Liz Parker has a journal. And a rooftop. And a rather hefty tab on her Urban Outfitters credit card, judging from the ever-proliferating numbers of funky candles surrounding her at all times on said rooftop. And speaking of Roswell, have I mentioned that Liz Parker has a journal? And in it, she writes this: "It’s October 19th. I’m Liz Parker and this is what I’ve been thinking. Can life ever go back to normal?" Oh, drat, I think, I don’t think the new episode got recorded on this tape; I must accidentally be watching last week’s episode. Y’know, the one that began with Liz Parker sitting on her roof introducing herself to her journal? And the week before that. And the week before that. And the week before that. Sorry to argue with your police work there, Liz, but things actually seem pretty freakin’ normal to me.
Cut to the Crashdown, where we glimpse briefly the life Liz perceives as "normal," the main feature of which seems to be Liz and Maria chatting incomprehensibly while waiting on tables. They make it over to the kitchen to await some impending orders, and at one minute and twenty-nine seconds by my VCR counter, the plot is in place and motoring. Liz: "Grandma Claudia is coming on Friday." Maria responds with an enthusiasm few have seen from her since the Supercuts chain finally came to the Southwest, and Liz agrees that Grandma Claudia is, in fact, "the basis of my existence." Gleeful revelry becomes almost rampant, and I immediately know by some primal instinct that Grandma Claudia will be making an extended visit to the ol’ Reaper place down by the edge of town before this episode is over. And how do I know this? Because anything that make Liz Parker force a smile -- even the prospect of listening to an aged relative ramble endlessly about mah jongg, Boca Raton lawn furniture, and that disgusting rap music all you rotten kids are listening to these days -- cannot be long for this world.
Liz, oblivious to the hazardous effects of her own fated foreshadowing, continues on with normal. She serves a table of frightfully ogre-esque orthodontists, and the head grotesque tells Liz, "My colleagues and I were just appreciating your overbite," and requests a closer look. As Liz tilts her head back and bears her teeth in a painful facial contortion vaguely masquerading as a smile, Max walks into the Crashdown and witnesses the spectacle. He smiles. She smiles. Mr. and Mrs. Mopey threaten to share a moment bordering on actual laughter, and it becomes painfully obvious that the only way to restore the brooding status quo between them is to have somebody ACTUALLY DIE. Speaking of status quo, Liz’s voice-over burbles something about wanting things to stay normal but at the same time not wanting things to stay normal. Thus negating each other, rendering the very existence of this statement obsolete from the get-go.
Max, meanwhile, has become a bit more bold in his wooing methods. He has shown up at the Crashdown alone, not waiting for Michael, not particularly hungry, just there. Max and Liz’s little chat is intercut with shots of two chaps sitting at a nearby table, spying. And I’m really not stretching the truth for the sake of a pop-culture comparison in saying that one of these guys is the genetic clone of ‘N Sync heartthrob, Lance. It’s insane. So Lance’s friend (for the uninitiated: Justin, Chris, Joey, or JC) peeps conspiratorially at the too-happy-for-this-show duo and informs his blond-tipped friend, "That’s the guy."
Cut to what appears to be a good nine or ten hours later. Max exits a near-deserted Crashdown, which resembles a Big Red chewing gum commercial ("So kiss a little longer, hold tight a little longer, be an alien a little longer, longer with Big Red"), where the only other people are sweeping floors and stacking chairs. Man, some people really take that "Free Refills" clause on the menu a little too seriously. Anyway, out on the conveniently pitch-black street, Max encounters ‘N Sync, and this time the whole band has come for the rumble. As they surround him, one warns, "Stay away from her." Then they kick his ass. Jeez, ‘N Sync is, like, really, really mean. Do you think this explains why Hanson disappeared from the scene so quickly?
Opening credits. Part of me thinks that The Cranberries are a totally awesome band. The lying part.
Fade in on Chez Evans interior, Michael pacing frantically while a ravaged Max licks his wounds. Michael identifies the assailants as "those jocks from the football team, right? Kyle and his friends?" Max tells Michael that Kyle was not there, but Michael is out for blood now and threatens "to kill them." Max, conversely, preaches the virtues of not retaliating, hence continuing their usual plan of inaction. Max says that if they don’t crawl back into their shells and become invisible once again, "rumors start flying. The whole thing about what I did to Liz starts coming up again." Oh yeah, like it’s been so freakin’ long since the last time someone brought it up. In sad conclusion, Max decides that he has lost the battle, and to avoid future face-crushing encounters, he must never, ever enter a diner and in any way interact with the staff. He mourns, "I have to stay away from Liz." Which must really bum him out, because I’ll bet Max has been hankering for a stale, chewy Velamint, all linty and pulled from the bottom of someone’s purse. Which makes Max’s predicament doubly inconvenient, what with Grandma Claudia coming to town and all.
