Bouncing balls. Basketballs. It's wheelchair basketball! Would y'all think I'm a pervert if I confessed to having a fascination with guys in wheelchairs? Especially hot, sweaty ones with nice torsos and arms. Yum! Max watches from the sidelines, and when the game is over she asks the Cap'n how much he won in the game. She is so mercenary and tough. If you'd forgotten. But I bet you hadn't. The Cap'n informs her that he wasn't playing for money, which she simply doesn't understand. 'Cause she's hard. Yo. But that's not what we're here to see, folks. No, what we've been brought here to witness is the awkwardness of the Cap'n asking Max to go with him to a wedding. First there's the obligatory "Well, I was going to ask you to go, but now I'm not." Followed by the "Well, are you coming with me or not? It's not going to be fun. My family prides itself on snootiness." Then garnished with a shy acceptance, which is poorly disguised behind some boasting on Max's part about how her DNA qualifies her to rub elbows with even the snootiest. And, voila, the recipe for the Plot Majore is complete. The Cap'n, he isn't so comfortable with his family, you see. I sense an episode which allows us to examine the more vulnerable, personal side of our dear Cappie. Just a hunch. Anyway, his parting words to her in this scene are, "By the way, it's formal." To which she replies, "Not a problem." Sigh. I just ate a piece of cornbread buttered with pot-infused butter. Can I say that here? I might take some Vicodin leftover from my wisdom tooth surgery, too. 'Cause there's a lot of action coming up, and I might get over-excited.
Cut to a spacious, well-lit boutique, the kind with about six mannequins and only four or five racks of clothes, 'cause everything is so exclusive and expensive and tasteful that that's really all you need. Max, Kendra, and Original Cindy stroll in, screaming "street cred" and "larceny." Or at least "window shopping." Which is almost as bad in those kinds of boutiques. Then James Cameron drifts into yet another un-deep exploration of the nature of relationships and the meaning of love. See, Max has never been to a wedding. So everyone has to talk about it. Kendra thinks weddings are really romantic. And they make her horny. Have you noticed that Kendra is a big ol' tramp? I bet the blowing breeze makes her horny, too. Original Cindy, however, cites the duller, more frightening aspects of marriage, such as seeing the same person every day for eternity, and never being able to Do It with anyone besides your partner. She is not such a big fan of marriage. I bet Linda Hamilton spits when she happens to catch this show. Anyway, Max ignores the conversation at hand, entranced by a plum-colored formal. In the interim between Max spotting the dress and asking the price, Original Cindy says "bitch" on TV, as in, "I wonder how much suga they want for this bitch." And Kendra asks Max why Cappie isn't her sugar daddy. Wow! See, every episode they manage to slip a little something naughty in. That's one of the things I actually like about this show. Every tiny bit counts. Okay, so the dress costs $6000, and Max asks the saleswoman to put it on hold so she can come back for it later. I'd like to point out right now that Max never once tries this dress on. Not once. And call me crazy, but I just don't think that they teach expert-eyeballing-of-clothes-that-might-be-your-size in military school at Manticore. Regardless, come nightfall (I like that word, "nightfall"), Max slinks into the boutique like the slinky-slink that she is, and narrowly escapes being caught by the lone saleswoman who stayed after hours to, um, do something with a clipboard. Maybe inventory. Something. There's a not-really-tense-at-all moment in which Max is surprised by the woman, but then she dodges using her super-genetic super-powers of jumping. Phew. That was close.
There are two commercials currently running which involve cars falling out of trees. There is also a commercial in which a woman is harvesting tires from a tree. Interesting, no?
