Recap and Review: Lost Girl 1.05: Dead Lucky

By Paula R. Stiles

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[spoilers ahoy]

Recap: Coming home on a Walk o’ Shame from a night of “healing” with Dyson, and on her way to a meeting Kenzi’s arranged with a new client who is convinced her cat is possessed (and plotting against her), Bo is kidnapped for the umpteenth time, this time by three guys with guns. Kicking one of them in the nuts doesn’t help her much, especially once she arrives at a local gambling establishment (sorry, dim sum restaurant) and discovers that the local boss who ordered her brought in is the guy’s uncle. The boss, Mayer, is a Dark Fae whose talent is stealing luck and whose profession is bookmaking. A human named ‘Roger’, whom Mayer knows for a fact had no luck left because he’s been leeching it off the guy for years, stole from him. If he doesn’t get the money back, he’s in big to his bosses, who are not forgiving. He hires Bo to find the guy. Bo is at first reluctant, until she discovers his offer includes a session with his bubble-tea niece, Cassie, an Oracle who can see the past, present and future in anyone.

Kenzi is mad at Bo for being late and losing the loopy client, but not after she hears Bo’s story. Off they go to find Roger and they quickly do – at a funeral. His. This is puzzling until they bring Dyson in on the case. He puts them onto a morgue attendant who is a body-hopping “Hsien”, Eddie. Eddie warns them that a Hsien who’s Dark Fae, Lucas, is in town and he’s probably the culprit. But Lucas is just a gun-for-hire, so who hired him to bring down Mayer?

Mayer figures it’s his rival, Jesper. When Bo goes to Jesper’s, she’s attacked and nearly frozen to death, but gets no answers. This requires an emergency visit to Dyson at the Fae bar (Cue enthusiastic, wall-banging, werewolf-on-succubus nookie, much to Trick’s disgust). We also find out that Dyson is not entirely immune to Bo’s powers, as she temporarily weakens him in the process. Kenzi, who isn’t thrilled with the way Dyson has been treating Bo, softens a bit at Dyson’s willingness to take one for the team on Bo’s behalf.

Lucas, meanwhile, has kidnapped Kenzi and killed off his Light Fae rival, which Bo and Dyson find out when they go back to the morgue to hit up Eddie for more info. After a nasty fight with Lucas’ serial zombies, they get the drop on him and also rescue Kenzi from the car trunk that holds his real body. He gives up the person who hired him – what do you know? It’s Mayer’s blue-balled nephew, Seymour.

In the end, Bo gets her time with Cassie, who recalls her accidentally killing her first boyfriend at the age of 16 and also digs up a nose-bleeding doozie of a prediction. It seems Bo’s mother was in prison somewhere, escaped, and gave birth to Bo in the forest. Oh, and she’s coming back for her daughter. Once she does, Bo will have a major decision to make which side she chooses to join. Seems Bo is a “major player” in the Fae game. So much for playing Switzerland.

Review: The worldbuilding got a bit more interesting this week, with a big plot twist at the very end to liven the usual “case of the week” proceedings, into which the show is already settling like a Humvee in beach sand. We found out, offhand, that Fae seem to live a loooonnng time. Also, Dark Fae are not terribly different from Light Fae in their choices of professions and such. I guess we’re supposed to believe that Light Fae are cops and bartenders and such, while Dark Fae are bookies and gangsters and hitmen (which would explain why a private eye is a neutral profession). Honestly, though, I’m not seeing a whole lot of difference between. Which is all very noir and all, but also a bit pointless. If there’s so little difference between them and members of the same species can join different sides, why were they fighting a thousand years ago, in the first place?

You knew Bo was going to end up a heavy hitter (Come on; admit it; you’d have been disappointed if she’d turned out to be just Jane Shmane Succubus). That’s how these stories usually run. The show still isn’t explaining to me where succubi fit into the grand scheme of things, though, or how many there are, or where the others are, or how you identify them (aside from slyly running your hand down their backs the way lusty human doctor, Lauren, does in the Pilot). I’m still waiting for that, but at least the revelation about Bo’s mother was something. Even if it does seem to be lifted from Simon R. Green’s Nightside book series.

More satisfying were some of the character interactions this week (Yes, again). I was a little sad to see Lucas bite it, even if he was one creepy dude. Mayer can come back, though. He was kind of fun, very upfront and unapologetic in his talent and his profession. This is a guy who knows his place in the world and is proud of it. Plus, he and Kenzi had that amusing interaction about how he can’t hurt her because she’s never had any luck, anyway.

I really liked how Kenzi continued to shoulder into her own niche in Fae society. Too often, in these stories, human characters get no more than lip service as cattle or plot furniture. We all want to watch the people with the shiny, special powers and awesome destinies, instead, right? It’s therefore nice to see Kenzi use her brains and her toughness to get across to these stuck-up magical aristocrats that the only Fae she makes any allowances for is Bo (since Bo is her friend and has saved her life at least twice) and the rest of them can go play on the freeway. So, they’d better respect her. And – surprise, surprise – they do!

I also found myself kind of warming to Dyson this week. I wasn’t any more sympathetic to his obvious misery and regret over the knife-twisting “friends with benefits” tightrope he’s walking with Bo than Kenzi was, but I was pleased to see him finally show a sense of humour. The “Team Dyson” conversation made me snicker, especially when his parting shot to Kenzi was: “But we have t-shirts!” Keep it up, Detective Constable Wolf Boy, and I may start to like you, after all.

Next Week: Food for Thought: Kenzi is struck by a Fae disease that will kill her soon, if Bo doesn’t find a cure.

You can watch the first season of Lost Girl on Syfy, either Monday nights at 10pm or on the official site.