Episode 17: The Girl Who Fae’d With Fire
This one starts with Bo returning home to an empty house. She goes to get some ice cream, but suddenly gets attacked by … Kenzi? Yeah, Kenzi’s making like Cato in the Pink Panther movies and attacking Bo to keep her alert, in case the Goruda strikes. They duel with wooden practice swords for a bit (obliterating Bo’s ice cream) and almost impale
Nate as he brings tacos. He obviously still has no idea about what’s really going on with them. Elsewhere, some dude comes to a fancy mansion to meet a woman named Carmody, who sounds like a Fae version of the Godfather. This guy is having business trouble and wants Carmody’s help. But he and Carmody’s consigliere (who looks nothing like Robert Duvall) hear a scream and when they get to her room, they find Carmody incinerated.
Later, we see Hale investigating the murder, but the consigliere isn’t being too helpful, since Hale is a member of Clan Zamora, who are rivals to Mrs. Carmody’s Clan. Dyson comes in and basically tells Hale he’s off the case because Hale’s father thinks it’s inappropriate for his son to be investigating a rival’s death. Hale isn’t happy and goes to Kenzi to complain about Dyson’s being a dick lately. (Kenzi: “I’m sorry you guys 
are having a boy-fight.”) He asks Kenzi if she’ll be his date for the once-per-century summit meeting of all the Clans; he figures showing up with her will get his family off his back, but Kenzi says she can’t because she already has a boyfriend. Hale reminds her of all the favours he’s done for her (and actually pulls out a list), so she agrees. He gives her an old-fashioned dress and “fascinator” that belonged to his grandmother; she looks pretty fascinating, all right. He says the summit is tomorrow, but first she has to meet his family.
At the Ash’s compound, he tells Bo about Carmody’s death and explains the Clan structure to her. Basically, there are only three Clans that matter: Zamora (Hale’s family), Bukharin (which was Carmody’s Clan), and Fin Arvin. He says they’d all kill each other happily to gain extra influence
with the rest of the Light Fae. (Bo: “Like the mob, but with mermaids.”) He also mentions the big summit meeting and says Carmody’s death was probably engineered by the Goruda to cause even more distrust between the Clans. If the three biggest Clans start fighting each other, the Goruda can feed off that and get stronger. He tells Bo to help Dyson investigate and to get prettied up, since the noble Clans are snobby bastards who don’t like riff-raff. That doesn’t bode well for Kenzi.
Speaking of which, Hale and Kenzi go to meet his father and sister for lunch. Hale tries to warn Kenzi about his family, but forgets to mention that they’re stuck-up asshole racists (or species-ists, I guess, since they hate humans). We find out that Hale’s mother is dead (and was a siren 
like him, which seems to be a disappointment to his father), his sister’s name is Val (she can steal voices and is an asshole), and his family really don’t like humans and especially don’t like the idea of him dating one. At the Dal, Bo, Dyson, and Trick try to figure out who snuffed Mrs. Carmody. Dyson wants to go “old school” (you know, drag people in and beat confessions out of them), but Bo notices the killer left a burned photograph, showing three Clan heads. Trick thinks that might mean the other Clans will be targeted too, so Bo says they should warn them. Dyson tells her the Clans are a “prickly bunch”.
We see more evidence of that as Hale’s father goes on about what an honour it is for them to be hosting the summit and how they don’t want some filthy human like Kenzi fucking it up. Bo and Dyson show up at the luncheon, and Hale’s father seems happier to see Dyson than he was to see his own son. (And Hale’s sister seems REALLY happy to see Dyson, if you know what I mean.) Bo’s surprised to see Kenzi there and Kenzi subtly tells her she’s “undercover”.