Cut to the first of many, many "I have to stay away from Liz" echoes, the first of which features Liz very prominently NOT trying to stay away from Max. In school, Maria catches her in the process of loitering outside of PE (I’m sorry, Liz, but don’t you have one of your fifteen science classes during this period?) and accuses Liz of "conveniently positioning yourself to just happen to run into him?" Liz is doing just that, and when the bell rings, Max walks by. She races up to him and chokes out a hello with all the passion and intimacy of someone saying, "Hey, wasn’t I your waitress the other day?" She notices his pummeled face, and he offers no explanation, save that he has to [mumble mumble], and Max splits with all the passion and intimacy of someone saying, "Yeah. You were an okay waitress and all, but isn’t the relationship supposed to plateau when the check is paid?" Liz becomes set-your-watch-by-it brooding and downcast as Max takes off. But this man magnet isn’t usually alone for long, and shortly thereafter Kyle comes sidling up and reminds Liz that "movie night" is upon us again. He’ll meet her at the video store at six. I don’t know, Kyle. You might want to be rethinking that ol’ movie night tradition. See, you’ve got plans for six, but Grandma Claudia’s got an expiration date of right around 5:59, and the clock is ticking.
Meanwhile (pointless subplot), the wacky hijinks baton is passed onto Michael for one episode, beginning with a scene that features a really loud Smashmouth song. The scene’s only purpose thus becomes a reminder of how much I hate Smashmouth. Also, it illustrates Michael’s outrageously sinister retaliation on the jocks who molecularly manipulated Max’s face. With a simple brush of the hand, Michael looks on at the nearby jock as he becomes...extremely itchy? This from an entity who can crawl into people’s dreams? Look, I don’t want to be tacky here, but judging from the look of the skanky cheerleader the jock is talking to, he would probably have ended up with a peculiar itch he didn’t know how to get rid of sooner or later regardless.
And now I have something very personal and very important I feel I must admit. And it is this: I have a soft spot for the elderly. I think they are generally nice as a group and I don’t like to say mean things about them, particularly when I know they are bound to die before the TV hour is through. So imagine my relief when we finally meet the doomed, tragic Grandma Claudia, who doesn’t look a day over thirty-five. Because she isn’t. Because the WB has once again sacrificed realism for beauty, and I am consequently left without the moral burden of making fun of an old person, because I haven’t actually encountered anyone on this network who’s old. Somewhere, in a broken-down shanty on the outermost edge of LA, an aged and tattered Angela Lansbury shrieks in incredulous frustration and shoots her TV.
I’m glad when Grandma Youngster shows up for another reason: it provides ample reason for Liz’s father, Slackjaw, to cease his grating sing-along to some awful song while he works through Crashdown receipts. The door swings open, Liz and Claudia embrace, and Slackjaw looks up as if to say, "Huh?" Grandma Youngster offers Liz some "my how you’ve grown" words akin to the "Oh, look, Fred, she’s gotten her boobies" speech from Sixteen Candles, which I would much, much rather be watching. Liz and Grandma Youngster get all cliquey and take off. On the way to Liz’s bedroom, Liz starts the catching up: "So, did you finish that book we were talking about last time?" Okay, we just learned that it’s been a year since they last saw each other. What is this book called, exactly, Liz’s Journal? Bah ha ha ha ha! I kill me. On the way to Liz’s bedroom, they run into Liz’s haggard, put-upon mom, up to her neck in laundry and easily five to seven years older than her own mother-in-law. She declines an offer to bond girlishly with the two, knowing implicitly how much they both hate her. Or so it seems. Claudia gloatingly informs The Mom That Does Laundry that they’ll be back after Liz tells her about all of the boys in her life, to which Mom responds, "Don’t waste your time, because she never talks about that stuff." Yeah, whatever. Foreshadow me a river, Mrs. Parker.
