being human: e05 - e06

Oh my god, these last two episodes!

So! Mitchell has turned his back on humanity and is embrasing his vampire ways in an enlightened and helping-the-humans-evolve sort of way. Herrick has him recruiting from the hospital, turning people right before they die, and is constantly telling the other vamps stories about how great he was when he was newer. Mitchell meets an old girlfriend from the 60s and offers her the chance to live forever, and she points out that this is not evolution, it's stagnation; things have to change, people have to die and new people have to be born. It's part of what being human is.

Meanwhile, Annie is haunting Owen, trying to get him to admit what he did, and when they have their showdown, at long last, she's awesome and intimidating and powerful... and Owen isn't scared for more than a minute or two. He yells at her and overpowers her like he did when she was alive, and for a while, she loses all power over anything. She should have gone all poltergiest and scary on him, but she didn't blow a single light or anything, and it's frustrating to watch her getting beat up when that's how she died and she knows better now.

Mitchell finds out what the true plan is: everyone will be recruited whether they want to or not, the whole world gone to vampires except a small numberthat will be kept for food. He finds the first round of human cattle in the basement, and when Herrick finds him there, they hold him against his will.

When George finds out, he shocks Annie out of her stupor to go save him, saying that her friends are her purpose, and if she doesn't care about that, then she really has died. Together, they bust into the funeral home where the vampire base is, and fight their way through to where Mitchell is in the silliest way possible: George hasn't ever really picked a fight before, and Annie is still terrified of everything, but they find Mitchell before the vampires can force him to kill himself, and they get out with Lauren's help. She's been struggling with the lies and the manipulation, she's seen the cattle and fed from them herself, and she can't handle being what she is. She gets them to safety and then begs Mitchell to end her. He was the one who started this, so he should be the one who ends it. After some convincing, he does, and he holds her while she turns to ash and blows away in a really touching and kind of beautiful scene.

They get back home, and with Mitchell and George behind her, Annie faces Owen again, and this time, she won't be intimidated. She just fought off a horde of vampires; he's not nearly so scary as he was. This time, it works, and when she whispers something that only the dead can know to him, he stumbles away, terrified and distraught, and turns himself into the police to protect himself. With that done, the door comes for Annie, and when she's saying goodbye, there's a knock at the door. Mitchell answers it, and Herrick stakes him. Blood's everywhere, George is telling her to just go, that he can handle it, and Annie doesn't know what to do--

And the episode ends and I die. I just keel over, and I stay dead and zombie-like until we get to watch the next episode, because I really don't do well with cliffhangers.

The next episode shows us two years before, when Mitchell and George met: the vamp-thugs were attacking George shortly after he became a vampire and ran off, simply because he was a were and they don't like weres. Mitchell chased them off, and told him to leave, and George said 'What then?' because even then, he knew it'd never end.

Cut back to now, and they've gotten the stake out of Mitchell, but checking him into the hospital was probably a bad idea; he's obviously still alive, but they can't get a pulse on him, and though he's healing way faster than expected, he's not getting better: his body can't make replacement blood for all the blood he lost, and he refuses to feed because every time he does, he loses a little more of himself.

Annie goes home, the farthest she's ever teleported, and finds that the door is gone.

George and Nina have more fights, while he's standing vigil, and he finds out that Herrick's turned the lunch lady. There's a minor throw down in the cafeteria, but George is still too human to kill him.

That night, the Vickar (who's sarcastic and witty and wonderful) is called in to minister to Mitchell because the hospital doesn't think he'll live through the night, and George tries to tell him it's not such a great idea... until Mitchell comes to long enough to tell them that the baddies are in the hospital. George's star of david and the terrified Vickar's Bible quotes are enough to chase off the thugs, but the Vickar takes the reality of their inhumanness pretty badly.

