Fade in on a California soundstage vaguely replicating a dusty corner of the American desert never seen by nine out of ten execs at the WB. As the Roswell title (written in Microsoft Word font "Alien Bold") fades from the screen, the camera pans down from cold, empty space (or -- IS IT?) to a New Mexican rooftop. Surrounded by candles and comfy warm under an adobe-style-recognizing-the-existence-of-Native-Americans-in-New-Mexico-but- don't-go-looking-for-them-on-this-show blanket, Liz "ET Clones Holmes" Parker is writing in her journal. "September 23rd. Journal Entry One. I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died." I spend these moments considering how passé and insulting voice-over narration can be, and wonder why Liz doesn't just give herself over to the current trend of turning to the camera and addressing it directly. These pretentious musings are presently drowned out by Eagle-Eye Cherry's "Save Tonight" accompanying the new scene. Par for the course, I think -- another WB show has begun.
Five days earlier, inside the kitsch-friendly Crashdown Café, Liz shows her stripes as a sassy waitress with a whole lot of cynicism about the whole Roswell mythology, while waiting on two stereotypical tourists (we know they can't be permanent cast members because there's no way these two could have passed the WB screen test, in which the auditionee stands beside a cardboard cutout of Alyssa Milano and David Boreanaz beneath a sign that reads "you must be at least this beautiful to appear on the WB") in town for the yearly Crash Festival. Liz serves the mathletes their alien-themed meals, "one Sigourney Weaver" and "one Will Smith." Realizing she is among conspiracy types, people about whom Dungeons and Dragons TV movies were made in the '80s, Liz decides to exploit a universal maxim that most of us just take for granted, namely that the ugly and unfashionable are highly suggestible and should be treated only as comic foils to the beautiful. "So," ventures the male diner patron to Liz, "does your family come from Roswell?" Liz deadpans, "Just four generations," and suddenly you just know that these X-Philes would tip their waitress about a million space dollars for just a glimpse into her existence. Putting away his Palm Pilot (Geek Check! Technology is for suckers), he inquires, "Well, does anyone in your family have some stories about the UFO crash?" Save tonight and fight the break of dawn. Come tomorrow, tomorrow I'll be gone...oops, sorry, back to the action. Liz hands a piece of paper to the couple. Disappointed that it isn't the latest CD-ROM version of Magic, The Gathering but nevertheless buoyed by the prospect of further plot development, the tourists take great interest in the artifact before them, which remains unseen by the audience to increase the drama and shock value. Liz's waitress friend Maria sees the piece of paper, and speaking of wacky comic foils, this wackiest wacky neighbor this side of Mrs. Poole is burdened with the task of making humorous a show almost as dangerously humorless as, well, The Hogan Family. Anyway, Maria asks a table of two angry men if they want a coffee refill. Deep in a heated discussion involving one man wanting "to see the money on the table," he turns to Maria only long enough to spit, "No. Get outta here," and goes back to fuming about not winning first prize in Roswell's yearly Joey Buttafuoco Lookalike Contest. But I'll bet the voting was close.
Maria's subplot (she wants to give them coffee, they do not want any coffee) effectively over, we return to Liz's relentless mockery of the genetic mishaps who dare to commit really icky fashion mistakes like wearing black-framed glasses. Liz: "My grandmother took this picture at the crash site right before the government cleaned it up." Mrs. Palm Pilot asks, "Do people know about this photograph?" Liz responds, "I know about it. And now you know about it." The couple utter dorky variations on the word "wow" and Liz knows she's fooled them. More power to her. "I'm gonna be right back," Liz intones dramatically. And then she utters the warning, "Don't show this to anyone." What is it? WHAT IS IT ALREADY? Pan down slowly to -- a picture of an alien. See? I told you. Liz walks away, obviously thinking, "God, this is fun. No wonder easy targets are called easy targets." But perhaps she should have been thinking, "Gee, I sure hope I'm not shot in the stomach and have to have my life saved by a teenage alien who can manipulate molecular structure, especially not right here in front of all these people! It sure would turn that picture into some pretty incriminating evidence, particularly in the hands of those lucid and reputable individuals." But more on these contrivances later. Now it's time for some character development.
