BEING HUMAN Sallies Forth with a Teen Wolf

 
Episode 303: “The Teens They Are a Changin’”

[Photos: Phillipe Bosse/Syfy]

The third episode of the third season reveals Nora’s fate, though it’s perhaps a bit anticlimactic. Liam and Nora sit on a park bench, talking reasonably about their change together. He didn’t kill her, hurt her, or apparently find her untrustworthy, after all that brouhaha. Nora eventually makes her way home to a worried Josh and Sally, where she warns them that the werewolf twins have a daddy who wants answers. And that seems to be about as far as it goes. No more mention of Liam the rest of the episode. Hmm.

Henry and Aidan try and fail at various methods of blood procurement, and the formerly devoted Henry starts to unravel. Still bitter about losing Emma and the food resource challenges that loss introduces, Henry avers that he’s not up to starving. Henry makes a trip to the hospital to scope out prospects, ultimately accusing Josh of no longer caring about Aidan, now that Josh isn’t one of the in-crowd.

Apparently, while at the hospital, Henry does something else a bit off-color and dangerous: he takes a chance and a nip of a patient, and lands himself with the vampire plague for his trouble. Not one to go out quietly, Henry launches a dagger at Aidan. He observes that his death has been imminent ever since he came back to Aidan, because everyone who loves Aidan dies. Henry has a point, but ouch. The last couple of scenes between Aidan and Henry, Henry pretty clearly communicates that he’d rather not spend his last few days with his maker.

Josh admits a teenage girl who complains of an infection on her back to the hospital. Between the scratches on her back, and her story about being attacked by a giant, mangy dog during a full moon, Josh concludes that Erin will be undergoing her first transformation the very next night. Wait, didn’t Nora just change? I’m not clear on how much time is supposed to be passing during each episode.

Nora’s heart goes out to the girl Erin, who has unsuccessfully endured foster care, social workers, and the system, while Josh is more hesitant. Whatever their feelings, they agree Erin can’t go back to foster care, nor stay in the hospital during her first transformation. They take the girl home where they explain to her what’s going to happen the next night. Josh shows Erin video footage of his transformation in his storage unit; the tape begins with shots of Josh stripping down, and Erin protests, “Look, whatever you guys are into…” While good for a giggle, Erin pretty quickly gets the seriousness of what awaits her.

In the woods just before their transformation, Josh and Nora provide last minute preparatory advice. Erin’s change takes place before Nora’s, and Erin-wolf attacks Josh’s car. Nora’s wolf attacks Erin’s, and they both roll down a hill. Josh leaps out of the car after them and aims the gun, but hesitates. The two wolves size each other up, but then nuzzle each other. So now that Nora and Erin have bonded, can we expect this to drive a wedge between Nora and Josh?

And then there’s Sally, to whom this episode really belongs, at least in my mind. Plagued by guilt over causing Trent’s death, Sally goes to the funeral home to find Trent’s ghost. When she finds him, Trent doesn’t take her confession as gracefully as she had anticipated. He’s actually pretty irritated about the whole ordeal. Sally is determined to help, so when Trent suggests she go to his memorial to make things right with Candace his fiancée (gasp!), Sally reluctantly agrees.

Sally can’t see anyone from her past without killing them, and Trent and she have shared pasts, so Sally has to be super careful at the memorial. She enlists the help of kind-faced Max, who runs the funeral home. Sally is pretty, charming, and pushy, so poor Max really didn’t stand a chance. He ushers Sally into a private room, and brings Candace in to speak with Sally. The conversation proceeds awkwardly, especially when Sally blurts out that Trent had cheated with her the night Trent died. Counter to expectation, Candace welcomes this news. Seems the old girl had been cheating on Trent for a year, and was grateful to be assuaged of her guilt. Who saw that coming? Not me.

An embittered Trent tells Sally off for lying, killing him, and destroying the memory of his fiancée (well, when you put it like that, Trent, I guess it does sound kinda bad), and disapparates in a huff. Sally is then kicked out by Max, but not before a compliment from him and a flirty look from her. I have to admit, I wouldn’t mind if Sally weren’t so single-mindedly boy-crazy.

Trent, meanwhile, broods and pouts, when voila! His door appears. I have to admit, I was a little surprised. Trent didn’t seem far enough along the path of self-actualization to have earned his door. Nonetheless, Trent doesn’t repeat Sally’s mistake; he enters…a soup kitchen? And he finds our creepy witch friend, Donna, waiting for him. Trent expresses the confusion we all  feel, when Donna grabs her magic four-loaf cleaver and Iron Chefs Trent into oblivion. All that’s left of Trent is a fairly sizable pile of what looks like bonito flakes. Donna scrambles to her knees and scoops a pile of Trent up into her mouth. Not only are Trent flakes yummy, but they’re good for you, too; Donna appears to lose about twenty years of aging off her face and hands. Where can I get some of that!?

Just three further thoughts: 1) Where is Ray? It’s killing me knowing that his reanimated annoying character is waiting in the wings. 2) When can we get more Bishop? I don’t care if we have to do it in flashbacks or what, but the show was a better show when Mark Pellegrino lent his threatening but drily comic presence to the show. 3) How are things going to go wrong with Liam? ‘Cause they ain’t gonna go right. More waiting on that one, too. I hate waiting. Hope you’ll wait with me impatiently until next time, friends.

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