In the morning, Josie goes to see Mitchell and convinces him that she doesn't have long to live, anyway, and he should think of her blood as an organ-donation thing so he can live. He tells her no, but in the end, he does it anyway, and leaves the hospital crying, as the nurse finds Josie dead. Ane he decides that this has to end. He challaenges Herrick to a one-on-one with the understanding that George and Annie are to be left alone regardless of how it goes (because Herrick could kill George outright, and without the boys, Annie's only tie to the world is the house, which he can then burn down). Everyone is unhappy with it, but George takes the chance he's given, and when Annie flips out, Mitchell tells her that she can't understand what it's like-- that when you aren't feeding, you're tortured by everything you've done in perfect, blinding detail, and he doesn't really want to live if it's bad and he has to remember. George convinces Mitchell to let him deliver the news and the location.

Annie doesn't like it, still, and uses her anger-- and the new ability she's discovered to hear the recently head-- to fuel something she can do: she frees all the human cattle and trashes the base. And it's awesome. Really awesome. Her clothes have changed (which is apparently an indicator of her mental state, according to interviews), and she's surrounded by wind. Doors blow open, furniture topples, the vamps have nothing they can use against her, and she's like an angel to the captured.

And I totally called the next part, but it didn't make it any better when it happened.

George tells Herrick directions to his dungeon. It's the night of his change, and he locks the door so that Herrick's trapped, and Herrick goes all threatening and superior and aweful on him, and doesn't even have the decency to feel scared as he watches George change before his eyes-- at least, not until George tells him that saving human lives means he's proving his own humanity, not neglecting it.

Mitchell and Annie try to stop him about the same time that Nina discovers a letter he left for her, breaking up. She's angry enough to follow them down to the basement, and busts in to see waht's up-- and has to be forced back out. She watches George transform, and she doesn't scream or anything, and seeing her manages to calm him, stops his rages dead in their tracks. After he's torn Herrick to shreds, of course.

Afterward, George and Nina are talking, and he finally tells her the truth about what happened to him, and she still hasn't run screaming. Downstairs, Mitchell and Annie are worried that he's been changed by intentionally killing someone, but she seems to be fine. Annie wonders about the door and her purpose, and Mitchell says it's like denying the afterlife let her tap into some new power she didn't know she had. All of them wonder waht happens now, and there's an attempt at a very fragile hope that it's over and they can live in peace. But Nina got scratched in the dungeon, and Owen's been talking to people in jail, and the nameless guy he's explaining everything to calls someone else and says "we've found them"-- and that's how the series ends: uncomfortable, unfinished, and awkward, with more horror to come, but calm now.

Here's what I think can / might happen in the next series, being filmed now:

- Annie will continue to self-actualize. She'll probably have to face the door again at some point, but maybe not this next season. She'll become a really kick-ass poltergeist-- and maybe will have to fight to stay human the way the others do, absolute power and all that.

- George and Nina will have to deal with what's happened to Nina; George will undoubtedly feel guilty, because he's good at guilt. Nina... it's hard to say. She has a short temper, but she's also strong enough to face it. But the fact that he wasn't entirely turned might mean something-- she's only partially infected, or she's different than him, or it'll be like finding out whether you've got some horrible disease or something, and there will be weeks of waiting.

- I'd still love Nina's injuries to have been caused by something supernatural; and maybe that'll change her path with the scratches, too.

- Mitchell will try to go off the blood again, and will be even more set against the rest of the vamps, but they won't give up on him. Someone worse will take over, most likely. H thinks they'll recruit Owen, which would be crushing and horrible.

- Hopefully this new guy and whoever he's taking to on the phone will be a new faction entirely-- monster hunters or paranormal investigators or something.

- I want to see the Vickar again. And I still maintain that they need allies in the rest of the world, a support system they can turn to.

being human: s01 e04

In this picture, Mitchell looks an aweful lot like Henry, doesn't he? But henry had hair that could be splict.

Goddess, this episode did it's darnedst to kill me. Right in the face. Tore out my heart, and then killed me in the face.

Mitchell defends a kid from bullies, and they become fast friends-- the kid reminds him of his young, human self, and he wishes someone would have stuck up for him. The mom's fine with it, he needs a father figure and a friend. And then Mitchell lets him borrow a DVD, but it's the wrong one in the case-- it's the snuff film from last ep, but the mom doesn't know that, all she knows is that there's a picture of a naked guy, all aroused and grinding, and then dead, and she assumes that Mitchell is a perv. And the townsfolk turn on them.

