LEXX: S02E01: Mantrid

I quickly rushed to get some beer… ‘Ooooer It’s starting!!!’ I turned the television on…. heard that stupid chanting, ranting noise like a load of monks tripping on dope! Then finally after months of waiting I herd those silky smooth words of comfort, “I am the LEXX. I am the most powerful weapon of destruction in the two universes”

IT’S BACK! The first episode of the second LEXX series had begun and BOY IT WAS ABOUT TIME!

LEXXians all over the world had been waiting for this moment, the next hour was either going to fill us with wonder, mild nausea, a slight {or major} swelling in an embarrassing place – or preferably all three!

What we didn’t expect was all that PLUS! This was a great first show It managed to live up to the hype and then some. The story was nuts, the sound was brilliant, the graphics were cool, Zev was hot, Kai was cold and Stanley was lukewarm! What more could we ask?

The show opens with a disturbing yet velvety introduction by His Divine Shadow…..

“Many thousands of years ago we were defeated by humans in the great Insect Wars. Our human enemies thought that they destroyed all insects but I escaped to live on. I hide myself by burrowing deep into a small planetoid and there I waited.

{Scene of how the essence of His Shadow passed to the first human host}

I passed my essence, my soul, my intelligence, my everything into a human host. As the last surviving Insect, I knew that I would never be able to defeat the humans. But if I possessed a human body, I though perhaps I could use humans to defeat themselves. I became His Divine Shadow, the most powerful ruler in the two universes. My power over humanity grew as I passed my essence down through generation after generation. My Insect body also grew in strength; fed by human flesh gathered from 20,000 unsuspecting planets all unknowingly enslaved to their enemy.

But my order was destroyed by Kai, the last of the Brunnen G. My prematurely reborn body was killed by the LEXX, the most powerful weapon of destruction ever built.

Kai crushed the brain of my last human host, but he did not kill me, as I still live on. But he does not know that I live… through him.”

Kai wakes himself up. He rises from his cryogenic bed and walks past Stanley who is trying to get the LEXX to take him to a planet full of women with dubious virtue. Stanley runs off to tell the sleeping Zev.

Zev is clearly pleased to see that Kai has reanimated. And is even more encouraged when Kai explains that he has a new motivation to find more protoblood. He explains that he needs to replenish his supply of the thick milky white substance, and that he needs to be animated to do so {don’t we all!}.

Kai persuades Zev, 790 and Stan that they must return to the Light Zone so that they can hunt for remnants of the Giga Shadow. on the Giga Shadow are little baby insect larvae and they may contain protoblood.

Stanley points out that the Fractal Core they travelled through is now destroyed, they have no way of getting back. 790 agrees, “Don’t look at me, dead man in black! I also feel no motivation except to jam my circuits with creamy love pudding number one!” {Good point!}.

Zev, ever willing, commands 790 to tell them if there is a way of getting back to the Light Zone. He grudgingly admits that there is a way. But Kai already knows. With his back turned to them, his eyes turn black as death and he says, “I know the way.”

This was great, just what all us budding jealous male lexxians wanted – Kai a baddie, what divine justice!

The LEXX travels through a neutron star, but not after Zev has pleaded with Stanley to do so. In a very moving scene, Zev tries to appeal to Stan’s better nature, and when that fails she says, “…. I will do it with you! If you take the LEXX back into the Light Zone. {Do what exactly?}…. You can have me…naked…. {Oh right, ok.}… My smooth moist skin pressed tightly against yours…. {Ok, it works for me. What do you reckon Stanley}….. warming you up, heating you up. Raising your temperature until you are ready to explode…. {Stanley… come on, what you waiting for?}….. Wouldn’t you want me wrapped around you Stanley, squeezing you, riding you like a big…..”

“I am now inside the gravitational pull of the black star.” Interrupts LEXX. {Whew!}

Stanley immediately commands the LEXX to turn around, {WHAT!!} but it’s too late. The ship is now committed to going through the black star and worse still, that twit Stanley didn’t manage to cement any sort of deal with Zev. 790 confirmed that Stan tried to pull the LEXX back before any ‘deal’ was completed. That was a nasty trick by Zev. She knew that stalling Stan with a promise of some ‘skin’ would delay his abort-order until it was too late.

Stanley, in frustration turns to Kai. His near miss with Zev leads him to ask why Kai is so keen to put their lives in jeopardy. “Something must have come over me.” He says. {Well it certainly wasn’t Stan!}

They pass through to the Light Zone without much trouble and on the other side, they see debris from the destruction of the Giga Shadow. After a detailed search of the debris they find an Insect. It’s a sort of baby Insect about 20 feet long {treading on an insect in the Light Zone is likely to get your leg chewed off!}. They bring it aboard.

