Fade in on a pre-credits sequence, the length of which just about causes the opening theme song of Roswell to aurally collide with the closing credits of the syndicated midnight exhibition of Frasier on my local WB affiliate. Picking up where we left off last week on the scoping fjords of Sandy Land, the newly-monikered Alien Four stand in frozen silence for a brief spell, until Michael decides that "they continue to stand in frozen silence. Cue closing credits. Roll over and die, quietly but for the exception of the sound of my weeping of bitter tears" no longer qualifies as acceptable plot development in this cohesion-be-damned sprint to the season finale the show increasingly seems to be adopting. And as an unflaggingly loyal (albeit financially compensated) member of the groundswelling Roswell viewing public, allow me the unmitigated honor of being the first to admit the reaction this inspires, as both a recapper and as a citizen of this island Earth: Good. For. Them. Michael breaks said frozen silence first, inquiring, "What do you mean she's one of us?" Oooh, beginning the entire episode in question form. How Beckett-esque. And also how telling of yet another of the aliens' previously unexplored mad voodoo powers. That being the one that allows them to communicate directly with that peripheral spirit universe known to us simple earthlings as the "Previously On" section. A mystical world it is, indeed. As handheld camera alacrity ensues, Max turns suddenly and runs up the scoping fjords and is followed by Michael and Isabel, all three of whom come to rest near what appears to be a giant rock which closely resembles all of the other giant rocks within a billion mile radius. He passes a hand over the big rocky wall, revealing a tell-tale silver hand print. Max matches his own hand to said print, the very movement of which inspires an off-camera production assistant to cup his hand over his mouth and pour every ounce of his ol'-time-radio-show-esque sound effects gusto into intoning "Whir! Whir! Whir! Scrooooooooonk . . ." in hopes of convincing us that this highly implausible "age-old mystery alien pod cave opening" sound effect will complement the visual impact of the world's largest gliding block of flaxen-painted Styrofoam masquerading as a giant gliding boulder. But other than all that, the moment is eerily authentic in lots and lots of other important ways. Or, as is the case here, not so much. The Alien Three look suspiciously at their new surroundings, shooting each other charged looks indicating, "Yikes. I hope no one noticed how cheesy that looked. Maybe if the WB found some real advertisers we could generate a little revenue for the F/X budget and then we could afford, like, a real rock. And that would also mean that maybe one commercial a week actually wouldn't feature the consistently non-comic stylings of the omnipresent and dangerously overexposed David Arquette. Clearly, it's a win-win arrangement for everyone involved. With the possible exception, of course, of David Arquette." Anyway, that's exactly what they're thinking.
Upon my return from the sad, lonely town of Grasping-at-straws-in-my-final-four-recaps-ville (population: me, me, a thousand times me), I come to see The Alien Three step into a cave containing the alien pods from which they once emerged, still immersed in the cosmic silly string we have seen before. Isabel, not yet privy to the twenty minute Night of the Living Pod People primer video Max borrowed from the interplanetary reserve room at the close of last week's episode, looks incredulously on and inquires, "What is this place, Max?" At which point Tesla appears at the cave opening and informs them all in her most over-enunciated (did someone in the forums say she's trying to conceal an Australian accent? Because I can totally see how she's deliberately overspeaking every one of her words in that "Graduate of the Nicole Kidman Institute of Indigenous Culture Abandonment" kind of way) delivery, "It's where we were all born." And though Isabel slips into a vision of the four of them emerging from the pods, she breaks out of it with an understandably bewildered, "No. No. No, I don't believe this." And I mean, really. If I spent the first sixteen years of my life trying to live as normally as possible among the fickle human race, only to discover that I was originally hatched from some cheesy papier maché relic fished out of a dumpster at The World's First Easter Parade that, with a splash of fresh paint and a few cardboard candles, could be wheeled into a bachelor party and leapt out of by a stripper named Candi, well, I don't think I'd be very happy about it either. No, sir, I don't think I'd be very happy at all.
Max bades Michael to "come on" after Isabel, but Michael rightfully decides that the "standing frozen" thing it took him the whole first minute of this episode to perfect is a pretty good indicator of his acting range. So he recaptures said pose, probably regretting it moments later as Tesla lapses into another Big Speech, which more consistently and ostentatiously makes use of the grammatically-challenged infinitive "to wanna know" than I have seen since the National Inquirer advertising department decided to hang it up some years ago. Tesla Emmy-clips at Michael that "if you convince them, then I'll explain everything," handing him the Urban Outfitters in Spaaaaaaaaace rough-hewn journal and sending him silently on his way.
