Contributor: Bronzethumb
Written by Steve Cochrane
Directed by Steve DiMarco
After a spotty lead-up, “Lost Girl” is ready to launch into its big end-of-season conflict between Team Bo and the Garuda. But after too many episodes where not much happened, the writers have gone too far in the other direction and tried to cram too much into this first part of the big conclusion. The result is an episode the jumps around like a jittercam; every genuinely fantastic element is shoved roughly against some weakness of plot or presentation. The episode makes an impact, but not nearly as much as it could have.
The Garuda makes its first overt move against Trick and his allies just as Dyson returns to challenge Bo’s claim as the champion of the good guys in the coming battle. There’s a sense of Big Things Happening right from minute one when bad guys bust into the Dia and violate the Fae rules we’ve come to learn by rote over the past couple seasons, and that sense never quite fades. It’s one of the best things about the episode: the audience feels like there are high stakes and characters are in jeopardy.
There’s certainly a lot happening, far more than one sees in a typical “Lost Girl”. There haven’t been so many regular and supporting characters gathered together in a long time, and not all of them make it out of danger in one piece. There’s a fair amount of the blood and fighting action, and more of the other kind of action “Lost Girl” is known for than we’ve seen in a while. Some of the show’s best CGI shows up when we get to meet the Garuda, who’s a little hard to get a read on at first but settles into a fun, suitably villainous persona.
We got to see new sides of certain characters, and old sides of others that have been absent for too long. It’s nice to be reminded that Trick is a one of the strongest Fae in the known universe, or that Lachlan can still be as dark, morally-ambiguous and downright fun to watch as he was in the first half of the season. We also get one of the excellent Zoie Palmer’s best performances as Lauren deals with her grief on the heels of the previous episodes: the character is scattered and dazed and unbearably sad, but Palmer keeps it all part of a consistent arc and her scene with Bo at the episode’s midpoint is one of the standout moments.
Where things get really problematic is as the episode goes on and tries to pack more and more into the running time without the proper context or emotional grounding. “Lachlan’s Gambit” stops being a story and becomes an anthology of scenes, a sequence of things happening for the sake of happening. The audience loses whatever connection they’ve had to the episode, which becomes especially problematic when it does start putting characters in danger and trying to ratchet up the viewers’ sympathies or increase the tension. Narrative flow grinds to a standstill. We simply stop caring. Worse still are the poor attempts at surprising the audience, because every big movement is heavily telegraphed and anything that’s supposed to be quasi-mysterious doesn’t seem mysterious at all. Part of it can be attributed to the in-universe stupid decisions of certain characters, but for the most part, blame lands square at the writer’s feet.
When the stakes are high, viewers want to move past the comfortable place where they know what’s coming and into the realm of shock and awe, but this episode is bogged down in the known and can be a bit of an exercise to watch. But there’s still a lot to like, both fresh new elements and old ones sorely missed. There’s more than enough to keep viewers interested during those boggy bits, but with a leaner, sharper script, this could’ve been the best “Lost Girl” yet. As is, it’s simply one of the biggest and messiest.
Score: 7/10