Our favorite Killjoys go to school in this episode and run into a familiar face. On to the recap!
We start the episode in a place where alarms are going off. A boy wakes up from stasis screaming! On Lucy, Davin (Luke McFarlane) and Dutch (Hannah John-Kamen) are practicing on their fight moves when Turin (Patrick Garrow) interrupts. Before Turin rang Davin wanted to reassure Dutch that while they are complicated, he doesn’t want things to get awkward, especially since there may be interest in Alvis (Morgan Kelly) on Dutch’s part. Anyhoo Turin found the location Khlyen’s (Rob Stewart) data went to before Red-17 got destroyed. A prodigy school that gifted Westerly kids are mandated to attend. The RAC arranges the escorts. That will be Dutch’s next warrant. One of the kids they will escort is in Old Town. Both Dutch and Davin agreed that once Johnny (Aaron Ashmore) picked up Pawter (Sarah Power) they would dump the kids on him.
Dutch and Davin arrive in Old Town at Pree’s (Thom Allison) bar. They need to find out where one of their warrants lives since their old address was bombed out. Pree asks one of his bartenders Sabine, who catches Davin’s eye. She’s able to tell them where to go. Pree updates them on Johnny’s progress since Pawter left Spring Hill for the Salt Plains.
Lucy was able to track Pawter at a tent bar. John goes in to find her arm wrestling her way to freedom via Salt Plains Law from Big Borna (Natasha Bromfield). When Borna overhears that Pawter is a doctor, she thinks Pawter would make a great daughter-in-law and tries to prevent them from leaving. Johnny creates a bar brawl as a distraction so they can escape.
Pawter tries to have John leave without her because she wants to warn the other cities about The Company’s plans to build walls. John offers for her to stay on Lucy until she figures out what to do next. She doesn’t want him conflicted because he works for the RAC, and they are not supposed to take sides. Even though he works as Killjoy he feels he can still help as a friend.
On their way to pick up one of their warrants, Dutch expresses concern that Pawter will become a distraction for John. Davin brings up that John has a hero complex and him giving a crap is what makes them a good team. When they arrive at their destination the father Lans (Stephen Park) is reluctant for his son Jake (Jack Fulton) to go to the school. When he roughly pushes Jake, who wants to go, Davin manhandles Lans, not liking bullies. With Jake’s brother Olan (Ricardo Hoyos) gone for three years at the school, his wife dying from the bombings, and The Company now wanting to take his other son, Lans would have no one left. Despite the manhandling, I actually felt sorry for Lans.
On Lucy, Davin asks John how long Pawter gets to stay. John hasn’t talked to Dutch about it yet, but he’s dreading it. Jake is kicking one of John’s boxes while their other two charges, two older girls named Xosia (Peyton Kennedy) and Kerrigan (Athena Park) are playing quietly off to the other side. John considers the girls his tribe while Jake is Davin’s. Davin doesn’t seem to mind and thinks Jake would be more fun. I liked the banter between the Jacobi brothers in this scene. Davin approaches Jake, who isn’t into puzzles (his brother was), and how he’s worried that Olan wouldn’t want to see him. Davin tries to reassure him that his brother will always have his back. He tries to get John to confirm but he brings up the fact that Davin stabbed him. Brotherly love I tell ya!
John goes up to see Dutch, asking when they will dock at the school. He is confident he will find Khlyen’s transmission. Dutch brings up Pawter and how long she will be staying. John thinks because Alvis also bunked with them for awhile, they should extend the same courtesy to Pawter. Dutch wants John to not get distracted but focused on the transmission. John reassures her that will not be a problem.
Once docked at the school John gives Dutch and Davin data boxes so Lucy can search for the transmission. The boxes will need to be plugged into the security room for it to work. John revs up the kids to get excited about school and Lucy even wishes them well and advises them to share their lunch. Too adorable! However, no welcome committee to greet them. Weird. As they walk further into the school, they find it odd that they don’t see any kids walking around or teachers either. They see a video message from none other than Delle Seyah Kendry (Mayko Nguyen) welcoming the students and to have them get their welcome packages and greet their school guardians. After that message an alarm goes off about a breach in Classroom A. Davin and Pawter take care of the kids while Dutch and John check out the classroom. When they enter they find empty cryopods. While they are questioning what the hell kind of school this is Seyah herself walks in with a bodyguard wondering what the hell they are doing there. She accuses Dutch of messing with the cryopods but Dutch tells her they were empty when they got there. John finds some blood on the wall, thinking the kids didn’t want to go wherever willingly. Seyah locks the school down until she finds out just what is going on and finding the missing kids.
Dutch explains that they have warrants to bring kids there and shows them to Seyah when she demands it. Seyah explains that it was too early for the school to be receiving additional students as the current class had 6 months left to complete their program. She got an alert that Lucy was approaching the station so showed up right after they did. Lucy confirms that is the case. Dutch has John find out when the missing kids woke up while Davin takes the kids back onto Lucy. Seyah has Bruxton (Jake Michaels) help Davin. The only other person that would have access to wake the kids from stasis is Class Guardian Malta Chambers (Jane Johnson), who is also missing.
