These are the opening credits? I hope we don't have to listen to this boring, boring recap of the pilot every single week. Ugh. But I bet we will.
Holy fucking Christ, Cameron needs to put the kibosh on that voice-over business pronto. Um. I mean, this episode opens with a shot of Max walking her bike through thronged nighttime Seattle streets, pondering the nature of life, love, and anonymity. Her grating voice-over drones on and on and she tells us that she feels like a botched job, that her genetic engineers screwed up and she has to pay the price. Then she buys some tryptophan from a street vendor, who un-subtly remarks that Max is acting like a junkie. (sniff, sniff Do I smell foreshadowing in the air? Nah.) Max has got the shakes and sweats, you see, of the same variety that are normally confined to her early-morning bathroom scenes. Before Max and the vendor can engage in any more deep, meaningful dialogue, Max's ever-demanding pager goes off and calls her up to Logan Cale's house for a bout of hot 'n' heavy sexual tension.
Up in the penthouse, Logan's got the candles on, the wine glasses out, and his wheelchair all lubed up and ready to -- oh, sorry. That's the writing I do for my other website. Never mind. Suffice to say that he's trying to put the make on Max. But of course our tough little soldier doesn't give an inch, refusing his wine, his dinner, and his offer to take her for a ride in his sexy, sexy wheelchair. A brown-out conveniently occurs during his botched attempt at seduction, and conversation turns to what life was like before the Pulse. "What were you doing when the Pulse hit?" says Max. Logan says he was on his uncle's yacht with a lady friend. Of course. "And what about you, Max?" Max was hiding under some stairs at her foster family's home, hoping her drunk foster father wouldn't beat the living crap out of her and her foster sister. Hah. How about them apples, you spoiled rich boy? Teach you to look on the bright side of things. Logan remarks that he couldn't imagine Max putting up with a bunch of crap, but she tells him that she was trying to fit in, and that eventually she ran away. She's suppressing seizures this whole time, shaking and gulping and such, until Logan asks her if she's okay. She lays out a line of self-pitying snarf about how she's a lemon and she's got these really strong seizures, then she lays down on the couch and asks him to stay with her while she...has a whole bunch of visions of embryos? To an un-dope, un-phat electronica beat? My confusion is matched only by my eye-rolling resentment of James Cameron's heavy-handedness. I will not be manipulated, Cameron! Do you hear me?
But, oh, thank God, the embryos provide the perfect segue to the real opening credits, which are awful. Just awful.
Back from an eye-bleedingly bad commercial break, we enter the scene with Walter the Pig hassling Max's roomie. (I used to have a job at a photo lab, and the lab was owned by a guy named Walter, whom I hated. Before I quit, I hid sticky notes all over the place that said, "Walter is a pig-fucker." I am not proud of this, and would like to apologize to Walter for it. However, it is kind of funny, and I think of it every time I see Walter the Pig here on this show.) There is some speculation, as Walter waits and Roomie looks frantically for the pay-off money, that the girls have been robbed. But, thank our lucky stars, Max busts in all tough and shit, just in time to front down Walter and tell him that she took the rent money, spent it, and will have more money for him in the morning. The two women have words re: Max's poor communication skills and also her total lack of respect; then Max storms out, leaving Roomie to ask the empty air, "What is wrong with you?"
Cut to Max at work. Sketch says, "It ain't like I care, but, word, I've been covering for you. Look out, 'cause Normal's on the warpath." I am so glad that Sketch is down like dat, yo, to cover for his homegirl Max. Word. Max faces down Normal, then moves on to her confrontation, this time with Hurt-Feelings Cindy (many thanks to fulsome for the clever funny funny on Original Cindy's silly name). Max meets O.C. in the locker room for some hot girl-on-girl action, I mean, morning camaraderie, and immediately asks to bum some cash from her good friend. O.C. gets all indignant and bags on Max for standing her up the night before. Get the feeling that Max has been acting really flaky lately? Maybe flaky like a drug addict? Yeah. I think so, too. That girl's smokin' the killah, G. Hee. Anyway, O.C. has no dough, her feelings are hurt 'cause Max won't put out, I mean, stood her up, and to end the conversation, O.C. strides off-camera in a purposeful way, to let us know that she has gotten the last word. Word? Word.
