Summer TV Rewind: Lost Girl 1.06: "Food for Thought"

“Worst case scenario, I just ate toxic soup. Best case scenario, I am a toe-sucking cannibal!”
-Kenzi

We continue our summer “Lost Girl” journey with the first of what I am sure is many episodes where Kenzi is in mortal danger. This one, interestingly enough, has a bit of a cannibalism twist. Kenzi’s peril added the story element of the ticking clock to amp up the plot. I generally find the ticking clock trope to be a bit played forced, but for the most part, it worked here. I think it’s more effective when we see how the deadline really affects the characters, which is what happened here. The ticking clock is less effective when it is simply used to tighten the plot. In addition to the Kenzi’s life in danger drama, the Dyson/Bo/Lauren love triangle drama gets turned up a notch. By the end of the episode (spoiler alert), Bo no longer needs Dyson’s help to control her succubus self, and to say Dyson feels a little threatened would be an understatement.

Both the Kenzi in jeopardy plot and the love triangle plot got their start early on in the episode. We see Bo primping for what looks like a hot date, but when Kenzi presses her about it, Bo says it’s for what she describes as a “succubus mid-term.” Lauren is taking Bo out to a club to see how well Bo can control herself. Bo and Lauren’s trip to the club does indeed turn out to be quite successful. Bo doesn’t kill anybody, at least. Bo can even fool around with Lauren a bit without going full succubus. Elsewhere, a kind of haggard looking lady is making a pot of soup. It’s pretty clear that all is not right when she puts a human foot into the soup. As soon as the woman takes a drink of the soup, she seems to get some sort of hemorrhagic fever.

Lauren is called in by the Ash to deal with the foot soup lady, and Bo and Kenzi tag along for funsies. While Lauren and Bo are talking to the sick Fae, Kenzi is just bumming around the kitchen. She starts to eat a biscuit, and then she eyes the soup. As Lauren interviews the sick Fae, we learn that this type of Fae is called an Aswang. Aswangs eat human corpses, generally ones that are seriously compromised. This particular Aswang mentions that she’s eaten black plague and cancer before with few side effects. Lauren still thinks that her condition may be related to something (okay…someone) she ate, though. Bo and Lauren walk out into the kitchen to see Kenzi enjoying the soup, and the aftermath is pretty disgusting hilarity. Kenzi is doing everything she possibly can to wash the dead person soup out of her mouth. Since the food made the Aswang sick, it’s also possible that Kenzi may get sick too, so Bo decides to investigate.

It doesn’t take long before Kenzi is sick too, so the investigation takes on a new intensity. Kenzi is taken to the Ash’s sickbay, where the Aswang is already being treated. Lauren can give her blood transfusions to try and replace what she’s hemorrhaging, but it’s not a long term solution by any means. The sickness (and blood loss, most likely) is making Kenzi a bit loopy, too, which gets her in a bit of trouble while everybody is off trying to find her a cure. She becomes convinced that the Fae sickbay is some sort of creepy house of horrors out of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” She has a bit of a point in that the Fae probably want to save the Aswang, who is one of them, more than they want to save a lowly human. On the other hand, they don’t seem to want to actively harm Kenzi, either.

One thing that was interesting about this episode is that it really explored Dyson and Kenzi’s relationship. I always like when television shows take a stab at shaking up the usual character pairings. Up to this point, we’ve seen Dyson interact plenty with Bo and Hale, but other than the occasional conversation about whether or not Kenzi is on “Team Dyson” that day, Dyson and Kenzi haven’t interacted all that much in their own right. In this episode, Kenzi really wants Dyson to stay with her in the sickbay. When he leaves to go help with the investigation, that’s when she goes over the deep end and escapes from the facility. She ends up curled up on a bench in a cemetery, and that is where Dyson eventually finds her. Kenzi explains how the cemetery bench was always a peaceful place for her during a difficult childhood. Dyson tries to comfort her as best he can, then he takes her to the Dal to see if Trick can help. Not taking Kenzi back to the Ash was an interesting risk for Dyson to take. Trick isn’t thrilled about the breach of protocol at first, but he relents and ends up trading one of his most prized possessions for something that will temporarily stabilize Kenzi.

Meanwhile, the investigation leads to a science lab, thanks to some checking up on a biker dude Bo found trying to trash the Aswang’s apartment. Apparently said biker dude was hired by a company called Baron Chemical. Bo and Lauren hatch a plot to get into Baron. Lauren poses as a visiting scientist, and Bo poses as a kind of disgustingly typical sexy secretary. Usually, I like how “Lost Girl” doesn’t treat female sexuality as a shameful thing, but Bo’s disguises sometimes go against that spirit to me. First there was the security outfit in “Oh Kappa, My Kappa,” and now there’s this one. Bo uses her succubus powers to tease her new boss (and temporarily incapacitate a gay security guard without actually killing him…a big deal for Bo), and Lauren uses her new credentials, and they’re both eventually able to get into the most top secret lab.

The reason for the visit to the lab was to hopefully discover whatever was making Kenzi sick. The trip turns out to be successful, as Bo and Kenzi find a tank which contains a highly venomous Baselisk (yeah, like out of Harry Potter). Lauren needs a tissue sample to develop an anti-venom, and that job falls to Bo. It’s not an easy job by any means, but Bo is eventually successful. Lauren is able to develop the anti-venom just in time, and Kenzi is saved from Ebola-like death. We can’t close out the episode without a little more drama, though. Bo tells Dyson that she was able to kiss someone without killing them. Dyson looks a bit put off, and Bo rubs it in that she doesn’t need him anymore. Poor Dyson then descends to completely new levels of emo.