Wow, what a season finale. Rather than close out the Khlyen/Dutch storyline, Friday’s “Escape Velocity” ramped it up with this season’s big bad capturing D’Avin and whisking him away to Red 17 on that mysterious orb called Arkyn. Dutch vows to get him back, but will she? In our last exclusive chat with creator Michelle Lovretta, we asked about the past—and future—of our favourite characters.
Rob Stewart has been so good as Khlyen. It would be easy if he played it like an unfeeling killer, but he has real feelings for Dutch and wants to protect her.
Michelle Lovretta: There are many things that are wonderful about Rob, but one of them is how he humanizes Khlyen, plays those layers and adds a complexity to him. We didn’t want somebody that was moustache twirling. We certainly write in that direction sometimes, but you need to have an actor that is talented enough to play against that. Frankly, the main thing that we need from Khlyen that he allows us to have is a lead character in Dutch. If we gave Dutch a paper villain, a two-dimensional character and you didn’t see that protectiveness of Dutch peeking through, you would think less of her for thinking so much of him. Those two actors bring something special to that dynamic and I’m grateful to both of them.
Khlyen certainly has the upper hand now that he’s grabbed D’Avin. Did you always know the Khlyen/Dutch storyline would continue past the first season finale? Was it a conscious decision to leave it open like this?
It was, yeah. I’ve always known that there was a larger plan that Khlyen is an integral piece of. He’s always been somebody that we’d planned to build and keep around. That’s not to say that he’ll be around forever; I love the idea of not really knowing where these particular characters end at any point.
I’m mad at myself for not picking up on the “Red 17” scrawled on the walls of the mystery ship a few weeks back. Have you had Easter eggs hinting at the finale all season long?
Yeah, they have and what’s important to me is that their true nature is only hinted at. They have a broader meaning that, I hope in Season 2, we can dig into and find out what they really mean.
D’Avin is in Arykn with Fancy, who is a fan favourite. How could you do that to Fancy?
That’s why we did it! I’ve always had confidence in that character and Sean [Baek] has kind of hit him out of the park. We knew there would be people wondering what happened to him and we held back until that last moment. Obviously, something important is happening to him and we’ll see where that leads.
Are these experiments that are being done? What can you reveal?
What can I tell you? Honestly, the most I can tell you is to say, ‘Stay tuned.’ Where we pick up will answer some of those questions in our returning episode.
It might not be bad stuff. I guess it all depends on whose bigger picture it is.
Yes. No matter what is happening in there, it truly is all in the eye of the beholder and we’re going to have some fun with it.
Dutch vows she’s going to find D’Avin and I’m betting she’ll be successful … eventually.
No, she fails! [Laughs.] That would be a really shitty thing to do, wouldn’t it? I suspect she will be spectacularly successful, but at a price.
I’ll just say that it will be awesome. Her journey will be bad-ass.
Meanwhile, Old Town is being levelled by bombers. If Season 2 does go ahead, do you view that as starting over with that area of The Quad?
We don’t want to drop the idea of Old Town as our home, but we do want to put it in greater jeopardy now that we have stakes involved. The intent with Old Town is that, yes The Company was in there with boots on the ground and we all hated them, but they also allowed systems and employment and food and what happens if you stop playing nice with The Company when they have you by the balls?
This first season was about putting these three characters of Dutch, D’Avin and Johnny together. What would be the overarching theme of Season 2?
I think that’s a work in progress. I certainly know where I want to go with that, including where it all ends. I know where Season 2 ends, I know where Season 3 takes us, but in terms of the larger theme and how that connects with Dutch, I think to explain it would got too far into explaining where we’re going to go. I’ll just say that it will be awesome. [Laughs.] Her journey will be bad-ass.
Will supporting characters like Pawter, Alvis and Pree get more screen time in Season 2?
The fun of Season 1, and the challenge, is we only have 10 episodes with which to say, ‘Here’s what a Killjoy is, here’s the political structure, let’s try to shape The Company from the RAC, let’s get into the backstory of Dutch and Johnny and D’Avin …’ that’s a shit-ton of stuff to do. What was fun is, in the process of telling those stories it behooves us to introduce these fabulous secondary characters and allow them to grow. Now that we’ve done that, we’re going to have fun giving them slightly more personal directions and I’m hopeful to bring in a few new ones as well.
What did you think of Season 1 of Killjoys? Comment below!
