A young Michelle Shocked runs barefoot through the snowy woods, wearing nothing but a grey hospital gown and a barcode on the back of her neck. She's being chased by lots of faceless people on black whatever-you-call-those-ski-motorcycle-things. What are those things called? Motorskis? Ski mobiles? Snow mobiles? At any rate, there's a whole bunch of them and they're all chasing after this little shaved-head kid who's running and running. The kid runs into a (insert your own secluded-woods-area word here), and up pop at least a dozen other little shaved heads, all looking suitably institutionalized and hospital-escapee-ish. They were all hiding behind fallen logs, you see, and all the helicopters and searchlights in the world can't penetrate the unsecure non-cover of their hidey-hole. Little Michelle takes her place behind a fallen log. After a moment, one more kid joins the group, and then I guess the group's complete 'cause suddenly a different kid jumps up and starts communicating with the fugitive band in what looks like a silly combination of semaphore and sign language. Mr. Child Actor takes it all very, very seriously, though, and I understand now that he is the Leader. The Leader tells them all to separate, a too-serious female voice-over tells us, and all the kids scatter. The voice-over is the voice of Little Michelle in the future, you understand. "It was Zach's idea to separate, so I guess he saved my life. I never got a chance to thank him." That's what she says. Then the camera cuts to a scene of Zach with some metal thing over his mouth, being dragged into some building by two snow-Nazis. A screen floater tells me we're in Gillette, Wyoming, 2009. Blah blah blah bad acting by soldier-types, the head bad guy orders a bad actor to kill the kids if they make it "past the wire." So of course the scene is of two little hospital patients scaling a wire fence, viewed through the green, grainy crosshairs of a night-vision scope, as if they are about to be shot. There's a long sequence in which a third hospital patient takes out the soldier who was going to shoot the two scaling the fence. He is set upon by many snow-Nazis and he fights admirably, but is, in the end, outnumbered. I think the purpose of this scene is not only to heighten suspense and drama, but also to alert us, the viewing audience, that these little ragamuffins are more than just pickpockets in London. They are fighting machines. And don't you forget it. Okay, so anyway, the two make it over the fence, they run, and then Little Michelle falls through some thin ice into the cold water below. Little Michelle's friend stops to call her name (it's Max, by the way), but then realizes she's about to get capped and takes off again. Blah blah blah overhead shot of running child in searchlights, Humvees and snow-thingies zooming all over the place. Cut to conversation between head Bad Guy and random soldier. Soldier tells BG that they've captured seven, killed two, and wounded three. BG replies that they've all got big problems if just one "makes it to the outside." "Realistically, sir, it's ten degrees out here. How far can these kids get?" Oh-ho-ho, mister stupid soldier-man! You don't even know that you're dealing with super-genetically engineered super-beings. Dumb. What do they teach people in the Army these days? All the bad people zoom away on their evil, child-collecting snow-thingies, and the camera pans across the snowy ground to a window of ice in the snow, through which we see Max's face looking upward, wide awake and not drowned or hypothermia'd at all.
