Opening shot of cold, vacuous space (or -- IS IT?), accompanied by Liz Parker's equally vacuous ramblings, "I'm Liz Parker, and..." Liz's diary seems to have comes equipped with an anti-theft device that automatically erases entries written by people other than herself, so it's necessary for her to identify herself at the beginning of every entry. And speaking of sophisticated devices, Liz seems to have spent all that money she was saving up for Clinique Bonus time on a high-powered, NASA-approved telescope which has appeared, out of seeming nowhere, on her roof. And now, an excerpt from the "I'm Liz Parker and you're not" chronicles about alien beau, Max: "What is he thinking about right now? Is he also obsessed, tortured, going from one sleepless night to another wondering what's gonna happen between us?"
But to hilarious comic effect, we cut to Max's bedroom and discover the answer to be a big ol' no; he is, predictably, sound asleep, not doing his paranoid alien duty of keeping one eye open and one ear to the ground. Or something. But Max does wake up soon after, roused by scuffling at his window. He grabs for a baseball bat and stands on guard, ready for the rumble. The window opens and the intruder climbs in. Max brandishes the bat impressively, but to no avail -- the intruder is Michael. What's he doing out there? Max posits that perhaps it was an "argument with Hank," Michael's evil hick father, who lives on the outskirts of town and probably knows the definition of the word "chaw," and maybe even what to do with it. Michael says he's there because he can't sleep, and as Max unrolls a sleeping bag for him, it becomes apparent that Michael sneaks out to Max's posh digs rather frequently to seek sanctuary against his father's Appalachian ideologies. But with that white, ribbed, wifebeater tank top Max wears to bed, Michael can hardly feel sure he's escaped that trailer park at all. Max climbs back into bed, but it's clear that Michael is primed for further pillow talk. He tells Max that he finds it "amazing that you can sleep when the entire key to our existence is out there." Max finds it amazing that Michael feels so entitled to information only Valenti possesses. I find it amazing that Michael showed up to the slumber party without so much as a toothbrush. Yuck-o-la. All Michael wants to do is talk about the picture with the alien handprint that Valenti showed Liz: "It means there's someone else out there, someone who was here in 1959. That means he was here when it crashed. He knows where we come from, he knows who we are, he knows why we're here. Maybe he knows how we get back." Jeez, raise your hand if you're a downer at the sleepover. All Max wants to do is play Truth Or Dare and giggle about boys after mom and dad go to bed, and Michael has to go crying about their home planet or some such thing. Max sympathizes with Michael's turmoil, but he is realistic about the fact that the Sheriff has the picture and they don't: "We'll never see it. That would be impossible... right? Michael?" Hey, hit the theme song button, someone -- Michael's gone to sleep.
The opening credits sequence, a time-wasting luxury not afforded in the pilot, includes eerie silhouetted shots of people walking, a few clips from the Roswell Daily Record, and any number of deeply pensive glares. And I'll bet my MBTV stock options that this song is by The Cranberries, and if it is, I'm sure it's actually a protest song deriding the existence of God, organized religion, and some war in Uzbekistan that no one's ever heard of. But it serves its purpose here in this equally dramatic context.