Maria catches up with Liz and insists, "You are so bad, girl!" Bad meaning good, right? Am I up on the lingo here? "Oh," Maria adds, "and Max Evans is staring at you again." Liz thinks that it's all in Maria's imagination, but sure enough there's Max, and -- OH MY GOD, WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE? Oh, ears. Wow. I mean, wow. He's NOT an alien in real life? And if they're talking about him, shouldn't they be, like, a whole lot quieter? Girlish bonding ensues. Liz: "And even if (mumble mumble), I'm going out with Kyle. He's steady and loyal and appreciates me." If that wasn't just a setup for a wacky punchline about a German shepherd, I promise I'll never say anything bad about this show again. Double or nothing on the sworn pledge. To wit, Maria responds, "It sounds like you're describing a poodle." Well, close enough. I had my fingers crossed anyway.
But something has gone wrong at the Buttafuoco booth. The fight escalates. Joey needs his money. "You're running out of time," he yells, and throws several space dishes off of the space table. The other man produces a gun. Melee. The gun goes off and everyone hits the floor. Except Liz. A slo-mo frame. The two men suddenly become best friends, shouting "come on" and running out of the Crashdown in the same direction. The end. Okay, it's not, even though those two really seemed to work things out nicely. Wacky Maria and Max "Ear No Evil" Evans both notice that Liz is down behind the counter, not moving. Sure hope the one who can manipulate molecular structure gets to her first. Michael "I'm Just Mad About Tabasco," Max's boothmate at the Crashdown, tries to stop Max from doing something stupid (read: helpful) as Maria calls an ambulance instead of doing something typical (read: wacky). Hey, what happened to "Save Tonight"? Max gets over to Liz, and she is indeed in some kind of serious bleeding trouble. Blood. Guts. Ears. Everywhere. "Liz. Liz. You have to look at me. You have to look at me." She does, and the soundtrack music has changed AGAIN, this time bringing on the first of numerous "heard on tonight's episode" tie-ins to which we're subjected at the end of the show, this one I think from the hit album "Lilith Fair in Spaaaaaaaace." Oh yeah, and Max somehow saves Liz's life. A rush of past images floods Max's mind, and we see children playing, one of whom wears a dress with cupcakes on it (though I didn't notice this on first viewing. More on that later). Also, we see a small boy who we can only assume is little Max, and I note with some horror that -- and maybe it's just the bowl cut -- little Max looks a lot like I did when I was younger, and I grab frantically at my ears to make sure that they still scale to the rest of my head. Sigh of relief. Cut back to intense diner scene, Liz coming out of her stupor and realizing her wound has healed. "You broke the bottle when you fell. You spilled ketchup on yourself," Max too loudly tells Liz while breaking a bottle of ketchup and spilling it on her. Then he's gone, but the suspicious and prying Mr. and Mrs. Palm Pilot are on to him. Liz just looks pissed because someone spilled ketchup all over her.