Cut to Liz’s bedroom, where young and . . . younger talk about all of the boys in Liz’s life. Liz tells Claudia that things are "complicated. Really complicated," and Grandma Youngster probably meditates silently on the many suitors who used to come calling at her own home when she was sixteen... in 1985. Probably to go to an A-Ha concert, or something. But before they have a chance to delve any further, Maria crashes in without so much as a knock. In her doddering confusion, Grandma sees Maria and yells "another beauty," sadly reminding us that the curse of senility is inevitable, even in the fake-old. They talk about some pointless thing I can’t remember, until Maria, quickly recapturing that downright wacky edge that made her so hate-worthy to begin with, asks, "So the hair thing...does it work for you?" And the mental and physical toll of such a patently unanswerable question send ol’ Claudia on a health spiral so swift and pronounced it could only logically end in death before the TV hour is through.
Cut to inside the UFO Center, where Isabel chides Max about his new employment. As if "actor on this show" were any more respectable a chosen vocation. Max tells Isabel about Kyle’s thug friends, and repeats for the benefit of the earth’s one remaining resident who has not yet heard: "I’m staying away from Liz." Oh, reeeeeeeally?
Cut to Kyle and Liz returning from the video store, Liz complaining about Kyle’s movie choice, me complaining about Kyle’s brown country-line-dancing-jamboree shirt with its (?) flared sleeves. Liz cranks the Foreshad-O-Meter into the red zone one more time, telling Kyle, "I am not showing this to my grandmother." Hey, Makeout Session Interruptus, eh, Kyle? I know nothing puts me in a romantic way faster than a scary movie, a crisp fall night, and my grandmother sitting right between us, snoring.
But as it turns out, there will be no chaperone tonight. A melee has erupted in front of the Crashdown in the form of an ambulance and lights. Chaos and genre confusion reign as we cut to Grandma Youngster’s stretcher speeding through the hospital corridors, flanked by Liz’s family and a battalion of doctors shouting random phrases and pretending they pass for medical jargon. "Nurse, I need a PPG and a GDC!" Oh God, not a GDC. Grandma Youngster is ushered into the ICU as the family looks on in horror. Liz radiates that "you can’t take her away from me, I need to get this all down in my journal" look of exasperation while Slackjaw yells after the doctor, "That’s my mother!" which would be a touching sentiment if his cry didn’t sound so much like it ended in a question mark.
Sometime later, Liz approaches a soda machine and product-endorses a Pepsi. But wait! This Pepsi seems to be giving her an idea. As the high-pitched, high-drama violins signal a Significant Plot Development, Liz picks up a nearby pay phone and dials. Or should I say non-pay-phone, as I guess a face that pretty doesn’t need to drop a quarter. Though I’ve never tested the theory myself. Anyway. If you can’t guess who she’s calling, you have never seen this show and consequently ceased reading hours ago. But for the faithful among us, we can guess that on the other end of that phone will be Max Evans, or some electronic simulation thereof. (Dear Roswell, Please introduce the following new characters on your show: A fat man in a dancing bear costume. A court jester with those hilarious shoes that curl up at the end. Oh, and a jolly character aptly named "Other Shows," whose entire purpose is to wear a giant sandwich board advertising whatever else is on during this time slot. Only through these changes can the agonizing boredom of sitting through this program be adequately alleviated. Thank you. Love, Your three remaining fans, and me.) Predictably, Liz gets Max’s machine and leaves a message so incoherent one can only imagine Max listening to it with that "What’s that, Lassie? You say little Timmy is stuck in the well?" shrug of confusion. Liz tells his machine about Grandma Youngster and then apologizes for calling. She says "don’t come here" in that passive-aggressive way that totally means "come here." Cut to highly dramatic and active extreme close-up on Max’s answering machine, followed by a pan back to reveal Max, call-screening like a rock star. Ouch! Looks like now that Grandma Youngster’s got one foot through the pearly gates, Liz pretty much doesn’t have a friend in the world.
Hospital. Day. Slackjaw, Liz, The Mom That Does Laundry, and Kyle confer with the doctor concerning Claudia’s condition. She had a stroke. The doctor leaves, passing Max on his way out. Liz explains to Max for the benefit of the guy-who-fell-asleep-during-Dawson’s-and-wakes-up-now that her grandmother had a stroke. Max creates a story about being at the hospital because his cousin was in a car accident, an excuse which is neither convincing (Kyle gives him the death glare) nor plausible (duh, aliens don’t HAVE cousins). So Max has made his appearance and he’s gone. But as he returns to the Alienmobile and turns on the lights, there’s that flared, brown shirt with Kyle inside of it, blocking Max’s path. Kyle calls his bluff on the cousins ruse, but Max sticks to his guns. But you have to get up pretty early in the morning to fool someone with the same genetic material as one Officer Porno. Kyle, making sense: "Max, I know that something happened between you and Liz the day of the shooting. That you helped her out or whatever. She was shaken up and you calmed her down, and I appreciate that." What irks Kyle, however, is that since that day Max has been all over Liz. So Kyle tells Max that he doesn’t want him around her. And you know what I don’t want to be around? Porno’s house, interior. But nevertheless, here we are.