A flash of light appears on the wall behind Tesla, and Evil Ed breaks into the cave out of seeming nowhere in a spectacularly unspecial effect brought to you by the fine folks at the pre-Lucas F/X house Industrial Light and Card Tricks. Considering the amount of scenery-chewing bravado Evil Ed carries with him, I'm mildly disappointed he didn't just gnaw his way into the cave. I guess Styrofoam can yield a pretty starchy aftertaste, eh, Evil Ed? You would know, after all, having supped upon the Roswell soundstage before. He points and gestures as he scolds Tesla for bringing the Alien Three to the crash site with so many possible witnesses abounding. Pierce is getting close, he says. Who do you think planted the camera at Guerin Manor, he asks. He revealingly observes, "You and I have spent a lot of time together. Now I don't want to say we're family, but..." Tesla rails that they are in fact not family at all, and that the Alien Three are all the sisters-and-her that she'll ever need. Tesla slinks toward the door with a huff and a head turn that hasn't qualified as a legitimately self-righteous portrait of the empowered female since the video for "Straight Up" fell out of the pop-cultural zeitgeist. But she becomes subdued and contrite once more at Evil Ed's admonishing retort, "If I have to kill people, I kill people." Tesla accuses him of being scared of Pierce, and Evil Ed admits that Pierce is not only "smarter," but he's also "closer to the four of you than anyone's ever been." At which point we cut to a hand holding a remote control and watching a scene over and over and over that I vaguely remember from several weeks ago of Michael playing ping-pong and loudly discussing being an alien, a scene now being aired on a black-and-white TV. The delayed nature of the airing, coupled with the archaic sixteen-shade technology, leads me to believe that this particular viewer is perhaps watching the show in some inaccessible foreign market like Ecuador or Canada (kidding, all of Team North -- KIDDING), a place where new episodes of the show are brought unto the eager natives by Peace Corps workers bearing ox-carts and viewed on a genuine American television like eight months after they air on, like, the Dumont Network. But then I see said mystery hand reach over and pick up its very own model of Lever 2001 while repeatedly rewinding the television to Isabel uttering the word "Nasedo." That feels familiar. Perhaps the whole tiny-camera conspiracy might just have something to do with all this. Or maybe an evil doppelganger recapper has sprung up in Roswell in the spirit of this week's two-for-one character discount. Wow. I really do apologize for the length of this opening, but the six-plus minute intro did necessitate some level of continuous involvement, genre-mixed and elusive of easy definition as it was. Oh, wait. It wasn't eluding of easy definition at all: it was long. Gosh-darn FREAKIN' long, even. And now it's over. Let life begin again.
Opening credits: Hey, uh, theme song? Enya called. She wants her ethereal repetition back. And they promise to drop off the Pet Shop Boys' drum machine on their way home.
