Max meets a group of people led to commit crimes by a Manticore escapee with perfect blood, which he is feeding to them to boost their natural talents.

Very much a case of been there, done that, this episode is more a heavy-handed metaphor for drug taking than a particularly interestingly plotted episode of Dark Angel. The pallid perps don't really do much except mope around in their lair and even their leader isn't the most proactive of transgenics, preferring to sit about at home and wait for things to happen most of the time.

There's simply nothing to this; it's all running around, being captured, then escaping, then being captured, and the solution to the problem of addiction to the Manticore blood turns out to be woefully simple: stop drinking it. Which also doesn't really do any favours for the metaphor, as stopping drug use isn't quite as easy as it's made out to be here. Yeah, there are some side effects like the shakes and feeling very ill, but just flush it out of your system and you'll be fine.

Beyond that we just have a rather pointless sub-plot where Joshua is enlisted by Alec to deliver some of his packages and meets up with some drug-taking losers who make him their new best friend, only to run screaming when they find out Joshua is a dog-man. Yes, it's probably a tough lesson that Joshua had to learn, and it's rather sweet when he feels he's been accepted, then sad when everyone screams and runs, but much of the time is taken up with the group sitting round eating and laughing. As a parallel plot to the other 'drug' takers it doesn't really work and two pointless plots for the price of one doesn't really work for me.

**

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