LG: Big in Japan - Dec 22

And so, yet another episode of LG has come to an end. Isn’t it great?

Sadly – no, not really. After a very exciting two-part season starter, this particular episode of LG was not so good.

What was it about? Bo is in the dumps due to Kenzi’s departure and will not feed – on chi. She is a succubus, and so she needs chi to survive; without it, she will die. To make matters more complicated, she and Tamsin are hired by some Japanese Fae ex-samurai as bodyguards, while in the B-plotline Lauren goes to Dyson for advice on self-defense – boxing or whatnot. So?

So, the entire episode (“Big in Japan”) was primarily dealing with team Bo dealing with Kenzi’s departure on one hand, and on the other, the cast and crew of LG had to figure out the new dynamics with Ksenia gone as well. As a consequence, the entire “Japan” episode feels disjointed and rushed, with the characters having little motivation behind their actions, especially Dyson and Lauren. The two of them just do not mesh this great together, not at all.

Bo and Tamsin had a better time working out the team dynamics between them, but all of the Japanese stuff got in the way. Yes, the ‘Hel’ duology had plenty of terms of Norse and Greek myth in it, but LG took all of those terms – Valhalla, Tartarus, etc – and put its’ own spin on them. Here, in ‘Japan’ the Japanese myths, depictions, associations, allusions, etc are straight in the foreground, and are rather overwhelming on one hand, and pointless on the other. There just was not a lot of Japanese-Fae action in this episode, period; it just gave a feeling of procrastination to the team Bo resolution.

On the other hand, in the Dyson-Lauren plotline we had a nurse/assistant of Lauren’s, whose purpose was to be held hostage by a junkie of a patient at first and then to be murdered by Amanda Walsh’s character; this is the fastest introduction and disposal of a character that isn’t a red shirt in a Star Trek episode...

So: team Bo got over – sort of – Kenzi’s departure, and Amanda Walsh’s character is getting ever closer to Bo and her friends. That is good. Otherwise, this episode did not have a lot going on for it. Thus – a C+.

LG: Hel part 2 - Dec 14

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?!

LG: Hel part 1 - Dec 7

And so, the 5^th – and final – season of LG has begun vigorously! This season begins where S4 has ended, with Hale and Kenzi dead and Bo doing what she can to fix this state of affairs. In this particular case, it is on with a pair of magical slippers and off to the Valhalla, the current version of the LG-verse afterlife. 

Now, let us be frank. Valhalla, just like the Valkyries, is Norse, whereas the first seasons had a more Celtic bend to their mythos, but just like the departed Una Mens, the last seasons of LG have a different take on things than the first; something, apparently, has changed (or someone has changed, gotten replaced, quit, etc) on LG behind the scenes, and so LG has changed itself.

One may argue that this statement is unimportant, for LG take on Valhalla is ambiguous at least: from the inside it is a swanky hotel (more US than Canadian in style); from the outside – it is a snowbound wasteland with a statue of (apparently) Odin standing tall. (Or maybe it is Thor – who knows?)

Fair enough, but the choice of the afterlife for LG is still interesting: unlike Heaven, Valhalla was more materialistic and real, just like the Norse, who had invented (or imagined) it, less with the matters of the spirit than with the matters of heart and body – LG appears to be following this sort of reasoning too: when Bo meets Kenzi, the latter is enjoying luxuries such as food and clothing; but food and clothing alone do not make a person (well, not every person) happy, and that’s why Kenzi wants to get out. 

...And, because Bo is a selfless succubus of a character, she wants Kenzi to stay in hotel Valhalla instead, marry Hale, and finally have some happiness in her life. Well, her afterlife, if you want to be technical. Sadly, Bo’s father has other plans, and apparently he has shanghaied Hale from their wedding, and Bo has to confront him (her father) and possibly rescue Hale.

