seriousfic

First off, I gotta say that Ksenia Solo did a pretty good job with Inara, both making her recognizably Dark Kenzi while also being this spazzy, pathetic, sadistic, and even somewhat sympathetic figure. Even if the resolution to the Freaky Rash Arc (itself a disappointing resolution to the Norn Arc—“Hey, unknowable cosmic entity, do as I say… or else VIOLENCE!”) was disappointingly the kind of thing that just could’ve arisen out of the blue, with Kenzi getting body-snatched while crossing the street, the execution was well-done… aside from the stupidity that one must expect from LG in all areas but boobs and abs.

Namely, that Bo immediately goes into never-watched-a-movie-before-non-genre-savvy craziness to get people to believe her (instead of going into all the many reasons that Kenzi isn’t Kenzi, she just says “I can feel it in my bones!”—we can chalk that up to Bo being worried about her friend and only having access to the emotional maturity God would give a twelve-year-old) and then everyone immediately concludes the only possible conclusion is she’s crazy. Which is like a cop coming across two bleeding men, both of whom claim the other started the fight, and then only hauls one of them in because that guy is suspected of writing bad checks. And then he lets the other guy sleep with him.

Man, for a second there I was worried that Dyson was going to get raped AGAIN. I know some fangirl gone legit is trying to make him the show’s woobie, but please, scripts, be nicer to Kris Holden-Reid. He has two last names and I can’t really spell either of them, but he was game enough to pretend to be a female cast member three feet shorter than him.

Speaking of Dyson, you gotta love the moment where he gets chewed out for, uh, not stalking Bo anymore and retorts “That was three years ago.” Aren’t all of you immortals and, like, hundreds of years old? 2010 should be last Tuesday for you people, right?

I will praise that, instead of having either Dyson or Laurie end up in Bo’s corner because they’re her Twue Love (insert Rumpel gif here), it ends up being Tamsin and their relationship progresses a bit… even if it does throw up my hackles again about the exact logistics of succubus feeding. Seriously now, if Bo can fill up her gas tank with just a tongue kiss, why is there this huge drama between her and Lauren? This is a show with canon tentacle sex; FIRST BASE IS NOT A BIG DEAL. Hell, have Bo open a kissing booth.

And don’t tell me that a succubus kiss is the equivalent of, like, handsies. I know Tamsin plays as fast and loose as everyone on this show, but she doesn’t regard the kiss as having any sort of intimacy or even excessive awkwardness. She acts like she has to Tweet a picture of herself kissing a guy with a moustache for a scavenger hunt. This is not the reaction of someone who has to perform a sex act on someone else to save their life; there was more drama in City Slickers about sucking rattlesnake venom out!

But hey, what do I know, it’s not like urban fantasy should clearly and explicitly spell out the rules of its world-building (IT TOTALLY SHOULD). Anyway, on to more pressing matters: Doccubus. If I was on Team Bo last episode regarding Lauren’s passive-aggressive act, here I’m Team Lauren 1000%. It’s massively unfair for Bo to try to emotionally blackmail Lauren out of conscientiously doing her job. Let’s not forget the time Lauren was possessed by a crazy person and nearly killed everyone with science. What if peeps had followed Bo’s Can-Do Guide To Healthy Relationships there?

Not-Lauren: Bo, I’m your girlfriend and you should trust me implicitly, even though I might be under mind control, being impersonated, or what have you.

Bo: Well, you’ve been acting really oddly and I could try to sort this out in a fair but cautious manner—no! Look like Lauren! Lauren good!

Not-Lauren: THANKS, SUCKER! BURNINATE EVERYTHING!

See what happened there?

Lauren was actually helping as best she could by trying to either prove or disprove Bo (EITHER OF WHICH WOULD’VE BEEN AND WERE REALLY HELPFUL; Lauren even found out that Bo was going through fae puberty, because of course Bo goes through puberty twice). We could forgive Bo for saying things she might regret in the heat of the moment, when she’d say anything to try to help Kenzi—note how Lauren refuses to engage and, when Bo says “I’ll never forgive you for this” like a twelve-year-old holding her breath, simply replies “I hope that’s not true.” Dr. Lauren: She has the emotional maturity of an actual adult.

