Being Human UK 2.02

[skieswideopen]

- Flashback! What is Mitchell up to? Drying out?

- Oh, Annie. So awkward. At least for the witnesses.

- Careless vampires, leaving dead bodies with puncture marks lying around! I suppose this is what happens with Herrick gone.

- There's a lot of smoking on this show.

- Breakfast in bed! That's sweet, George. Maybe the show will win me back to George/Nina after all.

- What's going on with Saul? Sick? Taking a lot of vitamins? Oh, hearing voices is rarely a good sign.

- Oh, they did bug the house! Just audio? No video? And just the one bug? That's kind of unprofessional.

- Did George really think Mitchell had never had another roommate? Ever? In nearly a century?

- Okay, so there is a process for dealing with bodies that somehow show up. I wonder if it will still work with Herrick gone?

- I now see how Annie can get away with working at the pub! No one ever comes in! Although I still wonder if her boss isn't going to start wondering why she never changes her clothes.

- The Carl story is interesting. Mitchell's not alone in his attempt to abstain from blood! Although it doesn't bode well for Mitchell that Carl has failed.

- Tully gets to stay, but Carl doesn't? I mean, I agree Carl is dangerous, but I don't think George is in a position to be giving the "you're not the only one who lives here" speech.

- Another vampire eating! I'm starting to think they have to.

- Carl, stay out of Nina and George's relationship.

- Oh, the vampire system fails! Well, threatens to fail. I haven't seen the vampires doing their compelling/mind control thing in this version. Does that mean they have to find other ways to deal with this kind of thing?

- It's always inconvenient when your minions develop a conscience. I'm liking the plotline for Mitchell, having to deal with these kinds of problems.

- I'm not sure admitting that you have a girlfriend is the best move here, George. Sets up a nice target for Ivan. Although I suppose if he really wants to get you, he'll follow you and find out anyway.

- And now Owen turns into a creep too. Poor Annie! At least she can defend herself now. And yes, George does a better job of handling this than the Tully situation.

- I'm not sure I should really be cheering for the vampires finding a way to continue killing, but I'm enjoying Mitchell engaging in intelligent problem solving.

- More creepy!Owen.

- I love the tea cups everywhere!

- Aww, Hugh is sweet.

- The vampires aren't as well organized in this version. Or maybe just more independent? No larger organizational structure beyond the individual cities?

- It's interesting that Annie doesn't want to move on, when Sally did. Of course, the whole portrayal of death and the door system is very different in this version. Much less hopeful and more scary.

- Aww, Nina. I can see why you'd leave. No good choices here. But I think you'll have to find a new job if you want to completely avoid them.

- And of course they listened in on that conversation! Are they going to try to talk her in, or just grab her?

- Has Annie stopped being visible again? I think this might actually be harder than Sally's situation. At least Sally knows no one will be able to see her, so she doesn't get her hopes up.

Comments

[brightknightie]

>"Of course, the whole portrayal of death and the door system is very different in this version. Much less hopeful and more scary."

Yes.

Well, I have no comparison between the series, but yes, absolutely, that's part of what I loathed in second season as this escalated. Besides the pathetic ignorance about even the dominant religions of the UK (they keep tossing off stupid Wikipedia-able little errors), there's this... primal fear unsoothed by any of the ideas humanity has discovered and crafted to soothe it.

With the sole (rocking!) exception of the first-season finale repelling a vampire with George's Magan David, just about anything spiritual, religious or metaphysical in this universe is fearful, dangerous, irrational, wrong. Science and faith don't, can't co-exist here. They trip over each other.

Which is so absurd, ill-informed, short-sighted, shorthand, stereotypical...

[skieswideopen]

I'm trying not to spoil you (more than I already have and more than you have been from other sources!) in case you ever decide to watch the US version, but I will say that generally speaking, religion shows up far less often in the US version than in the UK version. There's no indication, for example, that religious symbols bother the US vampires.

As far as the afterlife goes, there's no hint in the US version of this idea that death/the doors should be feared or that there's something terrible inevitably awaiting us. The doors--which are never referred to as "death" in the US version, because after all, the ghosts are already dead!--are much more a symbol of hope. (Of course, the UK version is a little inconsistent on this point. On the one hand, we have Mitchell and Annie hiding what they saw when dying from George, and Annie in an apparently terrible place at the end of season two, and on the other hand we have the experience of the ghost in the psychic episode finally finding peace in a way that's much more reminiscent of what happens on the US version.)