Diner, five minutes later. Liz is explaining to her concerned father and various upkeepers of the law that she's fine, the ketchup is fine, her makeup is fine. Maria is offering, albeit wackily, a physical description of the two fighting men: "The guy with the gun, right, was kind of like, like a muscular Beavis, you know? And then the other one was like a beefy Butthead." The officer doesn't have time for any wackiness: "I'm gonna need a better description than that. I'm assuming that they weren't actually cartoons?" Like, say, Maria. Enter Roswell's stereotypically "get off my lawn, ya dang varmint kids" police sheriff, Valenti. His gruff demeanor seems to make quite the impression on Roswell's teens, but it's really the huge mirrored '70s-porno sunglasses that make Valenti's first entrance so damn memorable. Valenti (hereby referred to as "Officer Porno") inquires as to Liz's well-being, and the other officer reviews the facts: "The suspects ran out right after the incident occurred. A couple of outsiders. There's no apparent robbery, no injuries other than the girl that fell. Just seems like an argument that got out of hand." So it's an open-and-shut case, right? Not with the Dork Family Palm Pilot still mysteriously lurking around an otherwise-closed police investigation. Mr. Palm Pilot has his own theory, replete with alien conspiracy. No wonder the police want to hear his story, and here it is: "The gunman was, was, was standing right over there, right? And the shot was fired into this direction. Now, Jen and I, we searched this entire place up and down and, uh, I mean, there's... where's the bullet?" Why the two cops care about the opinion of these two visitors -- and care A LOT -- is beyond me. Two sentences from a guy who came to Roswell in search of another planet where pretty girls might actually want to DATE him, and the entire RPD is handing him keys to the city. Best of all, Palm Pilot chooses this time to produce the alien photo (a brilliant example of Chekhov's dramatic structure, in which the gun from the first act goes off with a bang five seconds after the commercial), which Officer Porno turns over to Liz's bemused dad, who in turn says, "Lizzie? I told you -- no showing the alien photos to the tourists." Gah.
But wait! I smell a turning point! And it smells like Tabasco sauce. Porno discovers several empty bottles of it where Max and Michael had been sitting. One of the Palm Pilots pipes up, "There were two kids sitting over there when it happened, two boys about her age. And then one of them went -- " Liz attempts to defuse the bombs with her best impression of the stage direction "unconvincingly," claiming not to have known the boys. No one believes her. No one.
Liz examines herself in the mirror of her too-dark-to-make-fun-of room. The dress, the blood, the bullet hole. She quickly strips off the outfit and turns back to contemplate her reflection in the mirror. But wait -- what's that? There, marring Liz's Seven Minute Abs torso, a silver handprint. Is this dangerous? Is this scary? Is this going to prevent Liz from wearing that adorable new Esprit belly shirt on her date with Kyle the poodle? Clearly, there's nowhere to go from here but to science class.
The day in bio, the teacher is explaining really technical things using words like "genus" and "phylum." I hate bio, I hated it in high school, and I recall this feeling by becoming instantly bored. I resolve not to care about anything that happens in this scene no matter how it affects the outcome of the episode, and of course the scene turns out to be pivotal, but I am rewarded with a moral victory for sticking to my guns and continuing my detestation of science. Anyway, I do gather that Liz's lab partner seems to be missing, or late, and when he walks in, he is Max Evans. The contrivances continue. Their assignment for today is to "take a toothpick and get a sample from your cheek" for examination under a microscope. The prospect does not please Max, who removes the pencil he has been holding IN HIS MOUTH and requests a bathroom pass. As he disappears, the teacher lectures her students about the importance of internal microscopic examination of living organisms. BOR-ING! But I bet Mrs. Bio Teacher can tie this lesson in thematically to the show in twenty-five words or less: "It's very easy to look on the outside and say what differentiates us from other species. But what about what's on the inside?" See? Twenty-three words. Oh, wait. I forgot that I'm not paying attention to anything in this scene. If I were, though, I'd probably care that Liz examines her own cheek cells on the slide, and as it turns out they're really cute and fashionable and nice to everyone even though they're pretty popular and would never ever ever be caught dead shopping at TJ Maxx. But what about Max? What of HIS cheek cells? Curious about this exact thing herself, Liz scrapes some cells off of the pencil that had been in Max's mouth and examines them under the scope. They are, I don't know, different? Maybe? Are they? Does it all mean he's an alien? Why do Liz's cheek cells have to set the precedent for normal? Maybe she's the alien. Placebo group, your table is ready. The drama is nil, the boredom is stretching. I hate science. I can't wait to get stoned and make paper airplanes in study hall. Oh, thank God. It's over.
