Killjoys “Escape Velocity” 

[Warning: Spoilers for the finale.]

I understand the basic constructs of the cliffhanger season finale, but I think, in 2015, when you have a very, very short TV season and a massively stacked competitive landscape, they serve less to hook the viewer to return (sometimes almost an entire year later) than to ALL CAPS piss him/her off. And yes, I’m talking about myself, y’all, because at the close of an excellent season, we’re literally left with D’avin KIDNAPPED AND LOST IN SPACE WHILE THE QUAD IS BOMBED INTO OBLIVION. What the hell?

We arrive at this perplexing (not quite) conclusion when Alvis is arrested and sentenced to death for a trumped up/staged massacre at the Bazaar. This doesn’t sit well with Dutch so she goes to see him, and then the team goes to see a group of his followers in the tunnels, seeking the magical mystery codes to ensure that they will have a place to go if the RAC makes good on its threat against the Quad.

One of the followers hands off proof that Alvis was indeed framed, and poor, dumb D’avin follows through on Dutch’s direction to hand that off to Hills at the RAC. Meanwhile, Dutch and Johnny are summoned up to Qresh to repay Dutch’s outstanding favor to Delle Seyah Kendry, and it turns out that was orchestrated by Khlyen to keep Dutch out of the Quad.

Last week, we learned Khylen was a level 6, and Dutch meets another one, who attacks her after she throws down with him when he detonates the bloodline wipeout device, interrupting a meeting of the Nine (i.e. a coup by Delle Seyah). They haul ass back to the Quad but can’t find D’avin.

That’s because (again, poor, dumb) D’avin tails Khlyen after he spots him in his room above the bar (after Khlyen has killed Carleen and discovered the toxin Dutch teased she had last week, which Johnny had held onto). He of course gets his ass handed to him. Then Khylen takes him to Red 17, the thing that was threatened against Dutch (but from which she has been mysteriously protected) so they can experiment on/modify him because that wasn’t AWFUL, HORRIBLE, TERRIBLE the first time. I hate this. Really, really hate this.

So, Dutch and Johnny get the codes back to Alvis, who’s broken out with some handy beads that Dutch delivered, and he takes a crew that includes Powter (who we learn is a “pretty princess” from Qresh whose mother has disavowed her) deep into the catacombs. Johnny and Dutch take a handful of people, including Pree, to Lucy, and are about to be prevented from boarding by Hills until Dutch calls him out for being the RAC’s bitch and he gives it up because he’s about to get the snot bombed out him anyway.

They board and take off, and Dutch records a The Last of the Mohicans message for D’avin that wherever he is, she will find him. And when we finally see him, he comes to on a gurney alongside an unconscious Fancy, who has already been modified some way with scary looking tubing coming out of him. He stumbles outside to the bridge of a satellite-looking thing stamped with the ominous Red 17 and he realizes he’s screwed. While that’s sinking in, he’s dragged back inside by the attendants.

Back in the Quad, the bombing kicks in and Pree’s bar is blown apart while Hills helps himself to the good stuff and a couple dances cheek to cheek as the bombs fall.

Honestly, I don’t know what I thought the finale would be, but I’m sort of insulted. No closure on Khlyen and Dutch, or Dutch and D’avin. D’avin is missing, and the Quad is potentially gone, so we’ll have an adrift Lucy looking for a safe place to land so the team can start over, and D’avin has no discernible home if he gets away from Khlyen on his own. Where do things stand if the RAC has been outed as co-conpsirators, and the treaty that promised 7th gens a home has been dishonored?

If we get a second season, what does that look like, and do you want it? I don’t know yet if I do. I’ll get back to you. I think it distills down to the fact that I really like all these characters and I don’t like leaving them all in various states of calamity, or worse. I don’t need shiny, happy, but on a basic level, I want them to be safe.

If I had to check out after episode 8, I’d say A+ season. Episode 9 wrote a check that episode 10 didn’t cash. Not a fan of that kind of arcing.

We’ll keep you posted when we hear either way on a renewal. [EDITED 9/1/15: RENEWED!] Thank you for reading our first season coverage!

Killjoys repeats tonight at midnight/11c on Syfy.