Cut to a scene of a mean, mean man threatening to deep-fry the hand of a hapless, elderly, broken-English-speaking street vendor. "No money! I don't have your money!" cries the hapless street vendor. His equally hapless wife looks on in helpless horror as her hero is harassed by this heinous henchman. The heinous henchman's hunky friend, a.k.a. the Playa-Playa from the Himalayas, looks on from an idling SUV parked on the street nearby. Max strolls by just in time to see the hapless vendor's wife offer up a cookie tin with American dollars in it. The henchman's friend ogles Max and calls her "dollface," (who says that anymore? Perhaps he and the boys are looking for some broads to celebrate with after they rough up a few flatfoots), to which Max responds by asking him if he is, in fact, a member of the genus Playa-Playa, of the subspecies Himalaya. He responds coyly, as is the way of the elusive Playa-Playa. Max leans in close, in an attempt to elicit a more definitive answer, but she is unprepared for the burst of pheromones emitted from the Playa-Playa glands exposed by male pattern baldness. An unsuspecting Max goes insane, caught in a tidal wave of emotions she can't understand or control; to save herself, she headbutts him and takes his big black car. Thus is the life of the gentle Playa-Playa, doomed to be reviled by the very people he seeks to love.
Max takes her purloined car to a chop shop, and commences to pitch a fit when the chop shop manager will only give her $1000 for the car, and not until tomorrow morning. Um. Why doesn't she just hit up her secret lover, Logan Cale, for the money? Oh, never mind.
Back at the ranch (or tenement. Slum. Whatever), Max storms in looking for her pills, only to be given a stern-but-loving intervention by the freaking Wonder Twins, Righteous Indignation Cindy and Whatever-the-Fuck-Her-Name-Is the Roommate. "Where are my pills??" says Max desperately, with the same hint of hysteria in her voice that you might hear from a woman looking for her spare tube of red lipstick, or extra number-two pencil. That Jessica Alba, man, she sure knows how to lay on the drama. Phew. Cindy and Whassername spew cliché after cliché copped from a thousand AA meetings and self-help books, and tell Max that they flushed her tryptophan down the crapper. How do they have utilities and indoor plumbing and such in these "abandoned" buildings? Questions, questions. Max pitches a fit (duh), tells them she'll die without her pills, and storms out. But not before we learn that Whassername is a twelve-stepper recovering tattoo addict. And that she had them lasered off. She tells O.C. that she looked like a "human Christmas tree." Tattoos? Christmas tree?! What?? Excuse me. But that is the lamest, stupidest, awfulest, most irritating and most dated thing that those stupid mutha -- we are supposed to limit our use of profanity here at MBTV to a tasteful minimum. I try to respect that rule. In the interests of good taste, I will simply say that I hate James Cameron right now. A lot.
Max palsies her way over to her tryptophan dealer's street stall and hassles her for more dope. The street dealer doesn't have it, so Max extorts the name of her dealer's supplier. It's Metro Medical hospital, and the dealer knows an orderly there. So Max hoofs over there (where's her bike?) and breaks into the dispensary. Why didn't she just break into a hospital before? She's a supa-thief, you'd think she'd be all over that shit, yo. Of course, in the interests of plot development, a passing orderly with a greasy ponytail mullet hears Max rummaging through the drugs and calls security. As if mere security guards can take out a genetically-engineered super-being like Max. Hah! Max finds her tryptophan, sneaks out, and comes face-to-face with an orderly and not one, not two, but THREE security guards. No problem, right? Right! Um, Max? Right? Oh. Maybe not. Maybe it's the palsy, but suddenly our little soldier girl, once able to eliminate an entire platoon of well-trained Navy Seals, is taken down by an underpaid, untrained, pot-bellied crew of rent-a-pigs. Like, whoa.
Thank God for Elizabeth Hurley in a cheerleading costume. I'm no Original Cindy, mind you. I'm just saying. BOOM. Elizabeth Hurley can come over to my house for tea anytime of the day or night. Did you know that Harold Ramis, formerly of Ghostbusters fame, is directing Bedazzled? That boy is so talented.
