Sunday, July 30, 2017

Killjoys, Season 3, Episode 5: Attack on the Rack



Time for the war to get into full swing - starting with kidnapping three Rack captains (and I do love Dutch tipping the sex worker one was with at the time. Less so that we’re clearly supposed to be shocked, disgusted or think less of Captain Cardiff because he’s into pegging)

The three captains (Cardiff and two silent nameless people) run Racks and have been kidnapped so Turin, assisted by Fancy, can expose the Hullen to them so they can clear out their own Racks. They have a captured Hullen to show this special healing power and warn them that everything is terrible and they need to take steps (after proving that Cardiff & co are not Hullen because they bleed).

And they’re going to launch a masterclass by cleansing their own Rack. The plan is, Johnny breaks into the Rack, unleashes paralytic gas then Dutch leads a few squads of loyal Killjoys (techs?) to spoke them all and brutally murder the ones who Hullen heal

Sounds like a plan. And it starts well - the gas is released

And then all the Hullen get up and start killing people - including Benjy one of the two sacrificial grunts on Dutch’s squad so she can feel all sadness that she didn’t keep the extras alive. Oh Dutch, if you dressed then in red shirts you wouldn’t feel so bad.

So with most of the extras duly dead we can get to focus on the core team + 1 extra. They look at the dead Hullen bodies and find they’ve all been taking lots of anti-paralytics - which means Dutch & co have a mole in their organisation

They start moving through the Rack but are ambushed leaving Dutch to continue alone after convoluted circumstances have her remove a number of her clothes of course

That leaves Johnny and D’avin to be tortured (Johnny’s brains being painfully wiped) while the last red shirt is killed after being revealed to be the mole. Well that was easy. They also remind us that all Hullen are evil yet united so are definitely not a good thing in case

Honestly the amount of time torturers waste on dramatic monologues that serve only to remind us how evil they are.

Also I wish to express my objection of sexy guys being tortured by being tied fully clothed to chairs and having sci-fi lights shine on them while they act in pain. Whips and chains exist, folks! And leather! And rac… ok I’ll stop now

So Dutch keeps moving through the ship and finds the Genetic Bomb from last season which Turin just left in a drawer somewhere with all those flat batteries and pens that have run out of ink (I can’t be the only one who keeps those, right?). She takes it and some weapon to go for some more wandering through the ship until she runs into Banyon

The two fight while Dutch rants about he’s totally going to take down the Hullen and then stabs Banyon

Who bleeds and doesn’t heal

Yes, Banyon is human. And the whole reason why she joined to clean up this Rack is she’s been trying to investigate Level 6 since forever and she suspected Dutch was involved

Yes they can now be besties. Banyon can be a mentor figure. They’re excellent and strong and intelligent and completely get over the whole stabbing thing and Banyon is now totally team Dutch and this is going to be amazing - MAKE IT SO

Killjoys Banyon had better survive that stab wound. If she dies we will have Issues.




Dutch finally gets round to freeing Johnny - but D’avin has already been taken away after demonstrating his ability to explode Hullen eyes with his brain

So what are Dutch and Johnny to do when it’s just them, lots of Hullen and a genetic bomb that kills everyone with a certain genetic code that they conveniently stumbled across even though it’s quite bemusing that this was stored along side pistols?



I’m not even going to pretend it’s a surprise what happened since Chekov’s bomb may as well have been bright yellow and screaming “plot device plot device”.

The Hullen are duly dead, everyone - almost - is rescued and they can return to Turin, Fancy and the Captains

While Dutch and co were doing their thing, Turin had Fancy torturing the captured level 6 to try and find out the mole - all the while Captain Cardiff who is made of awful, tried to convince Turin that Fancy can’t be trusted due to being a Hullen once. The captured Hullen pushes the same idea, that “cleansed” people beg to be re-hullenised for the healing immortality and all the good stuff.

This whispering in Turin’s ear makes him doubt Fancy - so when Fancy needs to be let out the cage he hesitates.

In the post action party, Turin tries to apologise to Fancy - but Fancy is supremely pissed and I don’t think sorry is really sufficient when you nearly killed someone because you suspect they’re working for goo-aliens


Meanwhile Delle Sayah is still working on Aneela and making her change all her tactics and Gander is all pissy because he’s not long the favourite while Delle Sayah classily turns the screws and makes him feel much much worse because she’s good like that. She makes it clear she’s replaced him and is so much more special than him.

Except when Dutch completes her little Rack cleanse we learn that Aneela has been playing her own game all along and likes it when her minions bicker because they don’t nag her. With Dutch returning the captains to their Racks to cleanse them, all three of those Racks are completely destroyed. Aneela wants Dutch isolated and alone.

Aneela is clear she doesn’t have a lot of respect for the whole idea of power behind the throne and likes direct action. Delle Sayah agrees - and kisses Aneela, who kisses her back, tentatively. I think we’re going to see that soft power behind the throne that Aneela dismisses so easily

On the plus side, bisexual or lesbian women in a prominent role

On the minus side - dangerous villains who are almost certainly going to die


I have to say I'm kind of disappointed. This was supposed to be the action episode, the first strike in the war - and there wasn't a lot of action or a lot of planning or a lot of strategy and the gang won because of some really contrived elements...