September's Geeky TV commentary plan!

Shows start coming back sooooooonnnnnn! It's so exciting! It's like life is getting back on track after the whole summer weirdness thing--summers are hell on TV-reviewers and people who organize their lives by TV schedule like me!

Here's the plan: I'll be livetweeting any of these that I can manage to catch live; I'll be reviewing / talking about most of the ones I see live, and doing periodical catch-up posts on anything I can't get live.

Keeping on:

• Fear the Walking Dead
• Vixen, when I get to it for the first time
• Steampunked, when I get to it

Adding this month, at least once:

• 8th - A one-shot review of Colbert's late show because I love him and it's my blog
• 9th - Suddenly Royal
• 11th - Continuum (final season!!!)
• 15th - Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris / Mindy Project
• 19th - Doctor Who!
• 20th - The Emmys
• 21st - Gotham / Scorpion / Minority Report / NCIS: LA / Castle / Blindspot
• 22nd - Muppets / Limitless / maybe Scream Queens?
• 23rd - Rosewood 
• 24th - Heroes: Reborn / maybe The Player?
• 25th - Amazing Race
• 26th - Guardians of the Galaxy cartoon!
• 28th - The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
• 29th - Grandfathered / The Grinder / Agents of SHIELD

Anyone know of any other geeky / nerdy shows starting in September that I don't know about yet? Add em in the comments and I'll see if there's any space in my life for yet more shows (but we know there will be, because there's also stuff coming in October and a little in November and then some I've really been waiting on in January!)

What're you guys excited about?

Notes:

If I'm making myself Be Real, I know a lot of these are going to be sporadic and / or after-the-fact because Monday and Tuesday are gonna be WAY CROWDED once everything starts up, and that means a lot of watching on Wednesday and Thursday and on the weekends.

Geeky TV commentary - Fear the Walking Dead 1.2

Fear the Walking Dead airs at 9pm on Sunday nights, on AMC.

Second episode! Stuff happens, but there's still not a lot of hook for me; maybe it's the fact that these people don't mean anything yet, maybe it's because the show seems to be acting like we haven't all seen the other series for the last five seasons, maybe it's a pacing issue, but so far? It was less slow-feeling that the pilot, but there's still not a lot of spark to it.

Here's what happened this week: Nick finally goes into withdrawal, which leads his mom to go raid the stash of confiscated drugs at the school to find him something to ease it down, which reunites her with Tobias. He's raiding the kitchens, because he figures he's less likely to cross with scavengers there than at a store or whatever. While they're there, they discover that their principal is a zombie and get really stupid about it because Maddie has already seen zombies and he's clearly a) bloody, b) dragging and lurching and making gutteral noises, and c) not answering their calls with anything but an attempt to bite them. He almost gets Tobias, and she brains him with a fire extinguisher.

This was weird, because it didn't take long, and they didn't show the head-smashing, unlike the other show that revels in that stuff. Which sort of makes it...less impactful?

So she leaves Tobias at home, when really she should be demanding that he stay with her because he's the only one who knows anything about anything so far, and she goes home where she repeatedly doesn't tell her daughter what's going on, so she looks like she's withholding vital information and her daughter keeps flying off the handle because she doesn't realize how much trouble she's in.

Meanwhile, Travis goes to find his son. He's got a bad relationship with his ex, so she doesn't listen to him when he does try to tell her what's going on, but she does go with them when they find out that Chris is at a protest rally that popped up around yet another police shooting. The scene is set up so that you wait for the shot guy to get up, and then reveals that he can't because of a headshot, but it felt...not as shock-ful as it should. Anyway, another zombie (one of the Suicide Girls!) shows up and tires to nom a cop, and she gets head-shot, too.

The cops here: they're stockpiling supplies, they're coming at the zombies with headshots, they know what's going on, but so far they're not saying anything to the people that might maybe make their jobs easier and make them not look like self-serving jerks.

Travis and co see that happen, and they bolt, but the roads are closed already and the other shooting causes a riot, and so they have to take shelter--at a barber shop because that's the first place they see and he's got heavy-duty barriers on his bars and windows. The barber is all "no way", but his wife says to let them in, so now we have three more characters, but we barely get to meet them. They're stuck there, and the phones are getting unreliable and the power is going out all over, so they stay. Travis tells Maddie to head out into the desert and he'll follow when the roads clear.

