Wolves of a Different Color: Ray vs. Lee Tully

I love the werewolves in both of the Being Human series; there are variations in the poignancy of each show, but I’m really split on who was the better bad guy: Lee Tully, or Ray? See, neither were villains exactly, but they did do some pretty villainous things, –and the purpose of this post was to kind of compare notes, –I was wondering what fans thought of the two dastardly dogs, and if anyone was undecided as to who was the bigger asshole. Yup, that’s right, this is an asshole contest, with werewolves being the primary candidates for the competition. And also, I wanted a chance to really compare the differences, because it might illustrate also, how uncomfortable North American television is with direct sexuality, unlike UK television.

Ray:

  • Something like a hillbilly, by our standards. He has an accent, I’d say he was that hybrid redneck that tends to grow in New England.
  • He assaults vampires, hates them with a passion, and tries to insert his animosity in Josh, but unsuccessfully.
  • Doesn’t end up being very close with Josh, really, –in fact, Josh seems disgusted with his own violent reactions that were encouraged by the equally repulsive and irrational violence of Ray.
  • There’s definitely a lack of propriety but nothing really sexually aggressive about Ray, aside from his way of picking up women. Very similar methods to those of Lee.
  • A lot more emotional than his UK counterpart; he’s more melodramatic, and seems much more hurt by Josh’s rejecting him.
  • Seems more dangerous in his fixation on Josh, because of his emotional personality; he makes you think of Wes Bentley in P2, –obsessed.

Lee Tully:

  • More detached from George than Ray was from Josh; Lee wanted to be in Josh’s life, but maybe not obsessively.
  • Sexually aggressive, even to Annie Sawyer, the ghostly female living with George and Mitchell. He wasn’t just ‘aggressive’, but deliberately cruel, and moreso because she rejected him.
  • Insecure, but not emotional. He gave the appearance of being more at home with himself, than Ray, –he realizes he’s an asshole, accepts it, and doesn’t feel the need to try not to be.
  • Tully doesn’t lead George on a crusade against vampires, but he definitely doesn’t care much for them, despite his duplicitous facade around Mitchell.
  • Much closer to George, and even manipulated him into emulating Tully’s behavior towards women, and his friends.

I think it’s fair to say that SyFy just wasn’t comfortable with portraying Ray sexually harassing Sally, –which is repeated later, when they -barely- breach the feud between Aidan and his neighbors, because he let the porn from Rebecca fall into the hands of a child. While in the UK series, the pedophile sequence was longer, and much more brutal, –the subject was barely touched upon by the North American series. In fact, the mother of the kid only ever calls Aidan a pervert. But when the kid turns into a vampire, the series makes up for it by a very emotional sequence regarding the death of the child, and the killing of the other neighborhood children. I think Lee obviously wins the asshole contest, but only because of the tendency to avoid sexually fixated sequences on television. The rest of the NA Being hUman is just as dramatic as its European counterpart.

8 comments

  1. I remember watching the UK version and thinking about how much of an asshole Lee was. When Ray appeared I was like oh that bastard again but he wasn’t that bad. (If you leave out his obsession that indeed makes him more unpredictable and thus more dangerous.)

  2. I liked tully way more than ray. Then again, I’m more into BBC than Syfy, so I may be a bit bias.

    I agree, the syfy version doesn’t touch on the same sexual issues as BBC’s did.

    1. Um, care to elaborate? I don’t think it’s stupid at all, I think it’s a great post for the Being Human fans, which I am guessing you are not.

  3. The American version of being human can’t compete with the british version. The Amercian version in my opinion tends to be a bit overdramatic sometimes and the British version is much better srcipted. But either than that the American version is actually turning out pretty good and I like it not better than the British show but still far better than most shows I watch on tv still can’t compete with the vampire dairies or true blood but its still a reall good show to watch. I do have to say though the werewolf design on the american show is better than the british one.

  4. True Blood has weak story-telling, and its mostly trash tv. Vampire Diaries is pretty much a darker version of Twilight. The UK version of Being Human is better than both these shows, because it isn’t all about sex, teen-angst, and fay vampires. Its about actual story-telling, and character-developement.

  5. Mmmm…. yeah… American Television as a whole tends to view overt sexual scenes as taboo and can be a bit shy about it. But it does appear to be changing. It may be that in the Syfy remake they didn’t do the whole sexually harassing Sally with Ray like Lee did to Annie in the UK version as it may have been a that show has already done that and we’d like to do our own thing without completely copying so we can have our own take on characters and story.

    But for sheer agression, Lee would be the winner.

  6. Lee’s definitly the bigger ass. With Ray, he may be a vampire raceist hill-billy, i feel kind of sorry for him because he just seemmed so pittiful. and along the lines of the almost rapeing of Sally/Annie the american version couldnt have done that, not only because american TV frowns upon the idea, but also because Sally at the time wasnt solid, she couldnt touch anything. Also, if memory serves, doesnt Ray help Sally with the whole “cant touch anything” problem by helping her move some Starwberries? Anyway while Ray’s a bit of a creeper he’s not the perverted dick that Lee is.

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