Fade in on the continually everlasting visit to Sandy Land, where the remaining Alien Three throw some closer inspection toward the Urban Outfitters in Spaaaaaaaaace journal. Bad boy Michael speaks first, angrily accusing Max, "You knew about this all along," and I lapse briefly into a careful-what-you-wish-for daydream where at least one of us is spared a twenty-minute segment about a visit to the public library. Grouse all you want about being kept in the dark, Michael, but I'm pretty steadfast in my thinking that Max's only available reply to this volley is, "No need to thank me now," as I desperately wish he had confided in me during last week's debacle. They examine the Zapf Dingbats symbols for several hours, until Isabel turns one rough-hewn page to a page containing the far-more-revealing drawings of the four of them, just coincidentally artistically rendered to look exactly as they would during their brief stint on the WB. My, what an unbelievable coincidence. And by the way, scientists and renegade alien hunters agree that I can no longer make fun of their predetermined physical characteristics, as it turns out that three out of every four alien teenagers have their problem hair chosen for them well in advance and exclusively by God. Isabel queries, "How did they know what we would look like?" and Michael, a character who took three episodes to master the intensely challenging chore of learning how to eat with a fork, oddly concludes, "Whether you want to face it or not, we weren't born. We were engineered." Max fires back, "Do you understand what you're saying?" Eh, no? In the rendering, the pods are paired off with Michael and Isabel in one pair and Max and Tesla in the other. And though destiny seems to have finally come knocking on the iron-clad suburban doors of Chez Evans, Max continues to answer to that higher call of exceedingly unconvincing dialogue, responding in a strangely robotic intonation perfectly befitting the subject matter at hand, "I belong with Liz." Or he could choose his cosmically ordained, albeit brutally affected, podmate instead. It's like trying to choose between chocolate and vanilla. Anyone want to guess which one is vanilla? Isabel launches into a small speech about the destiny of it all, ending it with the eh?-inducing phrase, "you and me and the baby, that's what this is." This accidental admission causes Max's ears to perk up, an unwise though reflexive action that momentarily blocks out the sun for at least half of the world's unsuspecting inhabitants. Isabel tries to keep the peace by simultaneously diffusing and confusing the situation even further with the ambiguous explanation, "It's not what you think." Clearly, further information will be required. Michael says that he's going to talk to Tesla, and Max predictably preaches his standard practice of keeping his head down, his ears tucked, and doing a whole lotta nothing. Then he suddenly offers to go to Tesla and "get some answers." Hey, that sure doesn't make any sense, but at least it's amusing to watch for once. It's like a train wreck, but a really, really fast one containing two trains filled entirely with circus performers in extremely bright clothing. Whee!
School. Max approaches Tesla at her locker, and she speaks the line "I had a feeling one of you would come" without even turning around, ostensibly cluing us in further to the cosmic, non-visual connection the aliens implicitly share. Whatever. Like anyone who slathers themselves with that much eye makeup wouldn't have a funhouse worth of mirrors crammed into that three foot space. Tesla asks what changed Max's mind, and Max responds that he's "ready" to know "everything." Cut to the very antithesis of the knower of just about anything, including how to open those damned blinds and keeping his office from looking like some tough-talking, noirish, Bogart-esque antihero isn't suddenly going to saunter in throwing around jaded barbs about "this biz called the law" while smoking, like, a billion cigarettes. I have no idea where that sentence was trying to go. But it's Porno. I was talking about Porno. Porno gazes mournfully out the window, wondering just what exactly he's done to make every single woman of legal dating age cash in her contract and run screaming for points anywhere-not-near-Porno. Note to Porno: it's the inherent creepiness, and sadly, it cannot be transformed. Ever. And now you know. His musings are presently interrupted by the arrival of a deputy who I think it's assumed we've seen before. He furnishes Porno with "that file you wanted," confirming that Evil Ed is a totally normal government employee whose story checks out and lacks even the vaguest trace of eeeeeeeevil. But Porno, surrounded daily by a highly toxic creepiness that clings to his clothing like so much cheap, curried cuisine thinks further sniffing out of Evil Ed's normalness mighty require some more investigation. His name is, after all, Evil Ed. I mean, puh-leeze. Could it be any more transparent? No, it could not. Pay attention to the clues, Porno. They are all around you.
Presently, however, the static hum of everyday existence is replaced by the mysterious arrival of a young stranger in a police uniform who enters Porno's office and introduces himself as "Professional Killer and FBI Henchman Pierce -- I mean, uh, NOT a Henchman, I mean, Pierce, er, my name . . . damn, just, whatever you do, please don't blow my cover by giving me an easily identifiable nickname and boring the audience with my impeccably timed arrival in this town." Too late, oh ye insanely transparent Trojan Horse, you. So Deputy Bad Guy goes on to explain that he was requested some time ago by the Roswell Police Department, who had requested additional personnel a while back. Porno, paranoid as hell about the arrival of this stranger but unable to dispose of him due to bureaucratic constraints, tells Deputy Bad Guy to clean the coffee maker and sends him on his way. Deputy Bad Guy gamely agrees, and Porno tells his other deputy to "get Santa Fe on the phone" and check out Deputy Bad Guy's credentials. Satisfied that his daily wage has been earned through this allocation of chores, Porno returns to his law-enforcing post of staring out the window until he is absolutely certain that no harm nor foul be done in the one shadowy inch of garden space directly in view of his current beat.
