Killjoys
Season 2, Episode 5: “Meet The Parents”
Airdate: July 29, 2016
In this week’s episode of Killjoys, D’Avin and Khlyen switch bodies while Pawter unexpectedly takes her mother’s place as head of Land Simms after some deadly circumstances.
We start off with Dutch and D’Avin at Old Town catching themselves two men (who have made bionic enhancements to their personage), though not cool looking like Clara mind you and more disturbing. The killjoys pose as buyers looking to get make a deal and are able to confirm the brother’s identities through a DNA sample via spit. They serve their warrant and arrest the siblings then take them back onto Lucy. D’Av suggests before they head out to grab a drink at the Royale and Dutch of course knows it’s to see a certain lady bartender.
Dutch: You’re awfully thirsty lately. Who’s that new bartender again? Sassy? Sandwich?
D’Avin: Sabine.
Meanwhile on Qresh, Johnny’s accompanied Pawter to meet with her family in an attempt to get her exile revoked and to take her place amongst the Nine. The doctor’s realized that for all the good she’s done down on the ground in Old Town, she can make more of a difference politically by embracing her birth rite.
The Simms estate is an entire island on the planet and they are rich AF. We meet Pawter’s younger sister Louella, her sis’ fiancé Hank, her father Weymer, and lastly her mother Adaline. While Louella and Weyner are pretty happy to see her, the reception with the lady of the land is frosty at best. During dinner Pawter is about to ask to get her exile rescinded when her mom cuts her off and says no but she could finish her dinner before heading out.
Upset, Pawter gets up and leaves with Johnny following after her. From last season we know that she’s made mistakes with her drug addiction and having a patient die on her table, but she’s changed into a highly capable and dependable person who actually cares about the fate of Old Town. We can sympathize with the rebellious child who’s changed but the parents are still unwilling let them back into their life. From what we saw of Adaline Simms as well she had previously told Johnny that she had no daughter (but wait I guess she forgot Louella).
The killjoy reminds Pawter that they’re here for a reason, to save Old Town and it pulls her out of her funk. But before she can do anything else, Castor their servant bursts into the house afflicted with some kind of ailment. He looks like he has severe frostbite, which quickly spreads throughout his whole body freezing him and then he shatters into a thousand tiny pieces of ice. The man had gone outside to prepare the boat for Louella (who has taken up diving). There was some kind of fog that Castor had come into contact with that caused the affliction.
Out of guilt and worry for their other servants in the boathouse, Louella rushes outside and manages to get her hand infected. Johnny helps her back into the main house where the rest of the family see the frost spreading on the poor freaked out rich girl. Pawter uses an old sword (for decorative purposes) and slices off the frozen hand to prevent it from spreading further much to the shock of everyone in the room.
Adaline goes into her lab to work and figure out what is happening (to protect the family) and Pawter follows her in there. In this scene we get a little more background to the relationship mother and daughter have had. For instance Seyah Simms was the reason Pawter became a doctor. At this point the older woman seems aggravated that her daughter was supposed to lead like she had instead of just treat tummy aches. Is she still resentful of her daughter’s past screw-ups? Does she feel that Pawter just isn’t mature enough yet for the responsibilities of leading the family? Still, she helps her mom with the ice chips and the computer detects a pathogen.
In one of the living rooms, Johnny is trying to figure out a way to get them all out of there while Weymer sets about destroying furniture as firewood for more heat. We find out that he had actually been a carpenter once and his family had built the Simms summer home. He had met Adaline during that time and her family had threatened to disown her if she married him, but she’d won that fight. Johnny asks he had let his wife win when she’d kicked Pawter out and the older man instead comments that when you love two people equally you have to chose the path that makes you a better man. The younger Jaqobis isn’t buying it though and retorts that where he comes from only assholes throw their kids out. Weymer retorts back that he can’t judge because he doesn’t know what this family has had to do nor does he know what’s best for his daughter. I detect some crazy secret that has to do with the Nine.
After their arguing, Johnny’s computer shows that the estate is protected by an alpha shield, designed to keep stuff in and only permeable by air and light. This must be something very expensive that you wouldn’t expect in a home. He rushes to Adaline’s lab and asks her when she was going to tell everyone about the alpha shield but we find out that Seyah Simms infected herself with the pathogen. She apparently had a cure she wanted to try but it’s not working and Johnny deduces that she created the killer fog in the first place. She explains that she didn’t release it and that it’s an attack on the family but worry not she has a plan. The killjoy says that he has a plan too and has a explosive charge set on the shield’s power source so that they can get out of there. He thinks that the water will disperse the fog though unfortunately Adaline insists that instead it’s going to exponentially replicate, freeze the water, and kill everything it touches.
