Finale Fun--Lost Girl "Flesh and Blood" Review

Welcome to Finale Fun. The name's still terrible but it's alliterative, so there's that. Lost Girl's 9 month run on SyFy finally concluded tonight. I wrote about season one in the early part of the year, and then wrote about two episodes of season two, because season one wore me down with its poor and forced plotting. Plus, I wanted to write about the second season of Dawson's Creek, which I did, and it was blast. Without further ado, here are some thoughts about the end of season two.

-I, like many misguided internet folk, was quick to compare Lost Girl to Buffy and ANGEL of all shows. I feel like I should be sentenced to 14 months of hard labor in Siberia for that comparison. Season 1 had the charm of early Buffy. Slowly, but very surely, the show devolved to a point where I wanted to knock myself out halfway through an episode. I think Canadian TV ordering 22 episodes of the supernatural fae drama was a poor choice, especially after seeing episodes 14-20. Jesse Lacey once wrote about the torture of trying to write a meaningful song near deadline, hoping to avoid filler because his band didn't believe in it. The Lost Girl writers absolutely believed in filler. Nadia and Nate were superfluous filler characters with about as much characterization as the walls in Trick's bar. There was a run of five straight filler episodes following the very intense thirteenth episode of the season.

-Relationships were shoehorned into the season to give the characters something to do. Ciara and Dyson were temporary; Nadia and Lauren were temporary; Kenzi and Nate were temporary. What the creative choices remind me of were the nonsense relationships Dawson's Creek introduced in seasons 3-6. It was plainly obvious the writers had nothing interesting for Dawson or really any of the characters to do unless they were in a relationship. I feel like that was the thought process behind the Lost Girl relationships. "So, uh, what should we do with Lauren?" "Eh, let's introduce a comatose girlfriend...that usually works out well;" and so on. The three new love interests were basically the same character but with different names and portrayed by different actors. Ciara was Dyson's one true love from the Olde Days. Nadia was Lauren's one true love. And how about the fact that Nate was ALSO Kenzi's one true love from childhood. Perhaps the writers thought the idea of introducing an epic backstory of love would make the three relationships interesting, tragic and legendary in Lost Girl fandom. Love stories are never guaranteed to translate into compelling television.

-I never knew where season two was going until the Garuda plot was introduced. The show forgot about the garuda for a bit. Now that the season is complete, the narrative accomplished some things. Hale became a well-rounded character instead of the witty side-kick. Dyson had a decent arc. Kenzi and Bo's friendship remained a strength of the season. Bo learned more about her lineage, and the fae mythology was more defined. A major problem of the season was the sense that there were too many episodes and not enough story to tell. The Bo-as-champion story faded in and out like a radio signal on a rural road in Pennsylvania, until the finale that is.

-Naturally, the finale reminded me of episodes 20 & 21 of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer's fourth season. Buffy and the gang were connected through magic and were then able to defeat The Initiative. Bo needed to bind her friends to her to achieve maximum power. Of course, there were consequences to binding her to everyone, like Bo becoming addicted to the power and giving into the "darkness within her." Indeed, near the end, after the Garuda was destroyed by Lachlan's venom, Bo transformed into Galadriel, when Galadriel first spies the ring and goes insane for it. The stakes were never higher in Lost Girl than in "Flesh and Blood." There were near-deaths, overacting, a flashback to the fae wars of the 13th (?) century, and a total of seven extras to defeat in their quest to save Trick from the Garuda. By the final act, all the heroes were drinking beer and laughing like they were in a college dorm room. I thought the finale lacked suspense despite the writers’ best efforts to inject suspense into the action.

-Bo's lineage will be a major plot point in the third season. I'm not particularly invested in Trick's guilt over preventing unification of the light and dark when he wrote the new laws with his blood to end the fae wars. Kenzi's rash from The Norm is likely to occupy too much screentime, and I'm resigning myself to the idea it'll be a waste of time, unless it brings Hale and Kenzi together. I haven't liked two fictional characters on TV as a prospect romantic couple this much since Sawyer and Juliet in my beloved LOST. I disliked the renewed tension between Dyson and Lauren due to their mutual desire to go steady with Bo. I'll probably feel differently about season three once January comes.

-Lost Girl will return to SyFy in January. Canadian fans were upset by the news because the show's been off the air for some time now. The United States needed to catch up, though. Now that Americans have, most of us are complaining about the show online. Anyway, season two was bad with the exception of three or four episodes.

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