What's with this town and cheesy theme parties, anyway? The Crash Festival, The Soap Factory, The UFO Convention, and now the latest in a continuing series of trite misfires masquerading as plot developments, the Blind Date Concert. Fade in on Another Pointless Opening (oh, I'm sorry, did I say pointless? I meant pointless. My mistake) at the Crashdown, featuring Alex "Hanks for the Memories" Whitman fingering his rockin' silver bass and talking trash about how he's going to "kick some ass at these auditions" for, that's right, the Blind Date Concert this Friday night. On shift, in uniform, and apparently cognizant of the recent arrival of a wrecked oil tanker on the floor of the diner somewhere, Liz "Stop the Blandness" Parker mops madly in a vain struggle to add the challenging chore of "sweep" to an ever-broadening acting range which now includes an already diverse repertoire of "whine, mope, and grouse." Liz tells Alex that his band needs a better name than "The Whits," which Maria "I Dream of Jeannie's Hair Stylist" DeLuca enigmatically remarks is "just an 's' away from what you really are." Li'l Hanks utters a sarcastic "that's funny," changing the subject immediately and thus relegating Maria's statement to "I don't get it. No, I really don't" status evermore (The Whitss?). Alex cranks the radio, and a DJ explains the precise nature of the physical pain about to unfurl over the course of the hour: "...the winner of the KROZ blind Valentine dream date..." Win a contest, date a blind guy. Strange contest, but I can't say I'm not a little bit curious. Oh, wait.
Relinquishing the broom and acting against type for once, Liz, finally making sense, brings to light the central thematic focus of the episode with the truest words ever spoken: "This is so stupid." Yes, Liz. It is, in fact, quite stupid. But I don't think she means it in quite the same way I do. She means that it's crazy for anyone to want to go out with someone a radio station picks out for you. Oh, foreshadow's sake! For no sooner are Liz's protests uttered when they are drowned out by the DJ announcing that "we're gonna crown our winner right here at one of our finer local establishments, the Crashdown Café!" Finer local establishments? Yeah, listed in the Zagat's guide under that cutthroat category "Finest Local Cheesy Tourist Diners in the Three-Foot Radius Around the Crashdown Café, Excluding Gas Station Vending Machines and Wild Mushrooms Growing in the Parking Lot." But the floors are immaculate. So the doors to the Crashdown bust open, and in spill both the DJ and the remainder of the Roswell first-season budget in the form of perhaps two hundred gawking extras intended to represent, I imagine, the entirety of the state of New Mexico. Um, don't you people have other wacky Roswell events to go and plan? That "Crazy Hat Day" party at the old Soap Factory isn't going to organize itself, you know. Liz, as it turns out, has won the contest. Clutching her beloved broomstick like it's her endangered children and this is the end of Sophie's Choice, notes the strangeness of winning a contest she didn't even take the time to enter. Oh, silly Liz. When will you learn that pratfalls and slapstick hijinks are part and parcel of having a friend like Maria? I'd go so far as to call it uncanny, if only it weren't so damned predictable. As a clinically epileptic Maria ushers a typically stony Liz over to the teeming throngs, the DJ approaches and offers her some diversity in the way of cheesy tin-foil headgear, replacing her usual antennae with a silver tiara. The mercifully shortest opening sequence in series history thus ends with DJ Creepy asking Liz what thoughts are running through her mind, to which she drearily responds, "It's nothing I can say on live radio." Hmmm. Really? That's so weird, because I didn't think there were any offensive words in the soul-bearing admission: "Keep your hands. Off. My. Broomstick."
Credits: I've never actually tested the theory myself, but urban legend has it that if you play the theme song to this show backwards, it sounds exactly the same.
Commercials: Okay, I'll admit it. I'm home writing this on Saturday night. And instead of "fast forward," I accidentally hit "stop," and the desperate, ghastly glow of weekend prime-time programming filled my apartment. I sure wish Saturday night television could get more depressing. Oh wait, it can't. Anyway, there's a promo on for the no-longer-hosted-by-Bob-Saget warhorse America's Funniest Home Videos, which is apparently coming up straight-away. Except a hard-core monster-truck-show-friendly voice calls the program "AFV" in an apparent attempt to give the show a little more fierceness, a little more edge. And the awesome thing is that it totally works. Not.