Crashdown kitchen. Michael washes dishes somehow containing scraps of food I am entirely certain he has not taken the time to prepare in the first place. Isabel rants. She can't forget the dream, and she can't remember ever having seen Michael as happy as he was in said dream. He responds, "Well, I've never been that happy before," just loud enough for the stage manager to poke Maria and urge, "Go!" and Maria enters a shadowy corner of the kitchen just in time to overhear a Very Special Meeting of the Alien Minds that ends with Michael promising, "It's my baby, too. Maybe this is how things are meant to be." Taking a page from The Jack Tripper Guide to Plot Contrivances Via Eavesdropping, Maria slides into the kitchen (through a virtually soundproof swinging Three's Company-esque kitchen door, no less. Will the comparisons dare to end?). I thought that the sheer wattage thrown off by Maria's suitcase full of lip gloss glinting off every metal pan and dimming the rest of the lights in town could have clued them in to her arrival, but she does slide in unnoticed despite the blaring Sousa-sanctioned fanfare that usually signals her strident entrance into a room. But they don't even sense her presence in the suddenly immense kitchen, as the space has once again shifted its every dimension, expanding by at least five times for the purpose of the action in that Brady-house-meets-Tim-Burton invitation to architectural compromise.
Evil Ed is evil from each and every side and also from a variety of angles, and the swooping crane shot of the IMAX in Hell camera work won't stop until we know just how evil he really is, dammit. Cut to outside the Crashdown, where the menacing Evil Ed balefully places some malevolent coins into a nefarious parking meter as the plink, plink, plink of the dropping of said coins spells out EVIL in sinister Morse code. He strolls on with that same impish smile and ironic affability (considering how evil he is, I'm saying), faintly whistling a happy little tune that probably advertises his inherent evil, like, "Bad, bad, bad, bad boys, they make me feel so good." As he makes his way to a newly apparent alley behind the Crashdown, he is followed by an FBI guy in a suit. Evil Ed waits until the broadest of broad daylight strikes the scene of this preternatural crime, before advancing on his pursuer and informing him, "I need to send a message to Agent Pierce." Y'know, something he'll remember me by, one that really communicates my feelings for him. Try this: "Dear Agent Pierce. I am evil. Love, Evil Ed. P.S. Leave off the last "E" for 'Eh? Is none more evil?'" Evil Ed then signs his name across random FBI guy's heart, placing a hand on his suit and taking the man down. Now what kind of person would just go ahead and do that, I wonder? Oh, yes . . .
Back in Sandy Land, Max and Tesla engage in a rousing round of "Animal, Vegetable, or Shape-Shifting Alien" as Tesla answers Max's twenty questions: Nasedo is not really their father, he's been with Tesla ever since she came out of the pod, and the dreams are merely an indicator of what should happen, not a reality in and of themselves. Max inquires as to the mating habits of the earthbound non-human, and Tesla coyly informs him that "we have to do it the human way," not pausing quite long enough to consider the ramifications to my already delicate constitution when she tacks on the highly unnecessary tag, "I hope that doesn't disappoint you." Not to mention that said rhetoric inspires Max to experience a flash of himself and Tesla in a very, very, very naked visit to Sandy Land. And though I don't have any time off in the near future and the MBTV corporate Learjet is booked up at least through Memorial Day, Max and Tesla would prefer that I join them on their brief trip to Club Med Pecs Beach, which is what Sandy Land becomes when Max's please-God-make-them-stop-staring-back-at-me upper body writhes to and fro. Oh, come on, kids. My grandmother is flipping channels during this time of of night. A tiny bit of exactly what you're not doing would be perfectly in order.