Among other characters whom we have met already in this season are other Valkyries (with whom Tamsin does not get along, apparently), and their mistress (and the Lady of Valhalla, perhaps), Freya or Freyja. The latter (alongside a reference to Bifrost, a bridge/highway/elevator between all of the realms) is another nod to the Norse myths, and again, it is a true one. The Norse did consider Freya to be something of a queen/mistress of the Valkyries, the only goddess, who could stand up to Odin, besides his wife Frigg (but there is confusion between the two goddesses, and one of Freya’s husbands was named Od/Odd/Odr, so let’s just assume that Freya and Frigg may be one goddess with two names). So far, Odin himself is absent, so naturally that Freya is the one in charge – of Tamsin’s fellow Valkyries (like Stacy) and of Valhalla itself.

This brings us to Tamsin, who really does not like Valhalla – apparently, as she tells Bo, whenever she is home, she does something to it. So far, however, it appears to be the other way around: Tamsin briefly went crazy (in a homage to Stanley Kubrick), and Bo had to smack her out of it. So far it is Valhalla one, Tamsin zero.

Or maybe it is more than one for Valhalla. At the end of this episode, as Kenzi wakes up in her coffin (a la the bride in “Kill Bill 2”) and Bo is riding the elevator to Hel (one ‘l’ in the Norse version, not two, as the episode’s title might indicate), more of the hotel Valhalla’s staff are holding Tamsin, while Stacy gloats – but perhaps Dyson and Lauren can rescue her.

Dyson and Lauren, now, they have been mostly background characters in this ep; Dyson hanging around with Trick (who had been left to man the rear guard at the end of this episode); Lauren – at her own personal clinic, which deals with Fae as well, since there’s at least one fire-breathing patient in it.

Of course, the question as to how Lauren got this sort of clinic after she had turned Evony human back in S4 is a plot hole, just one of the latest plot holes that had haunted since S1 at least. The plotline shuffling since S4 had not helped matters either – but otherwise, in Lauren’s case, the episode has held-up.

The only other weak point of the episode was the hotel Valhalla’s crowd – it came and went without any sense or planning. Sometimes it was there, other times it was not, and it did not make sense, not even in the LG version of Valhalla. But the episode still worked, it was a good one, and it promises a lot of excitement to come before the show finishes!

Lost Girl, Feb 16 - Dark Horse

And so, the last episode of S4 of LG had arrived, and it was good! Was it great, however? Sadly no, and here are the reasons why.

For one thing, the series’ characters did not appear to come and go into nowhere as they did in the previous episode. Mind you, “Origin” and “Dark Horse” were shaped to be a two-parter, even though the series did not acknowledge this for some reason. “Dark Horse” continues directly from where “Origins” ended, including the mention of Rosette. Frankly, it is not surprising that Bo was not surprised – after her misadventures with the crows, more of late Rainer’s treacherous minions, she was subconsciously expected Rosette not to be any different from them.

Why Rainer’s late? Because the druid killed him. LG tried to make him sound like Tolkien’s Gollum at one point, but he came across more like BtVS Warren Mears from S6, including invulnerability and insanity. And yes, it worked, even if he and Lauren just flickered from location to location, and why did he take Lauren? One may think because the Morrighan, his mother, commanded him to, but the latter not only helped Bo and Lauren to stop (and kill) him, but she also spent a good amount of time at Trick’s getting drunk. Yes, that was a break in the tension, but also a break in the plot, and it gave no good excuse as to why the druid just took Lauren almost everywhere – yes, he was lonely, but not in that manner, sadly.

On the other hand, Bo did kill him at the end, distracting and tricking him long enough for Lauren to steal the twig of Zamora and destroy it, making the druid vulnerable and mortal. Comment: Hale is not the last of Zamora, back in S2 he had a father and a sister...who had not been seen since. Interhouse warfare, maybe? 

