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It's Better to Burn Out Than Fae Away
For other uses of the word Succubus, see Succubus (disambiguation).
Lost Girl is a Canadian developed and produced television series which premiered in the 2010 season on the television channel Showcase.
For further on Bo, the succubus of the series, see her article in the SuccuWiki here. For the series itself, see that article here. For a general discussion of Succubi and their mythos in the series, see that article here.
It's Better to Burn Out Than Fae Away was the sixth episode of the second season of the series, and the nineteenth overall episode of the Canadian television series Lost Girl. It was first shown on the Showcase Television Channel in Canada on October 30th, 2011 at 9 PM Eastern time.
Production Data
- Series: Lost Girl
- Season: 2
- Episode Number: 6 (19th Overall)
- Episode Title: It's Better to Burn Out Than Fae Away
- Directed by: Gail Harvey
- Writing credits: Steve Cochran
- Production Company: Prodigy Pictures
- Running Time: 60 Minutes (Including Commercials)
- Country of Origin: Canada
- Originally Aired on: October 30th, 2011 on the Showcase Television Channel in Canada
- Number of Canadian Viewers: 285,000
Cast
| Actor / Actress | Role |
|---|---|
| Anna Silk | Bo |
| Ksenia Solo | Kenzi |
| Richard Howland | Trick |
| K.C. Collins | Detective Hale |
| Zoie Palmer | Lauren |
| Vincent Walsh | The Ash |
| Paul Amos | Vex |
| Athena Karkanis | Lauren's Girlfriend (Uncredited as such in this episode) |
| Emmanuelle Vaugier | The Morrigan |
| Katie Boland | Bianca |
| Dewshane Williams | Jason Gaines |
| Marty Adams | The Eye |
| James Cade | Tryst |
| Steve Lund | Rockstar |
| Nahanni Johnstone | Dominatrix |
| Kenneth Wickes | Old Man |
Plot
Short Summary
The Morrigan hires Bo to locate an artist that has been painting murals of the Dark Fae, specifically her, Vex, and a vampire that Vex killed earlier in the series all over the town. In doing so, Bo becomes involved in what appears to be a power struggle between the Morrigan and Vex. Bo finds the artist and returns him to the Morrigan, but things do not add up and Bo discovers that one of the Morrigan's assistants was attempting to kill both the Morrigan and Vex, taking power for herself. In the end, the plot is stopped when the assistant is confronted and kills herself. The Ash arrives at Bo's home and after threatening Kenzi, commands Lauren to return to him and in doing so oversteps his bounds. When Bo returns, she and Lauren become intimate, and Kenzi is faced with a repeat of what happened when Dyson and Bo first slept together. As a reward for her assistance, the Morrigan gives Bo a means to free Lauren, but in doing so, Bo discovers that Lauren has a girlfriend. At the end of the episode, Lauren is seen talking to her girlfriend, who is encased in a pod-like capsule in a laboratory somewhere.
Detailed Summary
The episode begins with Bo (Anna Silk), Kenzi (Ksenia Solo), and Lauren (Zoie Palmer) sitting together in the kitchen at Bo's home. Lauren is regaling the other two women with a story about her prom and the disaster it was. Kenzi is listening, but doesn't seem to really want to be there as Bo is hanging on every word that Lauren says. The scene then shifts to an alleyway somewhere in the city where an artist is tagging a wall with a spray can of paint. An older man (Kenneth Wickes) approaches him and berates him for painting on the wall. After taking a better look at the mural, a scorpion's tail emerges from behind the old man and it knocks the can from the artist's hand. He demands to know why the artist is painting it and the answer he receives is the artist shooting him with a shotgun. The actual blast of the gun is not shown, but a clear image of the mural is however. That mural shows Vex (Paul Amos) killing a vampire. The incident the artwork portrays is from the first season episode Vexed.
Coming back from the opening credits, we see Lauren and Bo sitting on the couch in Bo's home. They are watching television it seems together. Lauren attempts to get comfortable and nudges Bo with one of her feet. Bo offers to let Lauren stretch out, and she does so placing her legs on top of Bo's, her body facing Bo as well. Lauren and Bo attempt to get comfortable but Kenzi comes into the room startling them both and asks Bo to join her in the kitchen to look for a rat. When Bo comes over to talk to Kenzi, she insists that the relationship she has with Lauren is "platonic," but Kenzi isn't interested in that. What she is worried about is that she and Bo are harbouring a fugitive from the Ash which concerns Kenzi a lot. Lauren hears what Kenzi is saying and looks over to her and Bo, but does not come over to talk to them about Kenzi's concerns. Bo tries to assume Kenzi that she will come up with something clever to solve the issue, but at the moment she hasn't a clue what that would be. Lauren in the meantime, has looked away, but the concern can be seen on her face as Kenzi and Bo continue to talk. Bo comments that she liked it better when she was the "Mom" and Kenzi replies that she was never the "Mom."