Meanwhile, George is trying to have a relationship with Nina, and he's scared that she wants the Wolf, but she's relieved that he's not always like that. But when things go south in the neighborhood, George crawls back into his hole and won't talk to her and breaks up with her, and it's terrible, because she's trying and she can't understand waht could be so horrible about him that he'd rather she thinks he's a pedophile.

Annie's gone poltergeist, but she can't control it, and even the thought of seeing Owen again makes all the lights in the house explode. When he does come by, she subliminally affects Jenny, and creeps out Owen, which makes him show his real self. He tells the boys they have to leave at the end of next month, and Annie burns off all her old harded pictures; he's taken everything from her, but he's not taking her boys or her house.

The cops, of course, are headed up by the vampires, and they basically tell Mitchell that if he turns his back on them permanently, they'll let this get all out of hand and he'll never live it down.

The kid in question, Bernie, tries to appologise to Mitchell, and the neighbors misunderstand and start a fight, and when Bernie's running back to his mom, Mitchell isn't fast enough, and he gets hit by a car. Because the dying nurses weren't heartrending enough, now they have to kill kids. The shock sends George to Nina's house, where he tells her what happens, and she calms him down, and they come back around to the secrets; he isn't ready to tell her what his is, and she makes them even by showing him some horrible scars and saying that she won't tell him, either. Everyone has secrets.

Mitchell goes into the hospital and confesses to Bernie's mom (Fleur, even though with her accent, it sounds like Flerr) what he is, and gives her the choice: let Bernie die in a coma, or let him help them by saving Bernie. It looks like she lets him die, but then when they're at the train station, she appologises to Mitchell, and Bernie comes up behind them, pale and cold, but not dead. He tells Fleur that she needs to stay with him, keep him good, implying that she needs to keep him human, and then he leaves them. Again. Like he did with Lauren, and like he couldn't do with deadnurse, and like he promised not to do again. And then he goes back to Herrick, and rejoins the nest.

Dammit.

Every interpretation along the way was the wrong one, every choice was for the worse. I don't know if I can handle it if it keeps going like that.

But it did have the best line: "I'm not suggesting we wear chastity rings like American kids, and don't shag because we're mental, just that we take it slow."

I'm liking Annie the poltergiest, but I hope she doesn't turn bad, and I hope resolving her anger doesn't set her free; the show would have to find a new ghost. I'm not liking Mitchell giving up on humanity and leaving another offspring behind; it's so nihilistic, and he was the one who wanted to regain his humanity so badly. I'm loving George making it work with Nina, even if every single thing he says is the wrong thing, and his awkwardness knows no bounds-- and I still think that if anyone can handle what they are, it's Nina. Maybe her scars even came from something supernatural that she hasn't faced yet (which would be flippin' awesome, and would really tie the room together-- I mean, the plot together). And telling her would go miles toward building some trust in George, since he lost everything and doesn't even trust himself. There can't be many episodes left; this is getting really tough.

being human: s01 e03

Yay for this show! It's intersting right off the bat and stays that way. Good for us.

This week, Mitchel decides that Anie needs to 'meet someone with the same condition' after he finds her tearing up the house and tells them that they're only days away from when she was supposed to get married, and introduces her to Gilbert, who died the same year she was born and is stuck forever with Unfortunate 80s Hair. He takes her to see her grave, and imparts what knowledge he feels she should know, trying to convince her that she can go anywhere and do anything now, but what she gets out of it is that she needs to resolve whatever issues are keeping her on this plain. At first, she thinks that it's because she never got to be a wife, and she starts haunting Owen's house, picking up after him, ironing his shirts, finding his keys, cooking for him. Which doesn't work, and I'm glad of that because it's so unfeminist. But when she's following him around, he comes to fix the pipes in the house, which have been acting up since the first episode and are worse now, she witnesses him pulling a lacy thong out of the drain, and remembers that they'd had a fight-- that he pushed her down the stairs and killed her-- and that doesn't free her either. But it's Gilbert who's there to comfort her, and somewhere along the line, he fell for her, which was his resolution, and she watches him passing on (which is reminiscent of Dead Like Me a little, especially since Nina looks a little like Ellen Muth). I was starting to like Gilbert, and it would have been nice to keep him around and expand their circle of people on their side / explore his story that ended with him being dead so he could be the right age twenty two years later to fall for a fellow ghost, but, hey. Can't win them all.