This is beside the point, however: Hale is dead, the druid is dead, Vex has apparently fled to London (but all of S4 is famous by not having all of the LG characters in its’ episodes) and Kenzi has self-sacrificed herself to save the world. One can guess that Ksenia Solo (Kenzi), just as K.C. Collins (Hale) and maybe Paul Amos (Vex) had had enough of LG and decided to leave. Fair enough; IP’s Primeval, for example, was notorious for the cast changes; and the already-mentioned BtVS changed its cast a lot since S3, actually.

In any case, Vex went to London, Hale went stabbed from behind, and Kenzi went through self-sacrifice, dying to prevent Bo’s father, the titular Dark Horse, from coming into the world. It was wonderfully done, but Kenzi/Ksenia’s parting smile was supposed to be kindly, understanding and forgiving – instead it was slightly serpentine and creepy. Ah well, that happens; Kenzi still died, and Tamsin took her to Valhalla.

And yes, Valhalla (and Hel) was discussed previously, but firstly, “Dark Horse” once more showed it a) with vaguely Christian connotations (a Norse Valkyrie is not a Christian angel) and b) with one of its entrances in a Toronto seedy alley. That is just weird.

Also Dyson carried Tamsin away from the gates of Valhalla (they took Kenzi’s corpse in, but did not accept Tamsin herself?) bridal-style. Since one of LG’s trademarks is the tangled love interests between the main characters, we are seeing the beginnings of a new love triangle, especially since Lauren may be dropping out of the old one and taking care of the Morrighan/Evonie for now.

Sigh. The last love interest of Lauren’s that was not Bo was the waitress (Crystal) at the beginning of S4 – and she probably ended up made into sushi or burgers by the Dark Fae. The Morrighan is doomed. 

Finally, Mr. Trick. It was very noble of him to come to aid of Team Bo at the end of this episode, but he also was the new Ash, or the substitute Ash, or something. He could have at least tried to get some of the Light Fae to help save the world, but instead he spent his time with the Morrighan and Vex with mixed results. Does he even take his new job seriously, or has he quit with the death of the Una Mens? If so, then the Fae world may start to experience anarchy, and Bo is subconsciously already ready to step in.

To elaborate: S4 has changed the Fae society by adding the Una Mens, who apparently were beyond the Fae council as shown by lord Blackthorn back in S2. Bo, with Rainer’s help, killed the Una Mens, and was later acknowledged as Queen by Dyson, Tamsin, possibly Lauren – she is the granddaughter of a King, so the title is hers by blood too. And with Una Mens gone, a Queen just might be the right person/entity to take charge of everyone, especially since the scriptwriters, including Michelle Lovretta, has largely forgotten about the council from S2 by now, so what happens next is anyone’s guess.

So: Kenzi and Hale are gone, Vex may also be gone, after being mostly a semi-convenient plot device from time to time, Lauren may’ve found herself a new girlfriend, Bo, Dyson and Tamsin may be forming a new triangle, and Trick has told Bo the circumstances of her conception. That, incidentally, raises the question of when did this happen and how – if Bo’s father is trapped in another direction, how he was able to conceive Bo? And if he is not trapped, then the whole season 4 just does not make sense – and this is why “Dark Horse”, just like “Origins”, is a good episode, but not a great one.

Lost Girl, Feb 9 - Origins

And so, let us talk LG once more. Last week’s episode, “Origins”, proved to be a very good episode, but...not downright great.

The main problem of “Origins” can be embodied by the character of Rosette, Rainer’s traitorous lieutenant: to the audience she came out of nowhere, but to the other characters – she had history. This created a discrepancy that just did not work. Some visual back history could have helped: Rosette, for example, supposedly tried long and hard to free Rainer from his train? Then some flashbacks could have helped. Rosette had a conflict with sister Epona before? Again – flashbacks can help. But there are none, and the audience must accept Rosette without any back history, just upon some say-so from the characters, and that just is not the same.