We then see the Morrigan (Emmanuelle Vaugier) at her office elsewhere in the city. She is talking to her assistant Bianca (Katie Boland) about various things when she enters her main office and finds Vex sitting there waiting for her. He confronts her with the news that one of her artists is painting images around the city, one of those being his murder of a vampire at the Morrigan's orders. He also tells her that Scorpion Man is dead as well, referring to the old man that the artist had killed in the alleyway at the beginning of the episode. Vex then calls out the name "Jason" which refers to the artist Jason Gaines (Dewshane Williams) we saw earlier. The Morrigan barely tolerates this, but when Vex suggests that she gave Jason secret information while she was intimate with him pushes her over the edge and she shouts at him to be quiet. After telling Vex that if he crosses her he will have more problems than his petty local concerns, Vex tells her that he would never do so and he remains loyal to her. She then tells Vex that she will find the leak and that Jason will get what he deserves. Vex asks that he be allowed to interrogate Jason, but the Morrigan replies sardonically that she "would like a Dragon to heat my pool." Vex then leaves the office and moments later the Morrigan throws items from her desk in frustration before ordering Bianca to clean up the mess in her office. As Bianca does so, the Morrigan asks if she thinks that Vex is happy in his position in the Dark Fae. Bianca answers that it is possible that Vex might be trying to overthrow the Morrigan and take her position to further his own gains. Bianca is then ordered to get her coat and fetch something for the Morrigan.
Meanwhile, back at Bo's, Lauren and Bo are watching television with Kenzi positioning herself between the two of them. There is a knock at the door and Bo answers it to find Bianca standing there asking if Bo could come to a meeting with her employer. We return to the Morrigan in her office talking to a rock star (Steve Lund) attempting to persuade him to sign a contract with her. He refuses her and attempts to leave, but Bianca touches his hand and makes a suggestion to him. In doing so, she reveals herself to be a Fae as there is a similar effect to Bo's feeding where she touches him. It is not the same colour however which indicates that she is not a succubus like Bo. After Bianca releases him, the rock star signs the contract that the Morrigan had offered him which takes away all of his royalties, something that he was unwilling to sign moments before. After the man leaves, the Morrigan then berates Bianca for making a mistake in her appointment schedule that the Morrigan needed to fix herself. Bianca leaves and Bo comments that she's happy that she didn't join the Dark Fae after seeing how Bianca is treated. The Morrigan scoffs at this noting that she feels that Bianca is irreplaceable. That is because Bianca is an Italian Fae called a Seniatta which has the power to alter the inner motivations of humans. When asked why she treats Bianca so poorly, the Morrigan insists that she has to otherwise Bianca becomes lazy. After offering Bo one as a signing bonus to join the Dark Fae, which Bo refuses, she then comes to the reason why she called Bo to her office. The task she sets for Bo is to find the artist Jason Gaines and return him to her. The Morrigan also reveals that the man Jason had killed earlier in the episode was a Dark Fae elder as well. After Bo asks why her, it is also revealed that the Morrigan thinks there is a leak in her organization and she does not know who to trust which leaves Bo as the only option. When Bo refuses to take the job, the Morrigan also reveals that she is in love with Jason, which results in Bo taking the case.
Returning from commercial, Bo and Kenzi are at The Dal Riata talking to Trick (Richard Howland). He attempts to dissuade Bo from taking the case, but in the end explains some things to her. Trick explains that the Morrigan is a Leanan Sidheand that these Fae seductresses attach themselves to artists of all kinds, make them famous, and feed off them driving them slowly insane and causing their premature deaths. Trick calls them "Evil Muses." Kenzi asks if any popular rock stars have ever dated any of these Fae and Trick's answer is "No comment." Bo and Kenzi then leave but not before Trick warns them that Jason may be completely unstable and dangerous. The scene switches to Bo and Kenzi looking at the place where Jason had painted the mural of Vex. The painting itself has been painted over and over the course of their conversation, Kenzi reveals that she knows several taggers. More importantly, she knows one who's work was painted next to Jason's work. Kenzi calls them a complete asshole, but takes Bo to them. As they leave, Vex appears out of the shadows and follows the pair. They find the artist, who's name is Tryst (James Cade) moments later and he attempts to declare his love for Kenzi which she rebuffs very quickly as there really wasn't anything that went on between them. Kenzi asks him if he has seen Jason, and Tryst tells them that he hadn't seen Jason much since he became famous. He does mention that Jason has been acting strangely the times he had seen him and that his art had become very strange in that he was making murals that did not fit his usual works. Bo and Kenzi leave to continue their search, but Tryst tries to get Kenzi to agree to having him paint her. She refuses him... again.
