Killjoys
Season 2, Episode 1: “Dutch and the Real Girl”
Air Date: July 1, 2016
In the Killjoys season 2 premiere, D’Avin is still trapped inside the Red 17 facility on Arkyn with Dutch and Johnny desperately trying to find him. Do they make it in time to save him before he is transformed into the mythical level 6 RAC agent? Read on to find out:
D’AVIN
D’Avin (Luke MacFarlane) is still inside Red 17 where he is being prepped to transition into a level 6 RAC agent. What does that entail exactly you may ask? He’s being pumped with some weird green liquid that makes him hallucinate and have lusty fantasies (involving Dutch). At the beginning of the episode, D’Av is dreaming that he has been reunited with his compatriots and they are storming Red 17 to find Khlyen (Rob Stewart). He also sees Fancy (Sean Baek) in this sequence and the other killjoy aids them in shooting the Red 17 guards. To D’Avin this all seems very real but little things nag at him like why he doesn’t trust Fancy and how did Dutch (Hannah John-Kamen) and Johnny (Aaron Ashmore) actually find him. The scene ends with him saying screw it and passionately kissing the level 5 killjoy as Johnny and Fancy try to break through a door to where Khlyen is supposedly is. However, we find out that he’s actually asleep this whole time and the scientists at Red 17 give him another dose of the mysterious green substance that seems to be everywhere on Arkyn.
DUTCH AND JOHNNY
Meanwhile the other two members of Team Awesome Force are on the ship trying to land onto Arkyn, but the planet has a hardcore barrier in the form of beta radiation that is preventing them from doing so. We do find out that Khlyen has had D’Avin there for five days. Dutch decides to go for it regardless of the risk and plunges Lucy (voicecd by Tamsen McDonough) into the barrier, environmental toxins be damned. At the last second, the ship’s emergency overrides kick in and they abort the mission before any permanent damage can be made.
They head to the Leith Bazar and seek help from Bellus (Nora Mclellan) to get more information on the Connaver Gang (apparently they made it in and out of Arkyn alive). The warrant broker tells them that the gang had made ship piracy into a science while continuously evading The Company’s grasp by hiding out in Arkyn when it got to hot. No one knows how these thieves are doing it but the RAC guesses that they stole something that protects their ship. Dutch and Johnny want in on any warrant for that tech and Bellus says that the rumor is the Connavers left it as collateral before their last jump at a place called Eulogy.
Eulogy happens to be a barter town/outlaw casino with two requirements for entry: you have to be a known criminal and you have to bring in something worth gambling. Johnny can take care of the goods but asks how long it would take to create covers. Bellus laughs and says why bother with fakes when they’ve got the genuine article right in front of them. Who could that be? Pree (Thom Allison) of course.
Pree, who had stayed with Dutch and Johnny after fleeing Old Town turns out to be a warlord. That’s right!! Who would have guessed that the barkeep had a scandalous secret past.
Through him they are able to get into Eulogy with Pree vouching for Johnny while Dutch hides inside the case with their goods. Inside, the boys proceed to gamble and Johnny manages to insert a chip that gives Lucy access to Eulogy’s systems. Through that she is able to cut the power off for awhile so that Dutch can get out of the case and start looking for the Connaver’s tech. She finds it but surprise it’s a mod, aka a human who was modified/enhanced so that he/she became part machine. Clara is a badass bionic woman who has a wicked weaponized arm named Alice and the shield device implanted in her.
The two women take out the angry baddies (though Clara gets shot in the mayhem) and meet up with Johnny and Pree. They all head to the roof where Lucy picks them up and then hightailing out of there. Once she regains consciousness, Clara agrees to use the shield to allow Dutch and Johnny land on Arkyn to find D’Av but there’s a small catch, essentially she absorbs the radiation into her body and using it is slowly killing her. Still, Dutch feels like a kindred soul to her and is still determined to do this as payback for getting her out of Eulogy.
ARKYN
Meanwhile back at Arkyn, D’Avin is having another hallucination/dream where he is outside Red 17. He sees a man similarly dressed at him saying that they were gonna kill him and that it’s starting. Now what could that possibly mean? Moments later though, men with dogs come and take the unknown male away, completely ignoring D’Av. On the ground he sees the mysterious green substance. The scene shifts to a massive fight where soldiers (wearing white like him) are killing scarbacks and then Khlyen is there, who sees him as well. The level 6 killjoy says, “You’re not supposed to see this yet. How are you here?”
D’Av wakes up near submerged in the green goo and pissed off as hell. He screams enough and somehow manages to mentally push the liquid out of the containment unit. The scientists monitoring on the other side are bewildered and have no idea how their subject did that. It seems that D’Avin was able to come out of whatever strange treatment he was being administered on his own.
The real Khlyen shows up and talks to the scientists who explain that the elder Jaqobis brother is immune to their process. When one of the Red 17 minions attempts to get D’Av up, he kicks him to the side and pulls out massive needle from behind his neck then stabs Khlyen in the hand. But interestingly the wound on the older man’s hand doesn’t heal the way it normally would. Is there something going on with D’Avin’s blood that is counteracting the special healing that level 6 agents have? Khlyen looks like he’s about to kill him but instead shoots all the other Red 17 staffers.