Back from our fascinatingly arboreal commercials, we drop in on a man rolling up a painting and putting it in a tube. He is talking to someone on the phone, someone who needs a lot of reassurance. There's much dropping of significant phrases like "checkpoint," "hot painting," "cops." You get the picture. So to speak. Heh. So the painting is supposed to be wherever it's supposed to be in two hours. And who shows up but the Jam Pony most deserving of being made into glue (geddit?), the one who lacks even more depth than Normal or Herbal, the one who has earned the badge of my current least favorite character: Sketch. Freaking Sketch. I hate Sketch. I'd like to see someone whack Sketch in the knees until he couldn't stand up anymore. Ahem. The guy on the phone makes Sketch look deep into his eyes (no, it's not a prelude to more hot gay sex, even though that'd be nice to spice things up), and then he tries to impress upon Sketch the importance of getting this painting to the church on time. He even gives Sketch a cash tip to ensure its safety. Sketch promises to guard it with his life, but, true to the shallow wreck of a caricature that is our Sketch, he immediately runs back to Jam Pony and has a swordfight (minds out of the gutter, please) with another messenger. Can you smell the cotton-candy breath of Wacky Hijinks in the air? Yes, that's right, the two tubes fall open, and in the mayhem of getting the contents back into the containers, the packages get switched. Ba-bum-BUM. Yes, that's right, my friends, the old switcheroo. Normal is the agent behind the accidental switch, and to compound his faux pas, he then proceeds to call Max and Original Cindy idiots, then morons. Bip bip bip. I don't think he really went to Harvard, do you? Sometimes I can't decide.
Oh, and in another part of the city, a bunch of men anxiously await the arrival of the painting. One man is more anxious than the others, because the others are bigger than him, and they seem to have him held under threat of violence. It's a Normal Rockwell painting that they're waiting for. Norman Rockwell. Norman. Sketch delivers the painting, but -- D'OH! It's blueprints instead! Uh-oh. The more anxious man gets bitch-slapped across the face. Norman Rockwell once painted a portrait of one of my great- great-grandpas. "Portrait of a Country Editor." I wonder if that's the one being stolen.
But who cares about art theft when there's a tux-clad Cappie come a-callin' at Jam Pony? The Cap'n asks Normal where Max is, but before Normal can say anything, Max comes swishing out in this perfect-fitting plum formal. And while she does look radiant and lovely, I can't help but be irritated that she didn't even try the dress on. She and the Cap'n share an awkward moment, reminiscent of a commercial of some sort, maybe for blue jeans or perfume or diet pills. Each compliments the other dorkily, and they are under way. Oh, I almost forgot -- Max makes her entrance in slow motion. Slow-motion pumps striding beneath slowly swooshing skirts, slow-motion boobs resting softly beneath a slow-motion bodice. The Cap'n smiles at her in slow motion, and it's all very dramatic, in a low-key, sexy kind of way.
And speaking of ways, the Cap'n is all nervous about this wedding, and he demands that Max help him with his best-man speech the whole way there. (I'm getting better with my transitions, eh?) Which leads to more commentary on the nature of love and marriage. Ah, jeez. Here we go. It seems, too, that Cappie is not a confident public speaker. He's nervous about all the people watching, and seems to think that his whole family is just waiting for him to screw up. Aw. Max looks at him sympathetically, then busts out with the tender words, "Why do you care?! Whatever." Yep, she's a tough one. A hard cookie. So of course, as he rehearses, she has to interrupt every five seconds with some naïve, but perceptive, commentary. "Maybe weddings should be held in private, so when they fall apart, you won't have spent a lot of loot on what's basically a public humiliation." This comment comes right on the heels of a crack about the Cap'n's own failed marriage. Then he mispronounces the bride's name, and admits that he's never met her. Max wants to see the ring, and, 'cause she's tough (yo), she goes off about how much it's worth and how much she could fence it for. The Cap'n stares at her, she smiles at him, and we wonder, how are these star-crossed lovers ever to span the chasm of class and heritage that yawns beneath them? "Yawns" being the operative word here.
