If Killjoys‘ first episode is any indication, Season 3 is going to kick some serious ass. And why not? Creator Michelle Lovretta and her writing team set up exactly this scenario in the Season 2 finale, as Dutch (Hannah John-Kamen) announced an all-out war against Aneela.

“Boondoggie,” returning Friday at 9 p.m. ET on Space, picks up with Dutch, D’avin (Luke McFarlane) and Johnny (Aaron Ashmore) doing their part to get the showdown started with some key help from Pree (Thom Allison) and Alvis (Morgan Kelly). With guest stars like Viktoria Modesta, Tommie-Amber Pirie and Karen LeBlanc jetting into The Quad, we got Lovretta on the phone to set the stage for what promises to be one hells of a great season.

Congratulations on Season 3 of Killjoys. You’re back on Friday nights this summer and Wynonna Earp is part of the lineup on Space.
Michelle Lovretta: I’m super excited. It’s funny, having Emily as a dear friend on this journey and having her on Killjoys it’s kind of a delicious treat that we’re going to airing as sister shows, effectively, on the same night. It’s a small world in the best of ways.

When we last left the group Khlyen had died, D’avin and Fancy were trading quips, Johnny and Clara were off in Khlyen’s ship and the tree is no more. Where do we pick up on Friday night? Is it right after the events of the Season 2 finale?
It is not right after, but I would say the emotional stakes have a very clear continuity with where we left everybody. We’ve taken a little breath and allowed a little time to pass. The stakes remain what Aneela’s ultimate game plan is and assessing their best approach to turning a gang of Killjoy rebels into a valid militia force against the Hullen.

It’s always fun to train people who don’t really know how to fight how to fight.
Exactly. And these are brawlers. The thing I’ve always loved about Killjoys from the beginning is the take no sides, take no bribes. It allows you to divorce yourself from a whole lot of thorny issues in terms of whether you are on the right side or the wrong side. Now, they’re no longer given that freedom. Now they not only have to take a side but have to try to talk other people into taking a side and trying to get people who were in it for a buck to be in it for the fight. It’s an interesting challenge but, honestly, I can’t think of anybody in our world that would be better suited for it than the combination of Dutch, D’av and Johnny because they are different people with different approaches and we get to see that tragically, comically and lovingly play out this season.

But just because someone says they’re on your side doesn’t mean they really are.
Exactly. It’s true. And one of the things we’re exploring this season is that it’s about loyalties and about your self-definition. I love to live in the grey, not because I don’t there is evil and good because I do, but that it’s contextual in a lot of ways. There are people who are very good to their loved ones and those loved ones never know how savage they are. That’s sort of the complexity of what it is to be human and that’s what has sort of fascinated me about the relationship between Dutch and Khlyen. We saw that play out last year because I thought it was really important. There was an abusive, manipulative side to that relationship and it was toxic. She needed to deal with that and also deal with, in her definition, love and support and protection. That’s what makes life and relationships so complicated. This season that spreads out into her relationships with other people as well.

Is Aneela the big villain this season? Is she the focus?
There are definitely other challenges. Aneela is, I would say, the architect of many of those. She is colluding from afar at first and that gives our people time to regroup. There are other villains closer at hand at times. And we still have the structure that I love, which is a great adventure at its heart and a story that resolves itself neatly, but feeds into and broadens the greater season-long arc.

Last season you suggested Pree’s warlord history. Do you touch on that this season?
Let me just say the title of Episode 4 is “The Lion, The Witch and The Warlord.” [Laughs.] Pree fans may read into that what they will.

Thom has been so great in this role.
He is amazing and we love the secondary characters. It always feels odd in my mouth to call them secondary. While we can’t always give them a full story we always want to keep them close to hand and close to heart and I think we do that very handily this season. We have more Fancy, we have more Alvis, we have some surprise people that you may not be expecting. We have some new people as well because, frankly, that’s such a joy for us. Because I love our core three so much, one of the things that is fun to do is give them new energy to play against.

Viktoria Modesta is a guest star in Season 3 as Niko. Viktoria is an artist, singer and an amputee. What can you say about her character?
I’m super-excited about Viktoria joining us and the character of Niko. It was our opportunity to bring to life this very unique, very sexy, very glamorous aspirational character. She certainly has her sexy villain side because I find that appealing. But even within the time she is with us, we have also given her her own perspective and a credible rationalization for the things that she does. She is somebody that Johnny butts heads with in Episode 2 and I think it was possibly the first time that Viktoria had appeared on television, and she was an incredibly passionate and quick study. We wanted to make sure that the Hackmod world was legitimate and we brought in actors that believably belonged in those roles but at the same time didn’t make it a dark and unhappy place. They have a badassery to them.

Were the Hackmods something you always had in the back of your mind when you were creating Killjoys or did they evolve during production?
They came to me in Season 1. I went back, actually, and found a lot of clippings that I had gone through. People with gun legs and modifications on human bodies. It’s something I find very interesting when you’re thinking about the future and how we’re going to be hacking our own bodies. I think it’s part of our journey, as humans. And then it becomes, as a writer, what does that do to them culturally? Legally? What does that do to their rights and norms? Who are the outcasts?

What can you tell me about Karen LeBlanc’s role this season?
Can I just say how gorgeous she is? Every time I’m editing and she comes on screen I ask if I can have the footage rolled back one more time. [Laughs.] She plays an antagonist to our team. When we come back the RAC that operates as business as usual realizes a bunch of agents have gone missing when Dutch went ahead and killed the Arkyn pool. Banyon has a completely correct suspicion that Dutch and team are somehow at the heart of this and she is definitely, ‘Let’s pull back the curtain and take a poke at Dutch.’

What can fans expect when they tune in this season? What will they see?
One of the things we lay out is the complete origin story between Dutch and her connection to Aneela. You also are going to see Pree at his best and his warlord past. You are going to see Dutch and John on the day they met. You’re going to see a lot of tasty things that as, as writers, we waited for the right time for. We didn’t want to just throw them out in the first season, but have been pining to do ever since.

Killjoys airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET on Space.

Images courtesy of Bell Media.