Back at the -- oh, you know the rest, Whassername is sporting some Heidi braids and a styling blue sweater with fake fur trim that would be just right for someone half her age. She sure does sound like she smokes about two packs a day. She's trying to butter up Walter the Pig by giving him coffee and sweet-talk, seeing as Max has been abducted by a team of killer hospital security guards, and Whassername has no dough with which to pay the rent. "You must pay the rent!" says Walter. "But I can't pay the rent!" says Whassername. "You must!" "I can't!" "You must!" "I can't!" So Walter kicks them out. Theo's widow (you remember Theo, the martyred gentleman from the pilot episode), Whassername, nameless, faceless other residents of the seventh floor. My heart, she is breaking.
Across town, Max is in jail. With a very stylish, John Goodman-esque gentleman who attempts to cheer her up, even as she is in the throes of her sweaty, gross palsy. This is to show us what a good man he is. Jesus would have liked this man. Trust me. He's wearing a lavender shirt, a natty checked vest, and a very stylish jacket. And he's carrying a clean handkerchief. I think he's my new boyfriend. Oh, but I bet he's gay. 'Cause, you know, gays are like that. (Ham-handed and obnoxious as this show's diversity can be, it is utterly refreshing to at least see a wide variety of characters. And this one is not insane, homicidal, lisping, or perverted. That's not so bad. Did you ever see Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train? Talk about your wack stereotypes! Great movie, though. Just great. Highly recommended.) Max and her new friend get photographed, fingerprinted, checked in, patted down, and roughed up, and come through it all together, with wisecracks and thrills galore.
Over at the bike messenger center, the messengers all speculate on the nature of a particularly stinky package. They ask Normal what it smells like to him, to which he replies, "That smells like a package that should've been delivered by now, moron." Hee. I laughed out loud at that one. Oh, here comes Logan, all hot and shit. Why does he look so good? I am such a sucker. He could give me a ride in his sexy, sexy wheelchair anytime. He could hire Elizabeth Hurley to be his private nurse, and then I'd be in hog heaven. Oh. Did I say that out loud? Anyway, he's looking for Max. Original Cindy gives him a big speech about how rich men get girls like Max hooked on drugs and then turn them into their strawberries. Hey, what's a strawberry? I'm just a suburban white girl trying to make a buck reporting on the down 'n' dirty underworld of post-Pulse Seattle. Gimme a break, eh? Logan tells Cindy that she totally screwed up by flushing Max's pills, then hops on his cell phone to Make Things Happen. Dear God, please let me ride in Logan's sexy sexy wheelchair just once before I die. Thank you. Love, Amorgan.
Over on the set of Caged Heat, Mr. Goodman takes Max under his wing, escorting her down the curiously co-ed prison halls and giving her the skinny on a variety of inmates. Mr. Goodman runs a vintage shop and he's a political protester. He's also tight with a guard who has a "thing for stiletto heels," so Mr. G can make some things happen in the jail. Max begs him for a glass of milk, then needlessly explains that milk has tryptophan in it. Why doesn't she just ask for a turkey sandwich while she's at it? Stiletto heels for the guard's girlfriend? No, silly, not unless the girlfriend wears a size twelve. Thanks, Cameron. For all your unsubtle, indelicate, light-as-lead references to the sexual and cultural mores of post-Pulse citizens. From the bottom of my steadily-getting-drunker heart. Wouldn't it be cool if Max had a little TV screen in her tummy like one of the Teletubbies? Hee. OH, flashback. Max could show flashbacks on her little tummy TV. (Note to self: write Cameron and tell him about this phenomenal idea.) Flashback to the kid having a seizure in the pre-Pulse Manticore facility. And then the autopsy. Mr. Bad Man Lydecker is still drinking coffee from that silver mug. Or something. Who am I to assume that it's coffee, just because it's a coffee mug? For all I know it's pure LSD. Or anti-freeze. Or even (gasp) liquor. On the job. There's no telling with a wild card like Lydecker. You can never, ever tell.
At the bike messenger center, Logan tells Eating-Her-Words Cindy that Max could go into a coma and die without her medicine. He seems to take some satisfaction in this. I like him. He's vindictive.
