C.R.E.A.M.

Original airdate: 10/31/2000
Length: 60 min.
Network: Fox
Director: Chris Long
Writer: David Zabel
Executive Producers: James Cameron, Rae Sanchini and Charles Eglee
Staring: Jessica Alba as Max, Michael Weatherly as Logan Cale, Valarie Rae Miller as Original Cindy, Richard Gunn as Sketchy, J.C. Mackenzie as Normal, Jennifer Blanc as Kendra, Almi Ballard as Herbal Thought,  and John Savage as Lydecker

    The episode starts out with a young woman, Aleana walking thru a bad neighborhood, then being ambushed and brought into a Van.  They bring her to an unknown room where she has a video conference with Eyes Only.  She asks him to help her find out what happed to her father, who used to be a fellow reporter with Logan at the Pacific Free Press.
    Logan is trying to decide whether or not to help HER, meanwhile, Max is looking thru some photos of her, and has a flashback of a time at Manticore when they found a balloon in the woods.
    After the opening sequence, we find Sketchy loaning Herbal Thought some money, and everyone wondering where he got it, the scene then cuts to Sketchy knocking on a metal door, and someone handing him a blue envelope thru a slot.
    Next, we see Logan meeting with Detective XXXX, then the scene cuts to Sketchy showing off on his bike for a girl, but he falls, and we see the blue envelope drifting down a gutter.
  Logan has Max sneak into a Sector Police building to get records on Aleana's father, Nathan Herrero.
    Original Cindy and Herbal find out that Sketchy was transporting money for the Russian Mob, and has found out that he lost the money.  Against their advice, he decides to just go talk to them, and see if they will give him more time to get the money, after all, they're business men!  After he goes to see them, he gets beat up and hung upside down naked from a pole, where Max and Cindy find him later.  Sketchy tells them he has 36 hours to come up with the money, or he'll end up like his clothes.
    Logan tracks down Herrero's maid, and sends Max to bug her apartment to get more information.  Max gets to Herrero's former maids apartment, and sees Herrero himself having dinner with her.  Logan meets with Herrero privately in the library to find out what's going on, and why he disappeared. He says that various people were trying to kill him, and says that he would like to see her, but Logan has his doubts about setting up a meeting.  Max decides that she will tell Aleana that her father is alive, and let her decide for herself.
    Meanwhile, Sketchy convinces Max and Cindy to help him raise the money by hustling the Russians out of the money from the casino.  They get part of it playing Roulette, in which Max's enhanced abilities help her figure out where the ball lands.  They decide that they aren't getting the money fast enough, and switch to poker.  Fortunately, Max is able to count cards, and they get the money just in time.  The Russians are dumb enough to attack them when they leave the casino to get the money to Sketchy, and they get it to him just in time.
    The scene cuts to Aleana getting out of a taxi, calmly lighting up a cigarette, and blowing up the building that her father is in.  Logan blames himself for Herrero's death, and Max tracks down Aleana, who is on a train for Portland.  Max gives her a picture of her as a young girl with her father, and asks her how much they gave her to kill him.  She opens the suitcase, and throws out all but enough to get Aleana to Portland.
    Logan gets a CD from Herrero thanking him for reuniting him with his daughter, and gives him some evidence against a criminal that Logan has been looking for for quite a while.
    Sketchy tries to convince Max and Original Cindy to hustle more Casinos, and Max can't belive that he would even suggest that after they saved his butt.  Cindy says it CREAM, Max ask what that means; Cash Rules Everything Around Me.