After she's done with that call, Maddie and Alicia witness the neighbor attack the other neighbor, and still doesn't just tell her daughter what's going on. It's the stupidest thing she could do, and there's not even so much as a "you wouldn't believe me" or "I don't know", so it makes her look like she's got really bad decision-making skills, and it sets up Alicia to do something really dumb and dangerous because she doesn't have any information of her own.

In fact, there's very little talking between the characters at all. A lot of yelling, which still doesn't get much information across, and a lot of not listening, but not a lot of communicating. It makes everyone annoyingly withhold-y, and it steals chances to actually get to know these fifteen people we've been suddenly introduced to. Half of them don't even know each other, and there's no getting-aquainted going on, so it's hard to remember names, hard to relate to them, because they barely have personalities right now, except for a shared talent for not talking to each other when this is exactly the time when everyone needs to be making sure everyone has good information.

It's frustrating. We've seen the other show. We know what's happening. They don't, but they're only reacting so far--the only one who is trying to figure it out is Tobias, and he's not with them, and has only talked to Maddie.

Last episode felt like it had too many minutes to fill; this week feels like it could have done better with those other minutes, giving us the information we need to get to know the characters. This show should stand on it's own, but it's impossible not to compare it to the other, especially to the early episodes. Walking Dead gave us space to meet people, to know them; this show is just throwing everyone at us and not making anyone connect the dots, really. It's just a list of things and people, and no one really cares about what's happening enough.

That isn't to say it's not watchable; it's good enough that the fact that it's skipping a week already is fiercely annoying. But it's also handling things weirdly and sort of superficially, and a lot of stuff is happening but most of it is people just moving from one location to another, without much actual interaction with each other and that ongoing problem of communication. Maybe they were all just super-bad at talking before, but if that's true, someone should have paused and just insisted that all that can wait, we've got an outbreak and police problems to deal with, and we need to talk to each other. There's only six episodes; if someone doesn't make that point soon, they're going to miss her chance.

Also: Alicia went to see her boyfriend who still hadn't answered her texts and found him with a terrible fever in his bed. He looked like he'd been bit, but several problems: they made her leave him at home and she's not, like, fighting it much as she should be if she really loves him as much as she said; they left him alone, and still didn't make much of an attempt to tell Alicia why and what's happening; and he was literally in, like, two tiny scenes where we only saw him with her and got almost no backstory, and have no real idea of how he got bit, so it doesn't really mean much. It's sad, but since he's not a well-known character, what is more noticeable is that there have now been three black guys turned, and it's starting to look concerning.

It's almost like the show is short-handing. Instead of building real characters, they've given us cut-outs--the hard-nosed school person, the rebellious teen (times three), the nice guy, the weirdo, the ex. And then they've just thrown them into situations and let them run around like headless chickens, trusting that "boyfriend is dying" is enough to make it matter, when we don't hardly know who the boyfriend even is because he had all of five lines and then disappeared. It's like an outline of a show.

There's still four episodes left; maybe once they all hit the road, or actively try to meet up somewhere, they'll start having personalities with more than one note, and start interacting in some way other than yelling at each other and not saying the few useful things they actually know in a situation when knowing anything at all is very important. Right now, there's zombies, but there's still mostly people, and the people should be the real threat, but so far it's just a lot of running around, and not a lot of actual...confrontation? Is that the word I'm looking for? There's some zombie attacks, but they're awfully fast for people who have never seen this before and no one has died yet that we know. There's people freaking out, but no one outside of these few characters has really taken notice of them or tried to take anything or stop them from getting anywhere. Everything is falling apart, but it's falling apart with little comment on why, how, and what it means, and no one has brought in a wider context yet.

I hope that gets better. I like the show enough that all these little half-asseries are very annoying--I want it to be better! I want it to have weight and depth! We know what the other show is capable of, and it makes the shallow bits look that much more shallow, or like they're pulling their punches, or not delivering on the threat.

