"I don't sleep much, but that's okay. Takes up a lot of time. And I can always find something productive to do." Dear Max, instead of motorcycle racing, I would suggest acting lessons. Just a thought. Love, Amorgan. This episode of Dark Angel opens with Max racing her beloved bike through the unbusy, uncrowded nighttime streets of post-Pulse Seattle, running neck and neck with some other jackass too stupid to stay home and get some damned sleep in the middle of the night like decent folk oughta. I like the background music, though.
Has anyone out there actually read the comic book upon which this show is based? Most shows and movies that are based on comic books are horrendously bad. If you can count Barb Wire and The X-Men among the successes in a genre, then you're really hurting, know what I mean? Not that I'm making excuses for James Cameron. I'm just saying.
Anyway. Max races her bike along, the drone of her voice-over sounding in harmonious monotony with the drone of the motorcycle engine. Until the fuzz pull her over, break her taillight, and impound her bike, that is. D'oh! Those bastard cop-men! They are so mean and unfair. Life after the Pulse is hard and horrible.
Bad bad bad opening credits. That fetus makes me want to barf. I mean, I'm all about the miracle of life, but...YUCK.
Back from commercial break, Cap'n EO is riding the elevator, but oh golly no, he can't quite reach the penthouse button. So he wings it and pokes it with a handy piece of French bread. He's so cute and plucky, that rascal. He wheels into the kitchen of the Justice League HQ and is informed by his new cannon-fodder bodyguard that a woman claiming to be his ex-wife is in the living room. Like, whoa. He wheels into the living room to discover a red-haired hottie scooting his furniture all around. "This table's gotta go. It's blocking your chi." He looks at her like she is a total moron as she nervously babbles some feng shui at him. He calls her nervous feng shui bluff and asks her what she's come for. "I haven't had a drink in a year and a half," she announces. Oh criminy. More twelve-stepping. I wonder if this episode is going to be as full of, um, jargon as the Max-goes-to-jail episode. She tells him that her new hobby is apologizing to people, and they stare at each other meaningfully for a while. She looks a little like a fish. In a nice way.
Max, over at the impound yard, is not having so nice a day. She is being extorted for $3000. That's how much the guy at the impound yard wants before he'll give her her bike back. And he wants it in cash. She takes her disgruntled self to work so that she can get a pep talk from Grape-flavored Cindy and the Original Jamaican, our good friend Herbal. He yammers a whole bunch of bad-accent bullshit philosophy at her, then somehow ends up talking about how his woman has the hots for an old sweetheart who's come to visit them. Um, what? Hello, Subplot Hotline? We're having a crisis over at the Fox network. Yeah, this one's dead in the water. Send help quick. Screw you, Cameron. Thank God in Heaven, though, that yet another blond hottie has come into my life via the magic of television. A Cap'n EO sibling strolls in to the bike center and acts all wholesome and grain-fed, calls Normal "Sir," and asks for a job. I hate Sketch. Yes, I said it and I'm proud. God, that new guy has huge teeth. Oh, I almost forgot the most important part of this scene: Max looks at the classified ads, sees a number and an address, and runs out of the bike center. Earth-shattering, I know. Stay in your seats, ladies and gentlemen; it's only a television program. Nurses are stationed throughout the building in case of heart palpitations or strokes. She runs over to the Justice League HQ and shows EO the ad. "Those numbers are me," she says. He tells her to stay away, 'cause he's no fool. He can smell a rat for sure. But Max, true to form, has to check it out. "Twelve of us got away that night," and here we go. Spare us the freaking flashback already -- we see it every goddamned time the opening credits roll. Before their un-riveting argument can really get going, though, Mrs. Ex calls and spews a bunch of sweet drivel onto the answering machine. I guess they had to go back to answering machines after the Pulse, since Call Notes probably got wiped out. Max and the Cap'n lob some jabs back and forth about him being married and all, and she snits away, leaving him to wonder if he should get back into therapy since he has a habit of surrounding himself with annoying women.
That night, at the assigned address, Max meets up with the Sneeeeky Detective who sold her out to Lydecker. He asks her for $15,000 in exchange for a whole bunch of info about the Project Manticore kids. As a teaser, he tosses out the tidbit that one of her Manticore compatriots is living right there in Seattle. To let us know that he's not lying, the camera shows us a lurky figure lurking in the shadows, which must be the Other One. The Sneeeeky Detective gives Max two days to come up with the cash, then advises her to blow town, as Lydecker is a scary bad man who should be avoided at all costs.