So now she knows that the love of her life killed her, and she still hasn't passed on. Mitchel seems to be caring about her more than he thinks he does, and the house seems to be a part of her, the pipes acting as her subconscious, and as that point was stated explicitly in the show, I hope it gets explored more, because she's not really a person anymore, and she could be the house as well as herself.

Meanwhile, Mitchel has also set up George with Nina the Nurse, and George cooks dinner for her, and things progress up to the bedroom... where he starts scratching at her back and biting on her and spooks himself. It's very close to the full moon, and he can't control his animalistics, and since he can't explain what's actually wrong, he basically tells her he has a dysfunction (thought I think if anyone could handle it, it'd be her). This leads to her talking to him very seriously about all the things they could do other than have actual sex, and that gets him all riled up, as he's on his way to the Change when she waylays him, and he boinks her good and then leaves her grinning and flees to the woods, which he can't explain to her and which we haven't seen him have to face yet. I think it'd be awesome if he could manage to make it work; he's trying the hardest to be a normal person, after all. And it would be helpful to have someone in the medical profession on their side.

Meanwhile meanwhile, Lauren has come to the hospital to tell Mitchel that the video from last ep was forced-- the Big Bads made her seduce that dude with the tramp stamp and film her killing him, hoping that she could be bait to lure Mitchel back into their vampire politics. He convinces her to try to go clean, but she doesn't do very well, and when he gives in and lets her have some of his blood, that only makes her a junkie. Bloodbank doesen't help either, and she takes it that he isn't helping her enough, which drives her, half-crazy with hunger, out into the street, where Creepyface from the first episode is waiting for her, and she goes off with him before Mitchel can find her. Bummer. But she's weak and I don't like her much, at least not yet.

So we learned that Owen isn't all that great a guy, that Annie is possibly tied into the house now and that she's as scared to move on as she is to stay forever, Mitchel is getting used to her being around, George is capable of controlling himself enough to not eat someone he's having sex with, and young vampires are weak. The scenes for next week showed them getting found out-- or, at least that's what the comercials make it look like, but that's not the last episode, so something else has to happen. Like Annie finally coming into her power as a ghost! Excellent!

I'm getting a bit tired of vampires always being embroiled in politics-- especially while watching True Blood at the same time-- and that's one of the reasons I liked Blood Ties so much; Henry couldn't care less about other vamps most of the time, and they're pathologically solitary, something alot of these other shows could use. But this show doesn't worry about that too much, and it's a third or fourth-string plotline at best, which keeps it bearable. I do like, however, when Mitchel's trying his best to be human, which always seems to be outside in the cold, smoking a cigarrette, like last ep when he was on the stoop with Annie, talking to George and laughing, and this ep when he was being charming and evasive with Nina.

being human: s01 e01-e02

She's never really ephemeral like this.

Anyway. We'd heard of this show, of course, through our various fandoms: vampire shows, BBC imports, Dr Who actors. Didn't know much about it, though. So when we got the fancy cable, and we found it on the On Demand, and when the latest episode of Doctor Whos Day (The Deadly Assasin) failed to work, we decided to see what it was all about.

And we liked it. All three of us.

Here's the deal: A fairly new werewolf lives with a hundred-year-old vampire, and the house they've moved into is inhabited by a ghost-- of the landlord's fiancee, who died fairly recently, and hasn't been visible to anyone until they move in. In the first episode, she's learning how to interact with the world again, and can sometimes be visible to normal people (if they're expecting to see someone there, like when she accepts the pizza order and stuff), and she can pick things up and move them around and so on. Meanwhile, the vampire has accidentally turned someone they worlked with (at the hospital), and is trying to go off the blood, feeling guilty about killing someone in true brooding vampire fashion, and the werewolf is about to turn, but his usual safe house is being renovated and he has to be locked inside his own house, where he trashes everything.

