Fade in on an all-too-familiar red Jetta tearing down the one paved road under a desert blue sky. Christina Aguilera's best-double-entendres-concerning-sex-and-teddy-bears-since-Brittany-did-it-two-weeks-ago classic "Genie in a Bottle" rages on the car's stereo. Cut to inside said vehicle, where Maria jams along karaoke style, crossing one hand over the other on the steering wheel and doing her best "Cyndi Lauper in the video for We Are the World" impression. Incidentally, it is becoming quite clear that the Roswell hair stylist has committed to memory the "Good Hairstyles Now Deemed Bad And Vice Versa" article from last week's Bad Hair Weekly and liberally applied its teachings to Maria. In three episodes, this girl's hair actually appears to be getting shorter with each passing moment. Between the dubious locks and the Army-surplus denim tank top, Maria's transformation into GI Jane's lesbian-chic daughter continues almost entirely unabated. Then something actually happens in the show, and I become angry that I can't continue ragging on Maria's hair anymore.
And what happens is this: Maria sees a car being towed up ahead and realizes that the stranded driver is none other than Isabel Evans. Isabel stares at the only approaching car for miles and recognizes Maria, cynically muttering, "Of course." Whoa, Isabel -- where ARE you from anyway, Planet Martyr? We're the ones who have already endured over thirty Maria-soiled seconds (yes, I know I've only recapped thirty seconds at this point, but, well, THAT HAIR), so get hip to the fact that this Maria-centric episode cannot be avoided, and start thinking of constructive ways in which you can keep her cartoonishness in check for an hour at a time.
Anyway, Maria pulls up and immediately puts her big foot in her mouth before Isabel even has a chance to try and make nice, querying, "Going home?" before noticing that the tow truck has a spaceship in the act of taking off on the top of it. And right off the bat, there's excruciatingly little doubt as to where Isabel would most like to see her own foot go. Regardless, it's Maria's last chance for a zany quip of any kind for some time, as we quickly learn that Maria is terrified of Isabel. On the ride back to town, Isabel molecularly manipulates the Jetta's AC to make it blow colder, and the car's stereo to make it jam phresher. After all, this car needs some help because it's so ancient; "it's a 1992." I quickly take stock of my rapidly advancing age and realize that most of my favorite TV series had already been either canceled or doomed to syndicated obscurity on the Fox Family Channel by 1992. I scream raspily at the screen, "You rotten kids, with your rock music and your video games! Why, you better get offa my TV. Don't make me take off my belt!" Digression, thy name is this recap.
Anyway, Isabel's cavalier display of her powers freaks Maria out something fierce. Looks like this week it's her turn to unravel. Isabel attempts a bonding moment on the topic of mothers, but her patience quickly fades at Maria's question: "Does she know -- that, um, you and Max are, like, y'know, different?" But Isabel takes it from there, retorting, "You mean horrible, disgusting creatures from outer space who sneak into your room at night and perform excruciating experiments?" At which point Maria, who has not been watching the road, pauses for about five too many seconds, gasps in horror, slams on the gas, and goes careening into the car in front of her. "It's Valenti!" my two roommates yell, and I chuckle nervously as an apology for the six thousand times a week this show plays repeatedly on the one TV in our otherwise docile home. Sure enough, out of the front car step two snakeskin, too-high-heeled boots covered by perfectly tapered jeans (indicating that Maria has broken that first cardinal rule of the New Mexico highway system: "Watch your speed when the gay rodeo comes to town"). The boots assess the damage and stride over to the Jetta. And sure enough, there's Officer Porno himself, ducking his head into the driver's side window of the Mariamobile. ["Can he arrest them for ripping off a plot point from Outside Providence? Because he should." -- Sars] He smirks, "Ladies?" And so we begin with another classic showdown of good-versus evil-versus-just-plain-bizarre. You figure out who's who.
Hey, wanna hear another joke? Okay, here goes: How come Liz's favorite subject is biology? Because when it comes to acting, she has absolutely no concept of CHEMISTRY! Tee hee! Stop me, I've got a million of 'em. Hey, where you folks from? Good to see you. Anyway, Max accosts Liz in the hallway and the subsequent exchange is, I think, meant to be even more awkward than their usual encounters. Unable to flirt or be flirted with, Liz points the compass plotward and brings up that ol' "Maria-Isabel thing." Liz wants Max to make Isabel stop traumatizing Maria (yeesh -- I'm on ensemble-cast red alert here), and Max distractedly agrees to do so. Maria tells Max she really thought he had something else to say, which he denies. But we know that's not true, now, don't we? Or maybe we don't.
