All righty, I'm starting to agree with Kim on this -- the creators of this show must have incredibly low expectations for their audience. Or perhaps they don't believe they actually have an audience. Why else would they show the freaking intro time and time again? I mean you never saw My Two Dads rehashing the here's-Nicole-here-are-her-two-Dads-her-mom-loved-them-both-and-the-peppery-judge-went-along-with-it plot before every episode. And that plot is certainly as complicated as the storyline of Dark Angel. I'm just saying.
Max barrels into the squat that she shares with Original Cindy. OC is wearing headphones and a Walkman in the house. Um, did stereos get destroyed in the Pulse and only Walkmen remain? Whatever. Maybe she's trying to block out Max's voice. I should try that. Anyway, back to the story: Max barrels into the apartment carrying a big chicken that she "scored." OC, being the strong, sensible type, wants to know what she's going to do with it. Max, being the hungry type, declares she's going to eat it. OC curls her lip in barely concealed disgust and asks her if she is seriously going to kill that cute little chicken? Max is practically drooling at the very thought and doesn't even wait for her obviously grossed-out friend to leave the room before breaking its little chicken neck. Guess the sensitivity training at Manticore was kept to a minimum. Cut to Max eating some KFC and OC, still wearing her headphones, trying to pretend she didn't see what she just saw. (Hey, Martha Stewart's cooking chicken, too! How about that.) Maybe OC will become a vegetarian. I mean, the majority of developing nations eat primarily vegetarian diets -- granted, not necessarily by choice, but if the US in 2019 is a newly-second-tier nation, perhaps they've kicked the meat habit. Hey, maybe PETA sponsored this episode! That's some pretty crafty outreach, that is. Max gets paged by the Captain and, um, blazes. OC gets off the couch, takes off her headphones now that Max is gone, and heads for the kitchen. She takes a piece of chicken with her fingers, looks at it for a minute, and then eats it. I hate it when my roommates do that -- good grief, use a fork!
Over at the Halls of Justice, the Captain breaks the news to Max that a body with a bar code was found in the woods. She examines the bar code and realizes that it's "Ben." She starts to tear up, and as the Captain calls his informant in the coroner's office to set up a "viewing" for Max, we drift to a lovely black-and-white flashback of the softer side of Camp Manticore. A time when the counselors had gone to make out behind the rec hall and the campers stayed up past curfew, making shadow puppets and telling ghost stories. A time when the campers were truly ready to be called happy campers. As Max heads to the coroner's office, Cap'n EO tells her to be careful, because something out there is strong enough to overpower an X5. Then he nods and winks, and she rolls her eyes and tells him to keep it in his pants.
At the coroner's, Max has another flashback while she waits for the doctor to meet her. In this grainy grey flashback, Ben tells the campers a scary bedtime story about the "nomalies," which is the oh-so-cute kiddie vernacular for the tongue-waving, bad-toothed, gate-rattling genetic anomalies that are bound to happen when you go mucking about in the genetic kitchen. I wonder if Dolly the Sheep has relatives like these? Anyway, the nomalies are kept locked in the basement to scare the children. 'Cause isn't fear a part of any happy and complete childhood? Anyway, Ben is frightening the campers with quasi-religious parables about what happens to good soldiers versus bad soldiers. Bad soldiers go to the nomalies. After this lovely trip down memory lane, Max goes to see Ben's body. The doctor assures Max that the utmost discretion will be taken to ensure that this case is kept under wraps. The doctor fills in the gory details for Max. It seems that Ben was killed when someone snapped his second vertebra with their bare hands. He's covered in cuts and abrasions, and the tattoo is still healing. And his teeth were surgically removed. Max is confused. But I only know that because she says, "That doesn't make any sense." Otherwise, I would have gone with "Max looks like a gas huffer." Their conversation is interrupted by a disturbance in the lobby. Max recognizes Lydecker's squeaky voice and, like a good soldier, hides her ass. Lydecker busts into the room and retrieves Ben's body. But, oh yeah, I forgot to mention, it wasn't Ben. It was a young Asian man lying in the morgue. And Ben is your typical genetically-engineered Aryan type. Huh. I would think this was strange, but I saw the preview.
