Do you like Quantum Leap-style time travel body-jumping
stories? How about weird meta-threesomes? Werewolves? Boobs? Terrible French
accents? Of course you do.
This episode felt completely unhinged, but in a good way. I
genuinely had no idea where this plot was going, and the sheer ridiculousness
of it made me laugh my ass off several times. The whole thing revolved around a
pair of hellshoes? Hellshoes. HELLSHOES. I thought I’d misheard that when they
first said it.
Everything is set in motion because the Una Mens captured
Dyson, and Bo thinks it’s because he violated fae law by having sex with her.
The Scooby Gang captures a monk and Hale tortures him into revealing the truth –
it’s actually because Dyson murdered a ton of people in 1889. Fun fact: if you’re
a police officer you can freely violate civil rights as long as you take off
your badge for a few minutes. Notice how they made a big deal out of announcing
that they were interrogating an informant as they walked through the police
station? Then the monk killed himself after Hale sirened him. How did they
explain that to the lieutenant on duty?
It definitely felt like the stakes were high, since the Unas
were gleefully killing off extra minor characters. Trick brought in an oracle
named Cassie (which I assume references Cassiopeia, but that doesn’t entirely
make sense) to guide Bo into Dyson’s memories. There was some overly
complicated plot jibber jabber about red strings and constants and whatever.
The result of it all was Bo jumping into Dyson’s body in his
memory of himself in 1889, blending her own memories and perceptions with his.
Fun fact: La Fae Époque marks a return to fae pun episode names and refers to
La Belle Époque, the decades preceding World War I during which the flashbacks
take place.
Bo as Dyson was really fun for a number of reasons. For one
thing, her experience of Dyson’s past was infused with all the other
characters. Kenzi as Angel the bartender blew my mind at first, because I
recognized her voice before I recognized her. And wow did she rock that white lingerie. Vex turns up as the
effeminate prince, and Lauren stars as Flora the chanteuse. When Bo appears,
she’s shagging a pair of blonde farmer’s daughters, then escapes as the worst
CGI wolf I’ve ever seen after Trick randomly shows up in a robe with a staff.
Bo doing Dyson-y things didn’t feel at all unnatural. I never
got that “body-switch episode” gag feeling. It made me realize that Bo actually
plays a very masculine role in Lost Girl – or rather, a role traditionally
associated with masculine characters. She’s the rescuer, the romantic pursuer,
the badass who often turns to violence to solve problems.
Bo/Dyson hooks up with Lauren/Flora for a really freaky sex
scene. To begin with, let’s talk sideboob. That was so much sideboob I think it
transcended sideboob and was just actual boob. Actually, it was enough boob to
make it clear that everyone is wearing nipple covers, which I’m pretty sure we’re
all kind of bummed about. But let’s try to parse the sex: It was Bo inhabiting
Dyson’s memories screwing Lauren with Dyson’s memory of his own male anatomy,
but Bo perceiving her own female anatomy. What would that physically feel like
for Bo? I mean I get how two girls can have sex in a way that looks like that,
but to experience it via a man’s memories but aware of her own physicality, I
can’t quite get my head around it. Her self-awareness of the whole thing, even
watching herself as Dyson in the mirror, was crazy and weird and fantastic.
It was at this point that Lost Girl became the insane sex farce it’s always wanted to be. The
mind-bending plot and copious sex reminded me very strongly of Lexx, a show that was always the insane sex farce it wanted to
be.
So they bamboozle Prince Vex and steal the shoes, and Flora
puts them on to hide them. She immediately gets possessed by something evil,
grows wolverine claws, and goes on a really fast killing spree. Bo tries to
save her, but a creepy guy named Krater shoots Flora. Bo’s glitching memories
reveal that Dyson hid one of the shoes in his boxing championship belt (the
other one was given to Angel the bartender, who is also a shifter). There’s
some goofy plot stuff with Cassie and the red strings, but basically they prove
Dyson didn’t commit the murders and that everything has basically been a ruse
by the Una Mens to acquire the HELLSHOES.
We’re not totally done though, because there’s a little
postscript about Dyson and Trick teaming up to form a fae colony. Funniest damn
thing I’ve ever seen. On the street, Trick appears and says, “If you’re
interested, meet me in my prayer room at dawn,” then offers up a huge grin,
jauntily flips his hood over his head and jogs off. Find a gif! Then at the
prayer room they do some kind of La Belle Époque fist bump equivalent and… pledge
fealty to each other or something? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen better acting
while playing D&D. I think it was Dyson’s hurried line of expository dialog
that finally killed me: “Butyou’vebeengoneforagesmanypeoplethoughtyouweredead!”
I really loved this episode for how utterly and gleefully
absurd it was. HELLSHOES, everyone.
