This week on Roswell: Apparently, someone down at Continuity Headquarters has been a bit sleepy on the job and chosen to neglect the unwritten truism that we, the audience, at least have to meet a so-called "major" character before investing emotionally when suddenly faced with the prospect of watching said character, oh, I don’t know, spontaneously burst into flames. For instance. So, in a vague and slightly patronizing attempt to hoodwink the viewer into believing that we know Max and Isabel’s mother so intimately that she might as well have borne all of us herself, we begin the week with a poorly edited and emotionally vacuous "previously on Roswell" that prominently features the nine cumulative seconds Mrs. Evans has spent on screen thus far in the series, as if this "Greatest Hits Of This Total Stranger" package is in some way synonymous with the lost art known in old-fashioned circles as "character development." Hmmm. Those were the two longest sentences -- ever. With a really, really tiny one in between.
Fade in on a distractingly non-sequitur hand-held shot from the upcoming UPN reality special World’s Most Sinister Footage Of Non-Threatening Birds in Flight, which inexplicably gives way to a close-up of vegetables being tossed into a frying pan. Um, what’s going on? I feel suddenly as if I have stumbled upon some experimental German short film, whereby juxtaposed shots of birds and frying food make total sense in some really artistic, non-linear way. I half-expect said German art film to go full tilt "Deiter’s Dream" and the shot to be an extreme close-up of an old man lying in a baby carriage, wearing a bonnet and yelling "Schnell! Schnell!" for some reason only understood to the German film making community, like a joke shared by the Eastern-Bloc power elite whose laughter we can’t hear, muffled as it is behind the Iron Curtain. But before I have a chance to corroborate these hypotheses by running out to my local video store and renting anything with the word "Das" in the title, the Frying-Pan Cam ends its artistic reign and we cut upwards to reveal the kitchen at Chez Evans, where Mrs. "I Hope These Bangs Aren’t Genetic" Evans is sharing some bonding time with Max "These Bangs Are Definitely Genetic, Even Though I’m Adopted" Evans. She’s slaving over a hot frying pan while Max sits at the kitchen table, deep in pretending he’s not an alien. Good luck keeping that charade up till the end of this scene. Max looks over at his mom and chides her, "Hey, mom, why don’t you put a little more garlic in there," to which I want her to shoot back, "Why don’t you cook the goddamn meal yourself, Mr. Frugal Goddamn Gourmet?" But she doesn’t, and I realize with incredulous horror that I’m already bored. Bangs responds with some comment about how uncorked she gets when Max’s father is out of town, and then quickly turns the subject to Max’s biology homework in a pathetic attempt to distract him from her own admission that she gets around when Mr. Evans goes away on business. They bond over how bad they both are at science, and Max tells his mom not to worry because "I have a good lab partner. She’s really good in science." Bangs allows herself to become diverted from cooking long enough to motion curiously in a manner I might colloquially refer to as "raising an eyebrow," should said eyebrow not be obscured beneath such an egregiously maintained shelf of hair. "She?" she inquires. Yeah, she. Jeez, Mom, it’s a lab partner, not a concubine. "She’s a really good lab partner" should ring the same alarm as "she’s a really good accountant" or "she’s a really good OB/GYN." It just shouldn’t automatically equate to all things sexy. I’m just sayin’. But then I remember that "science class" is practically the same thing as "hotbed of burgeoning sexual passion" as far as this thrill ride of a show is concerned, and, well, I guess I can’t fault Bangs for trying.
Still grilling Max on the topic of "Sexiest Lab Partners And The Lab Partners Who Love Them," Bangs loses her concentration and knocks over a full bottle of cooking oil. So much chaos in that kitchen, what with one person cooking, immaculate and copious counter space, quiet music playing in the background, and a lone pan frying two pieces of broccoli on the stove. No wonder she lost track of an entire bottle of the one cooking agent in the entire place. I mean, it’s a maaaaadhouse in there. But no matter. The convo continues, but just as Max is about to tell Bangs that he and Liz are "just friends" (sniff, sniff -- oh wait, I just remembered that I don’t care), the oil meets the gas stove and the whole thing goes up in flames. Max, shocked by this ludicrous display of tacky and non-believable special effects, leaps up and pushes her out of the way. And really, an offstage Production Assistant rubbing together two pieces of cellophane and a guy ambling around on camera wearing an orange and yellow t-shirt reading "House On Fire" would make a more credible blaze than this hack job. While Bangs recoils on the floor, Max works his mad voodoo shit on the big bad flames, extinguishing them in a hurry. But coming to his senses immediately after, he reaches for a pot filled with water and throws it on the charred remains of what was once their incredibly meager dinner. Way to create a, well, er, a smokescreen, Max. First of all, difficult as it was to fight through the visibility-impairing bangs, Bangs watched you do the whole thing. And second, and perhaps more importantly, water doesn’t put out a grease fire. I know that, you know that, Smokey the Bear knows that, everyone knows that. Except them. So we fade to credits with Max hugging his tearful but relieved mother, and I realize when I yell, "Hey, Bangs! You’re FIRED!" that cheesy jokes about fire are going to be an endless source of personal satisfaction to me this week. And I also came to another deeper level of understanding during my four week Roswell vacation that I think it is important to share with anyone who has a vested interest in the world in which we live: Get Real is just a horrible, horrible show.