Yet. There's still time to build!

What did you guys think? Did I miss some major growth or interaction because I was complaining on Twitter? Comment here or come talk to me on the tweets!

Geeky TV commentary - #DarkMatter S1 finale

Dark Matter aired at 10pm on Syfy Friday nights until this week; Continuum is taking it's place in two weeks (EEEEEE!!!)

Two hours seems to be the ideal length of time for a story here on the ol Raza, because even though this was technically two episodes, it read as one long one with two stories, and didn't seem so fast as the usual one hour episodes do!

Part I: Not-Rodney-McKay is back and he has a job for them that could save them from the corporate enemies they've made! Too bad it immediately becomes clear that they've been had when Wil Wheaton shows up in a snazzy suit and effectively turns Two off, answering all her earlier questions about where she's from and who made her--though, notably, not why. He calls her Rebecca, and explains that she's staying because she's his, and there's a dampening field that is keeping her manageable because there's something wrong with her that makes her murderous.

The others go, but they aren't giving up as easily as they seem to be. They go back with Anne Droid, literally drop her in the woods, and distract from her landing by buzzing the defenses of the compound to draw attention away from her. She breaks in and gets to be totally badass while searching for Two, but the further in she goes, the more the dampening field dampens her, too--but she's smart, and she takes out the field.

Two, meanwhile, has tried to get out and been declared too defective to save, and the psycho doctor who has a major chip on his shoulder about her is trying to take her brain out while she's alive to find out why she's broken. But when the field goes down, she feels her strength and badassery come back, and she kills all of them in about 22 seconds. She and Anne Droid meet up, and blow up the compound, and go home.

Yay everyone!

But wait, there's more!

• Five has been having her own-memory dreams, and she remembers that Four is the one that kept her from getting spaced before, and that Two was the biggest ice-queen anyone ever saw--and wanted her dead. So now she's afraid of Two again.
• She also remembers placing a recording device, that happens to still be there. It's corrupted, so she has to noodle with it, but when she gets it to play, she hears what sounds like Four and what is definitely Two agreeing to kill some undetermined "him" before they reach the mining colony, and right after they get out of stasis.
• Alex / Wil Wheaton tells some old guy that "Rebecca" has escaped again, and the old guy says that she's got to die because her existence will threaten them, and since she has friends that will fight for her, they have to die, too. New villain!
• They don't say as much, but it sounds like maybe she was built as a new body! Old-dude could use a new body, and they were talking about getting her a new brain, so maybe that's a thing.
• Alex didn't sound too pleased about his kill orders; is it because he's got human decency after all, or because he doesn't want to break his toys? If he's decent, I say he should defect and join them with all his insider knowledge.
• Red-droid the Hologram is not happy with how Anne insists that her friends are more important than the ship.
• Four actually smiled and called Five "little warrior" and agreed to train her! And he loosened up enough to get some snark and it does well for him!

It was a great, interesting, fun episode with a lot of action, and some excellent character work for Two while she questions her very existence. There was that great scene where One says he still likes her--he doesn't say it, but they have something in common, what with not being who they seem and all--and she looks grateful, but also asserts her need to figure out some stuff about herself.

There was also all those looks Three was sending everyone. We know he doesn't like One--or likes him likes him and can't deal with it--but he also seems to have some lingering feelings for Two, though now he doesn't trust her, what with her being synthetic and all. But he's also the one who flipped out the most when she was "dead" last week, and he seems to be fine with her by the time they get her back this week.

Which leads to:

Part II: Someone takes out Anne Droid with that damned cattle prod again. It's like the third or fourth time she's been zapped immobilized and it's starting to feel like they don't know what the heck to do with her. UGH. But she's only the first of several.

After Anne, they take out Four with poison in a glass of water that Two hands him. Then Six hears something and goes to see what it is after lockdown, and in the minute or so before Five goes to check on him, he's down, with a poisoned injection. 

Which leaves Three convinced it's One, because he's never trusted him, and recruiting Two, who doesn't really think that One did it but can't rule it out. Meanwhile, One thinks it's Three, and Five thinks it's Two, and I feel like we need a flow chart to make this make sense, but there's a big standoff in the hallway toward the end of the episode--after they've pinged a galactic command ship incoming because someone told them where to find the Raza.

