We open where we left off – with Max cradling Tinga’s
body, surrounded by Lydecker and Mantecore soldiers. When Lydecker steps forward – disturbed and
upset by Tinga’s death, Max launches herself at him in a rage and is shot by
multiple tasers.
At Renfro’s orders, her Mantecore goons approach Lydecker
and his Mantecore goons and try to get him out of the facility and arrest him
for murdering Sandoval (which, technically, he did –but then Sandoval was
trying to murder him at the time). Lydecker clears out most his goons except
for a loyal few – then shoots Renfro’s goons. He tells his loyal followers that
he’s going to find out what’s going on and gives them an option to leave if
they want – they don’t take it and they all leave with Max under sedation.
Renfro lies to Brin about what caused Tinga’s death,
orders the Red
equipment to be commandeered and gives Brin orders to bring in Max alive
and Lydecker dead. Lydecker checks into a motel and calls Renfro – and she
mocks him and makes it clear everything she’s done will be blamed on him. He
sits down in the motel room and, the former-alcoholic Lydecker, opens a bottle
of whisky and starts drinking it.
Groggy and hallucinating, he doesn’t realise max is
awake. He talks about how he sat up with her in the infirmary, how he showed
favouritism to her and how very special Max was. He decides the only way out is
to kill her then shoot himself, he reaches for a gun – and Max kicks him. After
much babbling and snarling, Lydecker explains the situation. As Mantecore
approaches, Lydecker succumbs to fatalism and Max asks him to let her go so she
has a chance.
Meanwhile, after angsting with Logan for a little while,
Zack has brought in reinforcements – Krit and Syl, 2 more X5s. Which is when
Max arrives – with Lydecker. Because during his drunken ramblings Lydecker
mentioned he could bring down mantecore on Renfro’s head with just a few
perfect soldiers – how does 4 X5 sound?
Time for an argument with Zack who wants to keep running
and hiding, but even he said that Mantecore is going to just hunt them down one
by one. Lydecker encourages them to remember his teaching “the enemy of my
enemy is my friend” (which is a really shoddy lesson since there’s nothing
stopping them ALSO being an enemy) to urge them to trust him, along with all
the insider knowledge he has about Mantecore. He suggests they take out the DNA
lab, stop them making new soldiers and, from that destroy Mantecore as it was
almost destroyed when they escaped in the first place. Finally they agree but
if Lydecker double crosses them, there are 4 of them to take him out (Logan
says 5 – oh Logan, you tried, bless).
Plans advance, they get the Red’s truck quite easily and then they have to find an old friend of Lydecker’s to get them in. Which is when Max and Lydecker confront his gooey sentiments of how much he cares for her. He isn’t, as Max fears, her father – his genes aren’t good enough. But his wife, who he considered perfect, has part of her in Max. She has her eyes. This freaks Max out more than a little and she chokes him. They’re interrupted by Lydecker’s friend arriving – Lydecker knocks him out then does something involving a spoon and a plastic container.
We have a random Mantecore flashback to bring home the
weight of what they’re facing and max and Logan have a heart to heart on the
space needle. And we’re definitely into relationship mode as is made extra
clear when they move out and Max says she would kiss Logan except she needs to
keep her head in the game.
Lots of dramatic infiltration follows – and they use
Lydecker’s friend’s extracted eye (see, that’s what he was doing with the
spoon. Uckies uckies uckies) to get past the retina scans. Speaking of the poor guy without an eye, he
is being questioned by an angry Renfro who is withholding pain medication when
she realises someone has scanned into the DNA lab using his eye. She announces
an intruder and orders them to deploy the X7s.
Logan protests they’re just kids but Lydecker says the
X7s are stronger and faster – and they’re designed with hive minds – and they
start working together with eerie efficiency. Meanwhile Renfro realises that
max and Zach have left charges in the DNA lab – and sends Brin to stop it in
near panic. When Max hears that Brin has been sent to the bomb she sends Zach
on but insists on going back for her. She ambushes Brin and chains her up – and
makes a desperate plea for Brin to join them. She refuses.
Dramatic escape time! Lydecker hesitates about blowing up
the DNA lab – and Mantecore itself – but Logan points a gun at him and he
pushes the button. The lab explodes. Renfro watches through the CCTV in horror
(what, Mantecore has no backups in another room? In another location? Sloppy
sloppy).
