Killjoys came to an end with “Last Dance” written by showrunner Michelle Lovretta and directed by regular Stefan Pleszczynski. I wanted to give this episode a little time to settle in with me. The thing about a show with lots of great characters is that it’s impossible to give them all great storylines in one episode. I really wish that they’d mostly finished up the action plot in the previous episode and left us with a finale that gave us more of our favorite characters. And while it was terrific to see Pip (Atticus Mitchell) back because I love Mitchell and always thought it a misstep to kill him off – the plot line made no sense. I can’t chalk this series finale up as a win.
The episode started off well with Khlyen (Rob Stewart) providing a voice over re-cap of the series. Our first shot of our heroes has them all together for a group hug, which was great – but the only time we really get to see them all together. And then they are all off on their separate missions.
Dutch (Hannah John-Kamen) takes Khlyen back to Aarken to set a trap for the Lady (Alanna Bale) by injecting him with poison to lure the Lady onto the planet. She’s set the trap so that the Lady can’t get out once she’s there. Meanwhile, the Lady is preparing Jaq (Jaeden Noel) to take over his body – and hatch up a bunch of clones as back ups. But she naturally takes the bait to come for Khlyen because she needs him to make the transfer a success. Kudos to Bale for creating an otherworldly character that we can all hate!
Meanwhile, Zeph (Kelly McCormack) has developed a new weapon based on Pawter’s mother’s technology – which was a nice throwback on Lovretta’s part. John (Aaron Ashmore) and D’Av (Luke Macfarlane) head onto the Lady’s ship to destroy her body and rescue Jaq. Zeph’s instructions are to take Lucy (Tamsen McDonough) and save Dutch if anything goes wrong.
On Qresh, Kendry (Mayko Nguyen) and Aneela (John-Kamen) are ready to make their move to get the Nine’s help in the war – and for Aneela to retake the 10th house. It was fun to see Aneela actually nervous for once, but even more fun was watching the two work together as a team and squash the resistance that the other houses put up! I did really like this scene – hate Kendry as you might, it is fun to watch her fight for the good guys!
Jaq gets loose and ends up saving D’Av – and getting shot. He refuses to go to safety when D’Av insists, and I did love D’Av saying he missed the “5 hours” when Jaq was a toddler and had no opinion! Yes. The episode did have the killer one-liners that made it so special. Jaq let the Lady find him because he had a vision of the D’Av being killed. He joins forces with John and D’Av to help kill the Lady’s body.
Meanwhile, the Lady is preoccupied with torturing Dutch and Khlyen who she’s put in collars. She makes them dance and then fight each other after she’s given Khlyen the antidote – which is always fun to watch.
Back on the Lady’s ship, Lucy has sent Zeph to one of the research labs where she, impossibly, finds Pip in a cocoon. John, D’Av, and Jaq fight their way into the Lady’s body’s containment room and are about to be killed when Kendry and Aneela come in firing and save them. Jaq tells them that they can’t kill the Lady the way they were planning, and John comes up with a new plan to “ventilate” her. Aneela speaks to the Lady through one of the guards and warns her that if the Lady kills Dutch, Khlyen will never forgive her – and demands that she let Dutch go!
Khlyen is meanwhile winning the fight. He tells Dutch to focus and remember her 10th birthday when all she wanted was a doll… she then pulls out the knife she got instead and stabs him with it before taking off her own collar and shooting the Lady as soon as John’s bomb has killed her body. Khlyen, of course, asks if she’s happy now that she didn’t get the doll!
We get a nice slow motion reunion between Dutch, John, and D’Av and then a huge party on the ship. Pip and Zeph are in the science lab as Zeph checks him out. Pip doesn’t want to question the science stuff – which is good because it doesn’t stand up to any kind of scrutiny – and Zeph is so terrified of losing him again that she can’t enjoy having him back. But naturally, the two end up kissing. So, happy ending for them.
Aneela offers to green Kendry back into being a Hullen. She leaves the decision up to Kendry but now that she has her son, she also needs her Queen… and the last we see of them, Kendry is taking on the green – did we really doubt she would?
Dutch has not actually killed the Lady – she’s still in her human body. She is trying to find out where the missing hatchlings are – we discover that many were sent out into the galaxy. Dutch tells her that she’s just human now, and humans get to make choices. The Lady is still determined that she will get out and kill all of them. Dutch gives her a red box and the Lady asks if it’s from Khlyen. Dutch tells her no, and when we see that there’s a doll in it, we know it’s from Dutch and that she’s trying to lead the Lady down another path and away from violence.
Turin (Patrick Gorrow) is in charge of the new RAQ. Everyone from the prison ship and war are now soldiers – and are enlisted to help hunt down the bugs and then start over to build a better system. Kendry pulls Pree (Thom Allison) and Gared (Gavin Fox) aside to appoint Pree Lord-Governor of all of Westerley! It’s hilarious to watch Gared worry that the box containing the badge of office could be full of snakes! Another highlight for me – but I’m still very disappointed in how little of Allison we got in this episode! Kendry tells them that she’ll never be nice, but she is going to try to be good.
The final scene belongs to John, Dutch, and D’Av as it should. John is going to leave, and Dutch always seems to have one more thing for him to do – so he’s putting his foot down. I loved Lucy saying that she chose to go with Johnny! Dutch tells Lucy to be sure to bring him back in a year. We don’t actually get to see him leave – or what would have been even better – come back in a year. Our last shot is of them doing “one last mission after alien babies,” which may prove that John never does leave…
All in all, a lot of loose ends left – maybe a tv movie at some point? Continuing adventures on another platform? A cartoon? A graphic novel? More would be great, but I’m still left feeling that this was not the most satisfying finale ever. What are your thoughts? Were you happy with the way things wrapped up? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
