Thank fae—Lost Girl Season 3 is here! Be sure to check out all of our recaps, from Season 1 and Season 2 to the most recent episode of Season 3 aired in the U.S. on the SyFy Channel. All caught up? Good. And now, on to the recap for last night’s episode 3.08, “Fae-ge Against the Machine.”
Spoiler Policy: Please remember that there is a strong NO SPOILERS policy for any and all comments. We are ONLY DISCUSSING episodes of Lost Girl that have already aired in both Canada and the U.S. (the U.S. is currently a day behind Canada's schedule). Be kind and respectful by not ruining it for those who have yet to watch the newest Season 3 episode. Thanks!
Blindfolded, Bo wanders around The Dal (drink!), Stella at her heels, searching for a cricket. Yup, a cricket. As in Jiminy. “Here Crickety McCrickerson,” Bo calls softly. The insect’s chirps echo through the bar as behind Bo, a strained Stella asks if she wants to find the Zambian Cricket of Good Fortune or not. Before she can answer, Bo bumps into a table, which is a testament to Stella’s mad skillz as a guide dog. “Ow! I think my shins passed ‘good fortune’ two hours ago!” Grunting, she turns around and as Jiminy rubs his legs even more frantically, Bo makes her tentative way back toward Stella, who ‘helpfully’ gives her warm…warm…cold clues. “The stupid chirping is bouncing off every wall,” Bo complains as she eases past her coach. Stella, who is holding a small, engraved wooden box, tells Bo she needs to be able to distinguish the original sound from its echo. I feel like there should be an anvil alert there, but I’m not sure why.
With halting steps, Bo follows the increasingly louder cricket sound to make her way through the back door and into a siren-less Siren’s Speakeasy (drink!). Trick has stopped short in the center of the room to take it all in. “Hale (Hale!) went full speakeasy?” he observes with an air of baffled offense, like a medieval knight who just walked into Medieval Times. HA! YES!! I’d take that as more of a personal shout out if I didn’t know this season had already been filmed in its entirety before airing. “Ridiculous,” he adds, shaking his head as Bo slinks past him. Stella shushes him and encourages Bo that she’s getting ever warmer. “Now concentrate,” she urges. With a shout of triumph, Bo swoops down to snatch up Jiminy, failing to notice Stella’s face fall with disappointment. When Bo tears off her blindfold and opens her hand—it’s empty. “I missed him!” she sneers. “Again!” She turns to face a peeved Stella. “It was behind you. The entire time,” she lectures. With a moue of distaste, Stella stoops down, elegantly natch, and scoops Jiminy up into her special box. “That was your last chance to secure the cricket’s good fortune. Something you desperately need for The Dawning. And you failed, Bo.” Trick objects that’s a bit harsh. “Perhaps you need to let me do my job, bartender,” Stella snaps back. Trick’s eyebrows immediately go into the stratosphere. How many centuries do you think it’s been since somebody spoke to The Blood King like that?
Stella stalks out of Siren’s Speakeasy (drink!) as Bo collapses into a chair, disheartened. “I wish Kenzi were here,” she tells Trick emotionally. Trick expositions how Stella said humans taint this part of the process. Bo insists that she is never going to be ready. Trick immediately takes her hand in support and insists that she not even talk that way. “You’re going to pull through this just fine.” But Bo quickly objects that Trick doesn’t know that. “The Dawning isn’t all horror shows and near-death experiences,” he assures her gently. “It’—”
“Something that we all go through,” Bo interrupts, clearly having heard this many times before, but the recitation calms her. “And yes, some of it is difficult, but it is manageable.” Trick smiles fondly at his prized pupil. “So you have been listening.” Bo smiles too. “Hale said he had to drink six pints of sour Loch Ness juice,” she relays with a chuckle and Trick laughs warmly. “And Dyson told you about his fleas?” he prompts her. Snicker. That entertains me. It’s the perfect foil for an animal shifter. Plus I’m already imagining him trying to scratch all those hard to reach places. What?!
I like that we have a plausible reason that works with the show’s established mythology as to why Kenzi is not in this episode at all. And while we are still Acting Ash-free, they at least name checked Hale and Dyson as contributing to Bo’s preparation, considering they’re the only other two Faes in the Not-So-Merry-Band-of-Fae who have been through this ordeal, besides Trick, who may not even remember it clearly considering how long ago it likely happened. I still think they should have a much more prominent part than Doctor Lauren in this process. The Fae have been managing to make their individual way through The Dawning experience for thousands of years without her help. Even though Bo is hitting Fae puberty much earlier that she should, I’m still missing how science trumps experience in this particular supernatural conundrum, but whatever.
“Yeah,” Bo says wryly. “I guess I do have a fighting chance.” Trick attagirls her as Stella reenters Siren’s Speakeasy (drink!). Bo leaps up and, revived now, demands to know what’s next. “In order to enter the temple, you must be given the invitation,” Stella informs her. “So now you wait.” Bo thinks this is an excellent idea. “Oh, please tell me that involves sitting on my tired little ass.” Stella blinks once: “The day is yours.”
With an infectious cheer and a fist pump, Bo swings in a circle and hurries off before Giles Stella can change her mind. Once she’s gone, Stella admits to Trick that she owes him an apology for her earlier waspishness and invites him out to dinner. Trick quickly agrees. “Wear something nice,” she orders. Trick bait! Trick watches her leave with this smug, satisfied, playa’s gotta play look on his face. Heee.
I guess Bo went out to pee, because she hurries over to a booth in the now empty Siren’s Speakeasy (drink!) and grabs her keys and ringing cell phone. “Hey babe,” she says, so we know it’s Doctor Lauren on the other end. Bo agrees that she misses the doc too and as she silently listens to whatever Doctor Lauren says, she sidles over to a steam punk trunk tricked (heh) out with various mechanisms and starts fiddling with one of the dials. Because playing with a mysterious contraption that has just manifested itself into the supernatural way station is always a good idea. Bo tells the doc that all she wants is a long nap and then popcorn and a movie on the couch. She agrees to call Doctor Lauren later and disconnects. But as she walks away from the Machine, it lights up and starts to beep and chirp and whirl and steam and chortle in ways that cannot mean good times ahead.
Cut to a homemade still in a dismal room somewhere. Honestly, at first I thought it was the same machine and Bo’s fiddling had triggered it in some way that had a residual effect on the young crying girl in this room. She is in pigtails so we’re sure to remember how young she is and is wearing a face mask from which hang tubes that connect her to the still and did I mention she’s crying? She’s crying. A lot.
Credits.
Back in the main tap room at The Dal (drink!), Bo is hurrying to get her jacket on (what, did she leave bits and pieces of her crap all over the place?) when a pair of hands coyly cover her eyes from behind. After a gasp, Bo jokes that if the person is a cricket, “I will totally kill you.”
Out of breath, Doctor Lauren spins Bo around and with a squeak of excitement and a knee bob, she babbles in her face. “I was on my way over when you called, I just couldn’t wait to see you.” Bo wearily agrees with the sentiment, but admits to being extremely tired, but the doc barrels right over her. “How did it go today? Did you kick ass? You look tired. Are you tired?” Even for the doc in full geek mode, this level of mania is unusual. Or, as Bo puts it, “are you on crack?” (BTW—that’s the second crack—erm—crack in as many episodes, the last being Dyson’s jibe at Trick over Stella last week. Just wonderin’ what’s goin’ on in that writer’s room, hmm?)
Doctor Lauren smiles more than a little crazily, which doesn’t alleviate Bo’s concerns. “Seriously, hon, have you been doing experiments without your respirator again, because….” But the doc has turned away to grab a letter from her purse and displays it to Bo. “Look!” Bo reads from the letter as the doc mouths the words along with her, having read the letter so many times already as to have memorized it. “We congratulate you on being the recipient of the Moses Gomberg distinguished award for outstanding contribution in the field of –” “of free radicals!” Doctor Lauren shouts hilariously, unable to contain her excitement anymore. Bo notes with alarm that the banquet is tonight. More sober, Doctor Lauren admits that she knows this, “I wasn’t their first choice.” Oh, that’s okay, sweetie. You weren’t Bo’s first choice either. (Yes, I went there. Shuddup.) “The award was originally going to Michael Schnood,” and she hilariously sneers the schnood out of that last name. ZP is having the best time letting the reins loose on Doctor Lauren. I do wonder, if the award banquet is so immediate, why the hell didn’t someone, I don’t know, call her? Send an email? Something a little more immediate than snail mail a letter.
“I take it his science is sucky,” Bo suggests. “He’s a total fraud,” Doctor Lauren says without missing a beat. “Completely fudges radical numbers; it’s all over the message boards.” Ha! She grabs Bo’s arms and hands and literally dances in place as she natters that she knew they’d have to choose another recipient but never thought it would be her. “Well, that’s—radical!” Bo congratulates, finally getting her head around the doc’s babble to grasp that this is a BFD. The doc asks that Bo come with as her plus one to which she immediately agrees. “And see the sexiest scientist in the universe celebrated? Hell yes.” The doc squeals, she actually squeals. Bo tells her to go home and get “dolled up. Crack open some bubbly and we’ll hit the pre-awards cocktails at 4, settle in for the banquet at 5, and wait for the 6 o’clock acceptance speeches to begin.” Doctor Lauren jumps up and down in place—“yes we will! Yes we will!”—and then stops abruptly as she realizes this means she has to write an acceptance speech. She rolls out an epic poem of babbles as she hustles out of The Dal (drink!). “Oh my God, I need to steam my dress. I need a dress. I have to have a dress. Do you have a dress? (Bo stutters here “I—I—have a dress” but the doc doesn’t notice.) You should have a dress. We should both wear dresses at the same time. Together like. I love you!” she calls back as she exits.