There's fighting then that wastes their time and the other ship docks and then they're all gassed, and there's the cliffhanger. I hate cliffhangers. They're like unfinished sentences that just lurk in the mind until the next season, and we don't have a renewal announcement yet, and it could be up to a year away even if they are renewed because it's Syfy and these are short seasons and ugh.

Anyway, the reveal: Butt-tons of soldiers take every room and drag off everyone, even the ones in sickbay--except Six. At least he has the decency to look all tight-lipped and unhappy about it! But what does it mean? Is he a traitor like it looks, or is he working some other angle? Is he being forced or is this by choice? Did he always remember all this, or is this some other driving force? Is he even aware that he's the one doing these things?

Also!

• Three stalking One outside his room to be sure he didn't sneak out was hilarious and also makes it look like he's got other obsessions with One to deal with. Like a fierce crush.
• Three and Two had some nice cozy conversations when they were sweeping the ship to try to find whoever is taking them out.
• Five found out about Red-droid, disagreed with her assessment that Anne is broken and needs to be wiped, and told her to delete herself--but did she?
• Five also showed Six her recording. He discovered that she's the one who wrote the memory-wipe file, which we all sort of expected, but that she denies. He says he thinks she was trying to protect someone, and it was all very sweet because they're great, the two of them, and their friendship is probably the most caring on the ship--before that ending.
• Three was very upset about people messing with "my android", which is great. Almost as upset as he was about Two getting spaced.

So we end the season on a definite high note, with some questions answered--where Two comes from, and who's the one who did all this--but also a hell of a lot of new questions posed for the next season to unravel, and it's all very exciting! And terrible, because of the much-mentioned cliffhanger. And maybe worst of all, is that everyone went out from the knockout gas not trusting each other, so next season they'll probably have to start from scratch when they wake up next season, which they had damned well better do, because #RenewDarkMatter or I will be very annoyed!

Here's where my shipping-scale ends up here at the end of the season:

• One-Two-Three, in all directions, as TV's first functional triad!
• Three also with Anne Droid
• Five and Four, now that she's training with him
• Five also with Six--at least enough that he gets back on the team for her, even if they never do anything about it because she's so much younger than him

And here's some headcannons until proven otherwise:

• Everyone keeps harping on how young Five is, but I think she's actually in her 20s and has just been playing the helpless orphan because she's so little and cute--which is why she's often the most emotionally mature of them.
• At least one of them actually is a clone, the same as the ones in the travel pods, but altered in some way that keeps them alive and independent.
• Red-droid is not gone--she's part of the ship's programming and she's self-righteous enough to have made provisions in case they try to delete her. She's probably waiting for the chance to take over Anne's body (but Anne won't let it be a complete over-write because her "glitch" makes her more of a real person and therefore harder to erase--hopefully, even if her personality chip is removed).
• There really are parts of the ship they haven't seen yet.

Questions still unanswered:

• Why were they wiped? Was the wiping the point of it or a side-effect?
• What's up with that programming chip Five found way at the beginning that's part of something bigger and more complex?
• WTF Six?
• Are there other crew members who were not present during the mind-wipe who have been trying to get back?
• What is the ultimate plan with the corporations and the government and the rebels and whatever else?
• What did they really want to do with Two, and what's this "next prototype" they're talking about--and how many were there before her?
• What's the real Corso doing about this imposter he now knows is there? Or if not him, his pals?
• What happens when they're support system--Not-Rodney and all--find out they're all new people now?
• Why is Anne Droid glitched--did someone make her that way, or is it a result of the mind-wipe reacting weirdly with her synthetic brain?

It's a lot to think about, guys! Next week I'll do a proper season review after I've had time to think it through and talk it out.

What did you guys think about this episode? This season?

Questions and comments can be directed here or on Twitter, small cash gifts are gladly accepted through the link on the right, and Sami really really really wants her own spaceship from all these spaceship-shows.

Geeky TV commentary - Fear the Walking Dead 1.1

Yay! The first premier I'm gonna call part of the Fall 2015 season!