Porno and Kyle sit on the couch watching TV, and the plot takes a mean twist I almost can’t comprehend when Kyle informs his father that, no really, "Liz’s grandmother had a stroke." But that’s not what’s bothering Kyle, and I watch in unequivocal horror as Porno flips off the TV and the two bond over something apparently referred to as "girl troubles." It’s a voyeuristic moment akin to walking in on your parents during an intimate moment, and the fact that Kyle still wears that flared-sleeve shirt does nothing to lessen my repulsion and keep my three most recent meals at bay just below my throat. Kyle admits to Poppa Porno that instead of "something else" on Liz’s mind, he suspects it is "someONE else." Porno instantly knows Kyle is talking about Max and tells him to stay away. Kyle wants to know why Porno gives an alien’s ass about Max Evans, but the weight of elaborating, "Well, I think he can wave his hand and make the face of a bust disappear," is too much ‘splainin’ for Porno. So he opts instead for pedantic platitudes and repeats his conviction that Kyle should steer clear, without really offering a reason why. Then they reach the apex of their male bonding, agreeing to lots of huntin’ and fishin’ and boozin’, and at some point, over a fifth of SoCo, Kyle will look at his father on the shore of a frozen lake in Wisconsin and offer, "Y’know, Porno...it just doesn’t get any better than this." Or not.
Back in school (pointless subplot), Michael has apparently decided to show up for once. But it’s just long enough for him to enact Wacky Hijinks #2 on Lance from ‘N Sync, and I become forever convinced that Michael ordered his powers from a Spencer Gifts catalog. Handing in a multiple choice test, Michael spots Lance’s paper on top, and with a wave of his hands he changes all the answers. But considering Michael’s well-established pattern of truancy which threatened to get him expelled just a few short episodes ago, don’t be too surprised to hear a jubilant "Dude, I, like, got 100!" shout coming from the area around Lance’s locker sometime in a future episode.
Meanwhile (pointless main plot), back in Mopesville, Liz weasels up to Max at his locker and tells him that when Grandma Youngster gets better, "I’d really love for you to meet her." Tick-tock, tick-tock, time’s up on the grandma clock. Hey, that was a little song I just made up. Anyway, Max must reeeeeeeally hate grandmothers, because he sidesteps the question and begins to walk away. Weaseling after him, Liz apologizes for the awkwardness at the hospital, and Max responds, "It was a mistake. I mean, you had your family there. [glacial pause] And Kyle." And then, in the first non-flatlining moment of emotion we’ve seen from either of these characters, ah, er, ever, Max snaps at Liz’s apology for calling him in the first place, sniping, "Yeah, you shouldn’t have, probably. We said we agreed to, y’know..." All this emotion seems to have affected Max’s acting ability, however, and he stops too suddenly and gazes somewhere off camera. Line. Line, please. LINE! Ah, screw it: "I’ll see you later, Liz." And he’s gone. LINE!!!
In the boy’s room, a frustrated Max slams a stall door, which collapses on a sitting-down Michael. Michael immediately ceases whatever activity it was that made him sit down to begin with, exits the stall fully clothed, and washes his hands with only water. Not a cleansing lather to be found. The two exchange a brief conversation, the very irrelevance of which kept me awake for nights on end, until Michael tells Max, "I got something else that’s gonna cheer you up." Continuing The Subplot That Wasn’t, Michael indicates Kyle at his locker, unable to open it. Kyle looks around quizzically and Max looks on in that "I can also molecularly manipulate a rabbit out of a hat" way, such novelty acts their alien powers have become. But Max becomes furious with this crass display and yanks Michael into an empty classroom (uh-oh, is this the Eraser Room?), telling him that these harmless pranks are "putting us in danger." And with a guilt trip memory as long as my own Jewish grandmother’s, Michael pulls out that timeless ace from up his sleeve: "You’re the one who put us in danger when you saved Liz." Dang. That again? Max forcefully pushes Michael against the wall, gurgling something about doing it again if he had to, and then stops long enough to make meaningful eye contact that virtually screams, "Can’t you see that Kyle’s locker is tearing us apart?" And so on.