School. Under ordinary circumstances, I might feel cattily inclined to note the most current in a seemingly endless procession of Maria's never-appealing outfits. This time it's a waist-length jean jacket once hijacked by a crazed man with a Bedazzler, that late-night-commercial rhinestone gun that makes Maria appear to have purchased this article of clothing in the "Gay Cowboy" section of her local Sears retailer. But I won't make that comment. Because these are not ordinary circumstances. No, indeed. Liz, apparently overwhelmed with the embarrassment of winning the radio contest, has come to school in dark sunglasses and a floppy-brimmed black hat, an outfit which she perhaps perceives as being "incognito" Nice try, Liz. But really, it's impossible to deny: you look like Blossom.
Anyway, Liz and Maria's conversation centers around Liz's infuriation with Maria for entering her in the radio contest, and Maria notes again, much to my continued amusement, that "Max dumped you." Anything she says after that is completely incidental. Because I love it when people are mean to Liz. Really mean. Like, utter cruel dialogue like "Max dumped you" actually makes me want to, like, buy Maria a lollipop for her troubles. Now if she'd just take that extra step and pull the fashion debacle that is that hat down over Liz's face, dance around like Fat Albert, and scream "Mushmouth! You're Mushmouth!" in front of every student at West Roswell High School -- well, Maria would just about have a date for the prom. The trite school montage and contrived avalanche of ill-advised dialogue continues, as the girls run into Alex posting fliers all around the place. His band lost their singer. He needs to find someone immediately, because the auditions are tomorrow for -- sing along if you know the words -- The Blind Date Concert. Maria takes it upon herself to volunteer for the part, offering, "Begging is so unbecoming. I'll do it, I'll do it." Alex says they're looking for someone with a little more professional experience, and Maria, taken aback, lists her star-studded dossier: "Wednesday nights at the Pizza Pan." Oh, good grief, I think I smell a karaoke joke brewing. Which I'm really looking forward to, because if there's one thing this show does exceedingly well, it's a zany caper. Alex: "I'm sure you're very good [annoyingly derivative Hanks Senior-esque pause] at the karaoke, but . . ." So Maria fakes hurt and Alex relents, telling her to "stop by the garage this afternoon." As Alex walks away, a teeming throng of girls spots Maria and Blossom, and with a "There she is!" shriek, they descend upon Liz with ruzzah-ruzzah about how darn cool they think this is. Max looks on, glassy stare in check, dousing an ambiguously un-product-placed chip product of some kind in Tabasco sauce. And that's pretty much one of three indications that there are aliens on this show this week. Gee, Liz's social cachet really seems to have altered dramatically from "that cheesy girl who's somehow in every science class I've ever taken" status since she won a date on the radio. That makes intuitive sense to me for some strange reason. Not.
Meanwhile, Kyle "Where's My Daddy" Valenti makes his way over to Max "Evans of Nine" for the purposes of some ritual male bonding. Which isn't a bizarrely out of context move for his character at all. But in light of Liz's current unavailability (I think she's, like, dating a radio station or some such thing), Kyle attempts to bond with a reluctant Max by way of two blatant but unexplained '80s pop culture references in his explanation of Liz's pattern with guys: "She's a man-eater. And I pity the fool that radio station fixes her up with." Kyle finishes his "watch out boy she'll chew you up" diatribe and leaves Max, who is deep in asserting that "we didn't break up because we were never together," while gazing soulfully into Kyle's eyes. Hmmmmm.
Cut to a woeful example of something once referred to as "garage band culture in Roswell," where Alex and the rest of The Weiner Dog's Brother's Band jam through a rousing chorus of that latter-day grunge classic, "We Love Our Very Baggy Pants." Maria enters said garage and immediately takes over the proceedings. Her no-longer-subordinated wacky antics are quickly becoming such a focal point of this series that it feels like the producers created a Maria-themed spin-off and secretly replaced the show we thought we were watching. Got all that? It means step. Off. Maria. Amid protest, she hands over music to the group of boys apparently attempting to distinguish themselves as the core of Roswell's bad-ass alternative universe (one of them even gets to say "hell!"). But Maria wants to do pop songs: "You guys want to win this thing, right? And who's judging it, a radio station, and what songs do radio stations like, they like the famous songs, y'know, the songs they play over and over and over again." The band expresses some serious reservations with Maria's attempt to mainstream their wildly divergent sound. Oh, come on.. It's not like you're an all-lute-and-French-vocals band. You've never even played in a public forum before, and this scene has already gone on so insanely long that I feel like it's that part of The Whitss: Behind The Music when "it was at that moment that they realized -- that things would never be the same for the band." And yet, strangely, I continue to discuss it. And here is what I say: Alex and the guys (cast solely on condition that they "look exactly like Alex") continue to stare incredulously, one of them finally cross-examining, "We don't even know if you can sing." Touché, skinny alterna-boy, rhythm guitarist of The Whitss. Maria, not about to be shown up by Alex or any of his cardboard cutout doppelgangers, grabs for a microphone and orders, "Give me an E-flat." Cue slide guitar sound effect, offering two notes to Maria.