Day. Slumber party dud Michael is product-endorsing a Pepsi in front of the police station, trying to look casual. As he scopes out a window high above the sidewalk, Roswell's collective police force of one drives into the station house and Michael skulks away guiltily, trying hard to blend in with all of the no people around him. Meanwhile, in the basement of the Crashdown, Liz is taking an admirably "well, we work together but I certainly wouldn't say we're friends" approach to Mar-EEEEEEE-a and her concern about aliens (they look like people but they don't act like idiots all the time) living among them. Maria wants to know what the aliens really look like, how they use their powers, and other questions answered dozens of times in the pilot (the cut-copy-paste feature on the writers' computers must have vaporlocked by this point). Even the tin-foil antennae they have to wear as part of their kitschy work uniforms doesn't help Maria's whining squeal come in any clearer. So Maria accuses Liz of "being, like, so casual about this I want to choke you. Liz, we are dealing with aliens --" But as she utters the word "aliens," they are interrupted by a random lackey at the Crashdown, who I'm so sure has never, ever heard anyone use the word "alien" before. In Roswell, New Mexico. Liz puts a hand over Maria's mouth and it actually shuts her up, calling into questions who really has the magic powers here, and begs, "Can you please not say that word in public?" Cut to hilarious punchline, as we see Maria and Liz replace all instances of the word "alien" with the word "Czechoslovakian" (the find-change feature on the writers' computers must be vaporlocked by this point also: "Are they good Czechoslovakians, bad Czechoslovakians, we don't know." But her musings are interrupted by peripheral good guy Alex, who pops up out of nowhere into the booth closest to where the two girls are talking. Showcasing both his innate cluelessness concerning recent developments in Roswell, as well as a complete inability to conquer the pronunciation of the word Czechoslovakian, Alex wants to know just exactly WHO they know who's "Kankanaflankian." They sidestep the question, so he's forced to take another stab: "WHO'S Crebadeloxican?" Oooh, sorry, Alex, not even close that time. Either intentionally lying to keep Alex out of the loop or genuinely unsure of the word he's attempting to choke up, Liz and Maria construct conflicting and unconvincing ruses and make their escape ASAP. Clearly, the "make script infinitely more uneven and boring" feature on the writers' computers must have suffered a complete meltdown.
OK, so I thought I hated science, but then I remembered: if ever there were a pervasive evil whose scars will ache without mercy until deep into my declining years, it is the horrific plague that is geometry. Thanks, Roswell, for allowing me to relive these moments of high-school terror in such vivid Technicolor. By the way, do the writers think that their plot twists are so shockingly panic-inducing that they have to couch them in the most boring contexts available to the human imagination? Biology last week, geometry this week, and I bet during Sweeps Week the mother ship will return for its lost alien orphans smack-dab in the middle of after-school Model Congress intramurals. Anyway, cut to Liz in the classroom environment, finally able to socialize with pretty girls like her. Her internal monologue continues, "The thing about Czechoslovakians that you sort of have to factor in, is that they have these incredibly soulful eyes." And then -- brace yourself, steely-hearted reader, a pivotal plot development grows nigh -- there's a substitute teacher this week in geometry. I'll allow you all a grace moment to splash some water on your faces and recover from this moment of unparalleled drama. So the substitute, something of a poor man's Renee Zellweger but apparently irresistible to the menfolk of the class, starts things off by saying, "The infamous Roswell, New Mexico. Before we get down to work, lemme just ask -- does anyone here actually believe in aliens?" The class laughs. Liz and Max glance knowingly. In my school, all of the subs were siblings of the actual teacher or friends of the principal. Where did they find THIS woman, who has never even been in Roswell? Probably someplace real far off. Like Screpanabampkia, for example. The sub takes roll and pauses on the conspicuously absent Michael. Where is he? Everyone instinctively looks at Max, so Renee questions him: "Hey, you two are aliens together, right?" OK, so she doesn't say that, but "bye-bye series" if she had, no? Or at least "bye-bye already-strained plot (who IS this mysterious Renee Zellweger?) of this week's episode." At her singling out of Max, Liz develops a pensive "shouldn't I be home getting all this down in my journal" stare and shoots another glance in Max's direction. Max deadpans his response, "Michael's not really into geometry," to which this alleged substitute responds, "I guess I can understand that. Pretty uninspiring stuff." And, in a flash, Liz's infectious paranoia cements itself. This woman HAS TO BE an alien hunter or some other force of evil that tears at the fragile fabric of society. I mean, what kind of sick person doesn't like geometry? The bell rings. Damn, and I love geometry. And will continue to, in order to avoid suspicion about my deviant alien-hunter leanings.
Out in the hallway, Liz catches up with Max and the two share an awkward hello. Liz then asks Max if he thought the substitute's questions were strange. He reassures her that Renee was just taking attendance, though unbrilliantly damages Liz's already fragile psyche with, "Liz, don't worry about it. No one's suspicious of Michael. It's me." But before complete hallucinatory dementia has time to settle in, Queen Isabel Of The Sovereign Planet Sass makes her first appearance. Wearing bad-ass clothes and her sullenest "Beam me up Scotty, this planet sucks" glare, she bowls Liz over, fakes a hello, and hauls Max off without ceremony. Damn that hard-edged Czech boorishness.