Dyson asks about Carmody’s murder and they adjourn to the wine cellar to discuss it. Hale’s father says the head of Fin Arvin Clan is a paranoid nutcase, so he probably killed Carmody. He insists they have cake, which he slices into quarters to honour the original Clans. Val puts the moves on Dyson, which 
Bo notices, then tells the maid to throw away any silverware Kenzi uses. I thought the Romany hated gorgios, but they got nothing on these people. Kenzi freaks (“You know, if I wanted to be insulted like this, I would’ve spent time with my own family!”) and leaves. Hale follows and she gives him shit for using her to screw with his family. Bo and Dyson leave too, and she tells Hale’s family what assholes they are.
At home, Nate is waiting for Kenzi and he knows she was out with Hale. He’s pretty worked up about all the secrets she’s been keeping and she says she wants to tell him the truth. We jump to the Dal, where Trick has arranged a meeting between Bo, Dyson, and Dabner, head of Clan Fin Arvin (who’s played by comedian Sean Cullen). Dabner tells them he was attacked by a flame creature in his bedroom the previous night. As he’s
talking, he starts to smolder, then explodes into flames and turns to ashes right in front of them. Trick says it was probably a Cherufe, an Underfae that can cause spontaneous combustion by touch, cause huge magma flows, and disguise itself by turning into rock. But Trick wonders why a Cherufe would waste time killing individuals when it could wipe out a whole village. Bo points out that the targets were two of the three big Clan leaders, so Dyson suggests they go back and warn Hale’s father that he might be next—or question him to see if he sent the Cherufe.
At home, Kenzi’s got the ice cream blues. She tells Bo she gave Nate some bullshit story about them being spies in witness protection or something. No mention as to whether he bought it or not, though the fact that he’s not there may tell the tale. Bo says being in a relationship where you can’t be completely honest is bad. As if to illustrate her point, Lauren shows up, and guess what? Nadia’s with her. Man, talk about clingy. Nadia goes to the can and Lauren shows Bo some books about the Cherufe. She says a 
Cherufe was responsible for the eruption of Vesuvius when Pompeii was buried. The Fae refer to that particular eruption as the Rape of Scarfati, and Bo realizes one of the burned papers on Mrs. Carmody’s desk said Scarfati. They wonder if the Fae Elders are hiding something. Upstairs, Nadia is snooping through Bo’s stuff and Bo catches her. Nadia says she was just checking out the competition; I’m not sure if that means Lauren told her about being with Bo, or Nadia just noticed the way they look at each other. Bo tells her she has nothing to worry about and Nadia asks her to keep quiet about the snooping. Bo agrees, but by the look on her face, she knows Nadia is full of shit.
At the Dal, Hale asks Kenzi to pretend to be his squeeze for the big summit. She’s reluctant, but he says he’ll someday be the head of Clan Zamora and wants to set an example, to show the other Fae that peaceful coexistence with humans isn’t that hard. Kenzi finally agrees to go along with the charade for one more night. Bo snoops around the wine cellar at Hale’s family’s place and Hale’s father catches her. She finds a secret room with a scroll inside and mentions the name Scarfati. Hale’s father
tells her the Scarfati were a fourth noble Clan (hence his slicing the cake into quarters earlier) who were more powerful than the other three put together. The three Clans hired the Cherufe to wipe out Clan Scarfati, but instead of delivering the promised payment (the first-born daughter of each Clan) they tricked the Cherufe and trapped it under Vesuvius. Hale’s father doesn’t get why the Cherufe would seek revenge after all this time, but Bo mentions the Goruda. He locks her in the secret vault, saying he’d rather die than have the other Clans think he was scared.
At the party, all the Light Fae aristocracy are hanging out when Kenzi 
shows up, making quite the splash. (Herald: “Kenzi, Hale’s bitchin’ girlfriend, of family ‘Whatup’, Clan ‘Hey Now’”). Hale is impressed and says she looks great—which she does. Val talks to Dyson and says she likes his new “I don’t give a fuck” attitude. Apparently, she overheard her father telling Bo about wasting Clan Scarfati and reneging on the Cherufe and she figures the best way to drown her disappointment is with Dyson’s dick. She tells him to find her when he’s ready to “feel something”.