Meanwhile, somewhere on Long Island, a phone rings in the house of my music-teacher mother and my college-professor-of-music stepfather. Turns out it's me calling. "You guys, E-flat," I ask with a self-righteous "I rock the bad-ass world of music SO hard because I can harmonize with my parents" roll of the eyes. Herb and Nancy scurry off to different pianos and return with the results of this week's Roswell Plot Inconsistency Poll: The first note is an A-flat, the second an F. Hey, djb, is this psychotically nitpicky point really germane to the discussion of the arc of the show in general? Hmmm -- well, you try watching a scene fifteen times that actually hinges on the line "give me an E-flat" that isn't Josie and the Pussycats and expects us to swallow it as a significant consequence in the plot, the show, or my life. And then you tell me. Thanks, Nancy and Herb. See you Sunday for dinner.
Oh my God. I never thought I would have the unequivocal pleasure of tearing this scene to microscopic shreds, because I started to think that the scene would never, ever end. This new scene is, like so very many others, from an episode that never ended, one from several weeks ago in which it was significant that there were aliens living in Roswell and their well-being depended on no one finding out who they were. Remember something about that? Interestingly, that once-indispensable plot thread has been rendered nonexistent, and I begin to entertain the notion that this show could easily pack up its most annoying character (you pick which one; the field's wide open), move her to New York, place her in contrived and inanely written circumstances, and watch while she makes her way alone in the big, bad town. Here are some prospective titles, on the off chance the Heads of Programming at the WB should be listening in for season's breakthrough spin-off hit:
a) The Maria DeLuca Comedy Hour
b) Central Parker West
c) Some Such Whinin' About Some Stupid Thing or Another
d) Time of Your Life
See, the Alien Three are finally getting around to talking about the alien-oriented issues at hand, and here I am, deeply committed to the process of not writing about it. Besides the fact that they're leaning in and whispering, I know they must be discussing the fact that "the fourth alien is not a killer" because Michael is present, unwashed and accounted for, trapped in a quest even the writers don't feel is appropriate to reference for more than three cumulative minutes this week. But before I am afforded even one moment to muse on which Pantene combination Isabel has stumbled upon to make her hair so damn lustrous, Michael snipes at Max for being so unsupportive of his search for Nasedo. Once Michael takes off, the now criminally underused Isabel tells Max he can't treat Michael like the quest doesn't matter. Max repeats that it's dangerous and ill-advised to continue looking for him, and Isabel takes off with the line, "You're never going to convince him of that without some proof." And she's gone. Aw, crap.
But the story line no doubt found deep in the reject pile of plot treatments for some show that set the artistic bar much higher than this one, say, Saved by the Bell, for instance, keeps right on. DJ Creepy and his band of total freaks have staked out a corner of the Crashdown, and Liz makes her way over for an interview on the kind of dream date she's looking for. After a series of exceedingly transparent questions for which Liz begins her answer with "yeah" each time she responds even though not one is a yes-or-no question, DJ Creepy concludes that Liz's dream date will have to be "a serious, dark-haired mystery man from an exotic place." I could comment on the unambiguous stabs at an "it's Max you really love" motif the writers believe themselves to have cleverly encoded in the text, but if I even took the time to point out this insultingly obvious point, it would send a message that I advocate the show's belief that we, and everyone we love, are developmentally disabled.
The highly-stylized five-second "tonight's all new Roswell will continue in a moment" featuring Isabel, a notebook, and quite a bit of soulful staring is more screen time than Isabel sees in the remainder of this episode. I thought you should know, on the off chance you'd entertained any notions of actually enjoying the rest of the show.