Gee, djb, you sure are taking it pretty easy on this episode so far, aren't you? No kitschy nicknames, no angry diatribes, a pretty straightforward summary overall, no? Staler than a Lender's left out in the summer sun, that's what you are, aren't you? Losing your touch a bit, are you? Maybe you're a little tired, are you? ARE YOU? Well, then, you may be asking, why don't I just go right ahead with that hate mail I'd been meaning to shoot off any day now? Okay, here's why: it's because we're deep, deep, deep into this episode, and there has not been so much as a breath, a peep, or one simpering utterance from the blandly robotic scourge of the people we have to know and -- well, just to know, as Liz Parker. I'm not saying that the show without her is in any way a triumph of tone and action; it will never inspire an ironic following outlasting its cancellation by more than four minutes, it will never yield numerous spin-off prospects in any number of genres such as The Michael and Maria Comedy Hour or Cooking with Max's Mom, and it will probably not encourage a second life in print form which will be published in a hard-cover edition with gilded text and one of those attached satin bookmarks containing the words The Complete Works Of . . . in its title. Ever. But really. It's just plain ol' better when Liz is gone. And now she's back. And the tears. Oh, how they roll down. Anyway, cut to Max entering the Crashdown, barreling through the place, and finding Liz "She's a Small Wonder" Parker (and hence christened for the remainder of this anti-emoting hour as "Lizbot 5000") in the back room. Before he adequately offers her an opportunity to refuse, he grabs her arm and alerts her to some kind of wacky caper they need be taking off for posthaste. When a relatively clear-eyed, non-earnestly whispering Max gets her to agree, they leave together without even informing a typically woe-is-my-martyred-self Maria. Cut to Crashdown exterior, where the Alienmobile pulls around the corner carrying Tesla and driven by the dour, whispery Max we all know and . . . well, again, who we just know. He has a lot to think about. She's there for him. Awwww. Cut back to the alterna-Max, running out of the Crashdown and keeping Liz close by. They leap into a shiny brand-new convertible I'm forced to call the Pointlessmobile, as I can't imagine why a snazzy sports car could at all help maintain Evil Max's cover. I guess the alien species must make those shape-shifting tic tacs in automotive form, considering the fact that in past episodes Nasedo's car was an old jalopy owned by Tony Clifton. If he can change the car like he can change the body, why not just clone the Alienmobile for Max's doppelganger, creating as much familiarity as possible in his abduction plot and avoid setting off the initial Warning Module in the Lizbot 5000's Curiosity Chip?
Cut to what I'll forgo formal research on and just plain invent is 285 South, the only road in or out of town, as proven in a November sweeps episode, that other heady time I had one nice damn thing to say about this show. The Pointlessmobile rages down the deserted highway in yet another camera shot borrowed from the film Bizarre Camera Angle Goes to Monte Carlo. The Lizbot 5000 flips on her flirt-o-meter in encouraging Max to "tell [her] everything," and I half expect her to explicitly cite her dramatic antecedent and long-time acting coach, Short Circuit's Number 5, in begging for "Input! More input!" while Max's Ally Sheedy-esque straight man looks on in horror. Max (though I fear that "Evil Max" would be a yawn-worthy nickname considering its obviousness. What else about Max rings in an entirely different way this week that could differentiate him from his typically sedate drone? How about "Fun Max"?) smiles broadly and considers the numerous ways he will "disassemble Number 5, Stephanie," after pulling over to the side of the road for a spontaneous nookie interlude with the Lizbot 5000's French Kiss Simulator. But not all is well for the Lizbot 5000. For upon kissing Fun Max, she is clued into some potentially sinister activity on his part as she experiences a black-and-white lightning-filled flash borrowed from the beginning of every movie ever produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Man, speaking of carbon copies. The Lizbot 5000 dismounts mercifully soon after, fearful of Fun Max's intentions.
Cut back to the newly acquired "Behind the Crashdown" set, where Michael throws away large garbage bags filled with scraps of food I'm so completely sure he never took the time to prepare in the first place. Maria accosts him and asks about the baby, prompting Michael to inadequately respond that "this isn't about you or me or our stupid relationship." Oops. Maria puts her head down, though I remain unable to figure out if Michael's abjectly insulting comment has anything to do with this or if the sheer poundage of Maria's we-can-apply-our-own-lip-gloss-in-the-mirror-reflection-of-her-lip-gloss has finally just caused her head to slump over from the excess weight of its own hideous glaze.
Inside the Crashdown, Alex "Bosom Buddy" Whitman sweet-talks Isabel about her "situation," and Queen Bitch Goddess Isabel does just about everything in her molecularly manipulatable power to keep this scene from requiring Meredith Baxter-Birney and a pre-Friends Matt LeBlanc to solemnly discuss the scourge of teen pregnancy in the most Oxygen Network kind of way. She rants, "We're not dealing with some troubled teen pregnancy, we're talking about alien babies here." Alex tells her that he's there for her. Very special. Matt LeBlanc couldn't have said it better. Because he's not really that talented either.