Cut to inside the station house, where Office Porno strides in, over what should be the luscious disco beat of Hot Chocolate's "You Sexy Thing," but isn't. Instead, the only soundtrack is that constant spacy drone of music compartmentalized in my mind as "third-grade trip to the planetarium." ("Word. I keep looking for the little red arrow." -- Sars) Porno's in for quite a surprise when he gets inside and is confronted by an evil of the most egregious kind: a man in a folding chair, sitting quietly in the corner. We learn that the precinct is just another Roswell locale in which strangers who do not look and act exactly like the Sheriff will not be welcomed or accommodated in any way. After Porno and another officer treat us to a thoroughly "Who's On First" exchange so jaunty it threatens to culminate in the hurling of cream pies in each others' faces, Porno decides he'll get the scoop on the stranger himself. He makes his way over and discovers he's in the presence of the FBI. Porno insists that the agent leave his station, and the agent counters that his assignment is to do just not that. So Valenti pulls rank, never quite explaining in his dismissal of the agent why "the FBI has no jurisdiction here." Now, my comprehensive knowledge of the FBI is primarily that they arrest dirty old men for picking up twelve-year-old girls over the Internet, but a vague notion tells me that they have jurisdiction in a lot of other matters as well.
Nevertheless, the agent is gone and so are we, this time to Roswell High's exterior. Liz's paranoia about the substitute ("she completes me. I don't know why, but she just does") is spreading like some kind of Czechoslovakian Sleeping Sickness, and this time it's Maria's turn to stray down the wrong path to the woefully clichéd town of Predictable Ending, population: this episode. Maria, looking more and more like the Dutch Boy paint-can's gruff lesbian sister every minute, suggests that the sub is actually an alien hunter on assignment, marking the whole issue as "so Roswellian." The line is so jarringly self-referential that I wait for Maria to stare directly into the camera and add, "Tonight! On the WB Wednesday!" The conversation more or less proceeds around in a giant circle. Maria suggests that their only option is to consult with Alex, and Liz insists that they "mustn't tell anyone," prompting another Maria outburst: "Mustn't? When have you ever said 'mustn't'?" But one throwaway bit of observational grammarianism, at a particularly irrelevant moment, delivered with all of the nuanced comic oomph of Vicki the Talking Robot, does not a funny comment make. I'll bet in the original script her line was, "And what's with airplane peanuts?" Anyway, Maria tries to convince Liz of the existence of alien hunter task forces and the need to fulfill Alex's "supporting lead actor" contract by getting him in on the act. Liz indicates Alex not far off, trying to woo some ladies. Hey, Alex, you'd get home and practice pronouncing the names of failed Eastern Bloc nations in front of a mirror if you want to get into the Scooby gang.
Back inside, Maria disappears when Kyle drifts over to Liz's locker. Thanks, Kyle. He's like garlic or a lucky rabbit's paw. Then I remember that I've got no great love for Kyle either, and my brief jubilance at seeing Maria go settles back into that familiar ambivalence at watching the rest of the cast stay. Kyle awkwardly wants to know where Liz has been, and begins a speech about the virtues of timeliness, a la the podium at the Crash last Friday. Just in time, Liz spies Renee making a forty-five degree angle to the hypotenuse of the lockers (uh, I mean, "coming towards them." Geometry is clearly territory for losers and alien hunters only), and Liz gives Kyle the heave-ho and takes off. She intentionally body-slams an unsuspecting Renee, who in turn drops a number of files labeled "for alien hunting purposes only" and looks up at her assailant. She identifies Liz immediately because of her photographic memory of the class roll, which is a huge benefit "in my line of work." Oh, really. Liz feigns vague interest while blatantly thumbing through Renee's files. Let's see, let's see -- Kennedy assassination, cure for the common cold, moon landing faked, and what's this now? OH MY GOD, SHE HAS A PICTURE OF MICHAEL IN HERE! Liz has now officially snapped. If she doesn't come to her senses real soon she's capable of doing something desperate. Something as base, sick and disgusting as -- mixing with the poor.
