The themes in this episode were mean girls, high school, bad bff's and of course the ever popular love triangle. After the threesome last week, it was quite clear that Bo had no intention of letting go of Ryan, and so it was hardly a surprise to find him in her tub sipping away at champagne. Despite caring for Kenzi enough to claim her as her BFF, she hides Ryan under the bubbles, and outright lies about ending her little affair. To make matters worse, Kenzi even tells Bo that she doesn't want her to "lock up her honey pot," but believes that Ryan not only did her wrong, but is bad news. If Bo even had the smallest amount of conscience, she would have come clean at this moment, instead of scheming to make sure that Kenzi didn't see Ryan, and rushing her out of the apartment as quickly as possible.
Lauren is back from her road trip with Nadia, and this of course is to remind us of the love triangle and to re-introduce some angst, in case you were missing it from the show. Though Lauren has not been completely honest with Nadia about her relationship with Bo, or her involvement with with the fae, Nadia clearly sees Bo as a threat, and gets super clingy in front of her. She acted quite like a dog marking her territory.
Nadia's territory marking is interrupted by Dyson, who has a new case. It seems that teenagers are suddenly getting extremely smart and then dying. This of course calls for the intervention of the local succubus and her bff. It is deemed that Kenzi has the inside track with teenagers, and she enrolls in the school undercover. Bo becomes a substitute teacher, and Dyson becomes a guidance counselor. For the rest of the episode, Dyson's basically reflect him drowning in teenage angst.
It turns out that there is a type of fae called atvans, who mature slowly and simply do not have the intellect of others. To counter this the procure a special egg from a smur, which increases intelligence. This is highly illegal. Unfortunately, the eggs are deadly to humans, and so when Earl, one of the infected boys, kisses a girl, she has a quick increase in intelligence and then she dies. It is Lauren, with a little help from the infected Kenzi who figures out what is going on. Bo of course is terribly worried that Kenzi's brain will be fried forever, but I simply cannot take her concern seriously, when earlier in the episode Bo cast aside Kenzi's interest to do the dance with Ryan.
When Earl discovers that he is being drugged by his father Jed, he quite rightfully is hurt. Jed believes it's about opening up opportunities that have historically been denied his group based on their intelligence. Jed says, "I'm just so sick and tired of being second rate." In many ways, this story is about the ways in which people who are disabled are denied opportunities, because we live in an ableist world. I like the fact that given the choice, Earl decided to be who he was naturally. I think that this was actually a great treatment of disability, and the damage that comes from internalizing ableist ideas. Jed would never have been focused on changing his son, were there more social acceptance of people with disabilities. In the end, Kenzi affirms that Earl is of worth by saying that he is patient and does not judge people.
After all that Bo went through to save Kenzi from her brains boiling over, in the end, she still let Ryan talk her into a romantic evening, complete with the assertion that they would be having sex again. That really is some way to prove your friendship. At this point, I think she should gather with Sookie from True Blood and Elena from The Vampire Diaries, and create a club called we are the worst BFF's evah.
In the very last scene, Nadia and Lauren have just finished making love. When Lauren leaves for a shower, Nadia promises to join her in a moment. When she is by herself, Nadia looks at the pictures that she took of Lauren's necklace - yes the same necklace that marks the Ashe's ownership of her. Of all things to fixate on, how did Nadia figure out that this necklace was of importance? Yeah, they got to give us more to make us understand why Nadia believes something is off.