Cue Pawter entering the lab and asking her mother what she’s created. Her mom actually praises her for her quick thinking with cutting off Louella’s hand. She goes on to explain that she’s doing this for Qresh because the entire planet is under a ticking clock. Some of the Nine families embrace their fate and others don’t, thus this was her attempt to stop it. Adaline was trying to make the planet uninhabitable for those who would chose to take it.
This gives us some more information on what Delle Seyah and Khlyen are working on. There might be some kind of war coming with the need for a human seed bank and the un-killable warriors (level 6’s) as a means of protection, defense, and preservation. Could having those walls up all over Westerley be meant to help the people isolate themselves from the invaders? If the pathogen was released within the planet as well but alpha shields were erected as a part of the wall covering the towns to protect the inhabitants within?
Adaline tells Pawter that her formula is off somehow and it’s now up to her. She’s left her daughter with a full record of how the pathogen affects a human subject and she should use the science to help the others. Pawter is admittedly freaking out because her mom is dying before her eyes but ever the leader, Seyah Simms insists that this is what it takes to head the family, which her father never wanted for her. Could she have been exiled to spare her the hard life of leading Land Simms? Was exiling her how they showed their love?
Adaline: To protect those you love you must become something you hate.
With a little help from Dutch, Johnny determines that they can burn off the fog by blowing up the estate gas lines. Louella has the brilliant idea of having him use her diving suit as a protective layer against the killer frost outside. All geared up, the killjoy heads to the control building to plant the bomb when he is attacked by Hank in a hazmat suit inside (the man disappeared after Louella’s accident). Turns out he was the one who released the pathogen as to kill off everyone in the family. He proposes that they split the bounty 50/50 and let the fog take care of the rest so that he doesn’t have to explain a dead killjoy along with the Simms popsicles. So was Hank hired by political rivals to murder his betrothed’s whole household?
Back in the house, Weymer decides to see what happened to Johnny in case something has gone wrong, refusing to let his daughters die. Without any protective gear he heads to the control building and manages to distract Hank long enough for Johnny to take him out. Pawter’s dad tells the killjoy to go and that he’ll shoot the explosive to trigger the explosion since he’s already dying anyways having been infected with the pathogen. His last request is for Johnny to take care of his daughter. Awww! The younger man has a newfound respect for Weymer as he gives him the explosive and runs back to the main house. The older gentleman gives him two minutes before setting off the bomb and with that poor Pawter and Louella lose both of their parents in one day but the pathogen is destroyed.
Some time after, Pawter is reciting a pledge as she officially takes her mother’s place as head of Land Simms in front of other members of the Nine. She and Johnny share a moment after where she tells him that she doesn’t want him to risk his life for her and he responds that he’s not that guy. He’s spent so long being a killjoy and only caring about the warrant that now he wants to give a crap and do what’s right.
Johnny: To give a shit, like you do. I’m tired of not being able to do that and I wanna give a shit together. You know maybe, the warrant isn’t all for me.
The moment ends with them kissing. Shucks!
Meanwhile, Dutch and D’Av have been having their own adventure. When we last left the elder Jaqobis brother, he was flirting with Sabine at the Royale when he suddenly starting hearing and seeing things and then promptly fainted. Turns out, somewhere in space, Khlyen was using the green goop to connect his and D’Avin mind in order to get information on Daddy Jaqobis. Back on Lucy, he tells Dutch about his weird collapse and hands her his gun just in case. He starts humming a song and the former assassin cocks the weapon on the ready, telling him that the only person who knows that song is Khlyen because he wrote it for her.
On Telen, Fancy and Khlyen have located their target and are preparing to inject him with green goop to discover if D’Av’s immunity is hereditary. However, the man seems to be succumbing to the plasma and so Fancy wonders if it might be from maternal side of the family instead.