Max calls the Captain to tell him about the Lydecker encounter. The Captain tries to get all sappy and sensitive and I'm-here-for-you, but Max is having none of it and hangs up the phone, saying she has something to do. The scene cuts to Max in the woods. I see -- she ditched the Captain so she could go hiking and not have to stick to the wheelchair-accessible trails. Sneaky girl, that Max. Max uses her zoom lens to spot a teeny tiny gold necklace hanging on a tree. She picks it up and asks it, "Oh, Ben, what are you doing?" Surprisingly, the necklace doesn't answer. She hikes some more and then is overtaken by yet another freaking flashback. In this episode, the happy campers are once again out of their bunks, but this time it's because one of their cabin-mates is having a seizure. They are all speculating that if the counselors catch him mid-twitch, they will take him away and stick him with the nomalies. Just then, a janitor comes in, and the campers scatter back to their bunks. The janitor notices the twitching and gives the kid a religious prayer card and tells him to pray to her, and that she'll watch over him. The kid stops twitching, and as the janitor leaves, the other campers gather around and speculate about the mysterious lady on the card. It's the Virgin Mary, by the way. Ben, the self-appointed spiritual guru of the group, grabs the card and says that she's watching over us.
Then we see some tousle-haired brunet guy dressed all in black tell another tousle-haired brunet guy dressed all in black to put on a necklace that looks strangely similar to the necklace that Max found in the woods. Then the men chase each other through the woods and try to kill each other. The one who told the other one to put on the necklace won. Does he own stock in the necklace company or something?
Back at the Halls of Justice, Cap'n EO is breaking the news to Max that another bar-code-tattooed body was found in the woods. Is she sure the other body was Ben? Max isn't sure. Max is pouting. The Captain shoots her a look and annoyingly points out that Ben is the closest thing she has to a brother, and she isn't sure whether or not the body she saw was him? Max knocks him over. Well, she doesn't, but I sure would have. Max is too busy flashing back to pay attention. She's envisioning herself jogging through the woods with Ben. Hmm, exercise. I wonder what that's like? The Cap'n continues to question Max, and she finally confesses that Ben killed the two men. The Cap'n says that he's a little concerned that Max is trying to cover up the actions of a serial killer. She kicks him in the shins, but he doesn't notice. She says that she's not covering it up; Lydecker is. Remember? Stocky blond guy? Bad dresser? Really bossy attitude? That's him. So Max isn't covering anything up; she just isn't advertising that her "brother" is a murderer. Makes sense to me. But not to Logan, who takes his journalistic integrity and heightened morality and shoves it down Max's throat. Max tells him to stuff it and huffs her way out the door. Do you think, when she's mad, that she waits for the elevator like everybody else, or does she just jump out the window?
Wow. They shove about ten commercials into each break. That's some efficient marketing.
Max decides to go to church to pray to the Virgin for a gift of some shampoo to wash her scraggly hair. I mean, really, I know that she only has cold water in her apartment, but would it be a crime to shower occasionally? So when she's in church, she has another flashback: Ben is waking her up to break curfew and go neck on the roof. Only he calls it "the high place." I guess having a vocabulary wide enough to contain words like "roof" was not considered an important trait for the small soldiers at Camp Manticore. The campers shimmy up the drainpipe and, oh, the other kids are up there too. They start some quasi-religious rite that involves pulling out teeth and offering them to "The Blue Lady." Um, those are full-grown teeth, kids. Oh, never mind -- they can probably regenerate their teeth. 'Cause that's just the sort of show this is. Sigh. Creepy little Ben says that The Blue Lady likes it when they pull out their teeth, and that it helps her fight the nomalies. I'm sure that's just what Jim Jones said when he offered his flock some special-ingredient Kool-Aid. Max quits tripping and goes to check out the altar of Our Holy Lady of the Sacred Heart. She finds a pile of teeth and knows she's at the right church. Wow, what a good guess! Out of all the churches in the city, she finds the right one on the first try! She is a super-soldier-spy thing. That, or the writers are attempting to draw powerful and deep parallels between religious faith and the audience's faith in the show -- i.e. suspend your disbelief.
Max decides to camp out at the church and wait for a miracle. I guess not feeling the need to sleep or bathe can come in quite handy when you decide to spend all night staking out an altar. After two days on a pew (insert your own joke here), a man sits down to Max and says that he's seen her around. She asks him if he's "sniffing out honeys in church," and he laughs and shows her his clerical collar and introduces himself as Father Destry. They then embark on one of those long religious discussions about the depth and glory of the Lord's salvation that typically you need to be really drunk and/or stoned to give a hoot about. I'm unfortunately neither and thus will not bother transcribing it. Here instead is a pirate joke: Did you hear about the new pirate movie? It's rated "arrrr." Hoo hoo hoo! Yes? Anyway. Ben finally comes in to the church to pray to the Lady. Max lurks behind him until he creeps out, whirls around, sees her, and runs off. Well done, soldier! I'd run too if someone who'd slept in a church for three days stood behind me and breathed heavily.
