Shorties In Love (Original Cindy's old girlfriend may be more than she seems to be)
Nitcentral's Bulletin Brash Reflections:
Dark Angel:
Season 1:
Shorties In Love (Original Cindy's old girlfriend may be more than she seems to be)
She was designed to be the perfect soldier. She was trained to be a human weapon. But then she escaped. They came after her, and she knew they would never stop looking. She was lucky. A few months later, terrorists triggered an electro-magnetic pulse that wiped out America's cyber infra-structure. The U.S. became a third world country overnight. It was easy for a girl to disappear. Ten years later she's still looking over he shoulder. She's found an unlikely ally in Logan Cale. Born to a life of privledge, he's now an underground cyber-journalist crusading against a corrupt government. He wants to save the world, or what's left of it. She just wants to find the others like her. Together...who knows.
Original Cindy's old girlfriend, "Diamond" Tanya, returns to try and make amends for her past wrongs. Although she has been in trouble with the law many times before, Diamond genuinely seems to want to reform herself and form a permanent relationship with Cindy. Cindy eventually invites Diamond to stay at Cindy and Max's apartment.
At the same time, Max gets a job from Logan. Purepont Limpkin has been paying cops to look the other way while he runs arms across the west coast, and Logan wants Max to steal a disk from his house to prove this fact. Max also plans to steal some money from Limpkin, since her recently-installed water heater has been damaged due to the rats in her building. Later on, Max finds a rat in her apartment and drops it in Limpkin's house while faking a package delivery. She is escorted out, but she is able to scout out a lazer detection grid where the safe to the disk is hidden. That night, Max walks with Cindy and Diamond and runs into trouble. Diamond is amazed at Max's fighting abilities. She later snoops around Max's things and finds the plans for the disk-stealing. Diamond is convinced that MAx has been robbing the wealthy to pay for things like her motorcycle and apartment.
Once Max breaks into Limpkin's house, everything goes smoothly until Diamond, unseen by Max, steals Max's stolen money and trips the detection grid alarms. Max is interrogated in a room, where she finds out what Diamond has done. She is then tranquilized and moved to what looks like a medical facility. She escapes. With Logan and Sebastian's help, Max finds out the truth. Her interrogators work for a company called Synthadine, which recently got hold of Diamond and told her she had cancer (she didn't). The "vaccine" used to "treat" Diamond was actually a virus called AM918. Although the virus is not initially contagious, Diamond is now beginning to become contagious due to the fact that she has not had a shot of the real vaccine (for AM918).
Meanwhile, Diamond tells Cindy she has cancer. Cindy agrees to go to Mexico with Diamond. Max finds this all out, but she's too late. The bus carrying Cindy and Diamond is intercepted by Synthadine. Max infiltrates the compound and finds Cindy. Cindy painfully says goodbye to Diamond, but before Max and Cindy escape, they help Diamond escape her cell. Diamond finds the head of Synthadine and kills him due to her contamination. Later, Cindy reflects on the timid, shy girl she used to be, and is thankful for the emotional strength that Diamond gave her.
THOUGHTS
-Really nice episode. I'm glad the creators weren't afraid to explore Cindy and Diamond's lesbian relationship. I also really liked the whole deal between Max and Logan concerning Logan's poems. And all this time, I thought he was just being a jerk!
-After Cindy and Diamond's kiss, who is that white bald guy in-between Max and Herbal?
-Max mentions that "Vikki's cracked-out cousin" has been staying in her apartment. We've never heard of any of this.
-Did Max's flips through the lazer detection grid remind anyone else of Catherine Zeta-Jones' performance in the movie "Entrapment"?
-We finally find out Original Cindy's real name!
FAVORITE QUOTE
"So whoever's out there looking to put me in a cage or straight kill me, even if they succeed, they've already failed...because of this."
-Max, talking about Logan's poem.
NITS
-Look at the balls on the pool table before Diamond's line, "I didn't work hard enough to keep you." Then look at them when she takes her shot. They change positions! (FI, keep your eye on the blue ball on the upper left, before she says the line. It disappears in the next shot.)
-Original Cindy uses a metal bar to pry open a window in her apartment. It belongs to Max. So...why does Max need the bar?
-Also, Diamond finds Max's "infiltration bag," which has a flashlight and swiss-army knife in it. I can understand the knife, but why would Max need the flashlight if she can see in the dark?