John Goodman brings Max a mug of warm goat milk, and tells her that a fellow has a goat the cell block over. How does one get a goat into a prison facility? I know it's supposed to be Third-World-ish and all, but that's just plain ridiculous. Oh! Perhaps the goat is the unfortunate recipient of the amorous advances of some of the inmates! This show is so sick. I'm surprised they allow it to be shown in primetime. Max tells John Goodman that she's going to break out of the prison. He offers himself as a distractionary tool ("tool" being the operative word here) while she makes a break for it. Okay, pretend I'm whispering now, because this is a quiet part. So, they sneak across the Yard; then he walks through the open, loudly singing a wonderful opera tune. Is that called a libretto? I hope so. That's a great word. ["I think 'libretto' is the music for the entire opera...? Maybe you're thinking of 'aria.'" -- Sars] As he sings, Max bolts for the fence, counting on her (ahem) feline DNA to boost her over the top. But, helas, she fails, and comes tumbling down into the waiting arms of her lover, the mean security guard. John Goodman keeps singing while Max burns. Oh, Max gave him her baseball hat as thanks for the milk. Um, Max? It's hardly stylish, hon. It just plain clashes with the suit. Goodman sustains a savage beating, but won't stop singing. Poignancy at its best. Poetry, my friends. It's poetry. (Has anyone ever read the comic V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore? That's a great comic book. Try it -- you'll like it.) In the aftermath of Max's fall, her bar code is accidentally revealed. Why doesn't Max get her tattoo lasered off? I mean, if the human Christmas tree (universal code for a tattooed lady, you know) can get all of hers removed, well, don't you think a resourceful gal like Max could make something happen?
Febreeze cleans the odors that life leaves behind. Sex odors? Farts? Cooking bacon grease? Old-person smell? I wish they would be more specific.
Cars in the future don't look very futuristic. I mean, think about the difference between a 1986 Honda Civic and a 2001 Honda Civic. There's been a huge change, right? Well, not so with the cars of the future. Apparently, all car design innovations ceased after the Pulse. Poor budget. I guess they have to cut corners somewhere. Cap'n EO and Remorseful Cindy are driving around, apparently on their way to meet one of Cap'n EO's "contacts." O.C. is on the phone with Kendra (is that her name? I'm guessing that's Whassername the Roomie), telling her she can stay as long as she wants. Cap'n EO asides to O.C. that he's got a way to deal with Walter the Pig. Hm. Subplot development. As O.C. and Cap'n EO sit in the car waiting for the Man, O.C. asks the Cap'n if he likes Max. He feigns all casual and says that "she's all right." Um, right. O.C. thinks the same thing and smirks at him. The Man shows up in the nick of time and pulls out Max's purloined bag of tryptophan. He had to "pull in a few favors to get it out of the evidence room." So he's a cop! That Logan, he knows everyone. But wait, Mr. Man, your job is not done here Cap'n EO needs one more favor from you. The favor we've all been waiting for. (Cue porn music...)
Ahhhhhhhhhhh yeah! It's your favorite Cindy of all time, the best-seller, a winner with kids and moms alike, it's Hooker Cindy! Mr. Man drags a tarted-up O.C. into the hoosegow as if he has picked her up on prostitution charges. You know, it really wouldn't be quality TV drama if there weren't a female character (a) in heat, or (b) dressed up like a hooker in every single episode. I mean, think about the X-Files. What kind of show would that have been if Scully hadn't had to go undercover as a prostitute all the time? A crap show. That's what kind. And may I take this opportunity to say that Hooker Cindy is stacked like a brick shithouse? I wonder where she is hiding the tryptophan, what with all that exposed flesh leaving very little to the imagination. Hmmm. Perhaps it is hidden in the bottomless rift that is Hooker Cindy's cleavage. Or perhaps they do not make ladies in the post-Pulse future squat and cough they way they do now. Not that I'd know from first-hand experience. 'Cause I don't.
