As the camera zooms in on our heroine, the camera jumps back, startled. What was that? The camera sniffs gingerly around the scene, trying to get a new whiff of the scent. It slowly creeps up as it realizes that yes, yes. That's the smell of a serious shout-out. Woo hoo! Want to hear it? I thought so. Max is in the bathroom of her squat and realizes that she is out of toothpaste. She starts ranting about how she can barely remember a time when you could walk into a store and the shelves would be lined with products. If you wanted toothpaste, you went out and bought some toothpaste. Kendra, the roommate, jumps up to offer her a replacement toothpaste concoction of baking soda and peppermint oil. And then (drum roll please) Max says, "That's what I don't get about this whole economic breakdown thing. There's a huge toothpaste shortage, but you can buy peppermint oil." Ta dah! That is a huge shout-out to a discussion we've been having in the forums about how, say, this show makes no fucking sense. Ever. Like how the couriers drink Heineken all the time, yet coffee is some hot commodity. Or how Max buys Captain EO a grapefruit for his birthday and he's excited. I mean, would you be excited about a grapefruit? Well, I guess if the Captain gave me a grapefruit I'd be excited. Anyway. Major shout-out. Thanks, writers! Now, back to our regularly-scheduled crap.
Kendra has scored some temp job translating documents for a Japanese doctor, and she doesn't know how to spell polymerase. So she asks Max. Who gives her a mini-lecture on recombinant DNA and the role of enzymes. Kendra and I stare at Max for awhile. Kendra calls her a goofball. I am thinking Log. Log. Log. Log. She's that good an actor. Wouldn't you rather be watching Ren and Stimpy, too? Max peers at the papers Kendra is working on. Gene resequencing. Manipulation of RNA nucleotides. Kendra says that the Good Doctor, Tanaka, took a crack baby and manipulated his genes until he was a child genius. Max is intrigued, because if the Good Doctor can fix a kid with "the IQ of broccoli," he can certainly take care of her seizures. She asks if she can read the papers before Kendra leaves for the conference where the papers will be presented. And, writers, perhaps in the episode you can explain to me how Max knows so much about genetics. I have yet to see a flashback of the small soldiers in chem lab. Maybe if you are genetically enhanced, you have access to a sort of collective unconscious of genetic information. From the cradle, you know all about codons and telemeric degradation and gene sequencing. But I guess that would mean Max and Dolly the Sheep have more in common than their acting ability.
Max drops Kendra off at the conference and asks if there's anyway Kendra can get her in to the hotel "to score some towels." Kendra says no, but she'll be sure to get some towels if anyone asks her to shower with them. I felt I had to write that line down, because I actually chuckled and that has never happened before with this show. Max sees herself in the crack-baby-turned-prodigy. So she heads for Captain EO's to see if he can whip up some phony credentials to get her into the conference.
Captain EO is having a rough day. He is just rolling along, minding his own business, when the writers decide he has to wipe out in his wheelchair just as Max lets herself in. Bad writers! Don't torture the Captain! Captain EO shuts the door so Max can't see him sprawling on the floor. He struggles to get himself back in the chair, and manages to get himself settled just as Max comes barging into the room. I guess they didn't teach her about knocking at Manticore. Captain EO is justifiably grumpy after all this, and he is not too into Max and her tight shirt and lip gloss and over-processed hair. Oh, wait. That's me. Max wants her credentials, and Captain EO gets them for her, but he refuses to go see the Good Doctor give a talk on "pie in the sky" theories about human blueprint reengineering. He's really grumpy and more or less kicks Max out the door. Captain EO is coming to his senses. Finally.
The creepiest thing about the opening credits is the spine on the fetus. It's just all wrong.
Hey, did you know that the courier operation was called Jam Pony? Me neither. Max is at work, but she is whipping up a fake cold faster than you can say, um, Log in order to get over to the conference. Normal is letting her get away with it, too. Captain EO calls to apologize for being a grump-ass. Max accepts his apology and then splits the scene to attend the conference in a Contempo Casual tight khaki pantsuit, ironed hair, and a whole tube of lip gloss. I guess there is no shortage of either clothing or lip gloss, despite the depressed economy. As soon as she spots the Good Doctor, Max rushes over and stands directly in front of the people he's talking to and introduces herself. Hey, Max, maybe the Good Doctor can retroactively create some decent manners for you too. She is jumping out of her pantsuit to impress the guy with her blah blah blah blah entron codon plasmid-cakes. The Good Doctor just looks at her and nods until he gets called away to present his paper. Kendra, who is working at the conference in oh-so-appropriate go-go boots and purple boa, notices Max and snots that it was obviously her rich boyfriend who got her in. Max and I shout, "He's not [her] boyfriend," and Max tells Kendra that she is a reporter named Rachel Glasser.
The lecture begins with a slide of the crack baby, Jude, all lubed and tubed and hooked up to machines because he's a crack baby and can't breathe on his own. But, wait, he can now! And he can walk! And talk! And play chess! And speak in Japanese, French, Spanish, and English! What a Good Doctor. The audience sits back to enjoy Jude's skills at the piano while Max has some serious flashbacks. Like the Good Doctor, Lydecker tried to teach them that there were no limits. But he tried to drown them, too. Bad Lydecker. Max voice-overs that the kids at Camp Manticore were frightened little campers who were too frightened to take out the head counselor, no matter how many of them he shot, autopsied, or attempted to drown. Lydecker is not a good surrogate father. Lydecker is an evil man who should get on line for a vasectomy. Lydecker is just plain bad. Lydecker is sitting down to Max at the lecture. What will our intrepid girl reporter do now?