Bo sighs heavily, further exhausted by Doctor Lauren’s mania and knowing that it’ll be even more hours now before she gets that nap, however exciting the reason for the delay. The camera pans across the room to reveal Tamsin idling in the corner by the pool table. I think she’s claimed that pool area as her own personal patch. “Well, well, well,” she scoffs. “Aren’t you two cute?” Tamsin has got her Goth going on, perhaps in an effort to fill the lack left by Kenzi’s absence (enjoy that week off!). She’s wearing a sparkling, possibly pleather black tank top that crisscrosses creatively across her back and shoulders. Her hair is braided back away from her face too, which accentuates her long necklace and fabulous dangling earrings. She looks more Valkyrie like than ever before. Sadly, she is partner-free this week. (Boo.) “Who are you all sparkly for?” Bo asks unkindly. Rounding the pillar, Tamsin tells Bo she’s taking her out to lunch and when Bo asks why Tamsin would want to do that, Tamsin says, “Because everybody’s been lying to you.”
In a Dark Fae bar, Bo looks at the tall Bloody Mary Tamsin’s set before her. “This is lunch?” she scoffs. “Tomato juice. Celery. Vodka,” Tamsin points out. “Looks like lunch to me!” I knew I liked this lady for a reason. Bo admits she always thought a Dark bar would be more leather and spikes. “With peanut shells on the floor,” she says, looking around for some. Tamsin’s eyes are working overtime with the reaction shots. “Looks like a Light bar to me!” Bo finishes. “Except more attitude,” Tamsin counters, dipping her celery stick in and out of the glass (NOT like that! Geez!). “We’ve got serious attitude.” One of your best qualities. Bo says that’s not what they’re there to talk about, is it, and Tamsin drops the ‘tude. “There’s a good chance you won’t make it through The Dawning,” she reveals. Bo is quick to counter that’s not what Trick says, “or Hale, or Dyson.” Tamsin leans forward to impart how serious she is when she snarls, “I have listened to them bullshit you all week! The Dawning…!” She pauses, glances around furtively, and lowers her voice. “The Dawning is the most brutal thing you will ever go through times infinity.” Looks like someone had a brutal rude awakening when she hit faeberty.
Bo wonders if Tamsin is just trying to throw her off her game, “because this is my life we’re talking about here.” Tamsin fervently insists that she’s trying to help Bo, though her reasons are less clear. Bo recognizes that Tamsin is genuine and thus must mean what she’s saying and that scares Bo—a lot. The camera moves to shoot them from the back of the room where a smug, dapperly-dressed man watches them as he sips his pint.
Back at Siren’s Speakeasy (drink!), Trick stares into a mirror and holds first one than another suit jacket up in front of him. “Or….the leather,” he wonders. Stella’s coifed head appears behind him in the mirror. “The leather,” Stella she advises warmly. Surprised and mildly embarrassed, Trick whirls to face her. Stella is dressed in a knock-out peach dress with another fur stole wrapped around her shoulders so it looks a part of the gown. Marry me, costume designer. Or at least move into my closet and transform my life. “When in doubt, always go with leather,” Stella adds. I APPROVE.
She moves over to The Machine as Trick hastily puts on his vest (which is suede, BTW) and she doesn’t look at all happy to see it. The Machine, not the vest. “Strange device,” Trick notes, frowning as he fastens up the vest. “Must be Hale’s.” He reaches for a dial, but Stella stops him. “I’ve seen something like this before,” she says. Why doesn’t that surprise me? “But never so complex.” Trick asks what it is. “This is Bo’s invitation to The Dawning in the form of a game.” Oh yeah? Who left it there for her? The same super Fae mail carrier who delivered Doctor Lauren’s letter? Trick looks horrified by this information. “She must have activated it,” Stella decides. The Machine goes whirl whirl chicka chicka bong bong hiss and lights up, startling them both. “It’s ready,” Stella declares. “The game has begun.” She says they’ll have to do it for her and Trick asks with alarm what exactly it is they have to do. “Play the game,” Stella explains with about as much enthusiasm as Trick exhibits. “Wherever she is, whatever she’s doing, the game will affect her.” Trick wonders what they should do. “Someone else has to play,” Stella says with a heavy dose of obviously in her tone. “Who?” Trick asks with the dread of already knowing the answer. “Her closest blood relative,” Stella confirms. The Machine makes more whirling noises and even steams a little. Stella backs away as Trick approaches it. “And Bo’s immediate future depends on you.” Oh that doesn’t sound ominous at all. Trick rubs his hands together like Indy at the Mayan temple prepping to switch out the Golden Idol.
OK, this is about to get confusing and by confusing I mean Choose Your Own Adventure meets Alice in WonderFae, so let’s just take a moment first and lay out the premise as I understand it. Bo is off with Tamsin living her “normal” life, but because she activated the machine before she left The Dal (drink!), she is now connected metaphysically to The Game it plays out for her. Were she still there, she would play it herself and, theoretically, the consequences of her choices would unfold right there in the bar. As she is not there, Trick, as her nearest blood relative present, must play it for her, and the consequences and effects of his choices on her behalf will play out for Bo in real life as she makes her way through the Fae of the Day case with Tamsin. That’s Choose Your Own Adventure. Handily, the people she meets along the way not only reflect the Fae of the Day case and Bo’s continuing interaction in the real and wider Fae world (in this case, the Dark faction), but they also are pieces The Game uses to play out her test and thus are symbolic for her journey to complete her “invitation” to The Dawning. Bo, however, does not know that this is the case. That’s Alice in WonderFae. Got it? No? Got tequila? All is well.
Back at the Dark Fae bar, Bo emotionally wonders why no one else in her camp told her any of the things Tamsin is laying on her. “Because they are trying to protect you,” Tamsin says intently, keen to get this point across. I very much like how her outsider status allows her to see what all the rest of them are desperately trying to hide from each other, even if for the best of reasons. As Bo whimpers (she hates being deceived under the guise of protecting her) Tamsin stresses that once Bo is inside the temple, “you have to know it is only you.” Bo asks the question that plagues her most: “What if I’m not strong enough?” Tamsin frowns. “You gotta—what’s that shit called?—self talk.” It’s Bo’s turn to frown. “What, like I’m powerful? I’m brave? …”used to live in a VAN down by the RIVER. No? Damn.
“Bo, right?” a stranger interrupts instead and Bo and Tamsin look up to see some actual frat boys standing next to their table, this one’s even wearing a rugby shirt. A little confused, Bo admits that it is she. “I’m Pike,” Rugby says, holding out his hand. I’m more than a little entertained at the whole “fan” vibe they’re working here. Hmm, tasty Meta snack. After a pause, Bo shakes his hand. “Gosh, I have waned to meet the unaligned succubus for years,” he gushes. Well, she’s only been in town for less than three, so… Tamsin watches this exchange with amusement. “Oh honey, if you’re trying to pick up, you’re going a little slow. Why don’t we just skip to the part where she says no and you can scoot.” She demonstrates with shooing hand motions which—ha!!
Pike says he doesn’t want to be a downer, but “my friends and I,” and, to their credit, his hovering friends step up to join him, “we were wondering how you can call yourself unaligned when you’re clearly Light.” Oh, Pike has a spine! And wait, what was that now? Did somebody actually call Bo on her bullshit about being unaligned when absolutely everything about her life is Light Fae connected? Show, I want to pat you on the head. But wait! Pike isn’t finished! Dude has a spine AND a pair! “And now you think you can just walk into one of our bars and play in our sandbox?!” he accuses.
In the back of the room, Dapper Dan watches this escalating conflict. He notes the back door nearby and starts twitching in place trying to get the women’s attention as Tamsin ponderously gets to her feet. Bo follows suit, looking between Tamsin and Pike because this isn’t her sandbox. Tamsin faces off with Pike and asks if there’s going to be trouble. “Something tells me we’re not in for a group hug,” Bo notes, warily eyeing Pike’s friends. She sees Dapper Dan in the back, but he’s hard to miss, waving frantically as he is now. “We’re gonna need a distraction,” she says in an aside to Tamsin. “Okay,” Tamsin murmurs, then swings a right hook that takes out all three Dark Fae in one punch. “That help you?!” she shouts as Bo takes off for the back door. Dapper Dan already has it open and excitedly ushers both women through it, locking it behind them. Outside, he raises a wooden grate and helps Bo jump down into an alley – say! I know that alley. Bo hurries halfway down the alley as several feet back Tamsin closes the alley door then inexplicably stops and turns to thank their rescuer. “Balzac,” he introduces when she hesitates. “Well, thanks, Balzac” she repeats. “I owe you one.”
