Killjoys is
back! Yes I am doing my happy dance. This was definitely one of my favourite
shows last year – on the scale of my losing all objectively and merrily judging
anyone who didn’t love it (since they clearly have no souls). Which means I
enter this season with trepidation – will it live up to its billing?
Last season ended with a huge about of Old Town on
Westerley being bombed and D’avin kidnapped by Khylen for nefarious purposes
(these involve dreams, green goo and odd experiments). Leaving Dutch and John
to find D’avin and get him back (and maybe stab Khylen a few times in the face,
because that’s kind of always a goal for Dutch).
He’s been kept on the forbidden scary planet of Arkhen, a
planet which is fully shielded and not easy to land on so requires many steps
to get there – especially when Dutch decides to try and land on the planet
anyway and Lucy has to stop them.
So, step 1 – they hear about a criminal gang that has
managed to elude capture by hiding on the planet – ergo has some means of
surviving its shield. To Bellus, the awesome and snarky contract manager for
Dutch who gets her a warrant for the people who own this tech – and a lead on
where this tech is
Step 2 is Eulogy, a planet which is a big criminal
gambling den. They don’t even let you in unless you have a criminal record
which just confuses me. The Company has shown itself willing to bomb entire
cities if they’re not perfectly obedient – well you have a whole place here
which literally has a “dangerous criminals only” admission policy – why hasn’t
it being nuked?
Thankfully Pree has a shady criminal past and is
apparently tagging along with the gang. He and John play couple for lots of
snarking and, yes, I laughed when it turned out the whole room of dangerous
criminals would tolerate a lot but hell no do you talk shit about someone’s
mother!
Dutch does find the technology – embedded in a cyborg
called Clara who also has a prosthetic arm with a biiiiiiig gun attached. She
has a tragic past – the gang bought her and had a place called the Factory put
a whole load of experimental mods in her. She’s 26% machine which isn’t legal
in the Quad – in fact the Company doesn’t even recogniser her as a human being.
She’s also a whole lot of fun and I really hope we’ll see
her again. I think so because she and John definitely connected
Using the shield hurts her – and John is certainly
unwilling to risk her health any further, even for his brother. He develops a
full on saviour complex for her in fact, wanting to get their friendly doctor to
remove her mods. But Clara continues to be interesting – choosing to help them
a) because she owes them and b) because she sympathises with Dutch and how she
has been used by Khylen in the same way she was abused by the gang. She also
values the ability to make the choice and help them – rather than have someone
make that choice for her
On top of that, despite the health issues, she doesn’t
want her cybernetics removed. They are part of her, she keeps them because they
are her and she doesn’t want someone else removing them, someone else making
that choice for her. I like her a lot – definitely want to see more. There’s a
lot of potential there with her story, her relationship with John (him wanting
to save, her not accepting she needs saving), her lack of legal personhood -
and she has a giant gun on her arm. It’s all awesome
Also they don’t have to fulfil the warrant on her because
of the Company law. After all the warrant is for people who have/took the tech
and Clara isn’t, legally, a person.
Inside the prison, meanwhile, experiments on D’avin to
turn him into a level 6 doesn’t seem to be going well. He’s experiencing all
the dreams and visions (apparently memories) but their green goo is not doing
whatever it’s supposed to do (part of that involves making level 6’s nearly
immortal judging by the way you can shoot Khylen and him treat it as a minor
inconvenience). In fact, D’avin has the power to drive away the immortality goo
with his mind… or so it seems
His super power is the ability not to become a super
soldier. Personally I’d have held out for mind reading or something. It’s
definitely from the bottom of the X-man box, really. But Khylen is impressed –
so impressed he’s willing to murder a whole bunch of his own minions to rescue
D’avin
In doing so we see a little more of Khylen and his motives. Looks like he’s not totally in charge of level 6 and his plan all along was to do her best to protect Dutch as her mentor… which became totally awkward when she decided she wanted to stab him in the face. He wanted to make D’avin into a level 6 and then send him back to Dutch to be a bodyguard/spy before he turned out to be all level 6-proof.
He gets him out before the ominous Black Root (Root? Route?
Since they’re American I’m going to guess Root) arrive, though he reminds D’avin,
yet again that his dreams (of people fighting, green goo, plants et al) are all
memories.
D’avin escapes – and Khylen is taken prisoner by his own
minions (respectfully). When Dutch arrives for him they also find Fancy who
they rescue. Everyone rushes back to Lucy and D’avin shoots Fancy.
He heals – yup Fancy’s level 6. They kick him off the
ship and he heads back to Khylen, killing the people guarding him. I’m going to
guess he’s on Khylen’s side and Khylen has his own little following
D’avin tries to tell all this to Dutch who isn’t entirely
ready to embrace the whole “Khylen is your friend!” party line, she’s still
very much on a face-stabbing policy. But she did leave despite knowing Khylen
is there because keep D’avin and John safe matter more to her than her
vengeance against Khylen. Her priorities have shifted, taking down Khylen is no
longer the be all and end all.
Extra twist – in D’avins hallucination memories h saw
Dutch, fighting. This was apparently a memory from long long ago… so is Dutch
immortal? Reincarnated? Cloned? Time Traveller? All of the above?
Well that’s a whole lot more plotting and storylines – a huuuge
amount to explore this season. I think I’m not going to be disappointed
But, look, can we talk about Pree? I’m glad to see him more
involved than just being the bar man. Also him and John pretending to be a
couple is the closest we’ve has to him being overtly labelled as go rather than
relying on a shit load of stereotypical gay coding.
Yet his entire role appears to be to provide sassy quips
and comic relief. And don’t get me wrong, he’s freaking hilarious, repeatedly
and overly, but this is a trope. An endless, repeated trope where we have the
token gay guy, without any real storyline, there to provide
us with hilarious sassy quips.
I’m not even sure why he is here? Does he care about D’avin?
Does he have a connection to D’avin?
