KILLJOYS — “Escape Velocity” Episode 110 — Pictured: (l-r) Aaron Ashmore as John, Hannah John-Kamen as Dutch, Luke Macfarlane as D’Avin — (Photo by: Ken Woroner/Temple Street Releasing Limited)
All season, the Killjoy team of Dutch, Johnny and D’Avin have been told they’re going to have to choose sides. The moment has arrived.
In Killjoys’ (Syfy, 9/8C) season finale, Escape Velocity, it all comes together – Level 6, Red 17 and so much more that it hardly seems fair to stuff it all into one breakneck paced episode.
Following Khlyen’s (Rob Stewart) revelation that he was Level 6 – and Johnny’s (Shawn Ashmore) pilfering of a sample of the liquid from the computer on the highest level of RAC headquarters, Escape Velocity opens with Scarback Monk Alvis (Morgan Kelly) being charged for a terrorist attack on the Leith Bazaar and Dutch (Hannah John-Kamen) recognizing it as a frame up.
As Dutch, Johnny and D’Avin (Luke Macfarlane) are working on trying to find out why Alvis was framed/free him, Dutch gets a call from Delle Seyah Kendry (Mayko Nguyen) who is calling in the favor Dutch owes her from episode four, Vessel (when Dutch’s team saved a bloodline of the Nine) – causing the team to split.
Before Dutch and Johnny leave, Dr. Pawter Sims (Sara Power) gives Johnny a note to pass to her mother. The line, ‘I’m a pretty, pretty princess’ is spoken.
Johnny’s hacker acquaintance, Carleen (Danka Scepanovic), meanwhile, is trying to decode the files Johnny gave her last week and has just set her system to send Johnny the contents of those files in a periodic dump when she has an unexpected visitor.
Between revelations about Khlyen and the Nine and a number of other things, Escape Velocity takes threads that have been spun since the series premiere and drawn them together in sometimes frightening ways.
The finale – which was written by series creator Michelle Lovretta and directed by Ken Girotti – pays off in terms character and action, while setting up a shocking cliffhanger that ties two of the most persistent RAC rumors together. Escape Velocity is appropriately named – it blasts off almost from the start and accelerates right up to that minute freak out.
Sci-fi fans who, in the past, blasted Syfy for not being about space shows, should be pleased with Killjoys and way it has (like Lovretta’s other series, Lost Girl) started with a complete world and let the action and the characters reveal themselves as an organic part of the universe they inhabit. The show’s season finale indicates that, so far, we’ve just scratched the surface of the world(s) of The Quad.
Final Grade: A