It still remains sad to me that they need to show the explanation for this show before every episode. Maybe they could have made the show less complicated so that you could understand the premise by just watching the show. Or maybe they think the audience is really dumb. I don't know.
We open on various Jam Pony denizens lifting a water heater from an abandoned building. Sketchy is babbling about starting a grunge revival, which I am all for, personally. I still have all my flannels. Herbal thinks it sucks that Sketchy is in it for the money and not the music. Have I mentioned that Sketchy looks like he's about thirty-five years old? Max mentions how excited she is to take a hot shower, since they are taking this hot-water heater. But wouldn't it be rusted out? I'm just saying. Sketchy and OC banter over his hitting on some hot chick. Max has this big grin on her face while she lifts the obviously very heavy hot-water tank, like, couldn't Jessica Alba at least pretend that it's not made out of foam? Sketchy sees a rat and drops his end of the tank. Max and Herbal are left holding the tank, and they decide to push it up on one end on the count of three. Of course, Max's super strength comes into play, and the hot-water heater goes crashing into the wall. At which point, in the real world, there would be holes in it because of all the rust. Also, hot-water tanks? Not that heavy that they would require four people. I know this -- we just got a new one in our basement a few months back, and it took two people to move it. Anyway, Max tries to pretend like it was Herbal's strength that caused the tank to go flying. Herbal accepts the compliment.
So the whole hot-water-tank thing was to create a situation where Jessica Alba could walk around in a robe, I guess, because that's what happens . OC is sitting on the couch, listening to Max bliss out over the shower. OC says, "Give me your paw." I really hate the language this show has invented to make it seem hip or something. Like, who says "paw" instead of "hand," in this century or any other? Anyway, OC wants to give Max a manicure, but Max thinks it sounds too much like Manticore. Ha ha. Not. OC thinks that Max is "so butch" that it's hard to believe she doesn't "play on the all-girl team." Because if a lesbian character spouts lesbian stereotypes, it's okay. Max says that she doesn't need pampering -- just a hot shower and clean underwear. But wouldn't a hot shower be considered pampering on this show? OC says men like women who mind the details, and Max insists that she's "no man's woman." OC hears a rat squeaking and notes that they have a rodent problem. This will be important later. Max asks if men really pay attention to manicures and stuff, and OC says that they do. Max laughs at OC being an expert on men, and OC says she likes men, but she doesn't want to go to bed with them. Because she's a lesbian. I don't know if you got that already. Just then, some plaster cracks, and the hot-water tank comes crashing through the ceiling, landing on their living-room floor. Why was it above their apartment in the first place? Don't hot water tanks usually go in the basement? Just wondering. Anyway, Max caps the scene by saying that "somebody out there just doesn't like [her]." Shout-out?
The Jam Ponies are in a bar. OC is playing pool with some random guy, and when she beats him, she says, "Don't hate the playa. Hate the game." I start having flashbacks to David from Real World New Orleans and cry and cry. Some mysterious woman walks up and asks OC, "Who says you're a playa?" All eyes turn to Mystery Woman. OC greets her. Mystery Woman asks if they're going to play pool. OC says she only plays to win, "and that's not been my experience with you." Max asks the others who Mystery Woman is. Thanks, Max! I was getting sick of typing out Mystery Woman. Herbal tells us that Mystery Woman's name is "Diamond." OC asks why Diamond is back in Seattle, and Diamond says that she just got paroled. OC says, "When you gonna quit being a bad girl?" and Diamond replies, "When you stop liking me that way." Okay, that was a pretty good retort. Diamond claims that she's "living straight, at least as far as the law is concerned." OC wonders why Diamond thinks she cares that she's gone straight. Diamond says she might have just come in for a drink. When OC looks pissed, Diamond says that she really came down because she missed OC, and she's sorry, and she didn't work hard enough to keep her. Ah, the old ex-whatever song and dance. One that is familiar to us all, I think. The actress who plays OC should so have been cast as Max. She's so much better than Jessica Alba. Anyway, OC introduces Diamond to her "crew," except Herbal, who apparently already knows Diamond. Sketchy offers to get drinks for everyone. Actually, he says "adult beverage," but I'm trying to shield you from the bad faux-slang in this episode. Diamond wants a drink, but points out that she's not going to hook up with Sketchy over it. Sketchy says that he realizes she's gay. Diamond says that she's never met a man worthy of her kiss. I realize that dialogue isn't very interesting, but they actually reference it later in the show, so I had to relate it here. I guess. Diamond wins the pool game, so OC hands her some money. Diamond doesn't want the money -- she wants a kiss from OC. The kiss is surprisingly hot. Somewhere, Joss Whedon cries because he's not allowed to show such things on his shows. Just then, Max's pager goes off, and she leaves the bar.
