Killjoys, S2 - September 3

...’Killjoys’, S2, has come to an end. Now what?

Well, AoS is coming back soon; ‘Blindspot’ and other earlier 2016 shows are coming back; now shows are coming forth – but ‘Killjoys’ did earn a special mention for several reasons…

First, the show – accidentally, no doubt, showed that evil does not have to be grand and complex, as AoS, and AC, and the rest of the MCU franchise have shown. The ‘Company’, which was something of a big bad in the first two seasons, (but especially in S2) is faceless and doesn’t have any humane characteristics: Jelco is a jerk, but he is also a petty jerk, who enjoys kicking on the weak, but doesn’t appear to be ready and willing to stand up to the strong. The rest of the Company probably is not any better. Yes, they want to contaminate others with the plasma so that they would become immortal workers for the Company and possibly for the Nine royal families, (how the two power groups interact is not certain), but there is no grandeur, no glory, just the rich who want to get richer via the poor. Meet the pre-WWI, maybe even the pre-WWII capitalism (read ‘Native Son’, would you?).

The Nine royal families? They are largely represented by Delle Seyah Kendry (the ‘Seyah’ is apparently something of a title in the Killjoys universe) who kills Pawter after the latter resigns; Pawter’s death was unnecessary, on one hand, and on the other Pawter died for the sake of people of old Westerly (maybe ‘Killjoys’ are trying to channel Whedon’s ‘Firefly’, who knows?) not because of some political crap. For Delle, politics are everything, therefore, when John probably killed her in S2 finale, she got what she deserved – in an empty, dirty alley without anyone. But…

One of the flaws of ‘Killjoys’ (it is an enjoyable show, just not without flaws) is its’ lack of back history, so to speak. Often, it seems to unroll with one episode or another, and this ‘unveiling’ is not consistent. Consequently, the odds are that that is the reason why the evil in the show was so petty and all that that ‘pettiness’ entails – the crew of ‘Killjoys’ probably just cannot afford to go in-depth – at least not yet. With just 10 episodes a season and a very small cast (3 main characters, 5 or 6 recurring ones, and now two of them, Pawter and Khlyen, are dead for good) they really cannot go all-out, not how AoS does (at least once every season so far).

As I may have written before, this seems to be a problem with Michelle Lovretta, as ‘Lost Girl’ had its own issues with backstory – it constantly shifted from Celtic, to Norse, to Greek. Now, ‘Killjoys’ appear to avoid this by avoiding the backstory save for the absolute minimum – the Killjoys need a universe to in, a coherent universe to exist in, and the show did its best to deliver, trying to utilize variety to compensate the lack of an extensive backstory. It did not really work in S1, so in S2 there is more backstory, (especially concerning Khlyen, his own biological daughter and the plasma) and less variety. As the result, the S2 of ‘Killjoys’ is more interesting and intriguing to watch; perhaps the upcoming S3 will be even better?

And then there was the cameo of Rick Howland, who used to play Mr. Trick the Blood King on ‘Lost Girl’. True, ‘Lost Girl’ stars tend to appear on other shows – Ksenia Solo has appeared on ‘Orphan Black’; Zoe Palmer – on ‘Dark Matter’. They made it work there, so perhaps Rick will re-appear on ‘Killjoys’ in the future?..

So: Killjoys are continuing to pull their shit together. Now we will have to wait and see if Aos, ‘Blindspot’, and the other shows will continue to deliver as well. Later days, everyone!