We have 2 opening reminders when this episode begins –
firstly that Westerley is still a terrible dystopian awfulness where even
currency doesn’t work (as D’avin and Dutch pursue a warrant).
And another reminder that we’re building a problematic trope around Dutch and other woman – she doesn’t like them. She continues to express her disapproval of Johnny and Pawter in less than flattering terms and she even has some snark for D’avin flirting with the new barmaid. Can we not with this trope please?
The plot line is divided in two – first of all we have
Dutch and D’avin flying around doing warrant stuff while Khylen and Fancy uses
green-goo-based-woo-woo to dip into D’avin’s mind so he can question D’avin’s
dad trying to find out why D’avin is green goo immune. Only to find out very little
beyond D’avin’s dad is an arsehole – whatever D’avin’s secret is, it has
nothing to do with his dad.
But raiding people’s minds has side effects and a not
completely absent chance of bran switching. Yup, we have Khlyen running around
in D’avin’s body with Dutch while D’avin runs around in Khlyen’s body with
Fancy. This gives D’avin chance to marvel at Khlyen’s strength, fight Fancy and
work through some of his daddy issues.
While Dutch gets to play with D’avin Khlyen and deal with
some of her issues including the knotty problem of not knowing what to feel or
how to be now she doesn’t entirely hate him any more. I like this, how she’s
more adrift because her one central identifying tenet: hating/hunting/hiding
from Khlyen is no longer relevant.
Khlyen is as mysterious as ever, won’t answer any
questions and generally is annoying. He does answer one thing – when she asks why
she was on Arken, he says it wasn’t her. So these memories/visions of D’avin
involve clone Dutch’s I guess. Also Khlyen’s plans for her may have been
completely derailed by D’avin’s anti-goo powers which Khlyen learns, thanks to
a brain scan, is likely due to the military performing weird operations on him.
Oh and Lucy is snarky with people who disrespect her. I
want a snarky ship
Meanwhile Johnny and Pawter return to Qresh (I swear I
have not spelled one single name – person or place – correctly) to have the
most awkward family reunion. We learn her dad is basically a decent person but
that pretty much everyone else is made of awful and terribleness. Also Johnny
indulges in naked swimming (with terrible camera angles) and is all overwhelmed
by the excess ridiculous formality of the whole thing.
It’s awkward and everyone is awful. And then a horrible
fog which causes death by freezing sweeps in. Just to compound the awful, it
turns out this fog was created by Pawter’s awful mother to make Qresh uninhabitable
with more ominous warnings of something big, dark and terrible swooping in.
Beyond awfulness and ominous warnings and Pawter being
super awesome in the face of all of this awful, we also get a decent closer
development of the family. For all of their snobbery (being a doctor I beneath
them), Pawter’s dad was a carpenter and her mother, Adelaide battled her family
to marry him. We also see her not-totally-awful-but-not-pleasant sister being
willing to risk her own life to try and save some of the servants. In fact, sacrifice
seems to be a clear them with the family – with Pawter’s dad willing to die to
save them and Adelaide, head of the family, injecting herself with the pathogen
so her death could be recorded in order for Pawter to study it.
Her dying words even imply that who she is – hard, cold,
unfeeling, ruthless – is also sacrifice. She’s become something she hates. I
wonder if this applies to the other Qreshi 9 – arrogant, ruthless rulers but
ultimately think THEY are sacrificing for the greater good. For all their
arrogance and vicious cruelty at the core, the Sims is no-one else, are willing
to be the first in line when the bodies hit the ground. Of course, this
noblesse oblige doesn’t make the rest ok, but it’s an interesting insight into
their mentality of sacrifice – and how not all those sacrifices are their own
In the aftermath Pawter becomes lady of the family – and one
of the nine. She now has her mission: and Johnny wants to join her in it. He’s
very clear that this isn’t just because he’s chasing after Pawter (though they
do kiss – to the surprise of no-one) – but because this is him. And we can see
this over two seasons from the very beginning when he wanted to rescue D’avin.
Johnny cares. And Killjoys aren’t supposed to – the Warrant is all. Johnny can’t
live like that, Johnny isn’t that man.
This is going to cause grief with Dutch. I said above
about her being adrift and she follows this up by saying she needs Johnny to be
her gravity. Which I think is a spacey way of saying “her rock”. He’s her
oldest friend and the one stable part of her life – and now he’s changing. And
he lies about it (I can’t say I blame him given how much Dutch relies on him,
perhaps to an unfair extent) – leaving us open to all kind of chaos in the
future. This is going to get ugly
