With the Autumn
schedule finally planned, we’ve found that we’re going to be posting up several
reviews of current shows on Sunday, while Thursday is kind of sad and empty –
so we’re moving the Dark Angel reviews from Sunday to Thursday.
Logan’s legs continue to deteriorate, leading him to
consult a back alley doctor – Dr. Vertes secretly. Dr. Vertes explains that
while the stem cells he got from Max have regenerated his nerves, his own
immune system is attacking the new tissue, causing pain and deterioration. But
she has an experimental, cutting edge procedure that may reverse the process –
in exchange for a lot of money.
Max, naturally, notices a change in Logan and since their
relationship is characterised by lots of not talking to each other then both
stewing over it, she begins to stress and worry over his secrecy, his missing
their dates, him not wanting to meet with her and him selling his art. Driven
by curiosity, she follows Logan and checks out the doctor. The medical setting
causes flashbacks of Mantecore where their transgenic bodies were often
experimented on for new treatments and medical advances, adding more to the
horror we know the place.
Dr. Vertes catches Max rooting around in her office and
pulls a gun – which Max takes off her of course. But Dr. Vertes won’t give up
info on her patients and before Max can ask more questions she has to save the
doctor from being shot. A fight follows Max against – Jace, another X5 from
Mantecore, one who didn’t leave during the escape. When Jace recognises Max,
she becomes even more determined to attack. Max jumps into Dr. Vertes car as
the doctor escapes – and recognises her as someone who worked for Mantecore –
one of the doctors who experimented on her and the other X5s.
Max takes Dr. Vertes to the safe house then goes to Logan
to warn him about the doctor. Logan already knew and tells Max that not
everything he does it about her – while he has a point about her invading his
privacy, she equally points out that if she is working with a Mantecore doctor,
a doctor who used to experiment on Max, then that is certainly Max’s business.
Logan tells Max about his legs failing – and his suicidal feelings about being
in a wheel chair which convinces Max to go along with matters (though she does
let Logan off awfully easy).
Interviewing Dr. Vertes they learn she worked with
Mantecore from X3 to the early X7 series and that, after the Pulse, Mantecore
is working to kill off the brain trust it no longer controls for fear they will
take they cutting edge Mantecore technology they know and sell it abroad. She
plans to refund Logan’s money and run – but the only other person on par with
her research is in Japan. Max asks her to stay for Logan’s sake – and promises
to protect her from Jace.
Which leads to Max pretending to be Dr. Vertes on her clinic until Jace appears – they briefly fight until Jace suddenly collapses. They quickly restrain her on a hospital bed and check why she passed out – not common for X5s. Jace is pregnant. Dr. Vertes tells them that it’s unlikely that the father is a transgenic because they’re routinely dosed with birth control medicine – as are most of the female transgenics. Only a few are allowed to maintain monthly cycles for research purposes. The “research purposes” makes Max snap and she accuses the doctor of treating transgenics as lab rates (not inaccurate). Dr. Vertes leaves in a huff. Logan tries to convince Max to be nicer to the doctor and “not everyone in Mantecore was evil incarnate” something max denies. And even if it were true – Max and Dr. Vertes have both confirmed that the doctor experimented on children, so I’ll join Max in side-eyeing the doctor on this one. Logan isn’t happy about having Jace around either, but there’s no way Max is going to give up on her sister.
Since Max escaped Mantecore, Jace has been indoctrinated
to see her as a traitor. But, after talking about freedom, the outside world
and Jace’s pregnancy – especially since Mantecore will take it off her. She
comes to trust Max after a couple, well, after one conversation and she wants
to be free and to keep the baby.
Dr. Vertes, meanwhile, wants to be free from the
Mantecore death threat and calls Lydecker with a deal. She gets to live and she
informs Lydecker about Jace’s pregnancy and promises to hand over Max. Lydecker
swoops in – kills the doctor anyway (trusting Lydecker never works) – and orders
Jace to lure Max in. He refers to her pregnancy as a “useful research
opportunity.”