After the commercial break, Max is busy hounding her good friend Cindy for ideas on where to get cash. Cindy can't listen, though, 'cause she's too busy talking about her crush on a girl named Crueset. There's a line of cookware called Le Crueset. Unfortunately, before either one of them can say anything brilliant, our attention is drawn to the mini-drama that is our weekly subplot. It seems that Normal has fired the Original Jamaican for guess what? Taking it up the rear for cash in the men's room. Okay, I'm just kidding. For smoking dope, sillies! There is an uproar. There is a brouhaha. There is some dumb-ass Original Rastafarian philosophy spouted through the air, bright as a whale's spout on a sunny winter day. And then Normal hires the lovely blond big-toothed guy. Yay. It's not going to last, though. I can feel it. Nobody likes the new guy. Except me, that is.
Max scoots her ass over to the Justice League HQ and finds that Cap'n EO is out with the ex. She grills the bodyguard about Mrs. Ex. He can't seem to come up with anything more meaningful to say about her than "she's nice" and "she's got a great body." Thanks, Detective, for that pertinent information. The time I'm on a manhunt, I'll be sure to give you a call. There's a lot of red in this scene. Red walls. Red shirt on the bodyguard. Red tomatoes in a bowl. Anyway. Max leaves, but runs into the Cap'n and his missus on the sidewalk. He is telling the missus that he hasn't been to a street fair since, oh, ever. Nothing says wholesome like a street fair, eh? Romance is in the air. Or maybe that's the scent of carrion rotting in the streets of the new Third World. At any rate, they seem happy to be together. He asks her to stay for dinner; she says maybe. Max hits Cap'n EO up for a whole bunch of cash. He says no, 'cause she's crazy for following up on this lead. She says she'll explore other options. Borrr-ring.
But not as boring as listening to the Original Jamaican read the freaking Bible out loud to Sketch in a park. He complains for a long, long time about how his woman is in love with someone named Winston.
Hm. There's some crazy photo-flash action going on around Max. Oh. It's her craaaazy soldier eyes. She leaps a tall fence in a single bound, then faces down a junkyard dog by telling him that she's the leader of this pack. Just stares at him and tells him. And he lies down and whines in submission. Any dog owners out there? I have a dog. If you have a dog, too, then you know just how stupid this scene is. If you don't have a dog, well, take my word for it. This is stupider than the phrase "I had so many tattoos that I looked like a human Christmas tree." After her stellar dog-handling, Max feeds the rabid junkyard German shepherd a big steak, thus ensuring his undying loyalty. That's just how dogs are, you know? Max continues to slink through the junkyard, and I am waiting for her abysmal cat-burgling skills to get her into the requisite hot water. Let's watch and see, shall we? She breaks into an office. She finds her motorcycle key. She hears something. She ducks. She cracks the safe by listening to the tumblers. She takes a bunch of money. Aaaaand...she gets away. Huh. I was wrong. Color me surprised.
Somewhere else in the city, a camera watches Lydecker through a wall vent. I wish that I didn't have to watch through that camera. He is listening to a tape of the Sneeeeky Detective talking to Max. It seems that they implanted a microphone in his ear -- his cochlea, to be precise -- but the microphone migrated to his auditory canal, thus adding the sound of ear fluid to the tape. Lydecker gets all nasty and tells his monkeys to get the sound cleaned up on that tape so he can follow the detective and thus find Max. Ohhhhh, I wonder what's going to happen?
Thankfully, Apple computers and Levi's cords and VW bugs are available to me as signifiers of my cultural status. Funny, though, that following those three commercials are two more, one for a Bahamas cruise trip and one for Applebee's. "There's something about drinks with umbrellas that makes me really friendly!" The darker, more perverse parts of my mind take that phrase and run with it like a streaker at the Superbowl.
Back at Bike Central, it seems that the Scooby Gang has decided to stage a work slow-down in order to get back at Normal for firing our favorite Islander. Normal tells the new boy to follow Max on a run, just to further the subplot and to intertwine it with the main plot. She lobs some rudeness at the new boy, and somehow they end up sitting in a soda shop waiting for a pay phone to be free. He is enchanted; she is rude. He makes a comment about past lives, and she makes fun of him. Stop me. The tension, it's killing me. No, for real. Oh, the phone rings. It's the S.D., and he's making a date with disaster at 6 PM. He is so dead. He gives Sam the barcode number of another Manticore kid, just for credibility's sake, and, of course, it's Zach. New Boy tries to hit on Max, she shoots him down, and he is mesmerized.