Bo and Kenzi return to Trick, Kenzi asks for something to erase the last fifteen minutes of her life to which Trick replies, "Tequila." Bo tries to figure out what exactly is going on. They know that Jason is going crazy due to the Morrigan's influence, and that he is painting Dark Fae secrets out in the open, but they don't understand why he is doing so. Kenzi suggests that he might be doing so as a warning to other artists to keep away from the Dark Fae, but Bo thinks this is unlikely. Kenzi's phone then rings and she is devastated to see that it is Tryst calling her. Bo takes the call and learns that Jason had appeared and Tryst tried to talk to him, but the end result was Tryst getting hit in the nose with the butt of a shotgun. They also learn that Jason was last seen running in the direction of the West End, where he first started his art. Tryst attempts to get Bo to have Kenzi help him "as a sexy nurse." But they hang up on him and rush off to find Jason. We next see Bo and Kenzi walking down yet another alleyway, Bo complaining about artists not creating their art in spas or cleaner places, and Kenzi noting that she thinks that Bo just want to go home and be "platonic" with Lauren. Bo admits that it's hard not to take advantage of Lauren being there, that Dyson isn't around because he is "holder up with the most beautiful example of a Fae", and the Morrigan is in love and she, Bo, is "trudging through old cabbages." The pair turn a corner and discover Jason tagging a wall with another piece of art. They try to talk to him, but he aims his shotgun at them and takes a shot, barely missing them. He attempts to run away, but Vex confronts him and takes control of Jason's body stopping him in his tracks. Bo interrupts Vex, takes the shotgun away, and then finds herself being attacked by him. As Vex does so, Jason picks up the weapon and runs off. Vex then takes control of Bo's body and is about to force her to poke her own fingers into her eyes when Kenzi appears behind him and places a long knife between his legs. She warns him that he can try to control her, but she will remove something he wants to keep and if he doesn't let go of Bo, she'll do it anyway. Vex releases Bo and tells the two of them to follow him to The Dal Riata where the first drinks "are on me." As they walk past the place where Jason had been creating his art, Bo notices that he was painting an image of the Morrigan with a dagger in her hand and takes a picture of it. The three are then seen sitting at a table at The Dal Riata. Vex hands out drinks and demands to know why they are involved in a Dark Fae investigation. Bo tells Vex that the Morrigan hired her to find Jason alive. Vex responds that he was having some fun with Jason in the alley before interrogating him. When Bo asks why Vex cannot wait until she brings Jason to the Morrigan, Vex explains that he knows that the Morrigan is scared of him because he is more popular among the Dark Fae elders than she is and that she could well be behind the entire plot in order to get rid of him. He then offers Bo a huge amount of money if she will turn over Jason to him instead of the Morrigan. When Bo tells Vex that she will not help him kill Jason, he assures her that he will not kill him. He will see if his suspicions are correct and then turn Jason back over to Bo and she can take him to the Morrigan, along with being "able to afford a place with walls." Vex finishes his drink and then leaves without another word to Bo or Kenzi. After Vex leaves, Bo asks Kenzi what she thinks about the new work they found. They try to figure out if the work is of something that has happened, or if it is something that will happen. In the end, Bo tells Kenzi to go home, and she leaves to talk to the Morrigan again.
