Don’t say they didn’t warn you: Hale’s bloody ear as soon as he and Kenzi solidified their relationship, creepy-under-the-graveyard lady telling Bo someone will die, and the absolutely rushed engagement. Hale has bit the almighty bullet. But did it feel earned to you?
In some ways, I want to commend Lost Girl for going there. It’s been almost four seasons and no one really all that important has died. I don’t ever think of Lost Girl as the show where anyone will die, anyway. I mean, I think of Lost Girl as mostly campy fun. But season four has been getting into some dark territory, especially with Bo killing the Una Mens last episode. In this episode, she literally drinks blood. I heard that there was an interview somewhere where Showrunner Emily Andras said Hale is gone for good, but he honestly died a couple of scenes after Linda Hamilton (Linda Freaking Hamilton!!!) said, “No one really dies.” I know she said it about Massimo specifically, but this was also an episode with zombies!
Besides, Hale’s death came after several seasons of the show not really knowing what they should do with him. He was frequently absent with little to no explanation, and when he was in an episode, he didn’t have much to do. And as soon as Kenzi gave her response to his engagement, I just knew that he was going to die. The rushed engagement was a contrivance to pull at the heartstrings. I thought Hale was rushing things because he already knew he was going to die of something else, but that wasn’t the case. And I don’t want to be that guy, but I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that I’m disappointed a minority character was the one killed off (in an episode with the magical black lady trope).
But enough with the negatives. There’s a huge positive: that performance. Ksenia Solo and Anna Silk really sold it for me; their final scene elevated this episode from just another disappointing outing. Season four has been about Bo pushing her family away for reasons we didn’t really know. Subconsciously, perhaps, Bo knew that she was going to meet up with Rayner and break his curse. Maybe that’s why she used Dyson and Lauren for sex this season and then brushed them off. Hell, even after Tamsin told Bo how she felt and how she was sorry she was hired as her bounty hunter, Bo still just kissed her anyway as just a fun thing to do at a Groundhog Day Amnesia party. Maybe that’s why she’s been so crass with Trick, since he’s the one who put Rayner on Train Limbo. Maybe she’s been so consumed with whatever huge plan or destiny she believes she needs to fulfill with Rayner that she’s been sidelining her family.
But the truth is, when Kenzi told Bo she’s selfish, she truly meant it. It all culminated in that moment for her, and Bo has been selfish. She interrupted Kenzi and Tamsin hanging out so that she could get some time with her supposed BFF. She tells Dyson she doesn’t love him but still expects him to help her out of Rayner turns out to be evil. This is a character that left everyone thinking she didn’t exist just so that she could do the horizontal tango with some guy she met.
But why? We get that Bo has been a bit distant, but we need to get into the specifics. When Dyson asks her this episode, she just says, “It’s a long story.” Is it? We’ve got some time, like 13 episodes worth.
Speaking of Dyson, after realizing Bo believes Rayner is her destiny, he spirals into the sauce. I don’t think Dyson’s response is so much that he thinks Rayner is a bigger threat than Lauren (where is Lauren?), but that Bo finally told him that she doesn’t love him. Before, he thought he had a shot, but now it appears all is lost. And could the same be said for Tamsin? I think she’s been attracted to Dyson for a while now, but maybe thought that she would be able to defeat Rayner and still be in the running too? Only when she found out Rayner wasn’t the one who hired her, everything turned a bit upside down. I think a mixture of all those elements results in their hookup. (Though the details of what Tamsin remembers are bit iffy, so I think there are some plot holes there.)
Season four has found many people connecting with other characters because Bo just hasn’t been around or has been pushing them away. How else could we have gotten Kenzi and Tamsin moments or more Lauren and Dyson moments, too? Both of those new couplings has been quite great. I know many have had issues with the way that season four has been executed thus far, but there’s certainly a theme of the family you’re born into and the one you create.
In this episode, Kenzi is given the chance to reconnect with her mother, only to find out that the reason she became a lost girl in the first place was still warranted and that just because they’re blood, it doesn’t make them family. How she will cope with the loss of Hale and the semi-falling out she had with Bo after all of this is definitely going to shake things up in the Lost Girl world in a way that I hope is potent, but with Lost Girl you never know. Ultimately, that’s the real issue. Lost Girl has the ability to drive many of these points home, but some of the threads and plot lines have ben so loose that it comes off as disjointed or incoherent.
