Under a blood-red set, we fade in on Michael "Horses Sweat, Men Perspire, Women Glow, I Reek Like a Sow in a Trough on a Farm on the Surface of the Sun on the Hottest Day of Summer" Guerin hanging around his atypically typical environment at work -- though not so productively, it seems -- at the Crashdown. Holding a pot of coffee and flitting around like she owns the damn place -- oh, wait, I guess she does -- Liz "Putting the 'Ill' Back in 'Vanilla'" Parker approaches the counter and inquires as to whether Max "I Come From a Far Away Bland" Evans would favor another cup. He'd love one. And man, if we aren't off the to the races, plot-wise! Already we've recorded numerous action verbs from every corner of the dictionary (from the verb infinitives "to fade in, to sweat, to glow, to reek like a sow, to hang around, to hold a pot of coffee, to flit, to approach, to inquire"), with no sign of letting up. This wild episode should be bundled in warning labels and not viewed by the infirm, the elderly, or women with unusually weak constitutions. Stop the magic! Let me offa this crazy thing called Roswell! Oy. My heart is in a tumult.
Meanwhile, back in the land of Realitysville, where Roswell remains as tedious as golf on TV or poetry anywhere, Liz refills ("to refill"! Will it not end?) Max's coffee (he's allowed to consume as many cups as he wants without fear of parental rebuke because he's, y'know, thirty) and moves on. Isabel "How the Hell Could I Have Flubbed My Audition for the Part of Nicole Julian so Badly That I Ended Up in THIS Graveyard" Evans sits to her brother in jaded silence. She wrestles with a seemingly recalcitrant pink twisty straw in nursing her own beverage, perhaps as a method of vicariously experiencing, unable as she is to bond with the rest of her fellow cast on such matters, what exactly it feels like to suck. Hee hee. I made a silly joke. She expresses disgust at Liz and Max's unceasing public ogling of the other's private goodies. And though cursed with a cadaver-esque stiffness to her body language that couldn't invite me to stare at her ass if it had instructions for getting my MBTV show changed to Sports Night tattooed across it, I am nevertheless drawn to it in following Max's southerly, ass-wards gaze as she walks away. Isabel deems said ass-gazing "creepy," just as Porno saunters up as if the word "creepy" had been chanted in three quick iterations, summoning creepy's earthbound manifestation made flesh. Liz, hell-bent on obeying her assigned stage direction of "suspiciously, as if having something to hide," instead offers something more in the way of "attempting to perform a foreign-language dialogue assigned in seventh-grade French class that she's forgotten to memorize." That's just how much her acting has improved in eighteen weeks' grace time. If I have to watch the rest of this scene uninterrupted, I'm going to plunge corn-on-the-cob holders in my eyes. So instead, I'll share the dialogue I had to memorize in my own seventh-grade French class, to indicate what she might as well be saying:
Monsieur A: On va a la plage?
(Translation: Are we going to the beach?)
Madame B: Non, allons chez Suzanne.
(No, we are going to Suzanne's house.)
Monsieur A: Chez qui?
(Um, who's house?)
Madame B: Chez Suzanne, l'ami d'Annette.
(Suzanne's house. Annette's friend.)
Monsieur A: Non! On va a la plage!
(No! We are going to the beach. Or at least I am. This is why they invented a little human rights concept called "free will." So I'm going to the beach with my new sexy Latino lover, Ricardo. Have fun eating croissants and watching Jerry Lewis movies at dorky Annette's, as French custom dictates you must. It's my own personal Bastille Day! Suckas!)
[Note: I haven't taken French in a really long time. All translations are approximate.]
