S01.E08: Come the Rain

[The Crazed Spruce]

A toxic rain storm forces John and Pawter to take shelter with criminals; Dutch and D'avin are trapped on Lucy.

[sjohnson]

They have militantly acid rain but they are surprised at the idea of using tunnels? Or covered walkways made of the same rock the rain isn't melting? Or  even acid-proof plastic umbrellas? The three leads are very attractive people and you want to suspend disbelief but this show is so poor at world building it goes out of its way to put obstacles in our path. 

 

The truth or dare game could have been terminated at any moment by the simple expedient of breaking the lie detector? If the show wasn't so solemn this might have delightfully arch. 

 

Of course the whole hostage crisis could have been resolved by Johnny killing all the bad guys! Makes you wonder why he waited? My best guess it was to kill time doing something interesting like shrinking Pawter or trying out surgery, which is real fun when not hampered by sterile technique.

 

I guess if you're going to have an episode with really cool people talking to each other about their feelings while contemplating the leisurely approach of (alleged) mortal danger, it was done as well as these things usually are. The leads really are quite personable. Hannah John-Kamen is making everything she wears seem like a leather bustier and Luke MacFarlane is a hunk with facial expressions and Aaron Ashmore really is nearly as tall.

 

By the way, D'Avin sleeping with Dutch had nothing to do with Amanda Tapping switching him to kill mode. Johnny claiming it did just tells us what's really pissing him off, which is good old-fashioned jealousy. They can say Johnny is not in love with Dutch but at this point they couldn't even sell that by turning Johnny into Dutch's GBF. 

Edited August 8, 2015 by sjohnson

[thuganomics85]

It took me a while to place him, but the Company solider who was a hostage, was totally Tommy from Defiance!  Good to see him again.  So, he's actually working for this religious group, judging from the ending?  I still not quite sure what there whole deal is, except I guess they're anti-Company, to say the least.

 

Turns out, Pawter is a junkies who actually killed a patient some time ago, but she has rich parents, so they just shipped her off, instead of losing her license and whatnot.  Everyone hear really does have skeletons in their closet, huh?  I did like seeing her and John interact, and I liked the way the actors played off one another, but I couldn't tell if I was suppose to buy any attraction between the two, which would be a bit silly.  Sibling-swapping is always kind of lame.

 

Dutch and D'avin are forced to play a game of John's, and it seems like Dutch doesn't think she can fully trust him again: at least for the moment.  It sounds like he basically is stepping down for now, and, no surprise, John is picking Dutch over him.  To be fair, a comic book really is a lame attempt at a "I'm sorry I stabbed you that one time!" apology.

 

The stuff with the captors was by the numbers, but I did love John shooting them all.  He does have a violent streak in him, and can kill when need be.  Aaron Ashmore was great in that moment.

[zxy556575]

Kyhlen.

 

It bugs me that everyone is pronouncing this as "Klein," Don't care if it's supposed to be derived from some other language with different phonetics.

 

Otherwise, I suppose Johnny was being noble by killing all the bad guys since they stole the birthrights of 1000 farmers, or whatever. I don't expect he'll be in the least bit of trouble for it.

[cynic]

Ugh, I thought we were done with the Dutch/D'avin thing. The dance and the feelings thing made me roll my eyes.

As usual, John was the best thing about the episode. I'm glad he called his brother out on his crap. And I still think that he has feelings for Dutch (and that they have way better chemistry than her and D'avin) no matter how much the show tries to convince me that they act like tween girls at a slumber party when they're alone together.

[Ariah]

They act like tween girls, because that's the only way in which John can be close to her. If they take the step to be more, Dutch will ruin things - at least I'd think that's how John may think. He saw her ruin all other relationships, he said it himself - she's not good at that part of her life. Hey, she has probably never been in love (just married some royalty).

 

So in order to be in her orbit, Johnny convinced himself to keep it platonic. And Dutch feels safe with him, because he's probably the only man that doesn't try to woo her or sleep with her while remaining friendly and open. That's refreshing.

