"Who better to hunt transgenics than another transgenic?"

Seattle. At a random location, a cagefight is in process, complete with slathering crowd enthusiastically baying for blood. Normal is among them, howling gleefully as two enormous hunks of flesh pound one another into submission; the guy Normal has bet his hard-earned cash on is the loser, prompting voluble howls of derision. Then a teeny-tiny but clearly formidable old lady clambers into the ring to announce the main event of the evening: the crown prize, $5,000, featuring the reigning champion – 45 wins and no losses, 6'10" and 260 pounds – Sam 'The Mangler' Miller. The Mangler takes his cue to enter the ring, gurning madly with an insane glint in his eye. His challenger is a newcomer, undefeated in his three bouts thus far, hailing from parts unknown, 6 feet tall and weighing in at a lean 178 pounds: Monty Cora…

…and it's Alec. Looking mighty fine in his silk boxers and nowt else. Gotta love the unsubtle pseudonym and wonder how much of the selection of that name was arrogance, believing that he'd never be caught out, could just make his money and then skip town at speed with no one the wiser, and how much was just bravado, clutching defiantly at the remains of his former life, almost daring the world to catch him out.

Normal places his next bet "on the good-looking one." Heh.

Careful camera angles attempt to convince us that the Mangler really is 6'10" tall, and fail, but do mostly succeed in dwarfing Alec, standing alongside the giant.

"I'm gonna tear your head off and stuff it up your ass," growls the Mangler, in a valiant but futile attempt to psych out his opponent.
"Shouldn't we shake hands first?" Alec chirps, unperturbed, laughing to himself and thus successfully enraging his foe, whether he meant to or not. The Mangler smacks him across the back of the head, sending him flying, and the fight is on.

Normal howls outrage that the Mangler jumped the bell, although it is pretty clear that this is not the kind of establishment where that sort of thing really counts for much, and then yells encouragement to Alec. Alec picks himself up, eyes the Mangler speculatively for a moment, and then blurs into action, leaving the giant swiping hopelessly at thin air, unable to get anywhere near his smirking transgenic opponent. Because, of course, he doesn't know that his opponent is transgenic and therefore has an enormous advantage over him, despite being outsized and outweighed so massively. And this is just one of the countless transgenics released by Max's actions, all now having to make their way in the world as best they can.

"What the hell are you?" growls the Mangler.
"Better," says Alec, head-butting and then upper-cutting him out for the count. He's just being a smart-ass. Mostly. But that's also pretty much his worldview; unlike Max, he isn't hung-up over the simple fact of being transgenic, but accepts it 100% as who he is: designed and created to be 'better' – stronger, faster, etc – than the average human.



Normal is delighted by Alec's victory. The hero-worship has begun.

Later. The formidable ring-mistress, Annie, talks to Alec in the changing rooms, dismayed to learn that her new champion has fought his last.

Alec: "I'm done. Gonna retire undefeated."
Annie: "Retire? They love you out there. We've done twice the business since you've shown up…"
Alec: "Look, Annie. As much as I enjoy beating people up, I've got bigger plans for my life. And this is going to help me get started."
Annie: "If you change your mind, you know where to find me."

Handing over the thick wad of cash Alec has earned in his brief career as a cagefighter, she leaves him alone to finish clearing out his locker. Just what Alec's 'bigger plans' were we never learn, since he never actually makes it any further than Seattle and Jam Pony. I suspect they revolved around exploring his newfound freedom at a safe distance from any pursuit.

Picking up the last of his gear, Alec turns to see a couple of suits lurking behind him. He's no sooner asked what they want than they zap him with a taser, knocking him out cold.

Special Agent White steps up to look down at his latest transgenic captive. "Take him out the back."

Titles.

Logan's Penthouse. Logan is preparing one of his culinary miracles, while Max lounges nearby on a worktop and watches him work. For an expert chef, he sure does chop that cucumber like a novice. He's cheerfully recounting a humorous little tale regarding a mayor, a missing car, and a hooker to an amused Max, the two of them evidently having found a level on which they can interact with one another once more, despite the months of separation and enforced distance brought about by the virus. Hanging out having dinner is at least a place to start, as long as that distance is maintained.



"So this is what the Eyes Only net has been reduced to, huh? Trading information about crooked politicians' sex lives," Max teases, pitching in by giving the sauce a stir. Alas, they'd both have been better off if she just carried on not lifting a finger, for, not thinking, she lifts the spoon to taste the sauce – and then puts the same spoon back into the sauce to stir again.

Realising what Max has just done, she and Logan both freeze, turning to stare at the innocent pan as if it contains the plague. In a way, of course, it now kinda does, potentially. Max is furious with herself. Logan tries to assure her that it's okay, they'll just turn up the flame, and the heat should kill just about anything, but Max is not convinced that heat alone would be enough to destroy a "Frankenstein virus specifically targeted to your DNA."

Okay, first? Frankenstein wasn't the monster, but the creator of the monster. Second, it'll get wearing really fast if the details of the virus are exposited for the audience in this fashion every single episode. Anyway, the appearance of normality at the start of this scene is now shown up for the fragile veneer over shaky foundations that it is, as Max's anger bubbles over, now aimed at its real target. "You know, its bad enough they made it so we can't touch, now we can't even have dinner."

Logan attempts conciliation, quietly telling her that she can still have some. Except, of course, that she's already dumped the contents of the pan in the trash and the pan itself in the sink. Max isn't up for that, can't cope with the new boundaries of their relationship, and wants instead to flee. Logan tries again, offering to make them something else, as, sauce aside, they still have all the basic elements of a meal. But Max just can't do this. "It's too hard."

She walks out. It's classic Max, walking away from a difficult situation, preferring to retreat and regroup, lick her wounds in solitude at a safe distance, rather than confront painful issues head on.

Before she goes, however, she and a disconsolate Logan find themselves standing on opposite sides of one of those translucent screens Logan has dividing up the open plan living area of his apartment, and each places their hand against that screen – their silhouettes can touch, even if they can't.

Establishing shot of the streets of Seattle. The camera gives the POV of an unseen someone lurking outside a random house. A grubby hand with elongated nails brushes the sign declaring this to be number 542 of whatever street we are in, identifying the lurker as transgenic.

Inside the house, a seedy photographer is taking pictures of a scantily clad slapper who is messing around with an iron wearing fishnet stockings and very little else. It's really awful stuff, so goodness only knows who he thinks he's going to sell it to. While the lurker outside plucks up the courage to peer through the window, Sleazy Photographer suggests some shots of his Slutty Model vacuuming the sofa. Amusingly, she really does turn the vacuum cleaner on and start hovering away, Sleazy Photographer arguing that nobody viewing the snaps will know the difference and Slutty Model countering that she might as well get it done, while she's at it. Heh. Then she hears a noise outside and stops playing for the camera. Sleazy Photographer reassures her, starts snapping again – and then Joshua bursts in through the front door, demanding to know where 'he' is. Slutty Model screams and Sleazy Photographer manages to snap a quick photo of Joshua's wild dogface before dropping his camera in fear. "Call the police," he breathes to Slutty Model, who scampers across the room to comply.

"You've reached Seattle Emergency, no one is available to take your call right now. Please continue to hold," perks the computer voice on the other end of the 911 call. Heh. Emergency Services ain't what they were. Joshua barges around the house searching for someone who clearly isn't there, and then charges back out again as abruptly as he'd entered. This is just another of the countless bewildered transgenics released unprepared into a world not ready to receive them. The consequences of Max and Logan's actions in Designate This are, of course, one of the major themes of the season.

"What was that thing?" Slutty Model squeaks once Joshua is gone.
"Good question!" gasps Sleazy Photographer, pulling out the Polaroid he took of the dog-man.

So, the three main and eventually interweaving plots of the episode are established: Alec is in trouble, Max and Logan are miserable because of the virus, unable to work out where their relationship goes from here, and Joshua is out there on his own searching for something.

Logan's Penthouse. Logan wheels out of the bathroom, toothbrush in his mouth and towel draped around his shoulders, to answer the phone. It's Lydecker. Logan kinda freezes, pulling the toothbrush out of his mouth so as to speak more clearly. "I had a feeling I'd be hearing from you again."

