Lost Girl "Fae Day" Review

"Fae Day" introduced the celebration of La Shoshane, a day in which Light and Dark fae come together for a day of harmony. The faes cannot use their powers on the sacred day of La Shoshane, as dictated by the blood lord ages ago, which is one of the many rules written down in a handy book. Bo eagerly reads through the pages of the fae rule book. The information she finds in the book eventually assists her in case, but it also informs the audience about Trick as well as the larger mythology of the series. Major info dumps, or downloads, can sometimes paralyze an episode. Writers struggle to find balance between telling an entertaining story and expositing crucial mythos for the overall world of their creation. No one would categorize "Fae Day" as major info dump; still, there were less entertaining ways to reveal some of the stuff that "Fae Day" revealed, and the episode was entertaining as a whole.

Bo and Kenzi weren't interested in hanging around the faes in the teaser. Bo went to Trick's bar after an invitation. Trick wanted Bo to experience Fae Day (as Kenzi coined). Bo agreed to have one drink and then she'd leave; however, a banshee playing a harp wailed, foretelling a fae's death. Every fae but members of the five noble families were left to leave. Banshees sense death for only members of the five noble families. A banshee, unfortunately, cannot say who will die because the wail comes from the unconscious. Bo and Dyson hit the road, feed the banshee a liver shake, which opens up her unconscious self, and learn the name of the fae fated to die. Just as Bo learns the identity of the soon-to-be-dead, Kenzi engaged in friendly conversation with the doomed--a young fae named Sean. Sean has one request before his death: reconcile with his brother.

The brothers have a tumultuous past because Sean turned Liam, his brother, in for stealing $30,000 from the family estate. The family's fae power involves money. Greed can turn any family member into a person with regrettable motives and questionable morality. Sean simply wants to go to his grave with peace between him and his brother. Liam, though, put a hit on Sean, which is why the banshee wailed. Bo learns the truth during an attempt to convince Liam to make peace with Sean. Meanwhile, Kenzi brought Sean to his father's mansion for one last goodbye. Sean's dad reacts indifferently to news of the banshee wail, showing instead more concern for the orderliness of the estate rather than his son's life. Kenzi is disgusted by the man's preoccupation with money when confronted with the grim truth of his son, even more so when she sees what the dad felt more interested in doing than spend some time with his son in his final hours--gamble.

Bo eventually finds her own life in the balance when she declares a fae rite of peaceful talks with a hard to spell name that I'd try to spell if I remember the phonetics of the word but I don't. I wanted to write a paragraph about Bo-the-heroine when this self-sacrifice angle emerged, but Bo simply didn't finish the book. It was another instance of the show's self-awareness. The brothers were bound to reconcile, but if they failed Bo forfeited her life. Throughout the talks, Dyson wonders if Trick will spare Bo's life, which seems random, until the ending in which we learn Trick is the blood lord (though he prefers to never hear that name). Honestly, there weren't any surprises in the brothers’ plot. I suspected the father as the true thief, which he was; and I expected the brothers to reconcile just in time to die, which he does when a pissed-off businessman who'd been ripped off by Liam tries to shoot him and hits Sean instead.

The brothers’ storyline seemed inspired by the biblical story of the Prodigal son. The mother of the boys never lost her love for Liam despite the disgrace he brought to the family. Liam became a resentful, greedy monster after he'd been forced from the family, and the Light, and then into the dark. The reconciliation scene resurrects Liam's former self. Sean sacrificed his control of the estate to atone for the sin he committed against his brother. Liam, in turn, sacrificed his wealth, vowed to repay the people he stole from, and asked his father to move his mother's grave to neutral ground so that he may visit and pay his respects. As a stand-alone story, it ranks just behind the sorority story in "Oh Kappa, My Kappa." It was well-done. Kenzi experienced the loss of Sean, who she bonded with during the episode and even kissed. Whether Kenzi feels the loss in later episodes, or if the show even acknowledges this again, is doubtful.

Trick and Dyson shared two conversations about Bo's birth mother. Trick possesses the answers to Bo's questions, but he's reluctant to share the information with her, even when Dyson insists she's ready. Their last conversation suggested that Trick is Bo's father. "Fae Day" also integrated each principal character into the story seamlessly, even if the sacrificial lamb component felt like a lazy attempt to make the audience care about peace between the brothers. Overall, though, I thought the episode succeeded because of the chemistry between the actors and the synthesis of exposition and plot. In other words, Lost Girl is becoming a show I'd watch even if the characters were raking leaves for 42 minutes.

Other Thoughts:

-The book taught Bo many interesting facts about the history of fae. The Blood Lord made every rule that currently governs the faes. Faes are powerless on Fae Day. A peaceful talk has sacrificial lamb consequences. I got a kick out of how nonchalant Dyson was--the dude just wanted to drink alcohol and relax on the only day of the year he's free from police and fae duty. We also learned violence is permissible on fae day when one is protecting another life.

-Jeremy Boxen wrote "Fae Day." Steve DiMarco directed it.

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