Porno, unable to see the forest for Liz's wooden, tree-like acting, requests "the usual" and hands her a thermos. Sigh. I suppose the collective wait staff of the Crashdown feels once more obligated to promote beverages as "the usual," "the special," and "the only damn choice again," what with Michael too angsty to bother preparing any actual food back there. Porno slimes out cavalierly, and as soon as he's gone Michael pipes up: "He knows. He's got the orb." Must we endure repeated references to the cheesy orb from another place without even the benefit of a nickname for this glowing, futuristic bar of soap? How about "Lever 2001." Get it? Good. Now explain it to me, will you? Anyway, Max again blames Michael for removing the orb from his apartment in the first place, and the raging debate over who has been a naughty little alien more early and often kicks up anew. Liz defends Michael's loss of Lever 2001 with the hopeful defense, "Even though he has it, he doesn't know what it is," prompting Max's pessimistic "we don't even know what it is." At which point, the evil presence lurking in the shadows -- the eyeshadows, that is -- enters the frame. Oh, bonjour, Tesla. Ca va? Les voies de bout l'ane de Tesla lui feront l'ennemi de toute ma planete a la maison de la terre, non? (Translation: Tesla's donkey-butt ways will make her the enemy of all on my home planet of Earth, no?) Liz hems almost as egregiously as she haws, crowding the frame behind Max and Isabel while Tesla asks again what they were talking about. Liz asks her if she would like a beverage of some kind, and Tesla puts a STAT call into the Taste Bud Police when she orders a cherry coke with lime. Ew? Liz seems poised to go fetch, but at this moment Tesla locks eyes with Max and he is transported into Sandy Land, that desert locale with all the symbols he only sees in flashes. Or something. Tesla is in the vision. She and Max are holding hands and gazing meaningfully. He snaps out of it, bolting from the counter to chase the far less sexually challenging Liz into the kitchen. And what better time to reassert his clearly waning attraction to her than to engage in yet another round of clamorous face guzzling. But another flash later, Max opens his eyes to find himself mid-petting session with Tesla. A slow-motion unspecial effect, one so low-budget and unnecessary to the context of the scene that I can only describe it as "Bar Mitzvah video," practically freezes the action of Tesla walking away from Max. Liz breathily brings him back to this room again, and he apologizes for being so out of it. Liz departs, safe in the knowledge that those hilarious novelty ears she bought him at Spencer Gifts remain a pretty adequate chick deterrent. But it's been a while since glam rockers were the front-cover stuff of Tiger Beat magazine themselves, so Tesla is looking for a bit of the old somethin' somethin' as well, I'm sure. Max, alone now in the kitchen, peers out that little window to catch Tesla staring him down while engaging in an alleged conversation with the rendered-superfluous-once-again Isabel. I don't know about you people, but I spy a cross-species love triangle developing here. O mon Dieu!
Opening credits: If Nick Wechsler plays a role in this episode that doesn't fall somewhere between "tertiary" and "invisible" on the "Rationalize Your Presence in the Opening Credits" scale, I owe everyone a Coke.
Fade in on Porno in his darkened office, curiously holding Lever 2001 and talking on the phone. Barking Topolsky's name repeatedly, he spells it loudly and for my benefit, as I spelled it incorrectly in the recaplet and just noticed like five seconds ago. Apologies to all offended parties. He demands to speak to a "Margolin," the shape-shifting alien posing as a doctor from Renee's mental facility from last week's unclimax, but said Margolin is currently unavailable for further consult. Cut to Isabel and Tesla, a social connection doomed imminently to fail. Remember when there were hordes of tall, model-esque dames practically banging the set down to pose as Isabel's "too cool for this planet, too cool to be on a show about people from another planet" friends? What caused them all to flee? Oh, hello, Tesla. I hate you. Tesla observes after passing Alex that "he's got it so bad for you." Bad meaning good, right? Am I down with the buzzwords? Or would it be "up?" Isabel retorts by quizzing Tesla on her own romantic aspirations, and Tesla admits that she's "a little bummed that your brother is unavailable." And again I find cause for the decidedly unclever but resolutely necessary response to everything Tesla deigns to say: ew. I too went to high school with my brother, and am thus sensitive to the fact that saying things like "I'm a little bummed that your brother is unavailable" is simultaneously a) not done, b) tacky as hell, and c) not done. When Isabel imitates Max's doe-eyed mooning over Liz but makes the singular mistake of accidentally imbuing the impression with a modicum of personality and thus rendering it counterfeit, Tesla expresses surprise at their devotion. Why such a shocker? Tesla begins her sentence by stagily divulging some bit of privileged information, but stops herself with that universal "I'm a bad girl in a bad script" kind of way by gazing around coyly and asserting, "N-n-n-nothing. I'm sure it was nothing." Detruisez-moi.