Cleverly, the shot of young Max's face is slowly replaced by a shot of grown-up Max's face, and the voice-over continues and the camera pans out to show us a pensive, leather-clad young lady sitting on the rim of the Space Needle in Seattle. No, seriously, it's the Space Needle. ["Kim would be so happy." -- Sars] It's all decrepit and graffiti'd, and the moon is impossibly orange and huge. 'Cause it's the grim and dirty future, you see, and the moon always looks like that when there's been an apocalyptic event of any kind. Anyway, Little Miss Voice-Over continues to alert us to the fact that "hope is for losers," and that she has no idea where any of the others are. She hopes they're okay, though. 'Cause she's a walking contradiction who doesn't really believe her own cynical propaganda. Get it? Cut to Max's sweaty face in profile as she fumbles with a pill bottle. She's got the shakes, she's trying to take the pills, she's...she's having a flashback! Flash to scenes of bald kids with stern little faces marching around some grey, loveless building. Slide-show style, we see kids marching, kids training in martial arts, kids looking at a screen that's showing words like "discipline" and "teamwork" -- kids being brainwashed into little soldiers, basically. There's also some shots of the kids' eyes working like camera lenses. This, my friends, is important to remember for later. After some moments of this flashing back, Max strolls out of the bathroom, fresh as a daisy, and smiles as her roommate comments on how it sucks that they both partied hard and late, but Max is fine, while roomie is hung smooth over. The roommate drinks some coffee, then comments that she's feeling almost human, to which Max bitterly replies, "Yeah, me, too." Oooooooh! You got that, too, right? 'Cause Max isn't entirely human. 'kay. stop is Max's neighbors' apartment. Tenants include: one male (sweating and wrapped in a blanket), one female (worried and hovering), and one child (cute and endearingly precocious). It seems the sweaty fellow is Max's co-worker, and he's too sick to go to work today. Max offers to pick up his check for him, then says goodbye faux-cheerfully as he lies down to be weak some more on the couch. Onward, then. Our tour of Max's life continues through the city streets of Seattle via bicycle. Max is a bike messenger. Trés tough, no? Max rides through the bustling city streets, while her voice-over tells us that the nation is in a depression due to an electromagnetic pulse that ruined the US's prosperity. Terrorists. That's who did it. Freaking terrorists. The electromagnetic pulse wiped out all computer records, so everyone had to start over from scratch. Hence, the depression. But Max doesn't think it should be called a depression, 'cause people don't seem to be all that depressed. Um. Thanks, genius. Maybe you should stick to soldiering and leave the thinking to someone else. As she's thinking about how cheerful and jolly everyone is, the camera cuts to several shots of people being roughed up by cops and MPs, plus some extra shots of beefy men standing solidly in front of shiny black cars as if they were perhaps members of a Mafia organization.
The Soldier Max Bike Tour and Philosophical Lecture Series culminates with her arrival at the bustling bike messenger center. A fellow with a Jamaican accent is getting in trouble for the boss for ruining a client's attempt to send his mistress expensive underpants. (I love that word, "underpants." Say it a few times. You'll love it, too.) The boss rides Max for being late to work, to which she replies that she was on call. He makes a crack about her being on call in bed (grrr, tiger!), oh -- asleep, and she says, "I don't sleep." So now we know. She doesn't sleep. No wonder she's fallen victim to faulty logic; this little lady needs a nap, stat. She picks up her check and asks for Theo's check, too (the sick, sweaty man from two paragraphs ago, you remember). Normal (that's the boss's name) tells Max to tell Theo that he's fired if he doesn't come in to work tomorrow. What a mean, mean man. That's why he's wearing Buddy Holly glasses and a cowboy shirt with a bolo tie. Only mean people wear stuff like that. It's the mark of a villain. Watch today as you visit your local record store or 7-11. You'll see. Max gets the check and makes saucy-sauce of Normal's threat to Theo, then pays a visit to her friend, Original Cindy, in the locker bays. Original Cindy is not only a bike messenger, but also a les-been. (This show, by the way, rocks for including all manner of diversity in its character assortment, with an almost-conspicuous lack of self-consciousness or self-congratulation. Woo hoo!) Max and O.C. watch as their co-worker, Sketch, nuzzles with a lovely, wholesome-looking young lady. O.C. comments that the lady is being wasted on fellows. The couple come over to say, "Hey," to Max and O.C., and to offer them cookies that the wholesome girl, Natalie, made for her and Sketch's ten-month anniversary. Um, barf? Yes. Barf. But that's the point. Well done, James Cameron. Thankfully, television scenes of food riots interrupt this saccharine depiction of young love, followed by a pirate broadcast in which a fellow known as Eyes Only ('cause his broadcast just shows his eyes looking at the camera while his voice dishes political dirt too shocking to be sold on the newsstands) gives the scoop about one Mr. Edgar Sonrisa. The whole messenger center gathers around the tube to listen. Sketch says Eyes Only is "deep," but Max gives some cynical speculation that he's "on the hustle, like everyone else." 'Cause she's down like that, yo. We now get to follow Max on a messenger run -- woo hoo! She ducks down an alley at the sight of a hovercraft-looking thing that is, I guess, a floating, cruising surveillance system. Then she rides an elevator up into an office building, voice-overing the whole time about how the Pulse screwed everything up for rich America, and about how she doesn't really care, 'cause she's, you know, hard. As she's making the delivery, she uses her telescopic super-badass super-vision (I told you it was important) to spot a treasure trinket behind the mirrored window of a building across the street and several stories higher. Um. Anyway. She then makes note of an entrance to the building that seems to be a couple floors above the trinket. These notes taken, she darts across the street, duct-tapes the lock part of a ground-floor door so she can get in later, and pow, she's a thief! That other door, the one high up, it's still important. A girl has a right to use more than one door, you know. Jeez.
