Thursday, September 22, 2011

Lost Girl Season One Episode Nine: Fae Day

I think that this is absolutely my favorite episode thus far.  In this episode, the fae are celebrating lashochain, which is apparently the most holy day of the year.  In honour of the holiday, fae are not allowed to use their powers, do any form of violence, or feed. It is the one day of the year when light and dark can come together.  Apparently during the WWII the German Fae and the French Fae put down their arms and celebrated the day together.

Bo and Kenzie go to the bar to get a drink when suddenly, a woman stands and releases and earth shattering scream.  Trick stands up and announces that the party is over and says everyone but members of the five families has to leave. Bo asks Trick who the five families are, and he tells her that there are five royal families, 5 human and five fae.  The banshee scream indicates that someone from the family is going to die, because banshees only scream for them.

Trick calls Dyson to investigate who the Banshee screamed for, and Dyson asks Bo to accompany him because he is not allowed to use his powers today and since she does not know her parental heritage, Bo could in fact be royal herself.   Bo asks Kenzi to come along, but she chooses to stay behind and eat.  Before Bo and Dyson leave, he follows Trick to his office to find him  packing a bag. When Dyson asks who he is packing for, Trick tells him that he is packing Lou Ann's things, and that she is on the run after he helped her.  Dyson is shocked and wants to know why he helped Lou Ann, considering that she is dark fae.  Trick responds that Lou Ann was the midwife at Bo's birth, which means that Siegfried was telling the truth when he said that Lou Ann knew something about Bo's mother.  What is even more shocking is that Trick and Dyson both know about Bo's parentage, but when Dyson asks how long they are going to avoid telling Bo, Trick tells him that they will avoid it for as long as they can. This of course causes Dyson to ask what they are going to do if Eve, Bo's mother comes looking for her daughter and Trick tells him it's not if but a when, and that when the day occurs, a reckoning will have to happen.  Since Bo's mother's midwife is a dark fae, I wonder if this means that Bo's family are dark fae?  The two sides are not really allowed to interact and does not make sense to have a dark fae midwife and a white fae mother in labor.

Dyson and Bo track the banshee to her agents office.  They tie her to a chair and force feed her ground up liver.  Apparently, banshees react terribly to iron and this forces her to reveal who the prediction was for.  She tells Bo and Dyson that the prediction was for Sean of the royal family Kavanaugh.

Back at the bar, Sean and Kenzi are hanging out and getting to know each other.  He won't reveal exactly what kind of fae he is, but tells her that he is really good with money and does accounting work.  Shortly after he reveals his talents, Dyson and Bo come back to the bar and announce that the banshee predicted Sean's death.  He tells Bo that his one wish before he dies is to make peace with his brother Liam, who has sworn allegiance to the dark fae.  

Bo and Kenzi go off in search of Liam and Sean and Kenzi steal a car so that Sean can say goodbye to his father.  When they arrive, Patrick Kavanaugh is all business with his son and tells him that he has to get his affairs in order, so that he won't leave a mess behind for others to deal with.  Sean says that this is not the way he wants to spend his final day, and that he has spent his entire life living up to his wishes.  Sean walks out and Kenzi stays behind a moment.  She picks up the newspaper and notices that Patrick was looking at the horses running in today's race, and gives him a tip about the horse that he has chosen.

At Liam's office, they watch as an investor is being dragged out begging for Liam to return his money. It seems that Liam makes his living running scams, stealing people's life savings.  When Bo tells Liam that his brother is going to die, he says that he does not care, and that he deserves to die for what he did to him.

Back in the car they get a text message from Kenzi who says that she has taken Liam back to their place.  Bo decides to head home so that she can find out more about why Liam refuses to make peace with his brother now that he knows that Sean is dying. When they arrive  they find Kenzi and Sean attempting to fight off goblins.  Bo and Dyson engage but Dyson is immediately taken out of the fighting by a solid shot to the gut, but when it becomes clear that Bo cannot defend herself against the goblin, Dyson pulls out his gun and shoots him. Dyson tells her that they can only use violence to defend themselves and that is how the blood king wanted it.  Bo tells Sean that Liam tried to have him killed and Dyson suggests that they get the Ashe, because he will clean up the bodies as well as intercede with the Morrigan to get the hit called off, because it was unsanctioned and planned for the high holiday.

When they turn around, Sean is gone and he has taken Bo's crossbow. They rush back to Liams office to find Sean holding the crossbow ready to kill his brother.  To get them to stop, Bo invokes the avalon, which was set up by the blood king to force warring parties to negotiate -- the catch is that the person who invokes it, must give up their life if a peace cannot be reached.

They return to the bar and Trick is shocked by what Bo is attempting to do, and she asks his help to ensure that it done correctly.  Dyson tells Trick that he can save Bo with his blood, but Trick is resistant.  As they get into the circle, Sean and Liam throw accusations at each other over who stole 30K from their fathers business. Frustrated, Liam calls for an end and rather than forfeit her life, Bo calls for a recess.  Once again Dyson reminds Trick that he can yet save Bo.  

When the recess comes to an end, Liam once again declares that there can be no peace and just before they can call an end to the ceremony, Kenzi returns with Patrick Kavanaugh.  When he enters the circle, he admits that he stole the money to cover gambling debts, and that he never expected the boys to find out what happened.  He told Liam he felt like he had been a baby to run off and join the dark fae.  Once Sean realizes that his father was to blame all along, he asks his brother for forgiveness and hands him the power he needs to take over the family after Patrick dies.  For his part, Liam declares that he will attempt to pay back as much of the money that he can that he has stolen, and demands that his mother's body be moved to neutral territory so that he can visit her grave.  When Sean agrees, Liam calls off the goblins that he had hired to kill Sean.

As they leave the club the man that was being escorted out of Liam's office earlier shows up and take a shot at Liam, but Sean jumps in the way and takes the bullet for his brother.  As he lays dying, Sean tells Kenzi, you see, you can't escape the cry of a banshee.

Back at the bar, Dyson tells Trick that he needs to start believing in Bo, because she has proven herself repeatedly and even refers to him as the blood king. Now we know for sure that Trick is more than a simple bartender and has real power in the fae world. Since the stories of the bloodking go back well over a thousand years, we know that he is also very old.

Bo was essentially the star of this episode, but what I enjoyed about it was learning more about the world.  The fae are extremely involved, which isn't surprising considering that they are after all fae. I know that Bo is the star of the show, but I think that Lost Girl is at its best when it is telling us about the fae world, rather than focusing on Bo's problems.  I prefer every other character on the show to her. Bo is not nearly as sympathetic as the writers want her to be. 

This episode gave us one more example of Bo doing the whole spunky agency thing.  Why would you invoke a ceremony after reading the smallest description, when she knows first hand how complicated the fae are? Oh I know, she's Bo and thinking is not her strong suit.  This is one of my pet peeves with urban fantasy.  When we are given female leads, far too often they are so filled with spunky agency that I question their intelligence.