Yeah, uh, "writers"? You mixed up "species" and "specious" again, didn't you? I think you did. Herewith, a primer's guide: "species" defines the varied human/alien dichotomy which actually does necessitate further exploration on this show, while "specious" alludes more to the hollow, inauthentic, and just plain lazy approach of bringing Max and Tesla together through the shockingly overused convention of Lab Partner Lovefest. After a nondescript dorky science teacher offers one of those typical speeches where his academic words could also be brought to bear on the events transpiring in the characters' lives and blah blah blah bunsen-burnercakes, he enigmatically assigns Max to be Tesla's lab partner. Walking towards her desk as the music gets saucy, Max approaches Tesla and has his way with her right there. It's a dream sequence. Each of the observers of this feverish sequence vamps for the camera, from Alex's merde-eating grin to dorky science teacher's recreation of the stodgy though titillated glasses-adjusting panel of judges from Paula Abdul's provocative Cold-Hearted Snake video. Max snaps out of it. And then he's on fire. Et vous avez pense que "Soudainement Susan" a ete creativement defie.
Cut to one of those dueling bathroom sequences where two heterosexual adult men unproblematically pass quality time together discussing life's romantic foibles from the comfort of the empty boy's room at school. O . . . kay . . . Meanwhile, Liz and Maria share sal de ban space of their own. Maria is worried about Tesla's lecherous ways, while Max tells Michael about his fantasies. Liz asserts that everything is fine between her and Max, while Max worries that he's the problem. Michael cuts him down, telling him once more and once more self-righteously that there is no time for "sex fantasies" while Porno has the communicator. Maybe if they would all get the hell out of the bathroom and get on with their lives. Go out. Do something. Get some sun. And if you don't like the beach, I hear that there's a totally kickin' party over at Suzanne's place . . . y'all should check that out, maybe. That's Chez Suzanne, l'ami d'Annette. By the way.
Mon Dieu, it's Kyle! I guess I owe you all la Coca after all (loosely translated, that means that I owe you all "the Coke," for those unable to keep up with the complex multi-lingual nature of this recap), except that his totally not-significant six seconds on screen do not qualify. Stay thirsty. Porno dashes into the room and flips the television to a station reporting a fire at a mental hospital in Maryland. Kyle grouses that he was watching the other channel. Oh, come on. How many televisions does any self-respecting middle-class house have in it, anyway? Seven? Certainly in excess of one, I can tell you that. The fire: No, they haven't ruled out foul play. No, they do not have any more details at this time. Yes, the reporter's name is Thania St. John, the name of the co-executive producer of a television show called Roswell, who apparently fancies herself a latter-day Alfred Hitchcock, an auteur of such proportions that her name, face, or likeness must appear somewhere within the show for some narcissistically subtextual reason I'm currently at a loss to parse. And I know I spend about, oh, I don't know, sixty or so hours a week watching this show and all, but did they have to go with "Thania St. John" as the name to toss so cavalierly into the script? Could it be any more loud and inescapable and less like "Bob Smith" or some such generic thing that could just plain pass? They had to go with someone who's going to make even the casual viewer rewind to the opening credits when they hear a name that takes one out of the already thin plot with such jarring alacrity that she might as well be saying, "This is Gidget Toiletsprinkles, reporting live from the scene of the blazing hospital fire. More news as it develops. Now back to Pizza Poopypants in the studio for what's going on in sports and weather."
Anyway, Porno again takes this opportunity to contact the great and elusive Dr. Margolin, this time using his powers of persuasiveness to compose the can't-say-no-to-this proclamation, "This is an emergency." Now why didn't he think of that before? Sound of phone ringing. Margolin, outside and attending to burned mental patients, this time goes right for the cell phone. Ring, ring, pick up the logic phone. This show not calling. I mean, really: Porno couldn't get Margolin on the phone during normal office hours, but it's a snap to reach him during far more quiet, off-peak, let's-chat-about-the-Knicks moments like when your entire building and the professional career within it are engulfed in flames. Margolin fields the call. Topolsky is dead. Margolin has never been to Roswell in his life. Foul play afoot? Oh, wait, we already knew that. Cut to the UFO Center, where a shadowy Porno tells Max the story of the fire and about the pseudo-Margolin that we just heard. We just heard it. Shape-shifter plot line retread. Porno says they all need to trust each other. Cut to Guerin Manor while Porno's speech continues in voice-over. Michael is being videotaped. Yawn yawn yawn. Stage direction: Sawing wood.