Cut to our new friend, Sketch, standing at a pay phone in the rain, breaking his date with his saccharine girlfriend, Natalie. "I gotta work late, I swear. I'm sorry, baby." Blah blah blah excusescakes. And, of course, the shot is of him going over to some hot bitch's house and getting down like gangbusters. I wonder if James Cameron is trying to work through some of his own guilt re: his failed marriage to Linda Hamilton. Sometimes art can be really therapeutic, you know? Blahblahblahblahblahblahcommercialbreak. Back from commercial break, Max and Original Cindy are taking bets at their local hipster bar that Max can't listen to a phone on speed dial and repeat the numbers back verbatim. Of course, she can. She is so goddamned smug. Oh, but here comes an ex-boyfriend to take her down a notch. He cheated on her, she broke up with him, he tells her that he cheated on her because she is emotionally unavailable. Jesus, Cameron, give it a rest! I wonder if the rest of the season is going to be filled with post-divorce relationship mush. Ex-boyfriend strolls smugly away, having gotten the last word (she's like a "fogbank"). Max has a rare moment of self-doubt, but is bolstered by Original Cindy, who tells her that she's not emotionally unavailable, she's just mysterious. Hm. Well, that's what friends are for, I guess. On the heels of this pat on the back, Max receives a page, then darts out the door, refusing to divulge the nature of her errand. 'Cause she's mysterious. Cut to hard-on shot of Max riding a black Japanese-style motorcycle at breakneck speeds through the city streets. Jeez -- she can barely fit on that thing. You'll notice two things in this scene, ladies and gentlemen: she is now fully outfitted in a black leather motorcycle suit (NOT what she was wearing at the bar), and, in her motorcycle-riding close-up, her hair is not moving at. All. Even though there are loud motorcycle noises dubbed over, as if we are looking at her as she's riding. I'm just saying. Anyway, she rides her bike into a laundromat and busts into the back room to harass a man eating Chinese food. Oh, wait, there's her bar-wearing shirt under her black leather jacket. My mistake. Turns out the man eating Chinese food is not only the proprietor of a laundry facility, but also a private investigator. She's got him searching for (a) the woman who picked her up as she fled in her little grey hospital gown that long-ago snowy night, and (b) any other people with bar codes on their necks. He hems and haws and comes up with a few tidbits about the car that Hannah (Woman (a) from the sentence) drove and later sold, but he eventually tells Max that she needs to cough up more cash. Jesus, Jessica Alba's lips are HUGE. Sorry I didn't mention it before, folks. You should just know: this chick's lips are ridiculous. This is what Melanie Griffith was striving for. Yeesh.
Anyway, she leaves the detective's office and busts into the office building she was at earlier in the day. Remember what I said about both doors being in the target building? I was wrong. The ground-floor door is in the first building. The high-up door is in the target building, the one across the street. Max hustles up to the roof of the first building, clips a carabiner onto a convenient iron hook in the roof, and dives across the street like the Dark Angel that she is, swinging from her heavy-duty rope swing like freaking Batman. I will buy all of this only because she is a genetically modified soldier-person. I am still awfully skeptical, though. Just so you know. So she swoops across, and gracefully lands on the roof of the target building, in a beautiful commercial-trailer-worthy shot. That accomplished, she cat-burgles her way into the room full of trinkets that she'd spied earlier in the day. As she's burgling, she hears Mr. Eyes Only speaking from an adjacent room. 'Cause she's burgling his house, see? Funny how things work out that way. She spies on him for a while, just long enough for his security guard/bodyguard to discover her dangling cat-burglar rope and hunt her distracted ass down. A throw-down with the bodyguard ensues, and she, of course, kicks his butt. After frightening a helpless woman and child who are sharing a warm family moment in the room where Max tries to hide from the bodyguard. Did I mention that Mr. Eyes Only is hot? He is. Mr. EO holds Max at gunpoint after she beats the bodyguard down. They chat about art for a spell (he's relieved that she's "just a thief"), each vibing the other like teenagers on E, until building security arrives. Max takes advantage of the distraction to run like hell, and then dives out the very high plate-glass window and falls unscathed to the rooftop below. Mr. EO watches her with a quizzical and lustful look in his eye as she runs right away. We know from the commercials that he will soon figure out who she is. Oh, and in Mr. EO's latest broadcast, he's talking about how bad guy Edgar Sonrisa is guilty of selling placebo pills to VA hospitals. This is important for later. Another commercial break. Why do I always tape the commercials? I gotta quit that. God, could they show that stupid commercial for that stupid new David E. Kelley show enough times? I don't think they can. I mean, whoa. Like, that show is going to rock. It's about a teenage girl who doesn't wear a bra. Heh heh heh. [Eyes roll so far back in head that the author's dog becomes frightened and won't stop barking at her.]
