom, telling her to move on with her life. The man eventually regains his ability to speak with the dead, and Annie says this might be her time to move on.

I felt this plot had a much better potential, and at the end even the moment between Annie and her mother didn’t complicate things or told us anything important about Annie’s situation. It wasn’t clear why Alan could hear Annie but not the other ghosts, and many small question marks like this made this plot seem undeveloped.

George and Sam find a flat of their own, and while he’s obviously not in love with Sam and still thinks of Nina, he insists of making this work. Even when Sam’s daughter tries to make him go away.

Lucy tricks Mitchell into calling a vampire meeting, in which he plans to quit his role as their king. Mitchell convinces Ivan to take up the job after him, and even Ivan is willing to do so for love. But as the meeting begins, a bomb is triggered. The explosion is huge, and Ivan seems pretty dead at the end, setting up some great starting point for the season’s last two episodes.

Music tracks used in Being Human (BBC) season 2 episode 4:

• Artist: The Pretty Things
  Track: Rosalyn
• Artist: George Thorogood & The Destroyers
  Track: Bad to the Bone

Music tracks used in Being Human (BBC) season 2 episode 5:

• Artist: The Velvet Underground
  Track: Venus In Furs
• Artist: Herman’s Hermits
  Track: I’m Into Something Good
• Artist: Charles Gounod
  Track: Funeral March Of A Marionette
• Artist: Jefferson Airplane
  Track: Somebody To Love

Music tracks used in Being Human (BBC) season 2 episode 6:

• Artist: Bat For Lashes
  Track: Sleep Alone
• Artist: Rebekka Karijord
  Track: The Noble Art Of Letting Go
• Artist: The Unwinding Hours
  Track: Peaceful
• Artist: Genaro
  Track: Anyone Home
• Artist: The Voodoo Trombone Quartet
  Track: Your Pleasure Is Our Pleasure
• Artist: Fever Ray
  Track: Now’s The Only Time I Know
• Artist: Amon Tobin
  Track: Foley Room
• Artist: Felix Mendelssohn
  Track: Song Without Words
• Artist: Sigur Ros
  Track: Heysatan
• Artist: Hope Sandoval And The Warm Inventions
  Track: Trouble