Sure enough, we return from commercial to find Liz walking, terror in her eyes, into the trailer park in which Michael lives. And to truly nail down the socioeconomic gulf that exists between Roswell's good and prosperous versus Roswell's poor and evil, the trailer park is so far on the wrong side of the tracks that it exists on a dusty expanse where it doesn't appear locomotive travel has yet been invented. Liz knocks on the "screen door rotting off its rusty hinges" ripped right out of the set designer's Poor People: An Illustrated Primer guide. She is greeted by Michael's snarling beast of a father. Inherently fearing for her safety but with an "I hope all this poverty doesn't make my hair all frizzy" resolve, Liz steps in and promptly ceases inhalation. Michael comes to see her, and the two step outside to talk. Liz shares the story of Renee and the records, further spreading paranoia about the teacher's actual purpose. Suddenly, Liz realizes that if she's not back in the palace by midnight she'll turn back into a pumpkin, so she apologizes to Michael for his awful, hopeless life and is gone. Good work, Liz. All in all a very successful visit.
Meanwhile, cut to evening and Porno on the phone, repeating the last three words said to him by the "non-hired extra" on the other end. Porno: "I KNOW it's late . . . I WON'T call back . . . Tomorrow is NOT acceptable." Fine acting, Porno! You can practically see the phone cord hanging out of the wall, completely unplugged! Hanging up, Porno uses a key to open a file cabinet. Removing a file, he flips through the storied "Alien Handprint Et. Al." file. From it, he removes another key and finds a far more secure place for it: the top of his thermos, which he then hides in a far safer unlocked drawer, clear on the other side of the exact same file cabinet. He then leaves the station and drives unseeing past Michael, who has all the while been concocting a plan to, in one fell swoop, turn the plot of this episode into an elaborate French farce. Armed with a paper bag filled with candy and a desire to learn the whole truth of his past -- without simply demanding that someone "tell him everything" -- Michael strolls right into that police station and informs the night deputy that he's "selling candies for charity. I'm on the committee to reopen Westlake Orphanage." This is all very strange, I think, and contains about the same level of plausibility as when Bugs Bunny puts on a wig and a dress and makes Elmer Fudd forget all about that silly wabbit. Anyway, Michael is about to leave when he's confronted by last week's other deputy. Michael repeats his story of selling the candy, but is met with a stony "not in here you're not." Man, that guy must reeeeeeally hate orphans.
Back at Max and Isabel's house, Michael tells his alien partners of how he tried to infiltrate Porno's files, and they in turn suggest that Michael may in fact be an idiot. Throwing an already unbalanced script into total chaos, more wacky banter is allowed to ensue. Michael: "I didn't just wander in, alright? I had a cover story." Max: "And what was your cover story?" Michael: "That I was selling candies for charity. [offering to Isabel] Peanut cluster?" Max: "And they bought it?" Michael: "No, they all seem to be on a diet." Har har har. You know, I saw a zany hijinks-filled scene just like that the other day on a Telemundo variety show. Except in that one, they were all speaking Spanish and there was giant bee, so that made it much, much funnier. Michael then stops mid-cutup to inquire about Isabel's outfit: "Why are you wearing that?" Is it because her "too cool for this planet" t-shirt is in the wash? No, it's because she has a date, leading Isabel into a small lecture about the benefits of living on Earth over some other, non-Earth locale. But Michael just wants to talk about the Valenti files again. Michael has slowly started to convince Max that an undetected break-in might just be possible. And just as Isabel shuts the plan down as crazy and implausible, Mom and Pop Evans enter the house and Michael whispers, "And with government agents after us, we'd better get our asses in gear, don't you think?" Agents? What agents? Michael advises, "Talk to Liz." Oh, great, Liz. Why, at this point she's as unreliable as an oblique triangle whose three unequal sides don't equal the sum of their individual angles. Um. Anyway, the Evans elders stare Michael down like he has "Property Of The State" tattooed across his forehead, and he's out of there faster than you can say, "I know I'm poor, but I can kill you with my mind."