 

I don't know if John planned the whole game with the outcome in mind - that D'avin will leave the ship. But it worked out pretty well in that regard and D'avin needs some quality time on his own, to sort thing out with no John-crutch.

 

One more side note: current sexual orientation - Johnny Jaqobis in black shirt. 'Nuff said.

[ZoqFotPik]

Of course the whole hostage crisis could have been resolved by Johnny killing all the bad guys! Makes you wonder why he waited?

He didn't have a weapon until he went outside. He left his gun in Pawter's office and one of the bad guys took it before he could get to it.

[sluggish neko]

That... was boring. Dutch and D'avin talking out their feelings is exactly what I did NOT want to see. Y'know this whole storyline would have played out in a similar way if they took out the Dutch/D'avin attraction. Please make it stop. I don't see the chemistry.

 

Pawter being an exiled poor rich girl junkie explains a lot. So they're implying John's mom was an addict too?

 

John and Alvis the resistance monk look so similar to me. If it weren't for that silly monk outfit, I wouldn't be able to tell them apart.

 

Edited to emphasize the NOT!

Edited August 8, 2015 by LazyNeko

[Princess Consuela]

Guess I'm the odd one because I loved this episode. I liked seeing Dutch & D'Avin talk things out. I actually do see chemistry between the two & dont mind they hooked up.

I do think the drug thing with Pawter seemed to come out of nowhere but it did at least add more layers to her.

Loved the scenes at the end with Johnny & D'Avin & Johnny & Dutch. I do hope we get more on Johnny & D'Avin's parents.

[TwistedandBored]

I really felt bad for D'Avin. Like Dutch said, he is a victim of this too but it is like everyone while saying they don't fault him at the same time blame him for what happen. 

Also, last night might have been the first night where I just didn't like Johnny. Like I got annoyed with him. I hope that changes next week.

 

The only thing that interested me in last night's episode was The Priest/Uncle guy. Now, that is a mysterious guy I want to know more about. 

 

Also, they keep saying level 6 RAC doesn't exist. Is that what Kyhlen is? Is he level 6 RAC? 

[Julie23]

D'avin is kind of an ass, and Johnny is right, he slept with the one person he asked him not too. Not a very good brother. The only thing he did right was say he was going to step away.

[DearEvette]

I didn't like the Dutch/D'Avin parts only because it seemed like a needle scratch on a series of episodes that have been chugging along quite well.  I get they have to do some sort of follow up on what happened but I would have preferred them to work in denial until something epic kinda made it blow up in their faces rather than having Johnny engineer "Team Building"

 

I also think it is terribly shitty of the show to passively/aggressively through the characters to suggest that D'Avin is culpable in what he did to Dutch.  Sure Dutch acknowledged that he was a victim but by having the RAC handler punch him because of it  and people kinda smirking & winking about it undermines all that.  I get Dutch being leery around him.  But would have preferred to see her watchful and alert, ready to battle again rather than skittering away everytime he is in the same room.

 

And there is Johnny.  He does have a legit beef with D'Avin because D'avin left him to a junkie mother.  But that was true even before they found D'Avin and before D'avin became a part of the team.  Why not confront those issues then?  Why shit on him now when you clearly see he has also paid a price for that abandonment?  This is a guy dealing with the fact that he had his brains fucked over and his free will taken away from him and was forced to do atrocious things to people he trusted and people who trusted him.   And yet it seems like the collective reaction to him is  to be mad at him for having his brains fucked over and his free will taken away from him and made to do things he has no knowledge or control over.  And that doesn't sit well because it reeks of victim blaming.

 

That said, I did like the Johnny parts.  Not because I think that Johnny hangs the sun or anything, but because it was centered more on the stuff I like in a SFF show, the world-bulding and the larger plot.  The continuing hints about how the society works.  How the hard-scrabble Westerly people are trying hard to make onto Leith and following the rules of seven generations but that seems to be a false promise.  And the more hints of something big coming and more info about a resistance force.