The next scene is of Lauren in Bo's home using a laptop computer to check on something. Kenzi enters the room, sits beside her and then tells Lauren exactly what she thinks about her. She thanks Lauren for helping Bo with Aife, berates her for having sex with Bo at the orders of the Ash and breaking Bo's heart. Kenzi then gives her a warning that if she should ever hurt Bo again, her body will be found in an unmarked grave with a massive head injures inflected by a woman who's name rhymes with Friendzy, Lauren tells her that she understands the "whole best friend thing", but trying to be the only human in Bo's life is selfish. They are interrupted by pounding at the front door and Kenzi opens it to find the Ash (Vincent Walsh) and a pair of thugs. They enter and the Ash demands to know where Lauren is. Kenzi attempts to protect Lauren by claiming that she has no idea. The Ash comments that he hope that Bo keeps her "as a pet on a short leash" as there are "some humans that need to be put down." When she comments that there are a few Fae that she would like to see put down, one of the thugs lifts her into the air by the throat and she starts choking. Lauren then appears from where she had been hiding from the Ash and tries to save Kenzi. Lauren tells the Ash that he is overstepping his boundaries by attacking "Bo's human" and he is aware of it. He replies that it is the smallest wisp of respect for Bo's territory that keeps him from dragging Lauren out by her hair. He then gives her 24 hours to return or "I'll pull the plug on your special research project." Lauren tells him that she will be there and he leaves after having Kenzi released by the thug that was choking her throughout their conversation. After the Ash leaves, Lauren tries to apologize but all Kenzi asks is if she is really going to go back to him. Lauren's answer is silence. We next see Bo taking a call from Kenzi about what just happened and then entering the Morrigan's office to find her sitting in a chair with Bianca placing shoes on the Morrigan's feet. After Bianca leaves, Bo tells the Morrigan that she is off the case, that she has more important things to do and she won't help the Morrigan slowly kill Jason. When Bo also confronts her about what Vex offered her in exchange for Jason, the Morrigan agrees that Bo should drop the case. But then she offers a means for Bo to remove the hold that the Ash has over her in exchange for bringing Jason to her.
After another commercial break...
Questions in this Episode
- Can any Dark Fae actually tell the truth or is this a common trait of their kind?
- How long does it take for the Morrigan to kill an artist or drive them insane?
- Assuming that she does so regularly in a manner similar to Bo, wouldn't most artists not want anything to do with her?
- How long does the effect of a Seniatta last?
- Do they have any effect whatsoever on other Fae?
Answers in this Episode
- There are myths about Scorpion Men. They are featured in several Akkadian language myths, including the Enûma Elish and the Babylonian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh. They were also known as aqrabuamelu or girtablilu. Further information can be found here.
- It was teased in a series of spoilers at Comic Con 2011 that the Morrigan owns a record label and feeds off the energy of young artists which eventually kills them. This was confirmed in this episode, although it is more accurate to say that she is an agent for artists of all kinds as Jason is a painter.
- The Morrigan is a Leanan Sidhe. In the Lost Girl universe, these Fae seductresses attach themselves to artists of all kinds, make them famous, and feed off them driving them slowly insane and causing their premature deaths. Trick calls them "Evil Muses." There are in fact such beings in Celtic folklore. The leanan sídhe is generally depicted as a beautiful muse, who offers inspiration to an artist in exchange for their love and devotion; however, this frequently results in madness for the artist, as well as premature death. You can find out more about this myth here.
- Bianca is called a Seniatta, which is described as an Italian Fae that has the power alter the inner motivations of humans. There is no direct connection to any one particular popular myth however. It is possible that they may be connected in some way to succubi in the Lost Girl universe.
- Bo comments in the episode that Dyson is with Ciara and that he hasn't been seen since she appeared.
Episodes
For a more detailed list see: List of Lost Girl episodes, or click on the individual episode titles for more in depth articles.
Season One Episodes
Episode 1: It's a Fae, Fae, Fae, Fae World
Episode 2: Where There's a Will, There's a Fae
Episode 3: Oh Kappa, My Kappa
Episode 4: Faetal Attraction
Episode 5: Dead Lucky
Episode 6: Food for Thought
Episode 7: ArachnoFaebia
Episode 8: Vexed
Episode 9: Fae Day
Episode 10: The Mourning After
Episode 11: Faetal Justice
Episode 12: (Dis)Members Only
Episode 13: Blood Lines
Season Two Episodes
Episode 1: Something Wicked This Fae Comes
Episode 2: I Fought the Fae (And the Fae Won)
Episode 3: Scream a Little Dream
Episode 4: Mirror, Mirror
Episode 5: BrotherFae of the Wolves
Episode 6: It's Better to Burn Out Than Fae Away
Episode 7: Fae Gone Wild
Episode 8: Death Didn't Become Him
Episode 9: Original Skin
Episode 10: Raging Far
Episode 11: TBA
Episode 12: Masks
Episode 13: TBA
Episode 14: Midnight Lamp
Episode 15: TBA
Episode 16: School's Out
Episode 17: TBA
Episode 18: TBA
Episode 19: TBA
Episode 20: TBA
Episode 21: TBA
Episode 22: TBA
References
Episode Review on Succubus.Net
Tera, the owner of this website, posted a review of this episode on her Blog, A Succubi's Tale on Friday, November 4th, 2011. You can find that review here. She gave it ???????? pitchforks out of 5.