To end up at Cap'n EO's pad. She sneaks in on him while he's writing something in a book or journal of some sort. He gasps in surprise when he realizes that she's there, and she says, "I didn't know you wrote poetry." Like, way to not even try to hide that you were totally snooping. Max annoyingly snatches the book out of Cap'n's hand and starts leafing through it as he protests that it's not poetry. She is so annoying. Anyway, Max gives the book back and wants to know why he paged her. EO explains that some guy named Pierpont Lemkin is "paying off the sector police to look the other way so he can run arms unchecked." Max hardly listens, instead trying to tell EO about her night. EO pretends to be listening, but keeps trying to tell Max about Lemkin's crew being behind the heist of some nuclear warheads. Max asks what's the deal with guys and lesbians anyway, which is certainly a question for the ages, and EO asks if she's even heard anything he's said. Max says that she can "parallel-process and multitask like there's no tomorrow," which is about the fifth annoying thing she has said this week, and if the writers want us to accept her as the hero, maybe they should make her less annoying. Anyway, EO needs Max to steal some disks from Lemkin, and he got the safe combination from an informant. Max will have to "do some recon," because Lemkin is a safety freak. Max tells EO about the water-heater problem, and asks if she can take any money she finds along with the disks, because "stealing from a thief really isn't like stealing at all." EO tells her to get the disks, but anything else she does, he doesn't want to know about. Max goes to leave, but EO asks if OC and Diamond were really making out. Max is pleased that her love interest shows signs of being all man. Or something.
Max walks into her apartment and finds an open jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread. And they wonder why they have a rodent problem? Could it be the open containers of food left sitting on the counter? As Max starts making a sandwich, she spies a rat, and shouts, "Rat bastard!" See, it was funny because -- oh wait, it actually wasn't funny at all. The commotion wakes OC up, and she asks Max to keep it down because Diamond is trying to sleep. Max asks why OC never talked about Diamond before. OC says it's because the writers never needed to use her as a plot device. Anyway, Diamond apparently changed OC quite a bit. OC explains that Diamond taught her a lot, but was always having issues with the law. Max worries that she needs to lock her stuff up. OC says Diamond claims it's all in the past. Max hopes they can work it out; OC asks if it's okay if Diamond stays there for a while, and Max is fine with it. OC says that Diamond is going to be "on the mic" at some bar the night, and asks Max to come along. There's some banter about Diamond's skills that I just refuse to have anything to do with. Diamond calls to OC from the bedroom, so OC runs off. Max smiles after her and then captures the rat she heard earlier, saying that "one rat deserves another."
Max shows up at Lemkin's house under the guise of a delivery. She distracts the maid and then releases the rat into the house. It cracks me up that this is the future and everything is so different, yet the maid is still dressed like Hazel. Some things never change, I guess. The maid sees the rat and screams, and the security guy takes off after the rat, like they wouldn't just call an exterminator. Max takes the opportunity to do a strange walk through the house, looking for the safe. As she enters the room between the entry and the safe room, a ton of lasers light up, crisscrossing the room -- like in Entrapment, basically. As Max studies them, Lemkin and one of his security goons come up behind her. Max claims that she was looking for the bathroom, but Lemkin tells her to "pee outside" and has his goon escort her out.
Max, OC, and Diamond walk down the street. Apparently, Diamond has just finished her gig. OC and Diamond talk, and then Max points out that OC talks just like Diamond, and that must be where it comes from. OC says that she is, in fact, original, but Diamond says it comes from her. OC gets all offended, and Diamond says she was just kidding. Max spots a truck ahead of them and uses her feline vision to scout out a dangerous guy in the truck, and she tells OC and Diamond to take off. They do. Max fights a bunch of guys who all attack her one at a time. Diamond watches from afar. Max picks up a gun that one of her attackers dropped, and sneaks off.