 

I also liked the deeper look into Pawter's past.  Jack sounds like a terrible drug if you can't even be weaned off of it.

[sjohnson]

He didn't have a weapon until he went outside. He left his gun in Pawter's office and one of the bad guys took it before he could get to it.

I was thinking it would have been so easy to get a gun from the cops down in the tunnel. Also, you'd think one of the bad guys would have actually been watching when he ran outside. But then, I might have assumed that Our Hero was made of flesh, rather than being Teflon-coated, so that the deadly chemical coating the outside gun wouldn't burn his hand. 

 

In some respects it isn't a big deal that the plotting sucks. I'm sorry but the show has sacrificed pretty much everything to making the leads cool. Well, cool dudes and dudettes always doing cool stuff can still be entertaining, especially if you identify somehow. 

 

DearEvette, I think the real story has always been that Johnny is in love with Dutch, and D'Avin is to blame for sleeping with her. Everything else is a misdirect. D'Avin is in some suffering hero angst right now as a result. As for the endgame on this, I'd say a menage a trois is hopelessly too far out for SyFy. But on the one hand, Aaron Ashmore is the bigger name. Yet on the other Luke MacFarlane is clearly the hotter guy, and even more important, taller. Since part of the fundamental story is Dutch angst over who to choose, in any event we won't see the conclusion to the story any time soon. 

 

As to the suggestion that the revolutionary monk story is more interesting, I am inclined to agree. But the lead characters are killjoys, not rebels, and the show is called Killjoys. The warrant is all, and truth, justice and the human way is nothing. Unless you do a soft reboot on the show. 

Edited August 8, 2015 by sjohnson

[xfuse]

 

Not because I think that Johnny hangs the sun or anything, but because it was centered more on the stuff I like in a SFF show, the world-bulding and the larger plot.

This is one of the problems I have with the show. It is suppose to be world building but doesn't really tells us anything. Westerly is suppose to be the poor unhappy moon but it tells us nothing about the population. What do the people do on the world? Why are they still living there? Why don't they leave? Why don't people pack up and leave the Quad. Nothing. I'm fine for being in the dark if the characters are in the dark but all of that should be common knowledge. Firefly explained pretty quickly that there was a rich elite with cities and technology. People who didn't want that life packed up everything and went out farther until they hit the borderlands. It was a risk and they struggled.

 

It's all killjoys, company and everyone else. Are there are still miners? I'm thinking maybe no? Do people work and if so at what? Why don't people couldn't just leave the planet for parts unknown or do they? It doesn't take long to explain the basics. IMO, the writers are crap at world building. For a group of characters who know almost everything about their world they didn't pass it on to the audience.

 

I did enjoy the parts of the ep that wasn't Dutch and D'Avin.

[MissLucas]

Well played show - well played. That may be my favorite episode so far. We got plenty of backstory about Pawter, John and D'avin and even monk guy who looks like Pippin.

 

I really expected the show to brush over last week's drama by time-jump and some handwaving and cute awkwardness that would not last until the end of the episode. That they rather relentlessly picked at the scabs was surprising. I can totally see people winking and eye-rolling and making fun of the situation and blaming D'avin - not nice but human. Things got really messy instead of being cleaned up nicely by a group-hug. I also liked seeing John being pushed over the edge here, guy does have a dark side too and I'm glad we finally got to see it.

 

As for chemistry and who's supposed to be in love with whom - Dutch and D'avin should not be in love with anybody, they're way too messed up. John might be capable of being in a relationship but as has been pointed out above he knows better than to make a move on Dutch. Pawter is also not an option - definitely not after this episode's revelations about her addiction and Mama Jaqobis also being an addict. Some shows create stupid love-triangles, misunderstandings and what-not to keep the leads separate. This show creates a swamp of emotional messiness and I love it!