Opening credits: And now presenting the first of many new millennial features: the "Opening Credits Haiku"! It will be a weekly installment in my recaps until I decide that I hate it and just don’t want to do it anymore. I give it one week, two tops. Here’s the first one: What does evil mean/Do we see it every day?/Shiri Appleby.
The aftermath of said conflagrational event is really quite touching; Max and Bangs look on as the firemen skulk about the charred kitchen. And to think of the almost incalculable number of times I thought, "Man, how much would I like to see a character on this show just spontaneously burst into flames." Hey, Parker, I’m talking to you. Now shut up and meet me after school at the Evans’s stove. You bring the matches and the big bag of charcoal briquettes and I’ll bring the marshmallows and the broad, self-satisfied smile. Max, fearful of arousing further suspicion from anyone within a 300-mile radius who wears a uniform, tries to usher the firefighters out of the place as quickly as possible. But they aren’t gone a moment when there’s a knock at some hidden servant’s-entrance kind of back door everyone seems so intent on using. And in through the door strides Roswell’s answer to all things lawful, the great Officer Porno. Bangs invites him in, and he claims his visit is just to make sure "everything is okay." Max again downplays the incident, but Bangs is too intent on building up her little hero by telling Porno that "the flames were coming right at me and they were high . . . he didn’t hesitate. He just came right in, pulled me out of the way, poured this pot of water on it, and suddenly everything was okay. It was miraculous, really." Uh-oh. Look, people, I don’t want to pour water on a grease fire here and inflame things further, but did anyone else just catch Bangs dropping the "Pot Of Water" bomb right in front of an already suspicious Porno? Because with rumors about Max already spreading like wildfire, there’s just no telling how hot a situation like this could become. Remember how I once optimistically stated that fire puns would be interesting, funny, or sustaining? Well, it ain’t true, and it’s over. Anyway, Porno gets all fired up (oops, sorry. That was the last one, I promise. Maybe) with Max’s heroism and flashes his pearly yellows repeatedly, sardonically proclaiming that "Max saved the day" and "you put the whole thing out with this one pot of water." Oh, no. Porno sure was coming to look for clues on these sketchy Evans kids, make no mistake about that. And this questionable new development won’t do anything but inflame his curiosity. "Inflame." Oops, I guess I did it again. And quite badly that time, I might add.
Upstairs at Chez Evans, Isa "Belle" Evans is looking delightfully fashionable as usual in a salmon-toned turtleneck (and correspondingly unmatching lipstick, also as usual) while suffering Max in his current dour state. She is quietly freaking out as Max recounts the sudden arrival of Valenti, and Isabel seems panicked at Porno’s visit, but more than a little consoled by her immunity to the forward-creeping-bangs epidemic that seems to be running rampant in every other member of the house. Max says that he didn’t know whether Porno was "acting suspicious" or not. Clearly, Max is some kind of idiot. Isabel tells Max that he is "really upset," and takes my mind off of the crackling and original dialogue long enough to reference the music playing and its emotional relevance to the characters and their surroundings -- but does it have to be Counting Crows? "Max, I know you. You only listen to the Counting Crows when you’re really upset." Hey, I know just what she means insofar as Counting Crows are concerned, but with me the cause and the effect are somewhat reversed. Max tells Isabel that he’s upset about more than just this, and Isabel tells Max that he was right to break it off with Liz. I agree with this statement wholeheartedly, because it indicates to me that if the relationship is over, Liz’s tenure on the show must be closer to its end. I mean, after all, the show is about the aliens, and the aliens have chosen to have nothing more to do with her. And almost nine full minutes into this episode without a thought unprovoking journal monologue beginning, "The thing about aliens is that I’m really very beautiful," I’m actually beginning to settle in and view this episode objectively. I think I like this show. In fact, I do like this show. I like everything about it. I love it. Well, if I love it so much, why don’t I marry it? I want to marry it. In fact, I will marry it. The scene then cuts to the Crashdown, where -- oh, damn it. Call off the wedding, folks.
