It's telling that an episode explicitly designed to explore Dyson’s backstory feels inessential with every scene devoted to the past. Lost Girl is about Bo, her friendship with Kenzi, her struggle to find her family, and settle into a place in the Fae world of this unnamed Canadian city. What king Dyson devoted himself to, the circumstances of his first meeting with the Norn who took his love for Bo in the first season finale, and even the introduction of a long-lost love, all feels superfluous. It’s supposed to make Dyson more compelling, to endear him to the audience, but I’m sorry to say that these are Kristen Holden-Ried’s limitations. He’s a decent supporting player and a formidably complicated romantic interest, but he’s not going to be the second lead of this show.
The episode starts with a brotherly reunion, as Dyson’s old pack-mate Cayden rolls into town. Cayden fought alongside Dyson as mercenaries for an unseen king centuries ago. Dyson’s timeline is a bit suspect, in no small part because of his name. I’m a bit of an etymology nerd, and looking at the steps necessary to get to the rise in the usage of Dyson as a given name, either he changed his name several times over the course of history (which isn’t supported by the flashbacks), or far more likely Lost Girl is just playing fast and loose with history, giving the character a snappy name despite the fact that he’s hundreds of years old and would have a much more archaic name if the show was trying to achieve historical accuracy instead of soapy supernatural romantic drama.
But that’s just nitpicking—the central story of the episode involves a stolen Fae weapon, the Mongolian Death Worm, purportedly more powerful that nuclear warheads. In fact, the weapon is just an old lady with a portable television who gets angry enough when you take the thing away that she melts thing with electricity shot out of her eyes. Since Dyson can’t enter Dark Fae territory surrounding the docks to look for the weapon, he enlists Bo’s help, and she infiltrates a black market Fae arms dealer with some help from Cayden to uncover an auction for the Mongolian Death Worm, er, Velma, the kind of demented old lady.
Typically, Fae wolves travel in packs, and serve a king until death, but Dyson broke from his pack, and the flashbacks reveal that was over the death of his closest friend Stefan. Though we don’t really get to know the unquestionably loyal Stefan, we see just how interested Dyson is in his friend’s wife, Ciara, the pack’s nurse. When Stefan is sent to his death so the king can claim Ciara for his own, Dyson leaves the pack, striking out on his own for centuries before ending up in this town with its own set of rules between light and dark Fae.
Bo and the gang maneuver to take ownership of Velma, but Cayden betrays them and steals the weapon that he already stole and lost before—there are a lot of twists, betrayals, and switchbacks in nearly every episode of this show. All of that drama builds to one final reveal, that Dyson’s long lost possible romantic interests Ciara is alive and tied up in the back of a van. Cayden escapes, Bo delivers the Mongolian Death Worm to Lachlan, where they share a brief conversation about giving dignity and respect to anyone and everyone (which is clearly going to be the thrust of the conflict between those two), but mostly we get a lot of Dyson history that fills in some gaps but doesn’t feel necessary or satisfying.
The end result is a lot of romantic tension. Dyson and Ciara make eyes at each other, reunited after centuries, and Bo is clearly jealous. Back at Dyson’s place, he tries to give Ciara his bed and take care of her to repay all the care she gave on the battlefield so many years before, and the two former love interests hook up just before the end of the episode. As for Bo, she shares a similar moment with Lauren, saying essentially the same thing as Dyson does to Kiara: Lauren spends so much time taking care of others, she should let Bo take care of her this once. But they don’t end up in bed together, as Lauren takes the couch. That’s a little bit disingenuous, because it’s obvious Lauren is a permanent part of the show while Ciara is just passing through for at most an extended guest arc. Perhaps Dyson can lust after her, but it doesn’t seem like he has the capacity for great love at the moment.
That final scene highlights the subtle differences between Bo and Dyson; what they’re willing to go for at this point, what they considering taking care of another person. The last five minutes say more about Dyson as the plot stands now than any of the backstory provided throughout. It doesn’t really matter why any of that happened except to set Ciara up as a romantic foil for Bo. Now instead of a love triangle, things are a bit more complicated, and considering Lost Girl’s penchant for making romance even more convoluted before sorting things out, it appears we’re headed in a potentially frustrating direction.
Stray observations:
- Bo hooks up with Cayden as well, using him to heal her hand after the encounter with the arms dealer. It makes Dyson and Lauren jealous, even if they won’t say anything.
- Lauren runs away from Lachlan to avoid the new lockdown policy on all non-Fae personnel. That conflict is going to come to a head soon.
- Seriously, I’ve had it with the title puns. They’re terrible.
- And now a roundup of Kenzi’s best lines:
- “What an Ashhole.”
- “Wow. She just totally took the fun out of yummy.”
- “Last minute save by Cayden and the crowd goes WILD!”
- “Man candy. Lots and lots of man candy.”
- “How many of those have you had? …Lots.”