After the two-part series premiere, which introduced us to Josh, Sally and Aidan, tonight’s episode saw the characters split up for the most part as they each tackled their personal issues from new angles.
“It is impossible to live forever perfectly."
Being a vampire has it’s perks but it’s not without its drawbacks either. Sure, maybe Being Human’s vamps aren’t saddled with the whole allergic to sunlight thing, but like any other creature “cursed” with eternity, they do have to live with the decisions they’ve made over their many years. For a guy like Bishop, that’s probably not all that difficult as he seems just as content in using his vampire “compelling” ability to score a free cup of coffee as he is in draining a person dry and leaving them for dead, or turning them into one of his own. For someone like Aidan, who may have entertained his dark demons in his earlier vamp years, regret’s a real bitch. (See: Angel)
This week, Aidan faced the son of a man whom he murdered years ago. Michael Garrity’s been carrying around a police sketch of his father’s murderer for years and when he came across Aidan, he was sure he was the guy. He verified that when he saw Aidan’s mysterious “Selene” chest tattoo. Note to self, if I ever become a vampire, don’t get a tattoo or any other easily identifiable marker. I’m sure the Selene thing will be explained but in the meantime, the tattoo nearly messed things up for Aidan.
Once again, Aidan was faced with the decision of whether or not to handle the situation himself or let Bishop clean up his mess. The offer was on the table and Bishop seemed all too happy to have another cop on his team but Aidan stood his ground and managed to brain-wash the memory of himself from Garrity’s mind without turning the man’s brain to jell-o. But Garrity ended up killing himself anyway and Bishop was kind enough to send Aidan the pictures. I’m taking that to be sort of a, “See? You need us.” message.
“Maybe you’re not trying to move on? Maybe you’re trying to stay…”
Josh and Aidan introduced Sally to a ghost from the hospital. The mullet-sporting, guy-liner wearing Tony died in ’87 and has been lurking around the hospital, occasionally scoring with other ghosts ever since. He became Sally’s personal Subway Ghost (except without the nicotine withdrawal rage) and taught Sally how to teleport from place to place. This included a visit to the cemetery and to Danny’s place.
Sally can leave the house! That’s a big jump forward for her. What she also learned from her experience with Tony is that finding closure will give her the green-light to move on. Tony was content floating around the after-life and macking on hot ghosts but when Sally expressed her sadness over losing Danny, it gave him the idea to go visit his old girlfriend and deal with his own unresolved issues. After seeing that she was happy, his door showed up and he was able to move on.
So, it would seem that Sally’s challenge is to find closure and as of tonight, she definitely didn’t have that. She’s afraid Danny’s going to forget her and considering he’s hanging out with one of her old girlfriends, I’d say that issue’s going to take some time to deal with.
The thing with Sally is tricky. We’re going to want to see her happy and content, just as we will want to see Aidan and Josh’s personal issues resolved. But with Sally, once she gets closure, she’s gone. So does this mean she’ll be pining over Danny for however long the series goes on or will her closure run deeper than that?
“Who better to watch over a neighborhood than a couple of monsters?”
Josh spent most of the episode buddying up with some of the neighbors after Aidan threw a Neighborhood Watch gathering at the house. While Josh’s wolfy-smell came in handy when tracking down a spray-painting vandal, his rage wasn’t nearly as helpful. Catching the criminal caused him to lose control momentarily and afterward, he began to doubt whether or not it’s such a good idea to try to be around normal people.
Considering Josh abandoned his family and his fiancé because of what he is, it does seem a bit pointless to through the hassle of making all new friends if he’s only going to abandon them the moment he actually begins to care about them. At least with Aidan and Sally, he’s unlikely to hurt them. But, I suppose cutting himself off completely from other people would defeat the purpose of trying to lead a normal life.
Once again, we’re reminded of how lonely the three characters are right now. Sure, they have each other but their problems aren’t alike and none of them can be much more than a shoulder to lean on. Still, that’s something.
Favorite quote of the night:
“Vampires and throw-up scared the crap out of me as a kid,” – Sally