Continuing the formidable task of breaking every child labor law this side of Kathie Lee’s Malaysian sneaker factory, Liz and Maria are on shift at the Crashdown for what seems like the two millionth consecutive hour. Liz is obsessive-compulsively drying a glass as she speeches to Maria about how over the whole Max thing she is. Maria, delightfully, seems to want to get Liz to run screaming for a quiet place and an out-of-our-earshot journal page by coaxing her, "It kind of seems like it was more his decision than yours." Liz makes her way over to the coffee machine and mindlessly shovels scoop after scoop after scoop after scoop after scoop after scoop of coffee into it while asserting that the end of the relationship was "mutual." Liz, stop shoveling coffee. I mean, it was a kitschy and maybe even a tiny bit ’70s-clever when Mrs. Brady did it, but those simple, heady, Sherwood Schwarz-esque days are sadly behind us. Maria concurs: "Liz, that’s enough coffee." You got it, sister. In fact, I’ll take you one step further: that’s enough of just about everything.
At some undetermined later time, Michael and Max walk down the school hallway, Michael making a groundbreaking speech about not believing Max jeopardized their secret and Max delivering a groundbreaking response about not doing anything just yet. Just about the most shocking element of the exchange is that the two happen past Liz and Maria, who are actually in conversation with, can it be so, another person. The shot only lasts a moment and it takes place entirely out of earshot, but I think by now we’re smart enough to guess what it is they’re saying:
Liz: My favorite thing about science is metaphase. What’s yours, Susie?
Susie: Look, Parker, I told you already: Fork over your lunch money or they’ll be ringing blood out of your lab coat until your DNA strands unravel.
Liz: Hey, a science joke! Good one, Susie. That’s pretty fu -- [Susie punches Liz in the jaw and she slams head first onto the hard tiled floor]
Maria: Here we freakin’ go again.
Anyway, Max and Michael’s conversation concerns not allowing Bangs to ever learn the truth about them. About what? What are they even talking about anymore? Is it the whole alien thing? Because I hesitate to point out the obvious with forty-odd minutes left in this episode and eleven episodes left in the season, but isn’t the whole alien thing, like, so played at this point? Fine. They’re from another planet. Fine. They don’t want anyone to know. Fine. They can manipulate the molecular structure of things. Fine, then. off, you can manipulate the molecular structure of my brain and make it believe that it’s watching something incredibly entertaining. Like, say, funny-car racing. Oh, you say you can’t do that after all? Well, maybe you’re not really aliens after all, then. The end. Or not. Max tells Michael that everything is under control, and Michael says that adults can not be brought into this equation because "adults are the enemy." Max tells Michael that he thinks everyone is the enemy, to which Michael dramatically intones, "They are." Ooooh, creepy. Or uncreepy, depending on how ironic your writing style is.
Anyway, Liz and Maria make their way over to Max’s locker, Liz offering a "hey" that seems remarkably jubilant considering the fact that she just had her ass kicked. I even muse, "Ah, well, I guess that’s just the magic of television for you," before I come to the realization that the whole Liz-in-peril-with-Susie-the-science-hating-bully was something I made up for my own amusement. Michael hazards a "hey" to Maria, who responds without looking at him, "Yeah, whatever," and walks off. Michael skulks off in the other direction, and I realize that I’ve just wasted over a hundred words recapping people and their detailed walking habits. This episode could not be any more interesting. Max asks how it’s going, and Liz responds that it’s in fact going "great. Really great." She then changes the subject to this afternoon’s upcoming cheesy plot device, er, I mean "basketball game," which doesn’t have to be this whole awkward thing, even though they all have seats together. Max agrees. Liz repeats the sentence. Max agrees again. At which point the loudest, most proud high-school basketball team in the history of secondary-school education comes plowing, in uniform, down the hallway. Kyle, head of the team, jock of the world, man of the hour, throws a casual hello to Liz. She smiles. Oh, God. It’s going to be one of those "old flame re-ignites to make guy who dumped you jealous" things. And how do I know that? Because I read it in TV Guide? Because I already watched the entire episode through and am now going slowly through it to make good on my recapping duties? Partly. But another reason could be because this whole thing is as annoying and clichéd as continued references to Y2K. I mean, come on. It’s over. And the only things worse than references to Y2K are the only slightly more annoying references to Y2K that are smirking and wry and ironic and seemingly so anti-reference-to-Y2K but really only support the continuation of a cultural reference that was completely pointless to begin with. Some instances of this might be "this food is cold" or "looks like rain today," to which some clever banana (probably your well-meaning but Bob Saget-esque dad) responds, "I blame Y2K." Because I mean really, what the hell does that mean?