Having procured the most ideal locale in which to loudly discuss the fact that they're aliens, Max, Michael, and Isabel congregate on an outdoor patio swarming with people. Max tells Isabel that she should try to make an effort with Maria, telling her that "people see movies with aliens. Aliens killing humans. Evil aliens. Green aliens. You keep acting that way with Maria and she'll think that's what we are." Isabel thinks that idea is just fantastic, as it will keep Maria in check and too wary to cross them. Michael, oblivious to the fact that this conflict provides a war-chest of neuroses for him to worry his destitute self silly about, quickly resorts to last week's unshocking shock tactics. He produces the "oh, that is SO Episode Two" key filched from Porno's office and tries to make this plot thread appear vital and interesting. It is not. Duh, aliens. Of course it "unlocks the door" to your ambiguous past. It's a KEY! Could the symbolism be any MORE transparent? Perhaps when Michael figures out what to do with it, a light bulb will appear above his head and switch on with a "ding!" Then they'll all walk down a dark road with a bright, shining light at the end of it. And the whole process will no doubt be very subtle indeed.
Back in Renee's office, Liz is explaining her passion for science and why she's so hell-bent on pursuing it as a career: "The world is this incredibly mysterious place, and science is just this way of figuring it out. With science, there are answers to everything. Facts." Renee slyly accuses Liz of being a control freak, which I didn't know she was, and derides her inability to "take life as it comes." Jeez, Renee, way to derail a girl's dreams of having a master plan and becoming a scientist; now when she gets home and tells her parents she's also considering the vocations of "crack fiend" and "shoe sprayer in a bowling alley," you'll know you've done your part in setting poor, misguided Liz on the track to total anarchy.
Shot of cold, vacuous space (or -- IS IT?), where a pensive Max Evans peers out, wondering aloud, "What if there is someone out there, somewhere? Waiting for us to come home." Inside Chez Evans, Max and Isabel discuss how cautious they've been in looking for clues to their past. Isabel says that telling Liz and her idiot sidekick was too big a risk to begin with, and that she needs to find out what's really going on inside Maria's mind. She informs Max, "I'm going to pay her a little visit." Instead of letting us figure out that this might mean something besides just knocking on her door, Max blurts out, "You can't just go around walking into people's dreams." Hey, COOL POWER! More than saving lives or heating up a burrito with my hand, this is the alien power I want most. The news of its existence, grant you, is not delivered in the most suave fashion. But really -- walking into dreams? Cooooool. The whole process of doing this apparently involves Isabel touching a yearbook picture of Maria and looking curious. I can do that, I think. But then she's inside of Maria's dream. That I cannot do.
Maria is dreaming about, being at work and seeing -- no, really -- aliens. They are green and scary and slimy. She screams. Isabel confronts Maria in this state, and Isabel rather unsympathetically realizes that Maria is "afraid," at which point Dream Michael grows long, clawed arms which begin to envelope Maria. Afraid of what, Maria? Cheesy special effects? Dream Valenti is there and Maria calls to him, but he does not hear her. This should be an extremely creepy experience for me, I imagine, but it's not. Really, it's just the set of the Crashdown under the "Dream Sequence Haze Light" used in every soap opera and cheesy movie and Golden Girls flashback episode montage I have not the bandwidth here to list in full. I peer about, looking curious, and lightly tap the high school yearbook photo of the head of programming at the WB: "Commercial," I say. "I desperately need a commercial." And it works. Powerful and effective alien, I.
day (though it still looks strangely similar to the middle of the night), Max sits in Renee "conduit to the dominant thematic issues at work" Zellweger's office again. She's concerned. He's evasive. He asks what her prying questions have to do with his career path, and she responds, "If I'm going to help you figure out what you want to become, maybe we should talk about who you really are." And later again, she pries it out of Max that he doesn't remember anything about his past preceding his adoption. "Sometimes," she counsels, "it's hard to move forward with your future until you can figure out your past." She has to stop. She HAS to stop. I mean, doesn't she know she had us at hello?
Meanwhile, back at the UFO Center, Max asks Bania what he's got on 1959, and Bania produces an old photo of himself as Little Bania Junior, standing in front of an ice cream parlor with a suspicious looking alien shadow on a nearby wall. Max withholds whatever he was ready to spill to this nut, saying instead that he only knew of a sighting near that parlor in 1959. Come to think of it, I'm not exactly sure myself what Max knows about 1959. Bania is clearly disappointed with Max's lack of insight, but tells Max that he needs an assistant to work in the UFO Center, which contains archives described as "the most complete collection of UFO facts and findings ever compiled." Finally, a guy who doesn't need anyone to "tell him everything." But all those booksmarts (or should I say Clippings From The Weekly World News Smarts?) are useless, as Bania unironically points at Max and unironically tells him that he's worked hard to prove the existence of aliens, and "I swear on my mother's grave that one day I will stand face to face with one of these creatures and I will say I told you so." Yeah, we get it. Thanks for playing another round of "Wheel Of Subtle Dialogue." Pat, I'd like to buy an implication, please.
