“I don’t think it’s a good thing that I’m going to need to see S4 before I decide if I liked S3” – Tweeter @7of12

Valksy

Any analysis of episode 313 really must take into account the screamingly obvious. This was no “finale” and really should not have been pushed that way, since there are no particularly useful conclusions from the elaborate set up and just a further amplification of peril.  Is it disturbing to think that, if not for a season 4 pick-up, this might have been how it ended?  Certainly so.  We have been sold a concept of things never being what they seem since before 301 – but it is a story with no punch line, a book with no final chapter, and more questions than answers.

I find myself questioning if the choice to do this was a gamble, an ambitious masterstroke, or a chronic error.  At this point I am struggling to view the series as an adventure, and am dragged back outside the fantasy world to consider the show as a distinct entity in its own right, as a commercial and creative venture rather than pure story.

Mahlers5th

To say there were mixed reactions to the season 3 finale would be an understatement. Bo seemed to be sleepwalking through many of her scenes with a perpetual look of puzzlement on her face (mirroring many of the viewers, I suspect) while Tamsin played the bad-ass heroine, brought back from near death to defy the Wanderer and possibly audition as Bo’s next love interest for season 4 (you cannot be serious, writers!). And Lauren — poor, misunderstood, noble Lauren — seemed all but forgotten by just about everyone including Bo, despite having saved the group’s collective ass…again. At the risk of repeating myself: WTF??!

I may have been the only one, but I actually loved the finale and felt it effectively brought together many of the themes that had been carefully introduced and woven throughout the season. “Brought together” does not mean that all tensions introduced in earlier episodes were resolved. There were many questions left unanswered — most dishearteningly what the future would bring for Bo and Lauren. The finale ended without even a teaser kiss between the two, just to tide fans over until season 4. But isn’t that what a season finale is supposed to do?  Yes, a series finale should leave us with more of a sense of closure, but season finales are designed to whet our appetite for more. Will Buffy be framed for Kendra’s murder? Is Riker going to shoot his superweapon at the Borg Cube with Picard assimilated inside? Who killed JR?

Emily & crew have certainly left us with a satisfying humdinger of a cliffhanger – with Dyson and Tamsin literally hurtling over a cliff (was this a sly joke?). We’ll have to wait many months to find out if they have been killed or spared by the black fog and teleported to Valhalla. Trick’s on the lam from the Dark Fae. Lauren is missing in action. And rather than searching for Lauren, as any good girlfriend would, Bo returns to the Dal looking for Kenzi (who may be switching teams) only to be swept up into a black fog, similar to the one that claimed Trick in the season 2 finale.  We are left with a newly minted Tarot card showing the Wanderer – finally confirmed to be Bo’s father — and Bo herself, surveying a distant landscape together.  Was this originally intended as the half-way point of a 22-episode season, unexpectedly shortened to 13? Does it really matter? It is every bit as satisfying in it’s own right.

Valksy

Believing, as I do, that we don’t have a full story, how do I consider the actions of the characters?  It is possibly wishful thinking that some of the events in this episode were intended to further a plot in the future, rather than a sacrificing of character to serve a plot in the present.  That uncertainty has informed a lot of the uneasy feelings this episode seems to have provoked in viewers.

That Lauren is again subject to prima facie impressions of villainy is frustrating.  We all know that many viewers will not look beyond the basic meaning.  While not the fault of the show exactly, it makes Lauren again appear a dishonest and untrustworthy character.  These are both accusations thrown at LGBT women on a regular basis, even further amplified by Lauren’s confirmation that she really is not what who she appears to be.  Repeatedly inferring Lauren cannot be trusted is a harmful and insidious act.

Those of us who do stop and look at Lauren’s scenes without the anti-Lauren bias (no secret what informs that behavior) will once again see her as the quiet hero.  Unlike Bo and Tamsin, Lauren’s heroism is based in the moral choices that she must make and her navigation of the dilemma that Taft has placed her into.

