Summer TV Rewind: Lost Girl 1.01: "It's a Fae, Fae, Fae, Fae World"

“I gotta figure out some way to make a living while I’m here, and you’re the one who thought we’d be a good team. So, yeah. We.”
-Bo

The first of two Summer TV Rewind series I’m going to be covering this summer is “Lost Girl.” “Lost Girl” is a Canadian show that started airing on Syfy in the States last year. It tells the story of Bo, a succubus who is very new to knowing what she is and how to control her powers. She’s got a human sidekick named Kenzi, and we also met some of the players in the Fae world. Bo is determined to carve out her own path in the world, even though the other Fae all have other ideas. The overall vibe of the show is very reminiscent of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” although obviously the presence of a succubus makes it a bit more adult in nature. What makes it reminiscent of “Buffy” is the energy and the depth of the characters and the strength of their relationships. As the show is very low budget, it really trades on the characters and delivers in spades.

As this is the pilot, it pretty much just serves as an introduction to the characters and the premise. Future episodes have Bo and Kenzi investigating supernatural issues, but this episode is a bit more simple. We begin at a pretty standard hotel bar, where a skeezy guest tries to slip something in a drink that he then offers to the bartender, who happens to be Bo. Bo rejects the drink, citing bar policy, so skeezy dude moves on to other prey. That other prey just happens to be pixie-like pickpocket Kenzi. Kenzi is indeed drugged and coaxed into an elevator by skeezy dude, but Bo manages to rescue her just in time. It’s the way in which Bo rescues Kenzi that is surprising. She kisses skeevy dude to death. Something about Bo’s kiss seems to drain all the energy out of him. Bo and Kenzi leave skeevy dude slumped in the elevator and hightail it out of there.

Cops do eventually find skeevy dude’s body, but luckily for Bo, those cops aren’t human. They are two Fae named Dyson and Hale. They have basically infiltrated the police department to make sure that crimes that appear to have been committed by Fae are investigated in the Fae world and not the human world. They figure out pretty easily that the murderer is Bo, thanks to a combo of CCTV footage and a conversation with Bo’s boss. What nobody in the Fae world can believe is that somebody with that kind of power could go unnoticed by either of the two major Fae political parties if you will, the Light and the Dark. This causes the Fae higher-ups quite a bit of consternation later in the episode.

While Dyson and Hale are investigating, Bo and Kenzi are recovering from their ordeal. Bo is just starting to convince Kenzi that Kenzi didn’t see any face eating murder the night before, but then Kenzie looks at her phone and sees video she filmed of the incident. She understandably starts freaking out and demands that Bo go to breakfast with her to talk out what she saw. Kind of an odd request, really. If I just discovered that the person standing next to me was a face-eating murderer, I’d probably go Monty Python and run away. Anyway, Bo and Kenzi end up getting milkshakes, and Bo explains that she has no clue what she is, but whenever she kisses a guy, he dies. Also, she gets the urge to kiss guys quite often. She also uses her touch to convince the waitress to let them dine and dash. Kenzi is pretty amazed and thinks Bo’s powers could be quite financially lucrative. They don’t have much time to mull this over though, because Dyson and Hale capture Bo in an alley and take her away in a van. Kenzi thinks fast and manages to photograph the license plate as they pull away.

Dyson and Hale are Light Fae, so they take Bo to the Light headquarters, which is presided over by the Ash. Bo is interrogated, and nobody can believe that she has absolutely no clue what she is and has not chosen between the Light and the Dark. Bo gets sassy with the Ash, and she is shocked when Dyson kind of wolfs out to put her back in her place. Before much can really come of the questioning, the Morrigan, the leader of the Dark, shows up. The Morrigan thinks Bo is lying about what she knows, and she wants to kill Bo. The Ash, however, thinks Bo should have to take a test before they decide whether or not to kill her. Before the test, though, Bo has to be examined by Lauren, the human doctor who works for the Light. After running some tests, Lauren (who is quite smitten with Bo) tells Bo that she is a succubus. Bo’s powers will never go away, but Bo should be able to learn how to control them and feed without killing people. Bo tries to get Lauren to help her escape, but Dyson appears to put a stop to that. He’s been told to take Bo to a glass factory to complete her big test.

When she arrives at the glass factory, Bo learns the nature of the test. She is going to have to face two extremely formidable ancient Fae opponents. Dyson says Bo is going to need all her strength to survive this, and he starts to kiss her. Bo discovers that because Dyson is Fae, she can kiss him without killing him and draw an unusual amount of energy. Bo is able to defeat her first opponent, a huge ogre-like dude, with a pair of daggers. The daggers can’t help her with the second opponent, though. The second one uses mental manipulation to make Bo think he’s an old man who can take away her pain. Kenzi has arrived at the glass factory thanks to a well-timed call to her cousin (who could run the license plate number), though, and hearing Kenzi’s voice pulls Bo out of the trance. Having defeated both opponents, Bo is offered a choice between Light and Dark, and she chooses neither. Trick, who is the bartender at the local Fae bar, persuades the Ash and the Morrigan to let Bo stay neutral. For now. Bo and Kenzi are allowed to leave as long as they abide by some conditions, and it’s the start of a beautiful friendship. It says something about the show that I was able to remember the major plot points several days after rewatching the episode. “Lost Girl” is fairly light entertainment with well-drawn characters and relationships to give it some substance.