“Excellent,” Balzac says and holds out his hand. For the second time in as many minutes, Bo hesitates and then shakes Balzac’s hand—as Tamsin rushes forward yelling, “No!” But it’s too late. “Crap,” Tamsin moans as Balzac snickers. “What?” Bo asks. “You said you owed me one and then you shook on it,” Balzac helpfully explains. “Softest hands! Do you moisturize?” Bo snatches her hand back, but Balzac doesn’t miss a beat. “But that favor, I’m really gonna have to call that in now.” Tamsin rolls her eyes and sighs as Balzac explains that Bo must help him find that which he truly seeks. Bo: “Once again—what?” “You made a deal with a Spriggan and it’s binding,” Tamsin clarifies with a sneer of how could you be so dumb. “What the hell’s a Spriggan,” Bo scoffs in return.
Back in the alley, Bo has been brought up to speed. “So I shook the hand of a dark pixie and now I owe you my IOU?” Balzac cheerfully confirms that’s it exactly. “I’m not exactly a rules kind of girl,” Bo points out. Or woman. “You couldn’t even walk away if you wanted to,” Balzac chirps. Bo tries to prove him wrong, but Balzac just keep flittering back and forth to block whichever way she turns. Guess he wasn’t kidding about that pixie association. “They all try that one,” he chortles. “They all try, but it never works though. But I love your chutzpah. But that favor—saving cookie? I really need it. But then you’re free!” he trills. I’m not sure if it’s a “favor-saving cookie,” or a “favor, saving Cookie,” but you feel free to move that punctuation whichever way makes you happy.
He points out that Tamsin, having made no binding agreement, is under no obligation to continue along with them. “What, and miss all the fun? Nah uh.” Bo asks after the favor and Balzac makes a face as we cut back to Siren’s Speakeasy (drink!) where a tiny plastic hourglass (so that’s where I lost that Boggle timer!) pops up from The Machine and turns over. Trick and Stella stand before The Machine with an ominous air. The two matching miniature Foe glasses attached to The Machine are spread equal width apart before them, a different simmering image displayed in each. “Whichever I chose,” Trick clarifies, “Bo will be affected.” Stella confirms this, and we now can see the glass before her hold the image of a padlock and key. “But each could either help her or hinder her,” she adds.
Trick murmurs that he can’t do this, and we can now see that the glass in front of him holds the image of a brick wall. “Bo is a descendent of your blood,” Stella reminds him. “Whatever she would choose would be a choice derived from you, therefore you already know the answer.” I don’t know about that, but whatever. Reminding him that there isn’t much time, Stella insists that Trick choose. He takes a deep breath, glances at each Foe glass, and turns the lever before the brick wall. Immediately the hourglass sinks back into The Machine.
Balzac yanks open a metal door and leads the way down a long staircase and I swear it’s somehow the same stairs from Caged Fae. Bo wonders how many sub-basements this place can have. “Well,” Balzac muses unconcerned, “Fang’s secret lair is very—secret.” Tamsin violently pings on the name. “Wait a minute—Fang? The Tong boss? That guy’s seriously bad news, dude!” Balzac cheerfully poses that with Bo’s succubus charms, Fang will be putty in their hands. “And you’re sure this cookie we’re rescuing from him is here,” Bo asks, skepticism obvious as they reach the bottom of the steps. Balzac listens at a metal door ensconced in—would you look at that. It’s a brick wall. “Yes, she’s very smaaalllll,” he croons and knocks on the door three times—knock, knock, knock—“Penny?” Kidding.
“All right,” Tamsin snits, “let’s do this.” But when Balzac opens the door, it’s to only find more brick wall. “Great. Bricks,” Tamsin sneers. Balzac scampers down the wall and tries the other metal door but to no avail. “What do we do now? Bo, you want to step in here,” Tamsin snarks. For her part, Bo has casually approached the wall and is stroking the bricks thoughtfully. “If Fang’s hideout is so secret, how did we find it so easily,” she wonders. She thinks there’s got to be a catch, but Balzac disagrees. “No, I don’t think so dear, I really don’t think so. I think we took a wrong turn at the pistons…” Ignoring him, Bo pushes against a section of wall…and a secret doorway detaches itself like a puzzle piece. “A ha!” she says quietly. “Excellent!” Balzac chirps.
Back in Siren’s Speakeasy, the foe glass with the brick image glows bright and Stella releases a breath. “Bo has succeeded,” she explains to Trick who asks what would’ve happened had Bo failed. “It would’ve turned black,” Stella says. “And Bo,” Trick asks is a deep, warning voice. Stella hesitates briefly. “The result would not have been good,” she admits. They exchange worried looks.
Bo and company emerge through the puzzle piece door. At the bottom of a ramp sits an Asian teenager stereotypically eating noodles from a China bowl. “The feared Tong boss is a teenage hipster?” Bo snarks, but Balzac warns her not to be fooled by Fang’s appearance. “Fang is as dangerous as his name suggests.”
In Siren’s Speakeasy, the lid to the steam pot portion of the machine pops open. “Oh,” Stella chimes in response. “It’s one of those kinds of games.” “And what kind of game would that be,” Trick sharply asks on behalf of us all. “The kind that needs to be fed,” Stella shoots back in kind. Trick narrows his eyes as two words appear in the opposing Foe glasses: FOOD and DRINK.
Bet you thought I was kidding with that Alice in WonderFae quip.
Stella tells Trick that he must again chose, and Trick turns the lever beneath FOOD and the image changes to a picture. “Yew berries?” Trick says. “Oh dear,” Stella returns. Trick hurries away, presumably to get the yew berries, and Stella sighs heavily.
Back in Fang’s Basement, the Tong boss is questioning Bo and company. He picks at his teeth with long nails as he tells them how admirable he finds it that they found their way into his not-so-secret hideaway and, with a wave of his long-nailed hands, invites them to sit at his table. His nails are all blue colored except for the index finger on each hand which is canary yellow. “You are very pretty girls. Mr. Fang likes you a lot.” He asks Tamsin to come work for him. “No thanks, Mr. Fang,” she replies tartly. “Not my type. “Please—don’t agitate him,” Balzac singsongs. Fang asks, “what’s your type, Blondie?” and Tamsin replies, “well, it’s nothing you’d see in the mirror…poser,” and Balzac grimaces as Fang loses his friendly guise. So! So much for not agitating the Dark Fae, though it’s nice to see she doesn’t play nice with either side of Fae, sort of an equal-opportunity insulter.
Fang pulls out a small gun. “What you gwai lo want?” he asks, pointing the gun at Bo. “Great,” Balzac gripes, “Now she’s done it. She’s agitated him.” But Bo has had enough and she leans over to take Fang’s multicolored hand and pour on the succujuice. “Mister Fang,” she murmurs, smiling. Fang gets that dazed look in his eyes. “You are so beautiful,” he gushes.
Back in Siren’s Speakeasy, Trick has returned with the yew berries—and he is pissed. “Yew berries are poisonous! They affect each kind of Fae differently.” Stella knows this. “Some they render senseless; some are inflicted with temporary paralysis.” Trick throws down the yew berries and refuses to comply, but Stella solemnly reminds him that he has no choice. Reluctantly, Trick drops the yew berry into the steam pot, whose lid promptly slams shut.
Down in Fang’s Basement, Bo is working her wiles on the Tong boss. “Mister Fang, you’re going to tell me where Cookie is, okay?” she says, stroking his hand. With a smug smile, Tamsin watches Bo work, flicking her gaze between her and Fang. Dazed, Fang moves his head slightly, enough for Bo to see the large, ornate Chinese box hidden behind him. She smiles with satisfaction. “You’re going to give me Cookie, and you’re going to be cool with thap.” Bo frowns and Fang comes back to himself. She smiles and tries again, but Bo’s tongue as gone thick, paralyzed by the yew berries and she garbles the words, causing Balzac to look at her with a hilariously surprised expression what was that now? Tamsin smiles thinly and leans forward. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asks Bo out of the side of her mouth. “I hab no idea,” Bo mutters, breathing hard. “Oh no,” Balzac mutters, and then with increasing alarm as Fang breaks loose and brandishes his gun, “oh dear oh dear OH DEAR!” Hee. “You in big trouble, lady,” Fang threatens.
Bo glances behind him at the chest. “Cookie’s ober there,” she mutters thickly to Balzac. Balzac: “What?!” Bo: “Ober there!” Fang, with no accent: “Stop talking!” Bo takes advantage of Fang’s being distracted by their bickering and snatches the gun from his hand. “Wrong move, honey,” Fang snits, though wary as Bo points the gun at him. “You think you can mess with the great Fang? You—are so—dead.” There’s a thwacking sound and Fang grunts…and falls face first onto the table to reveal a feathered dart sticking out of his back. Bo and Tamsin stare at it gobsmacked as Balzac dithers, “oh my! Is he dead?!” They scramble to their feet with no care for Fang. “We must get Cookie!” Balzac exhorts. Look, I like a good chocolate chip as well as the next woman, but this is getting silly.