"Don't sound so happy about it," Lydecker grunts.
"Well, if you're calling to follow up on our previous conversation, Max made it back fine," Logan stiffly informs him.
Lydecker takes a moment to be glad about that. "She always does."
"That's high praise coming from a man who spent the last ten years hunting her down," Logan snips, which is an excellent point. For the third episode in a row, I absolutely adore the interaction between these two characters – so much at odds and yet so much in common.

Lydecker gruffly reminds Logan that those days are over, and instructs him to tell Max that he'll be in touch soon and is working on a lead. Logan objects to being used as a go-between for Lydecker's cryptic messages and demands to know what's going on. And Lydecker…caves. Just takes a deep breath and gives up the information. "They did a DNA assay on Max when she was back at Manticore. There's something unusual about her genetic makeup. Something even I didn't know about."

He's got Logan's full attention now. Logan wonders what it means, but Lydecker doesn't know, noting that Renfro must have thought it was important to have kept the test results in her briefcase, along with an employee ID "from a company that, as far as I can tell, doesn't exist. Tell Max I'm looking into it."

Logan agrees to pass the message on, now that he knows what it's all about. Lydecker appreciates his help, which Logan promptly jumps on for a bit of reciprocation.

Streets of Seattle, establishing shot.

"Lydecker said you worked as a lab tech at Manticore?" says Logan to the very frightened man he's come to meet in a random dingy hovel someplace.
"I'm the one who spliced your DNA to the virus substrain," the man beams, pride in a dirty job well done momentarily overriding his fear.
"Keep bragging about it, I'm gonna kick your ass." Max is there, too.

Prideful Tech reminds them that they are there because they want his help, and informs them that they don't have long – he's planning to skip town the moment he's scraped enough cash together because 'they' are out to kill anyone who worked there. Hence his fear and paranoia. Logan asks how much. "Ten grand," the man promptly tells him.

Max scoffs derisively at the ridiculous price tag, but although Logan is startled he doesn't dismiss it, instead pulling out an envelope stuffed with crumpled notes. "Where'd you get that?" Max hisses.
"Sold some stuff," Logan tells her, handing the money to Prideful Tech. "Half now, half when you deliver."

Accepting payment, Prideful Tech is suddenly all business, pulling out a case full of random scientific equipment and asking for blood samples. "Give me a couple of days to figure out how to kill this virus of yours, and you two lovebirds can go back to sucking face," he laughs. Max is affronted, and Logan resigned.

Crash. Max wanders in, looking more tightly wound up than ever, and drops herself onto a stool at the bar alongside Original Cindy, who eyes her appraisingly and asks what's up. We don't hear Cindy calling Max 'Boo' often enough this season. Max dolefully explains about the ex-Manticore tech who might be able to cure the virus, and Cindy's all "when are you going to let your face in on the good news?"

"I don't know. I'm starting to think things between me and Logan are never gonna…" Max begins, and this is a conversation she really needs to have, needs Cindy's advice and wisdom. But she isn't going to get it for at this moment Blondie – who was not named onscreen in her previous two appearances – interrupts to say hello. Max introduces her to Original Cindy as Asha. Finally, she has a name.

Sketchy also rocks up to the bar, asking for Max – and her "fine new friend", Sketchy not being one to pass up on an opportunity to hit on a pretty woman – to referee an argument he's been having. "The guys are dissing on Eyes Only, saying that Manticore place that burned down and let out all the super freaks was really just a VA hospital. Come defend the great man's honour."

Awkward! Max tries to vague her way out of it. "I try to stay out of that political stuff." Asha agrees with that stance. They both have very good reasons for not wanting to be drawn on the subject, being who they are and knowing what they do.

Sketchy holds up a rolled up tabloid as his evidence that the 'freaks' are out there, "looking to feed". Original Cindy, who knows Max's secret but not Asha's, rolls her eyes at the notion of 'zombies', but Sketchy sticks firmly to his point: not zombies but creatures made in labs.

See, if Logan hadn't been so determined to expose the truth about Manticore after Max's supposed death, this unwanted publicity really would not be a problem; at the time, while broadcasting so rabidly about the existence of transgenics, he didn't stop for a moment to consider that he might be endangering them, wrapped up as he was in his own grief. But the transgenics would not have gained their freedom if he hadn't taken that course of action. The question of whether exposing and releasing them was a good or bad thing will be explored over and over this season. It's an interesting paradox. If Eyes Only hadn't publicly exposed the existence of the transgenics, they would not now be free. But the same exposure that led to their release is now the biggest threat to their safety, and must now therefore be retracted, their existence denied in order to ensure their safety.

"Some look just like us. Some don't," Sketchy expounds. "They've all got barcode transmitters on the back of their necks so they can beam information about us to the main headquarters."

Conspiracy theorists are clearly having a field day with this story. "Wiggy, you faded," Cindy tells Sketchy, flatly. "News said it was some terrorist group called SW1 burned the place down, killed a bunch of vets. Period, point blank."

Heh. SW1 is a rather exclusive postcode in London, in fact.

"Uh, it's the S1W, and they would never do anything like that," Asha interjects, coming close to blowing her own cover, but unable to just stand by and watch her organisation taking the blame for something they didn't do, being used to cover up the truth. Thinking about it, I don't think we are ever actually told what 'S1W' stands for. "But, come on – you can't believe anything in the government news anyway, right?"

Awkward again. I really like this aspect of the early episodes in this season, as the immediate fallout of Manticore's destruction slowly unfolds amid secrecy, tension and conspiracy theories. I like that there are no easy answers or cop-outs. The S1W is a good example: Logan has been and remains unable to clear their name, despite being a major part of the reason they are being used as scapegoats, because in order to clear their name he would have to further expose the transgenics. Which is the lesser evil? Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.

"If I was making creatures in a lab, I'd make 'em look just like you," clueless Sketchy tells Asha, successfully breaking the tension of the moment without even realising it. All the girls laugh at him, Cindy picking up his rolled-up tabloid to smack him over the head with. Max sees the picture on the cover, snatches it from her friend's hand, and dashes out without stopping to invent any kind of explanation for this bizarre behaviour. So very not stealthy!

Cindy quickly follows, wanting to know what's wrong. Max shows her the cover of the paper, bearing that fateful snapshot of Joshua, snarling into the camera. Cindy is taken aback. "This somebody you know, sugar?" she dubiously asks.

Max explains that Joshua helped her escape from Manticore, and frets about how very bad this is. Cindy reassures her that nobody believes such a trashy newspaper anyway, but Max remains unconvinced. "Not yet," she warns.

Warehouse. White and his goons stand on a gantry watching as Alec regains consciousness to find himself in a small metal cage suspended about 15 feet in the air, at a safe distance from his captors. It's an interesting visual demonstration of just how dangerous they consider him to be, one of the prized X5s; future transgenic captives tend not to be treated with such respect, which I usually consider a production flaw of the series more than anything else. Watering the transgenics down, familiarity breeds contempt and all that – the more the episodes are flooded with them, the more jaded we and the writers become, and the less outstanding they appear to be. Or maybe that familiarity breeds contempt accusation can be levelled at White and his people as well, fearing the transgenics less and less as they encounter and capture more and more of them.

"That was a very impressive display last night," White tells his prisoner.
"It's so nice to have fans," Alec grits.
"Tell me, 494, have you been in contact with this girl?" White holds up the computer image of Max generated by the X5s in the last episode.

Alec's eyes harden when he sees the picture, since from his point of view his acquaintance with Max has brought nothing but trouble. But he shakes his head to deny having seen her recently, wipes a hand across his face as if he has a headache. After being taser-ed into submission, he probably does.

"We know that you were breeding partners back at Manticore," continues White, who seems to have very full information considering Manticore was destroyed along with all records therein, other than what little Renfro had in her briefcase. Or was the destruction not as complete as was intended?
"It was just a summer fling," Alec snarks, all non-committal.
"What about any other transgenics?" White wants to know.
"I make it a point not to fraternise with automatons. They slow me down," says Alec, reiterating his attitude of the last episode. He very much sees himself as a lone shark, no one to rely on but himself and better off that way. "What are you? FBI? NSA?"
"Let's just say that I've been sent to wipe out all evidence that Manticore ever existed, and leave it at that," White coldly tells him.