Oh, look, it's the subplot. The Scooby Gang is hanging out at the bike park, talking about Herbal and his stupid life. But somehow the main plot intercedes. Max looks at Sketch's tattooed hand, has blurry flashbacks about Mrs. Ex, and has to go. Oh, I see -- they were talking about why exes come back into people's lives. Thus, Herbal and Cap'n EO form two lines in a parallel plot development. Herbal's woman's ex is living in Herbal's house; Mrs. Ex is macking on the Cap'n. Get it? I went to college for this shit. Can you tell?
Elsewhere in the city, Mrs. Ex walks out of a building. Max is there to follow her. Mrs. Ex comes into a shabby room and starts macking a kind of sexy guy, who is wearing black to let us know that he is a Bad Boy. Turns out that they are married, and that she is taking the Cap'n for a little ride, but only for $1000. Max wanted $15,000. They are such amateurs. Max sees the whole exchange and looks appropriately wooden. I mean, concerned. Or moved. Or something. Then she rides her bike through a bad part of town to discover that the S.D. has been shot in the back of the head. Oh no, it's a set-up! Here comes Lydecker! Run, Max, run!
Has another recapper already called her gang of kids the Scooby Gang? Am I stealing someone's schtick? I don't mean to. Just so you know.
Max runs to the Hall of Justice, with its red red walls. She mentions nothing about Mrs. Ex, but instead tries to bully the Cap'n into helping her find Zach. The Cap'n suggests that someone other than Lydecker killed the Sneeeky Detective, but Max doesn't care. She also says that she tried to get her tattoo removed, but it hurt like hell and came back in two weeks. 'Cause it's etched into her genetic code. "Mark of Cain." That's what Cap'n EO says. I'm gonna let you take this one. You can handle it. Go on. Take a shot. The Cap'n gives her a map with the four tattoo parlors in Chinatown on it (one of which took Zach's tattoo off just two weeks ago, TV time), then tells her to be careful. She pauses a moment, then says, "In case something does happen to me, there's something you should know. It's about your ex." Then cut to a shot of a Chinese man closing a gate. Max pays him to tell her about Zach, and somehow she ends up with his new address at a Chinese boarding house. So she breaks into his room. I hope they fight. The light here is green, so we know she's looking with her cat eyes. Oh wow -- it's the same jackass that she was racing in the beginning of the show. His room is full of traces of Max, photos and fliers from her workplace, and BAM! he comes in and grabs her and guess who Zach is? It's the New Boy from the Bike Center! I honestly didn't see that one coming. She hugs him, and he looks...stupid. Shit. I hope he didn't go to the same acting school as Max did. He's so cute. The sound of Humvees interrupts their tearful (or something) reunion, and they take off for the roof. He talks to her in old-school sign language, and the two of them take out a whole stairwell of Army thugs and make their great escape.
Later, they walk down the tracks and get into a big ol' sad argument about whether or not Zach should have killed the S.D. He waxes all soldierly and then tells her that he's been looking out for everyone since they split up. He won't tell Max where they are, though, because he doesn't want to risk exposing them. He uses a lot of soldier jargon, and in case we don't get it, Max makes the fine point that he's "still back at Manticore." He gives her an order to leave, and she tells him to take a flying fuck. He looks at her all sexy-like, tells her that "they did a good job" on her, and looks so horribly melodramatic that I am embarrassed for him. They did go to the same acting school, after all. Yoinks.
Back at the Hall of Justice, Cap'n EO gives Mrs. Ex an envelope full of money during a dramatic thunderstorm, and she cries. He says sad and bitter things to her, she cries, he turns his back to her, and she leaves. With the money. 'Cause she has no moral fiber. (Heh heh. I said "fiber.")
At the weirdly uncrowded Scooby Bar, Max refuses to sit with the Scooby Gang, and then we are treated to a whole bunch of bad Jamaican accent, 'cause Herbal got his damned job back and they are all celebrating. As Max broods alone, the New Bodyguard comes to find her, tells her that Cap'n EO is feeling very alone, and suggests that she go keep him company. She buys him a drink and hightails it to the Hall of Justice to nurture her sad Cap'n. They exchange meaningful words. And sexual tension. A lot of it. Lightning flashes in a deep, unmeaningful way. They decide to go for a wheelchair ride in the park. And the rain beads on the window pane. Stay tuned for week's action-packed adventure, in which Max takes on a gang of corrupt librarians, and one of the Scooby Gang accidentally eats a batch of pot brownies, and nobody gets laid. Again.