Killjoys
Season 1, Episode 6: “One Blood”
Air date: July 24, 2015
Grade: A-
Killjoys gets better week after week and this time we see more of the social discordance within The Quad as Dutch (Hannah John-Kamen), D’avin (Luke MacFarlane) and Johnny (Aaron Ashmore) get entangled in a black warrant for an old RAC agent who’s stolen from The Company.
Picking up from episode five, Dutch agrees to help Khlyen (Rob Stewart) one last time as long as he stays away from her and her team after. The two head over to the Keffree Tea House where Khlyen is all happy because they serve the tea he likes from back home. Dutch is having none of his “let’s reminisce like old times” shenanigans because the girl he knew died a long time ago. A couple of minutes into their tea time fun, her former tutor explains that she has a few seconds to find an item on a particular gentleman in the shop since he was just served a pot of deadly poison that would kill everyone inside in mere moments as well. Extreme much? A pissed off Dutch manages to find what the courier was hiding and gets out before passing out from lack of oxygen. Not sure if anyone else made it though (aside from Khlyen who seemed immune to the gas).
Back on the ship, D’avin is taking his frustrations out on a punching bag after spending the day with Pawter trying to get past the stem blockers that were tampering with his memories. In the last episode we found out that D’av’s deep dark secret was killing his whole squad without any idea why he did it. Dutch comments that maybe its time for a different doctor though the elder Jaqobis seems a wee bit hesitant, saying that Pawter’s being working hard. Dutch smiles back stating she’s heard. The duo’s relationship continues to be this mass of sexual tension where they are obviously attracted to each other but because they are partners/teammates they haven’t really been willing to act on it, YET. So they do their little semi-flirting dance until Johnny inevitably comes in to break the moment.
Speak of the devil, a super excited Johnny arrives bringing good news that they’ve been invited to participate in a black warrant. What is that you may ask? It is a competitive warrant where the top team wins and only the best are allowed to join. They head over to their favorite bar in Old Town where the private meeting is being held. We get to meet a few more Killjoys and you gotta appreciate the camaraderie. Except for Fancy Lee (Sean Baek) that is. Fancy was the other RAC agent that had tried to kill D’avin back in episode one and apparently nobody likes him. I say the character is your misunderstood lone wolf.
Pawter (Sarah Power) asks D’avin to chat for a second and she asks him about continuing his therapy sessions. He seems to have taken Dutch’s advice to heart though and thinks that it might be better for him to go to a specialist instead. Poor Pawter, you can see her internal freak out as she convinces D’avin to keep coming to her if she manages to find out who the mysterious Dr. Jaeger is using her connections. I kind of want to shake her and say you don’t need him or his issues! But I think Pawter may be suffering from savior complex. More on that later.
Soon Turin arrives and begins the briefing. Their target turns out to be a retired RAC agent named Big Joe who’s stolen a valuable item from The Company. Since it would be terrible for business if it was discovered that one of their own has become an outright thief, the RAC is trying to contain it as best as they can. Midway, Dutch gets a call from Khlyen and she makes an excuse to leave the bar to meet him.
She hands over the courier’s small box and it turns out to be some kind of neural interface device. Her ex-tutor attaches it to her neck and now she’ll be able to talk to him as if they were in the same room. Super! But it also happens to have information on Big Joe’s last coordinates. As it turns out, Khlyen wants whatever was stolen too. He’s arranged for an unmarked ship to be available for Dutch to go after Joe on her own and then she is to deliver the goods back to him. Understandably the Killjoy is annoyed because that would mean going against her own team, but Khlyen is unbending. If she wants him to stay away from D’avin and Johnny then she has no choice but to do it his way. Dutch sends a message to the boys to start ahead without her as she grudgingly follows orders.
The brothers in the meantime meet with a familiar prisoner to ask him how to track Big Joe’s ship. Coren Jeers reluctantly helps them after Johnny cleverly explains how he’s emptying out Coren’s bank account. They get back to the ship without any word from Dutch when Fancy arrives, saying that he knows where their fearless leader went. In return he wants to hop a ride with them and split the prize money when they find Big Joe. Now it’s the Jaqobis’ turn to join up with a dude they highly dislike. Fancy spills that Dutch left on an unmarked ship two hours ago and guessed that she was getting Joe herself because of their personal history. Johnny agrees and tells D’av that they have to save her from screwing up.