But there's no yawning going on over at Jam Pony, no sirree Bob. No, at Jam Pony, Normal is confronted by a gang of anxious, angry men. They want to know where their painting is. Normal says he has no painting. He checks his delivery clipboard and confirms that the right package went to the right place. Then he tells them to file a complaint. One of them stuffs a complaint slip into Normal's mouth to shut him up, and it makes me think of that scene in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, the one where they stuff all those pages of books down that guy's throat. Gives me the creeps, really. And then the anxious, angry men "tear this place apart." Jam Pony, that is. Uh-oh. Normal's in trouble.
After commercials, back at the wedding, Max sits to a woman who is crying. She asks the woman if she's okay, and the woman replies that she's just so happy for the bride and groom that she can't help crying. Max nods, and you can almost see Leonard Nimoy nod back in approval of her logical ways. The harpist plucks out the strains of the wedding march (harpist? I like organs better), the Cap'n checks nervously for the ring, and BAM the horses are out of the gate. The bride makes her way down the track, setting a steady pace. Her father is running neck-and-neck with her, and it's hard to say who's going to make it to the altar first. Max's voice-over adds no excitement to this breathtaking race whatsoever. She professes pity for the bride, and remarks that the bride's expression reminds her of the way Jondi used to look during Live Ordination. Whatever that is. Something unpleasant, I think. But, as the wedding progresses, the hard and cynical Max is moved by the wedding vows. And in case we can't read her delicate, sensitive face (which is unlikely, as Jessica Alba was a Golden Globe nominee for best actress), there's a handy voice-over to guide us along. She announces (in her voice-over) that both the bride and groom sound sincere, and then she cries, too. Fascinating, Captain.
And speaking of Captains (ha! Lookit me go), the Cap'n happens to turn just in time to see Max wiping her big, doe eyes. Yeah, Cap'n, your tough little nut isn't as hard as all that, after all. After the ceremony, Max and the Cap'n meet up in the reception hall. Max, of course, asks where the Cap'n's uncle got all his money. It's the uncle's house, you see. So it turns out that the uncle manufactures the chip that makes all the Hoverdrones (you know, those hovering cop cameras) able to do their job. And no sooner are the words "enemy territory" out of Max's mouth than the uncle and his harpy wife swoop in. The Cap'n introduces Max, but realizes he doesn't know her last name. Guevarra. That's what she says. Of the Greenwich Guevarras. That's what the Cap'n says, causing Max to look at him and wonder if he's ashamed of her. She doesn't wonder that out loud, it's just her amazing acting abilities. That's how I know.
Cut to the Jam Pony bar. The Jam Pony Gang sits around like the blossoming alcoholics they are, drowning their post-apocalyptic sorrows in not-expensive-at-all beer. But, hark, what's that sound? It's the sound of Herbal's cell phone. It's Normal calling Original Cindy. He tells her that he's being held hostage by the anxious, angry men. Unfazed ('cause times are hard, and so are the people), Original Cindy tells him she wants an apology in writing (he called her an idiot and a moron earlier, you remember), and also to never hear the words, "Bip bip bip," again. This makes me sad, as I truly enjoy it when Normal says, "Bip bip bip." I bet it won't last. Once she's extorted these promises from him, she gets down to the business of the package.
And here's where the plots begin to intertwine. See, Max and the Cap'n are still talking to the heinous Uncle Jonas (the rich one) and his harpy wife. Uncle Jonas gives the Cap'n a heaping helping of shit, asking him when he's going to get a real job and stop sponging off the family fortune. Max tries to defend him, but gets cut with a "Well, if you're shacking up with him, you're probably one of those free-thinkers, too, and think I'm talking through my hat." Our street-wise little sauce-pot isn't about to take any crap from an old man, though, and says, "Not unless you wear your hat on your ass." Then everyone smiles and laughs uncomfortably and the uncle and his harpy drift away. Actually, the harpy hasn't done anything yet to deserve such a title. But the Cap'n lets us know that I am right by pointing out that the locket that Aunt Margot wears around her buzzardy neck once belonged to the Cap'n's mother. He was supposed to have it after his mother's death, but somehow it ended up with Aunt Margot, and the Cap'n is such a nice guy that he doesn't want to make a stink about it. Max, of course, tells him to get up in Aunt Margot's face about it, but he isn't so sure that's the right thing to do. Actually, the phrase is, "The great and powerful Eyes Only is going to let himself get crapped all over...by his own family? I need another drink." So Max runs off for another glass of self-righteousness. While she's gone, another of the Cap'n's exes comes over to say howdy. Oh, but we don't know that she's an ex. But we can guess. 'Cause we're smart like that.
