Being Human 3.06 Daddy Ghoul
First of all, yay, pay off for that one scene in the season opener where Annie meets Lia! More about this in a moment.
All in all, this was almost the comic relief episode moment in the ongoing seasonal darkness - the porter's scene in Macbeth, so to speak. And this despite the fact we open on a flash back scene stolen inspired from Interview with the Vampire featuring Herrick, Mitchell and the dead body of a woman whom they used to fill various wine glasses with, and one of the two plots involves a woman whom the audience is bound to believe will end up murdered by either Herrick or Mitchell before the episode is over, with the big twist being that she doesn't, she survives both of them and now has a new ally in Annie.
But the plotline involving George, his family and Nina is basically pure Richard Curtis style rom com with a nod to Back from the Future. It works surprisingly well. I mean, I could quibble about the bit directly taken from Back to the Future, to wit, George's shy, meek father asserting himself via punching out his obnoxious rival, thereby winning back the heart of George's mother. The problem in both cases isn't just that the punching demonstrates true love but that the rival is such an obnoxious jerk that it's barely believable Marty's mother in Back to the Future or George's mother in this episode would consider him. However, the episode also makes clear that the main problem between George's parents was the fallout from George's disappearance three years ago and his father's emotional withdrawal, and his dad's more important gesture is to insist George should see his mother and tell her he's alive. So I'm prepared to handwave. Also George Senior is pretty endearing and so were the father-son Titanic watching scenes, though it has to be noted that George Senior shares his son's less attractive sides as well. (If you look back at George's behaviour at the start of s2, where he was so busy dealing with his own stuff that he completely overlooked what Nina was going through - that sounds a lot like what George Senior and Ruth describe, only minus the obnoxious teacher as a rival and with supernatural issues.) Speaking of Nina and George, they continue to be wonderful as a mutually supportive couple this season, and the "we were in a cult" scene with Ruth and Obnoxious Teacher was one of the funniest of the show, while George coming out as a werewolf with Nina backing him up was very touching. BTW, can't make up my mind whether we're missing a punchline there, i.e. whether the script originally had George Senior (and then later Ruth) assuming George was gay (since he hadn't actually said the word "werewolf" in his first scene with his father), or whether we're supposed to take all literally, i.e. Ruth really doesn't think the werwolf thing is that big a deal any more than George Senior did. (Which would still make a good parallel to some coming out scenes.)
Meanwhile, at the B&B for supernatural beings, the ongoing question is "how much lower can Mitchell sink". I actually almost expected him to feed Nancy the policewoman to Herrick, or later to kill her to save himself. Which he did not, but he passed up yet another chance to tell Annie the truth even before Nancy came to call, and we could also see the manipulativeness at work in the way he first brought up Daisy as a scapegoat to Annie and then later allowed her to think it was her idea he should bring her up to Nancy as well while flattering her about how Annie makes him a better person. One of my favourite things about the episode is that Annie, continuing from her reasserting herself last week, gets to condemm him anyway despite not realising that's what she does by her reaction to learning about the massacre (which of course she can't believe Mitchell to be responsible for yet), her empathy for the victims and determination to help Nancy find and bring down the killer. Great continuity pay off in her recognition of Lia on the photo and puzzlement at Mitchell pretending not to recognize or know Lia. (Which in itself is symbolic of Mitchell's continued denial of the lesson he was supposed to take from the Lia encounter - he took her warning about the werewolf bullet to heart, but not the point about the people he killed.) (Methinks he'll trip over his denial to have met Lia now that he finally got around to burning the scrap book of doom.) As with Wendy the social worker last episode, we see Annie being interested in and identifying with another patronized yet determined woman - and deciding to help her. Which now that the ep is over I love even more than I did when watching because back then I assumed Nancy was doomed. Now that she contiues to live (not out of the woodworks yet - I'm not betting on Nancy's survival of the season, but who knows...), I'm thrilled, not least because by making the investigating policewoman and Lia the victim with a voice all female characters, Annie's instinctive identification and alliance with them takes on aspects of empowerment and breakout of the role Mitchell has given her, the damsel and pure symbol of salvation.
News of the week: so Herrick is still genuinenly amnesiac, maniuplates by instinct rather than by plan and isn't quite ready yet to drink someone's blood, though he's getting there. The scene in the bathroom with Nancy was incredibly scary because givent this show's track record you really expect her to be killed at this point. At a guess, Herrick not doing so is both due to lingering amnesia (i.e. having to relearn the entire vampire thing) and because at that point he'd rather mess with Mitchell by pointing Nancy his way. I was intrigued by the fact the show set the Interview-with-the-Vampire derived flashback with Herrick and Mitchell and their little conversation about having an heir in the 30s, of all the periods. It continues the coding of most (though not all) vampires as upper class and in this case visually identifies Herrick with a certain type of fascist fond nobleman. Lest we forget Cara using the term "master race" last episode (and I think Herrick did in the s1 finale? It's been a while).
Lastly: did I mention I really liked Nancy and am glad she's still around and now on Mitchell's trail together with Annie? To quote a certain Welshman, hooray!
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