Since Alec has not provided him with any useful information, the hope of which was the only reason for letting him live this long, White turns to one of his goons – who will eventually, although I'm not sure how far into the season it will take but am getting bored of waiting, be identified as Otto Gottlieb – and tells him to make sure he gets a DNA sample before disposing of the body. Alec's instinct for self-preservation kicks in immediately, scrambling hastily to his feet as he calls for White to wait. "Killing me isn't going to solve your problem."

"You're right, I have to take out all of you," White agrees, walking away.
"You've got to find them first," Alec points out, desperate. "I can help."
"Is that a fact?" White is intrigued.
"Who better to hunt transgenics than another transgenic?" Alec offers, a dangerous glint in his eye.
"You expect me to believe that you would turn against your own kind?" White questions.
"Try me," insists Alec, who has got absolutely nothing to lose, and at this point would say just about anything to buy himself a little more time, in hope of effecting an escape.

White's interest has been piqued. He nods to Otto, who flicks a switch on his remote control. The bottom of Alec's cage opens, sending him plummeting to the ground below. He lands on his feet, cat-like, and is instantly surrounded at gunpoint by no fewer than eight heavily armed agents. Again, a very clear indication of just how dangerous they consider him to be.

A short time later. Still surrounded at gunpoint by numerous heavily armed agents, Alec is now tied to a chair as a hypodermic of something is injected into the nape of his neck, just below the barcode. Very unsettled by being at such an enormous disadvantage with no room to manoeuvre, he asks what it was. Sitting opposite, White sets a timer on a wristwatch he's holding. "Just a little something to make sure you don't run off on me," he blithely explains. "As you were undoubtedly planning to do."

Alec shrugs, making no attempt to deny his intentions. That he was simply bluffing for time and opportunity was pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain. White holds up a tiny micro explosive, about the size of a watch battery, drops it onto the floor and steps on it. It goes off with a miniature bang. Alec grimaces.

"Not much punch to it, really," White cheerfully continues. "But enough, considering it's lodged against your brain stem. If it goes off, you will never know what hit you. Locate and kill three transgenics, and I'll disarm it."

That's nasty. But very effective as a motivational tool, no matter that Alec already knows they intend to kill him eventually anyway, one way or another. Whether he trusts White to be as good as his word or not, he can't bargain for his life with a time bomb like that sitting against his brain stem, has no option now if he wants to live but to comply with their demands and hope for another opportunity later, as long as the thing is disarmed as promised.

"How long do I have?" Alec grimly asks as a random agent unties him. His eyes look very, very green in this scene.
"The explosive is timed to detonate in exactly twenty-four hours," says White. Alec laughs out loud, incredulous at how little time he is being given. White lays it out for him. "You come through, I have three less freaks to worry about. You don't – pop. Your head explodes." He hands over the watch, setting the timer counting down from 24 hours. "Time's a-wasting. I'd get started if I were you."

Except that…White didn't start the timer for at least a minute after the micro bomb was implanted in Alec's neck, meaning that the countdown is at least a minute behind what it should be, given that the bomb's timer should have started counting down from the moment it was implanted…. Let us glide past that minor niggle, since it will be so completely unimportant.

Grim, his attempt at blagging his way out of trouble having gone so badly wrong, leaving him with no clue how to get out of the predicament he now finds himself in, Alec gets up and heads for the door. White calls him back to add another detail to their 'contract'. "Bring back their barcodes. Proof of purchase." He tosses Alec a switch knife, and offers a chilly smile. "Happy hunting."

As Alec leaves, more grim-faced than ever, White cheerfully remarks to Otto that this could prove to be a very interesting little experiment. Otto wonders if Alec is lying about not knowing Max, whereupon White tells him to "always assume they're lying. You'll live longer."

Otto perkily notes that they could get lucky – if Alec brings in Max's barcode, they'd be able to scrape it for DNA in hopes of answering a few questions. White smugly agrees. "Either way, I win."

Logan's Penthouse. Logan leafs through the trash tabloid Max took from Sketchy, while Max hovers anxiously at a safe distance. She finds their relationship too hard to deal with since her virus-infected return from Manticore, and yet can't stay away from him, always runs straight to him whenever she has a problem. Talk about sending mixed signals, to herself as much as to him. She's so confused right now, about just about everything.

Jessica Alba's acting gets a lot of stick, but I find that her often rather flat delivery works well for me in the context of this character. Max is very emotionally closed-off, and that comes across perfectly, whether it is a deliberate acting choice or not.

Logan eyes the picture of Joshua and observes that he looks pretty dangerous. Max firmly insists that he isn't. "Don't judge him because of the way he looks."

Not judging transgenics by the way they look is yet another theme of the season.

"Well, fine," Logan snips. He's entitled to be feeling more than a little frustrated, given the way Max keeps blowing hot and cold on him since her return, the world seeming to conspire against them at every turn. "But apparently he is breaking into peoples' houses. Any idea why?"

Max suggests that Joshua was simply looking for a place to sleep or something to eat, fretting that she needs to find him before something really bad happens. She got to know Joshua pretty well while he was helping her escape, knows what an innocent he is to be alone out there in the world. She deliberately left him behind when she escaped because she knew that there was no place for him outside Manticore. But then as soon as she was out she completely forgot that protective resolve once the opportunity to destroy Manticore was presented to her, didn't stop for a second to think about those, like Joshua, for whom finding any kind of place in the world outside would be all but impossible. Was it a blessing or a curse that Manticore was taken down so completely? A hell of a lot of people are wondering just that as they explore their unprecedented new freedom.

No matter how disgruntled he might personally be feeling, Logan just can't help but do the right thing, especially where Max is concerned. He immediately agrees to try and get hold of the police reports, find the addresses for the break-ins as a place to start. And I wonder if it will be his old police contact Matt Sung that he asks for this help, although we aren't told. Addresses of Joshua's break-ins will help narrow the search, and Logan also offers to boot up his police scanner and monitor the calls. If Joshua shows up anywhere else, Max might be able to get to him first.

With such strong, solid support being so freely given, despite everything, Max smiles for the first time since that fateful dinner that wasn't, and thanks Logan for his help. "He's so not ready to be out in the world. I put him there," she frets. "If something happens, it'd be my fault."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Max. You put me out in the world, and I'm loving it." Alec has snuck into the room while they talked, and presents them with his biggest, fakest smirk, not so much as a hint of the trouble he's in, impeccable game face firmly in place. He's been sent to kill fellow transgenics, with his own life forfeit if he doesn't go through with it, and Max is the only one he knows how to find with any speed or ease, thanks to her connection with Logan.

"Don't you people ever knock?" Logan rolls his eyes, not even bothering to turn around and see who it is, recognising the voice. Max, meanwhile, automatically snaps at Alec, wondering what he's doing there.

"Looking for you," says Alec, honestly enough, before making with the spin. But it is immediately clear that he isn't about to try and claim Max's barcode for White. He already knows her too well to be able to contemplate murdering her, highly trained assassin or not. Instead, he's using her as a point of contact, in hopes of acquiring valuable information. "The fact is, I miss being with my own kind. I was wondering if you'd hooked up with any of the others?"
"You looking to start a support group?" Max disbelieves.
"Nah, just bored, really." Alec slings himself onto the sofa and makes himself comfortable, glancing over at Logan, a much sharper edge to his snark than usual. "Ordinary people are so ordinary. No offence."

Like Max, Alec reacts to stress by getting hostile and defensive, the difference being that Max tends to be openly hostile and defensive, while Alec masks it with gallows humour and snark. Here, Alec is every bit as reluctant to openly ask for help as Max would have been at this point last season, seeing himself as completely alone with no one to turn to, unable to confide his predicament in anyone. I don't think it would even occur to him that he could come clean to Max and Logan about what has happened and ask for their help, given the history between them. He's approaching this more as an undercover mission. Any help or information he is able to get out of Max will have to be worked hard for, without letting anything slip. He uses his smart-ass flippancy and nonchalant attitude to throw people off-guard, prevent them seeing if there's something wrong, and they fall for it every time.

Since Max doesn't see Alec as being either in need or deserving of her help and support in any way, focused as she is on Joshua's situation, she tries to unceremoniously throw him out without any further discussion, but Alec sees the tabloid bearing Joshua's image and pulls away to take a look at it. "Isn't this your dog-boy pal? Looks like he's got himself in quite a jam. Guess you're going to swoop in and save the day, huh?"