In the second episode, Marshal the Vamp has to deal with Lauren, the babyvamp that he made, who wants everything to be chaotic and wants him to take responsibility for what he did to her, while also having to deal with the mysterious plans of the rest of the vampires, who seem to be everywhere and look like they're getting tired of hiding in plain view. He decided to choose people over his own kind, and that means he's also decided to get to know the neighbors, to act more like a normal human-- and to go out on a date with a nurse, which ends badly for several reasons. Meanwhile again, George the Were has met a man named Tully (the same who was Shakespeare on Doctor Who, if you're keeping track), who promises to teach him how to handle being a were, how to outsmart his own animalistic self, how to embrace the strength and the raw power of it in his human life as well as his wolf life-- and turns out to be the one who turned him to begin with, wanting to get George on his side to build a pack to replace the life he lost. He starts out by charming everyone, and ends up by damn near molesting Annie the Ghost and entirely alienating George.

I can't wait to see what happens next.

It's got an interesting set up. George is a fairly standard Were, but he's such a sweet, awkward, timid guy that it's entirely alien to him. Marshal is a strange sort of vamp who seems to be free of alot of the curse part-- he can eat normal food, he can go out in the sun for at least short times-- but he's sort of addicted to the blood, and he doesn't age or die, so it's a constant struggle to not attack people. Even though he wants to. And Annie's tied to the house more by fear of the world and what's in it than by any metaphysical bonds, and can go through walls and disappear, but in general is trying to act like she's still alive, even though she can't eat or sleep or change her clothes or anything, and I'm willing to bet her death wasn't as accidental and innocent as we're led to believe. I'd like to see her embrace her ghostliness and poltergeist out, even if it's just once, though; it'd be awesome if she could blow out the windows or posess someone.

true blood: s02 e08 i will rise up

The episode opens right when Bill is telling Lorena to bug off, and Luke is about to hit the trigger-- and goes immediately into the explosion, then it's aftermath without even a little lingering on the blowing up, which seems out of character with the show's love of lingering carnage. Maybe there just wasn't space.

So Bill busts in and finds that Sookie's mostly fine because Eric jumped in front of her and then fell on top of her, and goes to beat up the Soldiers who are lingering outside long enough to go 'oh shit' and then flee-- and he sends them back with the message to remember that the vamps could have killed them all and instead let them live. Meanwhile, Eric's dying, and he has Sookie suck the bullets out, and Sookie's dumb enough to do it. It's like a scene from some hentai: "Oh, my shoulder! Oh, there's one in my chest!" I totally expected "Oh, there's one a little lower...". Maybe Bill just came back before that point. And pointed out that Eric was a liar, and now Sookie's swallowed some of his blood, and now Bill's sharing space in her head with Eric, who is taller and older and stronger, and not nearly as much as a poor divided sap. Poor poor Bill. Where did all your spark go? Did you leave it at home when you went to Dallas?

Sookie has the decency to be grossed out, and Bill carefully explains that she'll always be tied to him, he'll always be able to feel her (which she realizes means he'll always know where she is and what she's doing), and that she shouldn't be surprised if she starts feeling attracted to Eric, because that's one of the side effects. They didn't make that leap, but his face sort of looked like he didn't want to tell her that part, which I'm assuming was because it was Eric, but I'm going to say it's because he knows that the implication is that she fell in love with him because she'd had his blood, and he knew that Eric's blood was stronger.

Then Sookie has really realistic sex dreams where she's laying in bed with Eric, and he's holding her hand trying to convince her she'd make a great vamp, and they're both naked and his hair is tousseled and he's smiling and she doesn't think he's scary at all. And Lorena keeps interupting and pointing out that she's already forgotten about Bill. She wakes up and goes to where Jason's staying, and they have a much-needed talk where they agree to grow up and be good to eachother because they're all they have left.

