BEING HUMAN Finale: There Went the Neighborhood!

 
Episode 413: “There Goes the Neighborhood Part III”

[Photos: Pana Pantazidis/Syfy]

OK, where were we? Ah yes… in the penultimate episode, Ramona had become more than a pest and was imprisoning our quartet in the house… her… whatever. She had separated them and was making them live out their deepest fears in the plan to get them to kill each other so Sally would stay with her forever. But Sally saw through Ramona’s guise as Kat and, in her Sally way, fought back. She was able to get through to Josh and Nora, but Aidan — tortured Aidan– was a different story. As Kenny came to avenge Astrid’s death, Ramona made him part of her evil plan, and Sally’s alt-timeline ending of Aidan killing Josh was about to come true.

We hear Sally reminisce about when Aidan and Josh moved in, how it was the best day, how it brought possibilities.. Would they be friends if they had met as humans? Or did they need the path they went on… it all happens for a reason… and we’re back at that pivotal moment of Aidan about to kill Josh… and Sally pauses the moment (well, the other three hold their positions… no effects here). It has to be a accident… but Ramona assures her it’s never an accident. (I think that also answers Sally’s question about their friendship.) Sally yells at the evil ‘tween and whooshes herself, Nora, and Josh to temporary safety… but Aidan still is on the warpath… that’s when Sally makes her final rash decision… she will use magic to make Aidan… HUMAN. But there must always be a sacrifice to bring someone back, and Sally IS that sacrifice. As Aidan’s heart beats alive again, Sally says her goodbyes, ending with an “I love you” to Aidan… and disperses into the ether. She has sacrificed and is gone, but Ramona is not pleased… “She was mine… she was my favorite… and you ruined it all!” She blows out all the windows in her ‘tweeny-tantrum… and before the opening credits we have lost Sally.

The now trio runs from the house to Nora’s, and we hear Nora talk of home, of what a ghost really is (“a thick silence that fills the room” … very true). She wants Aidan to stay with them, but he wants them to have room to be a couple finally. He will go to the trailer. Josh and Nora try to believe that they can find Sally again, but Aidan felt her go. So what now? Well, of course, food! Aidan finally enjoys a good burger, chili fries, and shake… and enjoys these new moments of just being … but all he can think of is how Sally should be there to see… it is wasted on him. What good is being human if you can’t share it with the one you love? So it’s pity-party time… massive alcohol intake and crying, a very human reaction I’d say. And the next morning he looks like hell… but not from the alcohol.

Lest we forget, Ramona is still not pleased. But how can she get them back? Why, by killing an innocent of course. (Are the people Sally’s dad found really sure they want that house?)

Nora runs tests on Aidan… he should be dead. (And on day two of humanity, he is already turning grey and pale) His body if failing. He actually takes it well… initially… even joking about just give him one more week. Later, as the friends walk, Josh talks about going back into food service… normal life stuff… but Nora is distracted. They finally tell Josh Aidan is dying, that the years he cheated are catching up to him because there are always consequences… and then he spills the beans about Nora being pregnant. Oops! But Josh is elated! He and Nora hug, and it really feels as if this is their moment to BE human… they start to let go of the fear.

Laying a rose at Sally’s grave, Aidan begins his final days. He takes a walk to take in the city as a mortal… but Sally is still there for him, making things even more lonely. That’s when he has his alt-timeline moment in honor of her. He sees a man and woman… and knows that he is really a vampire about to do just what Aidan did in the very first episode… drain his date dry. But Aidan stops him just as Sally stopped alt-Aidan (maybe she DID make him remember!), and in their heart-to-heart as the young vamp wants the key to become human like Aidan, Aidan decides he wants to cheat death and become a vamp again. When Josh arrives, Aidan finally admits out loud he is afraid to die because of the nothingness that awaits him… and that he is a coward because he couldn’t take that final step to re-vamp… but Josh assures him that makes him… human.

