Max is enlisted to rescue and protect a witness, but she is annoyed to find out it's Bruno Anselmo, a man she believed dead and the person who put Logan in his wheelchair.

Now, this should be more like it. Old enemy from the past for whom both Logan and Max have no love. Tale of revenge and the need to protect Anselmo from the people chasing after him. All good meaty stuff so far. So what is it that goes wrong? Anselmo is there for comic amusement, it seems, rather than providing a chance for Logan to get some of his feelings out in the open. Max is forced to spend her time in a safehouse with Bruno, and every time she lets him out of her sight, she returns to find him either gone or having acquired dancing girls or some other such luxury. Her reactions to him are certainly fun and enjoyable, but the chance for high drama as Logan confronts the man who lost him his mobility is lost, forever by the end of the episode.

Then of course there's the need for a new threat other than Lydecker, which comes in the form of Terminator-style thugs, humans with genetic additions that make them superior in battle and essentially unkillable. While this leads to some impressive fight sequences between Max and the mob, there's no personality there so they make poor antagonists. The suggestion that they'll be back sounds like more of a threat than a promise. Admittedly Max needs a decent work-out every now and again, as she otherwise beats everyone way too easily, but the plot and characters must come first. Anselmo ends up quite well-rounded as we discover he has a daughter, but it's not enough to bring this up to the highest level that Dark Angel has been running at most of the time so far.

***

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