Previously on Defiance, Amanda Rosewater got herself addicted to the Blue Devil trying to cope with losing Kenya and the mayorship and Nolan all in one lousy afternoon. Stahma took over the Tarr empire by explaining to Alak that she had always been in charge of the Tarr empire. Irisa got afflicted with some bloodlust by her ghost twin, who kept popping up in the shadows, goading her into killing people. And Mayor Pottinger sawed off Doc Yewell’s finger after she refused to tell him what was in the secret safe in her office.
Alak’s new part time jockey at the Arch radio station just happens to be his father’s favorite night porter, and so of course she tries to goad Alak into beating the shit out of her like his dad used to do. Alak’s not very interested in violence, or sexytimes with someone who isn’t his wife, so he brushes her off, until she surprises him by saying it’s common knowledge that he killed Skeever for trying to kill his mom with a worm bomb. Alak shoves her against the wall and explains violently that he is not violent like his father and to prove how not violent he is, he will toss her from the Arch if she mentions Skeever again. And then he skips out to go have family dinner with his mom at Christie and Rafe’s house.
As soon as Stahma walks in the door, she sniffs that Christie is pregnant and it’s a grand old celebration. Even Bertie is on the phone, cheering and calling herself “Nana” – until Irisa drags her into a dark alleyway and like chews out her heart. Yes, she’s still serial killing. She actually tried to stop herself this time by handcuffing herself to some pipes, but her evil twin did evil dark magics and made her kill Bertie. But the McCawleys don’t know that right now. They’re too busy celebrating Christie’s and Alak’s baby. (And by “celebrating,” I mean Rafe tells Alak to stop the “gangster crap” for good or he’s going to have him beaten to actual death.)
Out at Camp Reverie, Datak asks Doc Yewell how her finger’s feeling and she literally says, “Feels like someone cut it off.” What a galactic treasure that woman is. Datak turns the conversation back to himself, of course, and whines for an hour about how he doesn’t want to think Stahma is letting him rot in here on purpose, but he’s pretty sure Stahma is letting him rot in here on purpose. His suspicions are confirmed when Alak shows up for a friendly visit and also to let him know he’ll be checking out of the family business now due to being a father and everything. Datak hisses at him like an angry house cat and asks for confirmation that Stahma is as HBIC as he thinks she is. Alak confirms. Datak hisses more. Alak is all, “Ugh, die in here already, jerk.” And Datak is all:
When the McCawley’s come a-callin’ down at the police station because Bertie is missing, Irisa and Nolan spring into action. They hit up Pottinger’s office to question him because obviously he hates the McCawley’s, but he assures them he didn’t do it and offers to do some in-town recon with Nolan while Irisa and Berlin check out CCTV. Berlin uses the time with Irisa to talk about how Tommy is her boyfriend now and Irisa must be so sad about it and also stay away from him. Pottinger does the same with Nolan, only about Amanda. Both Amanda and Nolan just roll their eyes about how this is so high school.
And then Irisa blows up the CCTV room with her mind.
Over at the Tarr’s, Alak skulks in feeling crappy about his crappy dad, but Stahma sits him down and presents him with Datak’s charge blade and tells him he’ll have something to protect now that he’s got a baby on the way, and also, “Your father can never get out of prison.”Alak is all:
Nolan heads on down to the need want to process his feelings with Amanda about how he doesn’t feel like a very good father. Irisa keeps staying out all night and not talking to him and people keep going missing and she’s got blood on her gloves and shit keeps getting exploded every time she’s around. Amanda tells him about when she and Kenya were trekking across the country, post-Pale Wars, and Kenya keep having all these night terrors. One night Amanda woke up and Kenya was gone and she found her in a field of people-eating cactuses, but the kind that only eat people during the day. She cried for exactly 20 minutes and then carried Kenya back to camp and kept pushing them west. She says sometimes the best way to parent someone is just to not give up on them.
It’s real sad, but not as sad as the fact that Amanda does all the Blue Devil she’s got and is forced to hit up Pottinger for more of it. But first, she goes full Darla on this dillhole at the Need/Want that tries to beat up a night porter for laughing at his little dick. Like she tosses him down some stairs and smashes him over the head with a chair and kicks and kicks and kicks him in the stomach. Nolan rushes in and stops her from killing the guy. He wonders how come her pupils are so dilated and she’s like, “I came out to have a good time and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now.” And then she bounces.
Out in the woods, Irisa finds Steampunk Sukar, and boy is he glad to see his Little Wolf. She hugs him real tight and they make some s’mores by the campfire and he’s like, “So great that you’re the Messiah, even though no one understands.” And she’s all, “…about that.” She tells him the murdering isn’t so great, actually, and he tells her just to do what her evil twin tells her to do. Right now her evil twin is telling her to kill him (hashtag irony) and so she does. She’s had quite enough of her little bloodbath, so she takes Sukar’s rifle out into the woods and shoots herself in the face – but of course her evil twin saves her and explains that she’s some kind of rechargeable WMD cyborg set in action before the Pale Wars even started.
But! On the upside, Bertie’s not really dead! She finds Irisa on the forest floor and they make the long trek back to Defiance together. Nolan and Rafe and Tommy find them and Nolan feels bad for thinking his kid is a murdering murderer, but also he feels like maybe he’s still right about that.
Also walking back to Defiance are Datak and Yewell, who get released by Pottinger because he’s figured out that Yewell is as much of a biological warfare mastermind as he heard she was. Datak arrives home to the chilling sounds of Portisehead’s “Roads,” all:
And Stahma and Alak are like:
And Datak tries to drown Stahma and Alak tries to drown Datak and Stahma makes this face like nothing you have ever seen before, like she is going to murder his pale ass, just you wait. And she might have a partner in homicide, actually. Because the best part of last night’s Defiance is that Stahma and Amanda commiserated about how much they miss Kenya (for different reasons, obviously), and if ever there were two kick-ass women who are sick to death of the misogyny in this town, it’s those two. A little plotting and smooching and they could rule this hell(bug) hole!
What do you think about this season of Defiance so far? I love it!
