There is no slowing down in Killjoys second episode of the season! The team is still split up when the episode starts, with Johnny (Aaron Ashmore) in Rat City looking for Clara, and Dutch (Hannah John-Kamen) and D’avin (Luke Macfarlane) are holding nerd auditions. “A Skinner, Darkly” was written by Michelle Lovretta and directed by Andy Mikita.
“We do the bang-bang, you do the tech.” | Dutch and D’avin are really struggling without Johnny. Their team is a nerd short, so they decide to have tryouts for a new one. They find 3 nerds willing to put up with their shenanigans and microchip them before telling them their mission: Restore the external communications on an unresponsive ship.
When they arrive they notice it is very dusty inside, which is odd because they last communicated with the ship only 36 hours ago. They need to find the communications room and reboot the system. As they look for the room they come across a shrapnel filled body, the man was on top of whatever exploded. Zeph (Kelly McCormack) notices this room isn’t covered in dust. Of course, that’s when an alarm goes off, alerting them the whole room is contaminated. They escape just before it’s engulfed in flames, and that’s when Zeph figures out what the dust is, human ash.
Some sort of pathogen is loose, that’s why the room erupted in flames, and they’re all infected. Zeph estimates they have about 2 hours before their levels are high enough for the decontamination procedures detect them. There is only one option if they want to make it out of there alive, someone has to wear a radiation suit and get to the control panel to override it manually. Of course Dutch volunteers, but she needs the nerds to direct her. Unfortunately for Dutch, she tears the suit and becomes exposed, limiting the amount of time and oxygen she has. The nerds instruct her to take off her helmet and find a hairpin to short circuit the system, and it works! Dutch overrides the system, saving them. Zeph notices D’avin wasn’t too stressed over almost losing his partner.
Zeph has put together that things with this mission are fishy, she doesn’t think it’s real so she decides to complete the original mission. But her attempt, and success, to fix the comms puts the rest of her team at risk. After the mission Turin (Patrick Garrow) explains that to her. He welcomes the other two to the team, but he cannot welcome Zeph. She may have known the mission was a simulation, but she still risked her teams lives.
Later, Dutch meets Zeph for a drink. She wants to know how Zeph knew the mission was a simulation, so Zeph does her nerd thing and convinces Dutch she would be a vital asset to the team. Dutch welcomes the nerd to Team Awesomesauce, and Zeph is the rest of us when she tells Dutch she would follow her anywhere.
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“Johnny ain’t no basic, bitch.” | Johnny rushes Olli (Tommie-Amber Pirie) to Havigan (Prince Amponsah) and the other hackmods to fix his new friend. Once Olli wakes, their mod friends explain to them what Skinners are: illegal skin-morphing tech, for a price you can look like whoever you want. John is very unsettled by the use of plasma, and gets a lead on where this kind of tech can be found.
Livio Surgical Spa: John goes undercover and meets the mod running the place, Niko (Viktoria Modesta). John uses scanning gloves to allow Olli access into the building. While Olli’s searching she comes across a room full of bodies covered in plasma, hanging from hooks on the ceiling.
Johnny and Niko discuss Johnny’s appearance and what he could do to improve it, and he hints that he’s into something a little different.
Olli meets up with Yoki (Emily Piggford), who warns her to leave. She says she can’t keep protecting her, and tells her to leave Johnny. Instead, she warns Johnny who gets out of there and meets up with her. They fill each other in on what they discovered, and Olli surprises Johnny by pulling out hands she cut off from the bodies.
Johnny IDs the hands and figures out how they’re all connected; they’re hackmod owners, all of them. Johnny tells Olli that one of the owners owned her and Yoki for 6 years. Olli reminds Johnny that she’s never had an owner, but he’s not convinced. He’s figured out what happened to Clara, she was turned into Olli.
Olli/Clara is understandably horrified, so Johnny takes her to Yoki for answers. Yoki finally tells them the truth, that Clara was becoming a problem so Niko told Yoki to take care of her. But Yoki couldn’t kill her friend so she changed her identity instead. Niko uses some fancy tech in Yoki to knock all the mods out and take Johnny.
Niko reveals her tragic backstory to Johnny and her motives behind skinning, she’s just trying to help hackmods. Unfortunately for Johnny, she thinks a killjoy skin could be useful. She is unaware of the Hullen, she just knows the plasma has healing properties and is always protected by killjoys.
Olli/Clara breaks in, drawing Niko away from Johnny long enough for him to use his finger banger to escape. Niko tries to persuade her fellow mod into joining her, but Olli/Clara knows better. Plus, Johnny and the others are there to rescue her and call repo on Niko.
The group goes out to celebrate their victory, and it’s there that Johnny decided it’s time for him to go home. He found his friend and she’s safe and with her own people, now he needs to go be with his.
“May the bitch never see us coming.” | Johnny surprises Dutch, who tackles him in a hug. Everyone is happy to see him, including Lucy (Tamsen McDonough). He’s brought the rest of the plasma map with him, and it looks like it’s everywhere.
Finally, we see Aneela! Delle Seyah (Mayko Nguyen) is alive and has been made Hullen, and it’s time for her to meet Aneela.
What a crazy reveal! Did you think Olli was actually Clara?!? And now the team is back together, with the addition of a few nerds! Let us know if you think this is a good idea or if it spells disaster for Team Awesomesauce.
Killjoys airs Friday’s at 8pm on Syfy.
