Posts Tagged ‘Mark Pellegrino’

Syfy’s Being Human: “You’re the One that I Haunt” (SPOILERS)

{ April 5, 2011 @ 1:25 am } · { Being Human, syfy, TV }
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It’s late and I’ve got to be up early, so expect some stream of consciousness writing.  Per usual, if you haven’t seen both BBC’s entire first season and Syfy’s to date, I’m about to spoil the hell out of it for you.

Sally vs. Danny:  the final showdown was tonight.  Anyone who has read my previous posts on the subject already knows that I think Annie and Owen, for the most part, have blown this pair out of the water.  In the contest of cool special effects, however, the prize belongs to Syfy.  Last week’s possession was impressive; this week was as well with Sally’s frightening impression of “The Grudge” and her transformation back, plus her angelic appearance when Danny is finally able to see her for himself.

I’ll also reluctantly admit that the BBC original might have left something to be desired in their simplistic handling of Annie’s final fight back; perhaps with Annie’s powers in general.  We are on Season 3 of the BBC version, and although Annie has progressed in her abilities, we still have yet to see the extent of her powers.  Sally progresses much faster, and here she uses her new-found power to try and force Danny to slit his own throat.

She’s also a little meaner than Annie.

Anyway, Danny shows up to burn the house down and Sally traps him inside with her.  Josh and Aidan arrive in time for Aidan to go all vamp-scary on him and Josh to helpfully (if surprisingly easily) put out the raging fire.  Josh also plays the good angel on her shoulder, since Sally is on the fence about letting Aidan take Danny out for good.  In some ways, this was more satisfying than Annie insinuating what Mitchell and George are capable of before threatening Owen with a secret that sends him running to turn himself in for her murder.  Maybe Syfy can’t match BBC with the emotional aspects, but at least they keep it interesting.  I also have to respect the choice to keep Sally a more traditional ghost:  ordinary humans simply cannot see her (until they lose their minds, like Danny) and she touches no one.  I still don’t see why not, because if she learned in either the first or second episode how to touch physical things, wouldn’t she be interested in some physical contact (I’m thinking about hugs or something, relax) with her roommates at least?  I guess she’s met enough ghosts this season that it hasn’t been an issue.  She also hasn’t bonded with Josh and Aidan all that deeply, which might be another factor.

Moving on to the delectable story of Aidan, Celine, and Bishop.

I’ve mentioned Mitchell and Jonie before, after the episode Dog Eat Dog when I was taken aback by Bishop’s past love with the human woman, Jane.  I’d assumed that this relationship was an echo of Mitchell and his human gf Jonie, since the story with Bernie turned out so differently, as did Aidan’s return to Bishop.  In tonight’s episode, I found out I was wrong, and I can’t help but enjoy the way the relationship was handled.

Jonie, Mitchell’s strong-willed love from the 60’s, is replaced with Celine (70’s?  I couldn’t be sure, but I thought that’s where the haircuts and leather jackets came from) and through flashbacks we see an intense love affair in Aidan’s past.  The story is still very different; Jonie saw through Mitchell and realized that he did not want to kill with Herrick any longer, even as he kidnapped and threatened her.  Thus, she ended up helping him to stay clean.  This is why, when she sees him later as a dying patient in his hospital, she is able to once again force him to find focus and get back on track.  I just adored Jonie.

Celine, however, is shown begging Aidan to turn her, and allowing him to drink from her.  Not cool, when you consider he’s an addict, but her scene with Bishop made me like her just as well.  Bishop has kidnapped her and basically blood-raped her in order that Aidan will believe she has abandoned him.  I couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t just kill her, until he explained in a gorgeously perverse manner that he preferred knowing he had her under his thumb.

Mark Pellegrino was so hot in that scene.  Evil, but hot.

Right, focus.  But Celine impressed me when she not only proved she knew Aidan, but saw through Bishop as well.  The big moment comes after Bishop tells her that Aidan will always return to him.  Despite being pinned to the wall by a blood-drinking psychopath and clearly terrified, she looks him in the eye and tells him Aidan will also always leave him again. Very badass.

About the big ending, of course I knew what was coming.  Last week after watching Going Dutch, I worried that the writers would show both guys as being emotionally attached to Sally.  My worries were unfounded; they kept it real.  Syfy fans, you have no idea how heart-wrenching that same scene was in the BBC version, where the roommates had already been through so much together.  I cried both times I’ve watched it.  But when Sally’s Door showed up, it was more like, ‘Hey, you did it…Bye!’

The emotional part comes when Bishop bursts in through the window (or was it the wall?) and stabs Aidan.  Now Josh gets to cry, and although I didn’t cry with him, at least they’ve bonded enough that I believed him and felt something.  Their friendship is one of the best parts of this show; maybe it’s even the heart of it.  I am such a sap.

BTW, I know Syfy does things in the cool, over-the-top way that we Americans tend to prefer, but what was up with Bishop’s grand entrance?  On BBC, Herrick simply knocks on the door (making George scream like a little girl because he thinks the knock comes from Annie’s Door) and when Mitchell answers, Herrick grabs him, yanks him forward and stabs him.  He wasn’t invited so he couldn’t come bursting in, and the fact that he couldn’t reach him very well explains how he missed the heart.  So how did Bishop get in, how on earth did he miss when he was right on top of him, and why did he act like the sun was hurting him when we’ve seen both Bishop and Aidan outside many times?  No sunglasses = burning vamps??  I wasn’t thrilled with the rule-breaking, just for the sake of drama.  Seems sloppy.