Liz has become convinced of something different in Max, due not at all to his ability to touch her stomach and make a gunshot wound disappear. Guys must do that all the time to impress her. No, it's the aberrant cheek cells that put her over the edge. And now she's got questions, and tough cookie Liz will go to any lengths to have them answered. Why, to get some information out of Max, she might even do something as crazy as...asking him. So Liz finds Max and pulls him into the band room, where a student is in deep rehearsal for the West Roswell High School timpani concert. He turns around; it is Kyle Valenti, Officer Porno's son. We know this not only because Liz yells out "Kyle" when she sees him, but also because Kyle and his father look exactly the same (read: identical too-big '70s-porno sunglasses). Kyle (a.k.a. "Porno Jr.") and Max exchange an awkward hello. Kyle asks Liz if she got his message and tells her that "my dad told me about the gun going off," thereby nailing down the father/son connection. He is suspicious of why Liz and Max are together. She tells him that they were looking for a place to study. He believes her, and after Liz's shameful display of bookishness back in bio, I'm almost convinced myself. Before he leaves, Kyle tells Liz that he got his costume for The Crash, the big wild party this weekend. She doesn't care, but for the sake of foreshadowing, she really should. Kyle leaves, annoyed, probably because they make a strange couple since he looks thirty-five and she looks twelve. Max asks an idle question about Kyle, but Liz is much more interested in talking about why the silver alien handprint on her stomach won't come off. Liz shows the handprint to him and explains the abnormal-cells situation. Then she asks, "What are you?" The room is bathed in celestial light as Max mutely points skyward. Liz: "You're not an -- an alien -- are you?" Max responds: "I prefer the term 'not of this earth.'" Funny police, arrest that man! At the sight of Liz not doubled over in unbridled spasms of hilarity, Max apologizes with, "Sorry, not a good time to joke." Actually, just not a good joke. Anyway, Liz freaks on out and can't believe her ears (whereas I can't believe Max's ears, har har har) and tries to leave, but Max warns her before she escapes, "Liz, listen to me. You can't talk to anyone about this. Not your parents, not Maria, no one. You don't understand what will happen if you do. Liz, please, my life is in your hands." Jeez, this guy's moody as all hell. One second it's Yuckfest USA and the he's at death's door if Liz shows her wacky friend a microscope slide.
The wacky-o-meter is in overdrive as we return from commercial to find Maria questioning new character Alex about Liz's behavior ever since Liz was delivered piping hot from death's door. Alex's personality is obscured by Maria's blathering, but I imagine he's the sensitive, loyal good guy who may or may not turn out to be gay in a future episode. Alex reads the newspaper and tells Maria that "shots were fired but no one was injured," but Maria can't understand why Liz won't stop ignoring her. Maybe it's because the wacky schtick has gotten way old? Alex seems like he secretly wants to get away from Maria also. As punishment for her being so annoying and awful, I patently refuse to quote any of Maria's lines in this scene, as they all play in my head like high-pitched AM radio static.
Cut to outdoor taco bodega of some kind, with a radio announcement in the background reminding Roswell's denizens about the stupid plot device -- uh, I mean, the Crash party on Friday. Now we meet Isabel, who, with Max and Michael, completes Roswell's teen alien triad. Isabel I like. She is smart and sassy and jaded and never, ever wacky. Therefore, I will quote everything she says in this scene: "I can't believe this, Max. Y'know, I finally feel like I have a quasi-normal existence and you blow it all on one random act of lunacy." To Michael, "How did you let my misguided brother do this?" Michael says something about not trying to be the superhero while dousing his meal in Tabasco "running theme" sauce. Michael is clever and bad and has a past, I think, and it disturbs me how much more I like the aliens than the people in this show. Why can't everyone go to a party on their planet on Friday night instead? Max apologizes. They won't have any of it; he broke their sacred rules by telling Liz that he is alien. Isabel: "Do you realize everything's changed?" Michael: "It's time to leave Roswell." And you know, I don't want to blow smoke up alien ass here, but shouldn't they have thought of this a long time ago and found a NON-alien-paranoia place to live where vigilante loonies wouldn't constantly come looking for them? No matter, they have to leave now. Michael, perhaps not brilliant despite his trendy clothes and of-the-moment hairstyle, delivers the following impassioned speech: "Roswell's not home. It's not even in our solar system." Hee hee. Funny how, if Maria had said that, I'd be seething with hate right now. And even though Michael's right, Max and Isabel have more tying them to Roswell than the renegade Michael does. Max: "Well, this is the closest thing we have to home right now." Michael, shaping up the plot for future episodes: "For you two, maybe. It was you two the Evanses found on the side of the road, not me. They're like real parents to you. My foster dad, he just keeps me around for the monthly check." Sad faces all around. Max proposes they go back to school and "act normal." Isabel thinks this is a stupid idea, and proposes that it's just "a matter of time before they find us and turn us over to some government agency where they're gonna test us and prod us and, oh yeah, eliminate us." Just consider this irony -- now it's the aliens worrying about a date with the fabled anal probe.