On the run, Max runs into a younger version of herself –
who shoots her. But not really, it’s an annoying camera trip. After what I
assume would be an advert break, Max kicks the gun out of her hand and she has
a dramatic fight with her X7 self (X7452?). When Zack distracts them, Max
manages to break her younger self’s arm. ESCAPE.
And cut to celebrating in Crash with Cindy, Sketchy,
Herbal and the gang. She and Zack discuss not having to run and Zach gives his
OK for Logan. She and Logan go back to his place – and finally, finally have
sex.
Oops, no – flashback. All that was a hallucination –
younger Max DID shoot older Max. She falls and goes silent. Logan hurries to
her severely injured form and she tries to say something to him as she – passes
out. Lydecker arrives and says they have to go – Mantecore can fix her – and
drags Logan away. They have to leave. He tells the others she was killed in
action.
Max is taken into Mantecore to heal and starts crashing.
Zack is brought in behind her. Her pulse stops, she needs a new heart – Zack
gets free and kills one of the guards, taking his gun and holding Renfro
hostage. He demands they transplant her but the doctor protests they have no
donor. Renfro says she needs an X5 heart – and Zack shoots himself in the head.
Max wakes up, tied to a bed with Renfro stood over her.
Renfro taunts her with Zack’s heart in her chest.
We end with Logan giving the voiceover that closes the
episode – and the season.
Ok the season finale! And could it end on a bigger
downer? Writers – stop doing this! What if your show doesn’t get renewed? You
end up with the same situation as Alcatraz where the seasons ends extremely
unsatisfactorily. I know you want to give people a reason to tune in to the
next season – so leave them triumphant – not unhappy and worried, still waiting
for a resolve!
I have to say I’m annoyed by Krit and Syl. All throughout
this season we have wanted to know more about the X5s. It was exciting when we
learned about Tinga and Brin – and then we just have Krit and Syl dropped in,
no background, no nothing? I think this whole episode was almost rushed – it
could have been built up over a couple of episodes better (and removed the damn
Heat episodes)
Still it was dramatic, well choreographed, fun and epic – even if the ending was a major depressor.
As to the season.
Dark Angel aired in 2000 and it got so much right.
Max was a strong female character in so many ways. She had strong female friendships with Cindy and Kendra which didn’t revolve around talking about men. She had good friends in general and frequently challenged sexist and patronising behaviour. It was, conversely, unfortunate that there was a lot of sexualisation of Max – both in her ubiquitous tight black leather and in the ridiculous “Heat” episodes that existed just for gratuitous sexy moments.
In terms of raced the X5s were pretty diverse. Jondy and
Tinga were Black. Brin Asian. Max and Krit were Latina and Latino. Only Zack,
Ben and Syl were White (and while Zack was a leader he was also repeatedly
wrong wrong wrong and corrected by Max and Tinga). Max’s friends and circles
were also diverse – not just with Herbal and Original Cindy – but even Bling,
Theo and Matt Sung. There was also a general background presence of POC as well
and never a sense that the city was anything less than diverse. Nor were POC
largely consigned to villains either – and there was a mix of POC and white
villains.
Original Cindy. I’m always torn on her. On the one side I
love her. She is awesome in so many awesome ways. But she’s also the ULTIMATE
Sassy Black friend. And while I love that Cindy is a lesbian and the closest of
all Max’s friends, the only one who gets in on the big secret, I’m also
frustrated that she is the only one of all of them –Max, Kendra, Herbal,
Sketchy – who ends up single (with her lover killed).
Dark Angel also had several disabled characters – with
Max herself prone to seizures. We had Sebastian, the expert, be quadriplegic
which is very uncommon on TV – and, of course, Logan was in a wheelchair. And
while it handled a lot of that very well, his frustrations, need for
accommodations and dealing with going from able bodied to disabled, there were
also problems. Logan is eternally fixed on finding a cure – and he finds them
too. He is never adapted into the story
as a disabled character because he is constantly in the position of becoming
able bodied and it’s telling that his relationship with Max continually heats
up when he’s on his feet. When he’s back in the chair it cools down again.
Dark Angels covers a lot of issues well – class, the
wealth divide, the nature of an authoritarian state, how people survive in a
dystopian, issues of racism and ableism and all without having to resort to
clumsy storylines or clumsier PSAs. It shows how well all of this can be done
and conveyed. And to add to that it has an excellent, tight storyline, some
awesome characters (though I do think Max’s friends fall more and more by the
wayside as the series progresses) great meta and constant, well maintained
development throughout the season.