Okay, so here's where the plots intertwine (I told you it was going to happen). The Jam Ponies put their drunken heads together and figure out that Normal must've accidentally switched the contents of the packages earlier in the day. Then they remember that Max delivered the other package. So they call Max on her cell phone. Now you see. Max is mid-conversation with the very nice ex-girlfriend, who compliments Max on the dress that she didn't even try on, and says that she would've gotten it herself, but it was too expensive. Um, tacky much? Jeez. Anyway, Original Cindy calls Max from a pay phone and tells her what's up. Original Cindy went to the building that has the painting, but the building is locked. Max says she'll be right there. 'Cause she's a master thief. In case you forgot. She stops by the Cap'n on her way out, just to tell him that she's leaving for a while, but he's deeply engrossed in conversation with the ex. There's some mention of unzipping prom dresses. Max gives him the "whatever" hand and swooshes away. Then she steals a nice car from the valet. Of course.
Warning: the few scenes are little but a transparent effort to pander to those who get boners watching Jessica Alba do tough-girl shit in her ball gown. My eyes have rolled so far back in my head that I can hardly see the television to recap the show. 'Kay. So Max tells O.C. that she's gonna try not to wrinkle the dress since she's gotta return it in the morning. Then she trots through a wet. Garbage-strewn. Alley. In her filmy ball gown that has a tiny bit of a train. She uses her cat-like jumping powers to jump into the building. (They borrowed the special-effects techniques of vintage Wonder Woman episodes for that one.) That's right. Up onto a wet dumpster. Then she hauls herself through a window. A window in a wet, dirty, brick building. And gets neither grimy, nor damp, nor even a snag in her silk. Chiffon. Skirt. My eyes have literally gotten stuck in the back of my head. I may never see straight again. Anyway. She strolls down an office hallway, a very eighties shot what with the shadows of the Venetian blinds falling across her ball-gown-clad body and all. She wanders into the office of the guy who got the painting by accident. He's sitting on the window ledge outside his office. Listening to his headphones. He reminds me of Tom Green. Would that he were Tom Green. He'd grab Max and start shrieking about marshmallow enemas or something. That would be great. But as it is, Max hops out the window in her ball gown. Across another wet, grimy window ledge. In her ball gown. Which is immaculate. She speaks to the guy, thus scaring him into falling off the window ledge. There's an un-suspenseful moment when she's got him by the hand, he's dangling, he's afraid for his life, but then she hauls him up. Without messing up her ball gown. She demands to know what he's doing on the ledge. "Listening to the Lion King for the last time." Heh. That was pretty funny. He tells her that he was gonna kill himself, 'cause he got fired because the blueprints for his big project never arrived. She smacks him in the head, then demands to know where the painting went. "In the dumpster, probably." She scowls, then starts to scoot off to the dumpster when he stops her with the question, "You're a messenger, aren't you? I've never been much of a believer, but it means a lot, you coming here personally to straighten me out. Thanks." And thus, Max is made an angel. Our own dark angel. I just fell out of my chair I rolled my eyes so hard.
So, back at the wedding, it's time for the Cap'n to give his speech. The groom checks with the Cap'n to make sure the speech is a good one. The Cap'n reassures him, then checks his pockets and realizes his bitch-ass biogenetically-engineered lady friend has got the speech.
