Instead of reshuffling the deck, Being Human showrunner Toby Whithouse apparently decided to buy a whole new set of cards.

SPOILERS AHEAD

We knew going in, of course, that the fourth season would build on George the werewolf’s promise that the vampire Wyndham and the Old Ones would “have a fight” on their hands.” But nobody who didn’t read the British press before the premiere could have expected the turnaround “Eve Of The War” presented.

In the cold open, Whithouse’s script zooms past a fight and into full-on Underworld territory, hurling us into a horrible future: vampires haven’t just been outed to the world, they’ve taken it over.

Back in our time, the politics foreshadowed in the new cast poster above start to play out. Before we catch up on George or the ghostly Annie, we see the first glimpse of the world to come through an adventure with young Tom, a guest player last year now acting as a lone wolf (har) vigilante against the ever more aggressive vamps.

At least part of the reason Tom’s on the job is that George has been left nigh-catatonic. After he killed Wyndham, his baby-mama Nina was attacked and killed in revenge, leaving him to guard over a baby he’s too grief-stricken to name, with Annie trying to rally him.

And the stakes get considerably higher when it comes to the unnamed child. Whereas we were led to believe the little girl was “the first” child borne of two werewolves – come on now, in all this time no loving lycan couple got down doggy-style? – now we discover she’s the mythical War Child, meaning she alone will stand against the vampires , the demons, and the forces of darkness … no, wait, that’s another girl. But in a hastily-introduced bit of vampire mythology, we come to find out she’s destined to rid the world of vampires – if she survives not only this local bunch, but the imminent arrival of the Old Ones.

Adding to the turmoil is the most surprising departure: George triggers a half-transformation within himself outside of a full moon, killing himself along while saving the baby from the vampires. It’s the trickiest plot point in the whole show, but Russell Tovey brings enough love and desperation to the moment to make it stick in a mind-blowingly quick send-off for him.

So if you’re keeping score, 75 percent of last season’s core characters are now off the show – and two of them were taken out off-screen. That’s an escalation, all right.

And amid all of this, Whithouse still manages to introduce almost a whole new ensemble’s worth of core players in not just media-savvy vampire Cutler (Adam Gower, un-intentionally bringing to mind Stephen Dorff in Blade) but an entirely new set of roomies : vampire Hal, werewolf Louis and ghost Pearl, who somehow have been living together, off the grid, for decades. And then there’s maybe the most ominous ghost of all, the unnamed young woman who comes back from the war to make sure baby Eve (see what he did there?) doesn’t get the chance to fulfill her destiny – one that’s suddenly as uncertain as the show’s. Whithouse was able to get the most out of the thrills and spills of the show’s personnel changes, but now he faces a tougher task: getting his new ensemble to gel in time to deliver on what could be his show’s last stand.

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