New day at the House, Aidan’s just getting up to leave but Josh is waiting for him – because they never see each other any more (see this is my complaint – they’re never together as much as 3 friends any more. They should all be in the kitchen, laughing, joking, eating Nora more). There is lots of Aidan avoidance and even more Josh babble (which is so much fun) until Aidan is forced to say that he’s avoiding Nora. Which Josh understands given the fact Nora is not exactly being reasonable and he believes Pedigree Liam was the one who got Erin to attack Aidan (as any sensible person i.e. not Nora, would be able to see). But he also believes Nora will come around and there’s no way she’ll tell Liam that Aidan killed Connor (Pedigree Liam’s Pedigree Son).
Y’know, if I were Aidan I’d wait until the New Moon and kill Liam, just saying.
Josh hates the tension at home, it’s like when he was 10 and his parents were silent fighting (Aidan objects to being compared to his parents, did I mention how much I like their banter?) Josh plans to make it all better with Nora by the time Aidan comes home from his double shift.
It’s not to be because when Nora comes downstairs they’re joined by Aidan’s 2 blood stained ghosts. Nora is not amused and adds to the whole hating Aidan parade, but finds the annoying blood stained underwear ghosts annoying so disperses them with iron – just in time for them to hear Sally cry out and rush through and comment on the oddness of her wearing a hat inside (to hide her missing chunk of scalp). Sally asks them not to “disperse the underwear bitches” when she’s in her room because that’s where they reset. Nora realises that they died in the house and has another “zomg we’re surrounded by all of Aidan’s murder victims” yeah, at least Nora had the common decency to do her murdering elsewhere guys!
Josh tells her again that Erin’s death was an accident and Nora expresses some of her frustration about it, especially since so many people are willing to brush Erin’s death under the rug since she was a child in care and there was so much apathy and screw ups around her that no-one wants to dig too deep. It shouldn’t be this easy, so quick and so simple when a girl dies. She cries while Josh holds her
Sally goes upstairs while Josh comforts Nora to examine the missing hunk of skin on her head in the mirror, mocked by the Underwear Ghosts (oh they need a better name).
Nora goes to see Pedigree Liam who gives her a sprig of wolfsbane, something werewolves normally avoid because it has a calming effect but it’s traditional to help a spirit move on. Nora doesn’t think someone who lived such a short violent life can find peace but Liam is confident Nora helped her – packs are more than just blood family. She tries to ask if Liam spoke to Erin about vampires but he pushes the idea of Aidan randomly attacking Erin just because. They talk about their losses and Nora refers to Bryn, his daughter, in the past tense.
At work Aidan tries to make a truce with Nora but she refuses – with Erin dead and the 2 ghosts running round so have some more guilt from Nora McJudgey! Aidan has finally reached his guilt trip limit and asks Nora about Bryn. Nora says it was self-defence, Bryn wasn’t an innocent and her murders are totally different guys. Nora demands Aidan stay away from her until she knows what happened to Erin then someone’s going to pay
Can I point out et again that everyone KNOWS what happened to Erin, except Nora who, for reasons unknown, is more inclined to believe Pedigree Liam the Vampire Slayer than Aidan.
Aidan decides to go and see Kat, Nora’s friend and call off their date as an official bad idea. Kat resist the idea and is witty and clever and tempting him with corsets that turns him right round. Oh she’s good.
Sally decides to talk to Nick, her fellow re-embodied ghost, to ask him about the rotting. He claims that he has no such problems and dismisses Sally’s concerns and seems generally very uninterested by her flesh falling off (or her raging hunger) and actively shuffles her out the door. She comments on him not caring and leaves – after which he lifts his shirt and examines his own large rot spot on his side.
Really, I think they should share on this problem.
Josh and Nora spend some free time looking around an amazing house that they completely cannot afford; they got a private viewing because Josh lied through his teeth to the estate agent (Martha) about wanting to make an offer. Why have the wonderful tour around things you can’t have? So Josh could create a perfect moment to finally pop the question.
Yes, he’s asking her to marry him. While she’s grieving. Not the best time, but at least he really worked at the setting (and it’s cheap! Don’t even have to buy dinner!) Nora very much loves this, says yes and they lock Martha out to go check out the master bathroom and bedroom. Martha will not be pleased.
Back to Sally where she and Max have a wonderful conversation about cosmetics for dead people. Ah the joys of dating a mortician. Of course, she’s very interested in something that could cover her horrible peeling skin problem.
And over to Aidan (why does Sally only get 5 minute intervals) where he is with the most awesome Kat (who is awesome) and is confronted by Liam and some friends (Kat, the most awesome, offers to give him an excuse to duck out of an unpleasant meeting). He leaves with them to go to a hidden location to be tied up and tortured. He wants to know what happened to Bryn and is a little miffed over Connor’s death (which Aidan points out is self-defence – silly boy, only Nora gets to use that excuse!)
Wait, what? Why? When? How? We’ve seen Aidan take down dozens of werewolves, he couldn’t put up a fight? And he’s just going to leave with them?! What did he think his angst meter was too low? Is this some kind of self-punishment?
Back to Sally and Max catches her stealing stuff from work. Apparently this happens a lot with people stealing formaldehyde and other solvents with which to get high – but Sally isn’t stealing that. He asks, almost in despair and frustration, exactly what the whole secret horror story is she won’t tell him. So she tells him, the whole ghostly truth. Unsurprisingly, Max thinks she may be delusional and, rather sensitively, asks if she is on any medication or has a mental illness. But she insists it’s true and he says he will trust her because they’re in a relationship and she deserves his trust
Which is wonderful and sweet and all, but c’mon now. There are limits.