"I was thinking about it," Max snits.
"You're going to need a hand," Alec suggests, seeing potential here for resolving his own predicament, or at least starting to.
"She's got two of her own, but thanks," Logan shoots at him, every bit as hostile toward Alec as Max always has been, whether for his own reasons or in support of Max's.
"This affects me, too, you know," Alec points out, abruptly dropping the air of nonchalant indifference he's feigned ever since entering the room and becoming deadly serious. "If people catch wind that stuff like this is out there, it's exposure for all of us. Today the tabloids, tomorrow the nightly news."

That has a definite ring of truth about it; Alec cares about exposure every bit as much as Max, 'Monty Cora' pseudonym notwithstanding. But he also sees in Joshua's 'nomaly' status a possible solution for his own problem. He's got just as many angles on this as Max does, Max approaching the situation from a place of caring about Joshua and feeling guilty about releasing him, feeling responsible for him. I like that both their motivations are so multi-layered, and that Logan comes from a different perspective again, that of social responsibility and of loving Max deeply.

All three regard one another for a long moment, and then Max gives in and accepts the help Alec is, or appears to be, offering, if only because she doesn't want to waste any more time arguing. She explains what they've got so far and adds that she plans to check out Terminal City.

"Max?" Logan seems to either be displeased that she's accepting Alec's help, or to not like the idea of her going to Terminal City. Max tells him that's where she'd go, if she were looking to lay low. Alec wonders what Terminal City is, and Max offers to show him. They head out together, leaving Logan more frustrated than ever.

That reaction doesn't ever really change, all season. Logan is never really comfortable with Max going on missions with Alec, which kinda reveals how insecure Logan feels about his relationship with Max, given their circumstances. Every time Max goes off with Alec, for whatever reason, reminds Logan of the many differences and obstacles that divide him from her: the virus, the transgenic-human divide, their own awkwardness – even his disability, however much mobility he has managed to regain. He's in his wheelchair for this scene, visually emphasising the restrictions upon him. It all adds up to a very frustrated and insecure Logan.

Terminal City. 'Biohazard. Do not enter," declares the large red sign on the fence.

"Used to be a bunch of biotech labs out here. Then when the Pulse hit, power went down – a few of them lost containment. Some pretty nasty stuff got out," Max explains as she and Alec enter via a hole in the fence.
"Kinda like you and me, huh?" Alec remarks, scanning the area as they make their way along.
"City couldn't afford to clean up the mess, so they just sealed off the area," Max continues, not dignifying that comment with a response. "Nobody goes out here unless they got nowhere else to go and nothing to lose."
"Lucky thing they made us immune to your common bio-warfare agents," Alec clunkily exposits for the benefit of the audience. "Hey, speaking of bio-agents, how's that thing with you and Logan?"

It's a genuine and honest, albeit clumsy, enquiry, an attempt at conversation, not intended to be in any way malicious. It's also a sign of social ineptitude – Alec is highly trained and has adapted well to the outside world, but there's still a hell of a lot he doesn't know about normal, human interactions and emotions. And he's one of the lucky ones, one of the best equipped of the Manticore escapees to cope in the outside world. Which is kind of a scary thought where the others are concerned. Anyway, since that's a very touchy subject, and Max still holds Alec to be at least partly responsible for the mess she and Logan are in, she simply turns her darkest glower upon him, rather than reply.

Streets of Seattle. 'RCF Demolition & Disposal. Renfro, Elizabeth. Director,' declares the ID Lydecker found in Renfro's briefcase. Lydecker examines it once more, then glances across the street to a sign declaring 'RCF Environmental Clean-up & Disposal,' evidently the nearest match he could find. He pulls out a handgun, checks the clip, stuffs it into his waistband, and then heads on over.

Inside, Lydecker finds an industrial staircase leading down into a grimy basement, in which he can see a bored-looking guard reading a comic. Without bothering to explore upstairs any further, he heads down, gun in hand, to investigate. The guard is swiftly laid out, and his weapons appropriated lest he should recover and retaliate. He seems to have been guarding some kind of archaeological dig site. Curious, Lydecker photographs the partially exposed human bones: one adult and two infants. He also snaps an ancient cave painting on the wall nearby: a stylised leaping lion-type figure, similar to that used as the Manticore logo, as we are reminded in flashback.

Terminal City. Max and Alec continue to explore, wandering through grimy streets populated by the lowest down-and-outs of the city. An elderly man hugging a small, fluffy dog wonders if they are lost, an opening Alec uses to explain that they are looking for someone and to ask if they've seen him. Old Man's much younger friend, a curly-haired man with a goatee beard, asks what he looks like. Max holds her hands as high over her head as they will go to indicate Joshua's extreme height, describes the army jacket he wears, and adds that he's kind of…. "Hairy?" Alec offers as a description. "Lots of growling, barking…like that," he adds, amused, as Old Man's little dog Pongo starts yapping, right on cue.

Goatee, who seems to have rather more of his marbles intact than Old Man, says that no, they haven't seen anyone like that. The rather vacant Old Man promptly pipes up that he "saw a lizard guy the other day, though." Goatee dismisses this, telling his friend he was drunk, but Old Man ignores him to suggest that maybe lizard guy is a friend of Max and Alec, too.

No, Max says, but they wouldn't mind talking to him. Potential lead on Joshua, potential transgenic in need of help – definitely worth following up on. Old Man tells them to check the sewers. "That's where he went. Along with his panther lady friend."

Goatee rolls his eyes in despair. Max thanks them and heads off, Alec in tow.

Sewers. "Well, this is hands down the most disgusting sewer I've ever been in," Alec declares. It does look kinda gross, especially the fetid corpse that they now encounter, leaking blood into the water. It's a dead dog.

"Something big took it out," Alec notes, regarding the corpse with rather more clinical detachment than the apparently squeamish Max.
"Not Joshua," Max insists. I love her complete and utter faith in her friends. She is slow to trust, but once she has allowed someone in, they are in.
"What, he wouldn't turn against his own kind?" Alec begins to chuckle at his own joke, but the smile fades at once – that smart tongue of his has cut way too close to his own bone, there.

Max's pager goes off. It's Logan, so she instantly says she has to get to a payphone and makes for the nearest exit ladder. Alec promptly, very casually, hauls out a cellphone and hands it to her. "Come into the 21^st century already." Hee! That joke has been over a season coming. And so perfect for Alec. Love it.

While Alec crouches to examine the dog further and contemplate the tunnel ahead, Max rings Logan, who has just got off the phone with his 'police contact'. Just how Max has managed to get a cellphone signal down in the sewers, I'm not even going to worry about. This unnamed contact has given Logan the address of Joshua's last break in. "Across town in sector 6, 542 McAllister. Name of Sandeman."

Cue flashback of Joshua telling Max about his 'father' Sandeman, and Renfro telling Max with her dying breath to find Sandeman. Logan realises from her tone that the name means something to her, and Max explains about the Joshua connection, adding that she had the impression he'd founded Manticore, or something. Logan wonders why, in that case, he'd turn Joshua away and report him to the cops.

Deciding to go and ask the man herself, Max hangs up and hands the phone back to Alec, who has gathered, from her end of the conversation, that Logan has got a lead on 'dog-boy'. He tells her to go ahead, suggesting that they'll cover more ground if they split up. He doesn't add that going it alone now he has a lead to follow up will leave him free to carry out the gruesome task White has set him without interference. Max agrees, and they go their separate ways, Alec agreeing to call Max if he finds anything. Rather noticeably, she doesn't make a reciprocal promise.

542 MacAllister. Sleazy Photographer is reassuring an anxious Slutty Model that she is perfectly safe now, that nobody can get through the new locks he's put on the door…just as Max bursts in. Classic TV timing.

"You Sandeman?" Max demands, shoving him against the wall, arm pressed against his windpipe. Not the most subtle interrogation technique ever, but hey – she's having a bad day.

Speaking of bad days…shouldn't Max be showing her face at work once in a while? She doesn't seem to have been to work at all so far in this episode, and skipped out without notice for a couple of days in the last episode, too. If she isn't careful, Normal will fire her again. Except, of course, that she only really goes to work when it suits the plot of the episode.

"You don't look like the father of my country," Max adds in disgust as she takes in the man's appearance. "Name Manticore mean anything to you?" He thinks she's crazy; Max doesn't let up. "Got any kids? Any little mutant kids?"