Meanwhile, back at Chez Evans, Bangs sits on the couch and watches old videos of Max and Isabel chasing birds in the park. Oy. Looks like she’s on the hunt for passive television entertainment almost as electrifying as what I’m watching. Isabel enters and begs her mom not to get nostalgic. Bangs looks up at her daughter and launches in: "So, your brother. He’s always been so private, don’t you think?" Silly Bangs, segues are for kids! Someone tell this woman to calm down and lead slowly into the subject at hand. We’re not even at the first commercial break yet. Isabel tells Bangs that "that’s just Max," but Bangs keeps it up and asks Isabel if that worries her at all. No, Isabel thinks, too worried about when the Bangs Plague will strike her down as well. Isabel expresses incredulity, and Bangs finally relents and blames the fire on how unnerved she’s become about everything. So she lets Isabel get to the basketball game, but first she implores her daughter to take a sweater with her. That seems pointless. Perhaps that time could have been put to better use at the beginning of this very scene with the incorporation of the line, "Hi, Isabel. Can I talk to you for a second?" Oh, Bangs. You have such terrible bangs.
Ah, yes, the basketball game. Let’s start with the "we all have seats together" concern from a few scenes back. Okay, they’re sitting on bleachers. How would they even know where specific seats ARE? Maybe my eye for detail is just slightly under par, but shots of white-gloved ushers with tiny flashlights and Playbills dutifully checking ticket stubs must be eluding me. Second, why is everyone in the state of New Mexico from parents to friends to Bob Costas to freakin’ Ken Burns there like this is a pinnacle moment in sports history? Anyway, the rock music rocks, the cheerleaders cheer, the players play, and everyone sits together, as previously predicted. Kyle lands a basket and Liz goes completely orgasmic with happiness, while Maria’s hormones are rooting for a player on the opposing team. He sinks a lay-up, and Maria leaps up and cheers in a moment that might have been made funnier if I had known that "yellow jersey" automatically meant the guy was on the other team. Max looks jealously on at Liz’s support of Kyle, and Michael follows up Maria’s out-of-context screech with a self-important, "Humans. How excited they get at someone throwing a ball through a hoop." Oh, aliens. You’re sooooo cool, aren’t you? Michael, if you’re so above it all, what are you doing at an event which, at least in my school, was only cool if you knew it was going on and consciously decided not to go? Isabel shows up with her cool-kid friends and inquires, "Any room for us?" Hearing this, Alex takes over and shuffles a whole bunch of people off and "makes room" for Isabel et. al. Gee, I hope those displaced others are on their way to the head usher with their ticket stubs and Ticketmaster receipts to make an example of someone who doesn’t keep his proper seat on the bleachers at a high-school basketball game. And speaking of non-permissive seat swapping, Michael makes his way over to Maria and asks how she’s doing. She’s off in a flash. My God, people, can’t you see that not sitting in your correct seat is tearing us all apart? Isabel grabs Max and they walk to one side of the bleachers, doing their best to yell over the soundtrack music that, I might point out, should not be able to be heard by the throngs of people sitting inches away from them listening to a conversation about how they’re both aliens. Isabel tells Max about Bangs and the home videos, and how it appeared to Isabel as if her mother were "looking for something" (the plot? a hedge trimmer? arsenic?). Bangs was asking questions, Isabel says. Max says they can never tell her, and Michael makes his way over just in time to deliver the line, "If your mom finds out about us, our lives are a ticking bomb." Just like when Liz found out, or Maria, or Alex, or some guy named River Dog, or -- oh, never mind. Max says that no one is telling anyone anything, and walks away before an increasingly pissed-off Isabel can respond.
Back in the game, Liz continues her rabidly pro-Kyle banshee screams of support, and as she does so, he gets tangled with a player on the yellow jersey team and goes down on his ankle. Play stops, but the "music featured on this weeks Roswell" only gets more strident as Kyle rocks in pain and Liz looks on all concerned and Max looks at Liz looking at Kyle. Oh, it’s just so dramatic I don’t know what to do. Man, Kyle has a lot of leg hair for a sixteen-year-old. Even though he’s really thirty.