Back in school, Liz enters the bathroom and out of a stall walks Maria. Liz: "Hey." Maria: "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Radio static again. Maria produces Liz's order book from the diner, which is covered in blood. She's prying. She's worried. She vehemently voices her concern for her best friend Liz's well being: "EEEEEEEE!"
Back in the Alienmobile, now out on the open road, they bickering some more. As Max utters the defense, "I couldn't just let her die," police sirens blare behind them and they get pulled over. Out of the patrol car steps none other than Officer Porno. After a brief license check, Porno inexplicably tells the three what went down at the Crashdown. Is the jig up? No, he suspects nothing -- until he notices a telltale bottle of Tabasco sauce at Michael's feet. Porno's gone, but with a new glimmer of mistrust hidden somewhere deep behind those mirrored specs. Michael is still skeptical, as Michael seems wont to be. Hopping angrily out of the Jeep, he argues, "Our cover is blown. I'm not going to hang around and wait for them to catch us." Michael storms off after calling into question the fate of everyone else on the ship. They were killed. How? "How," he asks Max, "did she react when you told her? 'Great, you're an alien, that's fantastic. Excellent.' Didn't think so." Isabel steals this scene's punch-line as Michael storms off: "Man, I thought I was pissed." Sass-queen!
Night. Sans Porno sunglasses (prompting an incredulous shout of "Who's THAT guy?"), Kyle drops Liz off at Holmes following a date. He says, "Listen, Liz, you've been somewhere else all night." She apologizes, but still won't make out with him nyeh nyeh nyeh. After some filler dialogue about nothing, she excuses herself to go to sleep, but not before she reaches up to turn off the extremely high porch light, exposing the notorious alien handprint. Dramatic flourish of music. "Goodnight, Liz." Kyle says, staring at the now-covered print. And he's gone in a hurry. Man, she's using that thing to get all those losers out of her life -- where do I sign up for my own alien handprint?
scene: Liz on the rooftop of Journal Entry One. Max appears street level, all "I have to talk to you." It's night and she's alone, so she's much less scared now, compared to when she ran away from him in broad daylight in a school filled with people. Whatever. For some reason they end up in the Crashdown, empty and closed but mysteriously unlocked. He wishes he could have told her earlier. With no logical line, Max does some kind of snorty thing that vaguely resembles laughter. What, Max? Another "not of this world" joke a-brewin'? No, it's something else: "I just keep picturing you in that dress with the, uh, cupcakes on it." Liz figures out which dress he means, but she also remembers that she had that dress in kindergarten and she didn't know Max until the third grade. Liz: "Did you read my mind or something?" Max: "I don't read minds." Max, ten seconds later: "An image of that dress flashed into my mind, and I knew how you felt about it." Well then, Max, you do certainly SEEM to read minds, now don't you? In an attempt to show her "that I'm still me," Max proposes that he try to show her what the rush of images he received feels like: "I have to touch you." Damn, I wish I had pick-up material like that. Cue Sarah McLachlan In Spaaaaaaace music. Cue rush of images. Cue long-lost voice-over narration telling us how it felt for Liz to see herself through Max's eyes: "I was beautiful." Liz, shut up now. To connect with her in this way, Max touches her face. The rush of images over, he removes his hands. I marvel at the absence of silver handprints anywhere. Get thee to commercial... I'm exhausted here.
