Killjoys - S1E2 - The Sugar Point Run
Previously on Killjoys, ‘Bangarang’
This week’s episode opens with early 2000’s punk and a That’s What She Said joke, and to be honest, it’s comforting to know that, despite all the galactic nonsense the future holds, Michael Scott is still making an impact.
Anyways, we open up and everyone is super angry, because D’avin is still hanging around and having battle nightmares and generally being the worst houseguest ever. Johnny is on him to get a job and papers and legitimacy, but D’avin insists that he needs to be “Free!”, which presumably means he wants to join an intergalactic nudist colony, where don’t nobody need no papers.
In the midst of all the banter about jobs and papers, the team receives a warrant from the Mayor. Her daughter has been kidnapped by a smuggler named Ryo, based on Sugar Point, a bombed out shell of an old city swarming with smugglers and Ryo’s thugs. Ryo demands a trade: her incarcerated brother, Simon, for the Mayor’s daughter. The Company, not wanting to get its hands dirty dealing with a space-terrorist, enlists Dutch and Johnny to make the trade.
The bickering about D’avin’s future continues as they buckle Simon into the ship and get ready to head out. Simon begs for them to unbuckle him, saying that the pressure will make him puke. And to be honest, the guy isn’t looking good. After some back and forth, Johnny unbuckles him, because they’re taking him home, right? A newly freed criminal being taken home couldn’t possibly be a flight risk, RIGHT? Regardless, he’s a puke risk, and promptly vomits all over Lucy’s hull.
Dutch is still losing some serious sleep over the red box that remains, untaken care of, in her bunk, but can’t think on it too long, because as is often the case when approaching bombed out old cities, they are being shot at. The scavengers at Sugar Point have slightly better aim than your run-of-the-mill sci-fi baddies, and manage to shoot Lucy out of the sky with only one shot. Lucy, by the way, is super snarky for a spaceship, even one that is currently being fired upon.
Once they’ve recovered from the crash-landing, Dutch and the crew make a few unsettling discoveries. First, they totes crash-landed on the wrong side of the Ryo/Scavenger line. Second, Johnny has to stay behind and fix Lucy or they won’t be able to leave, which means that Battle Brains Soldier Boy has to go with Dutch for the rendezvous, and THIRD, THE PRISONER HAS OF COURSE ESCAPED. Because Johnny unbuckled him. Because Johnny is this episode’s worst.
With D’avin and Dutch armed and away, Scavengers start poking around Lucy. Johnny keeps working and chatting up his ship, but we know there’s not a whole lot of time before they breach the hull.
The “get a job” theme continues as D’avin and Dutch search for Simon. They follow his trail into a house where a half-dead old woman is sitting in a rocking chair. A younger couple rush in to protect the old woman, but back down when Dutch shows her reclamation agent badge. With new information about where Simon is, Dutch and D’avin head out, the former giving the latter quite a hard time for being a bounty hunter for The Company. The two find Simon at the site of his old home, where he begs them to just leave him and not take him back to his sister, who apparently has plans for him other than a happy family reunion. Before Dutch can make a final decision, though, Scavengers swarm in and apprehend all three of them.
D’avin and Dutch wake up tied to a set of tables while two totally-did-not-go-to-medical-school surgeons work on a not-at-all-sedated Simon. They’re digging for something in his gut, and Dutch is having none of it. She dislocates her shoulder, because no big deal, and scares off the surgeons a little too easily. She unties D’avin and they rush over to Simon, who is very quickly dying from the gaping hole in his abdomen. Dutch recognizes his symptoms and, after a few squelching seconds digging in his abdominal cavity, she comes up with what Ryo really wants. Simon has been carrying something called a smuggler’s nut, used to smuggle information without detection. Dutch pockets it and continues to the rendezvous point.
At the entrance to Ryo’s territory, D’avin and Dutch realize that the orb contains launch codes. Dutch is down to just make the switch and go home, but something noble rears its head inside D’avin, and he says he can find a way to rescue the girl without handing over the codes. Dutch gives the go-ahead for his plan, and, after antagonizing a few scavengers, they blaze into Ryo’s territory. Dutch and Ryo play a nice little game of verbal checkers with the “where’s my brother?” “You don’t really want your brother, you want this shiny thing!” “I’ll kill the girl!” “Please don’t.” Right on schedule, disgruntled scavengers show up as a distraction, D’avin throws a flash bomb that he got from nowhere, and the rock music escape montage begins.
During the shenanigans at Ryo’s camp, Johnny is still trying to fix Lucy while being boarded by scavengers. Turns out, though, Johnny has some brains. It’s not all unbuckling prisoners, no sir. He exits the ship without the scavengers noticing and, once they are on board, has Lucy drain the oxygen while he strips parts from their vehicle to finish the repair work. You’re back in the good graces, Ashmore.
Back at Ryo’s camp, Dutch and D’avin get to high ground with the mayor’s daughter and find a truly impressive missile ready to level Old Town. D’avin tries to disarm it, but Ryo and a few thugs show up. Luckily, and as script would have it, Johnny and Lucy turn up just in time to save the day. The crew sails away, leaving a disgruntled Ryo with a sabotage missile programmed to detonate the next time it is tampered with, which is, of course, moments after they are off-world.
Warrant fulfilled, commision deposited, the Jaquobis brothers celebrate in a bar, where Dutch suggests that, instead of an on-world job, D’avin join them as a Killjoy, which he OF COURSE accepts. Dutch leaves the boys to their revelry and goes off to find the target named by her red box. Instead of killing him, though, Dutch just wants to talk. I mean, she nails him to the wall with her knife first, but then just talk about why her old teacher wants him dead.