Anyway. Cut to a shot of Max lying in bed. She's all sweaty, and a little blonde girl in a Chairman Mao nightgown comes into Max's room. Her name is Maria. Max has got palsy. She asks Maria what the hell she is doing there. Maria tells the story of how her mom was killed in a prison riot, so the warden and his wife adopted her to be the warden's bitch. I mean, housekeeper. The camera work in this scene is really, really creepy. I keep getting the feeling that Maria is about to feed Max some drugged gruel that will turn her into a cult member or something. Oh, but instead Maria says she is glad Max is there to help with the housework, and to keep her company, and maybe to keep the warden from coming into her room at night and -- ladies and gentlemen, I think we all know what those pregnant pauses and silences mean. That's right. I don't think I have to spell it out for you. Maria is forced to perform horrifying acts of personal hygiene on the warden, the most humiliating of which is giving him a pedicure while humming the theme song from Friends. That bastard. Is there no limit to human cruelty and perversion? Max listens with a stony face to all of this. I don't know what she is supposed to be feeling. (I keep wanting to make a joke about Max being in cahoots with the Log Lady from Twin Peaks, 'cause her acting is so wooden, but I just can't work it in. But it's a funny idea, huh? Geddit? Wooden acting? Log Lady? Hoo.)
Okay, so back at the League of Justice Penthouse, Cap'n EO is busily hacking into the cops' database to ensure that Hooker Cindy got put into the same cell block as Max. Oh, look! He's got a new bodyguard! Poor guy. I wonder if the bodyguard knows that he's like the cannon-fodder guys on Star Trek. Hey, Cap'n EO's got a G4 cube! Lulu mentioned that last week, but I think it's worth mentioning again. Those computers are freaking boss. Crap, now the bodyguard has to ask the Cap'n if he's got a thing for Max. Um, Mr. Cameron? Sir? We get it.
Hooker Cindy strides through the cell block looking for Max until she spots John Goodman, wearing Max's baseball cap and not limping or seeming like he's just been beaten with a nightstick at all. Hooker Cindy gets all in his face and says that she's Max's "homegirl" and that John Goodman better not have done anything to Max. John Goodman tells Hooker Cindy that he's Max's homegirl, too (oh, my aching eyes, they are tired from so much rolling around in my head). Hooker Cindy pulls a tube full of tryptophan pills from her hairdo (oh, that's where they were), and tells John Goodman that he's got to help her find Max. "But Max is in the warden's house!" says John Goodman. He is such a pushover, though, that, when pressured just a little bit, he cooks up a way to get Hooker Cindy over to do some "housekeeping" at the warden's.
And speaking of the warden's house, Max is sweating like a horse and being attended to by little cultist, Maria, who keeps somehow morphing into Max's foster sister of yore. Max, it seems, is suffering some guilt over leaving her foster sister to the mercies of her evil and lecherous father. She voice-overs that she knew what was happening, but she didn't do anything about it, 'cause at Project Manticore they taught her "to engage the adversary only if it is consistent with the overall objective." While I resent being emotionally manipulated by this ham-handed and overwrought treatment, I am glad to see this issue being addressed on primetime TV. I know way too many people who had to deal with that shit when they were kids, and it's important to talk about it. But, damn, it's a big ol' downer. And how do you reconcile that with all the virgin/whore subtext that's crawling through Cameron's unconscious mind? Hm. Perhaps, Mr. Cameron, you should talk these things over with your therapist before spinning an hour-long drama about them and broadcasting that drama to every home in North America. Max confesses and apologizes to her foster sister via Maria, then watches in palsied horror as the warden comes to take Maria away for a little afternoon quickie. "No!" says a weak and trembling and very sweaty Max. "Leave her alone!" Then she knocks a vase off the end table. That'll show 'em. Maria runs to get a broom, while the warden stands over Max (Max fell to the ground after her heroic vase-breaking) and tells her that he was done with Maria anyway, and that Max is . Man, in that shot, you can see right up Max's butt. Her pants are very tight.
Whoa -- I'm so gonna see Charlie's Angels.
Back from commercial break, Kendra is forking over a whole wad of dough to Walter the Pig, who extorts another $150 from her as a delinquency fee. He is such a bastard.
And in another part of the city, Max's Private Dick is ratting her out to Lydecker. He got a tip, you see, that a chick with a bar-code tattoo was booked into the jail. Lydecker hangs up on the Private Dick and then calls an attack team over to the prison.