Max has adjourned back to EO's place, and I know Max never sleeps, but what about EO? He's pumping iron and asking her how she knows her assailants weren't from Manticore. Max says that they weren't military types, but she uses a lot more annoying words like "jarheads" and "G.I. Joe." She also reveals that Manticore thugs have "more firepower than this" as she does this weird straight-armed reveal of the gun she took. EO takes the gun as Max tells him to check out where it came from, like he couldn't figure that out on his own. And he's all sweaty from lifting, like, a five-pound dumbbell. Max says she's going to chill out before she does the safe job at Lemkin's place. EO tells her that he worries about her, and Max says it's nice to know that he thinks of her as "more than [his] own private cat burglar." Is that like a private dancer? A dancer for money? EO replies, "Way more." Max smiles and wonders if her name shows up in his poems. EO says he's not admitting that he writes poetry, and maybe. Max says she can live off of that for a couple of days.
OC gives Diamond a manicure, and what's with the nail polishing in this episode? Diamond hopes Max is okay, and OC reveals that Max called "from her boyfriend's crib." Boyfriend? Interesting. OC says that Max is a magnet for trouble. Diamond asks if OC can open a window, and Diamond is all sweaty, just like EO! OC gets something to open the window, because it's stuck. Diamond asks where OC would live if money was no object, and OC says she'd go to Mexico. Diamond hopes that they'll make it there someday, and this seems more like idle fantasy. OC uses a slim jim (the "thin piece of metal" kind, not the "snap into a…" kind) to open the window, and Diamond notes that you use those to steal cars. OC reveals that it belongs to Max. Diamond urges OC to reach for her Mexican fantasy. Max returns and blows off their concern. Diamond says that she's "been in some street fights," but has never seen moves like that. Max says she took karate as a kid, then picks up her slim jim and leaves. Diamond is all thoughtful about Max.
OC comes into the kitchen and asks Diamond to meet her for lunch, then kisses her goodbye. Once OC is gone, Diamond sneaks into Max's room and finds her burglar kit -- a flashlight, a lock picking kit, and the blueprints to Lemkin's house. Diamond hears Max getting out of the shower and hurries back into the kitchen. Max walks in, and her hair is totally dry for just having taken a shower. It looks like she got caught in the rain more than anything. Diamond starts needling Max about how she fights, her slim jim, and how she affords her motorcycle. Max claims that "tips have been good lately." Diamond thinks that Max has "an alternative career." Max says she has to go to work, but Diamond offers to help Max with her alternative career. Max leaves.
As Max arrives at Jam Pony, Sketchy is on the phone. He asks Max to describe what's going on at her crib with all the "hot babies." Max feeds his girl-on-girl fantasies. Max walks up to OC and tells her that she thinks Diamond shouldn't stay with them anymore, because she doesn't know what was up with her attack the other night, and she can't have someone around that she doesn't know. I guess she's worried that those guys might have been after Diamond. OC says that Diamond will be "gone in the morning," but she's clearly pissed, because she slams her locker. Max gets a page, and calls EO, who reports that the gun is registered to a bounty hunter. Max asks who the client is, and EO replies that he doesn't know, but the bounty hunter is expensive, so the client must be someone rich. EO recommends that Max get out of town for a while, but Max says that she has to do the safe job first.
Max gathers up her burgling tools and sneaks out of her apartment. Diamond hears her, and wakes up. Max arrives at Lemkin's and uses her super jump to get over the gate. Diamond is right behind her, and she takes the normal-person route of climbing the gate. Max approaches the laser-filled room. After assessing it for a moment, she does a series of handsprings through the room, and her feet totally would have set off the alarm, but they don't. Max walks up to the safe and punches in the combination to open it. She takes out some stacks of money and the disks for EO. As she works, we see Diamond waiting on the other side of the laser room. Max closes the safe and then shoots a wire to the other side of the laser room. She slides the bag containing the money and the disks through the laser room. Diamond grabs the bag, which makes the wire shake, which sets off the alarm. Doors close and bars drop down as Max is trapped in the safe room.
The scene opens with Max being interrogated in some room. It has the obligatory backlit fans of the future. Why, in the future, does everyone put lights behind fans? Anyway, Interrogator says that she's lucky the cops found her before Lemkin did, and that the maid identified her from her visit earlier. Max gives smart remarks to all of the questions until Interrogator says that her partner got away with all her cash. Max is surprised at the mention of a partner, so Interrogator shows her surveillance video of Diamond snatching the bag. Interrogator wants Max to give up Diamond. Max claims she doesn't know Diamond. Interrogator says that there are "some very powerful people after [Diamond]." Max keeps it up with the smart remarks, so Interrogator leaves. Some goon comes in and shoots Max with a dart that presumably puts her to sleep. Of course, it works immediately, like that would happen.