Back from commercial break, the show reopens in the childhood Army facility (I gotta come up with a good name for that place. Give me a few, I'll think of something, I swear) where a bald kid falls down in a series of convulsive fits that strangely resemble Max's morning bathroom seizures of the present day. Oh, good. The camera cuts to Max's adult hand, shaking and trying to get pills out of a bottle, just to make sure I make the connection. Thanks, guys! Cut back to young Max hiding her shaking hands under her blankets so nobody sees. She hears noises down the hall, pads down in her bare feet to spy, and sees the convulsing kid being autopsied (not convulsing anymore, of course). The autopsy is being observed by the Head Bad Guy. He sure is sinister. And he is drinking coffee during an autopsy. Yuck. The music in this scene is all discordant and scary, with sounds of screams sort of filtered in subliminally. Scary, no? Yes. Present-day Max washes her face and looks at herself in the mirror, wondering why they didn't make her lips just a little smaller, if they could engineer all that other stuff so well. When she emerges from the bathroom, she has a brief talk with her roommate, chastising her for using the motorcycle as a clothesline. Max waves a pair of white thong underpants (hee) around to make some kind of point, but then a cop busts in and asks if there are any squatters living in the building. This is a cue for Max to give him a cup of coffee and a wad of cash. He leaves after ogling the ladies for a moment, and Max reveals that she spits in his coffee every single week. That vixen! Squatting in a building and disrespecting authorities. Whatta gal! After the cop leaves, Max gets ready for work, then stops to drop off a paycheck with sick neighbor Theo. He's gotten much sicker, his wife says, and mentions that she took him to the hospital again. Max goes into the sickroom to visit Theo, and he tells her that he knows what he's got, and that the VA hospital is giving him "that medicine" that Mr. EO says is no good. Max tells him not to believe everything he hears on TV, and then speculates that Mr. EO is just a bored rich guy sitting in a "trick apartment," trying to scare everyone for fun. She is so hard, yo! Then she tells him that she'll see him at work tomorrow (ha). She stops to reassure Theo's wife that "guys are the weaker sex," (nice one, right in front of an impressionable six-year-old boy) and that Theo's just being a big baby, not dying of Balkan War Syndrome. If Max was a DJ, her name would be DJ Smuggy Smug.