Commercials: I know it’s been duly noted, but that little "Joy of Cola" girl just plain terrifies me.
Finally free from work, Liz throws on some civilian clothes and is on her way out of the Crashdown toting a pink box. Max picks up the "cheesy work outfit" slack in his UFO Center mustard vest, sitting at the counter and moping the place up a bit. Upon seeing the box, Max inquires, "New home-delivery service?" And it makes sense, considering it’s more cost-effective to keep them all in one costume on one set all the time, rather than establish them in other contexts and/or situations. More fun, too. Not. But not this time. Liz drops the ex-boyfriend bomb and tells Max that she’s on her way to Kyle’s. He broke his ankle, and Liz feels responsible because of her inexcusably loud and distracting behavior at the game ("Why, oh why, couldn’t I have just written ‘yay’ really big in my journal?" she’s doubtless been asking herself). Crestfallen (rather than ebullient, surprisingly enough), Max sits and turns down the charm. Liz tells him that it’s no big deal. It’s just a pie. But really, we all know what that means. It means sex.
Cut to Chez Evans, where Porno is back again and sitting at the kitchen table. Bangs pours him a fresh cuppa, and I rejoice at her graceful and effortless use of a coffee maker, considering I just bought one a few weeks ago and it’s working out really, really well. Mine’s nicer. It’s such an important rite of passage into adulthood. Can anyone suggest some really good coffee? I’m so hopped up constantly just because it’s there. I drink about thirty cups a day. Where were we? Oh, yes, talking about my fabulous new coffee maker. Have I mentioned how hopped up I am all the time? I’m like Leaving Las Vegas, except I would be leaving some far more innocuous coffee-oriented place in my movie. Like Starbucks. Is Leaving Starbucks not as effective a name for a movie? That’s okay. I have no desire to be in a movie anyway. And I definitely have no desire whatsoever to sleep with Elisabeth Shue. Anyway, Porno leads the conversation, in a typically segue-less fashion, to the fire, Max, and the fact that "he’s been around a couple of near misses lately." A couple? Playing into her already-articulated fears concerning her son’s cagey nature, Porno lays it on thick in describing, in heinous detail, the incident at the Crashdown. Enough. We know. Turns out Bangs didn’t know that Max was involved in the incident at all. Porno leaves her out in the cold detail-wise, but before he goes, he gives her a pamphlet on household emergencies, in which he has caringly "highlighted the section on grease fires for you." Good. Maybe she’ll finally catch up with the smallish percentage of the population (statistically, I believe the exact figure is "everyone but her") who knows that -- say it with me -- grease fires cannot be put out with water. We already know that. You know what else we already know? That. Because we already do. So thanks.
Note to concerned parents and other civic-minded members of your local communities: the following scene includes no less than three curses. Put the kids to bed and enable the V-chip, because the 18-34 demographic is about to get an earful of the devil’s lexicon. Back in the most industrial wing of West Roswell High School, Maria is completely alone in wood shop, frustrated as all H-E-double-hockey-sticks (well, someone has to try and keep it clean around here) as she battles a large wood-cutting machine with more personality than most of the actors she’s become used to playing against. But she and the wood-cutting machine don’t have the world’s most amenable relationship, as it turns out, and the wood splits in half and she freaks out and throws it and yells, "Damn!" Uh-oh. Curse word number one. My virgin ears practically burn. Anyway, Michael walks in from deep focus, looking somewhat as if the holiday season did preciously little to help his already expanding spare tire. "You’re doing it wrong," he informs her, and she goes into a small tirade (which will soon be dwarfed by her significantly larger "Channeling the Jewish Mother Within" tirade of just a few moments from now) about how this is her final project and she needs him to leave her alone and the usual heaping quantities of blah blah blah. Michael tries to make nice by complimenting the project. "Yeah," Maria responds, "I’m a regular Bob Vila." Uch. Someone needs to send a memo to the WB that pop-culture references devoid of a necessary context are completely not funny. Like, I could easily run out on my roof right now and scream Growing Pains at the top of my lungs, but it doesn’t make any sense without a more appropriate reason for it. Got that, DeLuca? He thinks she’s making a shoe tree. She’s really making a napkin holder. Hilarity ensues. Anyway, she finally cuts to the chase and asks him what he wants with her. Michael confusedly responds that he just wanted to say hi, but clearly she has no interest in being, uh, said hi to. He freaks, "What the hell’s going on with you?" Tsk tsk tsk. And now the big tirade, which begins with the potty-mouthed fury of "Michael, we saved your ass." Jeez, Maria, that shit’s not acceptable. Oh. Oops. Anyway, she launches into a speech about how they all helped him not die when he had a temperature of five million and they had to drag him to the Indian reservation. "And you hug Max and Isabel." Actually, yeah, he is kind of a jerk, eh? Anyway, Maria (correctly) points out that "it’s all about the three of you," and asks if he was even going to apologize. He does, but she tells him it’s too late.