Though, I don’t think anything is more revealing than Bo telling Dyson that you don’t always choose your path, on a show where the intro credits have her claiming in every episode: “I will live the life I choose.”
No, Bo. Things are a bit out of your control. You’re the pawn in someone’s larger plan, and the fall of Hale is just one of the many consequences coming your way.
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I think the key element of what BO has been doing with her family is her lack of self worth. In one way or the other she has hurt them all more than once. She even says it herself - Dyson has lost his love for her and Lauren is now with the dark and we all remember Tamsin driving off the cliff, Kenzi being stolen by Kitsunes, etc.
As Bo says - with Rainer plot she feels like she did SOMETHING right - thus in a way she is inflating the importance of it and trying to distance herself from her screw ups. Bo IS selfish, and a hypocrite, and from that stems her behavior - she feels like she has been "brushed off" by others the whole season. Like she does not matter. And that's the opposite of what the whole train situation makes her - she is the freaking prince coming to save her princess and defeat the evil villains. It makes her feel good. It makes her feel not a screw up. It makes her feel like she has an actual Power. It makes her want to SOMEHOW, devalue what she had before and to oversell what she has now(as she did multiple times through the episode, insisting that Rainer is so great - which I think is more about herself trying to convince herself moreso than others).
If to put it in Buffy perspective, if Dyson/Lauren are Angel and Tamsin is Spike, then Rainer is Riley.
Bo sometimes tends to overlook how people she cares about feel(case in point Kenzi in S3), she can have a very strict sense of tunnel vision in terms of social relationships, because she did not have so many.When getting comfort is as easy as touching someone - its quite hard to "get" the intricacies of actually building up a relationship for her. She seems to genuinely care for her family but she just does not seem to be able to quite express it nor commit to it yet. I guess when the Rainer bubble will blow up she will.
As for Kenzi - frankly this is very obvious continuation of her storyline so far - of her feeling weak and useless. Hale was killed with her sword in her home, by a guy she made deals with, who survived because of something she gave away to him AND who came after her simply because he was killed by her best friend because of the deals she made for her. And what's worse for her - she could not do a thing. She was a bystander. For all the supposed training and self-confidence boosts and "its okay to be human" speeches to her this season, in her mind, she most likely feels no better than she feels about her mother. It will be interesting to see where this brings her, Kenzi is one character who truly reacted to all the things that happened to her like the kitsune thing, so she is sure to blame herself for this for a long long time.
I know that the fact that he is a person of color might cloud it a bit but someone HAD to die to establish that death means something (unlike in certain other shows), that sometimes you can't pull a magic trick to save someone in peril. That people can be in threat of not making it back home. Its especially important to establish moving further into the show's core mythology and possibly all characters being in peril. So it had to be someone who makes sense to be killed off in terms of plot importance and who, while writers can make people care about that person's death, did not exactly "glue into" the plot otherwise. People care about Hale's death(as evident by a huge shitstorm going on in the fandom right now), how he died, why he died. And it might be cruel, but I think that's a far better thing for a character to get, than just appearing randomly for seasons to come(I am looking at you, Katherine).
The fact that it is followed by heartbreaking and wonderfully acted performance by Ksenia Solo(she should be in all the show and win all the awards), only makes it even more sad and significant. Its better to kill character when you can still make people hurt for it happening, than to dilute the character for years to come.
Now for being a pawn in destiny's path - frankly that's yet another aspect Lost Girl takes up from the Norse and Irish mythos that inspires its lore. AS I said all the way back in Season One, A certain thread of coincidences guides the characters into their predestined roles. The commonplace element of both Irish and norse mythos is fate - a hero might know about his upcoming death and try to prevent it or not, but he will suffer it. The very base of poetic edda is the preconceived idea that Ragnarok WILL happen and the gods WILL suffer their fates. Irish mythology equally has concepts like geis that define the inevitability of something tragic. And show showcases that again and again (case in point the banshee scream episode), Norn, a figure of norse mythology that controls fate, i sure that Dyson would come, is sure that he would do what he did. Trick tries to change history with his power, "fighting fate" as Dyson puts it in S1, but at every step encounters how futile such things are and how it comes back to bite him in the ass. Bo's father so far has been playing that role, being the force you can't quite put a finger on - someone out of sight influencing things. Even Bo herself, who embodies "choice" in all ways possible, is a pawn in her own story. In a larger picture, Lost Girl has always been about fate - be it fate of the laws, fate of things you are destined for, fate of things you are expected for - and people who are trying to break away from that. Bo "gets it" in a way, which is why I think the core element of this whole plot will be all about her going against something impossibly sure to happen. And paying the price for it.