At the Halls of Justice, Bling appears to have returned from whatever vacation he was on and nonchalantly walks into the Captain's apartment. The Cap'n damn near falls over in shock and yells, "Bling! Where you been?" Bling says he was at the store. "For two weeks?" the Captain asks. "Shut up or I won't give you your sponge bath," Bling replies. The Captain goes back to his navel-gazing until Bling asks him what's up. Turns out he's worried about Max. Seems she didn't go home for the last few days and hasn't been at work either. Cap'n EO has a brain wave. He'll call Lydecker. He'll know what's up. You know, Cap'n, sometimes a brain wave and a brain fart are hard to tell apart. Maybe you want to rethink calling Lydecker. No? All righty.
Back at the church, Ben has decided to confess his sins. He sits in the confessional and tells Father Destry that he's killed people. The father says that murder is a grave sin, but sometimes killing people is necessary, like if you're a police officer or a soldier or a TV critic. Ben blurts out that he's a soldier. Father Destry prattles on about forgiveness and the Virgin's love and protection until Ben punches through the divider and chokes the bejeezus out of him. The Father wakes up in a factory with Ben standing over him, holding a gun. Father Destry says he won't fight him. Ben says that if he doesn't, he'll just keep killing. What a moral quandary! Glad I'm not Catholic so I don't run into these tricky ethical issues. Ben tosses the gun and a clip to the priest and orders him to put the clip in the gun. The priest does as he's told, gets to his feet, and points the gun at Ben. Ben is rather nonplussed by this and advances on the priest. The priest has decided not to allow Ben to keep killing. He asks the Lord's forgiveness and pulls the trigger, but Ben, being a genetically-enhanced killing machine, merely outruns the bullet and knocks the priest on his ass.
Back at the church again, Max is looking for Father Destry. If I hadn't suspended my disbelief, I would be asking if Max were looking for Father Destry merely as a device to move the plot along, or whether she found herself in need of further spiritual guidance -- perhaps to discuss the lust in her heart? But, well, forget it. Anyway, she finds out that the priest has been kidnapped, and she knows that Ben did it. And with the help of a handy flashback (Ben crawling to the "high place" and asking for guidance from the Lady), she realizes that Ben is obviously hiding out in the Space Needle. Duh.
Lydecker is about to get his ass hauled into an impromptu conference with his boss. And, get this, his boss is a lady! No glass ceiling in 2019, no sirree. Of course, if the US really has sunk into a depression, hiring women to higher positions makes sense, since statistics show that you can pay them less money for equal or better work! How about that! Anyway, Lydecker's Lady Boss (Nana Visitor of Star Trek fame) is taking him to task for not having caught the anomalous X5 yet. Lydecker says he is on it. But X5 493 (read: Ben) is just not keeping a low enough profile for the Lady Boss's taste. He needs to be stopped. And he needs to be taken back to Manticore so that they can determine just what went wrong. He's an anomaly according to Lydecker, but the Lady Boss points out that there are an awful lot of anomalies in this little project, and that he'd better get it straightened out. Wow, she's great at being a nice-but-really-not-at-all-nice boss. I hope she comes back more often. As soon as she leaves, Lydecker barks at some underling to set up the meeting. What meeting? Oh, right, the meeting with Eyes Only.
At the Space Needle, Ben is taking a break from his killing spree to enjoy the view. Aw, even serial killers like a nice vista. As he steps back into "The Needle" (as we Seattle-ites call it), Max tackles him and handcuffs him to the wall. Not having seen each other for years, they take a moment to catch up. Ben claims that he's doing what they were trained to do. Max says that she must have missed the class on amateur dentistry. Ben goes on and on about how this is what they were made for and how she should understand it. It? "It" is revealed to us in another Camp Manticore home video. Seems that one of the camp's wholesome recreational activities was to set the kids loose on convicted felons. If the convicts made it to the perimeter, they were free to go. If they didn't, it was back to death row. The kids caught the guy and beat him down. I miss camp. Max enjoys the trip down memory lane so much that she decides to beat up Ben! She wants to know where the priest is.
Lydecker heads to his meeting with an Eyes Only video screen in the Eyes Only Official Contact Room that is obviously rented for that express purpose. EO tells Lydecker that if he doesn't stop the killings soon, he will go public with what he knows. That sort of exposure would probably get Lydecker called into the Lady Boss's office again, so he reaffirms his desire to catch the bad X5. While he's talking to EO, Lydecker searches the room for some sign of EO's identity. Come on, Lydecker, what happened to all that military strategic training? Do you really think he's hiding under the table? Oh, right -- suspend disbelief. Lydecker finally sits down in the chair EO so thoughtfully provided and calls EO's bluff. Lydecker seems to think that EO won't do anything that will put Max at risk. He knows that EO is working with her, but he doesn't know why, since Max is not just the genetically-engineered super-soldier door. EO couldn't possibly think that he could have a meaningful relationship with her; she's too dangerous for that. Eyes Only rolls his eyes and tells Lydecker to do something about Ben or he will.
