This week's Lost Girl was sort of a monster of the week, sort of getting the band back together, sort of softcore porn – all of which has me hoping the show has found its soul again.
In the primary storyline, Bo hops off the magic train and lands in a dusty old house just as a weird family is entering. They conk her with a frying pan. Meanwhile, Dyson and Clio are on the train looking Bo, the mere mention of whom causes a trainquake. Dyson can't stop doing Batman voice.
Bo gradually uncovers the truth about the family – the writers did a nice job here of peeling back the layers of this mystery a little bit at a time. At first it was just a ghost story, but then this terribly dark story about generations of family members going insane and murdering all their relatives was revealed. Maybe it's just hereditary mental problems, and not fae related at all. All those shots of the burly dad walking around with a shotgun were very reminiscent of The Amityville Horror (whichever version you prefer).
Clio and Dyson trek through some forest, still searching for Bo. They meet up with Clio's pal Lazy John, a man who is buried in the ground and has a foot fetish. I couldn't find any kind of folklore analog for Lazy John. Anyone have any ideas? Anyway, there's more to say about this scene, but I'll get to it in due time. I did love John's reply to Clio's introduction. "Hello Clio. Hello Business Associate."
Dyson and Clio finally find Bo and help her battle whatever is going on at the old house. Apparently some kind of fae that can jump bodies has possessed the daughter of the family, but they don't know what kind of fae it is yet. There's a succubus versus possessed teenager showdown. We also get to see some wonderful gothic imagery when the daughter flees the house at night. I'm not sure if that was a matte painting in the background or just some beautifully subtle lighting and composition, but that image of the house in blues and greens and shadows made me sit up and take notice.
Bo gets all the best lines in this episode, like calling herself Awesome On Two Legs or just sort of explaining herself: "I always meddle in things that don't concern me," and, "Dealing with weird shit is kind of what I do." Threatening to crack your foot off in someone's ass seems like an odd threat. Then you'd be missing your foot. Seems bad. In any case, Bo has the best boobs of the episode too. Top scientists spend years developing bras for this show. "We. Need. More. Cleavage."
Eventually Bo falls asleep and dreams about the "witch," and young black woman who'd been engaged to one of the family's ancestors. She was really an elemental, a Jumbee (a term from Carribbean folklore that essentially means "bad spirit"). He loved her anyway, but his family murdered them both, unmarried. She'd been taking her revenge on the family ever since. The movie this brought to mind was the underrated The Skeleton Key, but any number of voodoo horror stories fit the bill.
What follows is a pretty classic "reunite the bones of the lovers to put the spirit to rest" scenario. Actually this whole episode had kind of a Scooby-Doo vibe, what with the family being named Jenkins and all that talk of meddling. Somehow Bo fake marrying Dyson (with no one officiating), but using the names of the Jumbee and her fiancé, resolves everything.
One of the side plots showed Evony making her return as the Morrigan, short one eye. She's clearly amping up her evil, draining/murdering pretty much every human she encounters. She makes a deal with Mossimo the druid to regrow her missing eye, and then basically explains that she's going to be super evil from now on, specifically targeting Bo. Good! She makes an awesome villain.
The other side plot was Lauren/Amber, who seems trapped inside a 90s music video. Something about the whole setup just screams "Lilith Fair." I guess the cute blonde waitress isn't her boss, so the sexual harassment isn't as bad, but they eventually meet for pizza and beer and sex.
This is where I want to bring up the Lazy John scene. I suspect Lost Girl has a lot of female fans. Maybe even a majority of the fans are women (I have no idea, I'm just guessing). Yet it has a very male gaze. The camera lingers for quite some time on Lauren and the waitress grinding on each other, making out, and some naked pillow talk. But when it's time for Dyson to indulge Lazy John's foot fetish, it all happens coyly off-camera. Now I personally have no desire to see someone licking someone else's feet, much less Lazy John licking Dyson's toes, so maybe we can chalk that up to a general ew factor. But it's still an odd dichotomy that this show continues to deal with romantic or sexual relationships between men with a giggle (when they happen at all), while we get extended tracking shots and throbbing music whenever two girls hop into bed together. Which, hey, they're playing to my specific tastes perfectly. But I know I'm not the only one watching.
On the plus side, Lost Girl finally had a sex scene again! Back in season one, I partly fell for this show because it was just this side of a 2 a.m. Cinemax movie. They've drifted away from that premise the last couple seasons.
In the end there was a bunch of betrayal, Bo turned the tables on Clio, Lauren fled when someone started calling the diner asking for her real name, and the waitress double-crossed her. I couldn't tell who that was in the back seat that grabbed Lauren. I think it was Vex? That would make sense.
Oh, remember that whole Wanderer thing involving Bo's dad and how that was a super big deal and had something to do with Bo disappearing? I guess the writers don't.
onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com What if Lost Girl made The Amityville Horror into softcore porn?