Cut to an almost-genuinely-touching-save-for-Maria’s-uncontextual-Rosie-reference moment, in which Liz tells Maria that there’s been a change in how Max treats her: "I saw Max before. He had this, this tone, like I was the enemy or something." Yeah, Liz, we know. We were there, remember? The bell rings, signaling the end of Liz and Maria’s Sit On the Couch And Chat class that I personally don’t remember being offered in my high school. They begin to part ways, and Liz tells Maria, "I’ll see you at work." Maria responds that Liz should be with her family and that she "can handle the Crashdown" without her. Besides, she foreshadows, "I have Agnes."
And to the Crashdown we go, busier than any tourist-trap diner in the middle of the desert has ever been. The trashy, teeming masses want their Will Smith burgers and they want them now, and just as Maria nears total collapse, she spots said Agnes leaving the Crashdown for another one of her smoke breaks. As Maria runs outside to give that old broad (at least thirty or so years older than a certain incapacitated Grandma Youngster I might mention) the whuppin’ of a lifetime, Isabel walks by with her cool kid friends in tow. After dragging her away to Isabel’s horror, Maria asks the question that will leave her indebted to Isabel for the rest of her life: "Will you help me wait tables?" Is she kidding? "You’re kidding, right?" asks Isabel. So buckle down everyone, there’s an actual amusing retort coming up: "To put this as succinctly as possible, I’m not really a service-oriented person." Hee. But Maria plays the pushy card (and has decks and decks in reserve, should this one lose the hand) and even the grandma-on-the-brink card, ending her beggings with, "It’s not for me. It’s for Liz." To which Isabel responds, "Well, since you put it that way...no." Argh! Too much levity! Isn’t there a nice, somber moment in a hospital somewhere that can reacquaint me with my usual helpless pangs of despondent misery so synonymous with this show? Ah, here we are.
Back at the hospital, Slackjaw and The Mom That Does Laundry are in the middle of regaling Liz with tales of Grandma’s amazing life ("and then when she was twelve she joined The Brownies. That pretty much brings us up to date.") when they are interrupted by that hospital-scene convention of doom, the "Code Blue." The family runs to Grandma’s room to find a team of doctors trying to revive Grandma Youngster as Liz looks on in horror. Meanwhile, a few short miles away, Agnes the waitress still leans against the outside wall of the Crashdown, chain-smoking Reds and getting healthier by the second.
Back from commercial and back in ICU, Slackjaw and the doctor discuss just how dead ("and only in her twenties!") this woman is about to become. The mood is bummer. The music is worse. And I tell you what, Maria’s presence just ain’t helping either. Liz bemoans (is there any other active verb that more adequately befits her personality?) her absence during grandma’s final waking moments, saying that she could have done more, they could have spent more time together blah blah blah pathos. But then she catches herself, apologizing, "I know it’s irrational. I’m being irrational." But she pronounces "irrational" with such a focus on the "EE" syllable of the word that I have no idea what she’s talking about. Eat a batchful? Ears natural? Erational.com? Why, it’s enough to drive you screaming right into the scene.
Perspective shot: We ARE Kyle’s locker (pointless subplot), staring out at the disbelieving onlookers who watch a custodian pry it open with a crowbar. We learn that the metal melted, sealing it shut, which of course automatically means that there are aliens in Roswell. Kyle, anyway, looks pensively around.
Meanwhile, back at Chez Evans, Isabel enters Max’s room decked out in a Crashdown uniform. And while in Liz’s clothes, Isabel becomes Liz’s dreamy, pensive, gooey, and filled-with-creamy-nougat alter-ego, telling Max that Liz could "probably use someone to talk to." Max counters that Liz has Maria (who I still think she hates) and Kyle (still standing dumbfounded at his locker), to which Isabel responds, "Who did she call when she first found out?" Max argues that Isabel usually preaches the "Liz is evil poison" approach to social interaction with Liz, so why the sudden change of heart? Isabel gives a short speech, oozing with saccharine, about thinking Liz should be with the one person she really needs at a time like this. Oh, Isabel, we thought we knew you.
Crashdown-bound, Isabel sasses her way around the place, telling customers not to call her ma’am and, none-too-predictably, heating up coffee and burgers with her hand in a pinch. Her two cool-kid friends from the other night see her and offer a short speech about how waiting tables calls into question the image of their whole clique. Thanks, Heather Chandler - you’ve been an effective extra, and I hope never to see you again.