School. Michael returns to his age-old routine of stealthily creeping into mysteriously unsupervised private locations filled with file cabinets which overflow with relevant and easy-to-obtain information. He magically locates the correct file drawer in the utter darkness of the empty room, sliding it open and flipping through numerous germane manila folders. Waiting the requisite four seconds before foiling his zany caper, Maria slides in behind him. What are you doing here? She saw him come in. Go away. No, really, Maria, go away. Your cheap name-plate necklace is glinting off the one light on the retooled Roswell set and it's going to start attracting strategically-placed authority figures who didn't catch y'all sneaking in there to begin with. Oops, she's not wearing the name-plate in this scene . . . please take a moment to mentally cut/copy/paste that sentence into one of the dozen or so other "zany caper" sequences in which she actually is. He's checking out "the new girl," and Maria takes this moment to non-segue into her prepared speech, applicable for all occasions it seems, that "if you want to be a couple . . ." Which they're not, really. Anyway, he's checking out the new girl. Let's move on.
Uh-oh. It's raining in Roswell again. That means someone is morose and contemplative. Any guesses as to who that might be? Michael approaches Tesla's adobe-hued villa house, shot on location in a retirement village on the west coast of Florida. Nice ugly pastel house. He rings the bell. Nothing. He peers in the window. Empty rooms beckon. BO-ring. Luckily, Michael has admirably timed his arrival to The World's Most Elegant Taco Bell to coincide with the unlikely development of several army vehicles pulling up. Dour men in trench coats scurry into the house, while armed and camouflaged men (though if they really wanted to blend into this architectural environment, they should have swathed themselves in unused Taco Bell wrappers and cups) guard the outside. Though having consumed in excess of the daily recommended dose of Taco Bell himself lately, Michael conceals himself successfully behind a slim post less than five feet from the armed soldiers. Stupid government.
Back to the Crashdown, where Liz is starting to tip the scales toward the "aggressive" side of her usual "passive-aggressive" matrix. She's worried about Max and whether he'll stay her lab partner, and just as he proposes that they "please stop talking about Tess," Michael conveniently enters and requests an audience with Max and an equally conveniently-located Isabel concerning that very thing. He describes the scene we just watched. Isabel grows angry. Max grows pensive. Max, why so pensive? Oops, shouldn't have asked. Max relays not only the scene in which Porno calls Bethesda, but also the one in the UFO Center where Porno visits Max. Michael too-loudly rants, "You're having secret meetings with Valenti or your new girlfriend Tess bringing the army to town?" And though absolutely irreproachable from a grammar perspective, you gotta love the Liz-destroying qualities of such an overheard snippet of dialogue. She boo-hoo-hoos her way back to the kitchen. Et Liz Parker, mauled per les sangliers, n'a pas vecu pour voir un autre lever de soleil-dessus de Roswell. If. Only. But before Max can follow, Porno enters. He puts Lever 2001 down on the counter and speaks the line, "Before you can expect someone to trust you, you've got to trust them first." MOM! Porno's been in the fortune cookies again! Seriously, what does that mean? What say we follow Isabel around for a bit and forget all about it, m'kay? M'kay.
Cut to The World's Most Elegant Taco Bell, where Isabel has come by to suss things out. The place maintains an utter sense of normalcy, right down to Tesla's prepared speech about the movers finally coming and now their house is no longer empty, right down to the giant moving van filled with blah blah blah parked out on the curb. Isabel begins inquiring about some fakey-looking antiques, and Tesla responds that her father collects them. Cue entrance of Tesla's father, a man oozing with so much hilariously overacted "bad guy" bravado that I muse momentarily at the absence of his black cape, handlebar moustache, and the evil "haw haw haw" laugh of the wily French villain. I also marvel at the sudden absence of red backlighting in this scene, then remember that all of the lights on the set are currently being reconfigured in the form of a giant red neon arrow spelling out the words "EVIL MAN," which will point at Mr. Harding and blink on and off and on and off, thus subtly signifying his evil ways. Should there have been any doubt. Which there was not. Evil. Anyway, he lapses into a twenty-minute speech about how Isabel should call him by his first name, Ed. Stop me from being riveted. No, wait, it is clearly impossible. She asks what he does for a living that takes him "to all these exotic places," and Evil Ed shoots back that never-been-spoken-in-seriousness retort, "If I tell you, I'd have to kill you." Isabel freezes in yet another tiresome moment that possesses all the alien paranoia of a low-flying weather balloon. Then he laughs. They all laugh. Ah, the folly of it all. Tesla nasally informs Isabel that Evil Ed "works for the army," just like Renee "was a guidance counselor" and just like this plot thread "has been pounded into the ground like a dandelion with a croquet mallet." Anyway, Evil Ed needs to go evil around some more, so he evils off (he's so very evil that he destabilizes the grammatical basis of the word evil, allowing it to be used as every part of speech, much like the equally fluid and pervasive "Smurf" flexibility of so many years ago) to the Evil Kitchen. Tesla laughs at his evilness. Ha ha ha. Isabel, somehow not getting it, mentally decides that everything is just peachy and sticks around to help out with the move. But when she attempts to pick up a box marked "Photos/Do Not Think They're Not Evil" (in fact, it just says "Photos"), Tesla freaks out and tells her to put it down. She tries to shroud her reaction in "oh, you don't have to do that, you're my guest," but really . . . evil. EVIL!!! Tesla offers to get them a soda and escapes to the kitchen, where Evil Ed asks in a sinister manner, "What is she doing here?" Give me an E! Give me a -VIL! What does it spell? EVIL!
