And so it begins, yes this the first of three episodes which will probably redefine DARK ANGEL as we know it. They are going to send this season out with a bang, I can feel it. 'Hit a Sista Back' was written by Moira Kirkland Dekker. In this episode we have the return of two X-5's which were introduced to us earlier in the season, Tinga and Brin, and of course the return of our beloved Zack. It’s always great to see William Gregory Lee come back.

The episode starts with Max seeing a picture of her sister, Tinga, on a milk carton. Max realizes that Tinga left behind a family in Portland and tries to warn them about Manticore. Sebastion Spence of the Sci-Fi channel’s original series FIRST WAVE played Tinga’s husband, Charlie. This is the second appearance of a FIRST WAVE regular on DARK ANGEL, maybe Roger Cross will be the next FIRST WAVE regular to make a visit, he would make an interesting antagonist for Max, of course the guys would probably like to see Traci Elizabeth Lords as an antagonist. Maybe have her and Max fight. Okay, I’m getting sidetracked, big surprise there…

Back to it, so Max being Max had to go help out Tinga’s family. She knew Manticore would be all over them and may even use them to get to Tinga. So when Charlie didn’t trust Max’s phone call, she had to go to Portland in person to help them. An interesting thing about Tinga’s family is that she has a son. The son is of interest of Lydecker and Manticore because it seems he has inherited some of his mother’s abilities, such as increased motor abilities and advanced logical thinking. This was unexpected, because Manticore had tried to create soldiers by allowing their X series soldiers procreate and they had never succeeded. So Manticore thinks that there must be something special about Tinga which allowed her to pass her Manticore traits onto a child. Of course Lydecker is all over this and so is Madame X aka Renfro, although her methods are much less direct.

I am still having a hard time understanding the ins and outs of Manticore. I’m sure this is on purpose. The less we know and understand, the more questions we have, so we just coming back to watch more, right? Well it's working with me.

When Max arrives in Seattle, she finds Tinga and together they plan how to save Tinga's husband and son. I think one important thing to note is Max's refusal to use a gun. That goes back to her childhood when she saw one of her siblings being shot.

When Max and Tinga go in to save Tinga's family, we end up having quite a family reunion with Zack showing up to help. He talks about not letting emotions getting in the way and how it's important not to have ties to the world, but he'll do anything for his family, even as he's saying how wrong it is to let themselves get into that situation.

Brin was also able to make it to the family reunion, despite being on the opposing team now. Brin, despite kicking Max's ass, ended up letting her go, which kind of surprised me. Just how thorough is the Manticore training?

So Max, Zack, and Tinga, with family in tow, head back to Seattle so they can get away from Manticore and start a new life with Logan's help. Of course things are never that easy in Max's world, especially where Manticore is involved. Lydecker left a little message with Tinga's kid in the form of a bar code and nano technology.

Lydecker knows what he wants and he wants his kids back. He'll do anything to accomplish that goal, even use an innocent child. Tinga had no choice. She had to go back to Manticore in order to save her son, so she a made a deal with Lydecker.

One thing about Lydecker, despite being cruel and heartless, he was going to keep his deal with Tinga, he was going to let her son go free. Renfro, however, is not only cruel and heartless, but she's also sub-human and she, under no circumstances, was going to let Tinga's son go free. So Renfro sabotaged the exchange and tried to capture Tinga's son. Luckily Max and Zack were able to stop that from happening, but Renfro did get Tinga and at the end we saw that Renfro had her own agenda with regards to Tinga and she wasn't about to let Lydecker in on it.

Zack and Max weren't about to give up on Tinga however. So things are getting pretty hot on DARK ANGEL, and next week they'll be steaming!