Weird school montage of Liz and Max's developing relationship. Clips of them near lockers and in science lab (where it all began), her alone on gym bleachers. Thinking, thinking. Voice-over, whatcha got to say? "Max Evans has put a force on me. It's like my whole life changed in an instant. It's just so ironic that when something like this finally happened to me, it's with an alien." Whoa. WHOA, Liz. Okay, I know we're not close-reading Kafka here, but there is absolutely nothing correct about the use of the word "ironic" in this context. Sure, if she had once been in love with an alien who then came out and admitted he was human, this current predicament might ultimately qualify as some kind of cycle-completing irony. It's freaky to be in love with an alien, sure, but unless you graduated from the Alanis School Of Irony in which you have ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife, irony has nothing to do with this.
Meanwhile, back in the timpani room from Act II, Alex (remember Alex? I barely do either) enters to find Liz alone. No one ever seems that happy to see Alex. They chatter idly until Max drops the bomb: it seems that Maria has some interest in remaining Liz's friend. Alex garbles, "I'm your friend. And I'm Maria's friend, too. So if you lie to Maria, it's sort of like lying to me." Suffering Alex gladly, Liz presses for more information. Alex doesn't have any more: "Frankly, it's vague. I mean, everything needs to be put through the Maria filter." Ooh, the Maria Filter. I like the sound of that. Is that the device that filters out Maria from this show, this network, my life? 'Cause if that's what it is, the WB needs a new one. Or five. On full blast at all times. Anyway, Alex (is "Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind" too long and cheesy a nickname for such a minor character?) inquires about the whole-blood-on-the-order-book thing, and Liz assures him that there are no problems and that everything is fine. All of which is an extremely long setup to what happens . Alex says, "All I care about is that you're okay. So, you are, right, you're okay?" She's okay. "And whatever happened is over now?" It's over. See how things are fine and have never been finer? Nothing can possibly go wrong when everything is -- hey, what are the police doing here? "Ms. Parker?" Porno needs to ask her some questions.
Inside the inquisition with Liz and Officer Porno, Valenti shows Liz pictures of a corpse dating from 1959 which feature a distinguishing mark of a silver handprint, the very same handprint Kyle saw on Liz just a few nights before. Porno: "This man was found dead. No apparent cause of death. Except that. What do you make of that mark?" Liz denies ever having seen the mark anywhere, but Sheriff insists he'll have to see for himself. Liz: "C'mon, Sheriff. I mean, I told you I spilled ketchup and I -- I said [that] like a thousand times." But Porno begs for just one glimpse of Liz's alien-tainted nubile flesh. She stands and obliges, but whatever Sheriff sees is, once again, not shared with the viewing audience. In a non-dramatic, non-tense moment of dramatic tension (tm Sars), the camera cuts from Sheriff's face to Liz's face, Sheriff's face, Liz's face. Finally the pan down to Liz's stomach, where the mark has vanished. Porno turns his questioning all-too-slyly to the subject of Max Evans, which he finds to be a dead end. But then he decides it's time to go to Plan B, producing the black book-bag into which Liz stuffed her bloody uniform in her room nine hundred years ago. And then, quite ambiguously, Porno says, "Somebody turned in this book bag. It is yours, isn't it?" I smell future plotlines, but we hear nothing more about it for the rest of this episode.
Liz runs to tell Max. Meanwhile, Sheriff Porno is explaining the facts of the case to new character, reviewing AGAIN (not for our benefit, obviously) how the girl was shot and the bullet hole and blah-o-la. But this mild-mannered bald fellow, who I am assuming is some kind of, well, alientologist, thinks Porno's case is fulla holes: "I have a flying saucer sighting in Phoenix. An accountant in Barstow who thinks he's Jesus. Both cases are more solid than this one." Ouch! Why doesn't anyone believe Porno? I infer that he's cried "alien" before, and he's not the first in his family to do so. Apparently, the Sheriff's father, who everyone at this "agency" used to call Sergeant Martian, was a little bit kooky. Let's let Porno explain: "Agent Stevens. I was eight years old when my father discovered that corpse. My whole life I thought he was as crazy as everyone else did. Crazy to believe. Now I'm not so sure." I'm sure. I'm also growing catatonically bored. I'm starting to hope Maria will run in and do something, anything, to relieve the distinctively non-wacky air permeating these proceedings.