Back in Mr. EO's apartment, Mr. EO and the bodyguard track down the surveillance video from the building door and watch Max on video stroll in. He zooms in on her ID tag with impossibly high-tech technology (hey, he's rich, it's the future. People can do anything when they're rich, and especially people from the future. For real. Wait and see) and tracks down the bike messenger service where she works. In other parts of the city, Max rolls in to the bike center and is accosted by Sketch, who tells Max that he's been cheating on Natalie and that he needs Max's help. His cheat is threatening to tell Natalie all about their affair if he doesn't dump Natalie like last week's fish. Max lambastes him for being arrogant, condescending, smug, self-serving, and lame, and I wonder how much James Cameron is going to have to flagellate himself before he lets me get on with my sci-fi action viewing. There are long, long minutes of Max talking down to Sketch, who acts like a total, rationalizing idiot. There are many gender stereotypes flying around. I don't want to think this way about men. I don't want to think this way about women. Stop it, James Cameron, and just send Linda Hamilton a nice card that says, "I'm sorry." Then get into private therapy and spare the rest of us your wife-cheating guilt! About the time that Max asks Sketch what he needs her to do, Mr. EO is bribing Normal (Max's boss) for her name, home address, and hangouts. Normal warns Mr. EO that Max is trouble (all the while putting some gross, greasy pomade stuff on his yucky-yuck hair. EW!). Mr. EO throws Normal's warning to the wind and hightails it to the bar where Max and Original Cindy are playing foosball and debating the implications, both local and global, of Max helping Sketch get out of getting busted for cheating on Natalie. Mr. EO spots Max just as Max spots him. They exchange a few words, the subtext of which is, "I don't trust you but I really want to have sex with you," and then go for a walk. Oh, Mr. EO's name is Logan Kale. Max asks him how his wife likes being married to Mr. EO, referring to the woman and child she interrupted so rudely when brawling with his bodyguard. He tells her that Lauren (that's the woman's name) is one of his sources, not his wife or girlfriend. She's trying to testify against Edgar Sonrisa, and is being hunted by him, so she's holing up at his fine house until she can get into the witness protection plan. Max asks Logan what he's getting out of his altruistic journalism. He says his parents were well off (so he's a trust fund baby -- yow!), and he's all about blah blah blah altruismcakes, make the world a better place, help defeat the bad guys, give the people a voice, et cetera. Max throws some self-serving "I just like to go fast on my motorcycle" line at him, and then, just as the conversation turns to Max's "extraordinary athleticism," she is gone (poof) just like that. He looks up and notices a police hover-spy thingie, ostensibly the reason for her flight, and then we are launched into another craptastic commercial break.
Oh, smart me, I edited out all but the Texas-centric Ford pickup truck commercial. Go, Texas. Yay. Back from commercial break, Max agrees to pretend to be Natalie when Lydia the Homewrecker comes to bust Sketch for cheating. Natalie is at her parents' house, conveniently. So Lydia comes in, all ho'd out with long fake red nails and about one tube too much red lipstick. She's got a sexy voice, kind of, but in that I'm-making-my-voice-too-low-'cause-I'm-trying-to-be-sexy kind of way. Max is dressed in Natalie's floral clothes and standing in Natalie's filled-with-stuffed-animals apartment. YUCK! What kind of sick virgin-whore drama is being played out on my TV screen? I feel itchy. Oh yuck. Sex, don't forget, makes women bad. Ooh, Lydia's got a tattoo. A really ugly, bad one. Max tells Lydia that she forgives Sketch, and that they're getting married month. Lydia throws a whole bunch of cheese all over the place, then tries to hit Max, thus prompting Max to push Lydia over the balcony of the apartment and dangle her over passing traffic until she says, "Uncle." Actually, she makes Lydia say, "I understand," to a long list of directives that Max makes up on the spot. That Max, she's so wise. Later that day, Max and Sketch walk along a crowded city street. Sketch is frisking around, telling Max how great she is and how "that psycho" got what she deserved, until Max gets her last nerve walked on and throws Sketch up against a wall and tells him that he's completely selfish and makes him say that he understands, too. Grrr, tiger. Max is so tough and so wise. She really is a Dark Angel. (Snarf.) Later that night, in a laundromat far, far away (okay, it's probably really close), Max's private detective closes up the shop and leaves for the night. As he walks out, a man dressed suspiciously like a snow-Nazi from Max's days of yore drops from the ceiling and makes for the back office. Unfortunately for everyone, Mr. PI forgot his keys and has to go back inside, thus causing the snow-Nazi to beat the holy crap out of him and take everything out of his wallet. Take everything out of his wallet? Maybe it's just a cover-up to make it look like a robbery. Hm. Things are getting complicated. At the same time, in Max's apartment, Max comes home from a hard day of bike riding, her makeup still fresh and dewy, her hair still bouncy and shiny. She strips down to her sports bra and lies back on the couch to enjoy a little TV, when she notices the cat statue that she tried to steal from Mr. EO upon their first encounter. The statue is sitting on top of her TV. She sits bolt upright, and then the shot is of Max dropping into Mr. EO's house, all kinds of pissed off. I wonder if she used the building across the street's metal hook to fly herself across like last time. 'Cause that door that she taped open last time isn't taped open anymore. Hm. Questions, questions. Anyway, Mr. EO is expecting her, apparently, because he's lighting some candles on the table as if he's getting ready for a romantic dinner. She accuses him of being a total creep. He apologizes. They banter. But know that what they are really saying is, "Um, hi. I find you really attractive. Would you go to bed with me?" He asks her to come into another room so he can "show her something" (um, something in your pants?), and they stand in front of a great, big mirror for a while.
