Spoilers through season 2 episode 7 of Killjoys, “Heart-Shaped Box”
On Killjoys last week, we were shocked to find out that Sabine wasn’t just a hot bartender, she was a level 6 agent and apparently D’Av’s lovemaking skills broke her. This week we find out more about the 6’s, Khlyen, the Black Root, the containment wall, the green plasma, and D’Av growing special abilities.
Johnny and Pawter
Let’s focus on J & P first, who are currently separated as the younger Jaqobis brother is chasing a lead in Old Town regarding a former Company scientist. This particular individual was a part of the team that built the containment wall. Johnny manages to locate her and asks why she’s even there and the woman icily responds that she asked too many stupid questions. He continues to question her, determined to find out the true purpose of the wall but is interrupted by D’Avin who needs his attention now. Seeing her exit, she runs off before Johnny can do anything. Meanwhile Pawter is still on Qresh and the two chat via holophone. While I am digging their pairing, it did kind of feel sudden when Johnny decided to kiss his brother’s former lover in the first episode of this season. There wasn’t really any build up to the attraction and suddenly Pawter just became a priority for the killjoy. Despite the abruptness, I am still enjoying their exploits as the pair who cares about the fate of Old Town. They are the scrappy underdogs fighting against the big bad Company.
Later on Johnny does manage to catch up with the scientist again after he asks Pawter to put in a warrant for her arrest and to assign it to him (he picks up the warrant from Bellus who knows something’s up). She finally relents and explains that at Greenwell (where they were sent to test the wall) there she met a strange group of people (engineers, behaviorists, etc) but none of them knew what the wall really did or what it was for. The technology had come from outside the Quad and they were only sent there to build it. Afterwards it had been a slaughter where the very young, old and sick had died within a day while the survivors went missing. Johnny convinces her to spill some more and she tells him that the controls for the wall are in Jelco’s private office in Spring Hill.
The killjoy unfortunately gets caught breaking and entering because the scientist freaked out and ratted him out. Now he’s Jelco’s prisoner and we’re not sure that even Pawter and save his ass. Johnny’s gotten in too deep.
D’Avin and Sabine
Meanwhile D’Av’s been having a really bad day. After Johnny helps him bring Sabine back onto Lucy in a body bag, they are able to revive her but things get only more complicated. Once she is revived, we find out that Khlyen sent her to protect D’Avin from Dutch. Sabine does say that level 6’s are soldiers working for the true purpose of the rack but that she doesn’t know what that is. D’Av convinces Dutch to take Sabine to Turin because they are out of their league in interrogating a 6. Reluctantly she agrees and the senior RAC agent has them meet him at a super secret location.
There Khlyen’s spy is locked in an room with one of Turin’s best interrogators, Creepy Phil, except he turns out to be another level 6. He was about assassinate Sabine but she kills him first (via decapitation). Turin did have a great idea though on having her wear an optical lie detector that flashed a roster of missing killjoys and they had tech that would identify which ones she recognized as her people. That way they would at least have a starting list to work with.
Sabine explains that she was about to be killed with a dreadnaught, an execution stick for 6’s, which causes instant brain death. She claims that Creepy Phil was about to commit murder to keep her from talking. Johnny takes a look at the dead man’s severed head and sees green stuff inside as the exposed skin on his neck began to heal. Gross but it does confirm that Sabine was telling the truth about that. Turin then tells Dutch that he has to go dark for awhile because undoubtedly the Black Root will come looking for their missing 6. He says that they need to protect her in the meantime and get all the intel they can.
In addition, it looks like D’Av’s special abilities that caused her to expel the most of the green plasma from her system is now allowing Sabine to feel emotions again. Johnny realizes after Turin sends him a brain scan of Creepy Phil that the plasma shuts down everything that makes someone human and good, but after having sex with D’Av her plasma count went way down. Unfortunately however, the goop acts like a virus and is beginning to multiply again, meaning that Sabine’s real personality is only here temporarily.