But then, afterward, when Bo’s had time to stop and think and the crisis is resolved, she continues to hold it over Lauren’s head! A simple “You did the right thing” or “You did what you thought was right” would’ve sufficed, but no, Bo’s going to spit in Lauren’s eye for DIAGNOSING HER WITH FAIRY CANCER. “How dare you examine all the possibilities and not trust me implicitly—me, the recovering sex addict/serial killer who nearly assaulted you in an uncontrolled Con’Dar not last week.” Just… grow the fuck up, Bo. It honestly isn’t that hard.

By the way, it’s interesting to note that both Bo and Lauren probably had wildly varying views on romance. Bo’s entire sexuality is built around the fact that, with one touch, she can utterly control her lover. Obviously, as thoughtless as she can be, she’s still conscientious about this—being a Hero, she wouldn’t and apparently hasn’t ever ‘whammied’ someone into sex without them consenting of their own accord. Still, on a subconscious level, this has to have an effect. Bo would never have to, say, ask for oral sex—she could simply wish for it and her lover would enthusiastically add that to the evening’s menu. And while she wouldn’t, say, whammy a pizza boy for a free delivery and then take advantage of him against his wishes (right?), if someone took her up on a one-night stand and she whammied them to throw in a foot rub and cuddling, would she even notice that her beau might not be that big on foot rubs?

The point being, for Bo, romance and sex can literally be defined as “I get what I want and the other person enjoys it because of course they do.” Which isn’t to say Bo isn’t a conscientious lover; just that she doesn’t have to TRY. So it stands to reason that for her, someone being in love with her could be defined as “they’ll give me special treatment without having to whammy them. Whammying isn’t mind-control; it’s a facsimile of love and the real thing would work the same way.” So when Lauren tries to meet her halfway or even go against her, as much as Bo might intellectually know that this is not a bad thing (Lauren even says to her that relationships are based on trust, compromise, and respect), her gut feeling is “I’m your lover, you should be giving me what I want, I give you what you want, right?”

Which is why Lauren even entertaining the thought of Bo killing again has Bo use the nuclear options. She tells Lauren that if Kenzi dies, it’ll be her fault (even though EVERYONE has agreed to lock Bo up and disbelieve her; they’re not in love with Bo, after all, so they don’t owe her the special treatment). She says she’ll never forgive Lauren. These are incredibly loaded, even vicious things to say, especially to someone who already lost a partner to a kind of mental illness. It doesn’t take much empathy to see Lauren thinking “not again” and wanting to erase even the smallest possibility that Bo might be sick.

Not that Lauren is perfect. Let’s consider how she defines love. She’s in a relationship with Nadia. Nadia gets sick and, to save her, Lauren sells herself into slavery (and celibacy, at that). She doesn’t seem to even consider the thought of moving on. When Nadia wakes up, she breaks things up with Bo and picks right up with Nadia despite clearly having feelings for Bo—possibly stronger than her feelings toward Nadia. So how does she define love? Sacrifice. Exclusivity. If she would give up her life for Nadia, and by extension for Bo, then she thinks that Bo should return the favor. Give up outside feeding; that’s her endgame for their relationship. And, to her partial credit, Bo wants this and goes along with it to the point of endangering her health. Which makes sense; she’s a giving lover, in her own way, and if she expects special treatment from her lover, she’s willing to give it as well. It’s just that for both of them, this is the exact wrong thing to do, because they’re not setting boundaries or comfort zones in their relationship. They’re just divvying up territory to patrol. If Lauren treats Bo like a special snowflake, that’s love. If Bo makes sacrifices for Lauren, that’s love. And while both of those can be good things, letting them define whether the relationship is working or not is not a great thing.