Switching back to Lucy, Dutch hypothesizes that her former tutor might have devised a way to link his mind to D’Avs the way he did with her through the neuro link. She wonders that if Khlyen is using him to spy on them maybe they can reverse it and do the same. Just as D’Av is unshackling their supposedly unconscious prisoners, Khlyen decides to mind link again in an attempt to discover the location of his mother. The two men seize on the opportunity and attack the killjoys, with Dutch kicking ass on her own while D’Av attempts to get into Khlyen’s head.
The level 6 agent tells Fancy that it’s different this time since D’Av is fighting back and voila mind switch! Both Luke MacFarlane and Rob Stewart do amazing jobs playing their respective characters in the other’s body right down to language, physicality, and demeanor.
Khlyen (in D’Av’s body) gets injured but he soon makes mincemeat out of the prisoner in his smooth fighting style. Observing, Dutch realizes that she’s actually dealing with her former tutor.
Back at the Jaqobis home, Fancy suspects that Khlyen isn’t himself and fights it out. But with a level 6 body, D’Av is able to over power Mr. Lee and renders him unconscious. He then wakes up his father and tells him to go and get out of there. At first the old man is confused but eventually gets that his son is somehow wearing another person’s face. Before leaving he tries to apologizes but D’Av won’t have it.
Meanwhile Khlyen is trying to get a message to Fancy to switch them back before the Black Root catches up to them in Telen. Dutch comments that he seems scared of them and her ex-tutor responds that normally they actually report to him. She begins to start stapling the wounds he got from the prisoners earlier. Khlyen reveals that he wants to know how Jaqobis resisted the plasma and that’s why he’s there. Dutch counters that she wants to know what the green goop actually is and only gets a mysterious answer, “it’s the beginning or the end, depending on how you look at it.” D’Av injured body enters a critical state and Khlyen believes it’s a result of their mind switch and he needs to reverse it now. Trouble is, he doesn’t know how.
After D’Av’s dad leaves the house, Fancy is able to knock the killjoy out and takes him back onto their ship. Meanwhile the real Khlyen is laying on a table near death and asks Dutch if she has any last words. She responds saying that she’s changed because she doesn’t hate him anymore but she misses it because hating him was simpler. Khlyen glances at D’Av’s body read out from Lucy and starts to laugh, realizing that what he was looking for was within Jaqobis’ mind all along. He asks to see a neural scan of D’Avin’s brain and then questions Dutch on who operated on the former soldier. She answers that the army did of course. In a moment of openness, Khlyen admits to Dutch that he had sent out one last transmission from Red 17 and when she decodes it she’ll have her answers. Before she electrocutes him to hopefully switch their minds back (she had asked Johnny via comm earlier on a hypothetical situation) she needed to find out one last thing, why was she on Arkyn as a girl. He answers that it wasn’t her then forces her electric glove clad hand down on his chest.
Switcheroo complete! Khlyen wakes up in his own body back on the Black Root ship and orders Fancy to give him the weaponized stick. The other level 6 agent is all alrighty you check out. The older man then reveals that D’Avin had been a part of the military experiment and that the army took liberties that they were not aware off. They are going to find out what and replicate it but to what purpose?
When D’Av and Johnny catch up, they chat about their old man. Big brother comments that their father seems so small now. While he was such an abusive douchebag to them, in the end he had driven both his sons away and is now alone.
Dutch is clearly relieved to have Johnny back on board as she’s been weirded out by his relations with Pawter. It seems that too much is changing in her life at the moment and she feels that Johnny is her gravity keeping her from being adrift. After his conversation with the doctor earlier, he decides not to tell Dutch about what’s going on with Westerly and the containment walls. The weight of Weymer’s words hit him as he is put in a situation where he equally loves two women and he chooses the option that makes him into a better man. The relationships have definitely altered, as Johnny seems to be closer to Pawter now and her crusade than his friendship with Dutch.
It’s great to see Johnny pursue his own interests and while he’s onboard to help Dutch and his brother, he too wants to make a difference in the Quad. It’s really quite noble though it’s not going to be easy lying to his teammates.
This was an educational episode as we discovered more information on something serious threatening the Qreshi way of life and likely the whole Quad itself. So perhaps Khlyen really isn’t the bad guy he’s seemed to be and maybe he’s just be forced to take extreme measures given the gravity of the threat that they all will face. Nevertheless it’s was awesome to see a new planet in a different system and see the Killjoys universe expand while our main characters evolve into more interestingly complex individuals.
Killjoys airs Fridays on Syfy at 9/8 central.
Images courtesy of Syfy.