And we're back at Fun Central, a.k.a. geometry, where Renee makes a simple error in her calculation and Liz is really starting to see the evidence against this fraud [insert obligatory dumb math joke here -- oh, wait, I'll do it for you] add up. Out in the hallway, Max needs to know more about how many student records Renee had with her when Liz saw Michael's. Liz shares her alien hunter theory with Max, and he would laugh if anyone on this show were allowed to laugh. But after they go their separate ways, Max spies Porno being introduced to Renee by an important-looking fat guy in a suit. Now it's his turn to decide that the situation is grimmer than even the death march pace of this episode has thus far indicated. Nice job, Liz. One foot in their graves and you managed to make everyone more depressed. The only thing that could cheer me up now are some commercials for stuff Michael can't afford. Ah, here they are.
Back in school, Liz reads a note in the bathroom that Max has written her: "Meet me in the 2nd floor eraser room, 6th period. Max." Uh-oh, the eraser room. Maria is incredulous that Max would be so forward! After all, she notes, "the eraser room does two things. It cleans erasers and it takes our innocence." So kids make out there and maybe get a little naked. Luckily, Maria has chosen to circumvent the obstacle of never being asked to go to the eraser room by just coming to school naked. Truly. I refer, of course, to her glittery orange halter top, which covers none of her top, middle, or bottom sections with any adequacy.
Meanwhile, Porno is getting caught in some erasure of his own, namely that of Roswell's alien-rich heritage. FBI Agent Stevens comes back to town, to the sarcastic delight of the delightfully sarcastic Valenti: "Agent Stevens. You don't write, you don't call. I'm sorry about kicking Junior out of here, but he had no jurisdiction." WHY NOT? Seriously, if someone knows, please explain it to me. Tell me everything. Meanwhile, Porno inquires about the blood-stained waitress uniform, and Stevens tells him it was stained, but only with ketchup. No blood anywhere. Stevens then says Valenti has wasted enough money with this project: "No spaceship landed here in 1947. No aliens are currently residing in Roswell, New Mexico. I've been given the authority by the governor to search the premises and remove any information pertaining to UFOs, alien sightings, and other alleged paranormal occurrences in this county. This thing is over, Sheriff." A swell of melancholy cello accompanies the entrance of a crack team of men with carry-all boxes, who begin to remove the files. Sheriff accuses Valenti of having found blood on the dress, else why his interest in removing all of the files? Good call. Porno serves up an ace. Sadly, it is all for naught. Orders are orders, and Valenti grabs his thermos containing the ambiguous key and takes off. Michael spies Valenti leaving the station through highly powerful (and miraculously affordable, I imagine) binoculars, and the show actually threatens to break into a semblance of action for a second.
But no, the plod (I'm sorry, I must have meant "plot") sneaks us back to the eraser room, where we find Max actually cleaning erasers. It's at about this point that I realize there's supposed to be a constant sexual tension between Liz and Max. This is not being fleshed out well, I think, what with her already having seen into his soul and all. Plus, Liz is genuinely starting to sound like she's reading her lines by rote out of stereo instructions. I HATE the eraser room subplot. Max, we discover, has taken Liz to the eraser room because it looks into Renee's office. This realization, coupled with the fact that there's no sign reading "if this eraser room's a rockin', don't come a knockin'," lets Liz know that Max did not do it all for the nookie. So they sit. And stare. And wait. Powerful stuff, that. She asks dumb questions Max can't answer. Max makes a "joke" that he's always looked just like a person except for "the third eye." Liz attempts to remain neutrally PC and remind herself that they're "alien Americans" who are just "humanly challenged." But then Max defuses the bomb and tells her he was just "kidding." Riotous. I make another pact with myself, namely that the first time a character on this show actually laughs -- OUT LOUD -- I will buy you all dinner. Solemn pledge. Anyway, they begin bonding like the lovers they may or may not already be, but their revelry is interrupted by Renee, telling one of her peons that she's going to confront Michael at his home.