Way to not be stealthy there, Max – she's supposed to be avoiding exposure, not courting it! Sleazy Photographer denies all knowledge.

"Do you know anything about genetic enhancement?" Max tries one last question, almost desperate.
"He got me these!" Slutty Model offers, showing off her cleavage.

Max gives up in disgust.

Sewers. Alec continues to explore, searching for anything transgenic. He's on the clock, big time. In fact, his wristwatch countdown says that just 13 hours and 47 minutes remain of his initial 24. So how long did he spend either wrestling with his conscience or searching fruitlessly before going to Max in hopes of finding a lead? More than a few hours, by the looks of it. In the street above, he hears Old Man calling for Pongo, who has apparently run off. Probably in protest at being called 'Pongo'.

Alec continues his explorations, following a trail of blood spore. He hears growling from a nearby room, following by the whimpering of a small dog, and cautiously moves to investigate. Therein he finds a 'panther lady', just as the Old Man said, holding little Pongo and sniffing him appraisingly. Her panther costume is really bad, and her very existence appallingly illogical – the experiment gone wrong explanation really is the only one that fits creatures like this, whatever we are told about the uses and apparently deliberate design of similarly bizarre creatures later in the season.

"You're not really going to eat that, are you?" says Alec by say of hello. "Come on, sister. Have a little dignity."

Panther Lady snarls, startled. Apparently, she is far more panther than human, appearing to have no speech and seeing Alec as nothing more than prey, rather than as a fellow transgenic or even as a person in any way. In other words, she's perfect for Alec's needs – a feral creature he can kill without too much remorse. If she doesn't see him as a person, neither does he see her as a person. "That's right, dinner bells are chiming," he encourages her.

Being the highly trained assassin that he is, Alec waits, on the balls of his feet, giving every appearance of nonchalance at the same time as conveying deadly intent, allowing her to make the first move. Lost, hungry and confused, Panther Lady wastes no time, her attack fast and furious, but fended off with relative ease – lending weight to the theory that the nomalies were experimental failures to be hidden away, rather than intentionally designed and trained to work in the field. Her instinct is to attack, but she's fighting with instinct alone. Having said that, she manages to sink her teeth into Alec's arm, but he swiftly pins her down, only to have the tables turned on him almost at once, her desperation giving her added strength. With Panther Lady's teeth snapping dangerously close to his neck, Alec pulls out White's switch knife and plunges it into her side.

Panther Lady collapses to the floor, the knife protruding from her side. It looks more like a nasty injury than an instant kill wound to me, but what do I know? She's clearly dead. Alec stares at her, struggling to catch his breath, then hears Old Man calling for Pongo again, up above. Churning emotions manifesting as anger, he yells for the man to shut up, but then finds the little dog, and posts it up through a ventilation shaft. I really like that even in his lowest moments, like this one, Alec's essentially good heart still shines through – he didn't have to get that lost dog back to its owner, could have left it to wander around the sewers till it starved, left the Old Man to search and fret. Whether he knows what to do with them or not, he's got the basic instincts of a good person, even if they are usually well hidden beneath his (approximately) 20 years of harsh military training and slavery, where such instincts would be frowned upon, considered a weakness to be covered up.

Having returned the dog to its owner, Alec turns his attention back to the Panther Lady, turning her over to reveal the barcode on the back of her neck and then grimly steeling his nerve for what he has to do next, lip curling with revulsion and self-loathing. He obviously hates himself for what he's doing. But he goes through with it regardless, the soldier in him shining through loud and clear. Whatever is necessary to survive and complete the mission would have been drummed into him at Manticore, undoubtedly, and that training is all he's got to fall back on now. He doesn't have the kind of support network that Max has built up during her years on the outside.

Logan's Penthouse. Logan and Max are discussing the Sandeman mystery. It seems pretty clear that Max hasn't bothered to call Alec and tell him that the lead turned out to be a bust, ask if he's found anything. Being no doubt only too glad to not still be searching the sewers with him, she's probably forgotten all about him, not being accustomed to working with a partner, even on a temporary ad hoc basis like this. She's got better at relying on other people since the show began, as her dependence on Logan's aid whenever anything goes wrong proves, but she still has that lone shark nature in common with Alec – they both prefer to work alone, on the whole. Plus, she doesn't really like Alec, and so would not choose to get in touch with him unless she had to. Kinda makes you wonder if it would occur to her to let him know the search was over if she did find Joshua, or if she'd just leave him to carry on searching pointlessly or not at his own discretion.

The body language and positioning, direction of this scene is great. Logan and Max are sitting opposite one another, at a distance of several feet. They're still maintaining a strict distance from one another, despite it being reasonably evident that physical contact is necessary to pass on the virus; both are unwilling to risk it. The conversation between them is comfortable – this is business, it's a safe subject, by their standards. Logan is sprawled in his chair, giving every impression of total relaxation, in contrast to his discontent earlier, but Max sits bolt upright in hers, unable to relax at all.

Now that Logan knows about the whole Sandeman thing, which she hasn't mentioned to him previously, Max has been explaining everything she knows, which isn't much. "I never heard of the guy until Joshua and then Renfro said something. Some crap about me being the one they're looking for."

Logan wonders if that's what Lydecker was talking about, and brings Max up to speed on that brief conversation. "He called. Said something about your DNA being unusual."

Max just rolls her eye, all "whatever", but then we remember that White told her, straight out, about the no junk DNA thing, when he captured her in Bag 'Em. She already knows something about this, but has chosen to forget. Doesn't want to be any kind of chosen one, doesn't want to be special, so has completely disregarded the potentially valuable information that White gave her. I don't think she ever tells Logan about that conversation, about that particular facet of her DNA – not even at the end of the season, in Love Among the Runes, when she starts coming out in strange hieroglyphics all over her body. Although it is possible that future episodes will correct me on that detail.

Logan, who loves a good mystery, is intrigued. Max, however, who prefers to avoid all thought of such difficult and personal subjects, focuses instead on the immediate and the practical: that Joshua is out there somewhere and needs her help. Now, she has to have known ever since Manticore went up in flames that Joshua – who she'd already said, out loud to his face, would never be able to find a place in the world – would have escaped and be alone out there. But Max lives so much of her life in denial, only taking responsibility for her actions when the consequences can't be avoided and burying her head in the sand the rest of the time. And so she didn't allow herself to think about Joshua and the other nomalies until the evidence of Joshua's struggle was presented to her in tabloid form, just like she refused to be concerned about any escaped transgenics at all until she found out they were being lured into a trap in Bag 'Em.

Max asks about the other addresses, which Logan has got, but tells her they don't add up. None of the others are named Sandeman. It doesn't make any sense, and Max was confused enough to begin with. The addresses were all over town, Logan continues. No pattern at all.

"So we've got nothing," Max sighs. She glances up at the wall, notices an empty hook where a valuable painting used to be, and is distracted. "Don't tell me you sold your Hockney to pay that lab tech creep!"

Logan just smiles and says yes. Max protests that his grandmother left that to him, but he is unmoved, at peace with his decisions and actions. "Small price to pay."

Cure the virus, and all their problems will be solved. That's clearly what he believes. Are their problems that simple? Is it merely the virus coming between them? They have never truly been together as a couple, having only just kissed for the first time when all hell broke loose last season and they were torn apart by Max's apparent death and actual incarceration back at Manticore. They have no idea whether or not they would actually work as a couple, and no way of finding out. And with so many other pressing issues and concerns surrounding them, that's a lot of insecurity and uncertainty from a lot of angles to be dealing with.

Logan continues that the lab tech creep called, thinks he's close to a cure. That would be why Logan seems so relaxed and content now, having been so frustrated earlier. Hearing this good news, a little of the tension melts out of Max's posture. Logan holds out an envelope of cash, telling her the lab tech wants her to stop by tomorrow, and Max moves closer to him to take the envelope. This is the closest they've been to one another in quite some time, the action of Logan giving the envelope and Max taking it bringing their fingers dangerously close to one another. It's symbolic – they have hope now, hope that they will very soon be able to safely touch one another again. Therefore, a little of the distance between them can be broken down, because that distance has been as much emotional as physically necessary lately, the one feeding the other.