Returning from commercial, The sans-Maria Whitss are slogging through any number of E-flats in an attempt to procure the band slot for The Blind Date Some Such Thing or Another. Black-clad "music types" sit in arrogant judgment befitting almost any activity other than adjudicating a high school band competition, making snide comments about The Whitss lacking vocals. Alex begs them to give Maria another moment to show up, apparently thinking that the vainly aloof "music types" had in fact asked, "Is anyone feeling a little, I don't know, not annoyed? We just don't think it's annoying enough in here yet. Got anything for that, Whitss?" On cue, Maria enters, her Age of Aquarius outfit apparently a victim of the same paper shredder as the script the characters had once thought they would possess for reference and other non-unbelievably-disagreeable dialogue. She calls The Whitss "her band," and one would think the rest of the band would remain silent, relieved that someone, anyone, would take responsibility for their pitiful existence much in the same way as one would cop to being accountable for an airplane hijacking or terrorist bombing. She reaches the stage. She exchanges caustic words with Alex. The scene ends before we hear a note, E-flat or otherwise.
Cut to the Crashdown, where the only thing that's changed since the scene is the highly noxious quality of Maria's outfit (I'm sorry, but teal leopard print?) and her ever-poofier blond hair helmet. She sneaks up behind a costumed Maria, peeking into the Crashdown and whine, whine, whining some more about how this contest is taking over her life. Maria asks if Liz has thought about Max today. She says no. Maria maintains that she's proven her point. Thanks for your contribution to this pivotal scene, Acid Reflux Barbie. Alex enters just in time for things to test the boundaries of my "can't get any worse" theory, as a battle ensues over creative control of The Whitss. Again. Liz attempts to make peace, pretending for one moment that she isn't too wrapped up in her own life, giving advice that only proves that she's too wrapped up in her own life to adequately make any peace. Hey, was that sentence a palindrome somehow? She even does that thing where she tells the two that their lives are just fabulous in relation her poor, poor existence of having a whole lotta dates. She lectures Alex and Maria on their "big break," telling them that it's an amazing opportunity to open for Smashmouth. Ten hours of unwitty pop culture banter ensues, each of them conjecturing on who the surprise band really is once Liz admits that she doesn't know if it's really Smashmouth. Well then, why the hell did she -- oh, never mind.
Hey, it's Isabel. Clearly, her presence at the start of a scene can only mean one thing. The scene is almost over. She's upstairs at Chez Evans, reading a magazine hopefully entitled Yeah, But I Signed A Contract Weekly. Tap tap tap on the window. Michael climbs in. Some such thing about a map. I hear the rest of the cast and an entire camera crew are going to some concert tonight. But Michael coerces Isabel to ditch her one chance at some screen time with that time-honored guilt trip, "Well, it's either the concert or discovering where we come from." Yeah, right. Hardly a plausible scenario for a show hanging tenuously onto the theory that if everyone in the cast sits very, very quietly and never does anything, ever, maybe the network will just plain forget to cancel it come springtime.
And off to Liz's house, where Our Lady of Perpetual Passive-Aggressive Narcissism is gussying herself up for her date with prototype serious dark-haired mystery man from an exotic location. But hark! What dream sequence goes there! Liz looks out onto her balcony (at which point her now-dead journal best friend mourns, "it was out here she used to love only me") and spies Max Evans. She walks outside. They kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss. And you know why I actually love this scene as much as I do? Because the lip smackery goes on just about forever, and this is some kissing I don't need to waste our time recapping. Thank me later. Eventually, the honking of a horn awakens Liz from her reverie. Maria runs in to tell Liz that DJ Creepy and the rest of the entourage wait downstairs for Liz to meet the dream date. Downstairs she walks, where DJ Creepy introduces Liz to her man, "Doug Shellow." Endless thanks to the folks over at Subtitles 'R' Us for providing the correct spelling of Mr. Shellow's last name. And thanks as well for corroborating the dependability of said subtitles in the following line of dialogue when we learn that Doug Shellow is "a freghman at the University of New Mexico." Wow, a freghman. Ah, to be a freghman in college again. Those were special times. Though it really is up to the University of New Mexico to promote gender equality and political correctness amongst their impressionable college students with the more inclusive term "freghperson." Truth be told, this dark-haired mystery freghman isn't half bad. Though the other half is, really. He kind of looks like a cross between Christian Slater, and, well, someone who's had to tackle life toting around the name "Doug Shellow." The Slater comparisons can't be overlooked, but Doug Shellow seems a little less edgy, a little more average, less Pump Up The Volume and more You Can Turn It Up A Little, But I Don't Want The Neighbors Hollering About All The Ruckus. Y'know, like that.
