Episode Discussion 4.02 Johnny Dangerously

[dirty_diana]

Episode 4.02 Johnny Dangerously

With criminals chasing an injured Johnny, D'av and Delle Seyah take drastic measures to save him.

Comments

[dirty_diana]

Well. I'm glad we did get to find out what happened immediately after the finale after all? But now I'm switched to worrying about how long it'll be till the team reunites. If it's half the season I'll riot.

This Johnny storyline is…not that well-earned? They were killing Hullen this time last year and now D'avin is like, sure, let's turn my only family into one, what could go wrong? WITHOUT ASKING HIM, even. I don't follow how how it turned Johnny into such a cartoon villain either. Most other people have been more or less themselves, just with a loss of interest in human life. They are mining a ton of great D'avin & Johnny interactions from it though, which I love. D'av's tortured little face.

"You trust her more than me?"
"Right now, yes."

And it's nice that Aaron Ashmore is having fun, I guess. Also love that the Killjoys stumbled on some human rights crimes by accident. As they do.

Delle Seyah and D'avin's goodbye handshake! And the realisation that she treats them like family! I don't know how to incorporate any of this into my headcanon, but it was great. Especially since D'avin has no one else present to be on his side right now.

Pip's hero journey is pretty cute and he's growing on me. You can do it, Pip! Gared and the ex-Scarback! "Sit." "Yes, ma'am." Gared's adorable and I hope he stays forever! He knows people. Bless.

[hagar_972]

I'm thinking about something lovechilde pointed out all the way back in s01e02: that normal people don't shoot other people in the face with a plasma torch where other options are available. I'm also thinking about - what was it, s01e08? Which Johnny spent Fixing Problems and Saving Lives right up until the moment he was too damn tired, at which point he shot someone through the head with a bolt gun.

So what I saw in this episode is Johnny without the breaks. He's always had that ruthlessness, that cunning, as a potential; he kept making different choices but, importantly, they were choices - it was never that he wasn't capable of being ruthless or cruel, it was that he chose differently. (Sure, we have D'avin's line that "Johnny gives a damn" but frankly, D'avin is the softed of the three of them and much like he keeps demanding of Dutch to be a good officer to his good NCO, there are also demands he makes of Johnny, albeit less explicitly.) And now, being Hullenized, his motivation to choose differently just isn't there anymore.

[dirty_diana]

100% agree with the assessment of Johnny - Come the Rain is a favourite of his episodes for me and I am a big proponent of the idea, which is echoed in his storylines sometimes, that he isn't the cinnamon roll people want to treat him as. But the joy he seemed to be taking is what weirded me out? Matter-of-factly murdering people for reasons I would have understood fine, but gleefully acting as if it's all a hilarious game is what I don't get. It doesn't match up with previous Johnny OR previous Hullen behaviour.

[lynnenne]

I don't follow how how it turned Johnny into such a cartoon villain either. Most other people have been more or less themselves, just with a loss of interest in human life.

I think Johnny is still pretty much himself? At least so far. He's still crazy-smart and cares about D'avin and Dutch. He's starting to care about Delle Seyah, but he knows that she would betray both him and D'avin in a heartbeat, so he had no compunction about betraying her. He's also still competitive with D'avin ("I'm the smart one!").

Johnny's main motivation in this episode was to get out of the depot alive, so he did whatever he had to do in order to achieve that goal. No longer caring about human life made his methods a lot bloodier, but given the number of guns involved, there would have been bloodshed anyway. Johnny's other main motivation was to get more plasma, but he didn't leave D'avin behind on that quest; he took him along, because D'avin still matters to him.

My favorite parts of this episode were the flashbacks of Johnny, D'avin and Delle stuck in the elevator. "If you don't stop farting and snoring, I will kill both of you right now." LOL.

The thing that didn't make sense to me was why Lucy wasn't following them all along. If she had a tracker on them, shouldn't she have been able to swoop in and retrieve them as soon as they crashed?

[dirty_diana]

I think Johnny is still pretty much himself? At least so far.

Oh wow, how did we watch completely different episodes this week? Fascinating. I saw almost zero evidence of this honestly.

He's still crazy-smart

Sure, no reason for this to change. I was talking more about the modified personality.

and cares about D'avin and Dutch.

Can you give me examples from the ep? Ghost! Dutch just seemed to me to annoy him. D'avin claimed Johnny still cared about Dutch "deep down", but that's D'avin's opinion based on loving his brother and needing it to be true. He says deep down because he knows full well John's not acting like it right now. He also raises the possibility of having to euthanise Johnny based on how out of it he's acting. Which is not something he ever felt the need to do with Fancy, for example.

He's starting to care about Delle Seyah, but he knows that she would betray both him and D'avin in a heartbeat, so he had no compunction about betraying her.

Definitely didn't see where the ep indicated his motivation followed this line of thinking sorry.

He's also still competitive with D'avin ("I'm the smart one!").

It may have been more the delivery since you're right that stuff like this has always come up, but to me this wisecracking was just part of the ott Joker-esque behaviour, along with the whole ending where he took the selfie with unconscious D'av and cranked the music. That's he's finding all this FUN is where it seems beyond just disinterest in human life. Sorry, I love Johnny but I don't love melodramatic Batman villains so it's weird for me.

Johnny's main motivation in this episode was to get out of the depot alive, so he did whatever he had to do in order to achieve that goal.

His motivation is to find the green, as indicated to D'avin and as Delle predicted. A lot of his "your plan won't work and we're all going to die" was acting to get Delle to go off with the distress beacon, imo. Not that he could find more green if he's dead, but that frames his goals as more neutral than selfish. I think it was totally selfish. Plus he's Hullen so he wasn't going to be that easy to kill anyway. The prisoners and D'avin were really the people in danger.

Johnny's other main motivation was to get more plasma, but he didn't leave D'avin behind on that quest; he took him along, because D'avin still matters to him.

Realising the reason I don't have the impression that this is why Johnny brought him along is content external to the actual episode, so I'll shut up about it.

I would guess that Lucy is disabled/malfunctioning in some way? I need my team back together!