'Killjoys' Proves TV Should Be Bold, Inclusive, and Awesome

Endings are hard. Second seasons are hard. Making sci-fi funny, exciting, meaningful, and compelling all at once is hard. But on Friday, Killjoys proved that it can take on the hard stuff, make it look easy, and even level up in the process.

Killjoys ended its second season with, as Dutch put it, “a classic Killjoys mission: get in, get dirty, get out.” Following Pawter’s death, Johnny, Dutch, and D’avin —with special guests Fancy and Khlyen — take on Aneela and the Black Root in an attempt to find and destroy one of the sources of the green plasma that makes 6’s tick. They find a super secure gold-package vault that belongs to Aneela. But it’s not quite secure enough to keep Dutch and Khlyen out.

Upon finding the source — a tree from Arkyn in a pool of the green plasma — Dutch and Khlyen attempt to poison it, to no avail. Soon enough, the only course of action is obvious, thanks to Lucy’s calculations. Khlyen poisons himself in order to kill the tree, and his final act of heroism is a poignant and surprisingly emotional end. After all, we’ve spent the last season and a half hating Khlyen, sure that he was responsible for the vast majority of the problems in Dutch’s life, as well as the rest of the Quad. But it turns out Khlyen wasn’t full bad guy. It was more complicated and more nuanced than that, as it almost always is when it comes to great villains.

On the other side of their season-long boss battle, Dutch and Johnny quietly prove once again that they’re the emotional backbone of Killjoys. In classic Killjoys fashion, it’s the small moments between them that create the signature Killjoys pitch-perfect shifts in tone. Both “Johnny Be Good” and “How to Kill Friends and Influence People” give us these key moments, as Dutch tells Johnny again that he’s her gravity, and as Johnny tells Dutch that, in the wake of Khlyen’s death, she doesn’t need anyone’s permission to love someone she hates or to miss someone she doesn’t forgive.

Following the mission, Dutch, D’av, Johnny, and Fancy head back to Westerley to regroup, drink at the Royale, and figure out what’s next. Johnny’s grief over Pawters death becomes more evident and more palpable as he drinks with Pree, but comes to a head when he meets, shoots, and leaves Delle Seyah in the alley outside the bar. Knowing that Delle Seyah’s murder is going to bring a whole shitstorm down on Johnny and whoever’s around him, he bids Lucy adieu and takes off.

He’s not alone, though — turns out Lucy was, as always, two steps ahead of him and called Clara (of sweet fucking robot arm fame), who’s down to make a run for it in Khlyen’s sort of stolen ship.

Unaware of Johnny’s sudden departure, Dutch, D’av, and Fancy discuss what they’re going to do now that the Arkyn-created 6 assholes are back to being “regular assholes.” Theoretically, they could call it quits and hope that the 6 trouble stays far enough away from the Quad that they can grow old in peace.

But that’s not Dutch’s style. She’s not content with winning the battle. She wants “a whole bloody war.” It’s a good bet that that’s exactly what we’re going to see next season. Given the way that Killjoys grew into a bigger, weirder, funnier, more exciting, more touching, and more affecting show in its second season, we can’t wait to see where that third season takes us.

Much like the end of Season 1, the end of Season two 2 us feeling like everything’s changed. The entirety of Season 2 proved that change can be a very good thing when it comes to Killjoys — it’s a show that moves fast and does best when it’s going full-speed ahead. Just as the Season 1 finale exploded the world of Killjoys, the Season 2 finale leaves us with a fragmented team and an even bigger war on the horizon. This time, it’s not just Old Town and the Quad that are in trouble. Aneela’s reach is profound, and this war is going to be like nothing Killjoys has portrayed before — but it’s definitely going to be awesome.

Season 2 was a huge victory for Killjoys. Creator and showrunner Michelle Lovretta and the rest of the Killjoys team got next-level ambitious this season, proving that they could make Killjoys fun, cheer-worthy, high five-inducing, poignant, and heartbreaking. Killjoys has always been goofy at heart, with big, crazy ideas and larger-than-life oddball characters (see: robot arm), but Season 2 proved that this goofiness can not only work with great storytelling but also amplify it.

Killjoys Season 2 expanded the world of the show, took us deeper into the mythology, gave us great new characters, and treated us to some glorious development of some old faves (R.I.P. Pawter, we’ll miss you so). The season told us to expect more from sci-fi, because Killjoys feels like proof that TV can and should be big, weird, and fun, and that we deserve universes and stories that are bold, multi-faceted, inclusive, unexpected and so damn exciting.

In 2016, Syfy shows like Killjoys and Wynonna Earp have made it clear the evolution of television starts in genre, and that the genre evolution is pushing us toward TV that feels good, powerful, and important. These shows make us excited for the future of television, and we can’t wait to see where Killjoys takes us in Season 3.