Fear the Walking Dead airs at 9pm on AMC, Sunday nights.

This was...somewhat tepid? Like, not bad, but it maybe didn't need to be a whole 90 minutes. On the other hand, it also had a lot to set up, so maybe it's okay? We'll have to see how the next episode or so goes to see whether it's okay or not that this one was so slow.

Nicky the junkie witnesses his sort of girlfriend eating the other junkies at the flophouse they're all staying at, and while he's high and freaking out and running, he gets hit by a car. He tries to tell people what he saw, but no one believes him because he was high, but he's so freaked out, his step dad decides to investigate and finds the place all bloody but the bodies gone, and he's all "they can't have just gotten up and walked away," because the other show doesn't exist yet so he's never seen it. 

After that, he knows that something happened, and when Nicky's roomate codes and he uses that chance to escape the hospital, step dad is the one who believes that something is going on, while his mom only wants to find him and get him home--though she's not sure if she should bother since he obviously doesn't want to be there. Nicky meanwhile, wants to score some more junk, but his dealer is shifty af and tries to kill him, which gets himself killed, and finally Nick calls his parents. When they go looking for Cal, though, they first find nothing--and then, FINALLY, find him in zombie form and know that something is seriously going on.

While all this was happening, there was a viral video of an early attack on the highway that kept Travis and Maddie (the parents) from getting home the night before, and every day there were less kids coming into school where they both work, and her daughter Alicia is planning on leaving town the second she's eighteen. Travis's own son doesn't want to see him and refuses to come to his weekend with him. A kid at school has been putting rumors and weird reports together and knows that something is going down, but everyone just thinks he's a troubled teen. And according to the "this season on", there's lots more characters we haven't even met yet!

There were neat hints all through the show--the missing junkie-bodies, a groundskeeper that looked kind of lurchy, the camera lingering on that old-guy room mate and a hippie van by the beach--that both set the scene and show how wrapped-up and unaware people are right before everything goes pearshaped. Something is going on with Alicia's boyfriend, too. Basically, it seems like this whole hour and a half was set-up and intro, and nothing really much happened until the last half hour. It made it seem slow and not a lot of payoff to watch, and made the emphasis on Nick's junkie-dom seem a little over-focused-on, but at the same time, it could pay off if the rest of the episodes have a lot more action and stuff happening. 

I was unsure about it around the half-way point, but cracked and vulnerable Nick won me over by the end--he's like a less goofy and more messed up Jack Sparrow. And the final reveal of the zombies we always knew were there kicked up the interest and the speed of events, so I'm convinced to come back next week.

There's not a lot to say yet about all these characters; everyone is barely introduced, even at this slow pace, except for Nick and Travis, so they're all just sort of placeholders for their own stories as of now. But we've got several weeks for them to figure out what they're going to do and who they are, so I'm not too worried just yet.

What about you guys? What did you think?

Questions, comments, small cash gifts? Comment below or find me and all my tweets on Twitter!

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Geeky TV commentary - Killjoys season 1 finale and Dark Matter 1.11

NOTE: I seem to have lost my ability to post over on my Examiner page, so I'm moving the show over here! I'm just going to do what I did there, but since I no longer have the chance to be paid for it here, please consider tipping if you like my posts? Thank you!

Killjoys aired at 9pm on Syfy Friday, and DarkMatter airs at 10 until the finale next week.

This week in space, things get kinda intense.

Killjoys:

In the finale here, everything finally came together! Mostly. Johnny and Dutch were called away by Rich Lady to guard her as she attended the ceremony where seventh-generation indentured servants were meant to be upgraded to middle class on a better world, but she's still as shifty as she always was. She got her hands on that generational bomb that they found a few episodes ago and wiped out the whole new family that was meant to be middle class without so much as a blink of her perfectly lined eye!