Ding-dong, the doorbell. Not twelve TV seconds after Isabel releases Max to see Liz, she accosts him at Chez Evans and thinks they should talk. Outside, she tells him that she’s been thinking about why she called, saying that in times of crisis, "you should listen to your heart. And my heart told me to call you. Because you were the one person in the world who I really wanted to talk to." Because she thinks he’s totally groovy? Because last week’s unconsummated trip to the Eraser Room has left her all hot and bothered since the last journal entry? No, that’s not it. It’s more like Liz needs something of a favor: "I’m really sorry to ask you this, but is there anything you could do for my grandmother. Y’know...do?" Max explains veeeeeeery slowly that he won’t just heal people at will and that when he did it for Liz it was because it was before her time. Max deadpans, "I’m not God." Liz retorts, "I know." Max? I’m sorry to ask this, but is there anything you could do to summon up a commercial? Anything?
And we’re back. Kyle and the rest of ‘N Sync take a short break from discussing their upcoming Tiger Beat photo shoot to muse upon the (pointless subplot) strange melted locker. Someone (JC, I think. No, Justin) proposes that perhaps it was "that Max guy getting back at us." For what, queries Kyle. They explain with bloated, jockish, date-raping pride how they "beat the crap out of the bastard" for hitting on Liz, and righteous Kyle takes off in anger.
Back at the hospital where Grandma Youngster hangs in, Slackjaw, The Mom That Does Laundry, and Liz sit vigil by the bedside. Kyle shows up, and he and Liz retreat outside. A rather elaborate exchange follows, beginning with Kyle’s admission that "I had nothing to do with what happened to Max." When Liz claims ignorance and Max explains the assault, Liz asks, "Why would they do something like that?" Kyle explains in his privileged, entitled way that they were "good guys" who "were just trying to help out," and "I told them it was wrong, Liz." Liz chastises him for having such low-caliber friends, remains incredulous, and before taking off, breaks it off with Kyle. But why? I mean really: She’s not with Max; Kyle didn’t kick anyone’s ass, or even tell his friends to do so; Max is, like, totally not even interested (I hear he’s staying away from Liz this week, anyway). To tell you the truth, Kyle... I’m kind of at a loss here myself. Is it the shirt? I think it’s the shirt.
Back inside, Liz wakes up Slackjaw and TMTDL and tells them to go get some air. She goes into the ICU to bond with the large, beeping machine her grandmother has become, and looks up mere seconds later to see Max the Savior (he’s not God but he plays one on TV) stroll in. Cue cards be damned once more, Max wings it, "I can’t stop...You know what’s gonna happen. But maybe I could help you say goodbye." And with a flick of the wrist, a few disparate images, and a curious glance, there’s Grandma Youngster, standing behind Liz while another, far more still Grandma lies in the hospital bed. Um, Providence called. They want their matronly dead-but-alive sassy mom character back. Over the vibes-heavy soundtrack ripped right out of the Disney ride Horizons, Liz and Claudia resolve their "things left unspoken" guilt with a teary chat about "not knowing what I’m gonna do without you." Grandma Youngster reads from the Death’s Door Fortune Cookie someone has left out for her, responding that she wants Liz to "follow your heart wherever it takes you. Trust it. Will you do that?" Liz promises that she will, and with a "Prepare To Qualify" flourish (beep. beep. beep. beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.), talking Grandma is gone. Top THAT, Kyle Valenti.
The fine art of punctuation lost in Liz’s final journal entry, she rambles on about the fear and excitement of following your heart. In the non-journal world, she thanks Max for being such a supportive, stand-up guy. Come on, Liz. I don’t mean for this to turn into a meditation on my own shortcomings, but I’m limited by non-supernatural standards to respond to death by sending a card and maybe bringing over a fruit basket. Well, excuuuuuuuuuse me. Man, do I feel sorry for her boyfriend. Anyway, her journal rap practically drowns out the eighth or so Sarah McLachlan song on this show’s still-fledgling soundtrack. Overcome with a stage direction to be emotional, Liz returns to Max and they embrace. Journal: "When you follow your heart, you leave normal. You go into the unknown. And once you do, you can never go back." The camera pans back and up towards heaven, framing the couple. All the while, Grandma Youngster looks down, smiling and thinking, "I’m glad she’s happy. But I never even got to order a drink legally." Goodbye Grandma, goodbye realism, goodbye normal, goodbye episode.