The three Fae hurry for the Chinese chest and open it to reveal three fortune cookies displayed in tins, their ornate tops nestled before them in the felt. “Pick one,” Balzac orders Bo as she crouches before the chest. “Whib one?” she asks. “Your choice, Bo,” Balzac intones ponderously. Oh ho. Somebody knows more than he’s letting on. “Whib one!” Bo cries again. Another dart shoots out at them from the back of the room over the top of Bo’s head, which Tamsin and Balzac deftly dodge. Tamsin: “Um, does anyone else realize we’re being shot at!” Bo grabs the top in the center, plunks it on top of the middle tin, and yanks Cookie from the chest. They sprint for the puzzle-piece door. “What’s with the old-timey blow darts?” Tamsin asks and she and Bo run past Fang on either side without sparing him a look. “That—that is just Whitman!” Balzac calls from the back, noticeably less quick to flee as he keeps glancing behind. “He’s trying to kill me,” he singsongs as he follows them. “Oh lobley!” Bo shouts.
Outside, the three Fae careen around the corner around the corner into the graffiti tagged alley. “Wow!” Balzac says, settling into a quick march. “That was close, huh?” “What the hell is happening to me?” Bo asks, cupping her mouth to hold back the spit from her numb tongue. “Hmm? Sorry dear?” Balzac throws back. “What happened to me in there?” Bo demands, her tongue back to normal. “Look at you!” Balzac cheers. “You got your tongue back! Yay! That is a very good question. I have no idea.” Tamsin demands to know why this “Whitman guy” is trying to kill Balzac. “Because he has something I want.” Bo points out that Whitman is the one chasing Balzac, “which,” she says, grabbing his shoulder to pull him to a stop, “technically isn’t my problem anymore.” She hands over the tin holding the fortune cookie. “Here is your cookie, that which you seek. Done deal…and deal done.”
Balzac heads her off. “Ohhh. Except that isn’t it,” he croons, “that which I truly seek. No this only grants us passage.” Bo: “Passage to where?!” Balzac: “Oh here and there. Come! We must hurry! We have—to get—a prescription from the landlady! Forty minutes—tops!” He sets off at a fast trot and Bo and Tamsin follow…just as Bo’s cell phone rings again. Guess who?!
Bo scoops the phone from her boot mid step. Cut to Doctor Lauren in the kitchen of her flat, getting her champers on. She is wearing a gorgeous sea foam colored sleeveless sheath dress that ripples in all the right places and her hair is done up in an elegant twist. She looks stunning. As Bo answers the phone while hot footing in down the alley next to a silent Tamsin, Doctor Lauren spins, swallows, and cheeky asks Bo, “Why do chemists like nitrates?” Distracted, at first Bo doesn’t grasp the doc’s telling a joke. “Oh honey, I am so not the person to ask.” Already tipsy, Doctor Lauren giggles and repeats the lead in so that this time Bo gets it. “Oh it’s a joke!” Tamsin shoots her a side-look. Really?! Now?! “Oh yeah, why?” Bo says to the doc. “Because they’re cheaper than day rates!” Snort. No really, I dig a good pun and that was cute.
But crickets of a different kind greet Doctor Lauren’s delivery as Bo silently waits to get it. And? Irritated, Tamsin taps her wrist. We don’t have time for this. “And pause for laughter,” the doc fills in after a few seconds silence. She rallies to tell Bo how glad she is that Bo is going with her tonight. “I’d be such a mess if you weren’t there.” More than this? Bo breathlessly explains that she’s going to be a little late, “like 40 minutes” and the doc’s smile falls. “Forty?” In the alley, Balzac chimes in, “45—50! An hour tops!” Besides Bo, Tamsin’s shoulders drop as she silently moans at a further delay. Frowning, Doctor Lauren asks who Balzac is. Bo: “What?” Doctor Lauren: “Where are you?!” Bo lies and says she’s at The Dal for an emergency training session. Why she doesn’t tell the doc what she’s really doing is anyone’s guess. I mean, it’s not like Bo’s secretly with Dyson, so she’s still being a good girl and following all of Doctor Lauren rules. Tamsin shoots her a look as Bo gestures for the Valkyrie to precede her off camera. “Look, we’ll miss the cocktail hour,” she explains to the doc whose eyes close with disappointment “but we’ll make it in time for the banquet, okay? I promise.” So right away we know that’s not gonna happen. With a resigned grunt, Doctor Lauren hangs up without another word, gives a little groan, and then downs the last of the champagne in her glass.
Balzac, Tamsin, and Bo cross an open field and can we just admire the color accents on Balzac’s outfit, the red converse that pings off the red pocket scarf which calls attention to his loose pale grey cravat. Love. It. Tamsin asks how long they’ve been walking and Balzac negligently confirms it’s been an hour or so. Tamsin objects that he told them this entire thing would take another hour or so. “But it’s just one more stop and then we’re done, right?” Bo asks. Balzac breaks out the babbling cheer. “Oh yes, absolutely! We must meet the landlady and then use the cookie to gain entrance to Brazenwood. An hour—hour and a half, tops!” Tamsin grabs his shoulder and pulls him around. “Did you just say Brazenwood?” she asks, glaring, in her best lie to me and die voice. Balzac puts on this why yes I did, young lady, is there something wrong with that expression that fools no one as Bo asks what’s Brazenwood is. “Ah, only a dark and lawless territory where the fringe of society, lost souls, and brutally inclined to live and die!”
“Exaggerations!” Balzac objects. “It’s in the country! Lovely people. Quiet! Keep to themselves!” Clearly, you didn’t watch last week’s episode or you’d know that Bo finds such simple folk to be closed-minded bigots who are beneath her, but whatever. I guess these country bumpkins are of a different backwoods ilk. Tamsin gets into his face. “It is a hellhole and I am not going past the front gate.” Balzac is not at all ruffled. “Shall we?” he suggests, but Bo has had enough. “You lie about where we’re going, you lie about how long it will take, and now you want us to go to a dark and lawless place?!” “Where you’ll probably end up dead,” Tamsin adds with cheek. Bo tells Balzac she has to get to her girlfriend. “It’s a very important day for her and she’s very important to me!”
She starts back the way they just came but Balzac pixies his way around to block her path. “Except you lie to her constantly,” he accuses. “Not the healthiest relationship from what I can see.” FINALLY somebody gives voice to the truth about Bo and Doctor Lauren’s relationship! YES!! Bo glares at him and tries another direction, but Balzac blocks her there too and begs her to stay, “we don’t have time for this.” But Bo doesn’t care and tries again to leave. This time when he blocks her, Balzac insists that they must save Hannah and Bo hears him out. “Talk. Fast.” Balzac explains he’s a bounty hunter for the Demetrius School for High Learning, “a school that specializes in giving rare and outcast Dark Fae a home and education.” It’s Fae Hogwarts. He goes on that Hannah is being exploited by Whitman and he has to save her, “So please. I need your help.” Bo steps into his personal space and warns that he better be telling the truth. Balzac silently crosses his heart and claps his hands in a prayer pose, but as Bo shoves his shoulder and stalks back toward Brazenwood, a crafty smile whispers across his mouth.
The three approach a rundown trailer (of course they do) complete with a chicken poised on a barrel and the sound of large dogs barker. The sweet, wholesome, and kind country woman sitting in a lawn chair before doesn’t even jostle her stove-pipe hat when she yells, “Muzzle it, bitches” over her shoulder at the dogs. “You’re trespassing, she accuses, stubbing out her cigarette as Bo, Tamsin, and Balzac spread out before her table. Balzac goes into his spiel about how they are there for the prescription. The Landlady eyes him, and then Tamsin, and, surprising no one, finally fixates on Bo. “You.”
In Siren’s Speakeasy (drink!), The Machine whirl whirl chicka chicka bong bongs and pops the small hourglass up again before displaying two new images in the mini Foe glasses—nd infinity symbol and a pit on snakes. Say it with me: why does it always have to be snakes? (Twice in as many episodes for that one. Third time gets a drink! meme.) “Great,” Trick snarks. “Good choices.” You have to think twice about not choosing a pit of snakes for your granddaughter’s trial? Stella urges him to hurry. “I know, I know, I have only minutes,” Trick mutters, deep in thought. “Seconds!” Stella corrects with alarm and points out the sands in the hourglass are speeding up and so are the days of Bo’s life.
In the trailer park, The Landlady deals two Tarot cards before Bo and instructs her to choose one. Let me say right away that I know jack all about Tarot and thus am bound to get what follows epically wrong. Deal with it. “I hate this,” Bo snarls, glaring. “We’re on a busy schedule,” Balzac reminds her. “Choosing supremely sucks,” she tells him nervously. Three tins of fortune cookies, two tarot cards…. can a partridge in a pear tree be far behind? “Come on, hotpants,” Tamsin teases her. Oh, just bite me, show. That Meta has an awful flavor with a bitter wink wink nudge nudge aftertaste. Bo breathes audibly and tries to make a decision.
Agitated, Trick hesitates with a hand on each lever. “You must make a choice, Trick,” Stella insists. “Hesitating could kill her! Listen to your instincts.” Trick closes his eyes and takes a deep steadying breath. “Focus,” Stella says. “Do it!” Trick turns the lever under the Infinity image (duh) and the hourglass retreats.
