Episode Recap: The Harvest

D'avin gets the go-ahead from the RAC to be a Killjoy on Dutch and Johnny's team (and as a Level 4, one level up from Johnny, which is a bit of a bitter pill for little brother to swallow), conditional upon his passing a psych evaluation. Which, as we know from his frequent PTSD dreams, is not a sure thing. Meanwhile, Dutch can't get any information from Khlyen's target as to why he's wanted dead, so she lets him go.

It's Harvest Week in the Quad System, which means that all the migrant workers toiling off-world can come home for what, at least from the looks of Pree's bar/brothel, are rowdy and debauchery-filled times indeed. In fact, it's Johnny's dalliance with a courtesan that leads to the gang's next warrant: N'oa has a husband who didn't return home, and if his work visa expires, she's going to be the one to get the prison sentence (since she co-signed the visa). So it's Johnny and Dutch going undercover on Leith, while Dav hangs back with Dr. Sims, the beautiful woman at Pree's bar who might be able to sign off on Dav's psych eval if he takes her to Leith so she can buy some black-market medicines at the bazaar. So it's off to Leith!

Johnny goes undercover as a migrant worker, while Dutch gets the comparatively cushy assignment of passing herself off as an importer for the owner of the plantation/vineyard/however you would describe the fields of "hokk" (which appears to be a spirit, like wine). Johnny meets a woman, Shyla, who appears to know Vincent (No'a's husband), but isn't saying anything about how/why he disappeared. We do get a peek at the conditions of the workers (bad) and the consequences of trying to run out on your visa (worse – the tracking chip they implant in your ear explodes and you die). Johnny, and his freshly implanted ear chip, are understandably concerned.

Meanwhile, Dav learns that Dr. Sims is no pushover, as she haggles with the merchants at the Leith bazaar. At one point, she injects a merchant woman with a virus and withholds the antidote unless she makes a deal for some pills.

Dutch uses sex as a weapon against Martell, getting him in bed and then sedating him so she can check his computer for Vincent's location via his ear chip. Only when she goes searching for him later, she only finds a buried stash of severed ears. After shaking it off for about nineteen hours, Dutch tells Johnny they need Dav's help, which of course rubs little-bro Johnny the wrong way. So Johnny goes off on his own, going so far as to cut his own ear off (!!) and following Shyla to wherever Vincent is. Where that is turns out to be is a clandestine jack (drugs) farm, and Vincent isn't so much abducted or in danger as he is playing drug kingpin without any regard for the fact that his wife back home is going to get thrown into prison. So he's a jerk.

Dutch rolls in moments before the Company planes with poison gas, sent by Martell. She and Johnny grab Vincent (who's suddenly willing to enter custody as an alternative to dying from poison gas) and leave. Not Shyla, though. She's staying behind to die with her comrades. Good call?

Back home, Johnny declines to bust Vincent to No'a, but happily she busts her no-good husband herself, and he gets hauled off to jail. Later, Johnny gets fitted with a prosthetic ear, he and Dutch have a heart-to-heart about how Dav's level 4 can never supersede their bond as partners, and Dr. Sims agrees to sign Dav's psych eval, on the condition that he'll keep seeing her and working through his issues. Also maybe they'll have sex because they are both attractive and into each other.