Mighty Max - Episode 32

ZYGOTE MUSIC

This is episode 32 (19th of the 2nd series.) Two bad guys grab hold of a boy and force him to sabotage an ATM cash dispenser; the boy has a kind of telekinetic power that enables him to override the ATM program. Just as something is happening the two bad guys look up and see a strange object hovering above them. They both runaway fearing for their lives, but the boy is not so lucky. A green ray shoots out from the hovering object and turns the boy into a green radioactive slime, which the machine then sucks up.

Episode Captures (Click to enlarge)

Max is in his room frantically trying to save his baseball card collection from his mother, who is trying to tidy his room. Max tries to explain to her that his cards could be worth a lot of money, but she is not convinced and asks him how they can be worth money when everybody else has the same cards. Max looks down at his cards and discovers several of the cards hold a message for him from Virgil – not everybody has those cards!

Max meets Norman and Virgil next to the ATM machine seen earlier. A small residual lump of the green slime is still on the ground. Max examines it but is not sure what to make of it. Virgil tells him that it could have something to do with the disappearance of a certain boy, a boy whose fate is intertwined with the fate of the cosmos. Using a forked stick Virgil attempts to find a trial to that would lead them to the missing boy, and soon stumbles on a patch of lawn. He announces that there is something underneath the lawn that may assist them. Max begins to pull up clumps of dirt and grass with his bare hands, but it is taking him too long. Norman pushes him to one side and rams his arm into the ground. When he pulls back he lifts up a huge door that is buried under the grass, revealing a lit staircase that disappears into the ground.

The three of them descend the stairs and find themselves on a moving platform that takes them straight towards a pair of vicious looking monsters, but after a brief struggle Norman dispatches them both with relative ease. Max then notices a button in the wall at the end of the moving platform, which he presses out of curiosity. A door opens and they find themselves in a familiar laboratory. In the centre of the lab is the mysterious object that turned the boy into slime. Max presses a random button and the machine bursts into life. However, instead of turning Max into green slime the machine empties out a load of green slime onto the floor. The green slime then begins to take the shape of a person and within moments the missing boy materialises, berating Virgil for an insult he had just made. The boy asks why they have brought him here but Max tries to explain that they are in fact rescuing him. The boy runs off to make good his escape, but his escape is blocked by Dr. Zygote, now in the new form Max had seen in the past. Dr Zygote tells Max that he plans on turning all humans into more superior creatures with the help of the captive boy who, he states, carries a particular gene that will make his plan come to fruition. Norman rushes Dr Zygote but he is slammed and held against a wall by Zygote’s telekinetic powers. Max and Virgil quickly find themselves pinned against the same wall as Zygote conjures up an array of sharp instruments, including an axe, a spiked ball, and a sword. The weapons rush toward Max, Virgil and Norman, and just as it seems that the three of them are going to be impaled by the hurtling weapons, they suddenly stop within inches of their bodies. Dr Zygote is stunned to see that the captive boy has extraordinary telekinetic powers, more so than he first realised. It is the boy who is holding the weapons at bay, and on the suggestion of Max he turns the weapons against Zygote. A battle of the wills ensues between the boy and Zygote which gives Max, Virgil and Norman time to escape. As they go to leave Norman frees the boy from his captivity and the four of them run for their lives.

Back out on the lawn the boy introduces himself to Max as “Gadge”. Max introduces himself, Norman and.... he realises that Virgil is no longer with them. After some persuasion Gadge agrees to go back to the lab to help Max and Norman rescue Virgil. As they re-enter the lab they see Virgil trapped by the machine which Zygote is using on him to extract his genes for his own use. Max notices that Zygote has developed a third eye in the middle of his enlarged head. Norman sneaks up on him and hits Zygote, knocking him unconscious, he then fights off the two monsters that he had attacked earlier, and throws them into Zygotes genetic replicator machine, damaging it. Zygote springs up and attaches himself to the machine. Green light bursts around them and the four of them watch in fascination as Zygote evolves into a more advanced state of being. He ends up being a spin colourful globe and hovers next to Max. A green light encloses Max and Max cries out as he feels his mind slipping away from him.

In the next scene we see max laying fully clothed on his bed at home, apparently asleep. Norman and Virgil enter his room and look down at Max who suddenly sits bolt upright with a look of terror on his face, as if he had just had a very bad dream. Something is wrong! Norman and Virgil are acting very strange and accuse Max of corrupting the future of the human race, and sentence him to execution. Norman comes forward and swings his sword at Max which misses and splits his bed into two. Max takes of his cap and shows it to Norman in a bid to make Norman realise that he is Max, his friend, but his cap momentarily changes into a dunce pointed cap before returning to its former shape. Max looks down puzzled and then realises that all this is not real, it is just a figment of Zygote’s imagination. “Never match imaginations with a kid!” cries Max as he reaches for something under his bed; a secret and devastating weapon? Not quite – it’s one of his socks. Max holds it out and claims it to be poisonous gas. Norman is choking by the stench allowing Max to escape. He runs out of his bedroom and into the hallway where he bumps into his mother. Max looks up and sees his mum, now four times her normal size reaching out for him telling him to eat all his vegetables. He manages to doge her attack and runs outside trying to escape from them, but he is unable too. As he stands and watches, his mother, Norman and Virgil approach him looking very menacing. The Zygote globe hovers above Max’s head and tells him he is nothing more than a scared little boy. But Max is determined. Max reasons with his own mind that his mom, Norman, and Virgil would never hurt him, and within moments he finds himself back in Zygote’s lab. The whole thing had been a figment of his imagination just as he had suspected. The Zygote globe realises that his trick has failed and floats over his genetic replicator and advances himself even further – so much so that he becomes part of the “infinite”. Zygote disappears into the sky and vanishes from view, never to be seen again.

Later Max is in his bedroom with Gadge. Max’s mother calls up for Max to tidy his room. Max turns to Gadge for help who uses his telekinetic powers to tidy Max’s room. Max attempts to have a go at telekinesis and is pleased to see his sock move on the floor, but it is not quite as Max had wanted – the sock was not moved by the power of his mind, but by his pet iguana, Thor.