In the trailer park, Bo makes her choice…and picks a third card from the deck to slap down in front of The Landlady. The Landlady grimaces, unimpressed, but as she picks up Bo’s card to reveal The Wanderer image, the music goes squirrely and her expression turns frightened. She looks warily at Tamsin and then Balzac before laying the card before Bo. Tamsin goes on alert. “Shit,” she says low and fervent. “No one ever picks…,” The Landlady swallows hard before finishing direly, “him. “ Bo leans forward to peer at the card. “They’re just cards!” Bo scoffs, unafraid. Freaked out, The Landlady looks away from her. When no one else says anything, Bo flips over first one than the other cards in front of her—both are of The Wanderer. Tamsin twitches in place and even Balzac is ruffled as, freaked now herself, Bo grabs the deck and haphazardly spreads it out on the table; every card features The Wanderer image. “Who are you?!” The Landlady demands to know. Tamsin reaches over and swipes all the cards onto the ground. “We didn’t come here to play games,” she snaps at The Landlady.
Tell that to Trick and Stella who sigh with relief as the mini Foe glass image of the pit of snakes fades to show that Bo has succeeded. But before Trick can fully smile, the top of the steam pot pops open and FOOD and DRINK appear in each respective glass. “Again!” he shouts and Stella confirms that he must pick one. “The last time I chose poison,” he reminds her painfully. “Yes,” Stella says unmoved. “That was surprising.” Trick is put off by her lack of emotion and abruptly pulls the lever under drink. The image of an upside-down martini glass appears in the mini Foe glass. Trick frowns. “Bo’s favorite drink?” Really? Because I’ve only ever seen her drink beer and down shots, but whatever. “No, her least favorite,” Stella corrects him. Trick thinks for a minute then nods. “One elderberry cocktail with nectar of gnome coming up.” Ugh. Even the name of it makes me go ewww.
In the trailer park, The Landlady has decided to attack. “I don’t like you,” she says, pointing a finger at Bo. “You’re trouble and my babies smell it. Now get out!” But Bo won’t leave without their prescription. Exasperated, The Landlady demands payment and, with another smug smile, Balzac produces a handkerchief tinged with pink. The Landlady snatches it from his hand and puts it to her nose. “These are some mighty powerful tears,” she observes. “Hannah is a mighty powerful girl,” Balzac says. The Landlady glances at Balzac, then grabs a waitress’s pad and draws an X through one of the pages. There’s a symbol at the top of the page of a backwards J with two vertical lines through its stem, a small circle and a sickle moon. She tears the page out and passes it over to Balzac. “Get her out of here,” she says with a nod to Bo.
But Whitman has found them again. He huffs a dart out of his…pipe, but Bo either hears him or sees his reflection in the metal wall of the trailer, I can’t tell which. Either way, she ducks in time and the dart instead shoots through the trailer wall to strike one of the dogs, who yelps. “Petunia!” The Landlady shouts. Heh. As Bo leaps to her feet, Whitman comes forward into view and we see he’s in full on Desperado gear complete with large hat, and loading up another dart. This one goes right into The Landlady who is immediately unconscious. “That’s our cue,” Tamsin quips, but Balzac resists when Bo tries to lead him away. “Balzac, we got to get out of here!” “Or maybe we have to get into here,” he counters, completely unalarmed. Oh, he’s totally the caterpillar here. “Stop talking in riddles!” she yells but Balzac insists that it’s all okay. He backs toward the door of the trailer, taunting Whitman along the way to come and get him. Whitman blows another dart and strikes Balzac in the forearm. Balzac collapses on the steps of the trailer but as Whitman advances on him, Bo finally pings on Balzac’s plan and hurries up behind Dart Boy. As Whitman cracks his knuckles in anticipation of a beat down, Balzac yanks open the trailer screen door and Bo shoves Whitman into the trailer…with the angry barking dogs. As Whitman yells, Tamsin adds the denouement by shutting the main door and Bo sticks a screwdriver through the hinge lock to keep it that way. Panting, Balzac leans against the rocking trailer (not like that!) and haltingly tells the women they must hurry to the Brazenwood. “Take the prescription and the cookie to gain entrance,” he instructs Bo, handing both over. Typically, Bo insists that she won’t leave him there but he says he will only slow them down. “But you have to get Hannah. I’m trusting you girls,” he stresses. He urges them to go and Tamsin grabs Bo’s arm and hustles her away.
The women run up to a large metal gate. With cookie tin in hand, Bo makes to push it open but Tamsin stops her and points out that it’s riddled with land mines. “We try to go in there without using the cookie and BOOM. Let’s pay the toll,” she says, turning back to the outhouse they just ran passed. Tamsin knocks the bell knocker. Immediately, jaunty muzak begins to play as a window swings open in the outhouse to reveal a small man in a dingy wife-beater top who is The Gatekeeper. Bo sets the cookie tin before him with a thunk, but when The Gatekeeper just stares at her, she reaches out, removes the cookie and breaks it open to read her fortune. “You will always get what you want through your charm and personality.” The Gatekeeper snickers and gets up to slowly push open the gate to Brazenwood. Bo steps forward, but turns at the entrance and holds her hand out to Tamsin. When she asks what’s it’s for, Bo reminds Tamsin that she said she’d only come as far as the gate, “so, thank you,” she adds, bobbing her hand. Tamsin smiles and gently clasps Bo’s hand to shove it aside. “Come on,” she says stepping past her. “When have you ever believed anything I’ve said.” Ha. Bo looks at The Gatekeeper, who is studiously staring at the ground, then sighs and follows Tamsin into Brazenwood as the gate shuts behind them.
Bo and Tamsin walk down Main Street, Brazenwood, which bears a striking resemblance to Deliverance. On the porch of a shanty, a burly man sharpens his large knife as Bo paints the town with last episode’s elitist brush. “So I take it this is a Bring Your Own Road kill kind of town,” she quips, nervous. Tamsin advises her to stay alert. “I have no idea how this will play out.” The burly man grins nastily at them as they pass by. “This is your world,” Bo points out as she stashes the fortune in her bra strap. “Your rules.” Tamsin says there are Dark Fae rules, “and then there are Dark Fae rules in Brazenwood. Not the same thing.” They pass a man in a cage out in the open. “Not the same thing at all,” Tamsin repeats darkly.
Tamsin and Bo walk through Brazenwood. Ooh-di-lolly, ooh-di-lolly. Golly what a day. “So,” Tamsin begins, “you want to tell me what all that Wanderer business was?” Bo is quick to turn the question back on her. “You tell me. You’re the one who was freaked out about it.” And still is by the look of it as Tamsin grabs Bo’s shoulder to turn her to face Tamsin. “Don’t—mess with me, Bo,” she warns. “If you’re hiding something…” But Bo doesn’t know what she’s talking about. “And if you want to go, then just go!” They’ve managed to attract an audience as a boy and man observe them from down the dirt path. Tamsin quietly mutters that she just doesn’t want to be there any more than she has to be. Bo takes a menacing step toward her. “I am late for (Doctor) Lauren’s thing. I am up to my ass in tumbleweeds and I am stuck here with you. Trust me, I want out as much as you do.” Tamsin suggests they get moving again. “Where to?” she asks as she walks away. “Well, we have a prescription!” Bo calls after her and follows.
Trick reenters Siren’s Speakeasy (drink!) in hand. (Heh). “Umbrella and everything,” he announces to Stella. Seriously, when has anyone actually seen Bo drink anything with an umbrella in it? “Umbrella and everything,” she confirms. Trick dumps first the paper umbrella, then the stick of fruit and finally pours the drink into the steam pot, which promptly snaps closed. Stella sighs heavily. “Well, let’s hope Bo can hold her liquor.”
Back in Brazenwood, the camera pans up on a donkey. Hahaha. That entertains me, because Bo is about to act like an ass. An accurate ass but an ass nonetheless. “So,” Tamsin chirps as, unnoticed, Bo begins to stumble a bit. “Now we just need to find the pharmacist.” Bo mutters to herself. “I love you. It’s not that hard actually,” she sneers as Tamsin continues with “or the pharmacy. Or anything with “pharma” in it. What is with you?!” she demands finally of Bo, finally tuning into her muttering. “I mean,” Bo mutters again and then throws up her hands and shouts, “you’d think that he would just tell me!” She spins loopily in place as Tamsin scowls at her. “I mean, you would think of all people, he would tell me!” Tamsin checks over her shoulder to see if anyone’s been drawn to them by Bo’s shouting. “Shh!” she whispers harshly and bends low to hiss, “who are you talking about?!”
“Um—Dyson!” Bo duhs. “He got his love back, you know.” WE KNOW!! AND NOW YOU DO TOO!! FINALLY!!! Holy CRAP—THAT WAS TOO DAMN LONG SHOW!! Ahem. “But does he love me?” Bo wonders. “Hmm? That is the question.” By the look on her face, she’s really worried he might not. Tamsin nearly laughs in her face. “The guy is—crazy moony for you,” she tells Bo with a sense of wonder. One gets the feeling that she’s never had someone feel for her that way…and kind of wants it. “You just suck at reading people,” she adds, her usual snark back in place. Understatement of the decade there darlin’. “I mean, you would think he would just man up and tell me! Right?!” Bo drunkenly slaps her arm down on Tamsin’s shoulder. “Guys are jerks, huh?” Sometimes, sweetie. Unfortunately.
