Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Review of Lost Girl Season Two, Episode Fifteen: Table for Fae

Thank goodness that Nate's tour only lasted one episode and Kenzi returned to Lost Girl this week.  The show begins with Kenzi and Nate returning home, only to hear Bo and Ryan having sex. When Kenzi asks Bo about Ryan, Bo stumbles on her words and suggests they do lunch.When Bo brings the matter of a double date up to Ryan, he suggests Nappa Valley.  Throughout the episode, Ryan is pretentious, and makes sure that all around him are aware of his wealth.

Since Ciara got smart and left him, Dyson is on a rampage. He roughs up the mayor's friend, after the gentleman makes the mistake of laying hands on him. Technically, Dyson is right, you cannot just lay hands on a cop to get attention.  Hale tries to tell Dyson to calm down, but Dyson doesn't want to hear a word he's saying.  When the conversation switches, and Hale tells him about a murder downtown that looks like it has fae involvement, Dyson is clearly uninterested, leaving Hale to approach Trick by himself. 

When Hale finds Trick, he is deep in conversation with Bo.  Hale relates the issue of a 22 year old found dead with the body of an old man.  Before we go any further, I feel it is important to say that Hale is the one with the badge, but Trick hands the case over to Bo, saying that she is better suited.  Say what?  What case has Bo been on that she has not bungled in someway?  This is yet another example of Hale being dismissed and reduced to a ridiculous sidekick. 


When Bo Ryan, Kenzi and Nate go for lunch, they end up at a very pricy restaurant.  Ryan takes the liberty of ordering food for them, and the first course tripe - cow stomach is served. When they are disgusted, Ryan claims that he only wanted to push their palate. He then goes on to belittle Nate for the amount of money he is making as a musician.  Thankfully for Kenzi and Nate, Bo and Ryan get called away, but before he leaves, Ryan promises to make it up to them for being such an ass, and admits that he was being pretentious, because he really wanted to impress Kenzi. As he leaves, Ryan promises to make it up to them by introducing them to a fabulous agent.

It turns out that a spa run by dark fae is taking advantage of poor travelers.  They pay these people one hundred dollars to literally suck the youth right out of them, and then sell this youth to high class members of society.  In many ways, this case reminded me of the black market that is being run for organs, though I am not convinced that this is the analogy that Lost Girl was trying to make with this sort of fae.

It turns out that the agent that Ryan had in mind is the Morrigan. Really? Was anyone even remotely surprised by this? Without even hearing his music, the Morrigan agrees to sign Nate.  Kenzi is notably terrified and suggests that she needs to hear Nate's music, and so Nate runs off and agrees to meet the Morrigan at her office.  Alone with Morrigan, Kenzi begs her to release Nate, but the Morrigan continues to threaten her and suggests that not only will she sign Nate, but that he will cast Kenzi off as a by product of his success.  In the end, the only way to get Nate out of the Morrigan's clutches is for Kenzi to promise her a favor to be named later.  You can tell that this is not going to end well. To throw a little extra salt in Kenzi's wounds, the Morrigan leaves it up to Kenzi to tell Nate why his magical contract fell through.

Back to Hale and Dyson, who seems determined to wallow in his own misery.  After Hale gets him reinstated by promising to keep him on a short leash, Dyson shows up with the young man whose case was thrown out when he manhandled his father.  Hale assumes that Dyson used his wolf to get a confession and he is not in the least bit pleased.  Hale points out that Dyson is breaking both human and fae law, but Dyson does not care because he is too wrapped up in his suffering.  Finally, in desperation, Hale tells Dyson that he put himself on the line to get Dyson off suspension, but all Dyson can say is that he never asked him to do that.  Really? Who wouldn't want this inconsiderate SOB as a BFF?

It's ironic that we just wrote a piece about hollow characters of colour on Lost Girl, only to have the very next episode turn out to be a great example of the way that Hale is cast aside, and only exists to act at the behest of others.  When is Hale going to do anything for himself, or have the characters around him care about him in the least? It felt like this entire episode was set up to remind the viewer of just how inconsequential Hale is.

When Bo does finally meet up with the two fae that are draining the city's young travelers, she is knocked out and strapped to a chair, leaving Ryan to come to her rescue. This btw marks yet another incident in which Bo must be saved.  The writers and producers keep trying to set her up as this powerful heroine but then do their very best to convince us that screwing in a light bulb would be difficult for her.  They really cannot have it two ways. They either need to actually make Bo competent at something or stop pretending that the sun rises and sets on her. 

Bo demands that they restore the young people, but it is at this point that Ryan's support waffles, because he sees it as irregular feeding. It is here that she sees what it really means to partner with someone that is dark fae. This was another case of zmog. Oh my goodness, dark fae doesn't want to play nice. Not to worry though, Bo convinces one sister that their actions are wrong and so she kills her sibling.  It absolutely disgusts me that she then turns to Bo and thanks her for giving her the strength to act.  Always have to make sure that Black women are subservient don't they. 

When Bo finally returns home, Kenzi tells her about the trick that Ryan pulled with the Morrigan and Bo promises to have words with him. Kenzi pushes further, and suggests that she should break up with him, rightly sensing that the man is nothing but trouble.  It seems that trouble is what is drawing Bo to Ryan however.

When Bo finally talks to Ryan, she is easily persuaded to let go of her anger.  So much for caring that he was so easily willing to screw over Ryan and that Kenzi is in a huge jam because of it. In terms of making a good BFF, Bo is slowly creeping into Sookie Stackhouse territory. In the end, Ryan gives her a gift of a fae woman, who Bo begins making out with immediately.  The women pause long enough for Bo to invite Ryan to join them.  At this point, I was so glad that the show was over.  The actors of this show have made a point of saying repeatedly that one of the great things about Lost Girl, is how it treats same sex interaction.   In this case, what you have is two women performing sexually for the pleasure of a man.  Do I even need to say why this is problematic?

I found this entire episode irritating. Not even Kenzi could save it from trite.  For the most part, Bo is well on her way being a good little Mary Sue, and racist treatment of Hale continues.  The meta plot did not advance on iota and the monster of the week thanked Bo for giving her the strength to stand up to her big sister.