-And later, we see Max getting ready to sneak into Limpkin's house. She takes the bag with her. So she didn't notice that Diamond had been messing with it's contents?
By Luigi Novi on Sunday, April 22, 2001 - 12:44 am: When Cindy offers to give Max a manicure in the teaser, Max declines because it’s too "girly," and because she doesn’t believe in "pampering" herself. I guess Max considered that red dress she wore to Logan’s cousin’s engagement party a "manly" dress? Perhaps a legtimate substiute for combat fatigues?
As for the way Cindy's girlfriend looked at the end of the episode when the disease took over..................Damm.
Luigi Novi
By Brian Fitzgerald on Sunday, April 22, 2001 - 10:36 pm:-Original Cindy uses a metal bar to pry open a window in her apartment. It belongs to Max. So...why does Max need the bar?
It is a "slim jim", which is used to slide the latches on car doors among other things. She has it because she was/is a theif.
-Also, Diamond finds Max's "infiltration bag," which has a flashlight and swiss-army knife in it. I can understand the knife, but why would Max need the flashlight?
Max has feline DNA in her so she can amplify existing light to see better in the dark. But is she is in total darkness their is no light to amplify she would need a flash light for a light sourse.
By Brian Lombard on Monday, April 23, 2001 - 8:46 am: The closing shot of Max on the space needle with the poem is re-used from "Blah Blah, Woof Woof."
They just digitally inserted the piece of paper in her hand.
By LUIGI NOVI on Monday, April 23, 2001 - 12:45 pm: Brian Fitzgerald:
Why would Max need the flashlight?
Max has feline DNA in her so she can amplify existing light to see better in the dark. But if she is in total darkness there is no light to amplify she would need a flash light for a light sourse.
LUIGI NOVI: Wrong. The definition of "total darkness" is subjective. What's "total darkness" for us is not "total" for cats. Cats can see in "total darkness" in the same way that night vision goggles can. They amplify AMBIENT light; that is, light consisting of so few photons that normal humans can't see by it, but which image intensification goggles (the technical term for night vision) can magnify many times so that what appears to be absolute darkness becomes well defined, albeit with that green color. If you've seen that "Faces of Fear" show on MTV, you can see that the corridors those contestants walk through are, indeed "totally dark" to us, but have more than enough ambient photons for night vision apparatus or a cat's eyes, to amplify.
And add this to the list of things that don't jibe with Max's "too girly" or "pampering" comment: She regularly wears black eyeliner and lipstick, and I doubt those curls in her hair ore naturally occurring.
LUIGI NOVI
By Brian Fitzgerald on Monday, April 23, 2001 - 9:35 pm:Luigi, the ambiant light still must come from a light source no matter how faint. Check out this link. It's a companey that makes night vision goggles.
http://www.anything3d.com/atncorp/whatis.php3
On their page they say that their products amplify ambiant light from what ever source is avalable (i.e. the moon and stars). It also lists places where the goggles will not work because of a lack of ambiuant light (in shadow, underneath leaf covered trees, in barns and out buildings, between piles of materials in a yard, inside cars and lorries, underground car parks) Basicaly if their is no light source at all it doesn't matter how much you can amplify something if their is nothing to amplify. They liken it to trying to play a blank CD, no matter how high you crank the volume their is nothing to amplify. I do believe that on that faces of fear show they use infered light which can not be seen by the human eye (meaning to the people inside it looks compleatly dark) but the night scopes on the cameras can see by the IR light. In fact the Night vision manufacturers recomend carrying around an IR light source for areas that are too dark for the goggles to work off of the ambiant light. As I understand it even cats can't see IR light so Max would need a regular flash light, not an IR one. Check out this link on nocternal animal's eyes
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/kalahari/nocturnaleye.html
Bringing it back to Dark Angel places like an airtight bank vault, underground military instelation, may not have any star/moon/crack-under-the-door light to see by, so Max would need a flash light. Also note that a side effect of a cat's ability to see in almost total darkness is that their eyes glow at night if you shine a light on it; I think that DA's producers should have a scene where Max's eyes glow like that
By LUIGI NOVI on Monday, April 23, 2001 - 11:38 pm: LUIGI NOVI: Man, how could you improve on those eyes of hers? (Hubba, hubba!)
As to the nit, I stand corrected. Thanks for setting me straight.