Being Human 3.1: You Can Live If You Want To

Being Human returned with a vengeance this Monday night, with Sam Witwer, Sam Huntington, and Meaghan Rath reprising their roles as vampire, werewolf, and ghost roommates torn apart by circumstance and time. It’s been fifteen months since the events that closed out Season 2, meaning that Aidan has been slowly starving in an unmarked grave, Sally’s been reliving the same scenario over and over again in a depressingly mundane Limbo, and Josh…

Well, Josh has almost been living the dream. It turns out that our scruffy werewolf boy isn’t the one that got shot at the end of last season — no, Nora shot Ray and then helpfully facilitated Josh into bludgeoning Ray to death with a rock. (She helped by finding herself overwhelmed and almost killed. Nora is nothing if not dedicated to her making-it-up to Josh cause.) Ray got himself a shallow woodland grave, and Josh discovered that he didn’t turn the next full moon!

Things would be looking up all around, apart from the fact that Nora’s still as cursed with lycanthropy as ever. Also, seeing as how Josh is essentially the best roommate ever, he’s spent the last year and change searching for Aidan and trying to find a way to retrieve Sally. Nora’s standing by him, and they’ve visited enough psychics to find Josh utterly jaded and absolutely refusing to buy any more candles.

The rest of the season premiere is a beautifully intense experience of medical promotion (Josh isn’t just an orderly any more!), vampire flu (wait, what?), darkly humorous hallucinations (with Mark Pellegrino elevating the form, as always), and unsurprisingly dubious witchcraft. (Seriously, if a witch asks you for the heart of a person you’ve killed yourself in addition to two grand, just be aware that you’re getting some bonus dark mojo.)

Last season, each roommate clearly harbored a strong wish: Aidan wished to escape from his onerous position among the vampires, preferably with his bloodthirsty love. Josh wished to be cured of his werewolf habit, and to cure his ex-girlfriend that he’d similarly cursed. Sally wished to have her life back, or at least get to change clothes every once in a while. Shockingly, “It’s All About Ray” sees each of them getting exactly what they wished for. Of course, they quickly begin to realize that wishes are literal beasts and not necessarily exactly what one wants.

The third season premiere of Syfy’s Being Human doesn’t pull any punches, starkly capturing the drama of trying to embrace one’s humanity when instincts and experience scream for monstrous responses. That fundamental struggle between civilization and the base desires — to survive, to protect — is a dark thing broken by sparks of irreverent humor. Unlike our put-upon roommates, Being Human gives us exactly what we want and need, and promises more of the same. The next twelve episodes are sure to be a compelling ride.