He slings some cheese about art and about how she's got the most perfect face he's ever seen, then plays with her hair, and she's about to stop swimming against the cheese and just let herself go down in it (get it? "Go down." God, I kill myself. Hoo!) when he sees the barcode on her neck and blows the whole romantic moment. Bastard. You shouldn't get a lady all riled up and then bust her for being a genetically engineered super-being. The moment ruined, he goes on to throw out a bunch of facts about Project Manticore (that's the name of the project that made Max, you see), then holds up Max's anti-shake pills from her sweaty bathroom as evidence of her genetically-engineered-ness. Boy, is she pissed when she sees those. Then he says that a dozen kids escaped "a few months before the Pulse." Max, who had been beating a hasty, angry retreat, stops, gets all teary-eyed and says, "Twelve." I can't tell if she's sad that it's only twelve, moved that it's as many as twelve, or just glad to know how many. But anyway, she is teary-eyed, and that's what I know. Stupid stupid stupid commercial break. And that's with most of the commercials edited out. Max sits in Logan's apartment and tells him all about the escape, the project, the whole sad, sordid tale of her childhood. I hope she feels a lot better after this. Therapy can be so healing, you know? Damn, she's sitting on the back of his couch, feet planted right on the leather seat. I guess you don't care about shit like that when you're a trust-fund kid, huh? I wouldn't know, of course. I'd've slapped that girl's feet onto the floor faster that you can say "expensive leather sofa." Anyway, he tells her that the technical term for her is "chimera." She bitterly fills in the non-educated viewing audience on the definition of the word. He offers to help track down as much information as he can about the project and its survivors. She asks what that catch is, and he says he wants her to be Lauren's bodyguard until after Edgar Sonrisa's trial. She tells him to get screwed and storms out, pilfered pills in hand. She then rides to the private investigator's on her fast motorcycle that doesn't disturb her bouncin' and behavin' hair. She busts into the back room. He makes banter with her while writing a note to her, telling her that the room's bugged. They step out into the alleyway to have a real discussion, which includes such informational gems as: somebody really hi-tech is looking for her, he can't help her on her case anymore, she should keep her PI money to get the hell out of town, thank you, and buh-bye.
Two traumas down, one waiting at home. She gets to the apartment, runs into Theo's wife in the hall, and finds out that Theo died in a cab on the way to the hospital. Bummer. The actress who plays Theo's wife did a really good job of crying and such. I got a lump in my throat, even on the second viewing. Commercial breaks coming more and more frequently. This is a disturbing trend. We re-enter the Dark Angel universe in the middle of one of Max's flashbacks. Oh, it seems that the escape from Project Manticore is all her fault. She was having a seizure, all the kids gathered around her, and then the MPs came in to kill her and autopsy her like they did the other kid. But her little soldier compatriots were having nothing of it and whomped the shit out of the MPs. And then had to escape. The first kid to protect young Max got gunned down by the head bad guy. More reason for her to hate him, that coffee-drinking-during-autopsies, kid-killing bastard. Head full of sadness and disappointment, Max heads in to work. Normal razzes her for being late, then tells her to tell Theo that he's fired. "Theo's dead," she says expressionlessly. All the bike messengers get very sad and shocked and stand around gaping. In the midst of the shocked silence, the TV broadcasts a report of a shootout involving a witness in the trial of Edgar Sonrisa. Police hoverdrones (that's what those things are called!) captured the shootout on film. The TV shows Logan's bodyguard getting shot down, then Logan getting shot as he tries to protect Lauren's kid (Sophy). Sophy gets kidnapped by the bad guys, and then the transmission ends. Max is having a really shitty day. In another room in the city, men in black suits sit in a beautifully-lit office building and discuss the escapees from Project Manticore. (The office scenes all have the most amazing photographs hanging as office art. Gorgeous black and white photographs of water. Just thought I'd let you know that the set designer has got really good taste.) The head bad guy argues with some other guys that their bug on Max's PI will pay off. The head bad guy turns and looks at pictures of all the escapees mounted on foam core and hung on the wall. It seems he's gotten the last word somehow. The investigation continues. Later that night, Max goes to visit Logan in the hospital. He's unconscious, so she takes advantage of his passivity to tell him what she really thinks about him. She checks his wallet to take his cash, but discovers that the nurses beat her to it. Heh. Okay, so here she goes giving some weird speech about the law of gravity and even Jesus Christ having to obey it. Huh? Anyway. Blah blah blah cynicalcakes, you suck, Logan, I don't feel guilty about not being that woman's bodyguard, except that I do. She looks out the window, sees with her super-vision that a gentleman with a silencer-rifle is about to shoot Logan, and decides to wheel him out of the hospital. She talks and talks as she's wheeling him away, utterly in love, apparently, with the sound of her own whiny, monotonous voice. A big explosion busts out of Logan's room behind them. You probably saw that scene on the commercials about a thousand times before you saw the show, huh? I know I did. Was it the oxygen exploding? What exploded? Ever notice how nobody goes deaf on TV because of explosions or gunfire? Funny, that.
