Welcome back to Boston and the oddest of ‘Three’s Company’. You see, a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost live together…sounds like the start to a very cheesy joke but instead it’s the premise of a Syfy original and all around entertaining Being Human.

Taking place 15 months after last season’s finale that found Sally pulled into limbo, Aidan buried alive, and Josh and Nora having a final showdown with Ray, the aptly titled “It’s a Shame About Ray” finds the trio of roommates separated and on their own. Well, two-thirds of them, anyway.

After their ups and downs from the first two seasons, Josh and Nora are most definitely back together—a development I’m personally all-in for being in the Jora shipping camp (or Nosh, if you will)—and their relationship takes center stage in the season three premiere.  From the start, the two are doing all they can, visiting psychics left and right for any hints of Sally’s location. After the trauma in the woods, the relationship between the two is much deeper than their first time around. The reasons behind their newfound bond is displayed throughout the episode with flashbacks detailing that fateful night where Josh killing Ray ultimately cured our wisecracking, socially awkward werewolf of his full moon monthly, Nora wasn’t so lucky.

Unsuccessful for the past year in finding any hints of Sally’s location, they finally catch a break when the exorcist Sally’s ex Danny hired (season one’s “Going Dutch”) to banish Sally from the house, shows up at the door. Remembering the events of her past experience here, she tries to leave but Josh and Nora catch her and, with a bit of Nora’s pleading, she gives them the name of one person who may be able to aid them: Ms. Gilchrist.

Though it seems like the couple’s spending their free time searching for their ghostly friend, it doesn’t mean they aren’t doing their damndest trying to find info on Aidan. When some EMT’s bring in a plagued victim who just happens to be a vampire, Josh tries to question the dying creature but he has no intel on Aidan. But it does seem as if the greasy, jump suit and gold chain wearing Mickey does. The 70’s oddball reject digs up our favorite vampire and provides a semi-lucid Aidan with the smallest of summaries regarding the vampire nation. Mainly, bloodsuckers are dying everywhere and they believe that Aidan will be the cure to all their ails. Savior to the people, Aidan. Rock on!

As all this is happening, Sally’s running the streets of limbo with Stevie and Nick, doing her best to keep the faith and find a way out for the three of them. It seems that her entire time there, the three have failed over and over again in trying to find a way out and, at times are separated by whatever forces patrol limbo to relive the pained aspects of their lives.

Digging up the past is generally a bad thing

Speaking of pain, Josh is forced to relieve his actions from 15 months prior after speaking with Donna Gilchrist. She’s more than the psychic they bargained for, but a witch in every sense of the word. She offers to help them bring Sally back from the dead but, as is always the case with Josh, things aren’t so simple. Donna tells the pair she will need the heart of someone they killed—the heart is the life of everything, one that Josh snuffed out when he bludgeoned Ray to save Nora—as well as Sally’s body. The latter throws the two off until Donna explains that she can’t just return the soul without having a vessel for it to inhabit. Nora is hesitant as they dig up Sally’s body, wondering what they will be bringing back. Josh resolves that it will be Sally. Before starting the ritual, Donna warns them of the rules; Sally’s not to fraternize with anyone from her past (them excluded, obviously) and her tone seems to hint at dire consequences if that rule is broken.

They start the ritual and Josh, strong and resolved through most of the episode starts to break down. Donna cautions that he must have faith, but every passing second he loses more and more of himself. Thankfully, Nora is there to be the rock he needs, keeping him tethered to the world lest his lose himself completely in a conflagration of guilt and shame. Just as he calms, Sally’s husk, wrapped in rags to foster the healing of her desiccated flesh, breathes in, life returning to her.

Manifestations of Aidan’s mind, Josh and Sally watch over their dying friend

As luck would have it, life is not quite on the side of the undead. As the vampire plague spreads, Mickey is set tomake his living selling Aidan’s blood as the snake oil cure. A familiar sounding voice shows up to pilfer some of the ‘pure’ blood but when Mickey refuses the vampire access due to low funds, he decides to kill Mickey and “rescue” Aidan. We find that it’s none other than Atlee, the most recent leader of the Dutch. On the drive back to Dutch country, he fills Aidan in on how the human blood flu has killed so many of their kind, rotting them from the inside out. Even Mother has succumbed to the plague. In his less than fully sane state, Aidan conjures up visions of Sally and Josh, who try to help him work out the fact that things aren’t looking too good for his well being. It’s not until Bishop appears in the vision and steals the scene—such great dialogue between the four—does Aidan realize Atlee’s motivations for taking Aidan back to the Dutch are less than altruistic. Bishop uses some impassioned words that reach Aidan (as well as vision Josh and Sally, the latter of which admits to “kinda [wanting] to make out with him”) and he attacks Atlee. Despite the Dutch vampire’s condition, Aidan’s 15 month forced sabbatical leaves him virtually powerless and the other vampire takes his fill of Aidan’s blood. By the time he realizes it didn’t work, it’s too late and his disintegrates into vampire ash, leaving the van driverless. Aidan tries to correct the runaway vehicle but can’t: it crashes into a pole, ejecting him out and onto the side of the road.

Fully injected back into her body, Sally awakens in her room with Josh and Nora watching over her. She tries to communicate with them but is having difficulty speaking. They finally make out the names of Stevie and Nick, realizing the two ghosts hitched a ride on the ‘Get Sally the hell out of Limbo’ train (at her behest, of course) and can only wonder if the two woke up in their own decomposed corpses.

One corpse that’s not going to be staying down is Ray. After doing some sort of blood spell that leads her to his body in the woods, Donna stares down at the deceased werewolf and asks, quite pleasantly, I might add, “Now what are we going to do with you?”

A fitting bookend to the episode has an exsanguinated  Aidan, fighting for life, echoing the words he repeated as a litany in the beginning; “I’m not going to die. I’m not going to die!”

The key to any successful season premiere is to address the unanswered questions posed in the previous season’s finale as well as introduce new situations that, while organic in the show’s lexicon, the audience is completely unprepared for. “It’s a Shame about Ray” does it all in spades. Where sometimes an hour of a show feels bloated and disjointed, with too much going on and not enough explained, that’s not the case with this week’s Being Human. Not only are we propelled forward into the season but are presented with food for a good portion of the season, with the vampire plague and the idea of faith. The most poignant aspect of the episode occurs when Josh, freaking out as the guilt threatens to overwhelm him, is challenged by Donna on why he wears the Star of David. His response is so heartfelt and true we have no recourse but to empathize with the pain and helplessness he’s felt for the past year by killing Ray, being unable to find his friends and Nora’s still unchanged status as a werewolf. Even when the whole gang is reunited, that theme will be a resounding backbone for the remainder of season three.

And boy oh boy, I cannot wait.