Throughout season 1 and 2, the different episodes of KillJoys were written and directed by various people. Although the central theme and storyline remain constant within season 1, if we look hard enough the “personality” of each episode can often be found here or there.

Today, I’ll be writing about the “personality” – writing aspect of one of the episodes in KillJoys, S1 E6, “One Blood”. Without a doubt, this is one of the episodes I believe to be the most interesting to analyse.

Written by Annmarie Morais, directed by Michael Nankin, the episode “One Blood” first aired on July 24, 2015, follows Dutch and her teams’ journey as they respond to a Black Warrant for a rogue Killjoy – Big Joe, who was wanted for stealing from company ships. It was later revealed that he had stolen a genetic bomb (although it is believed that he did not know what it is). After overcoming various obstacles, and revealing reasons, Dutch and her team finally finds Big Joe who in the end was voluntarily killed.

Big Joe After Being Found By Dutch

To understand how and why a television show is written in a particular way, it is essential for us to understand the lead writer’s background. The writer of our episode, Annmarie Morais was born in Jamaica in 1973 to a Jamaican-Canadian family.  Annmarie Morais works as both a writer and producer and have won the Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting in 1999. She is well-known for her involvement in hit TV shows such as Killjoys (2015), How She Move (2007) and Haven (2010). From a quick look at her profile, we can easily notice Annmarie Morais has been involving greatly in television shows featuring a “strong” and inspiring female lead character.

Annmarie Morais

Annmarie Morais’ involvement in Killjoys and her leading role in episode 6, which we are focusing on, certainly brought in her style with her. This can be seen in the episode through how Dutch faced one obstacle after another; first disagreements within the team, then finding out her target is her respected mentor, afterwards getting abducted, but still staying strong and assertive throughout. This is pretty much unlike the other episodes by different writers where Dutch would often fall back a bit and have her team take over the lead such as that of “Sugar Point Run”. Furthermore, the whole episode is written with Dutch as the centre of focus throughout while for other episodes it’s usually an equal split between Dutch and her teammates. Moreover, the discussions between characters in also considerably more dominated by Dutch in this particular episodes, especially when she holds the monopoly over the decision making.

Dutch and Her Team

Although Annmarie Morais is not known as feminist, her toughness and strong female character have indeed leaked into her writing, making her episode of Killjoys filled with its own kind of unique personality, just like her other television works. However, how much of this is due to Annmarie Morais’ influence and how much is from the writing team as a whole is certainly debatable.