Cut to Max in Logan's computer room, screwing around with his database like it's really easy to use or something. She searches the database for Edgar Sonrisa's employees until she finds the guy who was going to shoot Logan (Bruno); then she hears a noise, gets up to investigate, and nearly punches Lauren in the face. Did I mention that Max's acting is about as wooden as the tree in my front yard? Hm. Well, now you know. Anyway. She apologizes to Lauren, who makes sad about her kidnapped daughter. Lauren asks Max to help her get Sophy back. Max hems and haws and says that she wishes she could help...so she will. Clever use of pauses and dramatic delivery make this line genuinely effective. (Ahem.) Okay, so decision made, Max ninjas into Edgar Sonrisa's estate with an astonishing display of handstands and such. Wheee! She gets into the house, is about to get busted, but ducks into a bathroom in the nick of time. Phew. Except for the fact that she busts in on a hooker shooting up. The hooker claims to be diabetic, then tells Max that she's the boss of all the party girls, and "wives and girlfriends aren't invited to the party tonight," then tries to hustle Max out of the bathroom. Max cold-cocks her, takes her clothes (which are strangely not too big, including the shoes), and infiltrates the party, gathering many and many a lustful/envious look from gentlemen and ladies alike. Don't you think it's weird that Max is wearing the boss's clothes, there's no boss in sight, Max is a total stranger to them, and yet nobody bats an eye? I don't. I just wondered if you did. So of course, Max is soooo foxy that Edgar Sonrisa himself wants her to sit on his lap during his big boys' poker game. Yay for Max! She's slutty, she's tough, she's gonna sit on the big man's lap -- woo hooo! Commercial break again? Christ. Back from the mercifully edited commercial break, Max gives Edgar Sonrisa about eighteen different kinds of lip in front of the mayor and all the other party guests. But she gets away with it because she asks Sonrisa for $50K and promises to deliver Lauren to him. Mr. Sonrisa shoos everyone out of the room except for Bruno, who frisks Max in a very sexual manner, then threatens to "work her face with a pair of pliers" until she gives away Lauren's whereabouts. Hoo, he sure doesn't know who he's messing with, does he? Sonrisa tells Bruno to pull the cash, then asks Max how she's going to deliver Lauren. Max says she's tricked Lauren into believing that if she agrees to leave the country, Sonrisa will give her back her daughter and let her go. Max and Sonrisa share a chuckle over this one, then call Lauren. Max gets Sonrisa to conference-call Sophy's kidnappers (remember how Max can memorize speed-dial numbers by sound? A-ha! These things always come around in good television dramas. It's important to tie together the little details), and Lauren and Sophy have one of those "Mommy, I'm scared," "Hold on, baby, I'm coming for you," conversations. So, that requirement satisfied, they negotiate the exchange of cash. Sonrisa wants to give Max the money after she's delivered Lauren. Max suggests that Bruno come with her, he holds the money, and then she delivers Lauren and bails. Everybody thinks this is a swell idea, especially Bruno, who really likes Max's hooker clothes.
