Season 4 had myriad Big Bads, including one who seemed like a red herring but might not be? We discuss The Wanderer/Rainer, Pyrippus, The Una Mens, and Massimo before talking about some of the major themes of the season. We're joined by guest Melanie Killingsworth who is a writer and filmmaker who writes about television, including Lost Girl, at mehlsbells and at TVquila, and you can follow her on Twitter @mehlsbells.

This episode is the third part of our Season 4 review. Listen to the first part of our review about Bo's character arc and the second part about the other main characters' arcs in Season 4.

Drink Special: Shot in the Dark

½ oz Coffee liqueur
½ oz Coconut rum
5 drops Bailey's Irish cream

Pour equal parts coffee liqueur and coconut rum into a shot glass. Add a few drops of Bailey's and serve.

Quick Reviews

• Annie: Some things were good, some things were not so good in my opinion. I liked the Bo/Lauren stuff and Kenzi and Lauren's arc. I didn't like Bo's arc, and everything that happened with Rainer. I think the writing was overly complicated, and it was difficult to remain engaged when Bo was acting like such an antihero. But I loved how the season ended.
• Melanie: Almost all of the episodes were very good individually, but if you look at the story they were telling as a whole it's very disjointed. If I had to sum it up, I would say that Season 4 feels like Spider-Man 3, which had too many villains going too many different directions. (I'm not talking quality.)
• Kris: I agree. I really liked a lot of the episodes, but overall the season-long arc had some issues with pacing. More stuff needed to be revealed sooner or revealed more clearly. I have too many questions still. A lot of the characters have really strong arcs, but the show mythology aspect was confusing.
• Stephanie: I agree with both of you. I really liked/loved a lot of the individual episodes. Even after Rainer was introduced, I still really liked elements of many of the episodes with him in them. But as for the season-long arc, ehhh. Not great, in my opinion.

“I have to say i did enjoy Season 4 on the whole, and Lost Girl has been my favourite show consistently since it began, but some of the story lines just didn’t click this year.” – Amy

“It had some really great episodes and some good character moments but as a whole I found it really disjointed.” – Jess

“Season 4 of Lost Girl to me as a whole was by far the weakest and most poor executed season of Lost Girl to date.” – Brian

“Messy… we lost lost girl … lack of continuity.” – Beth

“I liked that the show tried something different this season, though I definitely thought that the results varied from episode to episode.” – darkrat

The Wanderer / Rainer

• Long, drawn-out reveal
• A lot of confusion in fandom about what Bo saw in Rainer
  • Yes, she would be motivated to help this guy based on his situation but not to the lengths the show suggests.
  • Was there a whammy put on Bo or Bo & Rainer?
  • The storyline could have been written so that the audience understood Bo’s motivations by introducing Rainer earlier
• Do we have the whole story?
  • Information given to the audience prior to “Waves” doesn’t seem to match up with what we see in the flashbacks in that episode.
  • What about the book Lauren found in the Darkhives?
• Will The Wanderer be revisited in Season 5?

Pyrippus

• Was Rainer just a patsy? Is Pyrippus the “real Wanderer”?
• Melanie has a whole theory about Rainer's story paralleling the Psyche and Cupid myth. She thinks Rainer has an evil side to him who was able to leave or project himself from the train and wreak havoc, like hiring Tamsin and cutting off Acacia's hand.

The Una Mens

• Events at the end of Season 3 led to their emergence
• Stephanie found them very creepy when they were introduced, but less so as the season progressed. Especially since they just let Kenzi and Lauren walk away in “La Fae Époque.”
• Function
  • Stereotypical emotionless counterpoints to main characters / human emotion
  • Stand-in for fundamentalist ideals
  • Enable things like uniting Light and Dark against common enemy, period episode, hell-esque set
• Melanie points out that The Una Mens made several storylines possible in the season, but they weren't particularly well-used in their scenes.

Massimo

• Check out our episode about Massimo.
• Melanie makes a good point that The Una Mens started out menacing but ultimately were easily defeated, while Massimo had the opposite trajectory. He started out fairly benign but ended up with all the power.
• But despite all his power, Stephanie just didn't find him threatening. Kris asserts that really only the scenery was in danger. From the chewing, you know. #burn

Themes

• Memory (Loss) — Everyone suffers from memory loss, though Bo and Tamsin experience it the most acutely.
• Captivity versus Freedom — “Let the Dark Times Roll” and “Of All the Gin Joints” focus on these themes very heavily, but we see storylines hit on this theme all season, especially Lauren's. We also see most of our main characters imprisoned at some point.
• Destiny versus Free Will — The prophecies at the end of the season especially hit upon this theme.
• Death and Resurrection
  • Massimo and Tamsin (and Vex's and Acacia's hands) resurrected
  • Rainer metaphorically resurrected from his imprisonment
  • Kenzi talks about how Bo can bring her back if she dies
  • The revenants and Laveau were also resurrected beings
  • Many secondary characters die/ponder and face their mortality
  • And, of course, Hale and Kenzi die
• Found Family — Tamsin and Kenzi are the most obvious example, but Bo talks about family a lot this season and we see her distance herself from Trick
• Power — The Una Mens want power, Pyrippus wants power, Massimo wants power, Trick supposedly banished Rainer because he held too much power

Arcs

• Getting memory (“In Memoriam”)
• Getting Bo back (three episodes, “In Memorian” through “Lovers. Apart.”)
• Wandering around while clues from Bo’s train ride flopped on their doorstep (four episodes, “Turn to Stone” through “La Fae Époque”)
• Delightful unrelated episode where characters process life (one episode, “Groundhog Fae”)
• Finally kickstarting the Get To The Train plot, and a mythology dump (one episode, “Destiny's Child”)
• Finding out what happened on the train while a delightful threesome has their own adventure (one episode, “Waves”)
• Bringing the gang back together, discussing prophecies, raising the stakes (via death) endangering then saving the world and various characters (three episodes, “End of a Line” through “Dark Horse”)
• In conclusion, the season was backloaded again, and Stephanie wishes that the writers would spread out the major storyline a bit more.

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