Killjoys Preview: “The Lion, The Witch, and The Warlord” w/Aaron Ashmore and Kelly McCormack 

[Warning: General spoilers ahead.]

We’re in for quite the treat Friday night, Killjoys kids, as Pree gets to tap his inner warrior, kick some ass, and save the day, all while weighing an abundance of romantic options. Poor, poor Pree, y’all.

Johnny and Dutch turn to Pree for an assist when video surfaces of Johnny’s encounter with Delle Sayah and Banyan decides to use it as leverage. While they get Johnny out of firing range, Zeph works with D’av at the Leith black site to try to tap into his latent tie to Khlyen and hilarity ensues as they repeatedly misread each other. Aneela continues on her batshit ways as Delle Sayah treads very, very carefully.

Once relocated to their supposed safe haven, Johnny and Dutch have a truth-telling session courtesy of a pharmaceutical assist and after a little barely clothed hand-to hand, the two have a heart-to-heart and everybody wins.  

It’s a terrific showcase episode that tells us more about our favorite Quad confidante and the life and loved ones he willingly left behind. I will admit to stupid grins and jumpy claps all around.

The episode was written by Julian Doucet and directed by  Paolo Barzman, who also directs tomorrow’s new Wynonna Earp. Thom Allison is amazing, per usual. And I really, really want Mac Fyfe, who plays Lachlan and Gavin Fox, who plays Gared, to come back and visit again.

When I chatted with Aaron Ashmore, we talked about tonight’s episode, and Johnny and Dutch clearing the air, which is one of the many things we love about Killjoys. “This is a 10-episode season, so there’s no time to waste. I think that’s the great thing about Dutch and John’s relationship. They had some of this last year, too,” he points out.

“There’s disagreements. They’re very different people. They look at the world in very different ways but they love each other and respect each other so much that they work through the stuff and I think that’s a realistic relationship and that’s a good friendship. You’re not always going to agree with your friends or family. You work through it and talk about it, and then you move on. There’s still that level of love and respect at the end of the day.”

This episode was the first filmed this season, and involved some creative choreography, and costuming. “When I first saw the outfit hanging in the costume department, I said, ‘OK, that’s Hannah’s costume, but what am I wearing?’ And they said, ‘No, no that’s yours.’  That’s how we do,” he laughs.

“It was fun. I think it was in the first week that we choreographed that. Hannah is fantastic at stunts and the fight choreography because she does so much of it. I am not as good only because I have not had as much experience. We jumped in. We’ve got great fight choreographers and stunt doubles. I think it looks really, really cool and I think people will enjoy the stripey bikini-ish outfits we’re wearing…Hannah’s more than mine. It is what it is.”

I chatted with Kelly McCormack this week about playing Zeph, and I’ll have the full interview for you soon, but specific to this week’s episode, she talked about Zeph figuring out how to work with D’av, and that in the scene above, those pesky electrodes were more slippery than they look.

“My relationship with D’av is very funny. I’m someone he doesn’t know how to communicate with and he keeps gendering me and misreading me and then Zeph doesn’t understand his type of humor, so they’re on two different planets, and it creates a lot of comedy throughout the season,” she says.

“He’s working on a different currency. He’s very innocently gendering the situation. The best part about Zeph…I love that she doesn’t really recognize her gender. She’s like, ‘What? I’m a brilliant scientist. Take off your shirt, you’re my lab rat.’ Any moment where we could have recognized [gender], we pushed against. She doesn’t draw attention to the fact that she’s female and he’s male. That’s not how she sees [things]. If anything, she sees gender as a scientific distinction, but that’s it.”

“That scene with D’av where I’m putting the electrons on him was my first day on the set. My first scene was with John and D’av in the black site. We had some issues with putting the electrons on his face and body. I’m like, ‘Hi everyone, I’m Kelly McCormack, it’s nice to meet you. You’re going to take off your shirt and I’m going to touch you a lot.’ We couldn’t get the electrons on his body. It’s me spitting crazy science, if you look at the table, there are 20 props on the table and I’m touching his half-naked body.”

Part of the role of Zeph involved McCormack saying a ton of space science vocabulary, which she learned through repetition and assigning words to actual objects to help make an association. “[After I had my audition], my friends and family [said], ‘I can’t hear you say hippocampus one more time.’ Some of the character stuff that’s more conversational, I can learn very quickly because it’s questions and answers. The science stuff I had to learn at least three days in advance,” she explains.

“I did it over and over and over again. I looked up the terms and I had to have a visual. Every scene, I have a new science prop. I’d show up on set and Michael, the props guy, would be, ‘Hey Kelly,’ and I’d say, “What are you bringing me? What’s happening here?'”

“He’d hand me this insane space future prop and I’d have to handle it like it’s real to me. I did a lot of math and science all through university, but I didn’t have to say it all out loud. In my apartment, I would put out bottles or my French press and I would say the lines while pretending it’s a bowl of plasma or the thing so I could get used to fiddling with stuff.” Check back next week for my full interview with Kelly.

Killjoys airs Fridays at 8/7c on on Syfy in the US and Space in Canada. Come live Tweet! It’s a very good time. If you missed earlier installments from my interview with Aaron Ashmore or my new interview with Luke Macfarlane, you can find them with all of our Killjoys coverage. Here’s a sneak peek of tomorrow’s episode.