On what is apparently our planet's hottest night since liquid magma solidified the ground below us to create what we now commonly refer to as "the Earth," Maria "Too Hot To Handle" DeLuca and Liz "Too Cold To Hold" Parker are cleaning the Crashdown, after hours. Well, Maria is cleaning, sweeping the floor in a flimsy tank top and the shortest shorts I've seen on any televised human being since the Nair advertising department decided to hang it up some years ago. Liz, meanwhile, is in her room scribbling madly in The Good Book, pausing only momentarily to consider a vanilla-glazed doughnut of which she, after several moments of sultry deliberation, takes a bite. And upon my first, oh, sixty or so viewings of said clip, I thought, "Jeez, Liz, it's just a doughnut." But then I remember that that bite of this doughnut represents Liz's first physical sensation of any kind that doesn't in some way involve a journal entry or a Bunsen burner. So I change my tune to, "Mmmmmm, doughnuts," and hope she really enjoys that doughnut, provided it will prevent her from speaking or, far more importantly, thinking in a speakful manner. Maria, meanwhile, looks up and stares practically at the camera in that "come hither, audience" way. A cheap porno movie is literally going to break out any second. She sweats. She stares. She sweeps. She sweeps. She sweeps. Liz, face full of vanilla-glazed pastry, prepares for her upcoming "Got Milk" ad when a visit to the fridge proves the milk bottle to be empty. Why, I have a brief moment to reflect, was that shot of Liz and the fridge necessary? The answer, I think, is so that it may serve this segue with all due appropriateness: Maria, also on the hunt for something milky-white to swallow (WOO-HOO!!! Thank you and good night!), glances at the front door of the diner (hey, uh, I just noticed that "Crash Down" is two words, not one. Sars, would you mind reediting the first eight episodes for me? Thanks very much) to see Michael approaching. She unlocks. Michael is looking unfazed by the weather, as "sweaty" pretty much describes his natural state of being at all times. Hey, notice there hasn't been any dialogue so far in this episode? I feel a little inclined to create some imaginary dialogue of my own, especially in keeping with the cheap peep-booth nature of this sequence:
Michael: Hey.
Maria: Hey.
Michael: Hey.
Maria: I was just sweeping [bends over] the floors. They're so -- dirty!
Michael: I like it dirty. Baby.
Maria: Then I'll make it dirty. I can make it as dirty as you want. Oh! What a big -- broom!
Michael: Dust me. Baby.
[stage direction: tawdry doings]
Anyway, Nookie Fest '99 ensues. On the counter, on the tables, on the floor. It's the most grotesque moment captured on tape in the history of the moving image. And if you think that's hyperbole, you missed the episode, didn't you? Didn't you? Anyway, as I avert my eyes from this torrid display and muse on why a tourist restaurant in the middle of the desert would not be equipped with central air conditioning, another voyeur creeps down the stairs and silently catches the two in the act. Liz, hiding behind a counter, registers a horrified look of "hmmm . . . maybe I wasn't brought by the stork after all." This whole thing, like, TOTALLY reminds me of when I was sixteen. Yeah. RIGHT.
We pick up after the break in a more or less "before the break" vein, Liz Parker hearing a weather report about "this bizarre December heat wave" while taking a cold, cold shower. Her journal entry about how she feels "stuck" then takes us on a tour through the hallways of West Roswell High, where everyone -- EVERYONE -- is coupled up against lockers like soldiers on shore leave or plane-crash victims trapped at the tops of snowy mountains who have just seen a woman for the first time in ten years. Oh, did I say "everyone"? I meant "not Liz." Liz continues to peer confusedly around as if her sixth-grade health textbook has suddenly come to life all around her. Cut away to the once-mentioned and long-abandoned hook-up haven "The Eraser Room," where Maria and Michael continue their low-budget groping ("even in the eraser room, you can't erase the passion burning in my loins"), to my unending horror. Turning a corner, Liz walks smack into Kyle, who's holding hands with a dumb leggy blonde whose career is about to take off as the dumb leggy blond in the upcoming sitcom revival Three's Company 2K. Easily a foot taller than Kyle (and just a few years shy of my parents in age), the newly-minted "Vicki Delaney" volunteers the fact that there's a party this Friday at "the old soap factory." Kyle appears wholly nonplused that his new girlfriend should be too stupid to hate his old girlfriend, and Liz agrees to go, just out of spite, I think.