Kai finds the dormant insect lava strangely beautiful. Stan and Zev are not impressed. Zev tries to cut the thing up with a laser, but she is stopped by Kai. He feels that the insect is more likely to produce protoblood if it is dormant. “It certainly wont if it’s dead and in little pieces.”

When he is alone with the baby insect, Kai tries to animate it. He fails. Later when joined by Zev and Stanley, Kai tells them that the only person who can help them is Mantrid. Apparently he was once the Divine Orders greatest Vizier, he was a brilliant scientist and a genius. Unfortunately for him, the Divine Order imprisoned him because they felt that he knew too much and that he might be dangerous. Kai knows where Mantrid is hiding and so the LEXX goes off in search of Mantrid’s home planet.

Mantrid managed to escape the Cleansing in a spaceship that looks rather like Sputnik’s mum. He landed on a cold and desolate planet with a trusty assistant. There he whiles away the time tormenting his human sidekick and generally being a real git!

Mantrid, it has to be said, looks GREAT! His animated head sits atop what looks like a really big pickle jar. Unfortunately it looks like he’s running low on pickles. In fact the geezer is completely bonkers! He has some pretty cool appendages though. He hovers around without the need for legs but has a small collection of animated arms that also float independently (but totally in control of) his jar/body/head.

When LEXX arrives, Zev and Kai join him and negotiate a deal to extract protoblood from the insect. Mantrid sort of welcomes them and even his assistant joins him to greet his guests. The assistant {who is definitely a SadGeezer} greets Zev with a very friendly hand-lick {hand!? – maybe he isn’t a SadGeezer!} but finds it difficult to take his eyes of her soft front parts.

Mantrid says that he will help them provided Kai gives him the LEXX. Kai says, “If you don’t help us on our terms. I will kill you!” I reckon that’s a good argument, nicely put. Mantrid certainly thinks so. He accepts their terms and begins the process of reviving the dormant insect – It must be alive before protoblood can be extracted.

Mantrid identifies the insects’ transference organ. This organ is essential as the receptor for the transfer of His Shadows essence. He needs to amputate the organ so that the insect can be harmlessly revived, like a computer without a program. With the transference organ left intact, the insect would require an essence to be revived.

Kai fires his handy wrist gadget at Mantrid before he has chance to amputate the organ. Kai smashes Mantrid’s pickle jar and he falls, dying, to the ground. His trusty assistant runs over to recover the erm… head and Kai goes to the insect and transfers the essence of His Shadow into the Insect. The insect gradually begins to revive.

Zev arrives to see that Kai is nearly unconscious after the exertion of transference. He tells her that he had been possessed by the essence of His Divine Shadow and that the essence has now been transferred to the insect. They try to make their escape but realise that the planet should be destroyed if they are to be sure of killing the insect. Kai and Zev call Stan and ask him to destroy the planet immediately.

Mantrid’s sad but trusty assistant meanwhile, manages to revive his master’s head by retrieving the transference organ from the insect and using it to reanimate Mantrid.

Meanwhile the lovely Zev is chased around by the Insect, which has now fully revived. This rather cheeky picture is of Zev rushing away, the insect will not attack Kai since he is cold. But it will attack Zev because erm… as you can see, she is quite erm.. hot.

Zev is just about to be eaten when we see Stanley come to her rescue as he drives his Moth transport into the Insect. Stanley had disregarded the request of Kai and Zev and flew down to the surface to save his buddies! {Quite brave of him really} He lands, quickly picks up Zev and Kai, and they return to the LEXX as fast as they can.

Meanwhile, Mantrid’s assistant watches as His Shadows essence is transferred into Mantrid from the insects’ transference organ. For his efforts however, Mantrid kill’s the poor geezer.

Zev, Kai and Stanley have returned to the LEXX and they blow up the planet! KABOOM! The insect is destroyed. Stanley, by using the LEXX to destroy the planet, has saved humanity by blowing up the last Insect! Zev is moderately impressed {but not that impressed}. The LEXX is ordered to fly off and find a planet with some good-looking men and women, and even a body for 790.

As they zoom off into deep space however, we see Sputnik’s mother, Mantrid’s spaceship carefully following on behind.

And there it ended. This cracking episode was not quite as mind-blowing as the first and it presumably had considerable scenery to set, but it was still a whopper! I can’t help feeling sorry for His Divine Shadow however. This poor geezer has been in more bodies than a gay, middle-aged gigolo and now he’s been reduced to a head on a pickle jar!

I’d have to rate this a stupendous 33,129 out of 10. What did you think?

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This episode review is © 1999 Tony Fawl.
Not for reproduction without the authors express permission

The LEXX names, characters, pictures and everything else associated with the series are the property of SALTER ST FILMS & TiMe Film-und TV-Produktions GmbH in association with Screen Partners. All rights reserved.