In a few years, when Lost Girl makes its way onto Netflix Watch Instantly, it’ll be a show that can only be devoured in half-season binges, eating up free time long into the night. It’s that addictive. Even after only one season, it has its claws in me. Thankfully, instead of having to wait nine months for the second season to start—as viewers in Canada did when this season originally starting airing last fall—SyFy didn’t even put a week between the season-one finale and the season-two première. I’m grateful for that, and it’s taking every bit of restraint I have not to seek out the rest of the second season at this very moment to keep watching. The visual effects are low budget, but the storytelling is enthralling. If this show falls even remotely in your wheelhouse, now is the time to jump on board, as there’s only one 13-episode season to catch up on.
The first season ended with an avalanche of dramatic shifts. Bo’s mother Aoife, a vengeful succubus, had one of her minions suicide bomb the elders of the Light Fae, including their leader The Ash. (If any of that sentence doesn’t make sense to you, well, welcome to serialized supernatural television, where we all start at square one.) Trick used his power as a Blood Sage to influence fate, which always comes at a price. Perhaps that price was paid by Dyson, who goes to a Norn—a creature of Norse mythology that can influence destiny—where he unwittingly sacrificed his love for Bo in order to give her the strength to defeat her mother. That’s where things stand when the second season première picks up, three weeks later in the action: Ash in a coma, Dyson returns with no feelings for Bo (but keeping mum about it), and Aoife is on the lam.
The episodic plot keeps the serialized elements on a low simmer for a while, as a crowd of circus faes roll into town, intent on stealing the right to the Light Fae’s land. There’s a lot of convoluted mythological exposition doled out over the course of the episodic plot, which I tend to find interesting, but not nearly as addictive as the interplay of the main characters. Lost Girl’s pilot established the show’s ability to swing gracefully between comic and dramatic scenes with ease, and the innate chemistry between the main ensemble is strikingly different from other slow-starting shows in this genre—and here I’m thinking explicitly of the difficulties Grimm has labored with, or even early seasons of Buffy.
Anna Silk is still a revelation as Bo, bouncing between witty interplay with Kenzi—another delightful comedic standout—and more dramatic beats with Dyson. Unlike a lot of viewers, I like Kristen Holden-Ried as Dyson, but even I can’t stand the dour, sulking guy getting even more so after losing his ability to love the girl he… well… doesn’t feel for anymore, I guess. Their one kiss in the episode is entirely convincing in its staleness, so much so that I’m not sure exactly how Lost Girl can turn it around if the Norn curse is to be broken. Sure, it's pretty standard romantic will they/won’t they, but Dyson’s sacrifice in order to strengthen Bo against her mother was a nice shift, an intriguing use of Norse mythological elements, and the move also neutralizes a romance that could box the show in, preventing exploration in other directions.
Speaking of those possibly more intriguing and slightly expected directions, there isn’t a lot of Zoie Palmer’s Lauren in this première, but as with the first season, she makes the most of her minutes onscreen. Her passion for Bo is still palpable, and despite online clamoring for the girl-on-girl action (which came out a bit in the first season finale last week), I have faith that this plotline will develop in a more mature and levelheaded fashion instead of being male-fantasy fan-service.
Lost Girl blends serialized character stories (yes, including some damn engrossing “shipping”) and wickedly inventive episodic twists on the supernatural drama better than anything on television not called The Vampire Diaries. Where Grimm has slowly and painfully eked out the slightest bit of progress over the course of an entire broadcast-network season, Lost Girl blew the doors off, advancing the plot and developing characters so quickly I worried the show would run out of material. Better still, it maintains a consistent level of intrigue over the course of archetypal plots with a high possibility of boredom. But the final scenes of this première demonstrate again that the show has a clear step forward in mind, a new direction to barrel down like a freight train with little possibility of stagnation. A creepy little girl Bo sees in the final act shows up in Trick’s bar, saying she turns up as an omen, a warning for terrible things to come.
I like the camaraderie of the characters on Lost Girl enough to go along with almost anything the show is willing to throw out on screen. Bo has charisma, Kenzi has comedic relief, Hale has charm, Trick has sage wisdom, and Dyson has… brooding, maybe a strong will. There’s nothing here that hasn’t been done before, but when the tropes are laid out so effectively, it’s easy to go through them again with excitement. Lost Girl is incredibly fun to watch, and I’m looking forward to enjoying how the show develops further in the extended second season.
Stray observations:
- Since the second season has already aired in Canada, I’d appreciate it if anyone who has already seen it CLEARLY MARKS SPOILERS if you must talk about what’s coming up. I’m not going to police the comments religiously, but it would be nice if everyone who lives up north or found other means of watching the second season early kept revelations of upcoming events avoidable for those who’d rather remain in the dark.
- Kenzi has a wash-away purple streak in her hair. It’s damn pretty, even if it reminds me of Britta in the darkest timeline. Sorry guys, it’s almost mandatory to make a Community reference.
- As far as naming goes, having the main love interest carry the name of a vacuum cleaner isn’t the most attractive choice.
- There are 22 episodes in this second season, but I have no idea how SyFy plans on airing them—whether they’ll keep going to catch up to the Canadian schedule for season 3 next fall, or air part of this second season in the summer and save the rest for a later date.
- “Playboy grotto must be like… BAM!”
- One thing Grimm has on Lost Girl: better episode title puns. Every use of “Fae” gets more grating.