Look, I’m pretty peeved that we got gipped out of a heart-to-heart conversation between Bo and Kenzi about what Kenzi was doing at The Norn’s (Freaking Norn!) and all the fallout. That’s a major slight against extremely patient fans who have sloughed through all the Bo and Doctor Lauren finagling with the hope of at least getting some emotional payoff between Bo and Kenzi. We know better by now than to hope for such a payoff between Bo and Dyson. There’s a better chance of unicorns frolicking across The Dal. (That is not a suggestion!) Instead, having wasted the first five episodes of this season predominantly (though not exclusively) on Bo and Doctor Lauren shenanigans, the moment The Norn (Freaking Norn!) business comes to a head—they skip to the end. Just like we didn’t get to see Kenzi come to terms with her temporary Fae status as a result of her rash but instead had it all explained away by her doppelganger post facto, we now don’t get the satisfaction of seeing the two best friends finally hash out all that happened at the end of season two that did not involve The Garuda, so much of which is centered around Dyson and his love for Bo...and thus her love for him. God forbid we spend more time than lip service requires on that!
Bad form, show. Extremely bad form.
That said I am so bloody glad Bo finally knows. It deserved a better reveal—Dyson deserved a better moment—we bloody well deserved better. But now that everyone is finally in the know…let’s get on with it. Alas, I fear we’re doomed to continue to get shafted (and not in a good way) in the land of Doccutopia on that front.
Meanwhile, back at the pharma, Bo has finally clued in that all is Not Right. “Wait, why do I feel so weird?” Tamsin peers at her. “Have you been drinking?” Bo frowns and then lifts her hand to her mouth as she tries to figure out what she tastes. “Elderberry smash?! How?” Tamsin pats her down. “Are you packing?” and Bo giggles, “that tickles.” She sounds the way she did in Confaegion which is nice character continuity for a change. “Oh no! No!” she says with alarm in a high, young voice. “I can’t be drunk! Not here!” Tamsin: “No shit!” Bo orders her to slap her and Tamsin does so without hesitation. “OW-AH!” Bo yells. Tamsin smirks. “Better?”
In Doctor Lauren’s flat, the doc pours the last of a bottle of bubbly into her glass, phone cradled in her shoulder. In Brazenwood, Bo’s mobile rings and, with a grunt, she wobbles on her feet as she fishes it out then smiles appreciatively when she sees who’s calling. “Hey Lo.” Doctor Lauren: “Pardon?” Doctor Lauren says as she wrenches open her fridge to get out another bottle. “It’s something new that I’m trying,” Bo explains as behind her, a resigned Tamsin waits. “Check it out: BoLo. It’s like our Brangelina.” Ya know I’d have more respect for you, show, if you’d just—erm—man up and go all out with “doccubus” there instead of (barely) hedging your bets, but whatever.
“You’re late!” Doctor Lauren accuses with a scowl as she fights to open the new bottle. Still drunk, Bo staggers to the edge of the road as she insists that she’s “so almost there.” Doctor Lauren asks if she’s wearing something hot, “’cause I look so sexy,” she sings. You do at that, doc. Bo leans against toys with the donkey’s mane as though it holds the mysteries of the universe as she swears it’ll just be half an hour more, “for realsies.” Doctor Lauren: “Half an hour! That’s like 1800 seconds!” She pauses. “I am like scary smart!” Well, it’s not Bakey Smurf, but damn close. Enjoy, guys.
The doc goes back to working on the bottle’s seal. “We’re gonna miss the food thing,” the scary smart doctor whines. Yeah, I’m being a little bitchy, but to be fair, they set that beat change up deliberately. Bo gives in and leans full on the ass. “Well, I am in the middle of something very important,” she almost slurs. “Oh what a surprise,” Doctor Lauren snarks. Wait that was Doctor Lauren? Wow. She grabs a tool (heh) from her junk drawer (Doctor Lauren has a junk drawer? I bet it’s organized) and bitches that Bo is always in the middle of something and it’s always important. It is her show, doc, though I can see how that might be hard to determine these days. She stumbles into the living room and collapses on the couch, bottle in hand, as she finally lights into Bo. “Bo, when is it my turn? I am always there. For you. And for Trick. And for Hale and—and—for Trick.” Let’s address them all in order, shall we? Um, no, not really but I’ll give you a few here and there. Okay, more often than not. That’s predominantly because you’re his indentured slave. And again, okay, more often than not. Got all that. Moving on.
Bo giggles. ”You said Trick twice,” she drunkenly mocks and then rallies. “And what I’m doing is very, very important.” Doctor Lauren takes her needle-nose pliers to the bottle (I approve. Needle-nose pliers are a woman’s best friend), as Bo goes for the jugular. “I—I deal with life and death situations and you deal with what? Petri dishes?” Wow, this episode is chock full of people finally speaking the truth about Bo and Doctor Lauren’s relationship—especially Bo and Doctor Lauren! We should go to WonderFae more often! It’s telling that these two seem to only be able to share the more negative aspects of their feelings to each other when their under the influence of something. But, whatever.
Bo’s words stop Doctor Lauren cold. “Oh, well maybe I should go alone,” she slurs, “it’s just a stupid human thing.” Again, she disconnects up without saying goodbye, unforgivably rude, from her standpoint. Realizing even in her state that she’s cocked this up again, Bo tries to stop her, but it’s too late. Tellingly, the moment their conversation ends, Bo becomes shockingly sober—and has the hangover to prove it. “Ugh,” she groans. “Wow.” She shakes her head carefully as Tamsin joins her and asks if she’s okay. “I need an aspirin,” Bo says after a minute. “Let’s just go find this stupid pharmacist,” she grits…quietly…and strides off blindly. But Tamsin shushes her again and tugs her back. “I already found him,” she tells Bo. “This way…Bar star,” she gibes in a low voice. Bo allows her to lead her down the dirt path to another shanty. This time, the grimy guy is in a lab coat and rocking in a rocking chair on the “porch.” As Bo and Tamsin approach, we can see that behind the shanty is a make shift shooting range with target silhouettes of…a wolf man? Hee.
“You come to dicker?” The Pharmacists asks as they approach. On a plank behind his head is scrolled Apothecary “We have a prescription,” Bo offers after a moment and hands it over. He examines the script with interest and then lifts up a medical bag from the porch. This is clearly Mary Poppins’s satchel as he digs into the bag up to his shoulder to extract a small key which he wordlessly hands over to Bo. She snatches it from his hand and climbs the small steps as The Pharmacist motions for Tamsin to wait. “Girl,” he says and as he looks her over, he jumps out of the rocker with excitement to get up in her space. “You’re a Valkyrie,” he says. She gives him a wry, knowing smile as he extracts some cuticle scissors from his lab coat. “Down boy,” she chides, amused. He snaps the scissors playfully before her eyes. “Just…one lock,” he asks, reaching for her hair. This is a nice callback to how she loses pieces of her hair whenever she goes full out Valkyrie on an enemy. She grabs his wrist, no longer amused. “Touch me, and you’ll be an appendage short.” Undaunted, he says, “Oh please,” as Bo opens the shanty’s door.
Inside is the crying girl from the cold open whom we now know is Hannah. Bo calls for Tamsin to come see her and as she joins Bo, The Pharmacists hawks, “my product is as fine as cream gravy. Take as much as you like.” The women enter the shanty and Tamsin closes and bars the door behind them as Bo calls Hannah’s name. “You're a Squonk,” Tamsin states with disgust as Bo hurries over to assure Hannah that she can stop crying now. Haltingly, Hannah denies this and Tamsin explains “It’s what Squonks do—but most don’t live to be this age,” she notes, puzzled. “Their tears are hot in the Fae drug trade.” Bo concludes that Whitman’s a drug dealer. Swift, that one, isn’t she? She tells Hannah that she’s safe now, “you can come with us,” but this just upsets Hannah more. “No, thank you,” she refuses. “I’m not going anywhere.
Carefully, Bo removes the tear extractors from Hannah’s face as she gently tells the girl that they have to leave this place. Tamsin watches as Hannah says that “Mr. Whitman tells me things about the world and it sounds awful!” Bo explains that he tells Hannah these things to make her cry more, “to collect more tears.” Hannah shrugs. “At least my tears make people happy.” Bo can’t believe how naïve this girl sounds. “But you can be happy too,” she explains. Hannah quiets down as she shakes her head. “No. I’m just a weirdo,” she says, “who makes people uncomfortable. Like her,” she adds with a glance at Tamsin, who is surprised to be called out. “Sue me,” she sneers. “I don’t like crying.” Right there with you, Tam Tam.
Bo tells Hannah that they have to get out of there, “and if you won’t come willingly…” She grabs Hannah’s arms to drag her out. Nice, the woman who insists on choosing the life she leads is going to force this defenseless girl against her will because she, Bo, knows better. Sound familiar? Fortunately, Tamsin is quick to stop her. “If you move a Squonk involuntarily they will dissolve into tears,” she explains. “Literally.” This is another reason why Whitman would lie to her about the outside world.
Bo backs away and just then, someone starts to force the door and when it doesn’t open, he growls. Hannah starts to cry, Bo jumps, but Tamsin merely closes her eyes and whispers, “Shit!” Heh. “Oh that’s Mr. Whitman,” Hannah says as Tamsin moves a large refrigerator already on its side over to block the door. “He is not going to be happy to find you here!” Tamsin: “Yeah! No kidding!” Ha! “Can we hurry this up please?!”
