Crash, the gangs all there and Logan manages to beat Alec
at pool (trick shots vs Manticore genes) – everyone’s having fun, until Max and
Logan get a little too close when they celebrate his victory. Time for angst
about the lethal
Manticore virus of Nohumpitis. Logan runs to wash his hands quickly and Max
falls into another funk.
Elsewhere, in a junk yard, a man who makes his living
running the place and trying to scrounge off the junk is disturbed by a loud
noise – and something vaguely reptilian and very large moving round – which spits
some kind of sticky gunk into his face.
At Joshua’s, Max has another round of studying the
painting and the notes to cure the virus and, thanks to some painted squiggles,
has a eureka moment. Taking it to her expert he says she’s wrong – but not far
of and it could work. All he needs is a blood and $20,000. And, of course, Max
can never haggle
Instead she decides to “make a deal with the devil” and
invite Alec on a little stealing venture to life the last footage of Star Trek
Episode 7. Alec loves to poke her about it and the times she lectures him about
being a thief and wants to know what her convenient excuse for why this is ok
is (artistic expression! Which is a good one).
Of course the plan doesn’t quite work out and they end up
being stuck for an hour waiting for a guard’s shift change with Alec’s constant
banter (“I’ve been stuck in here for an hour to facilitate you having sex”) and
his shock and horror that they’re going through all this and Max and Logan
haven’t even had sex before despite knowing each other for a year.
It works and they get the money and Max gets the cure… except it’s not perfect. Manticore viruses aren’t so easily destroyed – it mutates and begins eating through the neutralising coating. She’s virus free, but only for 12 hours.
She hurries to Logan to tell him the good news. After a brief period of considering the ramifications they decide to make the most of it. But Max doesn’t just want some quickie and they open a bottle of wine and get steadily more nervous. Guys, 2 seasons of sexual tension. Two seasons we’ve had to watch this unrequited love and they’re not getting it on.
Cut to the bar where Alec and Asha are doing shots in Max
and Logan’s honour. She is considering all the wonderful romance Logan will do –
food, candles, wine; while Alec is pointing out that 2 years of unrequited
unbridled passion and you spend your time eating pasta? For once, I’m actually
team Alec. They continue to analyse Max and Logan’s relationship she on the
romance and he mocking both of them for not making any real moves to get what
they want when they had the chance. When he wants someone he lets them know –
followed by “Asha, I want you. Come home with me.” Sounds like a corny pick up
line – but when you look like Jensen Ackles you probably don’t need better.
Meanwhile Joshua smells something and goes and tracks
down the reptilian slim beast that’s been taking people. He manages to get into
a tussel with the beast an innocent bystander and the cameraman (who may also
have been drunk.) This ends with the bystander being taken and Joshua being a
little slimed.
Joshua runs to Max and Logan, interrupting their perfect
day, to tell her that the Gossamer (monster has a name) is out and it needs to
be stopped. Now. Because it’s hurting people. Max is not amused.
At least Alec isn’t having a better time, he gets home and Asha promptly falls asleep on his sofa. He helps her out of his shoes and puts a blanket over her with gentle she-wss-going-to-be-his-love-interest-if-it-managed-a-third-season eyes. Max arrives to recruit him to help track down the gossamer. Alec knows about the gossamers. There was a whole bunch of them used by Manticore to track things by scent (like rogue X4s) and often retrieval. They produce goo that stuns the victim.
They go tracking, Alec immensely amused that Logan and
Max still haven’t had sex, and Logan informs them that all of the victims of
the gossamer have recently had their teeth filled. Logan goes to check the
dentist and calls Alec to pass on the information – just as the gossamer
attacks.
Max and Alec follow the trail to the junk yard and split
up- Alec getting slimed and Max calls
Logan’s phone, only to hear it ring nearby. She finds him in one of the junked
cars, cocooned and unconscious. Just as the gossamer – a weird weird thing that
looks really badly made (that’s a dig at the special effects crew not
Manticore) – slimes her.
Logan reveals that the gossamer tracks kevrol, used by
the dentist in fillings but also used in soldier body armour – which Manticore
trained it to hunt and all of its victims are cocooned at various points in the
junk yard. Max starts to whine about the awfulness that is her life. And Alec
has to witness her and Max love angst together.
Thankfully Joshua misses them and ignored their
instructions not to leave Logan’s apartment. He tracks them by smell. He frees
max and she gets to beat the gossamer before luring it into a car and shutting he
doors. She uses a giant magnet crane to life the car into the air so it can’t
just jump from the car.
Everyone is freed from the sticky gunk. Max and Logan
begin angsting and the junkyard owner adopts the gossamer as a pet. There’s
loads of kevrol in all the junked cars and the monster will play fetch with car
parts. He’s going to keep him and he’s sure he can sell the super-sticky spit
and his taxidermy dog agrees so Alec stops worrying about it.
More Max and Logan angst about how hard everything is and
the pain he felt when she disappeared and how they can’t keep doing this. And
Logan finally says “I love you.”
Ok, this goes out to Dark Angel. Ultraviolet and every
other low budget show out there – if you are going to have fight scenes,
gribbly monsters or something else that requires special effects or decent
choreography then you have to invest in it – shaking the camera around like the
cameraman is having a seizure is not an adequate substitute.
Angst angst angst random Manticore monster, angst angst
angst, fight scene, angst angst, Alec quips, angst angst angst, Joshua does
something doggy, angst. Behold you now have a synopsis of at least half the
episodes of season 2 of Dark Angel.