Max wakes up in an unfamiliar lab-like room. Some slick guy outside the room starts questioning her about her physical status through a glass window in the door. Slick Guy walks into the room and asks where Diamond is. Max won't answer. Slick Guy says that it's urgent that he find Diamond, but Max still won't spill. Slick Guy says that he'll have Max returned to the police, and he leaves. Once outside, he asks his lackey if Max gave them anything under pentathol (i.e. truth serum), and the lackey says she gave no information about Diamond. Slick Guy orders the lackey to get rid of her, and they have "six hours, tops" to find Diamond before "all hell breaks loose." Slick Guy leaves, and the lackey (who looks distressingly like John Cusack) enters Max's chamber and prepares a big shot. As the lackey approaches Max, she busts out of her restraints and chokes him with her calves. Once he's down, she busts out of her arm restraints and sneaks out the door, which opens automatically now. It's like the supermarket of labs, I guess.
Max sneaks into the back of a truck leaving the lab facility. Suddenly, she's at EO's. He's been paging her all day, and Max tells him that Diamond screwed things up. Max asks if Sensodyne means anything to him. Isn't that a brand of toothpaste? EO replies that it's a pharmaceutical company; they made billions during an influenza outbreak by stockpiling vaccines and then selling them on the black market. Now they've branched out in lots of ways, even private prisons. Do you see where this is going yet? EO pulls up a picture of the CEO, and it's Slick Guy from earlier. Max thinks that Slick Guy is really interested in Diamond, but she doesn't know why. EO finds Diamond's prison record, and notes that she was incarcerated at Sensodyne's private prison. Max reads that Diamond escaped two weeks ago. So that whole parole thing was a big lie! I'm so surprised, except not at all.
At Jam Pony, OC refuses to do a particular delivery because it's too far, and then says that she's on break. Diamond shows up and says that OC is "on permanent break," and that there's something that OC needs to know. OC is all disgusted as Diamond tells her that she's not on parole -- she escaped. OC is pissed that Diamond is going to end up back in prison, and she'll be alone again. Diamond protests that she's not going back, and OC says Diamond can't live her life on the run. Diamond says she doesn't have much life left, because the doctors in prison told her she has "some kind of cancer" and that they had her on "all kinds of medicine." Diamond didn't want to live the rest of her life in prison. OC thinks Diamond is lying, but Diamond insists that when she found out she was dying, she wanted to see OC one more time, because it's her last shot at being happy. OC is touched. Diamond asks if they're going to Mexico. OC says she has some money put aside, but Diamond reveals the cash she got from Lemkin's. Diamond admits that she stole the money, but "stealing from a thief ain't entirely illegal." See? She's just like Max! Except for the whole super-powers thing. OC hugs Diamond.
EO and Max go to visit Sebastien, who tells them about Sensodyne. It seems that Sensodyne has been using its convicts as guinea pigs. They tell the convicts that they have a fatal disease, and the prisoner agrees to be treated. EO fills in that the prisoners are actually perfectly healthy, and are being used to perfect the vaccine. Sebastien shows them on his computer that in Diamond's cellblock, they were testing a designer disease called AN918. Max asks if it's contagious. Sebastien says it's not, as long as she was receiving her meds. EO says that she was off her meds for two weeks. Sebastien replies that Diamond will soon become terminal, and highly contagious. Max takes off to find OC.
At Jam Pony, she finds out that OC and Diamond took off. Sketchy tells her that they headed for Mexico. Herbal has a letter for Max from OC. Max asks how they were getting to Mexico, and Herbal tells her that they were taking the bus. Max takes off.
On the bus, Diamond leans on OC's shoulder, looking sickly, but claiming that her head just hurts. Max drives real fast on her motorcycle. OC hears a helicopter nearby. Max drives real fast on her motorcycle. Just as Max catches up with the bus, the helicopter and a bunch of guys in orange suits order everyone off the bus. Max uses her super vision to look up into the helicopter, and sees OC and Diamond inside. Max sits on her motorcycle with her hair blowing back in a totally unnecessary glamour shot.
