Review: Lost Girl’s daddy issues

Oh my, daddy dearest. Going into the midseason break of its final season, Lost Girl was pulling no punches when it came to surprises, revealing Eric Roberts as Bo’s much-dreaded and quite secretive papa. And Tamsin just might be dead, thanks to yet another godly lightning bolt—and right after mentioning she was onto her last life, too.

That is without mentioning the end of days, or “End of Faes” that’s now underway, and the god of the underworld about to walk the earth again thanks to Bo’s magic box. Or the fact that nothing itself, born out of chaos, is walking the earth in the body of an emotional dead six-year old who thinks crushing people’s hearts is how you put them to sleep.

I suppose packing all these moments into a single, cliffhanger-filled episode is why the series was so slow off the start when it came to revealing the ancients and their plans. It’s going to be quite hard to take a step back from the family drama now, and knocking out a couple of final cases of the week as an ode to the series’ roots could, in hindsight, be a nice touch. It’s not like things are going to get as light as Bo and Kenzi eating ice cream in a tricked-out hotel room anytime soon—not with Hades on his way up the elevator and into the apocalypse.

Though it’s a bit hard to suss out who the real “good” ancients are—with Zee’s parting tip to Tamsin being a mild suggestion that the top god of religions past has, true to mythology at least, played a somewhat dubious game when it comes to saving the planet. It was certainly obvious that Zee’s terrified of the prospect of her brother surfacing—but how much of that is some kind of benevolent desire to stop the apocalypse and save Bo, and how much of that is saving her own skin given what sounds like a difficult relationship (to say the least) will have to remain a reveal for the next half.

But given how Zee was relishing the prospect of slicing a glowing umbilical-cord-cum-handprint off Bo with a rusty blade, her interests are coming across as mighty suspicious, while Bo’s so-called “evil” father emerged as the fairy godmother of the catfight between the two fashion-forward ladies. Of course, playing the good god/bad god game is probably naïve in a series that has touted its lead as unaligned—it’s just as likely both Hades and Zeus have skeletons in their closet and shining moments of altruism too, but it would be a nifty twist if Bo’s father wasn’t the demon the series has made him out to be.

It might go some way to ending Bo’s introspective self-loathing, and hopefully help her start to build constructive relationships with the people around her. It says something when the love of your life assumes your latest tryst talk is intended to reinforce a status quo where Bo plays the field and Lauren acts super-chill with her syringes. Bo may have been coming to the conclusion that it’s time to boldly step into commitment—even without the knowledge that a heartbroken Tamsin was potentially killed mid-Valkyrie tears—but there was a certain satisfaction to seeing Lauren leave Bo hanging for a bit. If meeting Hades is what it takes to get Bo to finally grow up and treat the people who love her with a degree more respect, then hey, I’m all for the god of the underworld joining the above-ground party. You can only blame daddy issues for so long, and the clock is officially ticking on the fate of the world.

Lost Girl returns later this year on Showcase.

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