Recap and Review: Lost Girl 1.13: Bloodlines (season finale)

By Paula R. Stiles

[spoilers ahoy]

Recap: Bo and Dyson have make-up sex after last week, but it turns out to be a dream, which turns into a nightmare when Bo turns into Saskia. When Dyson wakes up and Bo blames herself for not telling Dyson about Saskia, Dyson confesses that he already knows the other Succubus. Furious that he lied to her, Bo rejects him. Meanwhile, Saskia is busy starting a war by killing a Light Fae elder.

Dyson and Trick finally tell Bo who Saskia is – Bo’s mother, whose real name is ‘Aife’. Centuries ago, after incessant wars between the various Fae clans, Trick had used his powers as a “Blood Sage” to create a permanent peace. Aife didn’t agree with the truce between the Light and Dark side. Leading a “small rebellion”, she killed a major Dark king. Briefly captured, she escaped and fled to Trick (who was king of her clan), but Trick turned her back over to the Dark side for execution, to keep his blood-won peace. Now, she is set on revenge.

Unsurprisingly, Bo isn’t impressed by their excuses, and trusts neither Trick nor Dyson at this point. She’s determined to find Aife and get her side of the story. First, though, she goes to Lauren for information about Succubi and how they fight each other. Lauren is busy doing an autopsy on the Light elder who was killed the night before, but she gives Bo what she has, which is not much.

Bo then returns to the loft she shares with Kenzi and encounters Aife, who is baking cookies. Sporting an apron, Aife tries to seduce Bo again, this time in a more maternal sense. For example, she insists she wasn’t trying to kill Dyson, but to make him her Thrall (someone who loses his/her free will, by losing chi to Aife, and does whatever she wants). Bo eats one of her cookies and it turns out to be drugged. Passing out in Aife’s arms, she wakes up in a fancy bed at Aife’s mansion, surrounded by Aife’s half-naked, “himbo army” of Thralls (who all look like different versions of Fabio).

Aife explains to Bo that Trick told her the cleaned-up version of Aife’s imprisonment. Instead of executing her, the Dark King decided to keep her alive and use her “skills” as a Succubus, which entailed a whole lot of rape and other sexual torture over several centuries. It appears that the male Fae who raped her was Bo’s father, though Aife doesn’t want to go there when Bo asks about him. Bo wants to work with Aife, but it turns out the centuries of torture drove Aife insane. After escaping at an indeterminate time, she began plotting against both sides, culminating in an attack on the Light Fae elders at that moment. The Ash, just seen threatening Trick, has convened a council to take him down and go after Aife (almost as an afterthought). Instead, one of Aife’s Thralls shows up and blows himself up, taking out most of the Light Fae elders and putting the Ash into a coma.

Horrified, Bo escapes after she protests at hearing about the plan and Aife turns on her. She goes back to Dyson for sexual healing (a reluctant Kenzi having brokered a truce between them), but refuses to let him help her against Aife. She doesn’t trust him. After agreeing that this is his fault, he visits a crazy old woman with a large tree in her living room – the Norn. The Norn will give you “what you want most in exchange for what you hold most dear.” He wants to give up his wolf in order to contribute his strength to Bo when she goes to fight Aife. But the Norn tricks him. Instead of taking his wolf, which is what he offered, she takes his “passion” for Bo.

Bo returns to Lauren, who takes time out from treating the blown-up Light Fae council to give her some important information about an amulet Aife mentioned being “like Kryptonite” to Succubi. Aife’s captor had used it so that she couldn’t use her power on him. Getting the name and location from Lauren (It’s in the Light Fae vault), Bo and Kenzi go find the amulet. Bo then handcuffs Kenzi to a shelf (after kissing her while Kenzi holds the amulet, to see if it works) so that Kenzi can’t go with her. She wants to take on Aife alone.