And Sally then takes the next step – how she’s rotting, and shows him her little scalp wound. And then he panics – it’s one thing being nice and humouring people and another to be confronted with proof of zombiedom. She says she’s still her but he says that if what she says is true he doesn’t know what she is – and leaves. C’mon it’s not like she hungers for the flesh of the living or anything! She just has some skincare issues.
Cut to Nick cooing over his stray cat, approaching his stray cat – and eating his stray cat. Uh… ok… RUN MAX RUN! And remember, aim for the head!
Back at the house, Josh gets a call from Kat worried about Aidan disappearing with Liam – and Josh is far more than worried. (Should set the zombie on him). He grabs a gun, some ammo and sets off with an address from Nora, in the light of the full moon (obviously or Aidan could have eaten the wolfies very easily. You know, if they’d have got the address on the new moon they could have gone and done this with Aidan – just saying)
Josh shoots one goon in the knee and enters the building, tense and afraid while Pedigree Liam continues to torture Aidan with a sledgehammer and prepares to kill him with a syringe of infected blood. In the last seconds of desperation for delay, Aidan confesses to killing Bryn (protecting Nora. How… noble. Frankly the minute he tied me up I’d be singing “Nora did it, Nora McJudgey did it! Totes Nora!” Hey he wouldn’t have had to tie me up, could have just asked nicely). Then Aidan follows it up with taunting (including an unnecessary “bitch”) and Josh shoots Liam. It’s not enough to stop Liam jumping up and injecting Aidan though and Josh shoots Liam twice more in the torso (head shots man, head shots!)
Josh starts hammering at Aidan’s chains to release him while Aidan begs him to leave. Pedigree Liam starts to shift (please apply the sledgehammer to the SKULL, not the chains, SKULL). He gets the chains off Aidan and shoots Liam twice more. They run for the door, chased by the werewolf, at the last moment Josh manages to stab the wolf in the head – but is scratched in the process. They lock Liam away but, alas, he still isn’t dead.
Back at the house, Sally greets Max who has arrived with an apology and a big box of stuff and an unfortunate use of the word “leper.” To be fair on Max, I think his freak out was relatively mild all things considered. He offers to help patch up her little problem (and does he offer his tasty BRAINS?). They’re a very cute undead, zombie, gonna be eaten couple, they really are.
Meanwhile Nick is cleaning up from the cat he ate, lifting his shirt and finding that, surprise, his rotting flesh has disappeared. There you go Sally, solution, get ye to the pound and get some hamsters! It’s apparently not Nick’s first time since he says he’s eating “cats” and he puts out another bowl of food to attract his next victim.
Josh and Aidan return home, with Aidan looking all kinds of beat up. Josh asks him why Aidan confessed to Bryn’s murder and Aidan says he did it for him to save Nora for him and to try and do something to make up for Erin and the Underwear Ghosts, especially since Liam was going to kill him anyway. They stagger inside and Sally leaps up seeing the condition Aidan is in. Max offers to call 911 and all three of them say “don’t” together. Sally tries to get rid of Max but he refuses, saying he doesn’t want any more secrets. She says if they were her secrets she would – but he leaves angry.
Sally goes into the kitchen where Aidan is patching up Josh, he needs stitches. She hands Aidan his blood and Josh tells her he got scratched. He’s going to be a wolf on the next full moon. Sally, shocked, sits down but tells him they’ll deal with it like they did before. To add to that, a black blotch appears on Aidan’s hand – the virus.
Sally says “we’ll find a way, for all of us.”
That night no-one can sleep – and Sally empties the fridge trying to satisfy her hunger (Nora brains! She needs Nora brains!) Until she fixates on a package of raw meat in the fridge. She is determined to resist, not if it were the last meal on a dying planet, she says. Then grabs it and eats it, loving it.
We’ve complained about this on the Podcast and it’s really clear in this episode – there’s just too much going on in everyone’s lives for them to ever have any down time, any rest or any non-angst. Take Aidan – he who is sad all the time – he already had a dwindling blood supply, a werewolf trying to kill him and Nora snarling at him. Then throw in the 2 bloodstained ghosts (and it’s not like vampire victims commonly come back as ghosts or all vampires would behave themselves) and it’s just a step (and an angst) too far.
I’m not actually against Aidan getting some guilt for his murders, in fact one of my ongoing complaints about Urban Fantasy is how no-one cares as disposable victims pile up everywhere. But if you’re going to have the guilty ghosts then something else in Aidan’s very busy storyline has to give. And Nora isn’t the best vehicle for it either – it looks hypocritical when her claws aren’t clean and the fact she continually links it to Erin makes her look unreasonable and looking for a reason to hate Aidan more than her legitimately being outraged by his death toll.
I am much happier about her anger over Erin’s death and spreading that to the whole system – her anger that no-one cares Erin’s dead, that she’s such a disposable, forgettable person that no-one is trying to find who is responsible or why.
Kat mentioned she’s interested in the revolutionary war because she had a war hero ancestor. Who wants to lay odds Aidan is her great great extra great granddaddy?
Zombie Sally! I’m oddly giddy about this and want her to eat Nora’s brains. But all 3 of them know and will work on Josh’s problem – being a wolf again. All 3 of them know about Aidan’s problem and will work on it – the virus. Sally’s problem of rotting away? Unknown to the others, hers and Max’s.
Josh is a werewolf again! YES! We knew it was going to happen. Now I hope he doesn’t angst about it because we have had a few moments where he has almost missed being a wolf.
