SPOILER ALERT: This weekly blog is for those who are watching Being Human on BBC3. Don't read on if you haven't seen episode one of season three …

Dan Martin's series two, episode eight blog

Lia: The One Where …

Mitchell passes (rather easily) into purgatory to rescue Annie but is forced to face up to his actions via Stacey from EastEnders, George is mistaken for a dogging enthusiast, we meet two new werewolves, and the gang flee to Barry Island.

"'A slice of heaven in Barry'. I says 'I bet heaven doesn't have chemical toilets.'"

On last year's blog there seemed to be a feeling that series two of our favourite supernatural drama was only about 85% as good as the first. Which still made it significantly better most things on television, but also meant that the story arc got a bit overbearing at times and at least a little of the fun was lost. So when I visited the set a few months ago to make this backstage video, it was pleasing to hear that "the tone" was more in keeping with series one; more self-contained stories and more daftness. Which isn't to say things don't quickly end up in a dark place – but there is something inherently funny about Barry Island and the sepia, former B&B our heroes move into now Bristol is no longer a safe place.

Of course, the big news this week is getting Annie back from the waiting room of purgatory. Mourning the loss of his ghost pal and suffering emo-hysterics after the train massacre, Mitchell is even more self-involved and tortured than usual – hence his decision to cross over and get her back. Which waylays his own quest for redemption as he's forced to face his victims. After all those years of crying in Walford, Lacey Turner is clearly having the time of her life as the flirty, prickly and ultimately doomed Lia; when the riddle of "H12" reveals her as one of the train victims and the emotional baggage explodes out in a torrent, she completely steals the show.

While all this is going on, George and Nina find themselves involved in a spot of bedroom farce followed by race-against-time horror as George finds himself arrested at full moon, in a dogging community hosted by Rhys from Torchwood ("We don't do funny stuff here, you gotta got to Swansea for that.") This in turn opens up the other subplot with Robson Green and Michael Socha as father-and-son werewolves, AND Paul Kaye as murderous John Lydon-ish dandy and fight club host Vincent, who in the final twist is revealed as a vampire himself and promptly killed. Boo. If there's one thing we want more than Lacey, it's more of Vincent and his amazing werewolf fight club.

Supernature

Purgatory could so easily have proved a shark-jumping moment, but Mitchell's corridor and Annie's waiting room were both deliciously in keeping with the show's one mythology; domestic and hellish in a single beat. And werewolves, it turns out, can have sex while transformed. Who knew?

Pop Culture Notes

Anybody else notice the reference when Annie calls Mitchell through the radio in purgatory? "There's gonna be a parade and they'll scatter ashes in front of me. They're coming. They've got drums, I can hear children cheering." This of course is a nod to theatrical punk band My Chemical Romance's rock opera The Black Parade. "Must be a concept album," notes Lia with eyebrow arched skyward. Amazing.

Mysteries

So Lia tells Mitchell that he's going to be killed by a werewolf. George? Nina? McNair and Son? He tells Annie it's all mindgames and he doesn't believe a word of it. Is he just reassuring her? Denial? Or was he faking his remorse to Lia all along? Proving herself quite the queen of exposition, Lia also suggests that Mitchell and Annie's Ross and Rachel dynamic might finally move along this year.

And with all this going on, there was no mention whatsoever of last year's other big cliffhanger – the revelation that Herrick is back from … well not back from the dead. Back in the dead? What even is he now anyway? And when will we see him return? Actually I already know the answer to this. And it's not when you expect …