Back at the Needle, Max is still interrogating Ben. They are engaging in a philosophical dialectic about "war is art" and "religion is for the unwashed masses." I mean, "the unwashed masses minus Max." She's too tough for JC, yo. Max asks Ben about the bar code and then espouses her theory that he puts his bar code on his victims because he hates himself and wants to kill his fool self over and over again. Jung has nothing on Max Guevara. Ben laughs at her dime-store psychology patter. This pisses Max off, and she calls him a nomaly. He cries and says that he's not a nomaly, she's a nomaly. Oh, you kids! They have a touching moment reliving moments from Camp Manticore, and Ben says that he wishes he could have stayed there for ever and ever. Max pats his hand and sagely says that she understands, but part of growing up is spending every summer in a musty air-conditioned office so your vacation time can be saved in order to spend Christmas with the in-laws. Camp is just not part of being a grown-up. Ben cries about the sorry lot of adults.
Ben takes Max to the warehouse where he's storing Father Destry for later use. Max notes that Ben has decorated the place with the Camp Manticore motto. When she unlocks the storeroom to free Father Destry, Ben shoves her into the room, grabs the priest, and locks Max in. She urges the priest to run, and Ben agrees.
You know how, when you have a tape paused for awhile, it will revert back to the TV? Well, I'm easily distracted, so whenever I do these recaps I make sure that the TV is tuned into something positively awful which will make me hurry back to work. Gallagher specials work well, but when those aren't on, my runner up choice is TLC's A Baby Story. In my opinion, there's nothing like big-haired women pushing slimy children into the world, in front of not only their entire families but also a television camera, to make Dark Angel look positively riveting. So, back to our show.
The Captain's coroner source calls to let him know that she found magnesium nitrate under the latest victim's fingernails. Isn't that just fascinating? EO seems to think it's a hint as to where Ben keeps his prisoners. There's a fertilizer factory outside of town (I would certainly hope so!), and EO is sure that the priest is there. The source says that Lydecker took off the second he saw the report.
Back at the factory, Max is crinkling up her delicate little nose as she pries open the door with a sharp metal pipe. She busts out of the impromptu cell just as Lydecker and his troops bust in. My, that was a close call. My heart would be all atwitter, you know, if I cared. Lydecker takes in all the Manticore writings on the wall and looks almost guilty. He tells his troops to search the place. Do these troops just follow him around all the time?
Max is hiking through the woods when she spies Ben standing on the priest's chest. Ben says that the priest's faith wasn't strong enough. Max suggests that they release him and find someone better. She asks Ben nicely to let the priest go. He won't do it. He wants Max to understand why he's doing what he's doing. He wants her to be baptized in his faith. She decides to not ask so nicely, and she pulls her greasy matted hair into a dangerous, sticky whip and knocks Ben off the priest and into a tree. The priest busts a move, and Ben gets mad. They fighty fight fight until Max breaks Ben's leg. Which was actually pretty gross. As Ben collapses on the ground, they hear Lydecker's helicopter escort approaching. Ben starts to cry, asking Max not to leave him. He can't go back to Manticore. They'll stick him with the nomalies. He can't go. Max, however, can't carry him, because she won't be able to run quickly enough to escape Lydecker. Ben cries some more, and then Max asks him to tell her about the place where good soldiers go. He starts to tell her, but is interrupted mid-sentence when Max breaks his neck. She sits for a minute after this and cries some glycerin drops and generally shows all the emotion of a bludgeoned trout.
Back at the Halls of Justice, Max has obviously decided to take my advice about bathing occasionally, since she is in a bathrobe and has wet hair. Good girl; the world applauds your decision. As she stares moodily out the window, Bling brings the Captain a package that was left for him in the Eyes Only Official Contact Room. The Captain opens the envelope to find a series of photos of the prisoner that Max and her camp friends tracked down and killed. Yes, killed. There are also pictures of Max as a kid covered in blood. And we get a nice repeat voice-over of Lydecker's warning about the not-so-cute-and-cuddly X5s. The Captain looks taken aback, and then, as Max comes up to him, quickly shoves the pictures back into the envelope. Max apologizes for being so introverted and shut off lately. The Captain accepts her apology and then sits -- er, I guess he's always sitting. Anyway, he stares at her with a blank look on his face. Guess it's kind of rough finding out your girlfriend's an attack dog. Don't worry, Logan, I'm sure there's a support group.
Max is back at the church. She heads for the confessional and announces herself to the priest. He points out that confession is supposed to be anonymous. She apologizes and asks the priest "how this bitch works." She knows enough to call him "Father," but not enough to not swear at him? Whatever.