Cut to Chez Evans, where the plain ol' physical yuckiness of DJ Creepy can no longer be dismissed, even considering the physical limitations of radio. He's just that creepy. Max lies on his bed listening solemnly to the contest ("I could be that mysterious, dark-eyed, distant, far-off, something, wait . . .") when a ruckus (the exact variety of which I imagine Doug Shellow would so like to avoid) erupts outside. Numerous catcalls of "Max! Max Evans" stir Max to actually go ahead and do something for once. Yeah, I know that "stand up" should be considered as much as a reflex as remembering to exhale, but this is Thrillsville Evans we're talking about, not pulling the metaphorical covers over his head and waiting until the episode ends and the problem just takes care of itself. Could this be the first sign of a radical character overhaul? Hmmmmm? Cut to Max walking outside to find Kyle and his posse in and around Kyle's car. Upon Max's approach, Kyle appears as jubilant as an eleven-year-old girl who just won the Jason Behr FANatic contest. But Max isn't so happy that his sworn enemy has changed his character construction faster than the cast of The Hogan Family changed moms, and remains skeptical of the intoxicated Valenti. Kyle tells Max he "thought it was time to bury the old hatchet," and tells Max to come along to the concert. Max impolitely declines, but his too-noble-for-this-planet civic duty pops up once again when he offers a pithy little fortune cookie on the many possible hazards of driving under the influence of alcoholic beverages. Subtle innuendo follows. Must be something inside. Aw, crap, it's Sunday afternoon.
Free from the train wreck of Maria's fashion sense, but never unchained from the shackles of the utter blandness of everything else that counterpoints it, we finally cut to the big date in question. Hey, Liz and Shmellow: Death called, and he wants his faux trendy black attire back. They eat. Good for them. More chewing, less recapping. It seems they are enjoying a quiet meal together in an elegant restaurant. The camera pans around to display the utmost visual hilarity of the restaurant filled with people, including the Love Connection chaperone DJ Creepy, just inches away at the table. He is offering a concise, er, recap of the date in progress. Tired of hearing every word they say repeated on live radio, they take to whispering. Personally, if faced with the prospect of spending one more second looking at DJ Creepy's pre-pubescent Bar-Mitzvah-Boy facial hair and grey-speckled stand-up-comedian-at-a-strip-club sports jacket while trying to eat, I think I'd forgo the whispering and commence the drinking of the arsenic. Liz, attempting any last-ditch effort available to get back on my good side (short of trading scripts with Isabel), encouragingly suggests, "Maybe we shouldn't talk." But Shmellow isn't going to let the throngs of witnesses stand in the way of his well-rehearsed stimulating small talk: "The girls in the Archaeology Department are nice and all. But they're just so serious." Er -- eh? He's tells Liz she's different. Than what? Driftwood? He fails to specify.
Cut to exterior restaurant, where Max and Kyle have a window-side seat in front of a Knicks-size crowd despite their tardy appearance at the event. I would posit that it has something to do with their privileged "opening credits" status, but then I remember Isabel's subplot exile and conclude that they get to be right in front of the window because this show is, in fact, kind of dumb. Max, perhaps aware of his character's imminent foray into downright and just plain freak-o-la ebullience, indulges in one last round of unhinged moping. Just like old times. He tells Kyle he and his posse can get to the club by foot, and starts to walk away. Kyle grabs his arm and informs Max that he can't leave now because "it's just about to get interesting." Yeah. RIGHT. I'm liking you more than usual these days, Kyle, but unless a rather intense display of funny-car racing is poised to bust out right here, I'm thinking the "not interesting" vibe is pretty much here for the remainder of the hour. The action confirms this for us by once more focusing on Liz, who is being goaded by DJ Creepy to share an after-dinner kiss with Doug Shellow. Shellow leans in and obliges, taking this private moment to orchestrate their escape from the prying eyes of those who for some reason care that this is all going on. Those must be some pretty understimulated people. So they take off behind the restaurant, Max again taking this opportunity to skulk off.