The act that Lauren puts on for Taft must be convincing enough for him to believe her and not hold on to Bo as leverage.  If Lauren had responded to Bo warmly, rather than deflecting her attempt to touch her, and used anything other than rejection, Taft would have had another weapon to wield over Lauren.  He does express his skepticism about Lauren’s sudden change of heart, so up until this point she had presumably been resistant to doing what he wanted – long enough to wait for the rescue that she knew would come because she trusts Bo.

Although her description of her life under the Fae was accurate, she said nothing that Bo didn’t already know; it was not calculated to hurt her but to function as a valid cover story.  It is Bo who lacks the foresight to recognize how much of a risk she takes in asserting her love for Lauren in front of Taft.

Through this whole exchange, Lauren is talking in code to Bo to give her information.  In saying “I can’t save you both,” she suggests that she will get Dyson out while trusting Bo to look after herself.  We also learn that Lauren left her phone in her apartment on purpose as a trail of breadcrumbs for Bo to come and find her.  Lauren thinks her way out of problems rather than fights, but this is an aspect of her character that is commonly ignored.  Failure to note her problem solving ability is neither new nor surprising; the fact that her input often saves the day is frequently overlooked in favor of grandiose (and often futile) gestures by other characters.

Lauren’s moral dilemma is more of a long-term quandary, possibly carrying over into Season 4 – at least, I hope so, else this rich story thread would be squandered.

Despite her obvious moral objections, Lauren clearly knows how to perform the species-splice, and does so successfully the first time that she tries.  Which leads to the obvious question – how long has she been able to do this?  And what has restrained her from doing it to others in the past, most notably herself?

If Lauren can successfully perform these interspecies stem cell transplants, leaving both donor intact and recipient functional as a human-Fae hybrid, what has stopped her, other than moral misgivings?  Lauren is now even more dangerous than any other entity, human or Fae, as she has created the opportunity to weaponize the Fae themselves, and open the door to a genetic arms race.

Is that why she would never undergo the procedure herself – because doing so would seal her own fate as a harbinger of destruction and condemn the human race to breeding itself out of existence and its own “humanity” in the quest for power?  It is equally likely that she would avoid experimenting on herself to protect the Fae from being enslaved, experimented on, having their DNA extracted for implanting, and being forced into evolutionary development by blending species. So even if it would be Lauren’s greatest wish to become Fae in order to have that chance at longevity and a centuries-long life with Bo, she couldn’t do it without facing the most catastrophic consequences.

As she does in the short term by sending Bo away from her, Lauren sacrifices the possibility of a long term loving life with Bo by choosing to remain human.  Lauren falls on her sword, not once but twice – first to save Bo and then to save everyone.  And yet, because her sacrifice is a subtle act, it is ignored.  Can we really only recognize heroism if it is overtly stated?  Is it only physical heroism (running, growling, fighting) that captures our attention, while a more cerebral heroism is ignored?

Mahlers5th

I can understand that since LGBT heroines like Lauren are so rare, people are going to be protective. It makes sense to rally behind our own. But anyone who came away from the season 3 finale still seeing Lauren as some sort of villain (and failing to appreciate her quiet heroism) is either a die-hard DyBo/Coppubus shipper or as gullible as the Light Fae elders in the clutches of the Morrigan — meaning gullible to a degree that truly strains credulity.

Speaking of the aborted coronation in episode 312, did the writers really expect us to believe that the elders would dump the Ash simply because the Morrigan – always a woman of her word — waved around a test tube with Lauren’s name on it? The only explanation that made sense to me (and seemed consistent with the overall story arc of season 3) was that the Fae had been primed to believe someone was out to get them – and why not? There was a field full of dead Fae to prove it. But primed by whom? Who had the ability to mesmerize Fae from as far away as Egypt to cannibalize fellow Fae? Taft? It’s hard to believe that a mere human – albeit a brilliantly diabolical billionaire – had the requisite powers to carry that off. Money doesn’t buy that kind of remote control influence. And what would have been his motive — to start a war between the Fae and humankind? As crazy as he was, surely Taft would have recognized that until he had succeeded in creating and amassing an army of human-Fae hybrids, the Fae would likely prevail.