Back in school, Liz is demanding that Max tell her "everything" and then asks fourteen questions of which we, the viewer, already know all of the answers. Where are you from? Are there more of you? In answering the "what powers do you have" query, Max indicates that he can "manipulate molecular structure," and eerie space music swells up once more. Max moves his head in front of a conveniently placed bust and makes its face disappear. And really, for such an assumed climax, the moment is painfully anticlimactic. Max tells Liz that no one knows their secret, and Liz tells Max that he is oh-so-wrong. Valenti showed her the pictures, Kyle saw the handprint, Liz sees fear in Max's big brown eyes, I see the back of my head as I roll my eyes with growing impatience. Max panics and knows they're onto him. With a murmured "I have to go," he's out the door with Liz chasing after him. Cut to Max entering Isabel's room and dramatically pronouncing, "Forget the festival. It's time to leave." Fade to break. Shmeh. I like this Gap commercial. The guy I secretly wish would play Michael is in it.
Night. Friday night. Hello, Crash Festival anyone? The WB costume budget is at full tilt, apparently superseding the need for an FX budget, which might explain Max's sadly inadequate "manipulate molecular structure" display from the scene. In a dark corner of the revelry, the three alien youths are poised for their escape. Cut to Liz's room, where she is alone, writing in her journal. Hey, how come I can't hear her thoughts anymore? Door to Liz's room opening. Guess who? At first we only see feet and legs, decked out in some kind of green velour costume. The feet step onto the bed. Please, oh, please, let it be Liz's mother. Or father. Or Jerry Lewis in a rare television cameo, imploring the (remaining) viewing public for sympathy and donations. But then the feet begin to speak, and I'd recognize that voice anywhere: "EEEEEEEEEEE!!!" Turns out Maria's been putting the pieces together, and she won't leave without some real information. (Note to the writers: there must be a million more subtle ways to move a plot forward besides having each character march up to the other characters and demand that they "want to know everything." Like, say, having stuff actually happen, for example.) Liz swears she'll tell all, but "you have to promise me that you are not going to flip out." Maria promises she won't flip out: "Hey -- it's me." Exactly. Seconds later, Maria does just that and tears ass out of Liz's house, screaming. Maria's evolution into total cartoon character is now complete. Had she slipped on the wet pavement and hit her head running away from Liz, cartoon birds would have flown chirping around her head.
Back at the Alienmobile, Michael is expressing some optimism at the prospect of other living beings like them, an idea coined through Max's story of the handprint on the corpse: "I mean, if we can find him, he can tell us where we came from, what we are." But Isabel won't have any of it. Remember, she's sassy. "Michael," she sasses, "calm down. We have one potential relative forty years ago, and he was a potential killer." This fight may well have escalated to the hurling of empty Tabasco bottles hither and thither, but instead we have to cut to Maria's car. And I'm not glossing here, but Maria delivers an "I'm freaked out" speech of which I literally cannot understand one word. I think it's meant to be funny, but meaningful. Are we ready for another contrivance? Maria's car and Max's car at this point go sailing past each other, and in the front seat of the Mariamobile Liz screams for a U-turn. In a Jetta, no less! The chase is on! Max turns down a dark alley to avoid a cop, and Liz follows, blocking them in. Each party gets out of their respective vehicles and walks toward each other, Showdown-at-the-OK-Corral-Style. Maria finds time to mutter the line, "I think I'm gonna be sick." Liz tells them not to leave Roswell. Michael is mad. Liz says they should work together to throw off Valenti and quell the rumors. Michael is madder: "We're not together. Our lives are at stake, not yours. Now move your car." Something else dour happens, and then they decide to work together after all. Huzzah.
