Lost Girl review – 4×12: ‘Origin’

Two weeks after one of the most contentious episodes of the entire series, Lost Girl returns to pick up the pieces. Unfortunately instead of a respectful, emotional episode, we got this turd.

Let’s bitch it out…I can honestly say that I have no idea what the hell is going on with this show. Lost Girl has a bad tendency to ramp things up in the lead-up to the finale and the pacing, characterization and coherence of the show seems to go right out the window. The result is the feeling that things are coming out of nowhere, plot points are being passed over quickly and characters are acting irrationally or abnormally.

Unfortunately all of these elements are on display in ‘Origin’ which I would metaphorically describe as the television equivalent of tossing ten different developments into a blender and hitting “puree.”

I admit that I hoped that Hale’s death would inspire Lost Girl to take an episode to grieve and explore the emotional fall-out of losing a core member of the cast. Instead all pretense of genuine emotion is jettisoned early on and things just go downhill from there. Considering the outpouring of sadness and derision expressed by fans about the last episode, ‘Origin’ feels like the writers giving us the middle finger. It’s incredibly disrespectful of Hale’s passing in a surprisingly tone-deaf fashion. So in the spirit of the sh*tshow episode that Lost Girl just gave us, I’m just going to list all of things that annoyed me or didn’t make sense:

• Con: Once again Trick (Rick Howland) is skulking around in the shadows having clandestine meetings instead of, you know, being upfront and telling people shit.
• Con: Massimo (Tim Rozon) is being arbitrarily kept around by Dyson and Bo for some massively dangerous prophetic reason. Spoiler: the reason is never mentioned again.
• Con: Because they don’t immediately kill an unkillable Druid, Kenzi declares Dyson and Bo traitors, pisses all over her years of friendship with them and stomps off. I knew last week that the writers would use Hale’s death as a way for Kenzi blame Bo because it’s “dramatic.” Everything about Kenzi’s grief feels cheap and false.
• Con: The BS Bo/Lauren (Zoie Palmer) fight. Lauren tells Bo she joined the Dark for Bo (obvs) as though Bo didn’t know this. Bo proceeds to tell her off for breaking her heart (haven’t we heard this a million times?). Everything about this scene feels like another awkwardly shoehorned reminder of how much Bo LURVES Rainer (Kyle Schmid). That reason alone is enough to stamp it with FAIL and move on.
• Con: Oh wait, Bo is in love with Rainer…EXCEPT when she does the marriage spell and explicitly tells him she’s not doing it for love. That doesn’t make her strong; that makes her wishy-washy.
• Con: The random lady love scene between Lauren and Evony (Emmanuelle Vaugier) feels like obvious fan service because the writers won’t get Lauren and Bo together again. Also, that “clam” comment? I just can’t…
• Con: Lauren randomly turns Evony human using some kind of magical p*ssy juice science. Whaa? Suddenly there’s a way to turn Fae human??? And Evony is like “oh”. Way to undersell how insane this development is! It could change the entire DNA of Lost Girl, but apparently it’s no big deal!
• Con: Vex (Paul Amos) has a claim on Massimo and wants him to run away to the UK. This feels both arbitrary and out of the blue, as though this relationship exists solely to ensure that Massimo lives long enough to ingest the Origin seed.
• Con: Evony is also Massimo’s mom. I knew they had a relationship, but why does this matter and why are we supposed to care? Not only do we not know Massimo, we don’t like him. Also, why is Massimo suddenly completely insane when last week he was competent enough to fight Hale and kill him?

Finally: what is all this prophecy shit that Rainer’s lieutenant, Rosette, spins? None of this feels organically introduced and there’s a random treasure-hunt vibe as the three of them run around collecting objects and clues. Somewhere along the line the Sisterhood of the Travelling ponies gets involved (Side Con: is this worst choreographed fight scene the show has ever had?) although Bo does make an admittedly enjoyable reference to her last near-marriage during the ceremony. Of course the simple fact that such a ceremony will save Rainer from a seven day back-up curse but has the boo-urns side effect of releasing Bo’s super evil (possibly flying horse) dad from Hel pretty much just sucks any enjoyment out of things because what the hell does any of this mean? But we don’t care, though, am I right? So long as the writers keep the characters moving, and arbitrarily fighting, and talking about prophecy and destiny, things on this show must be great! No one will notice that they’re pulling shit out of bumholes!

Like, seriously, nearly everything that happens in this episode makes no sense to me. It might as well have been filmed in Latin because I just didn’t walk away with anything from this piece of crap. I am so looking forward to next week’s finale now!

Other Observations:

Just in case you think I’m a total debbie downer, there are two things I liked:

• Pro: The funeral is well shot and Dyson’s (Kris Holden-Ried) speech is touching. For a moment I actually thought this could turn out well. Both Kenzi’s (Ksenia Solo) and Bo’s (Anna Silk) funeral wear are hilariously inappropriate.
• Pro: Tamsin (Rachel Skarsten) raiding the Dhal for the “good booze” Trick keeps hidden beneath the counter. I love me some Tam Tam.

So yeah…basically this was the worst episode of the season and I never want to speak of it again. How about you folks?

Lost Girl airs Sundays at 10pm EST on Showcase