 

And just to remind us that it's not all about team Lucy's internal drama we get the last scene with the Company guy revealed as spy for the Westerley resistance. As I said: well played show!

[Ariah]

I must say that i loved the fact that Dutch cannot bring herself to fully trust D'avin after what happened.

The reasonable part of her knows that it was not his fault and his conscious doing, that she did away with the good doctor and the technology and D'avin cannot be activated again. But the instinct tells her "run".

 

The scene with knife-throwing showed that perfectly. Here's Dutch and her brilliant idea. At first she thinks it's great - she'll let D'avin throw the knife just past her head and prove to him that he's perfeclty fine. But then the fear kicks in and she realizes she's scared of D'avin. Perhaps it's the fear of unpredictable. Perhaps it's the fear of losing control. After all, she did expose herself to him in the most intimate way and then was forced to fight for her life with the very same body she made love to. Dutch's strong, but she's human. She needs time. She overcalculated her strength.

 

Not many shows and certainly not many sci-fi shows chose to dismantle a team and not put it together at the end of an episode. Even Firefly had an episode with Jayne and his betrayal and it was dealt with by the end of the episode. Dark Matter uses the concept of lost memories to make its characters act out-of-character every other episode.

 

But perhaps messy is too much? Maybe the audience needs each episode to conclude with the team drinking and laughing, cutting cheesy jokes at Pree's? Maybe that's the expectation this pretty decent series cannot meet? I'm keeping fingers crossed for the series to be renewed, I hated seeing "Only 2 episodes left" in the preview for episode 9. It looked so final.

[MissLucas]

 

Maybe the audience needs each episode to conclude with the team drinking and laughing, cutting cheesy jokes at Pree's?

That's pretty much what ruined Stargate-Atlantis for me; they regularly sent characters through deeply traumatic experiences and by the end of the episode everything was rebooted. I hate that so much, either commit to the drama or keep it low-level and/or restricted to external threats - don't go big if you can't manage the fall-out. This show has definitely won me over by not going there.

[cynic]

Maybe the audience needs each episode to conclude with the team drinking and laughing, cutting cheesy jokes at Pree's?

I haven't seen anyone saying they want that. I certainly don't. I appreciate that there were consequences to last week's episode. I just don't enjoy when the focus is on D'avin, because I think he is the weakest part of the show both story-wise and in acting ability. I also think his relationship with Dutch was forced and unbelievable, so while the trust issues in regards to the team are fine, I can't help rolling my eyes at the writers trying to double down by adding unearned romantic angst. The dancing sequence was just lame.

I still love the show though. I'm live the world-building and I can't wait to get back to Dutch's story. I hope I gets renewed too.

[MissLucas]

To me this episode was much more about John and Dutch than D'avin and how they are trying to cope with what happened. The Jenga of Trust was ultimately not about D'avin but whether Dutch will ever be able to trust him again. I agree that the dancing scene didn't really work but the knife throwing scene was very good. You expect D'avin to be the one who struggles but ultimately it's Dutch who fails the test.

 

And we finally got to understand John's somewhat subdued reaction to D'avin joining the team. It was not only jealousy (for lack of a better word) but clearly he had not forgiven D'avin for wrecking his life. Yet since he's a peace-maker/fixer he tried to move past that and for a while it seemed to work. But in the aftermath of last week's events (and thanks to some artful prodding by Hot Monk) we finally got the full story. I loved that the writers took their time with the Jaqobis backstory respecting the character they wanted to create with John.

 

I don't have a problem with the attraction between Dutch and D'avin - but maybe that's because I don't see much romantic angst there. They had sex because they recognized the same darkness in each other - not because they thought they were soulmates.

