Sunday, September 25, 2011

Lost Girl Season One, Episode Thirteen: Blood Lines

Blood Lines was the season finale and I suppose that the writers thought it was time to give us a few answers.  For the entire season Bo has been looking for her mother but we didn't know is that we had already been introduced to her.  It turns out that Saskia's real name is Aoife and she has a score to settle with Trick and the rest of the White fae. Dyson admits that he knew who her mother was before they met but felt that it was Trick's story to tell.

Trick tells Bo that he failed her.  She was of his clan and the fae were constantly a war back then.  Trick forced peace by using his powers. Whatever he writes in his own blood comes true, but there is always a cost to getting what he wants.  Unfortunately peace demands forgiveness, and her mother led a dark fae rebellion and when she came to Trick for amnesty, he handed her over to the dark fae for execution. Since that day she hated Trick.

Trick wants to get Aoife out of town but Bo wants to hear her mother's side of the story.  She wants to know who or what she really is whatever the cost.  Bo tells Kenzi that she cannot trust her friends anymore and Kenzi asks her if things are still good between them.  Why would Kenzi think for one moment that this even applies to her? Oh that's right, Bo has already proven that she finds Kenzi disposable.

Feeling that she cannot trust Trick, or Dyson, Bo goes to Lauren to help her track down her mother. When Bo arrives Lauren is working on a report on a White fae elder.  She tells Lauren that she wants to know how to protect herself from another succubus but does not tell her who the succubus is.

Hale approaches Kenzi for Dyson, but Kenzi does not want to hear a word that she has to say but suddenly the moment he says that he loves her she is suddenly team Dyson again. When they return the apartment Bo is gone and Dyson realizes that Aoife has taken her.  They return back to the bar and Trick tells them that he has to report this to the elders.

When Bo finds her mother, Aoife tells her that she just wants to get closer to her and that she thinks that Dyson isn't good enough for her.  She uses sweet language but questions her until she passes out from the drugs that Aoife put in the cookie that she is eating.

When Bo awakes she is at her mother's home. She is upset that she was drugged and says that she would have come on her own. Aoife tells her that after Trick handed her over the dark king kept her for his own entertainment for centuries. She implies that he abused her for centuries. She claims that she kidnapped Bo with a chance to connect with her and to get away from Trick and his lies. When Bo asks who her father is she says she doesn't want to talk about that but attempts to distract her by telling her of her plans for the fae.  It is her goal to take them all down because she is tired of the divide and assumes that because Bo has refused to state her allegiance that she will stand with her, but Bo tells her, "you don't want to free people, you want to be their new religion. Trick was right about you, you're crazy." Bo has to jump out the window to escape.

Trick tells Ashe that Aoife is going to cause some trouble.  The Ashe accuses him of withholding information critical to the good of the fae.  He is upset that Trick didn't tell him about her parentage and plans to take the issue up with the elders in a meeting. At the meeting one of Aoife's enthralled men shows up with a bomb strapped to his chest. 


Of course, Bo runs to Dyson to be healed.  Afterwards she tells him she knows he was trying to protect her but does not know how to forget it.  Dyson tells her that he wants to help her fight off the evil and she tells him that she can't have people on her team that she doesn't completely trust and that he has to let her fight her own battles.

Bo and Kenzi go to see Lauren and learn that the Ashe is on life support and that the noble families have gone into hiding.  She tells him that a hit like this looks like an attack from the dark.  Bo tells Lauren that Aoife is her mother. She tells her that she has a plan and wants to try and stop her before the light fae army gets unleashed on her.

Dyson tells Trick that there's an evac order for the elders and that Bo plans to fight Aoife by herself. Dyson says that he is going to see the Norn and is willing to take the risk for asking for a favor. Dyson lends him her wolf power in exchange for the ability to ever feel passion for her again and Trick uses his blood to write a message in a book, which cause Aoife to sacrifice herself for Bo because Kenzi accuses him of being willing to just let her die.  At the end of the episode we see Aoife fall to her supposed death but no body appears, Dyson runs into the forres growling and Trick sits in a chair clearly unconscious with blood dripping from her arm.

As season finales go, this one pretty epic but I think it is once again worth noting that Bo does not save herself YET AGAIN.  She is a big powerful succubus that needs Dyson and Trick to intervene magically and Kenzi shows up to hold onto Bo to keep her from falling to her death. How can Bo be this super powerful succubus when she can barely cross the street without someone running to guide her and save her. Lost Girl has truly turned this trope into an art form.  Bo is weak, she is not the strong menacing threat that the writers would like us to believe that she is.

In terms of social justice, the overriding issue in this episode was ableism.  A White fae elder tells Aoife that she is crazy for wanting to take over the fae and she responds with, "the polite terms is mentally unstable and just because a girl has a little bit of ambition, does not mean she's off her rocker". I appreciated that it was pointed out that Aoife was not indeed "crazy" but was seeking her revenge for being robbed; however, the moment was spoiled when she said that the correct term was "off her rocker".

Throughout the episode Aoife was repeatedly referred to as crazy.  It seems that though she had ample reason to seek revenge, calling her crazy was a way to delegitimize her rage and her as a person. She was "crazy" and therefore dangerous. She was "crazy" and therefor angry.  Every negative connotation that you can imagine with the word "crazy" was assigned to Aoife.  She was called "crazy" so often that we could have turned it into a drinking game. 

For me, it was yet another example of an unnecessary ism being added to the story that did not enhance the plot or the characters. The writers simply had to focus on Aoife wanting revenge to make her seem  threatening and they did not need to use ableism to drive home that point.  It is logical for a woman who has been betrayed, imprisoned and abused for hundreds of years to want those that played a role in this to suffer.

Even though Aoife is a dark fae and is power hungry, I have to say I like her character, she's got a bit of flare to her and is certainly more interesting than Bo.  I was glad when they made it clear that there is room for her to come back next season.  I'll take 1 well acted bad characters over one Bo or should I say Anna Silk, who cannot act her way out of a wooden box.  At first I thought it was because they gave her such crappy lines to deliver but an actor should make the best of what they are given and there is no justifying are terrible acting all season.  I liked this season of Lost Girl in spite of Bo/ Anna Silk and I hope that we see a lot more of the other characters next season, with less emphasis on Bo.