But Max is Kyle's plans for the night, and he's not going to let him go. Kyle tells Max he's going to "help him out," and offers the goodiest of goody-two-shoes a sip of whatever made him so intoxicated out of a metal flask I haven't seen a person drink from since the network television premiere of Arthur. Seriously, the metal flask is a liquor accouterment indigenous only to the homeless thief and the career alcoholic. My experience with being sixteen and drinking usually centered more around holding my nose and knocking back cooking sherry or siphoning Boone's Farm into Clearly Canadian bottles in a back corner of the 7-11. ["And let's not forget the ever-popular booze-watering." -- Sars] Kyle must have some very thoughtful relatives, to get him appreciating the flask at such a young age. I'll bet it has his initials engraved into it and everything. Anyway, Kyle goes full-tilt after-school-special and pressures Max into taking a sip of the devil's poison. He does. Clearly, the effect of alcohol on Max's alien physiology is incalculable. Blurry camera angles substitute for acting in every possible instance. In fact, Max initially does little to expose himself as intoxicated. Except. That. Smile. I mean, really, that shit is intense. Max and Kyle get close enough to kiss in this sequence more times than we need to go over. Max puts his hand on the back of Kyle's neck, and gesturing with his other hand coos, "Do you see that mailbox? I'll beat you to it." Which of course, in the gay community, is a highly charged sexual euphemism meaning -- no, I'm kidding. So they race. Max takes off before the "ready, set, go" prompt is complete, but you can't blame Max for being premature as, well, it is his and Kyle's first time, er, racing to the mailbox. Max disappears around a corner and is gone. Kyle looks around for less than three seconds and cannot find him. For reasons I am at a loss to comprehend, someone decided that this was a dramatic enough moment to end the segment.
Oh, consarnit. I pressed stop again instead of fast forward. I feel suddenly inclined to sit still for scenes from week's Third Watch. Oh, another new one. Sorry, Nicole. Sucks for you. Hey, have I mentioned that it's Monday?
Oh, poor, poor Isabel. Stuck with Michael for some inexplicable reason in front of the public library while he interprets some map. He tells her that they need to position some rocks on the lawn of the library and set it on fire. I have no idea why. No. Idea. Why. He cuts off every word she tries to say. And while her brother gallivants around town all boozed up with his new beau, the actually talented Isabel is trapped back at some Episode Two subplot clearance rack with rocks and a library. Anyone want to tell me which one of the Evans siblings is doing a better imitation of "wasted"?
Kyle finally finds Max on a ledge high above street level. Y'know, I think maybe the dramatic tension in this sequence is supposed to center around Max almost revealing his secret or his powers. I just got it. It doesn't work. Anyway, to go into painstaking detail about each utterance out of Kyle and Max's mouths would be a voyeuristic perversion of their newfound love for each other. Is that enough of a rationalization for skipping this shit, y'all? Thought so.
Thinking they've lost the teeming throngs but obviously ignorant of the fact that they're pretty much this town's only form of entertainment until the Roswell Spirit Committee finishes planning that zany "Hawaiian Shirts To Work Day" bash the townspeople clamor for, Liz and Shellow seek solace in a public space with a whole lotta windows, the Crashdown Café. Shellow sweet-talks her about finally being able to get to know the real Liz Parker, who has to dodge Shellow's insipid crack, "No wonder you entered the contest. I mean, who are you going to find in a town like this, anyway -- an alien?" Once again, Shellow, we get it. It's funny because we know there actually are aliens, right? Write that down. Write it in crayon on a Crashdown placemat. Spray-paint it as your tag during leisure time with your gang or posse of choice. Smear it in pudding all over my naked body. Charter a jet to write it in the sky with that white puffy smoke. Hey, you can even use the smoke that's currently being blown up my ass as a result of watching this banal mess of hastily assembled words masquerading as dialogue. Shmellow: your date is in love with an alien. Your incidental reference to it is somehow supposed to substitute for the rest of the episode's relinquishing of said theme. You can't save it, Shellow. Don't even try. You're just like the rest of them. Except soon you get to go away. Forever.
Hey, are we in what those highbrow "music types" refer to as the so-called "green room"? BUT IT ISN'T GREEN! I mean, er, well, cough cough. Sorry. I just get so weak-kneed in the presence of fame. And seeing The Whitss featuring Maria DeLuca getting ready for their big show, well, I just didn't expect to feel so darn nervous around them is all. Sorry. I'll go. Sorry.
Anyway, said "music types" have come just to see the band. Apparently the glacial length of this episode has allowed for plentiful real-time travel on the part of agents and other new-talent seekers. Alex once again tries to assert that the band is his, but the heartless "music types" ignore him completely and go about their business of wooing Maria. Why? Who cares. This episode is so almost over. And the scenes are really short. Did I mention my stepfather has perfect pitch?