[Tigris Tv]

Really enjoyed this episode.  I find that this show gets similar treatment as Firefly originally did with criticism of the world "why do they have horses, when it's the future" "why do they have projectile guns and not lasers" etc. Doesn't matter how often one might point out that even in the modern real-life world there are places with VASTLY different levels of technology - and your ability to make more of a technology rests on your access to the supply chain.  Similar comment to people living in a bad area, "why don't they just move" - because they can't afford to!  There are slums right along side rich apartments in major cities in the world, for example Baiganwadi, Mumbai which reads on it's wiki page:  "It is rarely anybody's choice to reside in the slum of Baiganwadi. Often, people find that they are there because they do not have another choice. Many of the people there came to neighboring Mumbai to chase a fortune, but failed, and could find no other place to stay but the slums."  I think that describes so many places, and could very well describe this location in the show, especially if the mines have run out and they don't have enough money to move on to the next place.  I think that things that are self-evident in the real world, don't need further explanation in a fictional one.  If it wasn't meant to be for real-life reasons, THAT is when I would expect some hints from the show to give more explanation.  They may have done this, with the "7th generation" stuff to explain the indentured service from "The Harvest" for example. 

 

As for the weather, there are places even in North America that have severe enough weather events that they have early warning systems, shelters, special building codes etc.  They haven't gone the extra step and put underground passage ways all over the place though, because that would be too expensive, and what they do have in place does save lives.  I think the same is true of this rain event - there is an early warning system, getting to safety is as simple as getting out of the rain, and it doesn't last a long time.  The inconvenience of staying put a few hours probably doesn't justify the cost of people building their own underground passageways just to go about their business when it is raining (not at all surprised that the bar has one - though I'm sure it's not there to escape the rain!), the same goes for just picking up and moving somewhere else entirely. 

 

There was a ton of story building in this episode.  I don't use world-building as the term because I think the information that we were getting about the world was the information that is important to what's going to be coming up in the story.  I have a feeling I have missed a lot of hints and pieces of information that have been scattered across earlier episodes because I was just viewing the show as a fun procedural without a real over-arching story, and I'm only picking up on them now that I've seen things that were referenced in earlier episodes come back in later ones. Would be nice to have a topic in this forum to discuss the world/politics/factions of the Killjoys world.

 

 

I just don't enjoy when the focus is on D'avin, because I think he is the weakest part of the show both story-wise and in acting ability. I also think his relationship with Dutch was forced and unbelievable,

I think his relationship with Dutch was very natural and believable.  :)  I also think his acting has been excellent - it's subdued and not over the top, I believe he feels what he is trying to portray. The range of facial expressions alone through his dance with Dutch, including the little blow out at the end showed personality and made a scene that should have been unbearably corny feel realistic and conveyed information about the character.  That's my opinion. 

Edited August 9, 2015 by Tigris Tv

[Snarkette]

Oh Johnny. Je t'adore. (This was a very nice Johnny ep.)

[wayne67]

Personally I'd be happy if the main characters didn't engage in a cliche 2 brothers 1 girl in a romantic triangle. I'm hoping now that Davin and Dutch have scratched their respective itches they'll move on and pretend it never happened. I'd be happy if Johnny was just Dutch's friend with no tedious sexual or romantic undertones.

 

They do well as friends so I'm hoping the show sticks to that.

 

Hopefully they'll show us who or what the Big Bad is soon. I like that they added a unique feature of this world. So many space shows have worlds exactly the same as ours, it's so generic.

[dargosmydaddy]

I've always loved Johnny, but bad ass, take charge Johnny is really quite fun.

 

And I liked the final scene, but all I could think was that it would be really painful for Johnny to be laying on his stomach like that...

[cynic]

Heh, it certainly didn't look like the most comfortable position for Johnny.

Reading reviews on the episode made me remember one of the reasons why I hated the truth game plotline. It seemed incredibly stupid of Johnny to disable the ship to get them to talk considering the inherent dangers of both space travel and their jobs. Look at what almost happened. Add to that, Dutch is terrified of Khylen and of not running into him on her own terms and he left her like a sitting duck.

