Lost Girl has returned! And oh what a delirious mess it continues to be, now with 100 percent more George Takei (and roughly the same amount of overacting).
There's been a lengthy hiatus between the end of season three and the debut of season four (which started up a few months ago in Canada, but only debuted on SyFy last night). This was partly due to lead actor Anna Silk's pregnancy, and it seems to have affected filming a bit, since Bo only appears in this episode for about five seconds.
So how do you have Lost Girl episodes when the Girl is actually lost? By erasing everyone's memories of her with fae magic, of course. This means we hit a sort of weird reset button, where all the plots left dangling at the end of season three (and there were plenty – it felt weirdly inconclusive for a season finale) were just sort of arbitrarily trimmed away. A lot of this is quite befuddling, since as far as I can tell, reality wasn't changed, just people's memories. So I'm not sure how Vex wound up as Morrigan or Kenzi ended up having an affair with Dyson. Ah well, we do get a ton of Kenzi screen time out of the deal.
I never, ever could have imagined myself saying this but…the dance number was the best part of this episode. Kenzi's 40s glamour look was perfect, I mean wow. I'm going to suggest that she has real fae powers, aside from the faux Jubilee powers Mossimo's been giving her – the power to make people dance a perfectly choreographed routine with no apparent rehearsal.
Aife shows up at some point to hire Kenzi to find her daughter (Bo), whom no one remembers. However, this causes everyone to remember that they don't remember, and they all find little dots on their eyes (Recuerdo Coils – I can't seem to find any mythological basis for this) that proves their memories have been altered.
Meanwhile, Lauren and Tamsin are also missing, although not from memory. Dyson keeps looking for Tamsin, and he recalls the car crash that lead to her disappearance. He doesn't seem to recall the Wanderer (we get a glimpse of the tarot card in Trick's chambers at one point). I'm really trying to be optimistic about season four, but holy crap none of this made any sense.
There are plenty of snarky pop culture references in this episode, like Vex calling Dyson Marmaduke and Kenzi's Slytherin nod. But the show also felt like it was trying way too hard for witty banter, which lead to total nonsense lines like, "Look at all the girls shakin' their baby grands"? I…what? Their small pianos?
The upside is that Lost Girl seems eager to embrace its total campiness, with Vex appearing in skintight pleather and high heels, and a guest spot by George Takei, complete with an, "Oooooh My." Speaking of embracing the camp, Takei's turn as the Collector, a half-snake fae, was so over the top it was brilliant. He hit all those sibilant sssss sounds and growled and leered and even made catty comments about Kenzi's complection. I can't really complain about any show that wants to put George Takei on my TV, and Dyson only wounded him, so maybe he'll come back now and then.
The Collector conveniently holds some kind of annual Bachelorette evening, final rose and all, the winner of which earns one wish. It's unclear what the Collector gets in return, though he seems to think eating Kenzi is a fair trade. This is because he knows she's actually human, I guess? The conversation between the two of them about her wish was pure gibberish, but Kenzi got the Recuerdo Compass ("The Ricardo Montalban?"), which was able to undo the memory theft. The multiple layers of plot MacGuffin here are astonishing. "How do we explain Bo not being around? Uh…memory erasure! Ok, how do they get their memories back? How about a magic compass? Sure! How do they find the magic compass? Crap. Um…some dude who grants wishes to pretty girls who dance well?"
This takes us back to Lost Girl's strange core premise – that everyone loves Bo so damn much they'll do pretty much anything for her, and their lives revolve entirely around her. Once they remember that she's missing, the whole Scooby gang (even bad haircut Lauren) flips out and runs off trying to find her.
Memory restoration isn't all grand, though, since Aife had a chance encounter with Trick (so why was he strolling around the docks during Fleet Week again?). She switched from a happy reunion with her long lost dad to the most insane goofball overacting. "MY HATE HELPED ME SURVIVE!" Just completely bonkers.
By the way, we are suddenly hearing a lot about the Una Mens (please laugh out loud with me). They are some kind of fae law enforcement agency, which is fine except we've never heard of them until now? This show keeps finding new layers of fae hierarchy as it tries to desperately up the ante. I just want them to put the Scooby Gang back together and solve some supernatural mysteries (with various cast members making out in various combinations with various amounts of nudity), is that so much to ask?
onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Lost Girl's fourth season starts with an "Ohhhhhh my!"