Max is fading steadily over at the warden's house. Maria brings her tea, but Max ignores the tea and drinks the milk instead. Rude much? Max swears she's going to get Maria out of the warden's house. But not if Lydecker is crawling down her throat and she's too weak to walk! Oh, how will our intrepid heroine ever get out of this one? It's just like that part in Star Wars when they are all trapped in the garbage chute and R2D2 can't make the trash compactor stop. Ohhhhhh, what's going to happen?
John Goodman's gentleman friend, the security guard with the shoe fetish, got Hooker Cindy placed on a work detail at the warden's house. So, as Lydecker and his troops are combing through the jail, Hooker Cindy is busily coercing Maria into taking her to Max so she can give her her spinach. I mean, tryptophan. Oh, and a guard has called the warden and is telling him that Lydecker is coming for Max. The warden comes in to Max's room and threatens to give her up to Lydecker if she breathes a peep about him schtupping the little girls. As he's leaned over her bed, Max grabs his throat and pushes him up against the wall, holding him high above her head. She makes him tell her that it's Lydecker who's looking for her (oh, I guess she never knew his name before), and is about to kill him when Work Detail Cindy and Maria bust out of the closet and call Max off her homicidal mission. Hee. Max cracks that there was spinach in the pills. I am not the only clever one, it seems. Max and Work Detail Cindy hold the warden at gunpoint and force him to take them out of the building. Max and Maria get into the trunk of the car, while Gun Wielding Cindy sits in the front with the warden. Lydecker comes through the house just after them. Phew. Skin of their teeth, that time. Over at the jail, The Guard Who Is Always On The Phone says, "What do you mean, he left in his car?" After they have gotten down the road a-ways, Cindy tells the warden to pull over and let Max and Maria out. He yanks the car over, thus distracting Cindy enough for him to grab the gun from her, jump out, and run to the back to shoot the girls through the trunk like a rat bastard. But Max breaks the trunk lock, jumps out, kicks his ass, then kicks the ass of everyone in the Army jeep that's been chasing the warden's car. Cindy and Maria hide in the bushes. The warden staggers to his feet, grabs his gun, and tries to shoot Cindy, but Max runs him over with the Army jeep. Wow. That's a lot of ass-kicking. Hee. I like these parts the best.
Back at the jail, Lydecker tries to make The Guard Who Is Always On The Phone show him the records from the jail, including mug shots. But the mug shots have been erased! Cut to Cap'n EO, just done erasing the files. So satisfied with himself. Smug. That's the word. Then Max calls and he gets all mushy. His bodyguard gives him a knowing look and then leaves the room so Cap'n EO can have phone sex with his genetically engineered girlfriend.
Later that evening, in their mysteriously-not-disturbed-at-all apartment, the Girls all talk over the day's mysterious and exciting events. Kendra and Cindy, being rocket scientists, put the pieces together that there is something strange about Max, so they ask her to spill her beans. So she does. And what does she get? Laughter. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, laughter. The rocket scientists simply do not believe Max when she tells them that she is a "genetically revved-up female." And Max, perhaps relieved to have an out, perhaps wondering where she put her purse, perhaps thinking about canned corn, does not press the point, but smiles and laughs along with them.
And since we're in wrapping-up-loose ends mode, we now cut to Cap'n EO broadcasting exclusively to Walter the Pig, telling him to leave the squatters alone or he's going to be the target of the city-wide broadcast. That Cap'n EO is such a swell guy.
Later, at the League of Justice Penthouse, Max hears from Cap'n EO that he's found the perfect home for Maria, complete with Mom, Dad, farm, and pony. Cap'n EO congratulates Max on her latent altruism. She tells him to feed her, and he remarks that she was "much sweeter when [she wasn't] feeling well." Okay, ready for this vomitous wise-crack? Max turns to him and saucily says, "The bitch is back." The BITCH, ladies and gentlemen, is ELTON JOHN, who wouldn't appear on a show like this for all the money in Christendom!! Aaaaaaauuuuuuughghgh!
Stay tuned for scenes from week's gut-wrenching debacle of a television drama.