An ambush is prepared, but before Max can arrive Jace
signals to her to escape and evade – and both of them carve a path through
Lydecker’s soldiers. Despite being told that lethal force is authorised,
Lydecker is determined to take them alive. But using tasers isn’t enough to
bring them down and they both escape. Jace on the Logan train to a new identity
and a new life.
Unfortunately, Dr. Vertes is now gone and Logan has no
more access to treatment. Max goes to grab Dr. Vertes’s files on Logan in case
they fall into Mantecore hands – and sees that Dr. Vertes considered Logan to
be depressed and suicidal. She hurries back to Logan as fast as she can
Logan, meanwhile, takes out and loads a gun in clear preparation to kill himself – until he sees water dripping through the ceiling. Going to the flat upstairs to check he finds his elderly neighbour, Mrs. Moreno, has fallen and hit her head in the bathroom and calls for help. She tells him not to – she’s old and doesn’t believe she has anything to live for, unlike Logan who is young and has his whole life ahead of him. He calms her down and gets her medical help.
When Max arrives to find an ambulance she panics – but Logan is upstairs, safe – and puts his gun away.
While I have no problems with Original Cindy expressing
her cynical opinion that men cheat for itself, I am not comfortable with the
source. Original Cindy is a lesbian and it isn’t the first time she’s
referenced what unfaithful lovers men make, how men will hurt women etc etc; for
example she spoke about Sketchy cheating on his girlfriend and hoping she would
“come to the all girl team.” This feeds into the idea that a lesbian is a
lesbian (or a gay man is a gay man) not because they are only attracted to the
same sex, but because they dislike the opposite sex. It makes being gay not
about love or attraction, but about disdain, contempt or hatred of the opposite
sex. And it feeds into the idea that lesbians are only lesbians because of a “bad
experience.”
Again with the dystopia and world building – it’s
particularly interesting to look at things like the Mantecore brain trust. Before
the Pulse they were doing cutting edge research with unlimited funds – after the
Pulse, in heavy depression, they can’t afford unlimited funds or these
scientists which now have top secret information and every motive to go abroad.
It’s another interesting twist of all the problems the Pulse causes. Even
mention of the invasion of “what was El Salvador before the invasion” tells us
about wide scale consequences of the Pulse.
I’m not entirely comfortable with the whole idea that
being pregnant radically de-programmed Jace. She has spent her entire life
being conditioned by Mantecore – she didn’t leaves as a child like Max did. Her
entire life at Mantecore programmed to obey, programmed to hate Max after the
escape but the fact she’s pregnant has the power to unravel all of it in, what a
day? Maybe a few if we assume they spent some time together which wasn’t shown.
Hmm, I think there’s a bit of twee “magical motherhood” going on there. Behold
the power of the foetus! What could have been an interesting analysis of
indoctrination became: “Oh my indoctrinated sister! Be free!” “grr no, I am
loyal!” “No, be free, think of the baby!” “Ok, sounds cool, do I get a badge?”
There is an interesting and complicated dynamic between
Max and Logan here. On the one hand, you can see Logan’s point, Dr. Vertes is
the only woman who can help him, no matter what she’s done, it’s fairly
unreasonable to expect Logan to shun her. On the flip side, she experimented on
Max and her siblings when they were children and it’s grossly insensitive and
selfish to say the least for Logan to have ignored that – let alone to expect
Max to play nice with Dr. Vertes.
Logan’s depression is another delicate treatment of a
sensitive area. Obviously it’s wrong to think of Logan as less of a person for
being in a wheelchair and every time he speaks from depression in such terms
people are quick to challenge him. He is still a full person, still valuable
and still just as good in the chair as out of it. But, at the same time, going
from being able bodied to disabled can be shocking, can take some adaptation
and cause depression, it’s not always a simple transition and it can be rocky.
I think it hit some rocky points through this story, but there is still a
strong sense of affirmation of Logan as valuable while being disabled while
still addressing his own depression and difficulty in adjusting to being disabled.
