Lost Girl review – 3×13: ‘Those Who Wander’

It’s season finale time on Lost Girl and the stakes are high. After a rocky set-up in 3×12 complete with wonky dialogue and poor pacing, can the last episode of this significantly improved third season go out with a bang?

Let’s bitch it out…Unfortunately the answer is no. In terms of cliffhangers, these last two episodes do deliver a significant number of shocking developments: multiple kidnappings, disappearances, abdications and at least a few potential deaths. It’s all very high octane, and a refreshing break from the more traditional relationship melodrama (though there is an element of that as well). In general though, things just feel…off. The scenes don’t flow together – it’s all very choppy – and plot points come out of nowhere, which should be impossible because the groundwork for nearly everything that occurs has been brewing since mid-season.

Take the Bo (Anna Silk) vs Tamsin (Rachel Skarsten) battle, for example. Tamsin has spent a third or more of the season actively collecting ingredients to make a concoction that will do something to Bo (possess her? kill her? transport her? We don’t really ever find out). After weeks of preparing this elixir, she waits until Bo doesn’t have anything else on her plate (how convenient!) to use it. And it’s a bust. The potion literally fails to do anything. And there’s no explanation. So the girls fight, and then they stop because Bo is the most awesome person that Tamsin has ever met, so she switches sides. 

Ummm…okaaaay.

This is a classic example of how Lost Girl has great ideas that end up being fumbled by exceedingly poor execution (call it the Stephen King effect). You can see evidence of this all over the final episode: Kenzi’s seemingly bizarre decision to pursue becoming Fae, the out of the blue reintroduction of Paul Amos’ Vex, and anything involving Lauren (Zoie Palmer). Aside from the awkward Tamsin parts, Lauren’s storyline is the most frakked up. After being kidnapped and used to execute Taft’s (Shawn Doyle) bizarre plan to become a human/Fae cross-breed, Lauren randomly morphs into an uber-bitch, chews Bo out for being a shitty girlfriend, (semi)fakes the surgery so that Taft can be killed (without barely any fanfare) and disappears without a sign.

It’s a horribly planned arc for a character who has been the love interest for the better part of the season. There’s no doubt that Lauren is legitimately angry when she rips into Bo (after all Bo does indicate that she’s there to rescue Dyson before adding Lauren, like an afterthought), but it’s also clear that Lauren never intends to aid Taft. We know this because she’s already addressed his madness earlier in 3×12. We also know that despite her animosity with Dyson (Kris Holden-Ried), she would never kill him. But the way that Lauren is written (and the blank canvas portrayal that Palmer adopts) offers no indication how the audience is meant to read her actions. The fact that she disappears (and Bo fails to even notice!) just speaks to the stilted, awkward construction of ‘Those Who Wander.’

The result is an episode that doesn’t satisfy, but feels stuffed to the breaking point. Our core cast of characters share very few scenes together, which means we have nearly a half dozen separate narrative threads to juggle. While a show such as Game Of Thrones can juggle multiple characters and locations, Lost Girl lacks the kind of finesse to pull it off. As a result characters seem to jump from one location and temperament to another without the transition time it takes to avoid feeling choppy.

This is truly unfortunate because even though the narrative structure is poor, the cliffhangers are amazing. Both Kenzi (Ksenia Solo) and Lauren have disappeared to destinations unknown, Trick (Rick Howlands) has gone into hiding with Stella (Deborah Odell), Hale (KC Collins) has lost his status, Dyson and Tamsin have gotten into a severe car accident and may be dead, Aife (Inga Cadranel) is on the loose and Bo has been abducted by her father, the Wanderer. There are so many dangling plot threads it’s amazing that the finale isn’t more satisfying given that there’s so much at stake going into S4.

Other Observations:

• The return of Aife, in particular, feels unsatisfying. In hindsight, it’s clear that her return anticipates the (re)appearance of Bo’s father, but the character feels drained of agency and personality. I know that she’s been imprisoned since her disappearance in the finale of S1, but it’s not exactly satisfying to see her come back for a grand total of 3 minutes, act insane, and get stabbed in an attack that Bo should have had no trouble deflecting. Boo
• Similarly Taft’s death is laughably boring. He runs into the woods, Dyson chases him slooooowly, and then the death happens offscreen? Definitely unsatisfying. The best part is when Dyson climbs into the truck with Tamsin and picks a piece of Taft out of his teeth. Now that is some good shit
• I did like Trick’s hot kiss with Stella, even if he is severely underutilized
• Yay for the return of Paul Amos, but how did Hale get him to return? And how was the Morrigan (Emmanuelle Vaugier) so easily captured and hog-tied? With so much compressed into so little time, these kinds of details have been lost along the way
• Finally, I just have to say it: Kenzi is acting stupid. I love her, and she gets all the best lines, but I do not for one second buy that she would a) give up being human (which is repeatedly reinforced as her best trait) or b) trust someone as shady as the druid (Tim Rozon). I know that the groundwork for this has been laid since her kidnapping, but I think this is a betrayal of the character

Best Lines:

• Bo (to herself): “This is a shitstorm of Fae proportions”
• Tamsin (waking up to the sorority girls after being shot): “I knew I was goner but I didn’t know that I’d wake up in slut heaven”
• The Morrigan calling Bo a succu-slut to Kenzi

And that is S3, folks! Do you agree that this was far and away an improvement on S2? Do you think that Rachel Skarsten will return to play Tamsin in S4 or do you think budgetary cuts will necessitate killing her off? Want do you want them to do with Hale now that they’ve taken away his sole storyline? Do you buy Kenzi’s desire to become Fae? Do you hope  muscle protector Bruce returns? And who should play Bo’s father in the magical realm of Tarot-card land? Comment away below

Lost Girl has finished airing S3 and will return to both Showcase and Syfy in 2014