Max fidgets with the envelope, quietly saying that she will kick in for half of it. Still the picture of contentment, because he has hope now, Logan quietly insists that it's okay. Max, half-smiling because she's daring to begin to hope as well, reminds him that she wants this too, and they hold one another's eyes for a long moment.

Logan's police scanner interrupts at that moment, bursting into life to inform them – and whatever cops are listening in – that someone has a crazed dog cornered in his garage. No, make that a guy. No, make that a dog.

It is clearly Joshua. Logan turns to his computer to listen, for whatever reason – there's nothing to see, it's audio only. By the time he's turned back to Max, she's already gone.

Random garage. Joshua cowers in a corner, a frightened and angry householder holding him at gunpoint while issuing heated threats, and Joshua snarling in that way of his that sounds menacing but signifies fear.

The cops arrive and add their weaponry to that already in the mix, wondering with fear and loathing just what Joshua is. The householder doesn't know, just found 'it' looking through his garbage. The cops wonder if he shouldn't have called animal control.

Before the standoff can get really ugly, Max comes roaring up on her motorcycle, barrelling into Cop#1, sending her flying, before leaping onto Cop#2 and taking him out with a few well-placed punches. Joshua takes advantage of the distraction to dive out of a nearby window and make good his escape. Having taken out both cops, Max turns to the householder, who is standing staring in amazement. One menacing step in his direction, and he flees in terror.

Max is so very bad at being stealthy and undercover – how did she ever manage to hide from Lydecker for so long? And now, especially, with the tabloid press full of transgenic stories, she's practically advertising her strength and skill, letting all and sundry see her face while so doing. Anyway. She turns to find that Joshua has gone, and is dismayed.

Streets of Seattle, possibly Terminal City still, although it isn't clear. Alec presses the flap of skin bearing Panther Lady's barcode into a little notebook, apparently using her blood as glue, which is gruesome. "One down, two to go." And his wristwatch countdown is down to just 7 hours 59 minutes already.

Wandering randomly along past a group of down-and-outs, he spots a teenage boy huddled in a dark corner, bundled up in a blanket, looking hungry, dirty and miserable. Freedom is not kind to escaped transgenics, on the whole, it seems. That is definitely the message of this episode. Alec and the boy meet one another's eyes, and each instantly recognises the other as transgenic. Possibly they knew one another at Manticore, if only in passing. Or is it really that easy for x-series transgenics to identify one another by sight? The youngsters in Bag 'Em recognised Alec as X5 and therefore a senior officer the moment they laid eyes on him, too, but overall the show sends fairly mixed messages on that front.

"Sir, are we remobilising?" the boy calls, leaping to his feet with hope in his eyes and voice. Like the young transgenics in Bag 'Em, the prospect of returning to Manticore is clearly a huge relief to him. Unprepared for life in the outside world, and not understanding how or why they ended up there, these youngsters – and nomalies – are not yet anywhere near a place of being able to enjoy or be thankful for their new freedom. It is, rather, a burden to them. Only time and a gradual process of adaptation will change that, for those that live long enough.

Being cannier and more exposure-conscious than this agitated youngster, Alec glances around to check that no one is paying attention to them, then tells the boy to follow him, adding – because after that loud greeting he really can't trust the kid to be stealthy, which doesn't say much for Manticore training, really – not to make a big deal out of it.

Alec has got less than eight hours to locate and kill two more transgenics, and get their barcodes back to White, before his head explodes. Can he really bring himself to murder a fellow x-series in cold blood, a youngster like this who looks up to him for leadership, trusts him? He found it hard enough to kill the Panther Lady, feral nomaly as she was. You'd have to assume, though, that he'd have killed before, given that Manticore trained him as an assassin, and we know that he worked in the field before Manticore's demise freed him. The Berresford Agenda, halfway through the season, will give us a little more insight into Alec's past career as an assassin, and how he feels about it.

The trusting young transgenic, who I am going to assume is X6, follows Alec into a narrow, secluded alley, where Alec questions him about the rest of his squad. They were separated when the fire broke out, the X6 explains. And then he saw the signal to go to ground, so he's been hiding out ever since. This means that he's alone. He can't help Alec find any more barcodes, but no one will miss him if he disappears, or seek to avenge him if he turns up dead. Alec glances around to make sure no one's looking, offers the youngster a reassuring clap on the shoulder – and then yanks him into a headlock, arm clamped tight around his neck, throttling him until he passes out.

With the kid disabled and out for the count, out comes the switch knife again. No murder this time. Alec clearly can't bring himself to kill his own kind in cold blood, not the ones who look like him, anyway, but he still has to take a few deep breaths and steel his nerves, bite back the bile, before leaning in to cut away that fateful barcode.

I wonder what would happen, long-term, for a transgenic who had the skin bearing their barcode cut away? I mean, if they lived long enough for the wound to heal. Would the scar eventually fade? Would the barcode come back in time, as it does when lasered off, or be gone for good? Interesting to speculate.

Streets of Seattle. Night. Lydecker sits in his car, discussing via cellphone his findings at the RCF site with some kind of expert. Apparently, what he found there was a Coloma Indian burial site, probably from the early 1800s. The expert is pretty excited about it, saying that the pictures Lydecker took are "just like in the stories." Lydecker invites him to elaborate. The expert explains that legend has it that a group of white fur-traders kidnapped a young girl from the tribe and forced her to have a child for them, to a young boy they had with them, only 14 but described as over 6 feet tall. The baby was stillborn, terribly deformed – cue flashbacks of the misshapen skull of one of the infant skeletons Lydecker found. The girl was forced to have another child, the expert continues, but still the fur-traders weren't satisfied until a third child was born. They took the child away and killed the mother.

"Why was this child so important?" Lydecker wonders. The expert doesn't know, having always assumed it to be no more than a story. The painting on the wall, however, is not a Coloma design – the expert has never seen anything like it. Lydecker has, sitting there with both the photograph of that painting and a business card bearing the Manticore logo in his hand. The plot thickens.

The expert suggests that he might be able to work out some more if he could see the original photos. Lydecker agrees to take them to him that night.

Warehouse. Alec shows White the two barcodes he has managed to harvest thus far, and tries bargaining for more time to get the third. With the air of an angry and disappointed school principal, White firmly reminds him that they had an agreement. Alec tries again, asking for just a few more hours, but White snaps that that's not what he's talking about. "I told you to kill them."

Alec tries bluffing his way out of it again, game face firmly in place, but White, impassive, nods at Otto, who flips the remote control to open that cage that Alec was imprisoned in earlier. Down tumbles the corpse of the young X6 that Alec took the second barcode from. Alec looks like he'd quite like to throw up as White angrily narrates that: "someone left him outside an emergency room with a bandage on the back of his neck."

A nasty assault on an innocent victim, on the one hand, and yet at the same time extremely generous, almost tender, in comparison to what he was supposed to do to the boy. It's an interesting and valiant attempt by Alec to get out of his predicament without having to actually kill again, making it clear to viewers that, for all his training and history as a soldier and assassin, there is a very definite line that he is unwilling to cross.

"He was just a kid," Alec grits, equally angry, but at a definite disadvantage. Basic instincts of a good person, like I said, but he doesn't really know what to do with them, as circumstances and 20 years of military brainwashing, plus the emotional walls that would have been absolutely essential to survive at Manticore, tend to conspire against him. He has absolutely no idea how to get himself out of this predicament without further bloodshed. Thanks to that micro explosive, White owns him and he knows it. The disarming of that bomb before it can blow his head off is the prize he must work toward, with no certainty whatsoever as to what will happen to him beyond that.

"You disappoint me," White growls. "Now, apparently, you had no trouble with whatever this was." He holds up Panther Lady's barcode, white on black fur. "But him, one of your own? You couldn't do it. So, now you're a dead man."

Grim, Alec insists that he can do it, if given another chance. With a magnanimous air, White agrees to let the X6 count against Alec's final total. But he still owes White one more barcode. "Say thank you," White snarls, bastard that he is. Alec thanks him through gritted teeth and asks again for more time. White refuses this request, but offers him instead a taser. "Maybe, if you don't have to listen to them beg and scream, you can actually go through with it. Tick tock."