The Morrigan certainly seemed invested in provoking a war with humans – and there is even a suggestion she was in cahoots with Taft to incriminate Lauren — but to what end? To seize power? She had already dethroned the Ash. Wouldn’t it have been enough to convene a Fae posse to go after Lauren? Come to think of it, way back in episode 101 where all of this began, wasn’t it the Morrigan who was all faklempt about Bo having potentially compromised the Fae’s invisibility among humans?

Valksy

If a war between humans and Fae is even remotely likely, the Morrigan strikes me as the most likely character to take dynamic action to prevent the loss of her species.  In episode 312, we see her use the attack on the Dal as a catalyst for usurping power from Hale and declaring that the Fae need to assert their status at the top of the food chain.  This could be an orchestrated act — it certainly seems convenient that, contrary to convention, she happens to be in the Dal at that very moment.

The Fae belong to the world of antiquity. They cling to traditions and mores of a bygone era while human development marches onward.  We see them fight with tooth and claw, with swords and cudgels, with crossbows, but the two times we have seen Fae shot (Bo in episode 208 and Tamsin in episode 312), they are easily brought down. Tamsin may have misty-eyed memories of doubt-influencing battles, but that was in the days of musket balls and bayonet charges — she certainly is not bulletproof.

So, if the humans decided to take action against the “monsters” in their midst, would they lose?  That’s not a foregone conclusion. And if there were a need for the Fae to organize quickly to defend themselves against an impending attack by humans, then uniting the factions would make good sense, and who better to do this expeditiously than the Dark Fae? They are willing to do anything — break rules, even sacrifice their own as collateral damage — to incite a war against the humans before the first volley has even been launched.

Reflecting on this episode, I wonder if Lauren’s successful research can be considered the first step of an extinction event for one or other species, possibly even both.  Is this why nuclear weapon research was mentioned in episode 312, to put the idea in our minds of unfettered scientific power leading to carnage?

Mahlers5th

Murder, destruction, and mayhem permeate the season finale. Tamsin “eye-slays” a roomful of guards. Taft stabs Aife, and — looking totally like a possessed Linda Blair — Aife then chi-sucks the Cabitt to death (another example of Fae murdering Fae). Bo orders Dyson to kill Taft. Huh? Isn’t Taft now half-Fae? And isn’t Dyson a cop? Wasn’t he the one who stopped Bo from strangling that psychopathic killer back in episode 310? Decent chap that he is, Dyson gives Taft a head start, but he admits this is only to heighten his pleasure in the chase. He walks away, contentedly picking his teeth (don’t ask), then faces an apparently certain death himself when Tamsin takes that suicide plunge over a cliff.  I believe there is only one sufficiently powerful entity with the means, motive, and opportunity to provoke such widespread chaos and destruction. But more on that later.

Valksy

Kenzi’s heroism is also overlooked – she will not back down before the Morrigan, even though it leads to an execution order.  She is brave, but cannot hope to fight and “win.”  So she wins with her humanity and wits, arguing her way out of peril and showing that even though Bruce is an “enemy” she is willing to overlook it and trust him after tending his wounds.  Androcles and the Lion, anyone?  Hopelessly side-lined in this episode, her grief at not being able to be like her family (Bo) is palpable.

I hope, if the storyline of the species-splicing continues, that someone (Lauren?) will argue for Kenzi to stay human and explain to her very clearly why she has value.

I also find myself wondering if Lauren’s choice to remain human is informed by the Fae behavior that she has observed.  For starters, if she were to become Fae, Lauren would be obliged to feed on humans.  I also think of the Kitsune here – their behavior is a mimicry of what they seem to think human women would do.  Is it intended to be real?  It seems so wooden and false (and I hesitate to blame the actors for that). It seems like they are so used to their fakery that they simply go through the motions and hit their marks, without growing in the role.

