Beauty is only skin deep, or so they say, so what’s a little plastic here and there?  Grounds for murder, that’s what! Kenneth and Eugene discuss Skin Deep.

Episode Synopsis

An episode in two stories

Leena’s tale.

Back before Callie was in the military, she went to university, and there she knew a woman she wasn’t friends with, named Leena.  Now they’ve re-connected, just in time for her to be chased by bounty hunters.

She’s given refuge aboard the Trans-Utopian where Travis likes the cut of her gib, and she’s admiring his gib, too.  They’re a pair of gibbers.

She’s wanted for murder on Mars, so Travis takes her there with an agreement with Quinn, the bounty hunter assigned to her case.  On the trip, her story slowly sounds less and less plausible.

The murdered man she’s never heard of turns out to have been covered in her DNA.  Witnesses saw them together.  The police have produced a video of the two having dinner and a conversation.  And as the story gets shakier and shakier, everyone begins to doubt her – even Travis, despite his infallible instincts that tell him she’s not guilty.

When they get to Mars an info dump ensues about the status of plastic surgery, which Leena has secretly had, in Martian society, and we finally learn the truth:

Martians hate plastic people.  Leena’s magazines “out” plastic people, ruining them.  Leena is a plastic person.  Leena’s mom was having an affair with the murder victim.  He was going to out Leena, which would not only ruin Leena but also mom’s magazine business.  Leena’s mom murdered him, and then in a plot device that no doubt would have stumped Lt. Columbo because it was too stupid for words, Leena smeared he own DNA evidence over the body to protect her mother.  Somehow.

They come clean and it’s all is well that ends well and the reputation of Travis’ uncanny instincts remains untarnished… except, she really was guilty of being an accessory to murder so… she was not innocent and Travis was wrong.

Percy’s Tale

Marcus and Percy are in Syn City trying to meet a shady black market dealer to get a gizmo so they can have hyperspace capabilities.  Percy has misgivings about hyperspace but that doesn’t matter because the deal goes badly.

Stuck on Syn City together for days, Percy suggests they get a hotel room.  Then she plies Marcus with alcohol.  Talks about watching porn movies in their room, and finally suggests taking a shower.

That turns awkward when Marcus joins her in the shower.  Oops, mixed signals are being sent there.  They fight about this and it turns into a pillow fight, more talking, another pillow fight, and… that’s about it.