And in the episode's first scene that doesn't involve too-smooth high schoolers pawing each other in the public domain, Liz spies Alex (also known by his spankin' new nickname, "L'il Hanks") going into a meeting with another nicknamed fella who should feel right at home in these sex-drenched surroundings -- that's right, Porno. Inside the interrogation room, where both Porno the interrogator and Alex are sweating profusely (see, it's really HOT out), Alex denies that he was talking to Renee about anything of importance. Then the scene abruptly ends less than ten seconds after it begins, taking with it any hope of developing the one-note theme of this entire series. Thank goodness for this new element of "everybody making out constantly," which I'm sure can be developed in any number of thematic directions. Or not. ["Not on network television, at any rate. Where's Zalman King when you need him?" -- Sars]
Boredom finding boredom in the place where boredom got its name -- Liz finally tracks down Max in the library. After briefing him about the meeting she just witnessed, she goes on to inform him about "one piece of good news," Kyle's new girlfriend. Max seems as boringly placid as the Roswell audience, remaining passive as Liz drones on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on (how many "and ons" was that? Well, not enough) about how Vicki Delaney invited her to the party "at the old soap factory." Note to Max: a simple "shhh" will do. It is, after all, a library. So, lacking the necessary conversational skills required to keep her subject interested and certainly no virtuoso between the sheets, Liz opts for the worst of both her worlds and decides to talk about hot lovin'. And from a number of perspectives, too. She begins by referring to a couple, as she terms it, "pairing up and moving forward." Wow, Liz. What depth. Have you ever considered getting such unique musings such as that one down on paper? Y'see, to me, the cheesy bohunk in the sleeveless sweater-vest playing tonsil hockey with his bleached-out lady friend in the library is no muse for the written word. It is nothing to aspire to, and certainly nothing that should be thought of as an aphrodisiac between you and your sterile eunuch alien friend. Out of ideas, Liz asks Max if he thinks anything is going on between Michael and Maria, and Max expresses concern at the very notion. I mean, if Michael and Maria are gettin' it on, what could that possibly mean for the always-in-question future of these aliens in Roswell? And what will come of Max and Liz's fraught-with-tension, will-they-or-won't-they goings on? And now, a cheap imaginary porno to illustrate the ramifications of these manifold issues:
Liz: Well, here we are. In the library.
Max: Mmmmmm.
Liz: The library is filled with many treasures. The world owes Dewey a great debt for putting all these books in a standardized order.
Max: Mmmmmm.
Liz: Oh, look. A book about photosynthesis.
Max: And here's a book that looks fun for me to read.
[stage direction: they read in polite silence; fade to black]
I hate them.
And ACTION! Cut to the principal's office, where a woman of questionable age and national origin is angrily lecturing a beleaguered secretary that "I demand to know what's going on here." My roommate and I share a moment of almost Zen-like unity in identifying this new character, whose reputation as "loose-canon Jetta owner" precedes her entirely -- "Maria's mother!" we shout in jaded unison. And why would we have cause to know that? After all, she's the most Jewish Amy DeLuca I've ever seen in my life, and with a rather spry constitution and a body that could make you just kvell, we determine that she's absolutely not yet out of her twenties. And yet she has that certain uncharm that I first identified in her daughter so many weeks ago, that way about her that promises, "And I'll be this annoying until they change my hair style. Then my character will morph completely." The secretary blows her off just in time for Porno to approach her. He inquires, "Stayin' out of the slammer?" and the two bond rather vigorously for a short spell. Maybe she doesn't know that the last time Porno smiled at a lady, said lady waited one courtesy episode and then disappeared forever. And speaking of Renee, Amy DeLuca (nickname pending) tells Porno that she was at school because "this Topolsky woman calls me up, leaves me this cryptic message that I have to come in and discuss Maria's future," but she was gone by the time DeLucawitz (there it is) arrives. Porno understands. He's a single parent too, and he knows how hard it can be to make time in your schedule for every little thing. He flashes that sick simulation of a facial contortion, probably aided by a contraption called the "smile-o-lator," to flash his pearly yellows at a suddenly interested DeLucawitz. He leaves, but somehow we just know they'll be seeing each other again. And in this heat, there's only one way to calm yourself down and take the edge off, and God knows it has nothing to do with the words "ice water" or "swimming pool." I think about ways in which sex is synonymous with heat and whether or not that's a foolproof condition, count nine months back from my birthday, discover I was conceived in April, and commence in hating this show more than ever for making me think, even once, even tangentially and in the most abstract of ways, about my parents having sex.