So. Max and Bruno go to a cheap-ass hotel. Its nature is cemented by the passersby who are also guests: one businessman and two leather-clad ladies with purple hair and spike heels. You get the picture, right? Right. We are all sophisticated viewers here. Bruno comes on to Max, she shoots him down, then insults him, then whomps the shit out of him, the whole time telling him that Sonrisa hired her to take him out because he did such a sloppy job with Logan. He, of course, buys the whole line. After she humiliates and beats him, she ties him up, faultily (on purpose, dontcha know), so that he can escape, "shoot" her in the back as she runs away (coward), and watch as she sinks to the bottom of the conveniently located swimming pool with nary a drop of blood seeping from her supposedly-perforated body. Commercial break. Again. Fucking ticks. Thankfully, the action did not continue without us while we were whisked away to the land of products and services for sales. When we return, Bruno is still mad, Max is still at the bottom of the pool. Bruno storms off to kill Sonrisa for trying to take him out, he conveniently forgets the money, Max climbs out of the pool, and calls her PI to have him trace the speed-dial number for her. He reminds her that his phone is bugged, but she doesn't care, 'cause she's tough like that, yo. He gives her the address and she races off to it, and so does the head bad guy, who's got a hard-on because his little plan to find Max is working out. Max and the Army dash over to Sonrisa's hangout. When Max gets there, the head bad guy tells the entire US Army to seal the perimeter, the windows, doors, air vents, and ratholes, then wait for his signal to go in and get her. The Army complies. Ohhhhh, I wonder how Max is going to get out of this one. Once inside, Max scoots right upstairs, right past the unwitting kidnappers who are all watching boxing. The Army circles the building, but Max grabs one of them and then she is in the Army, too! How did she go from being inside and upstairs, to outside and on the street? Hm. She is a genetically-engineered super-being. I guess she's got her ways. So the Army busts in to the warehouse, out-numbers and out-toughs the kidnappers, secures the building. But where is Max? Oh, there she is! She is carrying Sophy right past the head bad guy. Whoa, is she wearing a lot of eye make-up. The head bad guy stops her, then tells her to put Sophy in his car. Phew. He didn't notice her eye make-up. Boy, I sure did. He's not very clever, for a head bad man. The Army reports that there is no trace of Max in the building, just as we hear the sound of her motorcycle revving and zooming away.
A la Barb Wire, there is a tearful mother-daughter reunion in a deserted area with Max watching bitterly from her bike. Lauren starts to thank Max, but Max has already scooted away, popping a wheelie on her bike like a big ol' pouty teenager baby. The time we see her, she is in the bike messenger center, watching the news of Edgar Sonrisa's death on the TV. It seems that an enraged Bruno shot Sonrisa, then was gunned down by Sonrisa's other henchmen. How tidy! Oh, here's a subplot conclusion for you: a bike messenger delivers Theo's ashes COD to the bike center (not to his wife and kid? Um, whatever), but Normal won't cough up the dough to pay for them. So all the bike messengers pitch in the money to pay for the delivery. Normal feels bad and takes out his wallet, but the Jamaican guy (remember him?) steps in and tells him that they'll take care of their own, and he can keep his dirty white money. Okay, he doesn't call Normal's money dirty and white, but he might as well have. Oh, Max takes the ashes to Theo's wife and kid. I guess the mortuary didn't send them there 'cause they are squatting. Hm. Cut to Logan's apartment, where he is sitting in a wheelchair and broadcasting more grim news about refugees being marched overboard for profit. He's bitter about being paralyzed from the waist down. And well he should be. But where are his glasses? Perhaps he got Lasik surgery while he was in the hospital. Enter Max. They start to have a friendly moment. He gives her a gift of the cat statue that he gave her last time, but that she sold. He bought it off the black market to give to her again. I wonder if this is going to be a recurring cycle: he pays her over and over again with the same cat statue. That would be funny. But, of course, as we are learning with Logan, nothing is without strings. He asks her to do a little legwork for him ('cause he's paralyzed now, get it?) re: the business of refugee murder. She tells him to stuff it, so he buys her with a tidbit more information about the other escapee soldier-kids. Oh, he pulls out a folder with Zach's information in it. Remember the very first paragraph? The one where she voice-overs that she never got to thank Zach for getting her to leave? And then he got drug back into the hospital facility with a metal thing over his mouth? Well, that's Zach. She gets all thoughtful and tearful; the shot is of Max sitting on the edge of the Space Needle, where she started, voice-overing about what she should do . Boy, that moon sure is huge. At least it's not entirely full, thus indicating the passage of time a little bit. Hm. This show's not half bad so far. We'll see if Cameron can sustain it.