Mahlers5th

It’s interesting to note, in that regard, that so much is made of Bo’s need to evolve and find herself (via the Dawning), lest she devolve into some under-Fae – but the Kitsune stay mired forever in their ridiculous caricatures.  Do only some Fae go through the Dawning?

Valksy

Which leads me to question why they don’t seem to know any better?  Is it that they don’t care to find out?  To refine their “act” and be more convincing?  The Fae pattern is to be phasmids – to try and pass as something that they are not in order to survive and perpetuate themselves, but if they settle into patterns of behavior, do they stagnate into the ridiculous.  Imagine if you had the power to live a very, very long life, would you waste it in college?  How can their horizons be so narrow?

I would argue that their behavior is less a commentary on how sorority girls conduct themselves and more a very subversive dig at how ridiculous and stagnant the Fae can become.  Bo has to become the adult in the room for entities who should not need her to do so.

However, like many others, I am concerned by much of the word usage here – and in other places within this episode – bitch, whore, slut (twice) and pussy as a pejorative are all in play in this episode and I don’t know that I understand why. As a show that is typically female-positive as well as anti-slut shaming, I truly do not understand the purpose of this (if there is one).  I’d love to hear the writer explain why she chose these words as weapons for women to lash out at one another with.

If Lauren sees the Fae as complacent in their rituals and traditions and stagnating beneath them, is it any wonder that she would not be in any particular hurry to join them?  For Lauren to use her research to become Fae would be to give up her humanity, potentially become a killer, and become a mere facsimile of what she recognizes as human – like the Kitsune pair.

Mahlers5th

Maybe I’m reading too much eye-winking meta-communication from writer to viewer in this episode, but the Kitsunes’ antics struck me as an intentional caricature of the kind of Valley Girl girl-on-girl action (catering to a male audience) to which we have been subjected all too often on the small screen – and in porn.  Ditto the “cat fight” between Bo and Tamsin. And of all the ruses the writer might have chosen to get Bo and Tamsin into Taft’s compound, why did she settle on their playing airheads who got lost on the way to the mall? This struck me as some sort of wry commentary on gender roles.  Emily & company take their mission too seriously to have overlooked the significance – and offensiveness – of all the references to whores and sluts.  I thought the writers were saying, in essence, “This is the kind of poisonous portrayal of gender and sexuality for which Lost Girl is the antidote.”  Along the same lines, consider the sexist lyrics of “The Wanderer” – the season 3 theme song that none of us will ever be able to get out of our heads ever again (thanks heaps, Lost Girl):

Oh well, I’m the type guy who will never settle down.
Where pretty girls are, well you know that I’m around.
I kiss ‘em and I love ‘em ‘cause to me they’re all the same.
I hug ‘em and I squeeze ‘em, they don’t even know my name…

The song is all about a Don Juan love-‘em-and-leave-‘em type of guy – all very un-Lost Girl and, when you think about it, very un-Wanderer, so fixated is he on finding and keeping that one girl — Bo. Did the writers choose the song for its title without considering the lyrics? That seems highly improbable. There’s an amused wink in there somewhere.

Valksy

The third human in play is Taft himself.  When I wrote my fanfic piece “Abyss” (uploaded Dec 2012) I ended on what I felt was an obvious statement – that modern humans would not be making up fairy stories any more.  In the modern world, a man like Taft, with resources to spare, made the predators his prey with great success.

The finale explains to us that it was Taft who knew enough, and had enough access to the Fae world, to kidnap Aife.  This decision by the writers places him far deeper in the story than ever anticipated.  Is it possible to argue that his placement in the story is deeper still?