Alex, learning his lesson from the pervasive Jewish presence just recently introduced, lays the guilt on thick (I'm Jewish and I'm allowed to say it, so HA HA HA) in his meeting with Liz. He whines that "I feel like I don't even know who you are," and Liz counters that she wants to tell him the big secret but that it's "not my secret to tell." Liz, looking for information from Alex, needs to know what he told Valenti. And, grabbing a random entry from The Big Book of Exceedingly Stupid Comebacks, Alex shoots off the humdinger, "It's not my secret to tell." Uh, actually, Alex, it is. It really, really is. And I heard The Green Mile wasn't really that good anyway. Not BAD necessarily. It's not like it's being shelved in favor of a two hour Dawson's Creek rerun or anything (like a certain son's show I might mention here), but enough already with the prison and the weeping and oy vey.
Is there really any point in mentioning that Liz is decked out entirely in pure, virginal white in her turn as The Patron Saint Of Whatever Isn't Fun, while Maria sports the dark, whorish red of the devil-minded harlot who would dare to kiss a boy with tongue? In a scene that juxtaposes the boy's and girl's room and actually features a rather long sequence of Max and Michael standing in front of urinals and peeing (WHY, OH WHY?), Maria is doing her darnedest to cover a relatively believable hickey on her neck. Meanwhile, back in the boy's room, Max asks Michael if there's anything "going on" between him and Maria. Bladder-shy pretty boy that I am, I have difficulty even conceiving of using a urinal when someone is standing right to me. Particularly if they're talking. About my sex life. But, revealing yet another quirk in the alien composition that removes all reticence concerning peeing on television, they earnestly continue their discussion about how Michael likes Maria because it "feels good." Meanwhile, Mother Liz continues her pious rant: "I'm sure that you're saying to yourself just go for it, right? I mean, sure, you see everyone else going for it. Suddenly, there's this heat wave, and everybody is going for it." Max lectures Michael about not letting things get out of control blah blah blah, and Michael actually hurls us back into porn mode with his lengthy, articulate, holds-up-in-court self-defense: "It feels so wrong but it feels so good." His hair, however, isn't looking so good. I mean, I know they must always be trying to contact the Mother Ship or whatever, but I don't really think "visible from space" is the "it" hair style of the fall season. Liz accuses Maria of being a big skanky whore (in her own nicer words, of course, but I think we've all heard just about enough of her own words at this point), saying that Maria and Michael don't even talk to each other. Like less talking is bad. Shut. Up. Liz.
Cut to Liz once again managing to ruin the fun for absolutely everyone even when she can't tangibly be there. Maria is apparently having misgivings about a purely physical relationship with Michael. I employ my recently discovered closed-captioning to try and cut through the panting and loud smacky lip sounds of M & M (hee hee. Cute. You just know that "M & M 4EVER" is written all over Maria's book covers) in eraser-room coitus and discover that the Captionator (that's his official title) was little more successful than I in capturing the essence of this particular scene. We do learn that Maria's attempt to talk is drowned in a healthy portion of alien saliva, and she suggests that they do social things together, like say, the party down at "the old surf fagtory." That's really what it says. Oh, Captionator! You're so fired. Fagtory? As Maria's very mother might feel inclined to say, "Gevalt!"