Night, and it's raining again. Max shows up at the closed Crashdown to tell Liz that he could never be with anyone else, how he feels nothing for Tesla, how Liz is the only one for him. He even mentions the time she got shot. Then he leaves the Crashdown and walks across the street, where Tesla's car has broken down. He tells her that she's planned this, and that he and Liz belong together. Then they do a whole lotta makin' out. He sees another flash. Liz looks on, despondent. Hee hee hee. This brand of evil must be contagious, 'cause I'm getting a bit heady with all this evil myself right about now. So very evil. Tres, tres mauvais homme.
Michael, head chef of practically the only restaurant in town, is feasting on cereal for the dinner meal. Max enters and yells over the malfunctioning rain machine that he kissed Tesla. Incredulous, Michael steps away from his heaping bowl of Angst-i-os and regards Max warily. Michael becomes strangely self-righteous again, tells Max to "go talk to your buddy Valenti" again, and utters the runner-up for The Most Clichéd Line of Dialogue in a One-Hour Period (barely edged out by the "if I tell you, I'd have to kill you" triumph of a few minutes before), "I don't know who you are anymore." Then they fake fight again. Max stage-directs Michael into the refrigerator. This pathetic contrivance -- I mean "legitimate plot development -- throws the contents atop said refrigerator into chaos, under which they discover a very small surveillance camera. Cut to the Crashdown, where the scene is relayed to Isabel and Max and Michael are suddenly best friends once more. She rewards the two for their comprehensive attention to detail by recounting her entire visit to The World's Most Elegant Taco Bell. Michael thinks Porno is watching them, but Max counters with his sudden and extensive knowledge of tiny cameras. He thinks it's the FBI. Liz enters. Hee hee hee. She's all boo-hoo sadsy wadsy, but at least she has the chutzpah to walk right past Max and into the back. He follows. Apparently, she doesn't know who he is anymore, either. He blames the whole thing on Tesla, absolving himself via the catch-all rationalization, "It wasn't me." Max seems to think something "isn't right about her," and the only reason I'm thrilled that that insipid line had the misfortune to enter my television air space is to allow for Liz's out-of-character raising of voice and cutting response, "'Not right about her'? Max, WHAT ARE YOU TALKINK ABOUT?" He errs monumentally in telling Liz that he saw a flash when he kissed Tesla. Liz. Special? Liz. Different? Not.
Much grousing and tears on Liz's roof. Liz tells Maria about her stupid boyfriend. Maria has good hair and has hit her stride from a light-wax perspective, so I'll cut her some slack and quote my favorite line of the scene: "What a jerk!" Yup. Liz quote '80s cheese pop in deciding that one must "listen to your heart," even though all signs point to Max's infidelity. Like the part about Liz watching him cheat on her. Oh, Roxette. How you provide dulcet tones and a mollifying perspective in an otherwise maddening world. It must have been love. But it's over. Now.
Crashdown kitchen. Michael is cooking. Michael is sweating. Who says indigent short-order cooks are incapable of multi-tasking? Probably no one, ever. That's who. I rather enjoy this scene, particularly considering the Liz-laden trash that falls on every side of it. Alex, equipped with a Mister Wizard-esque knowledge of wireless camera technology, explains the camera's functions to Michael. Wide-angle lens humor ensues. Maria approaches. Wide-angle lens humor redux. She asks what they're doing with the camera, and Michael briefly explains the Tess/FBI hypothesis. Maria reiterates her "what about partners, what about even exchange of information" monologue, even though Michael has never supported this notion in any form. They're going to plant the camera in The World's Most Elegant Taco Bell. How? Alex glosses over about six episodes worth of explanations with the perplexing plan, "I've already staked out a position in this abandoned warehouse that's in range." Oh -- eh?