While all this is going on, Godric's getting everyone back to the hotel, to safety, and getting in trouble with Nan Flanders, who is a raging bitch with slicked-back hair and black clothes when she's not on TV. Godric feels responsible for everything that happened, and when Nan makes him not!Sheriff, he steps down gracefully and appoints Isabelle as his replacement. Which Eric doesn't like at all, and he demands that Godric fight back, as does Isabelle, and he won't-- he has ammends to make.

Sookie tells Bill she has to go see what's up, and won't let him go with her because it's almost dawn, and I'm going to assume she has some idea of what Godric's got planned. Bill's back in that stupid bathrobe, and lets her go, but his dallas-wimpiness is almost mitigated by the look of amazed love on his face as he realizes that she feels obligated because she has a good heart. So she's up on the roof just in time to see Eric begging Godric to go back inside, and then demanding, and then saying he'll Meet the Sun with him, and Godric saying that 2000 years is enough and he won't go back inside and Eric doesn't have the ability to make him, but he does have the ability to be sure Eric won't stay. Which he does, lovingly and tenderly, while Eric is on his knees, crying, and it's all pretty intense. His voice goes all squeeky and he stops speaking in English, and he begs, and-- wow. I'm sure he's going to be extra tough from now on, to make up for being seen crying and for losing his maker. Which happens right after Eric leaves. Sookie stays, and is afraid for Godric, and stays with him the whole time so he doesn't have to be alone. And he evaporates. Much faster than Bill did, so maybe there's a drying out that happens with age, if not a purification.

And that's the close.

Then, there's the story back in Bon Temps where Jessica and Hoyt are talking about what they'll do now that she's forever virginal, and they decide to deal with it. She's sure there must be something that can be done, because she can't have been the only virgin turned, and he says he'll go along with whatever she thinks is right. He won't let anything get in their way, and he wants her to meet his mom. But it's almost Dawn, and she has to sleep, and since he can't go with her, he sings to her so she knows he's still there.

I love these two.

Later, he tells his mom that he wants her to meet Jessica, and if she's not nice to her, he'll leave and never come back-- but being scared only makes his mom worse, and he confronts her with all the horrible things she's said and done and asks why she's so full of hate. She doesn't have a decent answer. But she does go to dinner with them, even though everything Jessica says gets a glare, and eventually they get into a fight where she points out that Jessica can't ever give him babies-- and Jessica runs out and Hoyt says he's never coming back, which leads his mother to drinking.

Meanwhile, in the other half of the story that I'm more than done with, Tara and Eggs wake up all bruised and again can't remember anything. Tara's getting really freaked and tired of blacking out, and Maryanne gets pissed that she won't just accept the gift of letting go and merging with diety.

Everyone's been getting arrested and thrown in jail for weird little misdemeanors, and they're all getting stranger and more wild the more they throw in that cell, but they've kept Sam separate, and when Maryanne comes looking for him, he becomes a fly and buggers off. This makes Maryanne even more pissed, and she goes to the bar looking for him, bringing the wind and the god!voice with her, and demand to know where Sam is, but no one knows. So she goes home and plays tequila-strip-poker with Tara and Eggs. Until LaFayette and Lettie Mae show up, trying to stage an intervention (earlier, LaFayette saw her bruises and assumed (rightly, but in the wrong context) that Eggs was to blame and they had a big ol' fight), and things go downhill. Maryanne tries to tempt Lettie Mae with vodka, while drunk!Tara is a bitch, but Lettie holds out and LaFayette takes over, and then there's fighting ::sigh:: But eventually, LaFayette just picks up Tara, creepy black eyes and all, and throws her in the car, and they make a getaway.

I'm so ready for this crap to be over.

But this part did have a very sweet scene where Terry's not looking at Arlene, and she starts crying and asks him to not be mad at her, and he says he isn't, and is happy at the idea that they had sex because it's been so long he doesn't remember the last time he did. And then they're both happy, even though neither remembers what happened, and they're about to kiss when some crazy woman demands her food and ruins it. The townsfolk are awful right now, and I can't wait until everyone gets back in one story and it gets sorted out. But I'm glad Terry gets to smile and be sweet. Even if this is like a different, suckier show without Sookie and Bill involved.

There's only a few more episodes, and it's looking pretty intense!