With this question in mind, Mahlers5th and I took another look at episode 106, “Food for Thought.” In this episode, we learn that a human company (with stockholders including, perhaps, a sociopathic billionaire?) has managed to fly under the Fae radar, developing a pathogen from a very rare Underfae and putting it in the food chain as an experimental weapon.  Arguably the experiment was not a success, since the weapon proved to be as lethal to humans (Kenzi) as well as Fae — unless the whole enterprise was intended to flush out a genius human doctor, who knew how to cure the problem with no particular challenge other than obtaining a sample.

Both as a storyline of human agents preparing an assault on the Fae, and as a ruse to confirm Doctor Lewis’ place squarely in the world of the Fae (for anyone who was curious about that), I can’t help but wonder if this is the answer to Lauren’s question of how long Taft may have been watching her.

Storyline aside, one of the difficulties that I had in episode 313 was that Taft had a legitimate grievance.  The wording of his story to Lauren makes it evident that he blames himself in part for what happened to his brother, he witnessed the aftermath of a horrible murder, and then did time for a crime that he did not commit.  Lauren calls him a sociopath, but if so, he was created not born that way.  Certainly, he is a deeply dangerous man who shows little empathy for his victims.

How is that different from the Fae, exactly?  Do they get a pass because of their position on the food chain?  Are viewers comfortable with and able to overlook the bad acts perpetrated by the Fae because they are portrayed as the heroes of the story?  We are led to believe that Dyson killed Taft by biting and rending at him.  But how many other humans has Dyson done this to in the past?  We’ve never seen his feeding signature; we know he bit Taft, did he eat him too?

Why is Dyson allowed a pass to do that, but Taft is not?  The moral quagmire here is deep and difficult and yet most viewers seem willing to overlook it.  I’m curious why this should be so?  Especially as retributive justice is a concept very clearly portrayed in episode 301.  Retribution may work on a basic narrative level, it removes the cumbersome need for due process and firmly establishes the Fae world as an aggressive one, but it also assumes a great deal about the viewership in terms of our willingness to accept vengeance as a outcome to the story.  I find myself surprised at the ease of the manipulation here.

Mahlers5th

Yes, it is surprising in hindsight how willing we have been as viewers to overlook the evil and amorality of many of the characters – including the heroine herself.  Bo is apparently the product of a violent rape (one of those curious hidden-in-plain-view facts about her). She’s a murderer. She carries within her enormous destructive potential.  That much has been clear from the series premiere. But we give her a pass because hers is a story of redemption. That’s the real cliffhanger we’re left with in the finale – what will happen to Bo? Will she succumb to the drive for destruction and mastery emblematized by her Father? Or will Lauren – Love – bring back “our Bo”?

Your observations here reminded me of something Zoie Palmer said in an interview about Lost Girl (I think she was responding to a question about Lauren’s apparent betrayal of Bo in episode 108): “People…want to put people into categories, they’re bad or they’re good.  We’re way more complicated that that…I like the idea that sometimes we are evil, sometimes we are great, and we can be both of those things and all in between…we make good and bad choices.”

Valksy

Lauren is certainly correct in being deeply alarmed by Taft.  Anyone else picture another verbal dance between a mass murderer and intelligent woman from pop culture?  That he has constructed a mental relationship between them alone should have warning bells sounding for her.  He calls them partners and sees her as partisan to his efforts.  During their first scene, he physically dominates her by pushing her into a chair, but then he practically drops to one knee in front of her – a submissive pose to her superior knowledge?  Or to place a concept of proposal in the viewer’s mind?

Lauren uses his claim to Bo that they are peers (“partners”) as an opening to explain their actual relationship (“My boss”).  More word usage to prime Bo to what is actually happening.

That he waves a disarticulated femur in her face is certainly a deeply troubling act on a lot of levels.  Is it a blend of sex and death together?  Arguably, yes (although not new – Bo is also a living embodiment of sex and death blended together).  Was it warning?  Some braggadocio (“Look what I can do? Are you scared?”).  Was it a prop used in place of brandishing a gun in her face?  And let’s be honest, there is a sexual aspect to this – I don’t dispute that.  But I think that it was done for a purpose – To make him so vile and creepy and disgusting that we can overlook his victimhood at the root of his story as viewers and be OK with Dyson killing him.