Seyah and Dutch are in the security room. Dutch plugs in the data box John gave her earlier. Dutch asks to see the footage from Classroom A, but it is gone. Seyah explains that she is trying out a new learning technique using cryopods and Chambers, who worked for the Company for 18 years was vetted to help run the school. She helped monitor the kids in the pods. For some reason Seyah keeps a very small number of staff at the school. Her reasoning is she wanted to make sure the new technique was viable so the best way was to have limited number of staff. They assume that Chambers must have the kids somewhere and since the station was built to block scans, they will have to look for them the old fashion way. Seyah wonders why Dutch is really there. Dutch misses their hate-flirting. They both want the other to confess their agendas but neither are budging.
Bruxton, who wanted to be a Killjoy but wasn’t chosen because of his heart condition, unwittingly mentions the missing kids, which upsets Jake. He runs off to try to find his brother himself. Davin runs after him and tells Bruxton not to screw up any more than he already has. We now know why you didn’t make the cut buddy. Pawter finds John in Classroom A wondering how she can help. John mentions the pods are fried so he can’t find out when they were last opened. John has Pawter figure out bio while he works on the tech. Pawter explains how she grew up with Seyah and played dirty tricks on each other. She starts by taking samples from the blood on the wall, then moves to the pods. They find wires hear the head and figured that someone was neurofeeding the kids using the pods. They also find some gel like substance. What is that, and why do I have a bad feeling about it?
Davin finds Jake hiding in a vent-like room. He tries to bond with the boy when he finds a Nova Cadet button on his backpack because he also joined the Cadets when he was young. When Jake mentions that his dad thought the Cadets were suck-ups, Davin also has jerk fathers in common with him too. Davin tries to reassure Jake they will find his brother when he sees Ms. Chambers walk past the door. Davin tries to go after her but she disappears around a corner. He tells Dutch and she is able to pick up Chambers on the security camera heading towards the air lock bay. Seyah gets Bruxton to go after her, leaving the kids unguarded on Lucy. Seyah believes that if Chambers leaves on her ship, they won’t be able to find the children. Dutch however thinks that she is leading them into a trap. When Bruxton catches up with Chambers, she claims that she knows what they did to the children. Bruxton goes after Chambers again and stops near the entrance. He gets electrocuted. Buh-bye. Dutch finds him dead. Fortunately, Davin finds the other kids unharmed.
Dutch wants John to get the security feed back online ASAP. John is doing his best. Pawter asks John to hand her a scanner. She lifts a pad and finds more of the gel-like substance and some blood. The scan shows DNA, proteins, etc. Well we know what the substance is now. The missing children somehow melted into blue gel!
Pawter confirms Bruxton died by electrocution to John, Seyah and Dutch. Seyah’s got some explaining to do. She is adamant that they have to find Chambers to find out for sure who’s behind the children being killed, but Dutch wants to leave because it isn’t safe. Seyah isn’t happy that Pawter is also there and gets defensive when Pawter asks about the neurofeeding. Compressed learning is another term for it and apparently it’s illegal, especially since the Westerly kids are considered expendable if something happens. However, Seyah thinks that the cryo learning is better than having a student worry about normal school stuff because they become automatic experts in whatever interesting field. Pawter thinks the feeders killed the kids, while Seyah thinks Chambers did it.
Chambers interrupts with a message. If they don’t want to the truth exposed, bring Seyah to Level 9 alone and unarmed to answer to justice. John is confused as to why the child killer wants justice. Dutch wants Seyah to use herself as bait. When Seyah refuses, Dutch electro-shoots her in the leg. Dutch thinks Seyeah needs them, especially since Seyah’s security detail doesn’t know she’s there. Back on Lucy, Davin tells Jake about his brother but that doesn’t go well when he tries to make a Nova promise to find Olan’s killer.
Johnny set up some motion sensors to detect Chambers when she enters the area. Seyah and Dutch finally show some of their cards. Seyah knows that Khlyen left the Quad. Dutch reveals about the transmission ending up at the school. Seyah is puzzled about whey his communication would come early when they have a schedule. Lucy then reveals that she found the transmission but it fried the memory core so it got rerouted to Classroom A. Seyah sees Chambers. Dutch and John run towards her wondering why the sensors didn’t trigger. When Dutch tries to attack her she goes right through her image. Interesting. A hologram. John called it digital ghosting: using the camera light spectrum to holo-project.
Dutch tries to warn Davin that Chambers is still missing. Davin doesn’t catch the message as it was spotty. The kids get up suddenly and go out of the dock area. Lucy is also getting hacked at the same time. Whaaaa? They mention that they heard an announcement saying to meet in the dock bay area. There is a small robotic device waiting for them. It electrocutes Davin. John tries to get Pawter to come with him as Chambers is on the loose. However, Pawter claims that one of the pods has Chamber’s DNA in it. Apparently one of the kids survived, but who? An older boy runs up and Jake recognizes him as Olan. Just as Davin is closing his eyes, Olan is taking Jake onto Lucy.