I cry bitter tears for Isabel, who again stands silently by while Michael utters lines including that he's sure he needs to find Nasedo "more sure than I've ever been of anything in my whole life." Jeez, Michael. You used to be fun. Isabel expresses concern that Michael will never find what he's looking her, and if he does it will mean he no longer needs Max and Isabel. They set the ground on fire. Someone needs to kick Michael's ass immediately. But judging from the promos I'm seeing in heavy rotation for this Wednesday's episode (remember, it's Monday), it looks like someone is going to take care of all that for me. I take a brief moment to feel a tiny bit guilty that I reveled in a storyline about domestic abuse as the solution to my problems. Then I go ahead and do it anyway.
Liz's balcony. Kyle and Max are back in pathos mode. Kyle is conveniently looking away while Max uses his powers to deface the brick wall outside of her room with a tacky red heart and the initials "ME" and "LP." Kyle sucks at "the meaningful stuff," he admits to Max. Oh, you mean like magically producing visual aids to illustrate his love for her? Oh, Kyle. Don't despair. If that's the method that works in making Liz love you, all you have to do is learn how to manipulate molecular structure and conjure the green clovers, yellow diamonds, and purple horseshoes. Then she's yours. Kyle wants to know how far Max got with her, and he summons that annoying old standby, "We saw into each other's souls." So we cut between the dangerously boring "why I want to be an archaeologist" chatter at the Crashdown and the fetishistic "let's go in Liz's room. I'm up for a little panty sniffin'. You like panty sniffin'?" upstairs in her room. Oh, quick caveat: though the panty-sniffin' line appears in authoritative quotes, please do not be led to believe that it was an actual line of dialogue. Okay? Okay. So the radio van finally finds them, and Shellow and Liz are forced to flee the Crashdown. They run upstairs and into Liz's room, only to discover, that's right, Max and Kyle. Oh, but you guessed it, didn't you? You so smart. You smart person. By the way, if I continue to aimlessly and arbitrarily compliment you at all times and pretend that my grasp on English is getting worse for some strange reason, will it make you want to write my recaps for me? Or at least finish this one? Pleeeeease. How you can say no when you're so smart? Seriously, I'm dying over here. Seriously.
Liz finds the two together. Shellow would take charge if he weren't such a hapless dark-haired mystery dork. Liz asks Kyle what he did to Max, and in Max's reply, she misses the brilliantly encoded "Village People"-esque subtext of Max's "now don't you go and tell her anything we talked about tonight -- it's private." Right on, Evans. You knew why it was fun to stay at the YMCA. It's 'cause you can hang out with all the boys. Just like the song says.
Liz, apparently too busy getting down with the college dating scene, neglected to read the memo about this show not concerning aliens anymore. Therefore it seems vaguely out of context when she defends any incriminating comments Max may have made on the basis that he makes things up when he's drunk. But she gets caught in the lie, what with Max never having been drunk before. Which, incidentally, we also already knew. So as Kyle keeps Shmellow at bay, Liz removes Max to the balcony for a little update on the what the heck went down, back in the heady days when Liz was a famous radio personality. Or something. But rather than divulging the salient details of his street-side tryst with Kyle, Macho Macho Max steals Liz away off the balcony as DJ Creepy runs in to Liz's bedroom to creep the place up a bit.
It's safe to say that from this point to the end, the episode is pretty much just plain unbearable. The Whitss are still backstage, Maria meditating in preparation for whatever lite-FM travesty is about to be perpetrated against us. I grab my dictionary, flip open to the entry for "wasted subplot filler posing as denouement," and find a small photo of The Whitss in their current configuration, labeled, "Figure 1-1: Wasted Subplot Filler Posing As Denouement." What's that you say? You say your OWN dictionary does not include the entry "wasted subplot filler posing as denouement?" Well, then, maybe YOU need to get a better dictionary.