And while they were doing that, they found out that they were only there because Khlyen wanted them there--which of course made them super keen to not be there. A Level Six almost got the drop on Dutch, licked her because that's what gross henchmen do, and then got splattered by Johnny because you don't mess with Dutch when Johnny's there. Along the way, they find out a number of things:

• Dav has spotted Khlyen, who has taken back his liquid computer; he's following him and winds up getting beaten up and kidnapped by him
• Khlyen has killed Carleen because no woman Johnny is friendly with is ever allowed to live except Dutch*
• The Company has decided that Oldtown is too much trouble and they're just gonna frag the place

They head back and go to rescue Alvis from prison so he can muster his revolutionary forces (because the massacre that seemed to be his people in the beginning was totally hired martyrs, as they found out when they went into the tunnels to make contact with Alvis's people), but before they can get him out, he's using the most awesome prayer beads ever to bust himself out. He goes back into his tunnels to help save people from the carpet bombing, because he knows how to get into big old bunkers that were built underground during terraforming and never used.

Meanwhile, Pawter wanted Johnny to find her mother and tell her that she's sorry and she loves her, and being that he's the best human being on the show, he tries to, but her mom says she has no daughter. That makes Pawter refuse to go with them when they evac a few people on Lucy; she stays with Alvis in the tunnels.

Pree goes with them, but he almost doesn't leave his bar. It's good that he lives because it might be a dealbreaker if he hadn't!

The local military man stays in the bar and apparently gets blown up with a heartbreaking old couple and a sad hooker and it's a shame because he was almost getting interesting.

And Dav wakes up in Red 17 which turns out to be a crazy-secret base on Arkyn, the so-called failed attempt at terraforming where supposedly no one ever went! Fancy is there, but he's all hooked up to machines and who knows what's going on with him. Or, now, with Dav.

At the beginning of the episode, Dutch was still balking at letting Dav back on the ship (which is maybe illegal anyway, if this was official business, since they all divorced last episode?), and by the end she was wanting to stay where the bombs were to save him, without knowing where he was, and records a fierce "I will find you" message. All very epic, but it would be more convincing if the two of them had had more time to actually build up something other than sad looks and fighting. There are moments of the good stuff, but mostly they don't feel like they match up--though when he's on his best behavior and being all pining and understanding, he's less of a jackass and it's easier to like him.

The episode as a whole was bonkers. There was so much going on, and our main characters were all sort of flailing around trying to figure out where they should go and what they should do, but no one can resist the downward spiral into a cliffhanger, so we're left at a clear breaking point--but with no resolutions. What's happening to Dav and is that what they meant to happen to Dutch? Does Khlyen really feel like he's protecting Dutch or did he just say that as an excuse for how bent he is? Will the revolution be able to fight the full might of the Company carpetbombing them? Will the tunnels hold out? Will this finally make Dutch and Johnny pick the side of the downtrodden and not just skimming the surface of their problems when the warrant calls for it? Will the team get back together--and will they keep the other awesome members they keep finding and not keeping on the ship with them, like Pree, Pawter, all those dead girls?

Other stuff:

• Apparently, it was Khlyen who killed Dutch's husband back before she met Johnny, not her, and he did it, he implied, because she was caring about him too much--which is why he didn't kill Dav when he could have. It's hard to believe that doing whatever Red 17 does will work out any better for him than killing him would have, though.
• I don't feel Dav-Dutch much, but I'm fine with it. I'm super-divided on Johnny-Dutch tho, because on the one hand, he obviously cares more about her than about anyone else ever, and it might explain why none of his other relationships are exclusive or permanent. But on the other hand, they're such a perfect team. 
• Alvis doesn't like all pain, apparently.
• Johnny knows the prayer word for word; did he study to be a Scarback? Were they raised religious but he doubted too much? Is he just someone who learns stuff because he can?
• That tunnel lord (the Rat King?) and his sick sister need to survive the bombing because they were only out of the tunnels because Johnny told him to get her to a doctor.
• Did they just break ties with their rich benefactor? Did she just take over the rulership?

Dark Matter:

We're still a week away from the finale on this one, but that doesn't mean it's any less exciting. And the best part here was that most of the action happens because of the ladies.

