#and sadly the gay character only exists in a dream episode of s2 but shh

[oveliagirlhaditright]

I sent Tumblr user rainhadaenerys why she might like the show Dark Angel, and I thought I might as well also post it here since I never shut up about it (for anyone curious)

So, I think there's a chance you might like the show "Dark Angel" (at least the first season. The second season had some good ideas but bad execution. But while most people prefer the first season, the second season fans are more vocal online. Probably because Jensen Ackles is in it). 

The first season came out in 2000 and takes place in 2019-2020 (the second season is 2020-2021 and came out a year later, after 9/1 in real life, which is why season two toned down some of S1's themes). The show is about this created/genetically engineered girl, Max, who was designed to be the perfect soldier and who--alongside those like her in her unit, who she sees as “siblings”--was tortured by her military creators (such as her main traitor and surrogate awful father, Lydecker), until she and eleven others of them escaped when she was nine. From there on out, she's on the run, staying under the radar so she doesn't have to go back to where she was created and had been kept (Manticore). 

In the year 2009 (the year Max escaped, when she was nine) terrorists set off this electromagnetic pulse, that basically wiped out all of America's technology and turned it into a third world country over night (so this is part of how Max is able to keep her head down in this world). But because of all of this, there was anarchy and bad people overtook the good ones and stole their positions, returning things to the law of the jungle (there's a lot in this show about corrupt political figures, police brutality), etc. 

At first journalists tried to report on all of this, but then they were silenced. But one--Logan Cale--went underground as "Eyes Only", an anonymous cyber journalist who hacks into people's broadcasts and tells them the truths being kept from them, and is seen as a terrorist by those he'd try to expose. 

At the start of the show (2019), Max works in Seattle as a bike messenger (also in the city where Logan is), which is the worst job you can get and the only one the underprivileged can (many of these being people of color) and steals things from the rich to give to a private investigator trying to help her find her siblings. 

Eventually she tries to steal something from Logan (not knowing he's Eyes Only, but she finds this out here). And there's an immediate attraction, because they get into this conversation while Logan's holding her at gun point--trying to keep her there until the guards come--because they realize they have something in common (like admiration for the goddess Bast, which is the statue Max was trying to steal), and Logan is actually happy Max is just a thief because he thought she was an assassin. 

This one drug company is acting like they're selling the drug to people--that will save their lives--but is really just selling them candy, and selling the real thing for a higher price overseas. And a woman who knows this is going to testify about it, and Logan is keeping her and her daughter at his apartment until they can get to a safehouse. 

Max eventually bolts, and Logan sees her use her powers in doing so. He tracks her down, partly to see if she's going to be a danger to him, but also because the audience can begin to see that he wants to enlist her help. The two of them debate about morality, about how Logan wants to make a change and give people choices again. But Max is skeptical that he wants to get it back to the "good old days", where people still died of diseases they didn't need to and spent obscenes amounts of money redecorating their homes to match their cat. She leaves again when he questions how she jumped out of, like, an eleven story window unscathed. 

They meet up one more time, and Logan kind of seduces/tricks Max into letting her see the barcode on her neck (that all those from Manticore have, as its encrypted into their DNA. He’d gotten an anonymous tip about Manticore years ago and put two-and-two together that Max was one one of the escapees), and Max is hurt by this (as she had really liked him and feels hella betrayed here. I think Logan for sure liked her, but he's just way too focused on his mission above all else at first, and that's one of the flaws he has to work on). 

He bargains with Max that if she helps him get the woman and her daughter into witness protection, he'll help her find her siblings. Max understandably disagrees, since so far she's gotten by by keeping to herself and wants to keep it that way. 

Logan tries to do the mission by himself but it fails. He's shot and ends up in a coma for a time, and is paraplegic in the end. And the little girl is kidnapped, but the mom makes it back to Logan's apartment. Max sees all of this broadcast on TV and feels guilty, and actually goes to see the unconscious Logan at the hospital (and tells him how she's not sorry and sees it all as his fault, even though she doesn't), and saves him from another assassination attempt. She runs into the little girl’s mother (the little girl’s named Sophie) and promises to save Sophie, and does so rather impressively. 

She even gets Manticore, that had been on her tail the whole episode, to fight for her--by getting the address for the girl's location on a line that she knew was tapped and that Manticore was listening in on. And there's a chilling moment at the end where Max, wearing a mask, walks by Lydecker while carrying Sophie and he realizes at the last moment that it was her. Edit: They also bring all those who were duping people--and selling them candy, so that they ended up dying because of it:(--to justice.

A few months later, Max visits Logan at his apartment and he's back in the fight for the less fortunate. Max ends up asking if he thinks he can really make a difference, to which he says he thinks he can with her help, and Max agrees to his deal and this is where the show really starts. 

And it's just... so good. I like the political commentary, that I could see you really getting into (and I'm sad they tone it down in S2, after 9/11), but my favorite bits is the stuff with Max, Lydecker, her siblings, and all things Manticore that I barely even touched on here. 

Most of the transgenics (those created humans) are PoC, too (including Max) to show how they're oppressed. 

And Max is just SUCH a good character (who's even a chosen one in S2), with such great development, who has to be one of the best characters of all-time (especially for female heroes). 

And in S1, there's so much showing of how men can be awful, and Max is like the hero to women from them (beating up many of them and even killing a few. It reminds me a bit of Daenerys. And is why I say claims against Dany--saying that when she did things like Max, it was hints of her madness--is bullshit. They'd probably do the same to Max if her show had come out today, but it didn't and instead she got to be the awesome hero she deserved to be). 

She also eventually stops stealing altogether--even though I was okay with her not being a goody-goody hero--unless it's from the bad and for the poor. 

She also becomes a leader... 

There's also so much fun swapped gender role stuff with her and Logan (with her being the superhero and him the sidekick, her being the brawns and him the brains--though Max has equal brains, too, if not even more than Logan--and her doing comic book type things, like super speeding away and Logan getting irritated by it: usually it’s a guy hero who does this, and a normal girl annoyed with it... and Logan can even cook exceptionally, and is always cooking for Max, and she can’t even boil water, etc.). 

And speaking of which, Max and Logan are my favorite ship of all time. They're so interesting... and fun (but there's loads of angst there, too), and are SO good for each other. Logan helps Max become more selfless (which really, she always was and wanted to be) and she helps him to chill. And they're both liberal lefties. 

The first season of this show is my favorite show of all-time.

Edit: The character, Original Cindy, is also one of the first lesbians on TV (maybe even the first, and before Willow in Buffy). And the show tried to have a positive story/episode with a trans character (with, once again, this stuff was huge for the time... There were some definite misses there, but they at least tried). And disabled representation on this show! And the disabled person eventually winning the heart of the superhero girl!