Pawter and John find Davin and the girls. John wakes him up. Davin tries to tell them about Olan but John beats him to it. Davin wonders how he didn’t hear the kid’s message and Xosia explains that Olan used a frequency only they could hear called audiometrics. Apparently John has at least heard of it. Olan cuts off the life support in the building and demands that they undock Lucy in 15 minutes. Just great. John is going to try to get on Lucy to stop Olan while Dutch and Seyah try to make it back to the control room to get the life support back up with an override.
Olan meanwhile is trying to take control of Lucy who doesn’t appreciate the attitude. Jake tries to get his brother to give them life support but falls on deaf ears. Olan thinks that the Killjoys just see Jake as a job and that they should’ve just kept chasing after Chambers. He starts to get visions of Khlyen, snow, grass, and someone in a fur coat walking in snow with blood on the ground. Well, I guess we know where Khlyen’s transmission went.
Struggling for air, Seyah and Dutch make their way to the control room by taking the stairs. Seyah decides to play a game called two lies and a truth. One that could be the truth is that the prodigy program is a seedbank used to preserve Qreshi culture and knowledge. Dutch thinks there are only two reasons to keep a seedbank, winter or war. Seyah doesn’t want to say anymore though. Dutch starts to hold Seyah to help her walk. John struggles to open the dock door. When he starts to examine the robotic machine Jake comes out. He wants John to help his brother, since he’s starting to try to manually control Lucy and he’s seeing stuff. John is going to do what he can but needs Jake’s help.
Pawter and Davin put the girls in the cryopods, which have life support and oxygen. Yeah I would be leery about getting in the same pods that killed the kids before me! Pawter reassures Davin that it was a data surge that fried the pods, not Olan, and the surge shouldn’t happen again. Davin wonders when the data surge occurred. Pawter checks and finds out it was around the time Red-17 shut down. With the oxygen at 20%, Davin tries to get Pawter to go in the last pod. She thinks John is a good man. Davin warns her though that he snores like a fat man. I guess that was his way of saying he didn’t mind John and her getting together.
John confronts Olan, who threatens to blow up Lucy. Olan explains what happened with Chambers. She tried to wake him up and he pushed her into the pod. He thought she was trying to kill him. John tries to explain that maybe she was trying to save him instead. He tells him of the data-surge that caused the pods to go into a sterilization cycle. The data was sent to him which is why he has the visions and headaches.
Dutch, like a boss, carries Seyah the rest of the way into the control room. Dutch asks how to activate the life support and Delle Seyah kisses her and says biometric. Keeping her mouth closed Dutch goes over to the machine and breathes into it. This confirms she is Seyah and life support is back on. With the wind out of his sails, Olan still threatens Lucy, which pisses John off because he’s bluffing. He also plays the little brother guilt card using a hologram of Jake. He’s screwing up his chance being a good big brother unless he gets help. Olan finally surrenders.
Pawter gives Olan a sedative. Davin and John have a touching brother moment. Davin tries to tease John about loving Pawter. John denies it because he loves Lucy. Davin thanks John for talking Olan down and not getting them blown up. John is done with kids. I hear ya John.
Seyah tries to get Dutch to hand over Olan so she can find out what Khlyen was trying to send her. Dutch has a better offer and plays two lies and a truth. She will keep Olan since Seyah doesn’t really want her people to find out what she has been up to with the school and let her know what Olan reveals to her. She also didn’t hate that kiss. Seyah assumes that Dutch was telling three truths and no lies. She will let Dutch keep him for now. This does mean that for the time-being, she is an ally to Seyah’s schemes.
They drop Olan off at the monastery Alvis is located. Dutch wants him to tell her what Olan reveals about his visions. As far as the scrolls, Alvis has the older uncles looking into it because it appears encrypted.
Khlyen wakes up from stasis. Fancy (Sean Baek) takes care of the guards and pilots on the transport ship. Khlyen wants to go on a road trip to Telen, home of the Jacobi brothers. He wants to find out how Davin is immune to the green goo. Just great!
More Thoughts
I enjoyed the brother moments between Davin and John. It was interesting how the episode tried to parallel their relationship with Jake and Olan. The only difference to me is that Olan was a punk for even trying to threaten Lucy. As for John’s feelings for Pawter, I don’t know how I feel about that just because she already tried to have a relationship with Davin. That just seems weird. The hate-flirting going on between Dutch and Seyah was also interesting. It’s like they have each other by the balls now with what happened at the school. I’m thinking that Sabine is going to be sticking around so we may see more of her. Considering Davin’s interest my guess is that will be her main purpose. Sigh, I was really hoping for Davin and Dutch to get back together.
The visions that Olan had showed the green plant again. What is with the green plant? Why is it winter and is Khlyen still on Arkyn in this dream? What is up with these visions/memories?
So what did you think of the episode? Let us know in the comments!