I wish the writers had accomplished the "Dutch doesn't trust D'avin" point in a different way. Instead of having Dutch avoid D'avin by leaving every room he enters, maybe have her put up a strong front of denial. She's fine and it doesn't bother her. And then, instead of the hokey game, maybe let the cracks in her facade make a warrant go all to hell. I would have much rather have watched that instead of them having expositional talks and cheesy dance scenes.

[dargosmydaddy]

 

Reading reviews on the episode made me remember one of the reasons why I hated the truth game plotline. It seemed incredibly stupid of Johnny to disable the ship to get them to talk considering the inherent dangers of both space travel and their jobs. Look at what almost happened. Add to that, Dutch is terrified of Khylen and of not running into him on her own terms and he left her like a sitting duck.

Maybe Johnny secretly programmed Lucy to deactivate it at the last possible second if D and D couldn't figure it out themselves? (I thought the moment when they finally figured out how easy it was to turn off was hilarious, by the way.)

 

 

I was thinking it would have been so easy to get a gun from the cops down in the tunnel. Also, you'd think one of the bad guys would have actually been watching when he ran outside. But then, I might have assumed that Our Hero was made of flesh, rather than being Teflon-coated, so that the deadly chemical coating the outside gun wouldn't burn his hand.

I assumed he wanted to avoid a shoot out, thus not asking for one of the soldiers' guns. And figured he could also kind of covertly pick up the gun outside, maybe using his sleeve/ the cloak thingy to wipe it off or pick it up with. And maybe he did burn his hands a little. He had burns on his face, which he alluded to Pawter fixing for him afterward.

 

 

It is suppose to be world building but doesn't really tells us anything. Westerly is suppose to be the poor unhappy moon but it tells us nothing about the population. What do the people do on the world? Why are they still living there? Why don't they leave?

Um, why don't people leave poverty-stricken or less than wonderful places IRL? I kind of figured the same reasons apply to Westerly. Maybe many can't afford to. Maybe some aren't allowed. Maybe some can't help thinking of it as home and can't bare to go, even though they logically know they should. To me, that's something that doesn't necessarily have to be spelled out.

[Tigris Tv]

 

I wish the writers had accomplished the "Dutch doesn't trust D'avin" point in a different way. Instead of having Dutch avoid D'avin by leaving every room he enters, maybe have her put up a strong front of denial. She's fine and it doesn't bother her. And then, instead of the hokey game, maybe let the cracks in her facade make a warrant go all to hell. I would have much rather have watched that instead of them having expositional talks and cheesy dance scenes.

I think whatever way they decided to go they would have been forced to have the expositional talk, so there was no avoiding at least some of that.  Possibly in the field cracks in the façade could be attributed to other sources than just D'Avin (worrying about Khlyen, worrying for Johnny, worrying about getting hurt, and of course not trusting D'avin) that making it obvious it was D'avin would either take multiple occasions,  more exposition, and overall more episode time.

 

I agree though that it would have been more exciting and more natural to see it unravel in the field, at a make-or-break point, because how they did do it was pretty corny.  But If they have limited episode time to get through this realization and get D'Avin off the ship, then I can see isolating her response to just about him (ie. not being able to be around him) and forcing the discussion to occur at an earlier time then natural (ie. holding them hostage to actually answer those questions directly) may have been a decision of expediency rather than storytelling.  In the end, I'm glad they got it over with quickly, like pulling off a bandaid, and it could have been worse (ie. just spontaneously talking about their feelings!  yikes).

 

I have to admit that I cringed at the dancing; I couldn't believe they were going there.... but then I ended up re-watching that scene twice because of how well they acted it and how swiftly the emotions were changing.  It's weird how a scene can make me be both embarrassed for the show, and admiring of the show at the same time!

 

I assumed he wanted to avoid a shoot out, thus not asking for one of the soldiers' guns.