Logan's Penthouse. Max stands in the window and broods. Logan, who's been busily working away at his computer while she moped, interrupts her musing to announce that he has figured out why the addresses don't add up. "Joshua's been looking for Sandeman, all right, it's just his information's out of date. It seems that when compared to a pre-Pulse directory, there was a Sandeman living at each address, so Joshua must have got his hands on an old directory and not realised it was no good anymore. He's been going through them in order, with just two remaining.

"Thanks, Logan. I'd hug you, but…" Max smiles. See how the hope of a cure sometime soon has cleared the air, allowed them to joke about their situation.
"Maybe in a couple of days," Logan smiles back.

Streets of Seattle. Max wanders along just outside Logan's apartment building, studying the addresses he gave her. Alec appears out of the shadows and calls her, making her jump almost out of her skin, so wrapped up in her own thoughts was she. Alec tells her they need to talk, but she brushes him off, saying she doesn't have time. He tells her she's going to have to make time, hand moving to the taser in his back pocket. He's almost out of time, and she's the only transgenic he knows how to track down in a hurry. So how much danger is Max now in? How far past his own ethical boundaries will Alec be prepared to go in defence of his own life? He'd have been trained, brainwashed, all his life to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

"It's a matter of life and death," he tells her with absolute honesty, not so much as a hint of his usual flippancy in evidence, deadly serious. "Mine."
But Max just rolls her eyes and dismisses his problem completely. "Look, I don't know what your drama is, but I got a lead on Joshua, and I'm out of here, now."

Max is pretty selective about which transgenics she will or won't help. Basically, she has time for any transgenic in trouble except Alec, with whom she has a thorny history that prejudices her against him. If any other transgenic out there told her that their life was in danger, she'd be all over it, her guilt over setting them loose and strong sense of kinship and responsibility not allowing her to walk away from them if she knows they are in need. But here when Alec seems to be trying to ask her for help – and she has no way of knowing that her own life is potentially at risk in exchange for his, in the pinch, considering him an annoyance rather than a threat – she dismisses him completely without even taking time to ask what's wrong. He's absolutely on his own. Which is, of course, what he's believed from the start, and the reason he hasn't tried to ask for help before now, instead feeling that he has no choice if he wants to live but to go through with what White has demanded of him.

Max and Alec are very alike in many ways, got off on a bad foot and continued from there, and clash constantly throughout the season. That personality clash and the thorny history between them, his involvement in Manticore's plot against Logan, does make Max's dislike of Alec understandable. But her extreme bitchiness toward him at all times, which continues long after he's proved himself a good ally to her, is only really paid off in Hello, Goodbye, very late in the season, when she finally admits that the biggest reason she struggles to deal with him on a day-to-day basis is because he is the identical twin of her murderous 'brother' Ben, whom she was forced to kill last season. It's more about who he isn't than who he is. Once that has been revealed, her curtness in all dealings with him in early episodes such as this can be seen in a whole new light. Max has more issues than she knows how to deal with.

Admittedly, Alec's actions in both this episode and Designate This aren't exactly calculated to inspire Max's trust.

"Joshua?" You can see the lightbulb go on in Alec's head. He needs one more barcode to save his own life, even if only for a little bit longer, and if he can trust White's word, has very little time to spare, but a lead on Joshua gives him options. Better Joshua, the nomaly, than Max, a fellow X5.

Max bends over to ready her motorcycle, her hair falling forward to reveal her barcode. Alec glances at his watch – just 59 minutes remaining in which to harvest his final barcode and get it back to White. Going off on another wild goose chase for Joshua, which may or may not pan out successfully, would be cutting things dangerously fine. But the only alternative is to try and take out Max, here and now. He makes his decision. "I'll go with you."

Max doesn't care one way or another, being in a hurry to get to Joshua, and doesn't even look at him as he joins her on the motorcycle, therefore not seeing just how haunted he looks as they speed away. Alec also has more issues than he knows how to deal with.

Random address in Seattle. The first of the addresses on Max's list of two has been torn down, long enough ago for the site to be grassed over, full of junk left to rot. But paydirt is hit, for Joshua is there, sitting on a box looking dejected. It's a cold, lonely and unfriendly world he's been released into.

Max is delighted to have found her friend at last, and calls happily to him. Joshua is stunned to see her, breathing her name as if he can't quite believe he has a friend in the world. I don't think he really saw her when she barrelled into that garage earlier, just saw a diversion and took the opportunity to escape, terrified and cornered as he was. They hug one another, and Max asks how he's been doing, telling him she's been worried. She doesn't admit that she only thought to worry about him when presented with evidence that he was struggling. Joshua sadly tells her that 'father' isn't here, isn't anywhere, clutching at a ragged scrap of paper torn from an old telephone directory. He took it from "people upstairs" after father left, he says, and Max explains that the addresses are old, which means that those people may not live there any more. That notion hadn't occurred to Joshua, sheltered innocent that he is. Disappointed, he points to the last Sandeman address, and Max agrees to check it out.

"I hate to be a killjoy, but nobody's going anywhere," Alec cuts in, grim-faced. Whipping out the taser, he takes Max down first, rightly seeing her as the biggest threat, then when Joshua growls and swipes at him in her defence, turns the taser on the dog-man, disabling him with relative ease. Pulling out the switch knife, he rolls Joshua onto his front – without first killing him, it's worth noting. Does he believe that he can repeat his non-lethal method of barcode harvesting attempted earlier, but without White finding out this time?

It's a moot point, as Joshua does not have a barcode. Alec is beyond dismayed, yelling at him in desperation as he sees his last chance of saving his own life slipping away from him. A nomaly barcode White probably wouldn't question; an x-series he'd want to see the body.

"No barcode. I was first. Special," Joshua gasps, defiant. That special-ness is something he has clung to for many long, lonely years. Angry, Alec turns the taser on him again. Can't risk Joshua intervening in what he now has to do. Kudos to Jensen Ackles. This show doesn't always give him the best material to work with, but in this scene you can really see the horror in Alec's eyes at the extremis he now finds himself in, at the thought of what he knows he has to do if he wants to live.

Why not just confide in Max about the micro bomb in his neck? Probably because, having spent his entire life at Manticore, he isn't used to being able to go to anyone for support, and has been given no reason to feel that he now can. Whatever Max's 'save the day' complex where the majority of her fellow transgenics are concerned, she and Alec know one another just well enough for her to have made it clear how much she dislikes him and that her support network is not available to him – witness her dismissiveness and disinterest both times he's come to her in this episode. He is used to being able to rely on no one but himself, and has never been given any reason to believe Max would try to help him find a way to safely resolve this issue if she knew. If he'd felt able to ask for help, way back at the beginning, none of this would have happened. But it is clear that he doesn't believe anyone would want or be able to help him even if he asked, and so he doesn't.

Flinging the taser aside, Alec turns to Max, who is lying crumpled on her back, her body jerking and convulsing from the electric shock she just received. "I'm sorry. There's no other way," he quietly tells her, pulling out his switch knife. Max tries to gasp out a plea for her life, which he counters with his own, almost begging her for forgiveness. "I don't want to die."



He kneels besides her, knife in hand. Max gasps and shudders, unable to defend herself, and Joshua is also out for the count and thus unable to come to her aid, so things are looking grim. Looking Max right in the eye – probably not the best idea when trying to kill someone, especially someone you know reasonably well and kinda admire – Alec steels himself to go through with what he believes he has to do if he wants to live, struggles visibly with the conscience he'd have always been trained to ignore, finally plunges the knife down….

Alec drops to the ground and rolls onto his back, gasping with the aftermath of that adrenaline surge and the implications of what he's just done.

Max lies on the ground staring at the knife, buried to the hilt in the grass alongside her. Unable to go through with committing murder – other than that of the feral Panther Lady, that in itself bad enough – Alec has ultimately chosen to spare her life, knowing that as a result his own will be forfeit in a matter of mere minutes.

Skanky home of the Paranoid Lab Tech. Alec sits, stiff as a ramrod, while Lab Tech examines his neck. "Planted a few of these myself, back in the day," he cheerfully recalls. "Mind my asking how you ended up with one of these popguns attached to your brain stem?"

"Because he's a cold-blooded, opportunistic show-off who thought he could run his game on a major bad guy, who, it turns out, is an even bigger scumbag than he is," Max furiously rants. "That about cover it?"

