Hal’s back on the blood, the Devil is ready to rise, and… Tom’s got a crush in episode five of Being Human’s final series.

As you might expect with the penultimate episode, the stakes are being raised (to use an obvious pun). It opens with a flashback to Rook’s past, some 15 years earlier. He’s on a mission in a vampire lair and ends up finding and rescuing a little girl. Back in the present, Tom bumps into a girl named Natasha in a seemingly chance meeting. She ends up blagging a job at the Barry Grand and Tom soon falls for her. It’s not long before he needs to brush up on the birds and the bees when the pair begin dating.

As last week’s ending revealed, Hal has given into temptation and is now drinking blood again. Problem is, the flask Rook gave him is now empty. When he asks Rook for more, he is unable to oblige and Hal spirals into withdrawal. Natasha, surprisingly, offers him a means to somewhat control his bloodlust, but, as ever, things don’t exactly go smoothly. Fireworks erupt when Tom eventually finds out what’s going on.

Alex also finds herself in the deep end when she starts investigating Hatch. Little does she know he’s really the devil and he has plans to get rid of her for good. Then the vampire and werewolf conflict can finally set him free.

Despite appearances, the first half of the episode is surprisingly humourous in tone, with a fair chunk of time given to Tom’s awkward attempts at wooing his new love interest. A large part of this plot feels like it was covered last year in Puppy Love with Allison (who gets a few mentions). However, guest star Kathryn Prescott does a great job as Natasha and manages to keep the character interesting. She’s someone whose alliances are not clear until the end.

The main cast all get something more of substance to work with as the episode delves into darker places in the second half. Damien Molony is again the star of the show, portraying the ever conflicted and withdrawn Hal. Kate Bracken gives her most emotional performance of the series yet. Phil Davis is reliably creepy as Hatch, while Steven Robertson reveals a new side to Rook.

Episode 5 is perhaps the best episode of Series 5, however, it’s not faultless. The problems are largely the sense of repetition kicking in. The whole vampire succumbing to bloodlust storyline has been done in the past with Mitchell, and we already had Hal turning evil in Series 4. To the episode’s credit, it does try and shake things up a little bit.

When Being Human does horror, it often does it very well. Things take a very dark turn culminating in a tense, creepy and gory climax. The wait for the final episode will feel like a long one.

8.5/10

The episode airs 3 March 2013 at 10pm on BBC3.