Porno shows up at the Crash Down in search of DeLucawitz, who is in the process of discussing her adorable line of assorted tchotchkes with Liz's non-alert father. Porno tells a resurgent Slackjaw to scram, even though it's his restaurant. Which is connected to his house. Well, Porno, you're the boss. Porno has come to flirt further with the last single adult in town, apologizing for arresting her for some ambiguous crime concerning Native Americans that nails down her personality even further as the half-good, half-flaky, all-Hollywood character actress who just came off the Pasadena Community Theater production of Fiddler on the Roof. She played Golde. Okay, quick math quiz. Defending her youthful wrongdoings, DeLucawitz insists, "I was eighteen!" And though she looks barely old enough to vote NOW, the script insists that this sprite has possessed the biological imperative necessary for producing children for at least sixteen years. Logic dictating she didn't get pregnant in jail, DeLucawitz is easily in her mid-thirties. So how old is Porno? And if DeLucawitz was arrested almost two decades ago, how the hell long has Porno been sheriff of this town, anyway? Yeesh. A nice imaginary cheap porn clip will help take my mind off of these tiny plot inaccuracies:
Porno: It sure is hot in here.
DeLucawitz: I'm twenty.
Porno: Bein' with you here sure puts me in the romantic way.
DeLucawitz: I'm ninety-six and a half.
Porno: You sure do look right purdy by the light of this town's excess of cheesy neon.
DeLucawitz: I'm twelve.
[stage direction: Porno gropes blindly while Amy commences counting backwards from five billion, skipping every fourth number]
Sometime during a commercial break, Isabel and Liz have mysteriously become best friends. NO! Remember when I hated everybody last week? I definitely like Isabel again. She's still cool. But she's going to have to start keeping much better company if she expects to stay on my good side. Step one: Eat Liz Parker. I'll bring the Tabasco. Anyway, Isabel asks Liz if Alex is going to cave, and Liz can't supply an answer. Isabel promises to "look into it," and Liz inquires as to what exactly that means. And so may you. I think we can all consider ourselves lucky for the existence of Recap #3, in which I believe I go into quite a bit of detail concerning the "Isabel: dreams, inside of people's" entry in the ol' Roswell Encyclopedia. It's worth it, I swear. Just ignore my failure to peg Liz as the horrible, horrible character she has become. Times were simpler then, and I was filled with many youthful misconceptions about the world.
Inside The World's Most Literal Dream Sequence Isabel goes, where a black-tied Alex sits waiting in a classroom for his date. A chandelier hangs low, the band strikes up, and into the classroom walks Alex's dreamiest dream girl in a red dress and a whole lotta fifties moxie. It's Isabel. The other Isabel watches in gape-mouthed shock (and we love Isabel because she's probably the only character who can successfully register an emotion as complex as "gape-mouthed shock") as they dance, dance, dance, and I feel like it's that amazingly confusing scene from Back to the Future II where Marty McFly runs into himself and basically stops all known time and space. This scenario is a teeny bit less complex: Alex is hot for some alien lovin' of his own.
Morning at Chez Evans. Max expresses concern about Isabel's foray into Alex's dream. She hedges and hems and haws the scene away, refusing to disclose the details of the dream and blushing madly all the while. All she'll say is that "of all the people involved, I'm the one who can control him." And yet she's redder and more flushed than ever, all the while blaming the heat for this turn of events. And I believe her, and here's why: she's nearly naked. Decked out in nothing more than a tank top, Isbael's, uh, physical accouterments are quite a bit more apparent than they have until this point been. She leaves the room with the utmost confidence that she can keep Alex quiet. Max asks, "You have everything --" and she interrupts, "-- under control." Good answer, Isabel, but I think the rest of the question would have gone something like: "-- you own stuffed into that sports bra, don't you?" All of which is strange, incidentally, because I thought Alex was a leg man. Actually, I just thought he was gay.
Max, meanwhile, rides out the worst desert heat wave on record in the consistently drab button-down shirts which we call, in my line of work, "business casual." But the top button is undone, so it's clear that the unbridled passion affecting everyone else has also gotten under the skin of this wild man. Walking into the men's room at school (where they must have really enjoyed themselves last time), he finds Michael already there, ready for a chat. He's bemoaning the fact that things with Maria have become "complicated." She wants to talk about things. Feelings. She wants to go to parties together. "The thing at the old soap factory?" inquires an in-the-loop Max. No, dummy, it's the "surf fagtory." Check the flyer. Wait. Didn't we already have a cliché plot device masquerading as a big party with a catchy name (say, "The Crash Festival") and a zany plan to foil authority? Maybe the reason it's not a total rip-off of an earlier episode of this very show is because this time they're trying to conceal the fact that they're aliens. Oh, wait a sec.