Kyle sits alone in the Den of Porno, watching a movie/show/performance-art piece which consists of a woman yelling, "Hang up!" over and over and over again. Like this: "Hang up! Hang up! Hang up hang up hang up hang up! Haaaaaaang up!" Well, at least it’s curse-free, but I wonder how the hell (damn, now I can’t stop) Kyle manages to feign interest for so long. Anyway, what is he watching? And while you’re at it, can you suggest some really killer coffee? Because I just bought a coffee maker. Anyway, Liz and pie make their entrance. Kyle has no interest. She also brought him his homework. He couldn’t care less she’s there. She tells him she hopes his ankle is okay, to which the still-spurned lover responds, "Liz, I’m not really in the mood to talk about it." And it makes her leave. Good work, Valenti! I am so totally impressed. Do it again, man! She even leaves the pie!
Cut to Max painting the ceiling which got charred in the blaze from a hundred scenes ago. Having taken lessons in caginess and double-speak from Porno, Bangs strikes up another segue-free conversation with Max beginning, "Tell me again, Max. Tell me how you did it." Max reiterates his baseless story about throwing water on the grease fire, which, by the way, doesn’t work. Because water doesn’t put out a grease fire. Ten seconds in the Boy Scouts (which I wasn’t even in) or fortysomething years on this planet (which I’m guessing Bangs has had) will teach us all that eventually, no? I guess not. So she baits her unsuspecting son to go over it all again, and then pounces, "It was a grease fire, Max. The Sheriff stopped by today and gave me this pamphlet. And the thing is, it says right here. Water doesn’t put out a grease fire. Water makes a grease fire spread." Oh. My. God. Is that true? No, wait, really, is it true? I can’t believe it! Let’s let the shock set in for a moment that this is supposed to be the dramatic high point of this episode. It boggles the mind. It just really boggles the mind. Isabel interrupts the scene at just the right moment, asking, "What’s everyone still doing up?" Having their mind boggled, no doubt.
Cut to a mercifully brief outdoor scene, Max and Isabel arguing about whether or not to tell Mom. Isabel accuses Max of "passively watching" as always, and Max says there’s just no way. Isabel launches into a little speech about the bond between a mother and a daughter, telling Max that "we’re not just hiding it from her anymore. Now we’re lying." She tells him it isn’t just his decision. Yawn, yawn, a thousand times yawn! Hang on a sec. I gotta get another cup of coffee from my fabulous new coffee maker. I have a feeling I’m really going to need it. Can anyone suggest some really good coffee?
Isabel’s room, where Our Lady Of Perpetually Unmatching Facial Shades theatrically alters her lipstick with a wave of the hand. Oh my God, they have powers? I, like, totally didn’t know that. Bangs appears stealthily behind her, and Isabel is forced to abandon said activity in favor of using an actual lipstick. Not the best shade she could have chosen, trust me. Still clinging to plot progression as tenaciously as only a character who feels she might never again have an episode center around her can, Bangs wastes no time launching into the subject at hand: "Isabel, can you tell me what you remember? I mean, we never really talked about this much." Isabel initially claims not to remember much, but, at her mother’s insistence, spins a heartfelt little yarn about the day Bangs and her Incredible Disappearing Husband came to the orphanage: "You were wearing this yellow sweater, and I remember thinking it looked like the sun." Hmmm. While she was at it, she was probably also thinking, "And you know what would go great with that sweater? Some bright orange lipstick and a smidge of purple eye shadow." Always the crafty one, Isabel disarms Mom’s pointless prying with the Lifetime Movie of the Week trailer clip: "The day that you and Daddy came for us -- that’s when our lives began." Oh, my. Pass the tissues. And the cream and sugar, while you’re at it.