And now Jessica Alba goes dumpster diving. Naked. I hope all you filth fetishists out there have got your pulling hands at the ready. 'Cause that's what this scene is for. There's not a lot of goop in the dumpster, but she's in there. And she's naked. Do you know why she's naked? Because she didn't want to mess up the ball gown. And where did she put the ball gown while she was romping through the trash in her altogether? Oh, somewhere dry and clean, like the RAILING OF THE LOADING DOCK STEPS. There's much rustling, there's much shredded paper flying about. There's Jessica Alba, sitting serenely in a sea of shredded paper, like the Calgon lady in a bubble bath. Of course she finds the painting. And it doesn't have catsup or boogers or copy machine toner or broken ball-point pen ink on it. Nope. It, and Max, are both dry and clean as a whistle. Gawd. Once she's found it, she comes running up to O.C. all, "Zip me up." With nary a comment or remark, Original Cindy zips Max up, then brushes some shredded paper out of Max's hair. If I were in that position, you know the first question out of my mouth would be, "Did you have to screw the guy to get the painting back? What the hell are you doing out of your ball gown?" Whatevah. Max goes to retrieve her keys from her purse, and finds the Cap'n's speech. With a panicked cry, she shoves the painting at O.C. and dashes off to save the day some more.
O.C. has some day-saving of her own to do, while she's at it. She delivers the painting to the anxious, angry men. The head man, he checks the painting under some kind of grocery-store scanner or some shit that I assume is supposed to check authenticity somehow. Guess what? You'll never guess. But try. Just guess. Yeah, you guessed it. The painting is a forgery. So the head man, he asks the most anxious man if he knows what "defenestration" means. The most anxious man thinks it might mean "when you cut down all the trees." But, no, it means "when you get thrown out of a window." I'm guessing, using contextual clues, that that's what it means. I'm pretty sure I'm right. The head man says that if Original Cindy doesn't get the real painting in the two hours, then Normal will become a practitioner and victim of defenestration. This guy has a really nice apartment, and very good taste. I wonder if he's got a decorator, or if he did it himself.
La di da, and we're back from an interminable commercial break. The Cap'n struggles painfully through his barely-remembered speech, making such gaffes as "Marriage is an act of desperation," and "It requires that we be foolish enough to promise ourselves to another." Oh, the drama of it all. Fortunately, Max drifts in just in time to prompt him. He's a great lip-reader. And the speech turns out beautifully. Of course. Afterwards, there are congratulations and drinks, then the inevitable probing questions: Was that your ex-girlfriend? Did you steal the dress? Were you guys serious? Where did you get the dress? Ah, it's cat-and-mouse, quid pro quo, blah di blah. And then Max's pager goes off. She runs to return the call, and of course it's Original Cindy bearing bad news. While she's on the phone, Max overhears the hag, Aunt Margot, talking to another hag. They just don't understand why the Cap'n and his ex broke up, and they're very interested to see who catches the bouquet. So when Max meets up with Original Cindy at the apartment of the guy who was on the phone (see beginning of recap), she demands to know what the deal is with catching the bouquet. Jealous much? Ah, yes. So it turns out that the guy on the phone moved out that afternoon. His neighbor across the hall says that he was in a limo with three hookers, headed to the airport. Time moves so slowly in this episode. Max and Original Cindy fold time and miraculously track down the guy in his hot tub, in his motel room, with no problems at all. At all. Then they take turns dunking his head under water and shouting at him, and he puts up no fight at all. At all. He tells them that he sold the original painting to a Korean ship captain.
