Selasa, 19 Maret 2013

Being Human shows us the most sympathetic cannibal you will ever see

This graphic is via zombie hippie whose tumblr can be found HERE. Disturbing, right?
This season of SyFy's "Being Human" has been a real rollercoaster ride for a couple of the show's characters. Josh the werewolf is the kindest most decent man you'll ever meet who also murders other people and buries their bodies in the woods. This may be a real turn off for some, but heck, I'd be Josh's friend. He's actually a good person. It's just circumstance that requires him to bump off some fellow human beings when no one else wants to get their hands dirty. Let's not even mention the fact that a natural born werewolf has now reinfected him with lycanthropy, and the only other cool werewolf we've ever met in the series is probably dead from a vampire attack (that kind of makes me sad cause I really liked that old geezer).
Former ghost, Sally is now the coolest zombie you'll ever meet.
Sure she wants to eat the flesh off your bones, but honestly, she's
trying to go vegan and really hates that she ate a mouse.
And Sally? What to say about my poor favorite Sally. I love her so much, but she's basically the best looking zombie you'll ever meet. I mean she looks better than R did in the movie adaptation of "Warm Bodies" when "R" was almost human. Not following me? A little explanation may be in order.

See, last season they had this cliffhanger where Sally had destroyed her incorporeal form to go find her buddies (also ghosts) who were trapped in Limbo. They got out because Josh (the guy that gets stuff done) dug up her body, provided a heart from someone he murdered, and then dug up her corpse for a witch to resurrect. Damn. Now that's friendship folks. Most people just ask to borrow money every once in a while, right? I could imagine having that conversation: "Yeah um, I know we're friends and I was wondering if you could do me a favor? You can? GREAT! So...can you dig up my corpse, kill someone, and bring their heart to a witch so she can get me out of Limbo? SAWEEET! Thanks hon XOXO."
In life there are toilets and no one wants to scrub them. Josh, however
will do just that. In "Being Human" he takes care of a lot of tasks
that no one else seems to want to do. He's got to be the kindest
looking mass murderer I've ever seen.
But instead of resurrecting just Sally, the witch also brought back her buddies Nick and Stevie who happened to be hanging out with her in Limbo. And Stevie is the most sympathetic cannibal you'll ever see. Like seriously guys. And here's the deal...Nick, Stevie, and Sally don't WANT to be cannibals. They just are because there happens to be a few "tiny and unmentioned" side effects at being brought back alive by the witch. Of course, the witch didn't tell them, because (as it turns out) she's a pretty wicked witch and just wants their souls to stay young forever. And when she isn't doing that, she's like a cook at a homeless shelter, so I guess as far as her soul goes, it's all good. The woman can make some great soup (or so we've seen).

So yeah. Sally, Nick, and Stevie started ROTTING (as in full on body parts dropping off). And the only thing that would make the "rot" go away was to satisfy an indescribable hunger for flesh. Sally ate a live mouse and Nick ate his cat. When Nick tried to eat his girlfriend, she killed him with a baseball bat making him a ghost again (and we can assume that his ghost has now been consumed by the witch off-screen because that's what she does). Well Stevie went the furthest, and I think Stevie has been pretty adorable thus far these last three seasons. Just, his hunger struck and he didn't know what to do about it. So he ate his parents and then ate a United States postal worker who just wanted to deliver the mail.
This is the face of the new cannibal. Stevie ate his parents and a postal worker. Interesting eh?
I've never seen cannibalism passed off like this. Up till now, it's been pretty much one cannibal: Hannibel Lecter, and that dude is scary. Don't get me wrong, the "Being Human" way of approaching this last taboo is incredibly horrific. But it also manages to be other things. It's tragic, sad, and kind of funny. Yes, how can you not laugh when Josh and Sally find an arm in a breadbox and say, "Stevie! Come explain this?!" And Sally wins my heart over when she says offhandedly in her hipster getup and GAP skirt. "Josh, I don't know how much time I have 'cause...I really want to eat that arm." Sigh.

I have sympathy for Stevie, who asked Josh (of course) to kill him. And Josh being the man that does everything in the show, did JUST THAT in the garage of Stevie's home. Josh has gotten so jaded to killing that he's now at a point where he can kill people and still go to lunch at McDonald's afterwards to talk with you about your love life with his puppy dog eyes.

"Being Human" has gotten really dark, and I guess that's appropriate considering that it's a story about monsters who desire humanity more than anything. And yes, it's the kind of dark fiction writing that I'm really attracted to with sympathetic characters forced into incredibly unreal situations. I have to say though, I never expected a television show to address cannibalism with such bravado. I mean, my reaction wasn't "Stevie frickin' ATE his parents!" it was "Awh...poor Stevie...it must have broke his heart to eat his mom and dad like that."

Perhaps taking the horrific and giving it a new spin is what writers do these days to forge a new path in a world filled with sameness.

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