Max is enjoying a wonderful ride through the night
streets of Seattle, reminding us that she doesn’t have to sleep – and she’s
pulled over by corrupt cops who break her lights in order to impound her bike.
A great little reminder of both Max’s super powers, what she does for fun – and
the corruption of the dystopian world.
And it’s going to cost her $3,000 to get her bike back
from the impound yard. Poor Max – and Cindy and Herbal can’t cheer her up about
the loss (and Herbal discusses his own relationship tension). There’s also a
new worker at Jam Pony, Sam, hired because he’s willing to creep to Normal and
call him “sir”. Which is good timing because he fires Herbal for smoking
cannabis – much to the fury of the rest of the workplace, since Herbal is
both a friend and a Rastafarian and,
they point out, cannabis is a sacrament to him. Between his partner’s old lover
staying with him and losing his job, Herbal is not having an easy time. Of
course, Sam’s first day on the job with the collected hostility of the staff
isn’t fun either
Logan also has a visitor – Val, his ex-wife, an alcoholic
who is now sober and is on her apology tour for all the people she hurt. She
begins to become part of Logan’s life again, and Max shows both curiosity –
and, yes, the inevitable jealousy.
Max’s mind is taken off the drama of her bike by looking
through the classifieds – and seeing her barcode in print with a time and a
place to meet. It could be Lydecker – or it could be one of the other Mantecore
kids.
Of course, it turns out to be neither, it’s Vogelsang,
the private detective she once hired who was compromised by Lydecker. He wants
$15,000 to give her information about Project Mantecore – something he’s not
supposed to know. And that he knows there’s another X5 in Seattle. On a
deadline, Max goes to Logan for the money (while he is continuing to spend time
with his ex-wife) and he refuses – he’s convinced it’s a trap and he won’t help
her walking into it.
Time to pay a visit to the place where her bike has been
kept. Being an X5 makes for easy stealing and safe cracking. In one easy visit
she has the money she needs and her bike back.
Work continues at a slow pace much to Normal’s annoyance,
with his workers moving as slowly as possible in protest of him firing Herbal,
and Sam not actually knowing his way around the city. And poor Sam is not
finding it easy to make friends with Max and her hostile co-workers.
Vogelsang arranges to meet Max by phone – and to convince
her he has information she wants, he tells her about a man having a barcode tattoo
removed from the back of his neck – and the number is Zack’s, one of the X5s
who escaped with her from Mantecore, the leader. Lydecker is also onto him,
though, having an implant placed in Vogelsang’s ear so even though he took
precautions they could hear what he said (albeit very muffled). When Max
arrives at the meeting with Vogelsang, there’s already a crowd, he has been
shot and killed. And, as Max watches, Lydecker arrives.
Logan is more doubtful – if Lydecker found Vogelsang he
would have tortured information out of him, not killed him. And if he had
tortured Vogelsang, he would know Max was on her way and would be lying in
wait. Either way, Max is worried about Zack and demands Logan help her track
him through the tattoo parlour.
At his home she finds the classified with her number
ringed, a flier for Jam Pony, a bottle of tryptophan (which X5s use to keep
their seizures at bay) and… Sam, the new guy at Jam Pony who is, of course,
Zack. Then Mantecore arrives in force – to face 2 X5s who easily escape working
together.
But their touching reunion is spoiled by Zack. He plans
for them to leave the city – and split up. He’s still in the mentality of
running from Mantecore, still following his training as a soldier, still working
to keep everyone safe, but not having any kind of life. Max refuses to leave
with him because, in his head, Zack is still in Mantecore, still stuck in his
training, still trapped by the rules and conditioning they set out.
At work it seems that Sam/Zack didn’t deliver any
packages and, of course, has disappeared so Logan was forced to give Herbal his
job back. Herbal has also gone on to push out his girlfriend’s ex, because
there’s a limit to even his tolerance.
In Logan drama, when asking for money from Logan, Max
noticed Val had a tan line around her ring finger, follows her and finds a
husband. A husband who needs money and is urging her to get it from Logan. The
reconciliation is a sham for her to get more money out of Logan. Upset and hurt
– Logan gives her money and asks her to leave. Blain convinces Max to go
comfort him, since Logan will be feeling very alone.
She and Logan close with mutual discussion of their
disappointing relationships.
One thing I love about Dark Angel is that it never loses
sight of the severity of its dystopia and the class issues that are magnified
by it. We never forget the corruption, the check points, the severe security. And
even when looking at Val as someone manipulating Logan, we’re still reminded
that times are hard and there isn’t a lot of money out there.
I’m glad this episode also spent some time building up
some of the back characters and Jam Pony, since they’ve been around for a while
and need their personalities adding to beyond “what trouble has Sketch got into
this week”.
I think there’s also a lot of depth in the Zack
storyline. It’s interesting to think that Max hasn’t met her fellow X5s since
she was a child and has no idea the kind of people they have grown into. It’s
also important to see what the lasting effects of Mantecore can be – in Max she
has the physical along with her paranoia and fear and desperate urge to
connect. But max found a life, a support net, good friends to help. Zack is
showing a different level of consequences from the long term conditioning that
was forced on them, conditioning he had never escaped.
Another much smaller point but it’s still there is seeing
Logan adapt to the wheelchair. Every now and then they will just show us
something Logan tries to do and finds he can’t, finds he needs help or needs
more accommodation – like this episode when he needs to use a French stick to
push the lift buttons – because the button for his penthouse apartment is too
high for him to reach.