That Lauren had to be abused to facilitate this was frustrating and if there is a degree of sexual menace as well as a deep warning of potential death, I do wish that they had reconsidered this scene.  However, I’m not surprised that she didn’t respond, any more than she responded particularly when hearing his story – she is staying neutral and calm because she is all out of choices and has evidently learned to do what it takes to survive.  I’m not comfortable with it though – but that’s probably the point, it’s just very much a blunt object to manipulate disgust in a portion of the viewership.

Which leads me to wonder if  the writer failed to anticipate that there was a portion of viewers who are potentially indifferent or immune to the suggestion of sexual menace, possibly even to the point of welcoming Lauren’s degradation.   Lost Girl needs to be more careful when playing with concepts of sexual violence this way.  Did it work?  Definitely.  Is that a free pass?  No.

I would argue that the humans had a far more compelling – and very much more unique – storyline, which was tragically relegated to a third and fourth string.

Mahlers5th

I know there was a powerfully negative response among many viewers to the image of Taft pressing that phallus – I mean, bone – in the vicinity of Lauren’s mouth.  I found it chilling but not offensive, maybe because I was once again inclined to give the writer the benefit of the doubt. I saw this scene – and Taft’s sexualized behavior towards Lauren more generally – as another meta-communication about our culture’s fascination with eroticized violence against women (yes, Silence of the Lambs did come to mind). Why didn’t the writer have Lauren defend herself more vigorously? Seriously?! The guy was a fucking crazy, sadistic lunatic!

Lauren did the only sane thing she could have done under the circumstances – stay calm and wait for her opening. She did so admirably in insisting that Taft bring her medical supplies to treat the Cabitt – a quick-witted move that allowed her later to substitute the Cabitt’s stem cells for Dyson’s in Taft’s hybrid procedure — before she vanished into thin air.

Incidentally, regarding the viewer’s shifting morality – it occurred to me that whereas Taft’s sticking the bone in Lauren’s face was truly chilling, if not deeply offensive to many viewers, people seemed to find Vex’s hog-tying the Morrigan, catapulting her on a bed, then threatening her with a taser both funny and endearing – in part because Vex is lovably naughty and had been sorely missed. However, watch that scene between Vex and Morrigan again, as if you hadn’t been introduced to the characters, with the sound off…

Valksy

When we examine Bo’s behavior in this episode, especially in context of preceding episodes, it is difficult to understand what we are supposed to be concluding  – in fact, I suspect that there are no conclusions to be drawn since I continue to believe that we only have part of the story in play.  So we have to ask what is actually taking place as Bo seems deconstructed to be a weakened bystander in her own story.  Surely it cannot be the intent of the writers to leave her permanently this way.

Following on from the article on Love and Power at Doccubus.com
(http://doccubus.com/2013/04/09/guest-blogger-series-love-and-power-by-mahlers5th-and-valksy/ ) we expanded on the concept with episode 313 in mind, substituting the terms “Eros” and “Thanatos” for “Love” and “Power” in the following (cleaned up and reconstituted) Twitter dialogue:

Valksy: Apropos of the balance between Thanatos and Eros, when did we last see Eros? Bo hasn’t had sex in a while. Does Thanatos rise in its place, like a twin personality out of balance? Think about the sensuality of the opening episodes this season, jarringly disrupted in episode 306 and never really recovering.  While you might argue that Bo and Lauren could have been making love regularly “between the scenes,” so to speak, TV is a visual medium and the absence of overt intimacy seems to be a sign of trouble. Think about the last time we see Lauren in Bo’s bedroom in episode 307 — both fully dressed and exchanging a comparatively chaste peck on the lips, Bo absorbed by her mission ahead.