Two is out of the airlock. Three takes it very badly, and when they're moving the crew to the vault to keep them out of the way and take over the ship, he and Four try to fight back--and get beat up. Not long after, they pull One back out and beat him up with a purpose, trying to find out what he knows about some big hidden haul that he's either forgotten, or that he never knew because he's not really Jace Corso, though he can't say that because then he's expendable. They drag Five in and threaten to break her fingers to make him talk--and then they threaten to molest her, and that's way worse. And also lazy writing.** They're interrupted before they get anywhere and the two of them have a bonding moment over how important Two was to both of them. 

He goes back in the vault and they take Five to fix the FTL, because apparently the coupling they had to send Anne Droid out to fix before has come uncoupled again. They send Wonder Twin One, the tall boy twin, out to fix it and he's there for about three minutes before he says something breached his air supply and then his signature floats off the schematic as he dies on the intercom. It's Two! She didn't die, as we all knew she wouldn't because she's got Wolverine's healing power, dragged herself over to stop him from fixing the engines, and then got herself back into the airlock. As soon as there was air, she was fine and it was super-fast and awesome, and then she went about taking out the baddies with her bare hands and their own weapons. 

Meanwhile, a ship that the hijackers were supposed to meet up with to sell off that cargo has arrived, and she takes out those soldiers, too. The ship spooks and leaves them without a buyer, and then Two makes it to the bridge. The boys are all suffocating in the vault, and she puts Wexler*** into the airlock where he put her, and gets him to tell her what the new lock code is. Five gets them out and tells them about Two. Two shunts him out the airlock anyway. 

He deserved it, but it's a turning point for her--she hadn't really killed anyone like that before, it was always in combat and defense. How will she handle it? Five also killed someone, but she seems to be handling it just fine, which indicates that she's either tougher than they all think, or she's done it before and she's not so innocent as she seems, anyway.

Once the ship is their own, they decide to sell the cargo themselves, and make off with the money, but the device, once fully powered off, hollowed out the planet they sold it to, and they almost got caught in the gravity distortions. Was that intentional? Did they sabotage it? Was it already sabotaged? Was it a fluke? They seemed as surprised as anyone, so if it was intentional, it wasn't them--or at least current-them.

And when they finally reactivate the woefully under-used and under-appreciated Anne Droid, she does a round of medical tests on Two to see how she survived, and finds out that she was never born--she's a synthetic being, every bit of her manufactured to precise specs and infused with nanites more advanced than the ones in Anne even--which is illegal and doesn't officially exist, so she'll probably be killed if anyone official finds out who / what she is.

Which begs the question: was she always synth, or is she also a replacement for the original, the way One was? 

That commonality puts One back on her side, which is great, but her not-quite-humanness makes the others twitchy. Again. Come on, people. 

It was great watching people bond this episode, even if the reveal about Two undid all of it soon after; One and Five don't get a lot of downtime together, and she's been in his farmboy memories, so they should have at least that in common as well as Two. He's also bonding with Three this episode, over their mutual esteem for Two, also, but in a manly, dudely way--like revenge. Those two are so fun as partners; they should be like the criminal version of buddy cops, regardless of Two. 

It was also great seeing Three really upset--he took Two's "death" and their complicity in it really hard, and the fierceness of his anger was actually more convincing of caring than One's sad moping. All of their reactions were pretty interesting--Four shutting down to "meditate" and focusing on logic and reason over emotion, Six's trying to keep the peace and make sure everyone understands everyone. The boys getting oxygen-drunk in the vault as the air ran out was great, too, especially since the girls were outside kicking butt.

And it all leads into the two-episode finale next week, when that dead planet and all their enemies have got to come back to haunt them.

So what did you guys think of this week's episode? And the all of Killjoys Season 1! The full-season review of that will come later, but what were your favorite parts? Your least favorite parts? Share in the comments below!

NOTES:

*Which is stupid and lazy writing and a waste, and if they don't make it a reason for that or fix it next season^, I'm gonna be even more annoyed.

^And there had better be a next season because #RenewKilljoys yall.

**Falling back on rape-threats to use a lady against a man is always lazy, and I'm disappointed.

***That name was used here, was previously on 12 Monkeys, and someone on Twitter said it was also used on Sharknado; what's up with Syfy using that name? Is it a clue? An in-joke? I MUST KNOW.

Tweets about #killjoys, OR #darkmatter from:pirategirljack include:retweets