The second season of Dark Angel opens with everyone sad
about Max’s absence – and presumed death. Cindy is keeping Max’s locker free at
Jam Pony and Logan, looking much scruffier with a whole new unshaven look, is
denouncing Manticore on Eyes Only.
In Manticore, Max is being bludgeoned back into shape by
Renfro and co, training with a sudden herd of X5s and having her individuality
broken down in unpleasant and creative ways. Including showing her the still
alive body of Zack, being slowly cut up and his organs harvested for donation
to other, injured X5s, something Renfro says is Max’s fault. Renfro’s next target is Eyes Only to leave her
with no life-lines even as Max fights to retain her identity.
Aw damn, they added a cheesy voice over to the opening
credits. Booo. Maybe it’ll save them having to recap everything.
Hah, no. Commence recapping of the pulse while Logan is
on an Eyes Only mission posing as a veteran for VA ration cards – which apparently
the VA has been withholding. While he does this, a woman shoots a gun into the
air and says she’s from the S1W and is there to make sure everyone gets the
ration cards they’re owed. She’s working with Logan (who is still able to walk
with his exoskeleton from last season). This also gets him a link into Manticore
since part of their funding was routed with the VA accounts. He and Asha, the
S1W woman, delve into why Manticore is a thing for Logan.
And in Manticore, Max gets a new cell mate – X5494,
identical twin to Ben – who was 493 (all the X5s now have identical twins
made from the same DNA). Who isn’t best pleased with ben since he had to spend
6 months in psy-opps testing to make sure he wasn’t an unstable serial killer
like his twin. Seems he’s been sent to Max’s cell because they’ve been ordered
to breed. Since
Max & co blew up the DNA databank, Manticore’s solution is to make the
X5s breed. We get a nice insight into what the X5s are told about the outside
world (filth and degradation) and Max kicks him and makes it clear sex is not
going to happen. 494 has also taken a course in slang so he can be a good
assassin and is even running a black market in Manticore.
The next day 494 covers for her and claims they had sex
when Renfro asks. Which Renfro takes as a sign of victory, but she’s also
curious as to why max is healthy – since
her X7 clones with almost identical DNA is suffering from late stage progeria.
Max finally cuts her way through a cell wall and escapes into Manticore’s basement – where she meets Joshua – a man with dog DNA. Yes, half man, half dog (don’t ask, just try to run with it). He has a name not a number because he was named by “Father” – called Sandman who left him a long time ago after he made them – and Joshua was the first thing he made. Joshua leads Max to an exit – through a corridor lined with cells in which there were monkey-men, cat-men, snake-men (and probably a damn Wendigo or two, since they’re compulsory these days). He leads her to a barred window – and warns her there’s a pack of X7s in the forest, with their hive-mind (“lots of one”). She plans to return the next night.
Elsewhere in Manticore, the one-eyed McGuinnis is
offering the very-on-the-run Lydecker a deal, he can rejoin Manticore if he
hands over Eyes-Only. Lydecker arranges to meet Logan and appears to lead him
into a trap. Except not, because Lydecker isn’t a big enough fool to trust
Renfro – he kills the Manticore guards and takes poor McGuinnis captive. Lydecker
is upset by Tinga’s
murder and wants to know what she’s doing to the rest of the X5s. All
McGuinnis knows is that Renfro was looking for something special in Tinga’s DNA,
needing deep extraction – which wasn’t there (guess whose DNA has it?).
Lydecker kills McGuinnis and goes off with Logan to share all the info about Manticore
he has
Max continues to make her visits to cut through the bars
on the cell – but Joshua wants to escape with her. Max is concerned because of
how different he looks – and how people would react. But when she returns to
her cell, 494 is there. But he covers for her and wonders why she wants to
escape – she has enough to eat and a roof over her head, in post-pulse America
that’s more than most. Max doesn’t want to be used and says Manticore are the
bad guys. She also decides to call 494 Alec (as in Smart Alec).
Renfro’s Manticore team finds that Lydecker double
crossed them and she fears what Lydecker could tell Eyes Only, especially since
he knows their location which would cause the often mentioned Committee to bury
them. They do find a blood sample from Logan’s wound.