And now the plots really do intertwine. Max brings Original Cindy to the wedding reception. Ha! The band is playing a really cheesy instrumental version of "Brick House." Ha! "Nothing like a room full of flat-ass white girls to get your mind off of defenestration." That's what O.C. says as she grabs a flute of champagne. But enough about that. Max grabs the Cap'n from his conversation with his ex so that he can help her track down the Korean ship captain. On his uncle's computer. 'Cause he can just run off and access the Eyes Only net from anywhere, anytime. As they're going through the computer files, the Cap'n launches into this tirade about how American culture and heritage is being carved up and sold off to the highest bidder. Max doesn't have a problem with it. He really does. Okay, and there's no mention of the fact that we, as Anglo fucks, have been carving and selling centuries-old artifacts from places like, oh, China and India and Japan and Egypt. For ages. And ages. Take a visit to any museum in America, or any corporate headquarters. Just look. You'll see. I can't roll my eyes any more. It hurts. Anyway. Max and the Cap'n miraculously track down the Korean ship captain's ship, 'cause the goddess Serendipity is strong with these people. So Max tells O.C. to take care of the Cap'n ex-girlfriend while Max runs off to save the day some more. In her ball gown. Which still looks great.
So check it out. Max climbs onto the top of a boat and then flips herself down from one level to another without her skirt falling all over her face and suffocating her. Then she breaks into the miraculously right room and breaks into the miraculously right safe, which she miraculously opens using her incredible powers of super-hearing. And then, when the ship's captain comes in, she uses the patently offensive phrase "Me love you long time" to trick the captain into lowering his guard so she can knock his ass out. But of course it's not as easy as all that for Max, and she battles one guy, but trips in her skirt (and doesn't tear it or get it dirty), and gives him a chance to hit the alarm. So then all the soldiers on the ship chase our heroine around, and many times it seems like she'll be caught, but many times she escapes. She runs to the upper deck and rides a convenient grapple-thing down a convenient cable to the shore. In her ball gown. Which is still pristine.
Back from commercials, Max delivers the painting to the anxious, angry man, who scans the painting with his grocery scanner and verifies that it's real. She nabs Normal, gets the blueprints to give back to the guy who was going to kill himself, then makes Normal deliver the blueprints. After blowing off his apology and thanks. 'Kay. So she zooms back to the wedding just in time for the bouquet toss. The Cap'n rags on her for giving the painting to the art thief, then bullies her into meeting him at the airport to stop the guy. Oh, and when the bouquet gets tossed, Max knocks it into Original Cindy's hands. Original Cindy tells the ex that it's a "waste of good mojo," and the ex asks O.C. if she wants to go shoot some pool. Huh huh huh. Shoot some pool. That's nasty. As Max is leaving the party, she also steals Aunt Margot's locket from around her neck. The one that was the Cap'n's mom's locket. 'Cause she's a master thief. Had you forgotten? Almost all the loose ends are tied up now, just a few more to go. Thank God for American television. Oh, you wanna know something funny? In the whole bouquet scene, every time the camera is on the Cap'n, Max's breast is in the foreground of the picture. One plum-colored boob, right to the Cap'n's face. The whole scene.
The rest of the loose ends go like this: the Cap'n goes down to the morgue and shoots the corpse of the defenestrated man in the head. So that it looks like the cause of death is a single gunshot wound to the head. The corpse isn't banged up at all. Remarkable, really, since he FELL OUT OF A WINDOW TO HIS DEATH. The Cap'n is friends with the morgue lady. That's how he gets to shoot the corpse. Then he and Max go to the airport and the Cap'n "accidentally" bumps into the art thief, thus planting the so-called murder weapon in the man's bags. While the man is being detained by security, Max slips up and gets the painting, and then she and the Cap'n go back to the Hall of Justice for a hearty round of self-congratulation. The painting was not the one of my great-great-grandfather. Oh, then the Cap'n comes clean about his ex, saying that she dumped him without explanation and he didn't want Max to know. Then Max comes clean about the dress, saying that she didn't want him to be embarrassed by her at the wedding. She says she's gonna return it, he says he's gonna pay for it, 'cause she looks beautiful in it. Then she gives him the locket that she stole from his Aunt Margot. They look at each other, all liquid-eyed and horny, and then Max goes home.
And the last thing of note is that he bumps into something after Max has left, and he feels pain. Then he does it again. So we don't miss it. That he's getting the feeling back in his legs. This show is going to be ruined once they sleep together.