Bo goes back to working on Hannah as Whitman pounds on the door. “Let’s try this,” she says and grabs Hannah’s arm to pour on the succujuice. “You’re glowing me, aren’t you?” a startled Hannah asks quietly. “It’s okay. I’m used to people trying to con me.” Bo looks horrified that one, Hannah called it for what it is and two, that it’s not working. She immediately releases Hannah. “What?” she says breathlessly. “No!” But it’s true and she knows it.
“Look, I am not conning you,” she insists as Tamsin starts to pry at the planks of wood blocking the windows. She tells Hannah about Balzac, a nice man who has been looking for her. “He wants to take you to a school where you can be with others like yourself!” Hannah is more than a little bewildered. “Other Squonks?” Bo pauses to take in this sweet child. “Other kids who are just as exceptional as you,” she says with feeling.
Tamsin has found a crowbar and is struggling to remove the planks. “Could we maybe have this little love fest later?!” she yells back at them. Hannah is almost there and with a shy smile she asks, “will there be boys?” Relieved, Bo returns the smile and nods. “Super weird boys.” Tamsin succeeds in removing the planks as Hannah gives in with a giggle and allows Bo to help her off her stool. Hannah hurries over to Tamsin, but Bo hesitates, scanning the lab table for a weapon. Tamsin turns to help Hannah out and notices Bo’s absence. “What are you doing?!” Bo: “Just doing a little shopping. Tamsin takes Hannah’s hand as she tells Bo they really don’t have time for that. But Bo triumphantly holds up a wicked looking dagger. “There’s always time for an impulse buy,” she quips.
Outside, the two women and one girl hurry around the back of another shanty. They slow down as they approach the main drag. On the front corner of the shanty is a sign that says Sherriff and as Bo steps out into the open, a new stranger who looks like he just walked off the set of Tombstone (minus the red sash) steps into their path. “I’m your huckleberry,” the sheriff says. OkayK, no he doesn’t. “Well lookee here,” he actually says from the side of his mouth. “Scuttlebutt has it that you got in a dustup over a claim.” As he speaks, Whitman sidles out from behind him. With crossed arms, Tamsin stands in front of Hannah and looks mighty unfriendly toward the men folk. “Man here says you bilked him of a girl. He asks Whitman if Hannah is said property and with a slow turn of his head to look her over, Whitman nods. Guess he doesn’t merit a speaking rate in this episode.
“She’s no one’s property,” Bo snaps back, as this is a real sore point with her. “You can’t beat the devil round the stump about this one, little lady,” he rumbled. “Uh huh.” I—have no clue what that folksy bit of wisdom means. He announces they have to settle this thing, “Dark rules, like. So we can alls go home.” Aggravated, Bo strolls forward. Tamsin opens her mouth to speak and makes as if to pull Bo back, but retreats without Bo even being aware. “Okay,” Bo tells the sheriff. “What do I have to do?”
Back in Siren’s Speakeasy (drink!), Trick and Stella circle The Machine, waiting for it to whirl whirl chicka chicka bong bong something new. Behind them is the triptych of a silhouetted Queen Titania and her jazz musicians. Love that. The Machine does its thing and the hourglass pops up and turns over, displaying two new images in the mini Foe glasses. Stella catches her breath. “I’ve never seen an invitation do this before,” she says haltingly to Trick. “Do what?” he asks, wary. “Threaten someone’s life.” Trick looks at the mini Foe glass; one displays a skull head and the other crossed bones. The Pirates are coming?!
Cut back to Brazenwood with a shot of Whitman’s spurred boots as he chinks his way to his spot. What the hell is that in the background—Sloth?! Oh, no, it’s just Whitman’s seconds for the duel. The sheriff holds Hannah roughly as Tamsin and Bo stand side by side. Bo asks Tamsin to tell her again and Tamsin complies. “You’re smart, you’re fast,” Tamsin reminds her and then smirks at Bo, “and you’re a hell of a lot cuter than him.” This breaks some of Bo’s tension and steels her resolve. She steps out to face off against Whitman, who jerks his duster out of the way to reveal—ome really lovely leather work on his belt and holster. Bo freaks out, “Don’t I get a gun? He’s got a gun!” she shouts to Tamsin. He’s a desperado? What did you think he was going to duel with—an épée? Don’t matter if he’s haulin’ or not honey,” the sheriff replies around his wad of chew. “You draw with what you’ve got.” Bo exhales. “Shit.” Yup.
Whitman fondles his gun (not a euphemism!) and of a sudden, Bo remembers her shopping spree. She yanks the large dagger from her boot (natch) but as she wields it, Whitman suddenly splits into two. That’s his Dark Fae power?! He’s like an amoeba that splits in half to procreate and asks, “Was it good for me?” (That is my one science-related joke in honor of Doctor Lauren’s nitrate pun.) Hannah gasps as WhitmanTwo also jerks his duster out of the way to reveal—oh you geddit. “Oh, double shit,” Bo mutters. Think she’ll go to triple shits if he does it again? “The Dark don’t play fair, do they?” she snaps at Tamsin. “It’s not a Dark thing,” Tamsin denies hotly as she finally gets it. “This has to stop,” she tells the sheriff but when she steps forward, he grabs her by the throat to stop her. “No!” he grunts as Tamsin gasps. “No interference.” Bo glances between Whitman and Tamsin. “Oh, now what the hell do I do?” Too bad you don’t have a certain wolf man nearby as backup, but whatever.
In Siren’s Speakeasy (drink!), a scared Trick tries to make a decision as Stella advises him to concentrate. “Empty your mind of all thought. Clear your head. Focus. Trust your instincts. Listen to your gut, and—” “Stella!” Trick harshly interrupts her. “I mean this with all due respect, but shut the hell up.” HA! She makes a face, but complies. Trick takes a deep breath—and turns BOTH levers at the same time! Oh no! TRICK CALLED AN AUDIBLE!!!! Bad ass.
Back at High Noon Holler, we switch back and forth between Bo and Whitman’s narrowed gazes as they face off with one another. How does she see through all that black eyeliner? Whitman flexes his hand over the butt of his gun, but Bo hesitates and turns her head at the slight sound of feet approaching behind her. She smiles smugly. “It’s time to put that cricket down for good.” As WhitmanOne and WhitmanTwo draw their guns, Bo whirls around and flings her knife behind her—and right into the real Whitman’s chest. We know it’s the real Whitman because his sleeve is torn and bloody and there are scratches on his face from The Landlady’s dogs. Hannah, the sheriff, and Tamsin gape as blood spurts from RealWhitman’s chest complete with sound effects. “Shee-it,” Whitman groans—his only word of the episode—and Whitmans One and Two shimmer out of sight as Real Whitman does a full on death roll onto the ground.
Back at the Siren’s Speakeasy (drink!), the images fade from the mini Foe glasses (I guess; I can’t tell) and with joyful laughter, Stella and Trick embrace with relief…that quickly turns into an amorous response. “You have—quite an effect on me,” Stella confesses. “What if I did this?” Trick murmurs and kisses her. As they kiss, their joined hands brush up against The Machine…which starts to spark and glow.
In High Noon Holler, Bo shouts breathlessly, “We did it!” Tamsin leaps across the distance to plant a huge spontaneous kiss on Bo and all of the Internet melts down under the collective wail of doccubus fans. Seriously, Twitter practically imploded under the mania. I’m shallow enough to admit it was a little entertaining. Sue me.
Let’s be clear here: what happens to Bo in this episode is directly reflective of the decisions Trick makes. As he chooses to kiss Stella, their entwined hands connect with The Machine, and that action must manifest in some way in Bo’s environment—in this case by Tamsin kissing her. That both women are surprised by how much they enjoyed it is something else entirely. The moment Tamsin regains agency over herself, she frowns and recoils from Bo. So everybody just calm the frick down.
“I declare a winner!” The sheriff announces as Hannah jumps up and down next to him squealing. He tells Tamsin and Bo that they may take their claim and Hannah bounces over to the two still stunned women laughing. “Are we going to go past The Gatekeeper?” she asks excitedly. “I really like him. He’s so fun!” Bo stares at the girl as she regains her composure. “You know you really are a weirdo,” she snits. “Sweet,” she quickly caveats, “but a weirdo.” Never mind that the girl is laughing for what probably is the very first time in her life. Let’s be sure to shoot her right down again by calling her by the word she reserves for her lowest self. Huzzah. But Hannah is unfazed and with a flighty apology, dances around the women and runs ahead of them toward her freedom.
Passed out on her couch in her now darkened flat, Doctor Lauren is roused by a sharp knock on her door. Since when does Bo knock? With a disgruntled moan, she sets the champagne flute on her coffee table with an annoyed snick and slowly makes her way to the door. “Well it’s about damn time!” she yells with tears in her voice as she yanks the door open…to find a man on her doorstep. How often does that happen?
Hey, it’s Shawn Doyle! You just won an ACTRA award! What are you going to do now?! “I’m going to Lost Girl!”