Renfro desperately tries to get Max to spill on
Eyes-Only, telling her that Manticore appears as a VA hospital on the paperwork
and if news vans arrive it will be burned down with everyone stuck in the
cells, including Max, for the sake of plausible deniability. Max isn’t
impressed. So
time for Plan B – using the same technique on her as they used on Zack. She
wakes in her cell with Alec telling her they’ve dispatched an X5 to take out a
reporter friend of hers. Realising Logan’s in trouble, she decides she has to
go help Logan – and recruits Alec to help down in the basement at the window
with Joshua. Alec finally asks Joshua to help them with the bars Max has been
trying to cut through for days and Joshua easily rips them out of the wall,
with a little glare and growl at the stunned Alec who quits his smart-arse
comments. Joshua and Alec provide the distraction while Max runs for – and leaps
over –the fence around Manticore.
Max arrives at Logan’s for a reunion kiss and her insistence
that she leave, someone’s coming to get him – but before they can leave he
collapses. Alec appears in the doorway and tells her she killed him – mission accomplished.
Just like with Zack, the escape et al was a fake so they could achieve the
mission. In this case with a disease in Max that is set to target Logan’s DNA
(which they got from the blood sample), spread by touch. And she can have the
cure if they both return to Manticore.
Meanwhile in Mentacore, a scientist reports to Renfro
with the DNA work up they did on Max to find out why she isn’t suffering from
progeria. Max is the chosen one with the super special DNA (are we shocked?).
Naturally, receiving super special information, she keeps it secret by shooting
the scientist (who apparently did all the work on it entirely alone and no-one
else has seen his remarkable discovery). She then makes a sinister call in
French saying that she’s found what they’re looking for.
At Logan’s, Max and Alec fight until Max can kick Alec’s
gun to Logan to keep to trained on Alec who puts his hands up (really? Logan is
sweating and barely conscious and Alec can move so fast all you see is a blur!)
Alec doesn’t really care and asks if he can go home when the disease kills
Logan – but Max says it won’t be there and transmit’s Logan’s Eyes-Only
bulletin with the report on Manticore’s location.
At Manticore, Renfro gives the order to lock down the
barracks and “cauterise” the site. Logan finally gets weak enough to drop the
gun. Alec picks it up and points it at him – and Asha appears behind him,
holding Alec at gunpoint. This time Alec decides he’s not putting up with that
and takes it off her.
While this is happening Max returns to Menticore in time to see the fires and explosions. She breaks in and opens turns off the lock down, opening all the cell doors, including the hyrbids in the basement, everyone runs and flees for the fence. Renfro sends two people – normal humans – to go take in Max alive (presumably with the power of wishful thinking and asking nicely) and Max turns the tables and kidnaps her to find the antigen to cure Logan. Renfro tries to insist on leaving, but Max slams her against a wall (her refusing to use Max’s name may have something to do with that). She hands over the cure – and a guard arrives and points a gun at them. Renfro screams “no” and puts herself between the guard and Max, getting shot protecting her. Renfro gasps that they can’t get rid of the virus in Max and tells Max she’s the one they’ve been looking for – and gasps for her to find Sandman, then dies. Yeah, try to imagine how high up the priority ladder Renfro’s dying wish is?
Asha injects Logan with the cure which insta-cures him – but if Max touches him he’ll be reinfected. They both plan to “beat this” but also consider what it will be like with not just a dozen escaped transgenics – but hundreds and how it’s important to keep them hidden since people fear what they don’t understand.
The sound you just heard? That was the canon breaking and
crying in a corner. See, Manticore has gone from creating the perfect soldier
to creating Man-dogs for shits and giggles! Yes, the people who can’t manage to
put together an enhanced human without seizures, going into heat and dying from
progeria has managed to pull off a human/canine hybrid. And a whole menagerie of
animal people? What did they put on the funding applications for Noah’s
Transgenic Arc?
Also, this organisation that spent oodles of resources
tracking down 10 escaped X5s? Has whole stables of them! X5s, X6s, X7s, twins
and dog-faced men in the basement. Which begs the question why, if Renfro is
curious whether Max has taken medication outside of Manticore, she didn’t just
check Max’s twin?
And Tinga had to die so they could “extract” something
from her DNA. Putting aside the fact Renfro had Tinga’s DNA on file AND HER
TWIN (this twin thing just break so much of the first season) it still doesn’t
take a tank, tubes and murder to examine someone’s DNA no matter how “deep” you
have to extract it (what does that even MEAN?) Skin scrapes, blood samples, a
cheek swab?
Then we have, of course, to dump a special “chosen one”
storyline on Max. Did it really need this?
And the virus? Yay another season of unresolved sexual
tension? Whoopee.
