Stars: Sam Witwer, Meaghan Rath, Sam Huntington, Dichen Lachman, Kyle Schmid, Natalie Brown, Robert Naylor, Dusan Dukic, Alison Louder
Writer: Nancy Won, adapted for U.S. television by Jeremy Carver & Anna Fricke, created for U.K. television by Toby Whithouse
Director: Stefan Schwartz
Network: Syfy, Mondays @ 9 PM
Airdate: March 5, 2012
On the one hand, BEING HUMAN’s episode “I’ve Got You Under Your Skin” presents both Aidan (Sam Witwer) and Sally (Meaghan Rath) with enormous, weighty choices. On the other hand, these choices are almost entirely separate – albeit Sally confides in Aidan and he gives her advice – and Josh (Sam Huntington) barely seems to be interacting with the other two. If the characters become any more disconnected from one another, BEING HUMAN may turn into an anthology featuring a segment about vampires, a segment about werewolves and a segment about ghosts, rather than a show about the mixture of all three.
Sally is terrified by the impending return of the Reaper (Dusan Dukic), who has said he will terminate her supernatural existence. Aidan advises Sally to shred the Reaper instead. Sally tries this – but it doesn’t work. However, the Reaper says that Sally is indeed special and offers her a job as a fellow Reaper. Sally decides this may indeed be her calling, but then the Reaper wants her to kill her ghost friend Stevie (Robert Naylor). Sally stands up for Stevie, saying that he only killed one other ghost, and that was to save her from being raped. The Reaper says that Stevie has actually killed all of his other ghost friends. Stevie denies this vehemently and Sally doesn’t shred him – so the Reaper does, leaving Sally sad, confused and conflicted.
Josh is in a funk after his breakup with fellow werewolf Nora. Josh’s younger sister Emily (Alison Louder) visits to comfort him – and arranges a meeting with Josh’s ex-fiancée Julia (Natalie Brown). Julia admits that she really came to Boston hoping to see Josh, while Josh tells Julia he’s become a monster who wounds and ruins the people around him. Julia takes the “monster” part metaphorically, but seems to understand that Josh really has been through something that changed him.
Placed in an untenable position by the demands of vampire royalty Suren (Dichen Lachman) and Mother that he kill all of Bishop’s unsanctioned “orphan” vampires and the reappearance of his apologetic progeny Henry (Kyle Schmid), Aidan comes up with a scheme. Aidan tells Henry to gather the orphan vamps who have rallied round him to come together so that Aidan can get them to safety. However, what really happens is that Aidan has arranged for the house where the vampires gather to change owners, so that Suren can have them “disinvited,” which causes them to burst into flames and disintegrate. Aidan gets Henry out and begs him to leave town, but Henry says he still won’t run. Aidan presents Henry to Suren, who had a memorable breakdown when Henry cheated on her eighty years ago. Suren agrees to let Henry live and serve as Aidan’s right-hand man, if Henry will let Suren skin him alive. This won’t kill Henry – as a vampire, his skin will grow back – and it will satisfy both Suren and Mother’s need for vengeance. Henry agrees, and Aidan leaves the room, hearing Henry pleading for death before he can get out of earshot.
Aidan is getting darker and darker as a character, and Witwer does a fine job of portraying the character’s dismay, self-disgust and desperate optimism that there really is a best choice among the ones he’s given.
Rath puts some real fire and real grief into Sally’s changes. Of course, it seems to be occurring to the audience way ahead of the character that the Reaper may be something other than what he seems, but Sally is in such straits that her tunnel vision is understandable. Rath is putting more personality into the character and the writing supports her, giving Sally a stronger spine as the series continues.
This leaves Josh. Through no fault of actor Huntington, the resident werewolf has pulled so much egregious crap lately – implicating Aidan in a complicated murder scheme, creating a situation in which he gets vampire cop Cecilia killed, rejecting Nora for embracing her inner wolf when he’s the one who turned her in the first place – we really need to see him do something other than wallow in shame. It’s not like Josh has to rescue a baby from a burning building, but having him at least listen to one or both of his roommates would be helpful right about now. As it is, he’s not moving the plot forward and he’s no fun to be around while he’s in stasis.
However, with vampire politics and ghostly power struggles very much at the forefront, we have lots of questions and the promise of lively answers in the next installment of BEING HUMAN.
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Article Source: Assignment X
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