Oh yeah, and Nora’s still pregnant, though she knows nothing about Josh’s true nature.  Joy, rapture, way to freakin’ go.  I suppose she finds out next week, hopefully in the same crazy way that Nina did in season 1.  I won’t give it away (for once) because in the original, it took me by surprise.  Here’s hoping Syfy fans have the same experience.

Syfy’s Being Human: Bishop Just Got Better (SPOILERS–from BBC as well)

{ March 29, 2011 @ 12:29 am } · { Being Human, TV }
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Tonight on Syfy was the best episode yet.

Bishop is suddenly at a whole new level, and I think he took the show with him.  I’ve mentioned in past posts that I was disappointed in this seemingly softer Vampire King.  In Going Dutch, I was delighted to find out I’ve been tricked.   Bishop has been playing his own version of trust-me-I’m-not-so-bad with Aidan, but because he wasn’t hiding any of the things Herrick hid from Mitchell (werewolf cage-matches, the room of trapped humans), I assumed he wasn’t hiding anything at all.

Now I admit this episode was  a complete revelation for me partly because I  missed something important in the Bernie episode.  I never saw the part where Bishop asks Seth if he “took care of the boys”, leading Aidan to blame and reluctantly kill Bernie.

So much for empathy towards human children.

No matter.  Bishop’s gloves have now completely come off.  Meeting with the Elders for their final judgment, he absolutely shines.   He calmly admits that mass murder and slavery are two options for his Vampire Supremacy Plot, causing Aidan’s brain to explode.    The Dutch demand that he go underground and have Aidan cull the clan,  Aidan volunteers to rein him in, and Marcus bursts forth with a power sharing dream that is clearly the wish his heart makes—doom and betrayal all around, but nothing wipes the smile from Bishop’s face.

That’s because Bishop has a surprise for everybody in the room (and me on my couch).  He’s poisoned the Elders with juniper-laced blood and serenely explains his plans while decapitating all but the one that a panicked Aidan manages to save.  Here, finally, is the charismatic, psychopathic Bishop that I’ve been waiting for,  reminiscent of Herrick’s malignant genius for the first time.   Suddenly I can’t wait to see what he’ll do next.

Yeah, Bishop owned the episode, but there were other honorable mentions.

The exorcism (borrowing slightly from BBC’s Season 2, but not much) was a nice twist for Sally and Danny, since Danny can’t see her and torture her à la the terrifying Owen.  Having Sally thrust herself into the exorcist’s body and face him as such was startling in a really good way.

For me, however, special effects are dessert, but dialogue is the meat and potatoes.  So I loved the simple little scene with Josh and Aidan in the hospital, where Josh worries about his friend and tells him about his own awkward reaction to Nora’s pregnancy.  I enjoy their connection; there is at least an echo of Mitchell and George here.

Speaking of connection, I don’t think I’ve talked much about Rebecca, but I do like her.  She’s a strong character, portrayed sympathetically by Sarah Allen (possibly the best female actress on the show IMO).  She gets to kill Marcus, with the added incentive that she found out Bernie died because of him.  I liked the fact that she’d been given a heart, and that Aidan went through so much with her.

Complaints from the BBC fan (you knew I had some):

Just a few questions.  If the exorcist is saying ‘let the spirit be filled with light and love’, why is Sally in so much pain?  Is she actually evil then?  Why did she completely disappear before a commercial break, only to be back in the same position and in pain again in her next scene?  If she’s being exorcised from the house, where is her Door?  When Annie was forcibly removed in Season 2, she was dragged into a Door and it slammed shut.  In this version, if you move on naturally you use a Door, but exorcisms make you sick until you disappear?  And since I did bring up that demon-spawn Owen, let me firmly assert that Danny is still a very watered down version.  Watching him fearfully tell Sally her death was an accident (though he did try choking her right after he said it) reminded me of how much Owen enjoyed killing Annie and getting away with it.  He didn’t mean to do it exactly, but he was awfully glad that he did.

On another note, next week they show her getting all psycho-ghost with Danny and the other roommates are concerned.  This is one sticking point for me; the roommates haven’t had much bonding time with Sally this season–she mostly whines at them and they argue with her.  If they try to show them as being attached to her the way George and Mitchell wept for Annie at the end of Season 1, I will just gag or maybe vomit on my TV.  I don’t want to do that.

Have I mentioned that I hate, hate, hate that Nora is pregnant with Josh’s child already?  They barely know each other.  Yes, I am aware that this is a realistic chain of events, but I’m just saying that I prefer the courtship of George and Nina by far.  When Josh and Nora had their serious conversation at the end about the pregnancy and Josh mentioned that he was worried about genetics, I worried that Nora would attempt to reveal what we only just found out from Nina in Season 3 about her family history.  Fortunately, she didn’t go into detail.  That’s good, because damn it Syfy, you have to save some of the mystery!  Most importantly, will Nora turn wolf this season, or at all?  I’m starting to wonder if the next season will resemble BBC’s version or if they will split off completely and form their own tangent.  And the pregnant woman on the table was gross.

Still.  Best episode yet.