And so, last night gave us the second part
of the season starter episode, and it was not what most of us expected. More
precisely, there was little violence, no fighting as it was, for example, the
Hel part 1 – or is it Hades?.. Instead, we get Bo running around in a dilapidated
run-down building of an underworld (or is it the otherworld?) while her friends
work out how to get her out – a typical Team Bo event, in short – if you
disregard the lack of violence.
On the other hand...let us start with the
elephant in the room – the underworld. In the first part, LG showed that in
place of Heaven it had Valhalla, and now, in place of Hell, or even Hel, it got
Hades, the Greek underworld. Sigh. The Greek version is the easiest way out,
especially after Rick Riordan had finally completed his series about PJ and
friends vs. Gaea. If they didn’t want to do a Norse Hel, for example, they
could’ve used a Sumerian one, or a Japanese one, etc – but instead they went
for the Greek. It’s the easy way out, period.
The depiction of Hades (yes, it is the name
of both the god and the kingdom – one of the three Greek kingdoms – of the
dead) is very unusual, though: it is the abandoned, broken-down version of ‘hotel
Valhalla’. In this version, though, there are no customers, for Hades the god
is losing his powers, and dwells in a third domain, which is featureless in its’
darkness, save for one giant mystical candle, which Bo steals for reasons given
to her by Persephone, (who is more of a sister role here to Bo, rather than a
stepmother, even though she's Hades' bride, as it is in the Greek myths), after the obligatory sex scene, of course, ‘cause this is Bo.
That brings us to Lauren – apparently, in
LG, the world of the living and the world of the dead (or at least Hades’ old
haunt) are connected, and certain messages and sensations can come across the
border, so to speak. Or maybe it was because Dyson distracted Tamsin’s sister
Valkyrie Stacy, and the doorway between the world of the living and Valhalla
didn’t close, until Bo was able to escape. Persephone got eaten, though…
Getting back to Lauren…she was little more
than comic relief in this episode alongside Kenzi, as was Kenzi herself. In
fact, Kenzi and her role were something of a weak link in this episode, as
after getting rescued from her coffin, Kenzi (with Lauren’s help) messed around
with an Ouija board, and trapped some sort of a spirit – perhaps the same puca
that harassed Bo while the latter hanged around Persephone – and then shot it
at the end of the episode, saving Bo, before leaving the show for good. (Well,
her actress did, that is.)
Lastly, that scene, when Kenzi came to Bo’s
rescue felt tacked-on, giving Kenzi at least one more heroic thing to do before
going to Spain and away from Toronto, Canada. Firstly, for Kenzi to leave ‘her
Bo-Bo’ behind is definitely OOC. And in-between lies the fact that Kenzi’s
character in this episode was underplayed and little used – perhaps the actress
just wanted to leave the show for good, but was forced to say for the season’s
starter, who knows?
With Kenzi hanging in the background, the
same can be said for Lauren (who in this episode was little more than Kenzi’s
sidekick), and Trick, (who had to run his bar, probably), leaving just Tamsin
and Dyson to deal with Valhalla and Stacy.
Stacy, as it was said before, is Tamsin’s
sister Valkyrie, and for the record let it be noted that LG did a very
masterful job with the Valkyries’ make-up during Tamsin and Stacy’s final
confrontation in this episode. As far as Valkyries go, Stacy is competent and
not as blonde as she looks, but she tends to be obnoxious… that is probably her
fatal flaw, so to speak. Either way, without others to back her up, Stacy tends
to lose to Tamsin, it seems, which is good. And who knows, maybe she’ll even
stick around, as a special guest star or a regular of the cast.
Finally, Dyson. He kept the gates of
Valhalla from closing long enough for Bo to escape. That’s what he did in a
nutshell. He also tried to send Stacy after Vex (who left for England, or thereabouts,
at the end of S4), but failed to trick her – Stacy isn’t as clever as Lauren,
but she isn’t too dumb either…
So: Bo is back, Kenzi has left for good,
the LG canon is going to undergo some final and drastic changes, and Bo also
got her mystical candle and lit it, which forged some sort of a mystic bond
with a mystery character (the actress’ Amanda Walsh, BTW), who also has a
similar candle. Who knows what’ll happen next?!
No comments:
Post a Comment