The former killjoy tells Dutch privately that she just happened to have the right combination of what they needed mentally and physically thats why she was chosen. The green breaks down and bonds you have and you experience profound loss and grief all at once while under the process. Hence the more damaged and anti-social you were the better the candidate. That makes sense that they’d pick Fancy because of his skills and lone wolf tendencies.
Sabine offers to identify all the 6’s she knows on the condition that Dutch lets her go after. The other woman argues that the Black Root will be coming for her regardless for betraying them and better that they don’t find her with them. The former assassin agrees and Sabine explains her plan. She will use D’Av to transfer her memories to him and identify the other 6’s she’s met via the plasma. This crazy stuff is also a neuro binder that stores the combined memories of all 6’s and folks like Khlyen can tap into it and flip through the memories like a radio dial. Apparently so can D’Av.
Once they are connected however, the two are mentally transported to an unfamiliar place. She takes him to a clearing in the middle of a snowy forest where a shiny cube lays. However D’Av can only go so far as there seems to be some kind of mental barrier protecting it from his entry. Sabine encourages him to try harder, which causes D’Av’s eyes to start bleeding in the outside world as he goes into shock. Dutch forces them to separate because of the obvious stress on the elder Jaqobis brother.
While Dutch and Johnny go to Old Town to find some of the 6’s, D’Av watches over Sabine on the ship and the two bond even more over good ol’ hok. She explains how this is the first real connection she’s had in over 80 years and she just wants to make it last for as long as possible. Eventually she even gets D’Av to let her go to Dutch’s dismay, but he did put a tracker on her.
The former assassin does catch up with the 6 soldier on Leith and we find out that Sabine had hijacked D’Av’s connection to Khlyen to find one of his safe houses. She claims that she just wants Khlyen’s help because he’s different because he feels for Dutch. The former tutor appears to be quite old as Sabine explains that he was there from the very beginning with the plasma, the 6’s and the RAC. But something changed and he rebelled, claiming that it had something to do with Dutch. Apparently he’s also removed all memories of her from the green to hide her from the other 6’s. Sabine says that it’s sad that she already has 6 and doesn’t even know it. This has been touched upon numerous times this season, which leads me to wonder if Dutch is a clone of some sort of the original Yalena who perhaps had been a 6 (could explain the whole thing where Khlyen told her that it wasn’t her on Arkyn). After their chat the Black Root agent decides that she’d rather die than go back and asks the other woman to kill her. Dutch explains that she’s not doing this for her and shoots (this is really for D’Av).
The Black Root does come and take her body away although its unclear though whether she is really dead or if she’ll be able to heal from the gunshot wound to the head.
As crazy as the situation with Sabine had been, she did throw some spice into the mix as she confronted D’Av with his reluctance to admit that everything he did had a little bit to do with Dutch. She even says that she knew she was the move on lay but that didn’t work out so well. Still, it was great to see a different side of D’Av that is compassionate just like his baby brother. Those Jaqobis and their feelings!
Dutch and Alvis
Last week we saw that Dutch had gone over to the Scarback temple to see Alvis and finish their interrupted kiss. After a round of lovemaking, the monk wakes Dutch up and tells her about a story he found on the sap of life, a tree that’s considered holy by his people. It is described as a green elixir that confers eternal life. Sound familiar? Plus he thinks that the Scarbacks weren’t cutting themselves for penance but to prove that they weren’t infected with plasma. Mighty interesting!
While we don’t see much of the two this week, it’s been interesting to see them together. There is mutual attraction for sure but there is something more than the physical that is drawing the two together. Both characters are both a little lost and looking for a greater purpose. They can identify with the other’s circumstances and take comfort that for the moment, they share a common bond.
It will be fun to see who Dutch ends up choosing because I don’t think she’s quite done with D’Avin yet.
Killjoys airs Fridays on Syfy at 9/8 central.
Images courtesy of Syfy.