Still, for all her disinterest in Alec's problems earlier, and despite him almost murdering her just a few minutes ago, she has, now that she knows everything, brought him to someone who might be able to help. Props to Max's conscience and instinct for doing the right thing in a pinch. Can't help wondering how they all got there so quickly, though, since I'm fairly certain you'd struggle to fit three people on a motorcycle, especially when one of the three is Joshua's size.

"Yeah, that's pretty much how it happened," Alec quietly tells Lab Tech, without attempting to defend himself in any way. Nice acting – underplaying little moments like this is very effective in selling the mood and emotion that more often hide beneath his characteristic flippancy. In fairness, though, he didn't try to run any kind of game on White until he believed he had nothing left to lose, only to find that he did still have one more thing to lose – his moral integrity, or whatever he has left of it, post-Manticore.

"Oh, before I forget, thanks so much for not killing me," Max sneers.
"Me too," Joshua interjects, considerably more sincerely than Max, being the innocent that he is.

Abashed and expecting to die at any minute, Alec quietly glances up at Max, again not attempting to defend himself in any way. He got himself into this mess and, despite Max having brought him here, still doesn't really expect anyone to get him out of it. He also doesn't expect to be given any credit for choosing Max's life over his own when he had the chance to save his own skin, a chance he would have taken without a second thought if he was really the utter scumbag Max believes him to be.

"I can disarm it," Lab Tech announces. "But it'll cost you ten grand."
"That the only number you know?" Max snarls.

Alec quietly hands over a wad of cash, his cagefight earnings. "I can get you the rest later." Lab Tech blithely insists that he needs the cash up front. Temper snapping, Alec is on his feet in a second, slamming the man against the wall, hand curled around his neck. "Where the hell am I going to get that kind of cash in the next five minutes? Huh?"

Good point.

"Wait. You're paying me back," Max cuts in, pulling out the money Logan gave her for their cure, her conscience forcing her to do the right thing here no matter how much she dislikes Alec, and no matter what he's done. It's a good example to be setting him, a good example that he badly needs, floundering in an unfamiliar world as he is. Just because Alec gives a good impression of adapting to the outside world doesn't always mean that it's true.

"No problem." Alec sits back down.

Lab Tech is delighted, declaring that this means he can leave town tonight, and Max is appalled. "You haven't finished my job!"
"Have I not mentioned that my life is in danger," Lab Tech reminds her.
"I'll make sure nothing happens to you," Max pleads, but he doesn't consider that good enough, instead offers her the work he's done so far, which she could take to some other Manticore geek to finish off, always supposing she can find one, since if they've got any sense they'll already be on their way out of town.

Max looks at Alec, angry and dismayed at the choice before her. Equally dismayed, Alec obviously doesn't see that there's a choice to be made, expects her to just look after her own interests, his life be damned, since he's only got a couple of minutes left to live.

But Max can't just stand by and watch a fellow transgenic's head explode right in front of her. She takes the papers and hands over the cash, tells Lab Tech to do it.

Mere seconds remain on Alec's wristwatch countdown as Lab Tech removes the micro bomb, which promptly explodes just as the countdown hits zero. Maybe the timer on the bomb really was triggered by that wristwatch, then, by radio remote of some kind, rather than by the act of implantation. Who knows? The countdown makes for good drama, is all, really.

"Congratulations. You're not dead," smirks Lab Tech, hurriedly grabbing his things and making a hasty exit. He travels light – just about all he takes with him is his case of equipment.

"I owe you, Max," murmurs a very shaken Alec, for whom the very idea of someone actually coming through for him, to their own cost rather than gain, seems to have been completely alien. That tells us a lot about life at Manticore. "I know I screwed things u–"

"Shut up!" snarls Max, who is too disappointed and angry to want to hear anything he's got to say right now, certainly doesn't want his gratitude. "And listen, 'cause I'm only saying this once. That guy was the last chance for me and Logan; he's gone, and it's your fault. Don't think I'm ever getting over that."

Check out the positioning and body language again: Alec still sitting, with Max standing, quite close, so that she's towering over him and he has to tilt his head way back to look her in the eye. Nicely arranged by the director.

Alec already knows that Max isn't going to forgive him for this; it's why he didn't expect her to go through with saving him once she knew it would cost her the virus cure. He whispers the first part of that sentence, with the second written all over his face.

"Just…do me a favour, all right?" says Max. "Go away. I can't even look at you right now."

Max turns away, distraught, all her hopes crumbling into dust, while Joshua backs her up with some snarling. Still badly shaken, Alec quietly picks up his jacket and walks to the door. "I'm sorry, Max. For everything," he says as he leaves. He's got quite a bit to be sorry for, too, where Max is concerned. His apology is out there now, spoken and meant. Forgiveness will be another matter entirely.

"I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up anyway," Max brokenly tells Joshua when Alec has gone. "I just wish I knew how I was going to tell Logan."

Um…yeah. She used Logan's money, which came from the sale of his grandmother's painting, to save someone they both hold at least partially responsible, whether fairly or unfairly, for the virus that separates them, instead of for the cure for that virus, as intended. Just when they'd both allowed themselves to hope. I can see where that would be a tricky conversation.

Joshua, who may or may not know all the details of what's going on here, but is definitely very empathetic and cares for Max a great deal, reaches out to comfort her.

Streets of Seattle. Lydecker drives along, taking those photographs to the unnamed Professor he was speaking to earlier. He's driving along a quiet, deserted road, late at night, so when a larger car pulls out right behind his, it is kind of instantly obvious that this is not a good thing, nor a coincidence. Especially as said car immediately starts driving way too close and starts charging into the back of his car. Lydecker is alarmed, but can do nothing to defend himself.

Morning. Police and rescue vehicles abound as Lydecker's car is pulled out of the river, empty. "Body must have been thrown clear," a random cop notes. "Guess we're going to have to drag the river."

On and around the rocks at the riverbank, Lydecker's fateful photographs of the skeletons beneath the RCF warehouse float soggily in the water.

House. Max and Joshua arrive at the final potential Sandeman house on Joshua's list. Just why it never seems to occur to anyone to check an up-to-date directory for Sandemans is beyond me. Anyway. This house has clearly been abandoned for quite some time – definitely abandoned rather than the occupant simply moving on, for most if not all of the contents remain, having somehow managed to avoid any kind of looting. You'd think in a lawless society like this, an unoccupied house would be an easy target for anyone wanting something to sell, or for squatters.

There are books and papers strewn everywhere, and the moment Joshua walks through the door, he knows – this is it. "Father's house," he says, picking up a book he recognises. "His books. I remember."

He looks so happy just to have found the slightest trace of his 'father'. Max has just had her hopes and dreams shattered; Joshua is just now having his rekindled. He finds an old walking stick, the handle carved into that stylised leaping lion-type shape already seen as the Manticore logo and painted on the cave wall that Lydecker found. Max recognises it as the Manticore symbol, showing Joshua the same symbol embroidered into the lapel of his old army jacket. But Joshua shakes his head. "No. Father's."

Cue flashback of the child Max – hey, it's a new actress for Flashback!Max! – meeting an older gentleman who is leaning on this same walking stick, a man tall enough that her childish perspective can't make out the face, being at eye level with his stomach. "There she is. My little one. My special little one," the man croons, enfolding the child in a gentle hug. Mini Max looks totally bewildered, having presumably never been hugged before, Manticore being what it was.

Max and Joshua note that it doesn't seem like Sandeman has been in this house for a long time. "I'm sorry. I know that wasn't the plan," Max sympathises.
"Joshua and Father. That's the plan," Joshua agrees.
"Max, Joshua and Father. That's the plan," Max corrects. "You wanna find him, I'll help you. I got some questions for this guy."
"He'll help you," Joshua agrees, looking so happy to have someone on his side. "Just like the man helped your friend."

Rather than point out that Alec really isn't someone she'd consider a friend – also, Joshua has met Alec before, so should know who he is rather than referring to him so vaguely – Max instead wonders if Sandeman could really cure this virus problem of hers. "He made us," Joshua reminds her. "He'll make you better. And that's what you tell Logan. To have hopes up."

Max agrees that this is a good plan.

Later. Bedded down in Sandeman's house, Joshua sleeps hugging his 'father's' walking stick to his chest. By candlelight, Max sits watching him sleep, then turns to extinguish the candles, so as not to disturb him, and drops a fond kiss onto his forehead.

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