Dutch’s former tutor decides to save D’Av’s life and even helps him escape from the facility. He explains how he has 15 minutes to cover their tracks. As they walk through the halls, Khlyen goes into a little more detail that he had brought D’Avin here to convert him into a level 6 that’s loyal to him but will watch out for Dutch. But since the conversion didn’t work he wants to understand why. The older man says that he brought D’Av here it’s because Dutch trusts him. The two enter a room where Khlyen connects with the Nexus and removes all traces of the young killjoy from the facility.
D’Av notices a symbol on the floor and says that he saw that in his dream. But wait, it wasn’t a dream! Khlyen informs him that it was a very old memory that’s part of the conversion. But as another Red 17 goon comes in and D’Avin manages to shoot him, an alarm goes off saying Protocol 8 has been enacted. The elder man says that time has run out because the Black Root is there. He then pushes the killjoy outside and tells him that Dutch is on her way here and that he needs to get her the hell away from Arkyn.
Soon after Dutch and Johnny are inside the facility and see the dead bodies that the two other men left behind in their wake. They also manage to find and free Fancy whom we know from last season’s finale had also been there being converted into level 6.
Khlyen is still in the Nexus room when Black Root operatives arrive. It’s an interesting moment because the men treat the level 6 agent with a lot of reverence, saying that it’s an honor to meet him. Then Khlyen is told that it’s time to go home and is stunned multiple times before being locked inside a cryogenic freezer for transport.
Dutch, Johnny and Fancy reunite with D’Av outside where the elder Jaqobis tells the former assassin that Khlyen is gone, lying to her. As alarms go off, she decides to go with her team. Just as they are all getting onboard, D’Avin asks Fancy if he got placed in that green goop and the other answers that he made it out before then but the elder Jaqobis brother shoots him regardless. Everyone else is shocked but D’Av says wait and with just cause because Fancy’s eyes go black and then he gets up from the ground (very much a level 6 already). So Dutch fires some more to push him off the ship. Ouch, but don’t worry, he ends up stabbing a guard meant to monitor Khlyen as he is being transported home (wherever that is) and stands in his place instead.
WHAT NEXT?
Back on Lucy, Dutch slices D’Av’s hand and they are all relieved when his wound doesn’t magically heal. He’s still a bleeder and wants to have Pawter (Sarah Power) check him thoroughly when he sees that they all wear a tense expression. They fly back to Westerly where D’Av gets to see first hand how Old Town had been bombed and now there is a containment wall all around the city, preventing anyone from getting in or out. They have no idea who even survived. Dutch pronounces that their next mission is to get inside and find the doctor and Alvis (Morgan Kelly).
They head back to Leith first though where Clara prepares to leave their company, though John urges her to stay. She says that she has to because she’s more than 26% modified and that’s illegal in the Quad. The tricky part comes when Dutch asks if this is goodbye and Clara says that she knows they have a warrant for the shield but will they let her go? Grinning, Johnny shrugs that their warrant is for a person or persons who is in possession of the shield and since she doesn’t even count as one under Company rules, it doesn’t apply to her. The two women head to the bazaar where Bellus can smuggle the mod out.
When the three teammates finally have a moment to themselves, D’Av comes clean that he lied to Dutch about Khlyen not being at the facility anymore. Apparently she knew though and she left anyways because they needed her too. Dutch realized that if Khylen had taken him away and turned Fancy into level 6, she and Johnny could be next. D’Avin though goes out on a limb and says that he doesn’t think Khlyen is her enemy because the man had turned on his own men to help him escape. He theorizes that there is a whole other level above 6 that actually runs the RAC and whatever their plan is it scares Dutch’s former tutor. Understandably, she isn’t ready to believe that Khlyen is protecting her from her real enemy given that he murdered her husband. Lastly D’Av claims that she’s also somehow also a part of whatever is going on because he in that weird memory, he also saw her killing a bunch of scarbacks.
Cue scary music! This was a great episode that dove right back into the action and the story of the mystery behind Red 17 and the mythical level 6 RAC agents. In the first season there we saw some of these superhuman killjoys in action but we didn’t know much about them. Now we actually got a glimpse of how they were created which centers around the green liquid that looks like the Nexus is also made out off. Could there be some kind of nano technology in there that implanted certain memories into the level 6 subjects? It would make sense if there were since Khlyen was able to tap into the Nexus just using his fingers.
Also we have a new puzzle to solve with D’Avin’s immunity to the level 6 treatment. It was great to see the three partners together again after everything they went through in season one and now they’ve all go to figure out what is going on within the RAC and the Company.
So good to have you back Killjoys.
Best lines of the episode:
Pree: Let’s give these bitches some stitches!
Clara: I’m driving nerd.
Pree: I’m not wearing my dying underwear today.
Johnny: Still a bleeder not a healer!
Killjoys airs Fridays on Syfy at 9/8 central.
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Images courtesy of Syfy.