If you watch episode 313, notice how Bo gives Dyson the command to kill Taft. Granted, he stabbed Aife, but since when is that grounds for immediate execution? Bo has assigned herself the role of judge and jury. Would she have strangled the man who assaulted Lauren in episode 310 if Dyson hadn’t intervened? Then she kills the Fae-bysitter Lisa in episode 311 – admittedly, a consensual act, but Death is becoming ever more present, as love and sex are disappearing.

Mahlers5th: Remember, too, that in episode 311, Bo watches two women get vaporized — ho-hum — with very little reaction.

Valksy: The only possible inconsistency is the lean in at the end of episode 310, just before Lauren calls for a break. But given that Lauren had just been in mortal peril and that Bo was nearly killed, Bo’s seductive overture at that moment seems inappropriate. Was she aroused by the violent act or simply oblivious to how it might have affected Lauren? Could this faux pas on Bo’s part reflect Sex and Death crossing over and converging?

Mahlers5th: Lean in? You mean when Lauren says stop with the Florence Nightingale act and Bo thinks she means “Let’s make hay”?

Valksy: Yes.  Bo leans towards Lauren as if to initiate a kiss, as if invited – that seemed so odd to me.

Mahlers5th: Yes, it was a terrible misread on Bo’s part…but frankly, all too human (denial – not wanting to see the handwriting on the wall).

Valksy: It strikes me as odd that, for a succubus, Bo seems very much neutered for the back part of the season. I mean, that’s my perception of what went wrong with the show – it’s all sterile and chilly. Was that intentional?

Mahlers5th: I don’t know about chilly and sterile, but the action in the episodes leading up to and following the Dawning ceremony (episodes 308-311) certainly had a dream-like and other-worldly quality, with heavy use of symbolism. It was hard to decipher how much of the action was “real,” how much was taking place in Bo’s mind only, but you’re right that the plot focused almost exclusively on Bo’s inward journey to find and define herself — love and passion were not much in evidence. There have been glimpses of a real destructive power within Bo since the end of season 2, and “Thanatos” has been threatening to gain the upper hand from episode 305 onwards (when Bo hisses at Lauren to “get out of my way”). Perhaps “Eros” still prevailed within Bo, as long as Lauren was actually in her life. From episode 310 to the season finale, Lauren is not really present to act as a counterbalancing influence.

Valksy: I think part of the trouble I had with episode 313 was that Bo seemed to have forgotten she was a succubus. She let people touch her and drag her
about and never used her seduction touch on anyone, just the damaging oral chi suck. Bo is a creature of passion and that has been absent.

Mahlers5th: She’s lost her sexual hunger. Perhaps with darkness in ascendancy, she didn’t need to feed.

Valksy: I’m wracking my brains. Since the Temple ceremony, I don’t think we have seen Bo be sexual with anyone, other than that rebuffed lean-in with Lauren in episode 310. The feed with Tamsin in the finale? Any moment of intimacy is masked by the camera placement. Bo seems to have lost her hunger and become indifferent to death – or at least comfortable with Death, comfortable ordering it. And then she’s eaten by a shadow at the end of the finale and placed beside her father.

Mahlers5th: Right, he wins.

Valksy: Bo thinks she has lost love – was that the final push?  Perhaps as love fades, death rises and Bo is overtaken by him.

Mahlers5th: Yes, I think it was in episode 312 that Bo says to Dyson, “Even I don’t believe that [it’s just a break] anymore.”  She is beginning to give up hope of a reconciliation with Lauren.

Valksy: But perhaps she had to hear it directly from Lauren, in episode 313? What she may not have realized is that although Lauren spoke about her love for Bo in the past tense — because she was afraid Taft would use that leverage to hurt Bo – in fact, she was falling on her sword to save Bo.

Mahlers5th: By the way…what did you make of Aife suddenly reviving and chi-killing that woman? What are we supposed to make of that?