And while you're in there, look up "GAAAAAH KILL ME!" in your Webster's. It might be considered slang and therefore not included in the more highbrow hardcovers out there, but I know it's acceptable usage, considering the sheer amount of times I've been forced to chant it during the course of the past hour. Liz chases a mirthful, jovial, vivacious, ecstatic, exuberant, homosexual (oops! Went a little overboard on the "cleverly encoded synonyms for the word 'gay'" thing) Max down the deserted streets of town, yelling that they have to stop running. Max does stop, and I remember halfway through this speech that it wasn't me Liz told to stop, so I take off and run in circles around my apartment, eventually leaping through the nearest closed window and leaving in my place a precise outline of my body, a la every Bugs Bunny cartoon in existence. Max would leave a similar print in the jumped-through window of his choice, no doubt, thereby acknowledging the frighteningly cartoonish direction this episode has pulled us in. He finally stops and turns to Liz. He then delivers his finest monologue thus far, memorized straight from the pages of The Big Book of Overly Earnest Monologues Which Include the Phrase, "As Long as We're Together, Nothing Else Matters", gazing into her eyes and intoning, "Let's just keep running! You and me! Away from here! Away from everything! I see everything so clearly now! We'll go some place no one knows us! As long as we're together, nothing else matters!" Sorry about all those exclamation points, but trust me when I say that there is no such thing as over-punctuation in Max's singular attempt to wax unfunereal for a sec. Liz tells him he's drunk. Max says something about how being with her is magic, then goes full tilt Doug Henning (RIP, you eighth-grade-yearbook-haired genius, you) and shows Liz some serious magic indeed. The cameraman, freshly recruited for his first cinematography task since wrapping the Head Over Feet video three years ago, perches the camera at "nose hair visibility" range and refuses to move it from Liz's close-range face until at least one audience member stares too long and turns into a pillar of salt. Or stone. Or something. Liz tells Max that things will never be normal between them, and he responds the only way he knows how: by setting the town's parking meters on fire and grinning (ack! No more grinning, for the love of all things holy), "What's so great about being normal?" Cue the "awwwwwww" track. You know what would make this scene really cute? Shirley Temple. I don't know why. She just would.
Isabel and Michael stand outside the library over the charred remains of the show's original premise, I mean, the alien symbol they've burned in the earth. Michael has grown fairly certain that the ambiguous "he" will not be showing up. For a late-night outdoor vigil with about the same dramatic heft as anticipating an audience with The Great Pumpkin, even this thirty-second scene runs a bit overlong. Michael laments that no one ever comes for him, and Isabel tells him she'll always be there. If by "there" she means "wherever the action's not." Because that's where she spent her night this time.
Max and Liz see the radio van driving toward them and use it to fetch a ride to the big concert. Meanwhile, a voice-over announces that The Whitss are about to take the stage. They all walk onto the stage upon their introduction, and Maria doesn't stop walking until she reaches the wings on the other side. She's hyperventilating. Alex runs off stage to calm her while the crowd awaits the first ever public notes of this band the requisite five thousand people have for some reason come out to see. At which point the "music types" make their way to the stage and tell Maria that the headlining band has bailed. They have to play. But before they do, DJ Creepy barges into the crowd, much to the collective "oh, shit" of everyone there. Jumping up on stage, he brings the caravan of bachelors who for some strange reason or another (drunk, likes younger women, drunk AND an alien) want to continue their pursuit of Liz Parker. Oh, and it's worth mentioning that there's one great line here: DJ Creepy asks Liz to choose her Valentine right there on stage, and Kyle offers that he's "just happy to be nominated." Then he leaves. I'm sorry, but bah ha ha ha! Max, still in the hunt, approaches and gives her the soul-discovering kiss of a lifetime. The usual rush of images which form the visual Cliff's Notes of the first fourteen episodes rush by once more. Max looks up. Liz's face clears. Nothing like the amorous smooch of passion giving way to the resigned yawn of familiarity of kissing Liz Parker to sober Max right up again. He takes off into the crowd apologizing and she runs after him, asking if he really meant all of the things he said to her.
But he doesn't remember any of them. BAH!!! STOP THIS! It's killing me already. It's almost a joke. Wait, it is a joke: Why did the Roswell chicken cross the road? He didn't, because no one ever does ANYTHING!!! Hey, I didn't say it was a funny joke, okay?
So Max leaves, as we pan back to the big payoff of Maria's song. It's the Phil Collins song In The Air Tonight. Am I supposed to be offended by Phil Collins or is Phil Collins supposed to be offended by this? I think the sound of Maria's voice comes primarily from her navel, as that is the primary target of the camera work throughout the song. More flashbacks, this time from the episode we've been watching. Kill me now. I said kill me.
And the end. A black-cloaked man walks up to the symbol (wait, didn't Isabel make it disappear?) and sets it ablaze again. He then tosses in a photo of the Alien Three, and walks through the blaze as the plot lurches forward for the first time this week. The screen fades to black. It's Tuesday.