Sadly, this sort of phenomenon has plagued all of the LG characters featured in “Origins”: if previous episodes of S4 featured just some of the characters per episode, “Origins” tried to feature all of them, but just like Rosette, who appeared out of nowhere just to fill-in a role that could’ve been done by a more regular character, like Acacia, they appeared and/or vanished into nowhere.

For example, Mr. Trick. At the beginning of this episode, he was talking to the Morrigan (with Lauren eavesdropping) about making a united front against Rainer/not Rainer and putting their differences aside. That is it. After this scene he was not seen again. So...what’s the point? Bo and Dyson took the druid to his pub, for crying aloud, and where was he? Now that Mr. Trick is acting as a substitute Ash, he no longer cares about his place of business? Apparently not, or Rick Howland (who plays Mr. Trick) just wanted to be featured in this episode – who knows?

Dyson and co. had their own share of problems this episode. Firstly, Dyson’s memorial speech for Hale was really smooth – i.e. Hale was a conservative but with liberal ideas, an old soul with a young heart, et cetera. All that was missing was “Hale believed in equal chances for everybody, but thinks that Rob Ford is entitled to his own opinions” or something like that. Smooth, Dyson, smooth, but OOC for you, and not in a good way.

Then we got the initial capture of the druid. He was not killed because he whispered something into Dyson’s ear...what? Who his mother was? Then why didn’t Dyson tell this to Kenzi? Kenzi was very devastated by Hale’s death, unreasonably so, but to keep her out of the loop did not make it better. And instead of sharing some information with Kenzi, Dyson just took the druid in, making Kenzi only angrier and crazier. That is really stupid and low, and for Dyson? Again OOC, and not in a good way.

The same can be said about Bo’s acceptance of that fact. If Kenzi just got mad at Dyson’s actions, Bo... half-ignored, half-discarded them, being busy with Rainer and the new prophecy instead. Kenzi’s accusation that Bo does not have much time for her anymore has more than just a kernel of truth, you know?

Aside from the druid-capturing scene, Dyson, alongside with Tamsin, served mainly as council to Bo, her brain tank, now that she and Lauren are on the outs, again. Tamsin, it should be noted, looked really good in her business suit, quite different from her regular clothing. That said, her and Dyson’s scenes just didn’t feel fully connected with the other scenes of “Origins” Bo just appeared to be running back and forth between the two of them and Rainer & Rosette while the other four just patiently agreed with that – highly unrealistic! Kenzi, at least, had enough of Bo’s action of running back and forth between everybody and split, signalling a very drastic change in LG-verse.

Or, more precisely, Kenzi has up and left, leaving Bo behind, coercing Bo to withdraw her claim of protection over Kenzi. This happened in part because Dyson (and Bo) would not let Kenzi kill the druid, and Vex, when Kenzi seemingly persuaded him into killed the druid, double-crossed her, because the druid was his ward, or something like that. Yet Vex’s actions make more sense than Dyson’s, because Vex, at least, explained them to Kenzi (and to the audience). Now the only question regarding Vex is...is he going to stay in Toronto, or is he going to London, England? Originally, that was his plan – to take his ward and to go to England, but then the Morrigan, who is the druid’s mother, called, and the druid came running to her. If the latter is true, then Vex (Paul Amos) is the second character after Kenzi (Ksenia Solo) to leave the LG-verse (or at least LG-verse’s Toronto). Vex may just be saving his hide; Kenzi – because she wants to start a new life (again), but both of them are leaving all the same.

One final note about Kenzi – what was she wearing? Admittedly, Ksenia Solo may have gotten fed-up with her character wearing one and the same thing all the time, but the bizarre – and shapeless – mourning clothes that Kenzi was wearing in “Origins” were not an improvement – they actually rivalled Bo’s corsage/skirt combo and Tamsin’s bizarre clothing in “Sleeping Beauty School”. Why can’t Kenzi wear regular clothing? Would that disturb her inner Zen or something?