OC looks into an airtight cell where Diamond is sleeping. Slick Guy and his lackey (who is now wearing a neck brace from his losing battle with Max's calves) watch her. Slick Guy reads a lab report that tells him Diamond's disease is full-blown, and she's contagious. Lackey adds that OC tested negative for the disease, but they gave her the antidote just in case. Slick Guy is pissed because he wanted to use OC as a guinea pig, and now they can't let her go. OC comes up and pounds on the door, demanding that Slick Guy give Diamond something to help her.
A truck enters Sensodyne grounds, and the camera pans down to reveal Max clinging to the undercarriage, just like Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear. Except she's prettier than him. Once inside, Max beats the crap out of Lackey again, for no apparent reason, and then sets off an alarm. People in orange suits start running everywhere as Slick Guy strolls down the hallway. Max, clad in an orange suit herself, walks right past him. Max runs to Diamond's cell, then walks past it to OC's cell. She hands OC an orange suit and then goes to look at Diamond. OC doesn't want to leave without Diamond. Max and OC both walk over to the window of Diamond's cell, and Diamond (who has these gross bumps on her forehead now) tells OC to go without her, because she's so sick. Max tells Diamond the truth about her illness, that the doctors at Sensodyne murdered her. Max tells Diamond and OC that it's too late. OC tells Diamond that she was her "first and [her] truest love." Diamond makes Max promise to take care of OC, and then confesses that she was the one to screw up Max's burglary earlier. Max forgives her. Diamond and OC cry, and Max says that they need to go. Diamond says she has one last thing that she needs to do, and asks for their help.
Max and OC are outside. Max hotwires a van, and they use it to bust through the fence and escape the facility.
Slick Guy is talking on a cell phone about his tee time. No, I'm not kidding. Like he could get a signal inside that huge concrete facility. Lackey comes up to him and insists that he put on an orange suit and evacuate. Slick Guy shoos him away. Slick Guy finishes his phone call as another orange-suited person approaches -- but this one is Diamond. She has gross stuff all over her face -- it's like those bumps earlier were zits and now they have exploded. Diamond points a gun at Slick Guy, who tells her there is an antidote. Diamond holds up a vial of the antidote and says that it's too late for that. Diamond drops the vial on the floor, saying that it was the last one, and then says that she "finally found a man worthy of her kiss." See? Remember the scene in the bar where I said that dialogue would be referred to later? There it is. Anyway, Diamond lays a big kiss on Slick Guy, and it's as gross as you would expect.
OC sits in her apartment, looking at a picture. Max enters the room. OC shows her a picture of "little Cynthia McEachin," who was "scared of her own shadow." OC says she will pray and thank Diamond for helping her figure out who she was. OC tried not to have feelings for Diamond, because it was easier. Max finishes the thought: "The feelings kept coming anyway." OC adds that even though you're not with that person, you're not alone either, because they're "throwing vibes in your direction." OC says it's the only thing that keeps her strong "through this bitch." OC notes that Max's manicure is all messed up after only three days. Max says that it's the "price a girl pays for kicking ass." OC pulls out her manicure tools and goes to work.
Max joins EO in his apartment, where he has about a million candles lit. Just when you thought he was trying to be romantic, Max reveals that the "brown-outs are getting to be a major drag." EO asks how OC is doing, and Max says that "time heals all wounds." EO says that people never get over their first love. Max wouldn't know, and then asks when she gets to look at EO's poems as she grabs the book. EO says that she can't look at them, and that he's embarrassed about writing poetry because his father taught him that poetry was less than manly. Isn't he a little old to still have daddy issues? Max rolls her eyes, and EO lets her look at one of his poems. She reads it and then asks if it's about her, obviously touched. EO admits that it is. Max secretly pulls the page out of his journal, like, couldn't she just use her photographic memory or whatever to remember it? Like he won't notice that it's gone. She takes off, saying that she doesn't want to miss curfew.
Sitting on the Space Needle, Max reads part of the poem: "Forever eyes. Dark. Somebody's angel." Okay, so it's not great, but it would still be cool if the boy you had a crush on wrote a poem about you. Max says basically that, except she adds a part about how now she can't be caged or killed because of the poem.
week: an incredibly strong killer is on the loose, and it's someone from Max's Manticore past.