Back at The World's Most Elegant Taco Bell, Liz rings the bell and lets Tesla know that they "need to talk." Tesla has an extremely strange accent of some kind. Liz saw them kissink, and she wants to hash it out, Tesla, if that's okay with you. Tesla again avoids potential awkwardness by offering a beverage, and Liz orders up "a cup of tea." Ooh, ain't she so hoity. Tesla goes. Liz plants the camera in one of the fakey antiques, and then narrates to her onlooking Scooby Gang that "the box is in here. I'm gonna check it out." Thanks. And though the house is in pristine, completely unpacked condition, the one piece of incriminating evidence of Evil Ed's evil is sitting, marked "photos," right there in the middle of the floor. Liz cracks the box open. Holy Tiger Beat photo shoot, Batman! Five million pictures of Jason Behr. Jason eating. Jason walking. Jason looking pensive. Hey, I have one of those in my room too. Even Evil Ed thinks he's totally dreamy, I guess. The end. But not! Because I guess Evil Ed doesn't like when other folks fiddle with his hope chest. The gang in the warehouse sees Evil Ed approaching from behind on camera. He looms over Liz and asks, "What are you doing?" Liz back up in fear, knocking over the camera-containing priceless relic. The camera goes dead. Oh, come ON. L'homme, aucune merveille le francais nous detestant.
In a scene where the incidental music sounds strangely poised to break into the Don Henley song "Boys of Summer" at any moment, you gotta know how annoying the rest of this episode just has to be. When we fade back, Evil Ed is advancing on Liz and repeatedly asserting that she need not assist in the cleaning of the priceless antique. "We'll get it later. WE'LL GET IT LATER." He's not evil, probably. He invites her to stick around for dinner. She accepts. Cut to previously established abandoned warehouse, where everyone except a non-present Max argues the merits of breaking, entering, and generally taking angry mob justice into their own hands in rescuing Liz. They quickly decide to investigate. Cut to Chez Evans, where Max answers his ringing phone. It is Liz calling from Tesla's, pretending she's talking to her mother. It stretches out endlessly. Max promises to "be right there" and hangs up. Cut to Jetta pulling up. Out on the road today, I saw a deadhead sticker on a Cadillac. A little voice inside my head said don't look back, you can never look back. ["You thought you knew what love was -- what did you know? Those days are gone forever, you should just let them go, but . . ." -- Sars]
Back inside, Evil Ed grills Liz on her family, her friends, her love life. Go ahead, evil man, tell her you won't be stopped in your evil plans until she gives you . . . one million dollars. He asks if she believes in aliens for almost no reason. He even does that Close Encounters thing with the mashed potatoes. For almost no reason. He brandishes a chicken leg and glares at her psychotically. Hey, where's all the scenery? Oh, that's right. Dad chewed it all. And now it's gone. He asks if she has a boyfriend, again displaying all of the character depth of a poorly drawn Spy Vs. Spy cartoon.
Back outside, Max and the cavalry espy each other for the first time. Max, what are you doing here? Max is going in. If that's really the FBI, he argues, they'd better get her out of there. Inside, Evil Ed spots Liz staring toward the broken relic containing the tiny camera and observes, "Maybe I should go clean that up." She tries to help. Again. He won't let her. Again. The doorbell rings. Evil Ed licks his lips and stands up. Liz pockets the tiny camera, tossing it into a bowl of marbles. Max is at the door, and his alibi for arrival is his need to talk to Tesla. She has nothing to say to him. So he grabs Liz and they leave together, pausing long enough for a long chat on the front lawn about the box of pictures.
Back at the abandoned warehouse, Liz and Max sort of make up while everyone else dozes off in front of the surveillance equipment. Meanwhile, isn't the camera filming a whole lotta marbles? Anyway, Tesla enters the camera's direct range and pours the contents of the broken antique onto a table. They wake up. Tesla molecularly manipulates the antique back to its original form. They stare in amazement as we fade to black. And I don't have a French spell-checking feature on my iMac, so this is going to take some serious manual editing. Au revoir, la belle Annette. See you at the plage.