Lauren, on the other hand, suffers from the opposite effect – she was wearing some really, really stuffy clothing this episode. She has also turned the Morrigan into a human using science! Admittedly, that was one of the more awesome events that happened in this episode, but why? What is the point? To protect Bo? (This episode reveals that the Morrigan did send her mostly human son the druid after Bo, but that did not work, obviously.) Maybe, but couldn’t she turn the Morrigan into a monkey instead? After all, the Morrigan is dangerous not just because of her powers, but because she is also cunning and clever – probably more cunning and clever than the other enemies of Bo are – as is her son. Yes, the druid comes across as this pathetic and wretched man-child, but he was able to acquire the origin seed from Mr. Trick, as well as a lock of Tamsin’s hair - that is actually impressive! Pity that the Morrigan did not see it this way and just demeaned and humiliated her son as she could...until Lauren returned.

Let us get back to Lauren. Firstly, when she confronted the now-human Morrigan, she proved to be rather evil herself, in a sort of an emotionally detached kind of way. Lauren can be ruthless: Crystal the waitress befriended and the betrayed her in the first episodes of S4 – and Lauren promptly forgotten about her once the Dark Fae got her out of their confinement unit. Considering that they are Dark Fae, who is quite likely to make a captive (uninteresting) human into sushi...that was cold. And the way that Lauren treated the Morrigan once she could not harm Lauren – it was also cold.

But then the druid arrived and had the big moment with his mother and Lauren walked in on them. The next scene – she and the druid are elsewhere (vaguely resembling of a caveman exhibit in some museum) and the Morrigan is not to be seen. Also, Lauren has a cut on her forehead – but because there is no explanation as to how the two scenes are connected (did Lauren just bolt when she saw the druid with his mother?) we are left to wonder at what has happened...

And the same goes for the druid after he swallowed the seed. Sure, he began to transform into a giant serpent (or something to that nature)...but how does that tie-in with the other story lines? More specifically, Bo has to face her father...or the giant dragon-horse...or her father, who is the giant dragon-horse...so how does the druid’s ‘dawning’ tie into this? Is he going to be taken over by the spirit of Bo’s father...or transform into a dragon-horse, maybe? We will have to wait for the next episode (the season’s finale?) to see.

Some final comments. Epona was a Celtic (Gallo-Roman) goddess of horses, donkeys, etc. She was also a goddess of fertility, but that is neither here nor there. Either way, this makes her appropriate to tie-in with the dragon-horse/parapus that Bo might end-up facing – or not, if she ends up facing her father/not the dragon-horse, and the dragon-horse will actually prove to be the druid transformed, in which case Lauren will be devoured, or will defeat him. Hopefully, the latter will be the case – since the beginning of this season, Lauren proved to be increasingly self-reliant and competent, when dealing with Fae, so perhaps she will be able to defeat the druid, especially since he is mentally unbalanced and all.

Finally, about ‘Hel, the opposite of Valhalla’. In Norse mythology, Valhalla was the afterworld of all the Viking warriors slain in battle, a rather joyous, but also gory place – the idea of Heaven for the Vikings. Hel itself was the opposite of Valhalla – a cold and miserable place that was the afterworld of all the people that did not die in battle, evil or not. There was no fire in it, however, unlike, say, the Christian Hell, so the flames that consumed Rosette, Rainer’s traitorous lieutenant (but after the crows’ betrayal Rainer should have expected that) were completely out of place...but after “Destiny’s Child” episode it is obvious that LG just uses names of people and places however it likes.

So: major character and plot developments in this episode. Kenzi leaves Bo; Vex leaves Toronto; Bo gets married to Rainer (wonder how long that lasts); Lauren turns the Morrigan into a human and is captured by the druid who gets transformed into something else. And Bo’s father, apparently, comes to Toronto, and a dragon-horse is somehow involved in this. LG’s S4 finale is going to be very interesting indeed!