Back at the Crashdown, Maria continues to fall apart, much to Isabel's delight. Porno shows up again for more third degree (and because, I think, he continues to find Maria irresistibly sexy, a concept that disturbs me infinitely). Once again, the script device of obliquely alluding to important themes rears its ugly, unsubtle head. Sheriff, in his conversation with Maria, slides in the lines "Well, you seem to know a lot about what goes on around here" and "It's good to have a strong, dependable institution like that on your side." He moves steadily closer to her during the scene, all the while sporting his too-tight t-shirt that leaves nothing to the imagination. Then Officer Porno (or, considering his repeated lecherous advances on a minor, Office Kiddie Porno) makes his move and asks Maria to come to his office tomorrow. She agrees, and I feel vaguely the way I did when Arnold and Willis found themselves in the back room of the bicycle shop on a very special Diff'rent Strokes. It's not an okay feeling.
Oh, man! Are we in science class again? Jeez, Liz, take an elective. I think it's chem. Oops, I guess my joke about Liz and chemistry wasn't very funny in light of this development. Oh, never mind, it wasn't really that funny to begin with. Max, metaphorically emerging from behind his metaphorical tree, drops a book on the floor as a signal for Liz to meet him under the lab table for a chat. About Maria. Max tells Liz about three thousand times that it's important Maria not crumble in front of Valenti, and Liz responds in about three thousand different ways, "Yes, Max, I know that." So did we, Liz. So did we. Max, get the hell back behind that tree and don't come out until I count to a billion. Or at least until after these here commercials.
Back on Hughes-o-vision, Renee gives each student the results of his or her computer profile. It is a total waste of my perfectly good Fuji HQ 120 VHS Tape. Consider it skipped. Cut to the back of the Crashdown, where Liz coaches Maria on the answers to the questions the Sheriff is about to ask. Maria, decked out in a Catholic-school-uniform-and-men's-tie ensemble which screams, "I'm here if a Eurythmics video should spontaneously break out," argues, "The Sheriff is smart. He's gonna find out the truth, and maybe that wouldn't be so bad. He's Kyle's dad. He's here to protect us." Hey, uh, what the hell happened to Kyle anyway? I am merely curious. Maria lays into Liz for trying to manipulate how she really feels and what she should tell Valenti, ending her rambling, "I am not you, Liz." Insert audible sigh of relief for that truism, eh, Liz?
Cut to auto-body shop, where Maria and Isabel run into each other picking up their cars. They stare. We think, "They share car trouble. Maybe they ARE more alike than it seems." And this has been One To Grow On. And now back to your regularly scheduled unsubtlety.
Back at school, Max, Liz, and Michael morosely discuss their plight. Michael thinks, "Who needs this crap? I have a KEY" and walks away. Max plays the role of understanding nice guy, even though it's really all Liz's fault for telling Maria in the first place. Liz, fishing for compliments yet again, asks Max for the ten billionth time, "So why did you tell me?" Uh, because he saved your life? C'mon, Liz. I'm paying more attention than you are, and I'm not even ON the damn show. Filler, filler, filler, leading to the climax scene. Should it ever come.
Station House. Porno. Maria. Photo of Kyle buried somewhere on a desk in the back. Hey, Kyle! Miss you, man. Welcome to this week's Great Unfulfilled Climax Part III, the anticipatory "AH" for which the cathartic "CHOO" ultimately fails to materialize. Here in Porno's Soliloquy, he shifts tactics repeatedly to try and get Maria to spill whatever she knows. The tone ranges from allied ("I'm here to help you. You know that, don't you?") to accusatory ("We both know why we're here, so what do you say we stop lying to each other?") to conspiratorial ("We've both seen things recently that have made us start to wonder. To question our beliefs.") and back again. Finally, he gets her talking about Isabel Evans, whom Maria, in tears now, admits is "a special girl." And just as she's about to melt down completely, she pulls herself together for the sake of the Scooby Gang, rendering Porno thrice hitless in as many at bats. I invite you all now to come into my dreams tonight and see the good cry I intend to have over this very special ending to a very special episode of Roswell.
Closing. Back in the middle of nowhere, Maria fortuitously happens past Isabel's again broken-down car (can't she just wiggle her nose and fix that pipe or whatever?) and she tells Isabel that she lied and got away with it. Back in school, the five "stuck with each other" characters meet and silently assent that all is well for now, before pairing off (Max and Isabel, Maria and Liz, Michael and Key) and going their separate ways.