Max runs to find Michael, which he does, in front of the Crashdown. Michael tells Max about the files disappearing from Valenti's office. Liz runs inside the Crashdown and tells Maria she needs to cover for her so she can do some sleuthing. In her most annoying diatribe to date, she uses the following bothersome words and/or phrases: "Eraser room. Madonna. It's a zoo." Oh, and she even finds time to throw in a fat joke. Oh, and it still manages to be unfunny. Maria agrees to cover when coerced, and Liz is off in a flash. But uh-oh, she's waylaid by "Greek Chorus" Alex, who recounts the significant plot developments of the show's first forty-two minutes and wants someone to fill in the blanks. Oh, and he didn't practice pronouncing "Czechoslovakian" AT ALL. I hope he plans to put the running gag to rest once and for all when he complains that they always have some excuse to keep from telling him what's going on, "and every time I walk up to you two, you go silent or you make up some ridiculous story about --" And there it was. Pamponaulbakia? And he didn't do so great with the word "ridiculous" either, as long as we're keeping score. The hopelessly-behind-the-game-Alex then demands that they tell him everything. Their excuse for all of the questionable behavior? The one that ACTUALLY WORKS? Cramps. Maria: "We have cramps, Alex." And just like that, he gives up and walks away. What a fabulously convenient oversimplification of men's reactions to women's bodies. Maybe this practice could be extended into other areas of the Roswell scandal. Why, I'll bet if Liz ran into the police station at high noon and screamed the word "TAMPON" as loud as she could, the entire investigation would be shut down lickety-split.
Meanwhile, Max has told Michael to hide out with Isabel while he and Liz explore Hick-tonia, where Renee is heading. Kyle, back in the thick of it, sees Max and Liz pull off in the Jeep and follows. Liz and Max wait. Kyle spies. Renee's car pulls up in front of Michael's house and Liz leans over for a better look. In shadow, it look to Kyle as if she is leaning on Max's shoulder. Kyle flinches. And then, with the help of the Austin Powers visual department, Liz drops her ring at Max's feet and, um, "goes down" to get it. And you know what that looks like to Kyle, who runs over and ends the party. Renee, after a brief chat with Michael's father, hears the commotion and looks over, all alien-hunter-esque. Michael, meanwhile, is beginning The Great File Caper.
Back in town and with Kyle conveniently tucked away somewhere, boring non-flirting continues. Isabel shows up just in time to insure that nothing fun happens, and tells Max that Michael has gone AWOL. He's breaking into the police station. He breaks the window lock with a simple display of molecular manipulation and is inside, only to find all of the files gone. Max and Isabel pull up just in time to see Valenti's car return to the station. So the kids all create a big ruse (AGAIN!), whereby Isabel fakes a flat tire while Max goes to alert Michael. Max comes in the window just as Michael finds the key in the thermos. Touching it, he experiences a rush of unreadable images, the force of which throws him back off the chair and attracts Porno's attention. They make it out just in time with the key, and Max molecularly manipulates the lock to make it appear as if no break-in occurred. They leap into a conveniently located dumpster, and all runners are safe.
Later, Max and Isabel can gain no charge from the key. Michael lectures Max in a depressing manner about not getting in too deep in Roswell because they might have to leave at any time. We find out in the final moments that Renee is actually the new guidance counselor (inexplicably posing as the geometry teacher, but whatever), and the reason she wanted to talk to Michael is due to his bad grades and possibility of being expelled. So she's not an alien hunter after all. So the writer of this episode attended the "Three's Company School of Zany Communications Mishaps" and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. But he left out the jokes, and far more horribly, HE MADE IT LAST AN HOUR. Let's close with a journal entry, shall we? How 'bout this pearl: "Since I found out about Max and Michael and Isabel, I've been thinking a lot about secrets. That for everyone who has a secret, there's someone else who needs to know what that secret is." And if the shortest distance to Point B is an accusatory "tell me everything," then so be it.