I took it more as unlikely they would even give him a gun.  I doubt a soldier would willingly give their gun to someone they don't trust, especially when they're likely going to need it.  I don't think they expected him to actually accomplish anything, but were willing to wait a while if there was a chance it would avoid a gun fight in which they could get injured/lose a life.

Edited August 11, 2015 by Tigris Tv

[DearEvette]

But perhaps messy is too much? Maybe the audience needs each episode to conclude with the team drinking and laughing, cutting cheesy jokes at Pree's? Maybe that's the expectation this pretty decent series cannot meet? I'm keeping fingers crossed for the series to be renewed, I hated seeing "Only 2 episodes left" in the preview for episode 9. It looked so final.

 

Honestly, I think my issue was that I didn't think it was messy enough.  Probably why I didn't care for the 'truth game' segment because it -- in a weird way -- was too pat of a solution this early in their dysfunction.  It was like a one man intervention.  But interventions don't generally happen until people become really desperate  We never got to see any real fall out from the Dutch/D'Avin debacle therefore we never get to experience what leads to Johnny going there. 

 

Instead Johnny was put in the position of being the exposition fairy and gave us the five minute highlights at the top of the show.  Like I said above, i think it would have been more interesting if we actually got to experience the lingering effects of Dutch's distrust, D'Avin's guilt and Johnny's resentment -- to see the slow crumbling of the team so that when we get to the point of fracture it is all the more effective.

 

Even though I wasn't thrilled with the actual execution of Dutch/D'avin segments I am glad the team wasn't miraculously healed. 

 

i still love the show, but I just thought for a show that so far has been kind of effortless and smart in the way it is telling it's story & presenting it's three mains, this felt a little clumsy.

[ParadoxLost]

Honestly, I think my issue was that I didn't think it was messy enough. 

 

I found Dutch's reaction flat out weird and out of character to the point that I was fairly certain, for the last part of the prior episode and the first part of this one, that some unspoken and unseen horror had happened to Dutch right before Dutch subdued D'avin during the commercial break.  It was like they flipped back to stereotypical gender roles and Dutch was the traumatized damsel.

 

Dutch came across as avoiding because she knows its wrong to blame the victim (D'avin) but can't help herself.  That was when I wasn't waiting for the other shoe to drop to explain why she was so over the top in her reaction.

 

It would have made more sense to me if she withdrew because Kyhlen had been harping on her not having friends and she worried that if D'avin could be made to kill them then the harem training could have put a switch in her head that could flip and make her hurt Johnny or D'avin.  Anything else really needed a few episodes of development.  Being worried that D'avin would be unable to back up her and Johnny for fear of killing his team because of something in his head was legitimate but would be better served by a couple problems serving a warrant instead of truth or dare.

 

This one came down to there being too few episodes left to spend more than one episode on the fallout.  I still enjoyed the show.  Its better than no fallout.

[cynic]

...

 

I agree though that it would have been more exciting and more natural to see it unravel in the field, at a make-or-break point, because how they did do it was pretty corny.  But If they have limited episode time to get through this realization and get D'Avin off the ship, then I can see isolating her response to just about him (ie. not being able to be around him) and forcing the discussion to occur at an earlier time then natural (ie. holding them hostage to actually answer those questions directly) may have been a decision of expediency rather than storytelling.  In the end, I'm glad they got it over with quickly, like pulling off a bandaid, and it could have been worse (ie. just spontaneously talking about their feelings!  yikes).

...

 

 

...

 

Instead Johnny was put in the position of being the exposition fairy and gave us the five minute highlights at the top of the show.  Like I said above, i think it would have been more interesting if we actually got to experience the lingering effects of Dutch's distrust, D'Avin's guilt and Johnny's resentment -- to see the slow crumbling of the team so that when we get to the point of fracture it is all the more effective. 

...

 

 

...

This one came down to there being too few episodes left to spend more than one episode on the fallout.  I still enjoyed the show.  Its better than no fallout.