Bo busts out of the cellar vault and climbs into the billiard room, where she runs into … Nate? Yeah, it seems he’s there to make a grand gesture and get Kenzi back. Bo goes to get her and finds her and Hale being gawked at by the stuck-up assholes at the party. Hale seems like he’s actually kinda into Kenzi, but before he can say too much, Bo brings Kenzi back to the billiard room to see Nate.
They talk and Kenzi tells him she’s just pretending to be Hale’s honey to get his family off his back. I’m not sure why she didn’t just tell Nate that to begin with, but whatever. She says there’s still stuff she can’t talk about, but Nate doesn’t care and says he loves her. They smooch it up a bit before returns to the party. Unfortunately, Val was watching them and seems pissed off that Kenzi’s screwing around on her brother, which seems a bit strange to me. If Val hates the idea that Hale’s dating a filthy
human, why would she care that Kenzi’s not really into Hale? You’d think she’d be relieved. I’m starting to think that “vindictive asshole” is Val’s default mode. She proves that by stealing Kenzi’s voice right before giving Dyson the old “come on” look and heading for the wine cellar. Kenzi doesn’t realize why she can’t talk, so she goes to the kitchen to get some water and runs into the Cherufe, as well as some charred kitchen staff.
Kenzi tries to crawl away, but the Cherufe cuts her off. Before she gets crisped, Bo shows up and knocks the Cherufe away. It disappears and Kenzi still can’t talk, so Bo tells her to stay put as she looks for the 
monster. In the wine cellar, Dyson and Val are about to get it on when he tries to stop. She convinces him to keep going. Back in the kitchen, Bo grabs a fire extinguisher and looks for the Cherufe, but when she finds it, the extinguisher is empty. In the cellar, Dyson is basically balls deep inside Val when Hale walks in and tells him he broke the bro code. He’s ready to pound Dyson, but says he’s not even worth it. In the kitchen, Kenzi draws Bo’s attention to a container of liquid nitrogen and Bo uses some of their practice fighting
moves to distract the Cherufe s Kenzi can slide the nitrogen to her. (In fact, Bo yells “reverse cowgirl”; I’m not sure if that’s the name of one of their fighting moves or just an in-joke by the writers.) Kenzi gets the nitrogen to Bo and she flash-freezes the Cherufe, which shatters when Kenzi pokes it with a baguette.
Bo and Kenzi head back to the party with the Cherufe’s head and Bo tells everyone about the Goruda. Predictably, they all start blaming each other, saying it’s a trick or something. Bo says it’s pointless to try and change their minds, so they may as well leave. Which they do, right after Hale 
pops Dyson in the mouth and makes Val give Kenzi’s voice back. On the way out, Hale’s father admits he could feel the Goruda coming and says they can’t possibly win against it. But since he admires Bo’s chutzpah, he’ll give them anything they need for the fight. Hale says that’s a start. At home, they drink some wine that Kenzi “liberated” from the Clan Zamora cellars. Hale says the Clans all know what’s coming, but they’re too scared to do anything. Plus, they’ve lived lives of privilege and shelter so long, they’ve grown too soft to fight. Kenzi says Bo isn’t alone; she’s got them, Lauren, Trick, and Dyson behind her. Hale says he’s not sure about Dyson and wouldn’t fight at his side anyway. Nate shows up and Hale and Bo make themselves scarce. Hale lets Kenzi keep his grandmother’s fascinator—with real sapphires—for being such a good faux-girlfriend. Seems like Hale’s actually kinda sweet on her, but Kenzi doesn’t see it. At Lauren’s place,
Nadia slices her own hand open with a butcher knife and tastes the blood. Lauren comes in and Nadia says it was an accident, but can’t remember why she picked the knife up in the first place. Lauren helps her, but there’s obviously something weird going on. We’ll see more of that next episode.