So, it’s the season finale - it begins all dramatically, has a turn through lots of sass and sarcasm, because it’s Killjoys and then ends in the surreal which I’m less sure over.
We have all the big dramatic foreshadowing of all the forces gathered, big emotional not-quite goodbye moments and everyone ready to fight as the Armada arrives and we have a big stand off.
Zeph also takes a moment to give Dutch a memory stabbing thing, which is important.
Alvis’s body is delivered for Dutch to have a sad moment. Turin gets to rejoin the action with fancy’s backing: “it’s war not prom”. And Dutch loses patience and tries yelling at the captured Kendry - like Kendry is ever going to be so easily ruffled
Aneela is a step ahead, sending in a strike squad which manages to capture Dutch, free Kendry and, she herself, nearly kills Johnny. She tries to play act as Dutch - no, Johnny does not fall for it, of course he doesn’t. He is saved by Lucy and some very loud noise because Lucy always has his back
Aneela takes Dutch off to the scarback temple so they can work through their daddy issues rather than look at the actual war - while Kendry launches the attack
Which goes pretty badly - Pree (who has a lot of cute moment with his new guy) has set up the sonic device which basically turns the whole invading fleet into sitting ducks for Fancy and the Cleansed. Go team good guy
To which Gendry responds by targeting the very obvious sonic people for invasion, which means the sonic has to come down so Pree can evacuate - which leaves Fancy & co to be completely helpless in the face of overwhelming numbers
Turin is the one leading the attack because D’avin and Johnny have gone on a rescue mission for Dutch (Zeph tries to stop them since Johnny is injured - she even tries “you can’t go, because I love you” out of desperation. Before quickly taking it back because bad bad bad place. Instead we have group hugs).
This leaves Turin to handle the counter-attack and try to keep everyone alive as they’re pushed back by the overwhelming forces. And despite his courage, plans and him generally stepping up in the face of utter desperation, it generally goes poorly and eventually Turin is captured to be Hullenised while he snarks constantly and excellently. Fancy saves him, of course.
There is a lot of snark. I love the snark. It’s what Killjoys does so well.
While the war is going really pear shaped, D’avin and Johnny are also failing… because they arrive on Kendry’s ship, D’avin and Johnny snarking away at each other about D’avin and Dutch being back together again - and then they’re captured. Less gossip more effectiveness, guys. It would help if you had a plan.
They’re taken before Kendry for so much snark before Johnny decides to bullshit: because of their Green connection, you kill Aneela it kills Dutch and vice versa (this may be an exaggeration… but hey Kendry doesn’t know that).
Briefly allied they head to Dutch and Aneela, trying to save the women they love.
Aneela and Dutch fight in the temple and, I do wonder why Dutch even thought this plan would work: Aneela is obviously the better fighter, even by poking Aneela’s epic daddy issues. Until Dutch stabs her in the head with the memory chip.
This tells Aneela all that stuff Khlyen removed: that she created Dutch etc. Why give her her memories back? Dutch has an awesome epic speech about how she intends to kill Aneela but she will be remembered, she existed, she wasn’t nothing: and to reinforce that she pushes Aneela’s hand into the green to share those memories back in the Hullen whole.
Aneela is duly shocked and they actually have a conversation with bonus bonding (Dutch was named after Aneela’s mother). She made Dutch because she was lonely and wanted to bond with Khlyen. And hated her because Khlyen loved her more. She was also furious that Khlyen kept Dutch away from her - like she was dirty or would break her.
Yes, they have issues.
Anyway it was all to protect her from the real enemy - the Lady. Yes this mysterious lady in the green who now saw she can get out of the green and they need to close the door - by putting Dutch back in
So together they go green exploring - where they get a blond make over and meet Green Khlyen who gives them shiny knives with which they can murder the Lady. Looks like this may have been Khlyen’s extremely long convoluted plan for a long long time.
Kendry, D’avin and Jonathan arrive in time to see them sink into the green… and lots of spiders come out. They run, which is very sensible when you have lots of green spiders coming at you.
Only it gets worse because the Lady’s Hullen have also arrived to the Scarback temple. They can’t get to Lucy - their only choice is to cut the lift off so it drifts into space and they are, presumably, rescued. But Johnny plays hardball - he’s not going to save them all until Kendry calls off the invasion. She finally concedes and they drift off
With D’avin being cute and funny about being a parent with Kendry. There’s many excellent lines but the best is him asking Kendry how she feels about apostrophes. Yes we’ve finally addressed D’avin’s silly silly silly name.
At least everyone is saved by the war being called off so Turin, Fancy, Pree et al all live. Also Zeph kisses Pippin. The relationship no-one asked for.
Which certainly sets up the next season… but I do kind of feel Killjoys has lost its way. We used to have swashbuckling fun and now it’s all got kind of abstract and a little more surreal which I think misses the fun of what it was. I mean, credit still where it’s due because even in the surrealness we have a lot of snark and fun which I love.
I also feel these 10 episode seasons don’t do Killjoys any favours because there’s so much to cover. Like remember the Hackmods? Where were they in the big fight? What about the mercenaries - they had a fascinating concept, outlaws against unjust war, but we only gave one episode to them. Turin and Fancy - that’s a huge storyline that was kind of rushed through without any real nuance or development - which also failed to make Fancy a much much more involved character instead making him sort of an extra. The Cleansed alone could be so much of a storyline.
I’m glad that Pree is FINALLY clearly depicted as gay and we have some storylines with his past and some love interests - it took a long time but it would have been nice to see Pree actually involved more rather than having that one episode and then thrown into the background - like Fancy and the hackmods.
I did really liked Kendry and Aneela - I expected one or both of them to die this episode - and their excellent and most scary relationship would end. But instead we had it developed throughout the season, became very real, very powerful, and turned the whole season turned on it. This is an excellent relationship - and between two WOC (the series in general is one of the most racially diverse we watch)
Dutch, D’avin and Johnny are perfect and Zeph has found her spot in the crew - and I kind of love how Kendry and Aneela developed - but everyone outside of these characters doesn’t have enough time and space to develop.
Dutch remains awesome. Dutch is always awesome - though I would really have loved her not to almost check out in the second half of the season.