School. Exterior. Maria is sitting alone at a table, obsessing over her one class that is Shop. Michael, wearing almost the identical "red-and-gray-themed horizontal stripes" shirt as Maria, makes his way over and attacks her: "This whole idea that I have to apologize to you? What’s that about?" He tells her he doesn’t owe anybody anything, and grabs the still-evolving napkin holder and says he’s going to fix it right there and "call the whole thing even." She tries to grab it back, he tries to work his miracle on it, and the whole thing splits in half. She’s mad. Really mad. Mad enough, in fact, to draw a direct parallel between Michael’s attempt to help her and the deeper thematic issues at work in the show: "You can’t just wave your hand over a problem and make it go away." Ooooh, deep. She asks why he can’t just apologize like a human being, but then points out for the millionth time that, oh yeah, he’s not.
Crashdown, with Liz on shift in the work-a-thon that is her after-school existence. Kyle, crutches and all, enters and spots Liz. Hi. Hi. He tells her he’s "figured it out," and tells Liz that the reason she’s suddenly being nice is because she feels responsible for his ankle. Der. And water doesn’t put out a grease fire, eh? She brings it back to all about her, telling him that she’s sorry for treating him so badly. After all, she knows how awful it feels to have someone break up with you. He tells her that she handled their break-up as well as she could have, and that he was the one who couldn’t let it go. Which is nice enough of him to say, but really, a) this moment is completely antithetical to his character construction, and b) she lied, cheated, disappeared, and lied some more in an attempt to throw Kyle off their trail. And now he’s apologizing and she’s acting self-righteous. Grrrr. But I don’t like him, either, because he refers to Sally Jesse much the same way Maria did to Bob Vila twenty hours ago. Anyway, he wants to be friends. She says cool, and leans over to take him through the complex menu choices. They’re all burgers, guys, they just have different alien names. Take his order and go. But she doesn’t go, and Max comes to the door of the Crashdown in time to see the happy uncouple chatting it up like old friends. And I promised myself about ten weeks ago that I’d never mention this again, but the back-lighting of Max at the door is so bright that his ears actually glow as a result. Now them’s some pretty big ears right there.
Bangs and a banana clip? Oh, Bangs, you’re killing me here. She sits in Porno’s office, reading the police report from the day of the shooting. Max was there. He fled the scene. This is new. Porno goes over the testimony of the two visiting tourists, who recounted the scene of Liz getting shot in the stomach, followed by what they saw : "They saw someone go up to her, kneel down over her, put his hand over her, and heel her." Wow. That must have been pretty intense. I wonder who it was. "Who?" Bangs annoyingly asks. He tells her. She expresses disbelief. The scene ends. Man, these scenes are getting shorter and shorter.
Cut to the healer himself, lying on his bed and back in full Counting Crows mode. Just once, I want to see what "Max in a really good mood" music is. Brittany? Jennifer Lopez? Grand Funk Railroad, for some really bizarre retro reason I’m not at liberty to discuss? Here’s my guess: Counting Crows. Anyway, Cranky McSads gets out of bed and walks downstairs to find his mother back in the dreamy land of Home Video Nostalgia on the couch. Bangs and a scrunchy? Oh, Bangs, you’re killing me here. She tells him to sit down and watch. Oh, Lord. I would just about die in the doorway if forced by my mom to sit down and watch old videos, particularly ones that prominently feature myself in any major role, including my star turn as Servant #1 in my fourth-grade play "Cinderella and the Prince of Pollution," which I’m still relatively convinced was written by my teacher, Mrs. Karpen. Anyway, they sit on the couch, and here’s what they watch: Little Max in the park. Oh, look, a hurt bird! Max, stay away from the hurt bird. Max picks up the bird. Max releases the bird. The bird flies away, all fine. And, um, no one ever noticed this before? So now she’s all full of questions. He’s distant. Then he’s mean. Then he yells, "Why are you doing this to me?" They fight, he leaves, she cries. I was in a show called Cinderella and the Prince of Pollution. Knowing that, can I really expect anyone to still be reading this?
Michael wears really small shirts. This has gotten him in trouble before, as in a certain infamous "I see London, I see France, I see Michael’s blue underpants" moment a while back. So, as the Alien Three converge in some as-yet-unvisited desert location, Michael angrily throws a rock into a small body of water. The shirt rides up a little, revealing no such gratuitous undie shot this time. Which makes me posit that perhaps he’s not wearing any, which, trust me on this, makes me feel no better in the pit of my stomach than I did when I saw the undies. But anyway. Michael is mad about Bangs seeing the pigeon-healing on the home video. Michael, trust-free as usual, demands that they destroy the video, after which time it’s "her word against ours." Isabel is decidedly unhappy with the wording of this particular sentence, and she reprimands him, "Her word against ours? Michael, she’s our mother." Michael says they can’t trust any adults, and Isabel says that there’s no such thing as unconditional love. Max says there’s no way they can tell Bangs the truth, and Isabel just gets really really mad at him. Good. Emotion! Intrigue! Pathos! Decent shades of gloss! It’s all coming together. Isabel storms off after telling Max that he isn’t "the final word on everything." No, Isabel, he’s not. But he sure is boring.
