XIII - Punchout

Following the events of last week's bizarre episode, XIII (Stuart Townsend) is sent into "The Pit" by Betty (Roxane Mesquida), an underground prison that pits its prisoners in gladiatorial combat to the death, while above ground she and Victor Gong take control of the Xu Corporation. XIII comes across a few familiar faces who Betty has also sentenced to The Pit including Mozambique (Wole Daramola), movie producer Barry Salters (Jason Blicker), Amos (Greg Bryk), Grier (Lisa Berry), and anyone else Betty blames for the hardships of her life. Pitted against each other, not all of them will survive.

After months of working with M. Pong to get her hands on the Tesla letters, President-Elect Traymore (Ingrid Kavelaars) is less than pleased with the news of the Xu coup d'état. She reaches out to Winslow Wong (Jack Yang) to find a new in with the company, but Wong has his own designs on both Xu and the HARPE Project. Meanwhile the chaos in the United States continues to boil over as even the various branches of the U.S. Military choose sides between President Carrington (Stephen McHattie) and Traymore.


Realizing he has not chance in hell surviving in The Pit, Amos rallies several of the weaker members in a misguided attempt to take down the gambler's favorite fighter known as The Brain (Rob Archer). His plan doesn't succeed, thanks to the timely intervention of XIII, but no good deed goes unpunished as the spy is chosen as The Brain's next opponent. With the help of The Brain and Grier, XIII is able to escape along with Amos and Betty, who found herself thrown into the pit now that Victor is done with her.

"Punchout" marks another sub par episode as the ridiculous underground fighting ring and the ludicrous new U.S. Civil War are both impossible to take seriously. After giving us Betty's bizarre turn, and now making her responsible for the death of her one true friend in the world, the series will attempt to redeem her as yet another victim. Sorry, I'm simply not buying it. Thankfully there are only two episodes left of this increasingly dumb storyline as I'm beginning not to care if either version of XIII survives.