Valksy: Aife was always unstable. It’s odd though, in the cells she appealed to the Wanderer, Bo’s Father, and said that if he were there he would not allow anyone to harm his seed – and she invoked him to kill, resurrect and kill again. Her behavior, for a traumatized woman, is weird.

Mahlers5th: Perhaps reminding us that a girl’s gotta feed – except for Bo now?

Valksy: True. And it didn’t cross Bo’s mind to use her powers to help her mother, even though she had chi-sucked Tamsin.

It seems very much that the passion/love/sex aspect of Bo has been over shadowed by a second personality.  If Bo is both sex and death at once, and sex is absent, then death is fully in ascendence.  It’s no accident that Bo was swallowed by a shadow at the end — the imagery could not be more overt.

If Bo’s out-of-character behavior is not intended to reflect the Wanderer’s growing influence, and the “new” post-Dawning “Bo 2.0” is the Bo we will see from now on, I contend that she is weak and manifestly unlikeable.  I would be shocked if such a warm, loving, affectionate character is left like this permanently.  Surely it is done for a specific storytelling purpose.

There is a throwaway line in the midst of all the chaos in this episode – Bo is referenced as a “chosen one”.  Is this also reflected in her granting life and absolution to Tamsin after Tamsin tries to deliver Bo to her father?  If Bo is both light and dark due to her heritage, and both life and death due to her nature, is she supposed to represent a messianic figure to the Fae?  And in her connection to the humans, can she cross all factions?

Does this explain Tamsin’s reaction to her?  Bo’s refusal to kill and act of deliverance seems infinitely more meaningful than any sexual overtones that some viewers insist on placing on their interaction.  Bo takes no sides and will not kill.  Is that the true meaning of the scene?

Other than her screen time in a short season, I think this illustrates the problem that I have with the character of Tamsin.  It is Bo’s aspirational vow to “live the life *I* choose,” and in this scene we see it being usurped by someone else.  With an imminent confrontation with her father on the horizon, the writers surely cannot think that Bo’s journey of life choice is complete.

But all this depends on Bo at the end of 313 being a deliberate corruption of the Bo that we know, and I don’t know how – if at all – that can be demonstrated beyond wishful thinking.  It is disconcerting to be completely reliant on something that is still on the distant horizon.

I still protest the placement of Dyson and Tamsin front and centre in this story.  Bo pales into the background as they usurp her heroism and her position as champion.  If it is intended for the story, it is more acceptable.  If it is for fan service, then it is entirely wrongful.

Women still need heroes and champions and it was Bo’s role to be that Champion.  But Bo surrenders her power when she has an external monologue appealing to Dyson for help, when she needs Tamsin’s help to get into the compound, and then again when she needs Tamsin’s power to get out of the cell.  Bo is saved by Aife stepping in front of the knife, but fails to try and heal her (costing the Cabbit woman her life).  It is Lauren who saves Dyson by swapping out the DNA, and then Dyson who defeats Taft.  What does Bo do in this episode that is actually heroic or particularly relevant to the storyline?  She seems more witness than actor to everything that is taking place.  If Death was taking over, why does she simply observe?  Her agency seems subverted, her powers seem missing and she is very much a victim.  Who is this woman?  She is certainly not our Bo.
But is that the point of the story?

My question would have to be – Are we supposed to take another leap of faith here?

As for Doccubus – I don’t see a crisis.  I just don’t.  If, as I believe, Lauren is feeding Bo intelligence while trying to protect her in front of Taft, then nothing that she is saying can be taken at face value.  Does Bo love her?  Certainly.  Indeed, Bo seems oblivious to whom Lauren is referring to when she describes the one person in her way.

The only conclusion I can make at this point is this – If Bo is Love/Passion/Sex and Death together, and Death is now in charge, what might serve to bring her back?

With Trick abandoning his granddaughter again, Hale quitting as the Ash, Kenzi in a car somewhere with Bruce and Lauren missing, the team is scattered to the wind and everything they were has been broken – But only so that the writers can rebuild it in season 4?