Cut to Maria’s locker, interior. They’ve used this shot before, and I never really liked it. Who needs a locker-perspective shot? It’s dark. And there’s no little light to debate about whether it goes off or not when the door is closed. Maria extracts a blue napkin holder and a note which reads, "Handmade by Michael. Thanks." I feel as if there’s a veritable wealth of things to make fun of about this moment, but it’s getting really near the end of the episode and I just can’t think of any. Locker-Cam relieves me of having to think about it any further, as she slams the door shut and we’re plunged back into darkness. Cut to Michael standing outside of a classroom, anticipating her walk-by. He strides alongside and asks how she did on her project. She failed. What? "That’s ridiculous! I worked my ass off on that thing." Another scene, another TV-14 warning from the censors. She didn’t use his napkin holder. She kept it. She thanks him. Many silent moments. Then, before things really get all icky "Max and Liz" on me, he opens his mouth again: "I have something to say to you. If anything like that happens to me again, like when I got sick, don’t help me. I can’t get indebted to anyone and I can’t get entangled, I gotta be a stone wall." Stonewall. No comment. You’re welcome. Anyway, she asks if being around her makes him feel "human" and he says yes. But he doesn’t want to feel like that anymore. Awwwww. Well, you know that feeling you get when you put your finger down your throat? Well, I don’t want to feel THAT way anymore. Get the picture?
Crashdown after hours. Liz in uniform. Max drops by. He tells her that it’s okay that she and Kyle are back together, admitting that he saw them at the Crashdown yesterday, conveniently the one time the two of them have conversed during any point in the last, like, three months. What a perfect television coincidence. At which point, for once in a Roswellian blue moon, Liz’s eyes clear of their usual dewy moisture and she gives it to Max: "If it was happening, I wouldn’t need your permission." Almost as shocked as I am, Max gets all offended and starts to take off. He tells her that she’s starting to sound like Isabel, who thinks Max is too controlling. Liz retorts, "Max, just take a Psych class. Because you are controlling." Liz, just take an acting class, because you aren’t emoting. Not anymore, anyway. Max shoots back, "Hey, I am who I am," and I wait patiently for him to knock back a can of spinach and grow some really big muscles, because I haven’t heard any human being utter that line with a straight face since the heady Popeye ’70s. Liz tells Max that he puts everything on himself and has no faith in the people around him. Feh.
Cut to Max trying not to put everything on himself and have more faith in the people around him, in some park where Bangs sits alone on a bench. "I thought I might find you here," Max offers up. Why? WHY? Oh, who cares. I think Bangs thinks she’s got it all figured out, and tells Max (I know it seems like I’m just flying through this part, but remember the segue-free world Bangs inhabits, and know that non-sequitur plot oddities really do come out of her this quickly) that he might consider looking for his birth parents. Er -- okay? Max tells her that that event is rather unlikely, and he says, basically, that she’ll do for now. "Then why can’t you just tell me your secret?" she inquires. It’s true. He’s a jerk. Instead, he shifts topic to a poorly wrapped package he’s brought along. It’s a toy house. Oh! The title! I get it. Why not just name the episode "Black Shirt," as that is what Max is wearing in this scene. It has about the same dramatic heft as the toy house. Anyway, he tells Bangs that the house is what she gave him when he felt homesick soon after he was adopted. Wow. What better way to show your love of a present than by giving it back to the giver? Gee, Grandma, I sure do love this butterfly picture frame. And what better way to adequately express my love for it than by... giving it right back to you. Anyway, Max is no more forthcoming than previously, telling Bangs that his little secret is not bad or dangerous. He then does his best Tony Soprano in asking her not to "ask about this anymore." The women of the family don’t gotta know the business, you know what I’m sayin’? Cut to Max driving up to Random Desert Locale in the Alienmobile, where Isabel is waiting for Max in a questionable pink sweater and more questionable pink everything else. He says he talked to Bangs and that it’s all going to be okay. "You told her?" Isabel inquires hopefully. Apparently everyone’s having a pretty bad day over on the set and wants very badly to share it with us, as the Counting Crows become practically deafening as Isabel breaks down and hugs Max. Her pink mascara blends with her mauve eye shadow as we fade to black.