The plan apparently involves Liz, a bath in hair gel, and a brown leather spacesuit which I think is meant to sex someone up. Liz will dupe Kyle into doing it, showing up at his door in full leather regalia. Quick cut to the Crash Festival in full swing, which we're at just long enough to see Isabel and Maria dissing Alex for absolutely no reason. Back at Kyle's, Liz tells her bohunk that "I am gonna meet you in front of the podium in a half an hour." Meanwhile, back at the Crash, Valenti tracks down Max and starts over for a serious chat, y'know, man to alien. Unacknowledged touch of visual irony that actually is ironic: in a sea of people decked out in alien garb, Max Evans is wearing a suit and tie. Get it? People clothes. And over in Plansville, Maria, an alien only to good taste, is rolling on the ground and displaying ample cleavage. Isabel yells, "C'mon, roll! ROLL!" Kind of a weird time to introduce a saucy lesbian-bondage subplot, but hey, what do I know? We also learn that the plan in some way involves Maria's car. Liz (human, dressed as alien) eyes Max (vice versa) through the crowd. Valenti eyes Max also. Then Valenti accosts Max and demands answers. When he does not receive all of the requested information -- specifically, "What did you do to Liz Parker?" -- Valenti handcuffs him and hauls him off. Seconds later, Liz bumps into two masked partygoers on her mad dash through the crowd. The two stop and turn. Upon removal of the masks, they are revealed as Palm Pilot and Partner! Geez, they could have cracked this case hours ago.
Okay, I think I figured out the plan: Isabel pretends to drive the Jetta into Maria, who pretends to fall down under the wheels of the car. Liz pretends to freak out and come running, and a masked partygoer runs over to Maria and pretends to save her life. And they would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling alien conspiracy law enforcers. Valenti runs up and sees the alien handprint left on Maria's chest (is she dead? IS SHE DEAD? Guess not. Damn) and goes off after the costumed savior. After an extended survey of the crowd, Valenti sees the costume of the mysterious suspected-alien partygoer. After a slo-mo "I'm gonna pop a cap in some alien ass" walk over, Valenti wheels the kid around. The kid takes off the mask, and it's his son Kyle. Idle convo about how Liz hasn't shown up yet, before a cut to Michael disposing of a costume identical to Kyle's in a nearby port-a-potty. So all's well that ends well -- almost. Valenti notices it's paint on Kyle's hand, not indelible silver alien dust, so he goes back after Max. This is paint blah blah blah, you're no good blah blah blah. What did you do to Liz Parker, boy? Tell. Me. Everything. Max sticks to his story about his time at the Crashdown: "I had a hamburger. When the gun went off I ran away. Did I break the law? Sheriff, are you arresting me?" Valenti vows to find the truth. He tells Max, "You're a real smart guy, Max. Well, so am I." Gotta disagree with you there, son of Sergeant Martian. But it's not really your fault. See, the script to this show gives away all of the cool secrets before we have a chance to come to any realizations of our own. This leaves you looking stupid, and me looking, quite frankly, a little listless.
In the show's final moments, we see the festival's real coup de grace: an actual simulation of a spaceship crash. Isabel, Max, and Michael look on as more grimness ensues. I bet myself that Dave Matthew's "Crash" will start to play, like, any second, and it does, and I win. Max spies Liz and walks toward her. Hey. Hey. I can't understand any dialogue until Max says, "Liz, it's not safe. For you and me too. It's not safe." Liz: "I don't care." Funny, Liz, I don't particularly care, either. But in a different way, I think. He's sorry that they have to be so, and she whispers, "Different," driving home some nebulous metaphor I'm not sure was ever established to begin with. He says, "I'll see you in school," and is gone.
Voice-over: "It's September 24th. I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. But then the really amazing thing happened. I came to life." No, the really amazing thing is that Liz Parker's continuity editor missed that Liz died five days ago on both the 23rd and the 24th of September. But in this Tabasco-chuggin' world where the good guys are bad and the bad guys are ugly, anything is possible.