Max. Liz. Science lab. Why not just throw in a lengthy congressional filibuster on C-SPAN and an accountant very slowing explaining the process of doing my taxes and make this scene into a compendium of the most boring visceral experiences known to the human imagination? It's so darn close already, after all. Anyway. Liz is alone in the lab attempting to mate two slugs by herself, which means she's doing this for extra credit or out of some perverse thrill in seeing something, anything, gettin' it on by her own hand. And even to these simple organisms with nothing else to do (and who are, in some fundamental way, already naked), Liz's very presence drains the mojo right out of them. Max enters and suggests, "Maybe one of them is gay," a comment that causes Liz to chuckle slightly, albeit very, very nervously. They stare awkwardly at each other for an extended period. Oh, shit. Max is gay, isn't he? Wouldn't that be grand? I bask in the glorious nine seconds of show where every utterance could be applied to Max's difficult coming-out process, including, "Remember when you said before that we couldn't be together? 'Cause we were different?" Liz tells Max that if Maria and Michael can be together, so can they, and Max knocks the wind out of the only interesting plot development NOT to develop with an excuse for not gettin' jiggy with her earlier: "What I'm afraid of is that we try and it works out really well. I'm afraid of feeling everything I know I would feel, because I know it's not meant to be. And somewhere down the line we're gonna get hurt." Because he's gay, right? Am I right? And in a speech that sounds like he's trying to break up with her before they've even touched (except for that whole "Jesus heals" soulful crap-ola from days gone by), Max's hands-off policy is met with Liz's defiant, "Well, that's not your decision, is it?" Reaching out to stroke Max's hand in a gesture as romantic as a blind person feeling around for a misplaced glass of water, Liz finally takes the plunge. They lean in to kiss. They lean. They lean. They lean, and -- in walks the science teacher. Feh.
Most of the scene is lost under the noise of me and my roommate engaged in a lengthy discussion of whether or not they'll ever kiss, and why anyone cares if they do anyway, and how long we can stare at each other without giggling helplessly or blinking, and whether Judith Light's legacy will be most accurately viewed in terms of her stint on Who's the Boss, her numerous Lifetime specials about everything from bulimia to, well, bulimia, or her late-night infomercial hawking a variety of skin creams which have assisted the almost comically deformed and blemished. I predict her future holds even greater things than what we've thus far seen and cite the many career resurgences of a chameleon-like Robert Guillaume as an example of this possibility, when suddenly my roommate utters an ebullient, "Wait, I'm not getting paid for this," and is gone. Meanwhile, Isabel invites Alex to the party at the fagtory. It's like, well, a dream come true.
Someone forgot to tell Maria that "surf fagtory" is not synonymous with "costume party" (in fact, it's synonymous with precious little), as she shows up to the bash in her most teased-out hair and gold lamé dress. What's her costume? "She's Charlie's fallen angel," I shout, and look to the empty spot on the couch my roommate has so recently abdicated. At least I like the music. It's "Move Out" by Yaz. I miss the '80s. Because when I was ten, this show wasn't on yet.
Maria finds Michael, Alex finds Isabel, Max finds Liz. In a very special Roswell moment, Maria tells Michael that he's ignoring her, and Michael says that he's unable to get intense and that "maybe we never should have started this." Ouch. Isabel breaks some hearts too, letting on that she's using Alex for information. Duh, Alex. Like she'd be in it for the physical aspects? Keep dreaming, string bean. Speaking of dreams finally coming true, Max leads Liz on to the dance floor, and the scene cuts out right before we're subjected to the spectacle of watching them dance. Cut to a foreshadowing shot of some equipment beginning to emit clouds of smoke. And where the scene cuts to is Porno and DeLucawitz (isn't that a store with, like, really expensive coffees and stuff?) sharing a meal together. Again bonding on the subject of their rotten, thankless kids, Porno is interrupted by a phone call which alerts him to some kind of "disturbance across town." I don't want to impose predictability on an otherwise complex (yeah) and intricate (whatever) script, but do you think it's possible "across town" might refer to the old surf fagtory? 'Cause I sure do.
