This episode opens with some pretty broken recapping, Alvis explaining how the Scarbacks first faced off on Aneela while Dutch reminds us that the plan to stop the Hullen involves killing Aneela, killing all the Hullen and sacrificing Dutch in the process. In case we’d forgotten.
The Scarback raised their point because apparently before war they have a tradition of cutting themselves (to prove themselves not Hullen) in front of people they still have some unresolved shit with. It’s like a last moment to tell loved ones you love them and enemies that you still want them to fuck themselves even if you’re heading to the afterlife. Good times.
Dutch declares herself way too busy for this nonsense. I actually like Pree’s take on it more - that you don’t show your love by having dramatic goodbyes, but by coming back to your loved one (the loved one in this case being his new bartender, who has also brought his drunken mother along to meet Pree and it’s super super sweet and I kind of love it and want way more). Also Pree sings, super super well.
Everyone is surprised when they have a guest - Delle Sayah Kendry. She’s shown up to show she’s heavily pregnant, claim D’avin is the father and to parlay. Everyone is not eager to sit down with her but since they’re totally not ready for an invasion a delay would be quite nice - so Johnny and Kendy end up sitting at the Parlay table
And no, she’s not actually sitting there and trusting their adherence to some super ancient tradition to keep her safe - she also has lots of big scary missiles aimed at Westerley in case they won’t play nice
Why is she here? Well she makes a brief demand to surrender which obviously no-one’s going to do that. She insists on trying to prove to Johnny that she’s pregnant - but when he refuses she almost begs him to. The Hullen do not get pregnant, she wants some medical scans to see what is actually happening to her.
They do - and confirm the father is actually D’avin (though he insists he hasn’t had sex with her - so this is a green goo thing) and the mother is actually Aneela - which Kendry didn’t even know. There’s also the added worry that if the Hullen can reproduce then they no longer need human hosts and this is pretty much the extinction of humanity
There’s also other issues with the baby’s rapid growth and acting out in the womb which is worrisome.
Johnny tries to insist Kendry stay - she refuses and decides to leave. And Johnny takes her prisoner. Kendry reminds him of her threat but he points out that a) they have the Hullen heir so screw your threat and b) the fact Aneela has clearly allowed Kendry to come shows she values Kendry: she is an achilles heel for Aneela and therefore Aneela won’t risk her
As for the Parlay? They’re at war - some ancient words aren’t going to cut it. Especially not from the one who killed Pawter. Yeah, Kendry doesn’t know Johnny or how vengeful he can be, as she thinks she does. Yes, he may be a fun guy but under all that he has a definite sharp edge, especially when the people he cares about are menaced. There’s also a possibility that Kendry is showing some emotion - odd for a Hullen
Meanwhile Zeph comes up with a plan to defeat Aneela - last episode we found the boxes that can keep Aneela in, imprisoning her. If they can lure Aneela into one of these boxes (uses Dutch as bait - or entering a false memory into the Green Hullen Hive Mind saying Dutch is inside) then that would take her out of the fight without killing Dutch. Yay!
But wasn’t part of killing the leader not just removing the general but removing some original Green and therefore decimating the Hullen ranks? Other competent Hullen exist… or do they now that Aneela had her little coup and replaced everyone’s Green Goo with Slave Green Goo?
Either way this plan gives them hope because Dutch may live! They just need some special memory inserting naughty technology - on to extremely annoying character Pippin who absolutely no-one wanted to return! No, really, whyyyyy? We could have had Pree get this tech with his own dodgy contacts
So they create the false memory to record and insert into the green - which involves Dutch and D’avin and the worst acting ever (again, Pree could be here making cutting sarcastic comments way more than Pippin ever could. Pree is the MOST SCATHING EVER).
They grab their handy-dandy captured Hullen and paralyse her while they experiment on her to insert the memory. This includes lots of threats including threatening to destroy her pool of goo, turning her back into a helpless, vulnerable human again
It all works awesomely and is a good plan so Dutch and D’avin decide to leave this super dangerous Hullen guarded only by Pippin. And when Pippin discovers she’s away he decides to handle this alone.
This is some monumentally shitty writing. This is broken writing from writers who have no idea how to get the characters to where they want them to be so have to have everyone lose their ever loving mind. TV Tropes calls it the Idiot Ball and it Impresses Me Not.
This leads to a plane crash and Dutch fighting the Hullen and Pippin not dying. In the end, the Hullen manages to touch the green and spread the knowledge that it’s a trap - their plan to save Dutch has now been thwarted. D’avin is furious and angst and dumps the Hullen into space where she can live eternally dying in a vacuum. Which is unpleasant by my first rule of dealing with enemies is kill them. No elaborate revenge, no silly torture - nothing while will let them come back as they inevitably will.
It also gives Dutch and D’avin time to have their own reckoning with Dutch again refusing to let D’avin tell Johnny as he can’t handle it - and D’avin breaking and lashing out because why does she think he can handle it? He’s as broken and hurting by this as Johnny would be and losing her is all selfish and painful - they have a big moment
D’avin also tells Johnny, and he agrees to help Dutch because of course he will. Equally they are going to keep looking for a non-Dutch killing solution
Another reckoning involves Alvis going to Fancy and apologising to him for not being there for him when he was all hullened. I guess. And then Fancy goes and releases Turin as his reckoning - so Turin can prove himself. Ok, I guess all soldiers are needed but I would prefer this moment to be a bit bigger - in fact, I’d prefer Fancy and the whole cleansed storyline to be a bit bigger than this to be honest
One last reckoning- Dutch goes to see Alvis for the ceremony as well. Except it’s Aneela, not Dutch - and she kills him.
Honestly I’m not shocked. We’re going into the big dramatic war, someone had to die. Someone had to die who would be all sad-making - possibly several someones, especially as Dutch certainly isn’t. It’s not going to be the big three so it had to be Pree, Fancy, Turin, Zeph or Alvis
I predict we’re also going to see Turin die (self-sacrificing himself for redemption) and Zeph (because unlike Fancy and Pree she’s too close to the squad and likely to get in the way of the dynamic).
