Being Human Review: Child’s Play, Part 1

This week’s episode of Being Human, “Children Shouldn’t Play with Undead Things,” definitely retreaded ground from the first season of the BBC original. Sally (Meaghan Rath) opens with narration about mankind’s great ability to lie as we see Aidan (Sam Witwer) pulling the hidden vampire porn DVD from a hiding place and watching it on his laptop.

Josh (Sam Huntington) knocks at the door; Sally’s demanding they take her to the bar to spend quality time with her roommates. The three discuss her need to move on, which she’s not too keen on, still feeling jilted by her haunting of Danny. They spot Nora (Kristen Hager) at the bar with another doctor, Travis Reed. Sally goes over to spy and spills a drink to break up the date. Aidan steps in with a pep talk and, with Sally, convinces him to intervene but Josh ends up leaving the bar.

The next day at work, Aidan and Josh watch Nora and Travis interact and Sally pops in for some more quality time. Aidan takes Sally to see the original parts of the hospital, which bores her until he explains that people think it’s haunted, and she encounters a horde of lost ghosts wandering the halls. A ghost named Barbara explains they are all searching for something there and asks Sally what she’s looking for.

On his way home, Aidan comes across two kids bullying one another. He breaks up the fight and asks the bullied Bernie if he’s okay. Bernie explains he forgot his keys and his mom’s still at work, then asks Aidan if he can wait at his house. Aidan says no at first, finally agrees to take him home.

Back at the hospital, Nora runs into Josh and asks if Emily’s okay. He tells Nora he saw her with Travis at the bar. “It’s as though you’re an artist and awkward is your medium,” she comments on their conversation. He asks her on another date and she offers to cook for him. She explains she’d gone with Travis for an after work drink that ended with a strange beer explosion. Sally pops in and gets Josh away from Nora to tell him about the ghosts by knocking over his orderly cart. Nora rushes off, slightly freaked and slightly busy.

At the apartment, Bernie and Aidan are playing a rousing game of go-fish and discussing Paul Revere when Josh and Sally get home. Bernie explains he was being bullied and Aidan helped him out. Josh shares some funny, awkward sympathies, hinting at a personal past with being bullied. Aidan and Sally go into the next room and argue about the ghosts. Aidan’s afraid Sally will end up like them one day. She asks him about Bernie and if he’s a kid person when he has a brief flashback of his son. Bernie’s mom comes in and is clearly upset Bernie came over without notice. His mom thanks Aiden for helping with the earlier fight.

Sally and Aidan prep Josh for his date and later, at Nora’s apartment, she and Josh are making out when she tells him how cliché a line it is to offer someone a tour of your apartment just to end up at the bedroom. Instead, she just invites Josh to the bedroom, but he lets out a sudden growl and makes a break for it.

The next day, Josh is compulsively vacuuming and Sally asks him if he wants to talk about it. He tells her that he growled during his grinding session with Nora. Sally doesn’t understand the problem, but Josh explains he felt like he was losing control. Sally tells him he needs to live his life and not worry.

Aidan and Bernie meet again on the street and Aiden offers to take him to the park, where they kick around a soccer ball in a slightly creepy, slow motion sequence. Aidan tells Bernie he prefers fresh air to video games, and that his dad had a boat, but he doesn’t remember much else of his father. He tells him about his youth and joining the army, leaving out that it was the Revolution of course.

Rebecca (Sarah Allen) walks up and asks to play, and when Aidan goes over to her she tells him she wants to see him. She was honest that night about trying to be normal with him, and expresses surprise at hearing Marcus attacked Emily. She’s lonely and asks if he’s been thinking about her, then guesses Aidan must have been a father once after watching him with Bernie.

Later that night, Josh is in the hospital getting ready to lock himself in when Nora ambushes him for a chat. She tells him he’s sexy and adorable and they don’t have to rush into anything. She asks if he’s attracted to her and they start to go at it and…it gets there, clearly with some wolf taking over.

Bernie makes Aidan watch his favorite movie, Evan Almighty. Aidan tells him he needs to experience The Three Stooges and sends Bernie up to his room to pick out some DVDs to borrow.

Back at the hospital, Josh and Nora are finishing up when he runs out the door. Sally and Aidan discuss whether Bernie would like a ship in a bottle, and how Aidan could stand a little innocence. He admits his age, 257. Josh rushes in saying he’s out of time before the transformation. Sally gets freaked out by wolf-Josh and makes the mistake of letting him see her. The wolf charges and she mists outside onto the steps with Aidan.

The next morning, he and Sally share an awkward moment, but she tells him he doesn’t need to apologize, that she should be sorry for not understanding what he was going through. She says all the more reason he deserves happiness. Josh tells Sally to leave because Nora’s on her way over. She already thinks he’s a freak and that when Sally’s around odd things tend to happen. Sally says it’s because she’s a monster, too.

There’s a ring at the door and it’s Bernie’s mom, enraged at a the DVD Aidan lent him, which turns out to be the vamp porn. His mother tells Aidan if he comes near Bernie again, she’ll kill him. Aidan follows her outside, apologizing. She slaps him and tells him not to talk to her ever again and calls him a pervert. Bernie tells his mom he took it because he saw it on a shelf and wanted to see what was on it. Aidan apologizes, but Bernie’s mom tells him to stay away from her son.

Josh asks why he kept the DVD. Aiden tries to apologize to Josh, who asks him what the point is of trying to be normal if he’s going to hold onto things like that. Josh takes out the garbage and runs into Nora, and starts apologizing. There’s a lot of apologizing this week. Nora says she thinks there’s something between them and that they should take some time to figure out exactly what that is. They start kissing while Aidan watches Bernie playing with his soccer ball from the street. Bernie waves and Aidan leaves the window. Meanwhile, Sally is at the hospital purgatory room, wandering around, reading the writing on the walls. She writes her name, and asks for help moving on.

Next week’s preview shows us we may not have seen the last of Bernie. Could Rebecca be trying to make a happy little family of her own?

Season 1, Episode 8 “Children Shouldn’t Play with Undead Things” (original air date March 7, 2011)

Being Human airs Mondays at 9/8c on Syfy.

Images courtesy of Philippe Bosse and Syfy.