Back at the party, Liz and Max are outside and away from the din. What follows is the "week on" clip that made everyone think they were gonna do it. But just as Max leans in, Liz utters that brilliant line, "Let's hope nothing explodes," at which point New Mexico's entire fleet of fire trucks drives up; they've come to put out the blaze, extinguishing at the same time the fire in the loins of Max and Liz, a passion that burns with the brightness of a forest ranger rubbing two rocks together, never thinking, "Why the hell don't I just use a lighter?" Anyway, Max demands, "Let's get outta here," and then proceeds to illustrate his suggestion by running back into the fiery building. Liz finds Alex and screams that they have to get out of there, but just then, a renegade partygoer deposits two large jugs of hard alcohol into their hands just as Porno approaches. Michael, Max, and Isabel look on in horror as Liz and Alex get hauled off. I think they linger really long, but I know we're on the brink of blissful commercial-dom, and I jam my finger into the fast forward button just as soon as I know there won't be any more talking.
Dripping water in a dank, musty cell. The cruel warden making you sell your body for a pack of smokes. The sound of dozens of rats scurrying across the hard, cement floor. That's right, kiddies. They're in jail. There are two cells in the Sheriff's office, the boys' cell (Alex and three hoodlums) and the girls' (Liz). Alex is positively apoplectic about this whole getting-arrested thing, and one of the hoodlums tells him not to worry, their parents will come bail them out. And which point, one of the night deputies (oops, I mean "the cruel warden who makes you sell your body for a pack of smokes") frees everyone but Alex and Liz. With a glare that screams "and I hadn't even gotten to choose my bitch yet," Alex is left alone in his cell, separated from Liz by one set of bars. Porno tells the two that "some time in jail might make you remember what your priorities are." That's mean, but still I wish Porno would stay, because his absence allows Liz free rein to begin talking again. She wants to get her "stories straight," and Alex reacts in fury. He's in jail. And he doesn't want to be in jail. Yeah, keep dreaming, string bean. 'Cause dreams do come true. I mean, look at your dad, for instance, who once wished, "I want to be big." And have you seen the promotional posters for The Green Mile? The man is goddamn enormous. Feel better?
Outside, Isabel and Max hold a vigil for the two martyred political prisoners inside. Isabel surprises Max by telling him that they should have told Alex. She thinks she can trust him. Wow. Short scene. Good, thing, too. I was really starting to miss Liz. Not.
Back inside, Liz and Alex have seemingly consumed the alcohol that got them into this pickle to begin with, as they are suddenly slurring their speech and talking in nonsensical ways. I guess that's what life on the inside will do to you. Alex tells Liz that "I'm done protecting you," and threatens to tell Porno every little thing he knows about her friends. Liz says he should know the facts first. So she tells him that they're aliens. Wait, WHAT? Oh, that's right. Right down to the pointing skyward as an indication of their space-ly derivation. He doesn't get it: "You're saying the FBI is all over them because they're illegal aliens?" Liz starts to well up with the realization that her best friend since birth is exceedingly, infuriatingly stupid. She apologizes for lying and then gushes out the whole damn truth. And just as she's done, Porno walks in and Alex informs him, "I'm ready to talk." Porno responds, "I want to know what your involvement is with Liz, Max, Michael, and Isabel. And I want to know what happened to Miss Topolsky." As the dramatic planetarium music swells anew, Alex looks conspiratorially back at Liz in a glance I think is supposed to compound the tension of the moment. Instead, it reads as Alex looking back at Liz and indicating, "This is where I lie to this guy over here. I'm going to lie. To this guy. Over here. And boy, will he ever be surprised. At all the lying I'm doing, I mean." At which point Alex rips into his Oscar clip about being wrongfully detained, stops just short of screaming, "You'll be hearing from my lawyers," and is let go. He knows his rights. And they're free.
Outside, Liz thanks Alex for covering her ass in a suddenly tension-free environment. Not that Liz's complete breach of trust to her alien non-boyfriend should be any real concern of theirs -- it's almost the end of the episode, after all. Not close enough, though. Back at home, Liz is writing in her journal about how she and Max should never, ever kiss, knowing how bad it would be for the future of their relationship. And then Max shows up and, well, let's just say my roommate will come back long enough to collect her money, but I don't think we'll be seeing her much anymore after that.