Dutch gets to Big Joe’s ship first but it’s abandoned and she shortly gets shot. Khlyen is mentally there with her the whole time and he shows grave concern when she is injured. Still, the Killjoy isn’t easily stopped and tracks Joe down. They actually have a nice reunion with a little play fighting going on. The fun and games come to a end when Dutch gets serious and says that she just wants what he stole and he can leave in peace. The situation gets more complicated when a group of Leithan nationalists arrive and bring the two back to their headquarters/farm. Joe had actually stolen the item for them but had no idea what it did. It seems like nobody knows what the device is, except for Khlyen who isn’t telling.
The Leithans are interrogating both of them after discovering the neural implant on Dutch. They think that she’s there to spy on them with reinforcements on the way. We now get a little history on the divide between the Leithans, Qreshi, and Westerlans. A long time ago the Qreshi declared that if people worked on Westerly long enough, after seven generations they would be granted land on Leith (which is a much nicer moon to live on btw). So now Leithans like them were pissed off that the Qreshi were going to give their ancestral land away because their farm wasn’t profitable. Their only solution? Armed struggle.
Help does finally come in the form of Fancy, Johnny and D’avin. They are able to find Dutch through Fancy’s bloodhound, a device that is able to pinpoint her location via DNA tracking. Mr. Lee gets even fancier when he uses a directional dart (of his own design) to incapacitate one of the Leithans on guard duty. D’avin meanwhile goes into the farmhouse to rescue Dutch. Damn fancy!
The Company weapon that everyone is after gets activated at last when one of the Leithans decides to use it to kill Joe. Unfortunately, the device vaporizes people based on DNA and the nationalists accidentally wipe themselves out save for one person. That guy had married into the family. The Killjoys bring Joe and the WMD back to Westerly where they are greeted like champions. Sadly it doesn’t end well for the ex-RAC agent after Company man Hills Oonan appears at the bar with a massive hangover. Turin and Oonan have a little chat where the other expounds on what their superiors won’t stand for. They come to an agreement and Joe’s warrant is upgraded to a kill order.
Before anyone else can make a move, Joe grabs Dutch’s gun and begs her to do it fast. The poor gal can’t make herself pull the trigger even though she knows there’s no way out for the mentor she actually cares about. Fancy does the deed instead as the self-appointed designated asshole. You can’t help but feel a for him after his earlier talk with Johnny. Fancy explained that his contribution to the RAC was being the necessary evil that would do the hard jobs that no one wanted, yet had to be done (example: kill your old buddy).
Let’s get back to Pawter for a second though. She’s been busy getting Oonan super drunk and then drugging him to get access to The Company’s system. She tries to find Dr. Jaeger that way but gets caught the next day after not clearing her history. Girl, what are you doing?? You are going to prison because of a boy. He’s not worth it!!! Pawter can’t believe she’s being arrested, claiming that her family will have his head. Except Oonan did a background check on her and supposedly none of her Qreshi relatives give a damn. Ouch.
Khlyen comes to see Dutch again to get the WMD but she doesn’t have it and they get into a tiff. He strikes her and she stabs him repeatedly in the gut (it has zero effect on him). The man doesn’t even begin to bleed profusely from the multiple stab wounds. Instead he gathers his lost composure and apologizes for hitting her. When she asks him again why he’s come to The Quad, he repeats that he’s there to retrieve her. We do learn from their exchange that Khlyen is working for someone else and that he/she must be powerful. Dutch finally realizes that her ex-tutor isn’t going away and that she needs help. At the end of the episode she opens up to the brothers about her predicament and asks Johnny to track Khlyen through the neural transmitter. Her steely determination wins out over fear as she decides that she’s going to somehow kill the man once and for all.
Final thoughts:
- Pawter is pretty crazy. She has no qualms on making you think she’s injected you with a lethal poison and she’ll drug you.
- Fancy is growing on me big time (ok he’s my new favorite character), he’s the lone wolf you can’t help but secretly respect!
- Maybe Khlyen is a human-android hybrid. That’s why he doesn’t age, is immune to poisons, and doesn’t die from stabbing.
- Dutch grew up in a harem, an assassin harem! Must know more…
Killjoys airs Fridays on Syfy at 9/8 central.
Follow @niixc on Twitter for more.
Images courtesy of Syfy.