Yes, the whole conversation between Bo and Kenzi about Bo's relationship life is telling. She and Dyson had hiccups. She and Lauren had hiccups. Her expectations about what relationships should be was not what she got. But with Rainer, she got to be the knight on the white horse and save the captured prince / tortured soul, and this is easy and fairy tale and all that means she was never the problem. Growing pains, and partly because - as you mention - it's hard to get the intricacies of relationship building.
The willingness to let your lead be stubborn and struggle with things like relationship ennui and sometimes be wrong and do dislikeable things - especially with an actress as inherently likeable as Anna Silk, and a character so set up to be identified with - is one of the things I like about this show. She's not perfect, she's not a martyr, she's deeply flawed. But she still loves and is loved by many, and she still does things that need doing, and she's still often a hero, (even if her reasons aren't always sound).
I'm wondering if the combination of the Rainer bubble bursting and Kenzi going dark will be what force Bo out of the tunnel. I really think this thing with Kenzi will come to a head not with Kenzi being upset with Bo again, but Kenzi really taking matters into her own hands. Whether that be going after Massimo to the death, stealing the seed with her convenient shadow thief skills (which could lead to a Yellow Crayon speech on the edge of a cliff, literal or metaphorical), leaving the clubhouse, or whatever, the stakes have been raised. And now matter what is demanded - physicality, humor, anger, anguish - Solo can absolutely carry it.
Yeah, due to certain similarities to Buffy's Willow Rosenberg and the whole situation with Hale getting Tara treatment, the idea of Kenzi being the one to end up in possession of the seed by the end of the season has crossed my mind too. Alongside thousand of other ways this can happen.
I do think that at some level she might blame Bo, even if only because she has too much self-guilt that she has to project some of it. In our eyes and in Bo's eyes, Bo chose Kenzi because she is not willing to loose her. But Kenzi might see it as yet another case of bo letting her down, in her current state.
Either way, Massimo's fucked. 88% sure it being by Kenzi.
Brilliant comment. I totally agree with your thoughts on Bo and the Rainer relationship. Hilariously in a lot of ways I think people tend to empathize more with Kenzi and co. than with Bo and tend to disregard her reasoning and her feelings about things or don't even try to see it from her perspective -much like Bo does to everyone else? This season especially.
The "You can't always choose your path" line was so poignant. Sometimes sh*t happens. (and honestly since season 2 I feel like she's been falling out of love with Dyson -not because she chose to- but because it just gradually happened so I was glad for that scene). I doubt this Rainer being her destiny situation is something she would have willingly chosen for herself initially but it's happening and she's /letting/ it happen. And then ironically I feel like post-Rainer reunion she's been making actual life-altering (for all Fae, not just her) decisions and not trying to cheat her way out of going one way or another? I for one have been waiting to see her actually face consequences to her actions and I hope she does.
Tamsin and Dyson together is gross and digusting.
Why?
This season I feel like I'm the real lost girl because I can't seem to connect to the story at all and this episode was no exception.
Trick feeling sorry for himself for being a bad blood king and a bad ash, seriously, you lived for centuries, snap out of it! so yes, your granddaughter is dating your arch nemesis. do something about it instead of sitting in the cellar and drink yourself away with Vex.
And he talks about this great evil coming their way and all I'm thinking is "this again?!" can't they think of something else more interesting than another great ancient evil that everyone are afraid of and Bo and co will save the day? - sorry, but Boring!
The whole zombies thing was so unclear and random.
To be honest I didn't understand anything that went down in the nowhere camp and what was Acacia's deal.
Tamsin is blaming herself for everything and then revealing that she had the hots for Dyson for a while now. (I think she didn't go for it out of respect for Bo but once she knew Bo is out of the picture and Dyson was too much of a mess to do anything about it, she went for it).
The story with Kenzi's family was the most interesting to me, I love to see more of her family and learn about her background and that whole thing with her mother was so sad.
And speaking of sad, I felt like the only reason I was sad for Hale dying is because Kenzi was so heartbroken (although I was actually a lot happier to see her with Dyson than with Hale, but maybe thats just me). His death was only made tragic because she said "I was going to say Yes!" that made me a bit teary-eyed.
To be honest I was more sad about that bitch of a mother Kenzi has than about Hale dying. that says something...