Killjoys Recap - S02E03 - "Shaft"


The team now has an arrangement with Turin that should help both sides uncover what Khylen is after—if they survive Turin's tasks, of course. Meanwhile, Pawter proves to be self-sufficient and not really in need of rescue, thank you very much.

The team's first mission is connected to a salvage warrant gone bad. A week before, three RAC agents (a man, his wife Tanya, and her sister) were sent to Westerley's Northern Badlands. This is suspicious, because the region's main resource is nothing—but then, after they asked for evacuation, Khylen intercepted it and covered it up. It's up to Dutch's team (with temporary help from Alvis) to find out what happened there.


They first find the trio's ship, covered in moss... in the middle of a desert. Soon, they also find one of the missing Killjoys: Tanya, pretty damn spooked. She asks them to help her find her sister, down in the mineshaft. Again, that's not supposed to be there due to the region's complete lack of natural resources. This is a job for Alvis; his religion evolved in Westerley's mines, and he's an ex-miner himself, so this is right up his alley. As they go deeper, they find more moss—but they don't notice that it has started to move.


Meanwhile, Pawter is trying to get into Jelko's database to find a way to get out. The latter is especially problematic, as the prick put a DNA-locked bomb bracelet on her ankle that will go boom if she gets too close to the perimeter. Turns out Jelko needs her help; due to the inbreeding in his low noble family, he has a heart condition that forces him to suck out the membrane once in a while or he'll die. And since Pawter is a doctor...

Back in the mine, Tanya sees her husband, threatens him, and fires at him. He survives and she tries to follow, but Dutch smartly decides that she's a liability and leaves her with Johnny. Johnny tries to get her back to Lucy, but Tanya hears her husband and follows through an already fragile opening that crashes, trapping everyone except Johnny in the mine. They follow Tanya while Johnny tries to blast his way through the rubble.  Meanwhile, Tanya finds her sister's body and her husband, ready to kill her. She falls into a hole and Dutch pulls her up, because the living moss drugs Tanya into the pit and starts nomming on her.


It turns out the moss is some sort of insect that camouflages as moss and once Johnny cuts it in half with his laser, both halves start moving separately. Like earthworms, except for real. They also seem to have a hivemind and their bites make people hallucinate, which explains Tanya's behaviour—she hallucinated her husband. Also, when D'Avin squashes one, the same green liquid he was injected with starts pouring out of it; this might be the reason Khylen intercepted that transmission.

Speaking of Khylen, Dutch sees him and follows—but because we already saw her get bitten by one of the moss-centipedes, we know it's not real. Sure enough, she falls through a hole and has a hallucinated conversation—first with Khylen, then with herself. Luckily, the team finds her and Alvis, using his monk skills, manages to snap her out of it enough to get back on Lucy. They manage to get through a swarm of those bugs thanks to D'Avin's immunity to the green liquid, which seems to freak the insects out, allowing them passage.


Meanwhile Pawter performs an operation on Jelko and, after knocking out the guard attending the surgery, uses the man's DNA (his blood on her gloves) to gain full access to his files—including the wall. And not just the one surrounding Old Town—a lot of walls. The Company seems to have similar plans for other towns. Pawter uses Jelko's DNA to take off the bomb bracelet and put it on his heart and casually walks out of the compound with Jelko unable to follow. Unfortunately, after contacting Johnny, she gets knocked unconscious by a robed figure.


The team is licking their wounds, but they have a breakthrough—during the madness, Alvis uncovered a buried monk that left a message on a piece of his own skin. It's a continuation of a piece of scarback history/myth that Alvis has on his back: "Twelve went to Arkyn to fight the devil." The rest of it is "and one returned"—this monk, specifically. It all seems to connect to the memory of a battle between the monks and a group of people that D'Av was imprinted with when Khylen tried to inject him with the green liquid. Alvis decides to go to Leith and look for more information in his order's writings. Meanwhile, Dutch goes to visit Turin to alter their deal. During her hallucination she realized that she has been used by others (most of them men) all her life—and she's just about had enough. If Turin wants to find out what's going on, he'll have to agree to do things her way.

I like how focused on the main plotline this season is. We'll see where it leads us next week in "Thursday's Child." I'll see you then.

ASSORTED THOUGHTS
- Pawter seems to have a crush on Johnny. Or, as Lucy puts it, "signs of psychological fixation."

- So Killjoys have a lot of cool gear, as Alvis notes. Dutch's reply: "Comes with the job. Like sexy jackets and early death."

Dominik Zine is a nerdy lad from northeastern Poland and is generally found in a comfy chair with a book in hand.