Being Human 3.3: Off on the Wrong Foot of You Killed Me

“The Teens They Are a Changin” demonstrates Syfy’s continuing devotion to torturing song titles into becoming suitably descriptive episode titles– a practice which may include side effects such as sudden nasal snorts at the corny wordplay or insufferable earworms that are only extracted by liberal application of the “Chicken Dance”. Of course, then you have the “Chicken Dance” stuck in your head instead. Good luck with that.

First up: Nora’s not dead! We’re all very grateful, although anyone who watched the previews last week wasn’t even sweating this one. While Josh and Sally were making increasingly snippy calls to the area’s hospitals, Nora enjoyed some intensely uncomfortable time with Liam, AKA Papa Werewolf to Brynn and Connor. Remember Brynn and Connor McLean, the snobby pureblood werewolf twins? From Season 2? More importantly, remember how Aidan killed Connor with a silver bullet? I mean, dude totally deserved it, but you can’t expect Papas to agree on that point and Liam has shown up with a bag full of fury, vengeance, and premeditated murder.

Aidan is in for one tough season: no one seems to have told him he’s being hunted by a pureblood yet, but he’s starving and surrounded by countless treacherous Happy Meals. (Each one comes with a prize, and that prize is the plague.) His son is also proving yet again to be a let-down, and yet again is leading Aidan into questionable moral decisions (like asking Josh to abuse his position at the hospital and screen patients for clean blood). Then there’s Aidan’s horrible track record with interpersonal relationships or, as Henry puts it, “everyone who loves you dies.” That was one sick burn, kid. Aidan would ground you, but you’re dying.

While Aidan was busy abusing the trust of kindly chess players and almost breaking up with Henry in pretty alleyways, Sally was demonstrating just how human she’s not. Meeting people from her past causes spontaneous death. She’s ravenous, but nothing she eats seems to stick. Also — less on the supernatural side and probably more the just-being-Sally-Malik side — she hasn’t lost her touch for finding her way into places she’s not meant to be, or at sticking both feet in her mouth. Despite that, she still manages to stumble into doing the compassionate thing. There’s a grieving fiance-cum-cheater, a door-finding dead jerk, and a puzzled funeral home worker who can all attest to that in this one episode alone.

The rest of “The Teens They Are A Changin” largely covers how Josh is Doctor to the Supes now (or nurse practitioner, whatever) and introduces Erin, or the titular character and that teenage werewolf daughter that Josh and Nora never knew they wanted. Erin’s existence and some possible quirks in her first full moon suggest Liam’s been stirring Boston’s supernatural pot – but to what point and purpose?

If last week’s “(Dead) Girls Just Want to Have Fun” was about the three roommates pulling together as a family, the third episode is about how they connect to their own kind. This theme ran straight through “The Teens They Are a Changin,” from Liam’s intense “there’s no worse sin than turning on one of your own,” to Josh and Nora taking in Erin the Teenage Werewolf, and the surprisingly touching scene between Nora’s and Erin’s wolves. This theme thrummed insistently and painfully in the broken connection between Aidan and Henry, in the ways they tried to cling to hope and each other, and the ways in which they tore each other apart. This theme shattered harshly for Sally, as she tried to help another ghost ultimately harmed by her own selfishness.

RIP Trent — you were not a nice guy, but you didn’t deserve to become part of a dirt-eating witch’s cruel and unusual youth regimen.

Next week: the return of devil-may-care Aidan! Josh disapproving of house parties, and possibly throwing kids off his lawn! Sally and Aidan in a compromising position, stake optional!