Shawn Doyle tilts his head at a stunned Doctor Lauren and gives her a wry smile. “That we met?” he asks charmingly, offering her an out with her pride intact. The doc gapes at him. “Well, damn it, I agree!” he shouts in a teasing manner and takes a step into her flat. Doctor Lauren finally rallies. “Doctor Taft!” she exclaims and accepts his offered hand. “Please, Isaac,” he says with a smile and then gapes himself at Doctor Lauren’s opulent flat. The doc enthusiastically invites him in and immediately goes off on what a huge fan she is of his work on tissue engineered vascular grafts. So both AS and ZP get to work the fangrrl moment from opposite sides tonight. Taft objects that it’s he who is a fan of Doctor Lauren. Without any compunction, he moves into her flat and through her kitchen/laboratory, picking up and examining whatever catches his fancy. Boundaries! “You’re the reason I went to tonight’s science and technology snore fest.” Doctor Lauren snorts. “Was it that bad?” Taft: “Oh my God, the geekage was…stifling. But! I snagged you this.” He holds up a cloth wrapped package and, with a smile, Doctor Lauren unwraps it to reveal her award. How did he know where she lives now? I mean, I like him. Enough that he makes me wish Doctor Lauren was straight because it’s immediately apparent that they click together much better than Bo and the doc ever have, but even I would be epically pissed if the show tried to force that arrangement because—no. Just no. So…how’dja get her address again?
“Oh wow,” Doctor Lauren says, taking a moment. “That’s my name.” Taft smiles. “Yeah.” And they share a look of understanding as she thanks him for bringing it to her. Taft says he doesn’t want to impose but would like to take her for a celebratory drink. “I just want to get in that head of yours.” Doctor Lauren laughs. “You want to get inside my head?” But Taft is genuine. “Yeah, your papers. They blow me away.” Doctor Lauren is flattered and surprised. “You read my papers.” Taft says he’s read all her papers. “You make morphogenesis and RNA splicing sound exciting! I don’t know how, but you do.” He asks again for her to go with him. “I’ve got this bar with this mixologist who just kills it.” Oh, grad students must be laying down for that charm in droves!
Doctor Lauren smiles again at him. “Okay!” she agrees. “I’d hate to let my dress go to waste.” She asks for a second and puts the award down as she grabs her wrap and purse. “Hey Isaac?” she says, with a coy look. “Why do chemists like nitrates?” Taft leads the way out but pauses at the door to let Doctor Lauren go ahead. “Why?” he replies. “Because they’re cheaper than day rates,” Doctor Lauren delivers with a broad, pleased smile. Taft chuckles genuinely as he closes the door. “That’s funny!”
In Siren’s Speakeasy, Trick shuts his flip phone (really?!) and worries to Stella that he can’t find Bo anywhere. “And this game has been too quiet too long!” Stella takes his hands and quietly urges him to patience…just as the manic pixie rushes in. “Is Bo here?! I woke from the affects of the dart. I couldn’t get another cookie to get into Brazenwood and Whitman! He was gone. I think he’s going to try and kill Bo and it’s all my fault!” Trick gapes at Balzac. “Bo’s in Brazenwood!” he repeats with alarm. That’s it? No, who the hell are you?! Or, what the hell are you doing here?! Not even an irate if patriarchal what the hell have you done with my granddaughter?! All righty then.
But Balzac has noticed The Machine before him as images swim in the mini Foe glass to reveal—a comedy and tragedy mask respectively. Of course. “What does that mean?!” Trick wonders. “Something about happiness and yet…unhappiness,” Stella offers tentatively. No kidding, really? Trick: “Gee, ya think?” HA! I LOVE snarky Trickster!
Out of nowhere, Bo hurries into Siren’s Speakeasy (drink!) already yammering. “You guys would not believe the craziness that I have just been through,” she tapers off some as she recognizes Balzac standing next to her. “Hi,” she chirps with the bite of how the hell did you get here? Balzac nods at her happy again. “You’re just in time,” Stella intones with great satisfaction as Tamsin steps up next to Bo and Hannah hurries over to be silently greeted by Balzac. “In time for what?” Bo asks, decidedly less excited.
Hannah holds a shot glass to her eyes and to capture her tears and then hands it over to Bo. “Hannah’s tears are a source of both happiness and unhappiness,” Stella expositions as Bo pours the tears into the opened steam pot. The Machine gives its last whirl whirl chicka chicka bong bong. “And I believe we’ve reached the end of The Game,” Stella announces and Trick takes a deep relieved breath. Unimpressed, Bo asks what happens next. Stella: “Something most likely unexpected.” You don’t say.
Slowly, The Machine pushes up a wand with a horn on its end curved around on itself like an ouroboros It plays the opening to triumphant circus music and then with a pop, confetti erupts from The Machine, startling everyone. Tamsin gives Bo an are you kidding me look but Balzac and Hannah are having a blast. “Wha—that’s it?!” Bo snits as the mini Foe glass fold toward center to meet. “It was beautiful,” Hannah cries and Balzac puts his arm around her in comfort as he agrees.
Bo sighs and deflates, more than a little bit let down by the anemic result. Balzac clears his throat importantly. “Isabeau,” he addresses her formally. “On this day, in this place, you are hereby officially invited to…” he gives her a small bow “The Dawning. May your destiny be of your own choosing.” That is the premise here, yes. Hannah dabs at her eyes with Balzac’s red kerchief, and smiles a wet goodbye as he leads her away.
“So Balzac was my invitation all along,” Bo sums up. Stella nods, “and you passed,” she points out as Bo turns to face her. “Congratulations.” Smiling warmly now, Bo thanks her and looks at Trick who winks at her, proud as can be. Bo beams. “Thank you so much—OH MY GOD!” she shouts as she remembers the once-waiting Doctor Lauren. “(Doctor) Lauren.” She turns and trots out of Siren’s Speakeasy chanting, “oh my God” and “shit!” Left behind, Tamsin glances around the room and smiles awkwardly at Stella and Trick who gives her the raised eyebrows of don’t you have somewhere else to be? She clears her throat and strides off after Bo as Trick and Stella holds hands and beam adorably at one another. Trick’s gonna get some tonight!
Bo bursts into Doctor Lauren’s flat calling her name. Toldja she didn’t knock. Tamsin sidles in behind her unconcerned. “Guess she went to the banquet without you,” she suggests crossing the room to where the doc left the last of the champagne. Bo sighs dispiritedly. “And the award for worst girlfriend ever…” she snarks, eyeing Tamsin meaningfully, “…goes to me.” I still think the doc’s got you beat on that one yet, but you did abandon Dyson to his Norn-infected state with barely a fight, so maybe not. Also, whatever. Not noticing where Bo’s gaze has lingered, Tamsin tosses off that Doctor Lauren will forgive her and, unfortunately, she’s more than likely right.
Bo snatches up the invitation (I guess) and perches on the arm of the couch as Tamsin pours some bubbly and holds the bottle out to Bo. “Here’s to your Dawning,” she toasts. “May you not die.” Bo takes the bottle. “I won’t,” she promises. “You sure about that?” Tamsin snarks and Bo wryly admits that she isn’t. “Well, if I was a gambling woman, my money would be on you,” Tamsin offers and holds out her flute for them to clink the toast. “Cheers.”
Bo studies Tamsin warily. She’s seen beneath the tough façade repeatedly now. She knows there’s much more there than meets the eye. They both drink, Bo swinging from the bottle as she collects her thoughts. “Let me ask you something. You weren’t the one who made that deal with Balzac. You could’ve left at any time.” “Truth,” Tamsin agrees without expression. Bo wants to know why she didn’t and Tamsin chuckles sardonically. “You think I’d ever hear the end of it if one little hair on everyone’s favorite Succulette’s head was harmed?” And by “everyone” she means “Dyson” since that predominantly the one person with whom she has regular, intimate contact. “No. So, I decided to stick around, like-y or not.” Bo sobers somewhat. “Like-y,” she says with deliberation and Tamsin gets this beautiful, almost painful expression of stunned pleasure on her face as though the high-school quarterback just invited her to prom.
Bo gets to her feet and admits that she was wrong about Tamsin. “You’re one of the good ones,” she decides. Nothing worse could wipe the good humor from Tamsin’s face. “Well,” she says harshly taking a final swig from her flute. “You really do suck at reading people. So I—” She moves to touch Bo’s shoulder as though almost to hug her and at the last minute, weakly past her forearm. “I’d better get going.” Tamsin leaves with no further exchange, leaving Bo alone in the flat to wait for Doctor Lauren.
Outside, Tamsin rounds the corner of Doctor Lauren’s building, her truck in the foreground, but slows to a halt as she notices a Tarot card face down on the ground in her way. Ooh, I like the added texture of the owl hooting. She slowly crouches down to pick it up, turning it over with a sense of dread. It’s The Wanderer card again and, again, Tamsin freaks out. “No,” she murmurs. “No,” she says loudly, looking around the lot. “Please tell me she’s not the one!” she begs an unseen listener. In response, cards flutter down from the dark sky like snowflakes, falling to pool around Tamsin, each card displaying The Wanderer. In great distress, Tamsin stands amongst them, cursed with the knowledge of their dark portent.
End Credits
Next week: Episode 9: The Ceremony
Kiersten Hallie Krum writes smart, sharp & sexy romantic suspense. Find her snarking her way across social media as @kierstenkrum and on her web site and blog at www.kierstenkrum.com.
