Man, this show is ass. Every time I watch it, I'm reminded of all the promise, the hullabaloo, the brouhaha as it were, and my disappointment bites at the back of my throat like cheap wine. Okay, not really, but I wanted to wax poetic and sort of weltschmertz for a moment, you know? I mean, the show is ass, but I kind of like it that way. Anyway. This episode opens with Cap'n EO working feverishly at his computer. I feel a kinship with him. I have an iBook, he has a G4 cube; I'm hot, he's hot; he's obsessed with stuff, I'm obsessed with stuff. You see the parallels. Number 2 (that's the bodyguard) chides him for working too hard, and also for trying to bail on his dinner date with Max. Some bantering back and forth about the nature of dating, male-female relationships, et cetera. The bile rises uneasily up my esophagus, then settles again when the conversation ends.
And cut to Max's apartment, where she is lighting candles and watching her roommate finish up a tricolore(?) sauce that will "make Logan [her] sex slave." Max insists that they don't have "that kind" of relationship (um, especially since he's paralyzed from the waist down, yo), and the roommate gives her a Knowing Look. Cap'n EO -- oh wait. I almost missed a choice mockery moment. Jesus, I'm getting slow. It seems that Max broke into the Italian embassy to obtain a bottle of cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil. Oh. My. Fucking. God. She's got electricity in an "abandoned" squat, she drinks good imported beer like it was freaking Budweiser, she and her friends always have styling clothes, and yet it's a big deal that she got freaking olive oil. This point is made in every recap, but every single time it amazes me. Gawd. To continue. Cap'n EO wheels in just as Kendra is scooting out, and he's all business. It seems he decided to come to dinner, but couldn't leave his bummer friend, Obsessive-Compulsive Workaholic Tendency, back at the League of Justice. Max blithely ignores his business-talk frou-frou and concentrates on pasta and wine and such. Good girl. But Mister Bag-of-Downers has to have his way, and he wrestles Max back to the somber issue of Bad Guys like an Australian wrestling an alligator. (Nice image, huh?) Once he gets the point across that he's not going to eat her purloined olive oil, or anything cooked in it, she gets really pissy and sour, and makes a tremendous production of being mad at him without actually telling him. For a long time.
So the Bad Guy portion of the plots goes like this: there's a guy named, uh, Bronk (or something like that) who's selling stolen blood that should be given to hospitals for folks in need of blood. And this makes the Cap'n angry. So he takes Max out to some airfield, which is purportedly Bronk's lair, and asks her to do some recon. His source has told him that Bronk has very little security, so it should be an easy job. (That, my friends, is known as foreshadowing.) Max cat-burgles (geddit? She's part cat -- ha ha) her way into a hangar, and is happy to discovera jar of bubble gum? Yes, bubble gum. And many other accoutrements native to teenage girls. Hmm. (This, my friends, is known as a plot twist.) No blood at all.
Max gobbles some gum, then gets herself discovered by the night guard when she pops a bubble. Lulu has pointed out before that Max may be one of the world's worst thieves, so I'll just leave it at that. There is an action-packed sequence full of actiony action, and Max outruns many bullets, then jumps onto the tail of a plane that's taking off. She hops off the plane just in time to sproing over the security fence, and promptly falls face first into a big ol' puddle of mud. HA! HA HA HA! Ahem. Max looks as chagrined as I feel smug and pleased, and believe you me she is not taking any guff from the Cap'n. Oh, wackiness, you never grow old.
Back at the League of Justice, Max stomps around in a towel (boys across the land pitch tents in their living rooms at the sight) while Cap'n stews over his computer and ignores the fact that he's got a mostly-naked genetically engineered super-being hot lady in his house. My boyfriend used to get like that when he got a new computer game. It's an age-old story. Max tells the Cap'n that she quits, and they get into their usual argument: "You're a selfish bitch." "Oh, yeah, well you're an obsessive-compulsive do-gooder." That's the long and the short of it, really. Except this time the Cap'n takes exception to being called obsessive, and then things get ugly. They spat some more, and he tries to pull the Manticore Dangle on her (he dangles info about Manticore, she does what he wants), but she's not having any of it, and tells him not to call her again. And thus ends Parte the Firste (tm Sars) of the Plote Major, which leads us to Parte the Firste of the Plote Minor.
The subplot begins with a teeth-gnashingly annoying Sketch watching Normal floss his teeth. He ponders the meaning of such personal hygiene, first with our "Jamaican" friend (note to uncertain readers: quotations around a word or phrase, when not indicating a quote or the title of something, are markers of irony, not emphasis. Just making sure we're all working from the same style and grammar book here) and then with Can't-Keep-My-Nose-Out-Of-Other-People's-Business Cindy. Max arrives for the tail end of the speculation, and the Asshole Gang is complete. (I got reprimanded for using the term Scooby Gang, and nobody had any good suggestions for a replacement name. It's not all that clever, but, by God, it's what you get.) Max and Cindy make a move to investigate Normal's motives, and I clearly see Herbal checking out their asses as they walk away. Hee. They notice that Normal is wearing Lilac cologne. Um, what guy wears Lilac? When he's not trying to pass for a middle-aged woman, I mean.