"Being Human" returned to Syfy for its third season Monday, Jan. 14, and with "It's a Shame About Ray," to "be human" took on a whole new meaning.
It had been 15 months since we last saw vampire Aidan (Sam Witwer), werewolves Josh (Sam Huntington) and Nora (Kristen Hager), and ghost Sally (Meaghan Rath), but despite the opening scene of the "Being Human" season 3 premiere, nothing was resolved, the roommates weren't reunited, and pretty much everyone was in trouble, some more than others. By the end, everyone was on their way back to a nice reunion, but it wasn't an easy journey.
First, there was poor Aidan, whose recurring theme this episode was pretty much, "I'm not going to die," but each time he said it, he was in trouble. Those 15 months passed, and he was still in the coffin (with a pretty unfortunate beard)…until he ended up in an even worse place, taken from the coffin for his "pure" blood. While he had been buried, vampires had been infected when they drank from humans "tainted" when the flu spread. But as we saw, even his "rescue" from that wasn't a true rescue. Instead, he was just headed for more danger, and what followed was a conversation that was both amusing and heartbreaking as the weak Aidan hallucinated Josh, Sally, and Bishop hanging out in the van. While his death would get him "style points" for originality, Aidan kept insisting he wasn't going to die—but he wasn't doing much to fight to live, a fact that Bishop pointed out.
"You cannot forget who you are. You were a warrior when I found you. I made you one of the best there is. Now fight!" –Bishop
"Yeah, I kinda get it now. He's super-compelling." –Josh
"I kinda want to make out with him." –Sally
Mark Pellegrino was as entertaining as ever as Bishop ("So-rry"), as he is on pretty much whatever series he shows up in, and that entire conversation, despite the fact that it wasn't real, was one of the best exchanges of the episode. But even though Aidan's blood was supposed to be pure, it didn't stop the virus from spreading and killing, and when the episode ended, the van had crashed and Aidan had flown through the windshield, but he was determined to fight, determined that they—he—wouldn't die.
Meanwhile, Sally spent those 15 months in limbo with Stevie (Robert Naylor) and Nick (Pat Kiely), running for the door to the house only to find it locked each time, only to have to start over all again. Her faith in Josh and Aidan was unwavering, despite ending up back at the beginning over and over, and when there was finally a way out, she refused to leave the others behind. And while it was up to her to grab on to the life raft to fight out of limbo, she was only able to do that because of her friends' actions topside.
As we learned through a flashback, Nora shot Ray but left it to Josh to finish him off to save them both. However, when it came time to test the full moon, Josh's joy at being cured was short-lived when he discovered that Nora was still a werewolf. In the present, they were going to see every psychic they could find to get a lead on their friends, and it was when they were pointed in Donna's (Amy Aquino) direction that they got a real lead. What they wanted to do cost them (and not just the $2000); they needed to bring her the heart of someone they killed to bring Sally back from the dead. They dug up Ray and cut out his heart and then dug up Sally's body, and as Donna began the incantation, she warned them that Sally had to understand she couldn't pick up where she left off and couldn't see anyone from her past when she awoke. The incantation was like throwing a life raft into an ocean; Sally needed to climb on. Poor Josh just wanted to make things right, and it fell on Nora to calm him down as they waited. When she did come back, after a bit of a misunderstanding ("Stevie Nicks is here?"), they realized that Stevie and Nick came back as well and must've woken up inside their coffins. But that wasn't all there was for Donna, as her actions at the end led us to wonder just what she's up to. "Now what are we going to do with you?" she asked. We're wondering the same thing about her.
Sam Huntington has called this their "best season yet," and with the premiere (and episode 2), it's easy to see why. "It's a Shame About Ray" kicked off the season perfectly, with standout performances from Sam Witwer and Sam Huntington in particular. Witwer may not have had many lines, but the scenes in the van and after the crash highlighted just what he can do and why he was the perfect choice for Aidan. Meanwhile, Huntington was perfect as Josh tried to hold it together (and didn't always succeed) in his and Nora's attempts to find their friends and bring them home.
"Being Human" season 3 airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on Syfy. What did you think of the premiere, "It's a Shame About Ray"?
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