I agree with these. I wish the show had a thirteen episode run like Dark Matter, because I think that being constricted to ten episodes has really hindered the storytelling. The show has introduced so much stuff and it feels like we have barely any time left to address it all! (I love that it's so ambitious though.) The truth game probably was also a product of budgetary constraints as well as time constraints. It's certainly cheaper to film that than another mission. Hopefully they made a judicious decision and they saved up the extra money to wow us at the end of the season.

[Wynterwolf]

I want John to read comics to me in bed.  That is all.  

[Latverian Diplomat]

Not many shows and certainly not many sci-fi shows chose to dismantle a team and not put it together at the end of an episode. Even Firefly had an episode with Jayne and his betrayal and it was dealt with by the end of the episode. 

In fairness to Firefly Jayne was a changed person after that episode, though we only got hints of that in the few remaining episodes. 

 

Really enjoyed this episode.  I find that this show gets similar treatment as Firefly originally did with criticism of the world "why do they have horses, when it's the future" "why do they have projectile guns and not lasers" etc. Doesn't matter how often one might point out that even in the modern real-life world there are places with VASTLY different levels of technology - and your ability to make more of a technology rests on your access to the supply chain.  

 

 Well said.

 

Can I still say that orbits don't work that way? Even if the storm was pulling on them, being in a closer orbit would have sped them up relative to the surface. That's more in an "other science facts" vein, though, so I know I "should really just relax". :-) 

 

Maybe Johnny secretly programmed Lucy to deactivate it at the last possible second if D and D couldn't figure it out themselves? (I thought the moment when they finally figured out how easy it was to turn off was hilarious, by the way.)

 

I assumed he wanted to avoid a shoot out, thus not asking for one of the soldiers' guns. And figured he could also kind of covertly pick up the gun outside, maybe using his sleeve/ the cloak thingy to wipe it off or pick it up with. And maybe he did burn his hands a little. He had burns on his face, which he alluded to Pawter fixing for him afterward.

 

I also liked that breaking the damn thing was the solution. It's actually a nice example of the kind of thing people overlook when they are put in a situation with rules; they often just follow the rules.

 

One difference with coming back from the basement as opposed to coming back from the street, Johnny was likely to be searched coming up from the basement. That was not likely to happen just coming in from the street.

[MissLucas]

I also liked that breaking the damn thing was the solution.

I like to think that John had actually thought of putting an elaborate emergency system on the gadget in case they got into trouble and needed Lucy back in charge. Then he just went 'Meh - it's Dutch and D'avin, what will be their first reaction when they need to disengage the thing? They'll go all Hulk - so let's do this!'

Of course that's fanwanking but I love this episode enough to go there.

[ottoDbusdriver]

I'm curious if the Captain Apex comic that Johnny was reading somehow hints at what's to come in the season finale.  Everyone keeps talking about what's coming to the Quad -- Dr. Jaeger, that Company guy that Potter dosed, others, the Company is stockpiling weapons on Westerley -- and as Johnny is reading the comic to Dutch he says "meanwhile in a galaxy far, far away an unimaginable evil is afoot".  Putting aside the Star Wars reference, is there an unimaginable evil coming to the Quad ?  Is The Company stockpiling weapons to defend itself against this coming threat ?

 

The one thing the show hasn't fleshed out is the rest of the J Star cluster -- how many other stars are there in the cluster ?  How many other habitable planets are there around those other stars in the clsuter ?  Does the Company just rule the J Star Cluster -- or Star Clusters A-I (or possibly M - whatever) ?

[Bruinsfan]

The thing that bothered me most is the acid (alkaloid?) rain that's strong enough to dissolve whole human bodies in less than an hour yet presents no danger to people behind taped-up windows or walking through the glisteny tunnels beneath the streets that looked to be draining pretty quickly. If the stuff is that caustic I'd expect every exposed surface outside to be corroded with dangerous residue of the chemicals, and underground is probably not the best place to go for protection from a flesh-dissolving flash flood.