Vessel: Season 1, Episode 4

Warning: If you don't want to know what happened in this episode, don't read this photo recap!

Dav's first catch as a Killjoy is not going super smoothly. Ultimately, the guy electrocutes himself and explodes all over everyone. Works for Dav.

Bellus presents Dutch with a new warrant from the Nine. In Dutch's words, the Nine are "a bunch of inbred fascist nobles who think that just because they run the Company they run the Quad." Which makes it awkward when Delle Seyah Kendry of the Nine introduces herself. She requires Dutch's assistance to prevent a war.

Seems the last heir of one of the nine clans was implanted in a surrogate, and now no one knows where she is. Delle Sayeh wants her found "Cleanly, quietly. Nobody can know I was involved." She also notes that it's interesting that Dutch has an instrument known for female royalty hanging on her wall.

The Killjoys need to find out where the surrogate is hiding, so they go to Alvis, who says the girl, Constance, is safe, but won't say where. Turns out that Constance is at a safe house, which takes our Killjoys to the badlands of Westerley.

Dav spots something "hinky" on the horizon, and despite John laughing it off, it turns out to be a security projection hiding a fortress. Score one for Dav.

Inside the fortress, they find five women. Surrogates. One is Constance. The nuns who are protecting them ambush with guns, because they think Dutch and team have come to execute Constance. And Constance is about to have her baby.

Of course, there really are people hunting Constance, and they're outside the fortress right now. But Constance is in no condition to transport off of Westerley. She's gonna have that baby any minute.

Dutch tells Dav to go with the other girls, because, as she says, he's a big muscley distraction. And Dutch doesn't want the constant reminder of her upbringing, which was in a "royal harem."

Constance stresses that the heir is only legit if born on Qreshi soil. "I need to see it through," she says. "That's not faith, it's fact."

Johnny and Jenny, one of the surrogates, bond over their Leithian/Westerlyn identities. John gets the shields back on, but it was down long enough for people to have gotten in.

Indeed some bandits have gotten in! Dutch is attacked, but she can handle it. "Oh yes, I'd love to dance." She ends up snapping the guy's neck.

Sister Therese was taken out to where the other invaders are and executed. They want Constance, and no one else will die.

Dav is really good at keeping the women from losing their cool. "Sobbing helps exactly zero percent."

Mother Sal wants to give Constance up, for the good of all the other women, but Dutch stops her. Constance goes her one better and stabs Mother Sal in the neck with her needle point.

"Forget the bounty, forget the Nine. What do YOU want?" Dutch doesn't want to see Constance manipulated. Constance wants to finish this, have the baby.

As it turns out, the girls have an arsenal. Time to fight their way out of the fortress!

It's a gauntlet to get out. But the attackers apparently can't harm Constance, per their orders. So she offers to be a human shield. Especially after she gets a shot of energy juice or amphetamines or whatever it is that turn her into a badass killing machine.

Hello badass Constance!

After Jenny sacrifices herself for her sisters, the other women and the Killjoys are able to get to Lucy and escape.

The baby HAS to be born on Qresh, or all those people just died for nothing.

Dutch communicates with Delle Sayeh via this cool glass iPad thing. Delle Sayeh says Dutch blew the whole discretion thing with the shootout, and she's washing her hands of the whole affair. Dutch: "If she didn't want us to finish the job, she shouldn't have hired me."

Introducing the latest Qreshi citizen. "The Nine are whole again." It does not look like Delle Sayeh is happy. Her hand was forced - she's the guardian of this baby now.

Dutch shows her cards to Delle Sayeh: "If you are a decent person, the baby is safe. If you're a scheming opportunist? Even better. The baby can't inherit anything until its eighteen." "You have an unusual grasp of statecraft for a woman with callused hands," Delle Sayeh muses. "I could use a woman of your complexity."

Later, Johnny has a talk with Dav about working as a team. Dutch is family, too. Meaning? "Don't plow our sister. This is almost working. We are a good team. We could be great. Don't mess that up for us."