Review: Being Human 2.8

Mitchell hunts down Lucy at CenSSA.

I've often mentioned that Being Human finales are always terrible. They may have good intentions at heart, and they may have good elements, but so far all three of them have been incredible disappointments. Nowhere is this more true than in today's episode, the finale of Series Two - an overstuffed, overlong hour of nonsense and fluff.
     Which isn't to say that the episode isn't enjoyable or rich. It's got a great deal of character work and those little precious moments that enrich the story in ways that other series' just can't manage. The problems is that it doesn't feel like it's in the right place; rather, the moments feel like all of the series' cuttings and leftovers put together. Overall there's about 10 minutes of actual plot here, as the rest is fluffy conversation pieces that may make our characters that little bit richer but really feel too late. This is the finale, the episode that the series has been building up to for the past seven weeks. We are invested! We want something to happen, something gamechanging, but the episode spends so much time advertising characters we already care about that all of the major developments are left for a rushed five minute stint at the end.
     George and Nina are waiting in the compound, where the CenSSA scientist is pre-ordering body bags for their inevitable deaths. As an angry Mitchell infiltrates the facility, George discovers Annie's intentions regarding the afterlife - which she explains as to avoid the loneliness that will come when George is normal and unable to see her. Meanwhile, Lucy is haunted by the ghost of Amy McBride, one of the werewolves she's killed (played, funnily enough, by Carys from Torchwood), and has a conversation with George where she attempts to moralise her actions with Mitchell.

Kemp turns up on Nina's doorstep.

     CenSSA are soon notified of Mitchell's presence when the corpses of the facilities young students start appearing. The werewolves are locked into isolation, ready to be killed, and Lucy locks herself into a saferoom - where Mitchell is waiting. Kemp, who is shown to have a soft spot for Lucy, forcibly exorcises Annie just to piss Mitchell off. The vampire tells Lucy that neither of them can talk about morality - they both have blood on their hands. In a contrived little add-on, the werewolves know what's going on because of a note left by Tully, the vampire who converted George. They escape, witness Annie's exorcism and then stop Mitchell from killing a gloating Kemp.
     This is where it feels like the episode ends, about 40 minutes in. The denoument is thus 20 minutes long, and boy does it drag. Three weeks later, and the remaining supernatural threesome are in the country, having abandoned The House forever. Nina has been obsessed with finding Lucy, but she comes to them. Nina is skeptical but Mitchell decides that she has the right to stay, as one cannot have forgiveness unless one gives it. Unfortunately for them, Kemp appears, kills Lucy, threatens Nina and then, in Being Human's worst Deus Ex Machina, is dragged into Hell by Annie. She then appears on a TV talking about Hell, setting the stage for Series Three. Oh, and Herrick's back.
     I think for the most part my negative opinion of this episiode stems from the denouement, which just drags on past its welcome. Lucy was a great character that could have had further exploration, but instead she was killed and her death used as an excuse for lazy storytelling. There were tons of brillianty ways to have fought off Kemp, but they went for the lazy option.

Herrick is back. A little random.

     The last episode of Series Two reflects the problems of the series on the whole, mainly Whithouse's early issues with an eight episode series. However, its character work and its revelations make it worth watching and as an end to this conflicted series it does as well as one would expect it to. As an end to my recorded reviews of Being Human, I couldn't think of anything more fitting.

Thanks.