So now that our trio has come to terms with their fears, Ramona comes back into the picture as they learn that she has killed again. They go to battle her together, but Aidan of course tricks Josh. Aidan will get supplies while Josh tells Nora, and they will meet at the house in an hour… that’s not his plan. Aidan goes in with his supplies then slowly climbs the stairs, finds his iconic leather jacket (have to have that jacket!), and goes to her. He taunts her with Sally being gone and Josh and Nora moving away and she will be alone. More will move in she says, but Aidan tells her that the quartet all moved in to bring her down. She tries to guilt him with his past then begins to physically torture him (Sam is always getting beaten up!) . At the stairs, she teases him with his hope of a door… but he is willing to die for his friends. And with that, like Sally, he tumbles down the stairs to land as Sally did when she died (I thought maybe this would re-open Sally’s death spot so she could save him… but he doesn’t need saving)… Ramona is pleased… until she sees that Aidan had a plan. He ignites his lighter and sets the house on fire… he had spread gasoline all over the house… and Ramona burns. Time for us to hear from Aidan, as he talks of the end, how at the end you think of who you loved and that you “let it take you home.” The flames whip around him, the music swells… Aidan has sacrificed himself for his friends and all who could have come after to the house.

Nora and Josh arrive too late and see a body carried from the burned out shell of their house. Inside (why did the authorities let them go in?) they embrace and Josh reassures her that he will always be there for her and their family… and that’s when ghost Aidan (yes, we knew he would be redeemed, right?) appears to them. We won, he says, because Josh and Nora are doing what they all had wanted… they are living a real life. But will Aidan stay with them or go traveling? Nope… he gets his door. Much joy and happiness and sadness… but Aidan makes sure first that they know that the years living together were the happiest of his life. I love you’s, and he walks through the door to… Sally! (Nora and Josh hear her, so they know that the two are together!)

The next image is the four of them… in different clothes (no ghosty apparel) … eating and laughing and enjoying each other around that iconic kitchen table (wait, the house burned down!) as Josh tells us that the day they moved in was the first day of his life. Before the quartet he didn’t think he could feel human… he thanks them for it all as a bright light fills the screen… Josh and Nora are lying in the grass, both having dreamt of the four of them together… believing that it is really Aidan and Sally visiting them… and we see baby girl Sally and toddler Aidan, their children… their happy ending, their human.

And that’s it. The end.

Was it satisfying? Was it all it could have been? Well, I think there were more stories to tell. But there didn’t NEED to be more. We even got to hear from each of them, which was a nice touch. Unlike the UK version, our quartet came full circle and ‘survived’… so to speak. We had our happy endings, not just endings or an end with more questions. While the US show began exactly as the UK show (almost line for line in the first two episodes!) it diverged quickly into its own stories. Someone said that maybe they wouldn’t have been cancelled if they hadn’t followed the UK version so exactly… but they didn’t.  (Their cancelling seems to be more one of rising costs and enough episodes for syndication rather than ratings.)

In the UK version, [SPOILERS!] Mitchell is a sought-after mass murderer who dies at George’s hand (awesome scene!), George and Nina undergo experiments to de-wolf and end up with a baby who, after Nina mysteriously dies off camera, becomes a future Eve of destruction for humanity. George dies, Annie gets new supernatural roommates and ends up taking Eve to the other side to prevent an apocalypse, and the new trio battle the devil and win… or do they? They all get endings, they all bond, but I don’t know that any had “happy” endings.. their redemptions came at a price, and the victories were hollow ones.

Now some would say that we Americans don’t like tragic endings… that we can’t handle them… so we have to make a fairy tale out of a horror story. Maybe. But after 52 episodes with these characters, I have grown to care for these characters, and I want to see them redeemed. I want them to find their purpose. I don’t want it all to be for nothing. I love the UK version, but it saddens me to think that none of them “won.” Maybe in their own mind, but not really. Evil won more often and even in the end. They didn’t get a chance to really BE HUMAN. That was the experiment; that was the hope. The UK crew was teased with it; the US crew got it. They came out with their lives meaning… SOMETHING. Not perfect, but meaningful. Sally and Aidan still died, but they sacrificed for others they loved and were rewarded. Josh and Nora are still wolves, as are their children, but they have a life TOGETHER. The fight was a fight FOR something, not just because the fight was all there was.

So you have almost 100 episode of both series. You can take your pick. Happy ending, or hollow ending. Like the drama masks, it is comedy and tragedy together. I like both, but I am glad that Aidan, Josh, Sally, and Nora lived — or died– happily ever after. I am leaving these friends as they wanted to be… human. If only we all could be.

RELATED: Heather and Dorin will talk about the end of Being Human  on SciFi4Chicks.

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