By John Keegan and Paul Pearson

After a lot of ups and downs, "The Girl Who Fae'd With Fire" feels like the first episode in a while to cohesively bring together everything good about "Lost Girl" into the one episode and make it all work in a story. It's not the most stand-out instalment, but the healthy mix of character beats, plot movement and humour makes for one of the most straight-up entertaining episodes of the show in a long damn time.

The death of a noble Fae family's consigliore is just one of several storylines that involve the Fae nobility, all of which nicely tie into the climax. Bo and Dyson set out to investigate on the Ash's orders, as he believes the Garuda want the Fae Families to descend into further infighting, while Hale asks Kenzi to be his pretend girlfriend as he visits his noble family. What's surprising is that neither plotline feels more important than the other: Bo is carrying the weight of the Fae world and that adds some gravitas to her story, but the Kenzi plot winds up being very personal and puts her relationships with Hale and Nate further under the microscope.

The Fae Families have shown up in "Lost Girl" before but there's a greater spotlight this episode. Hale gives the audience an in with his own family, a line of backwards bigots in nice suits and dresses who are so given to conflict with other families that it's a surprise the Fae community hasn't torn itself apart already. And the use of language is no accident, drawing as many comparisons to the Mafia as to houses of nobility and getting back to the "supernatural PI" roots of the show.

The big Kenzi focus was welcome after a few episodes of concentrating on Bo's relationship with Ryan. As one would think, Nate's noticing that he's got a very secretive girlfriend, and her well-meant shenanigans with Hale in this episode forces the pair to be a little more open and honest than usual. Similarly, Hale has always been the character she's bonded with the most (after Bo) and here, that relationship was stretched and prodded to its limits. There's things she won't put up for, not even for a close friend, but by the same token it's starting to seem like Kenzi is the closest friend that Hale has, especially given what happens in this episode.

It's gravy that all this is wrapped up in Kenzi's usual level of humour and snark: she should always be introduced in that specific way whenever she enters a room. And wearing a dress like that more often wouldn't be bad either, because it's a different but gorgeous look for Ksenia Solo. The one downside to this focus is that the writers look like they're starting to position Kenzi in the middle of a love triangle, which would be a shame, because her friendship with Hale is so much more interesting as-is.

Even Dyson, Lauren and Nadia were getting in on the solid character beats, with the former crossing the line and the latter's dealing with something mysterious and dangerous, reminiscent of the Lauren plotlines earlier in the season that were terrifically tense. On the whole, this was a great episode of the show: it hit all the right notes, made use of all the best "Lost Girl" elements and wove them into a story that worked episodically and as part of the larger whole. In the run to the finale, more of these episodes will really put this show over the top.

John Keegan is Editor-in-Chief for Critical Myth, a partner site of SciFi Vision.  Paul Pearson is Critical Myth's reviewer for Lost Girl.