Killjoys S01E08 “Come The Rain” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on SyFy
Writer: Jeremy Boxen
Director: Peter Stebbing

Essential Arc Plot Developments

• The Company is prepping for something big in Old Town.
• Dutch doesn]t reall’ trust D’Avin anymore.
• The trio are split up; D’Avin is off the team for now.
• Dr Pawter is addicted to Jakk.

Killjoys play drunk Jenga.

Episode Recap

• After last episode’s events, our trio of Killjoys are miserable, and dealing with it in their own ways, which mostly involve drinking and sex.
• To try and get the band back together, John has created a level one warrant just for Dutch and D’Avin – transport a device from Leith back to Westerley.
• John stays at The Royal (Pree’s bar in Old Town), to let Dutch and D’Avin complete the warrant, and in the process work out their differences.
• Dr Pawter has a headache and needs some “medical supplies”.
• There’s a stage four black rain event: an acid rain storm over Old Town, lethal for anyone caught in it.
• Pree offers safe haven for anyone stuck in the bar, unfortunately this includes some unsavoury looking types, as well as John, Alvis and Pawter.
• It seems some of the unsavoury types hiding out in the bar have stolen some land claim chips. However there’s also a Company man in the bar, and he wants to bring them to justice.
• A shootout ensues – the leader of the thieves is wounded so Dr Pawter has to operate and save him.
• Pawter is a bit shaky though, because of her “headache”; she didn’t get her “supplies” in time.
• Back on Lucy, the device Dutch and D’Avin are transporting disables the ship and won’t turn the engines back on until they answer a series of questions. It’s a set-up from John to get them talking again.
• Pawter is actually jonesing for some Jakk and Alvis knows where he can score a hit. To avoid the rain, Pree shows them the tunnels under the city.
• Dutch and D’Avin get drunk and answer John’s questions, but the final question for Dutch – “do you trust D’Avin?” – is one she can’t answer.
• Alvis gets the Jakk. Although it’s “dirty” it makes Pawter better. She keeps hearing space rats scratching in the walls, but manages to patch up the guy with John’s help.
• Lucy gets caught in the storm while disabled, but Dutch and D’Avin smash the device and get the engines online again.
• John shoots all the bad guys in the head with a nail gun.
• Alvis was there to meet the Company man; he’s one of his spies, and has a message for him – the company are prepping something big in Old Town, storing weapons and amassing numbers.
• D’Avin is off the ship until they can all play nice again.

Alvis the penitent, born of rats. Space Rats!

Review

There’s been a storm brewing in the Quad for a while now, and this episode finally sees it break, although maybe not in the way we were expecting.

Last episode Pawter said she would see the captain of the med ship “staked in the rain” if he didn’t help her, and now we find out exactly what that means. Execution, Company-style. A group of three men fastened to a scaffold, facing the heavens and exposed to the elements. The electro acid rain is lethal, so it’s a rather gruesome way to go, but the imagery here is superb.

“Can you hear scratching? Maybe it’s Space Rats!”

The episode has its own story but the main focus is on giving us more backstory for everyone, and they all have issues. It’s a bit late in the series for this sort of introspection but it does serve to split up the team as we go into the finale. And while the plot here is a little incidental, it’s well-written and serves as a nice diversion to everyone’s problems.

John gets the most airtime this week, and it’s great for him to be the focus of the episode. Aaron Ashmore is more than capable of taking the lead, and he really seems to have relaxed into the role now. It’s also good to see a bit more from Morgan Kelly as Alvis. Kelly is great at playing the monk with a god complex and one eye on a revolution.

Doctors and drugs, not a good mix.

Dr Pawter’s “headache” turns out to be her jonesing for a Jakk hit. We find out she took Jakk in med school to get through finals. Of course she ended up getting hooked, and killed a patient while high. Her parents covered it up, shipped her off to Westerley and have been supplying her with a supply of pure Jakk ever since. Sarah Power does a great job with the Doctor, and after mostly taking a back seat recently it’s nice to see.

Dutch and D’Avin try and work through their problems, and even get close to getting close again, but Dutch has a problem. If Johnny or D’Avin (normal D’Avin, not evil psycho D’Avin) hurt her, she’d just kill them, mourn them and move on. Their current situation is messier than that, and she doesn’t know how to move on. And as Dutch says, D’Avin is as much a victim as she and John are in this. Seems it really is D’Avins turn getting it in the neck, as John finally lets loose at him for leaving to join the army. This left John to look after their parents, and there are hints that their mother was something of a Jakk addict. In the end D’Avin is left on Westerley, off the team for now.

Dutch and John’s relationship is stronger than John and D’Avins – they’ve been together six years after all – and we end the episode with a cute scene of them reading comics in bed.

There’s some nice lighting this episode, using red filters for the heat, blue for Pree’s bar in the storm, back to orange after the storm. There are also a couple of standout shots too, one of Lucy falling into the storm, and a really neat long shot of Dutch and D’Avin dancing on Lucy’s bridge seen from a distance.
With an action series like Killjoys it would be easy to forget the little things that make a universe more whole. But the little things here are really appreciated: Dutch and D’Avin have their own ladders on Lucy; there are more references to level 6 Killjoys; the use of “staked in the rain” before we find out what it actually means. All of these things combine with the action to make Killjoys a real treat.

Really nice shot of Dutch and D’Avin dancing on Lucy’s bridge.

The Good

• Belish takes a pop at D’Avin for hurting Dutch.
• More of Alvis the penitent, born of rats.
• We learn what “Staked in the Rain” means.
• Some really nice space scenes.

The Bad

• The story is a little surplus to requirements again.

And The Random

• We mentioned how blue John’s eyes are before, but at one point this episode they appear to be different colours. Heterochromia iridum? Or a lost contact lens?
• Quotes of the Week:
  • John to D’Avin: “You bought me a comic to apologise for stabbing me?”
  • Dutch: “Long day?” Johnny: “Shit weather.”

“What? This near mint copy of Captain Apex won’t make up for the fact that I stabbed you and left you for dead?”

Review by Arthur Scott

• Read our other Killjoys reviews