Aife, it turns out, is quite a bit stronger than Bo, even though she can’t make Bo her Thrall, due to the amulet. There is a confrontation, in which the last-minute addition of Dyson’s strength helps Bo break Aife’s hold on her as they teeter over the edge of a high staircase. Aife nearly falls off, but Bo grabs her. Even as Aife tries to pull her down and Kenzi tries to pull her back, Bo won’t let go. At his bar, warned and bullied by Kenzi who has escaped the vault, Trick breaks the deadlock by writing in his own blood and changing reality. A symbol appears on Aife’s forehead and her madness breaks for a moment. Clear-eyed at last, she apologises to Bo, asking for her forgiveness. Then she breaks Bo’s hold and plummets to her apparent death, while Bo shrieks in grief and horror.

Afterward, Bo and Kenzi do a Monday Morning recap. Meanwhile, Trick and Dyson are shown, barely surviving their sacrifices, and a Thrall carries away Aife’s body.

Review: This one continues to have the same problems as previous episodes. Bo acts Dumb on Cue entirely too often (What’s with eating Aife’s cookies while supposedly not trusting her?). Plus, whenever she’s around Dyson, it’s as if she loses 15 years and 50 IQ points, acting like a giggly schoolgirl on her first crush instead of a smart, adult woman. As annoying as I find her suspicious attitude toward Lauren, I think it’s actually fairly realistic. It’s just that when you contrast it with the repeated whacks with the Stupid Stick that she inflicts on herself every time she’s around Dyson, it’s infuriating to think that she can’t give Lauren the same consideration. Either go with a realistically cynical and wary Bo for both Lauren and Dyson, or have her be trusting around both. There is no reason for her to trust Dyson over Lauren, especially when Lauren came through for her in “Bloodlines” and begged her for a second chance (sealed with a passionate kiss. Those two definitely have chemistry). So, I can’t say I was terribly broken up over Dyson’s big sacrifice. It’s not as though he was really putting himself out for her before. Sure, he was her go-to guy in the police, but that helped him keep an eye on her. It hardly put him at undue risk, or at odds with his own goals, the way Lauren and Trick’s sacrifices have done.

I’ll admit that one reason I like Lauren is that she reminds me of a female, geeky version of Dean Winchester on Supernatural in her selflessness, but perhaps that’s because I spoilered myself a little bit about season two. We shall see.

As for Kenzi, I was under the impression that she was jealous when Bo and Lauren were getting together. So, why did she look so squeamish when Bo kissed her? Wasn’t she complaining just a few weeks ago that Bo wouldn’t try any succubus-ing with her? What, now she’s completely straight? Aside from that, though, she got in her usual snarky lines. It was also funny to see her and Hale continue to get into whatever it is they’re getting into, with their Double Dating For Sidekicks thing. I was less ecstatic that she caved in so easily to Dyson’s wolfy, manipulative moping, but it is what it is. The show loves Dyson. He’s a regular. I get that.

I liked Saskia/Aife. Yeah, I know. She was buckets o’ crazy. But she was also lots of fun. And she had an excellent reason to be a total whackjob. While I did not love her prison backstory, any more than I like any rape backstory, I did think it was interesting that she surrounded herself with men who were all enspelled and would do her every wish. This was even overtly discussed in the dialogue as a double standard for someone who had spent centuries in sexual captivity and probably attached to the fact that she was doing unto men as they had done unto her a whole lot. Think of it as her way of maintaining a safe zone in the wake of all the abuse. As she’s a Succubus, I’m not sure she can hate sex, let alone avoid it, but she’s sure not going to be having it with a free partner any time soon. Is she really dead? I doubt it. They wouldn’t have shown her being carried off by one of her Thralls, Frankenstein-style, if she were.

Finally, is anybody really going to miss the Ash or the Council? Yeah, me, neither. I’m sure new slimeballs will replace them, but it might take a while. We’ll find out soon enough, since Syfy has decided to air seasons one and two back to back. So, season two premieres next week. It has 22 episodes (the second season finale just aired in Canada) and so far, there are no breaks before Memorial Day. Catch you in a week, then.

Next Week: Something Wicked This Fae Comes (season two premiere): In the wake of her mother’s rebellion and apparent death, Bo tries to figure out how to renegotiate her neutral status in the Fae world.

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