Cut to the sinister pitch blackness of Porno's office, where Porno enters to discover Deputy Bad Guy perusing an open file cabinet. Porno kicks it shut and orders him to stay out of his "private" (read: unlocked and sitting practically in the middle of the hallway) files. Deputy Bad Guy apologizes with the defense that he was just color coding them, and Porno tells him to just do what he's told. His back story from Santa Fe apparently checks out, though an archival search of the last, like, two episodes confirms that these results aren't exactly foolproof. Deputy Bad Guy takes it down a One to Grow On notch in telling Porno that he "can prove to you . . ." before Porno tells him that he doesn't have to prove anything. This statement opens the floodgates for a male bonding ritual as unnatural as anything I've seen since the house was burning at the end of Affliction, with Deputy Bad Guy confiding that his own father was a sheriff, though he inspires a cringe from the entire planet of Problematic Relationships With Male Authority Figures (population: Earth) when he refers to his father as "daddy," telling Porno that "my daddy . . . he died in the line of duty." Deputy Bad Guy indicates a picture of Kyle on the bookshelf behind Porno, Kyle's one appearance in this episode in photo form still more animated than anything ever attempted by the limited range of the Lizbot 5000. Deputy Bad Guy asks, "He got any interest in the badge?" prompting Porno to glance down at the inauthentically cheesy star safety pinned to his chest before responding, "This thing? Do you know how many UPC symbols I saved from every box of Frosted Flakes I ever . . ." before getting hip to that fact that "the badge" is merely a metaphor for the general practice of law-keeping. Hideous yellowed-teeth grins abound, all of which emanate from Porno, and the scene ends moments before Porno offers to be Deputy Bad Guy's preacher, teacher, anything you have in mind. 'Cause Porno will be the one who loves him. Till the end. Of time.
Back at the Crashdown, Michael and Isabel sit for a moment before Max enters to inform all interested parties that they "can't get pregnant from a dream," and other privileged information we have learned from Tesla in scenes past. Maria exits the kitchen and Michael blandly attempts to apologize, apparently so painfully aware that the plot thread of their relationship has been left to die quietly and without further conversation that he just can't muster the energy to make it believable anymore. Max asks Maria if she has told Liz that the rabbit did not in fact die, and Maria responds that perhaps he should have told her when he picked her up an hour ago. No, he didn't pick her up an hour ago. Yes, he did pick her up an hour ago. As each character does his or her best with the method-acting physical challenge stage direction, "Furrow brow and look concerned or give yourself a migraine trying," we cut back to the Pointlessmobile and the Lizbot 5000 asking how long she'll be gone. Max pulls over to the side of the road again and approaches the trunk as Liz's cell phone rings. It's Max. And this is the moment that totally sold me on the fun to be had watching the evil of Max's ways. Fun Max pulls the body Evil Ed took down out of the trunk and dumps it on the side of the highway while the "white hot indifference" (tm Fixer) of the Lizbot 5000 processes this "more input" in the most blasé of ways. Fun Max takes the cell phone out of the Lizbot 5000's hand and hangs it up. The line goes dead. "Now you know." He's a black-hearted bad guy. She's a black hole of staunch non-reaction. DO SOMETHING, Lizbot! So the Lizbot 5000 peeks over the convertible door to more closely examine the body as her "more input" mechanism records the obvious reality that dead guy exhibiting "the encroaching stages of rigor mortis" is still acting rings around her. Slow camera fade on Mile Marker 67.
Out in front of the Crashdown, the Alien Three and Alex and Maria walk with great purpose while discussing possible methods of reclaiming the Lizbot 5000 for their own use. Max suggests going to Valenti, but they'll have to do so in a way that doesn't suggest the existence of two Maxes. Cut to Porno's office, where Maria and Alex are in the process of enacting the not-at-all-backfire-worthy plan of telling Porno that Max -- the real Max, the one Porno has been aching to peg the world's ills on for twenty weeks and counting (though not that much higher, thrillingly), has suddenly gone on an evil bender and has taken off with Liz in tow. Great idea, kids. Why not also tell him that that Max absconded with not only Liz, but as well a kilo of cocaine and contraband naked pictures of Porno's mom which he has cleverly stashed in the hollow and vestigial head of the Lizbot 5000. Porno is a shoe-in to provide an assistance necessary. No reason to suspect a thing is wrong with this plan.
Back in the Pointlessmobile, Fun Max is in full-tilt venal mode, somehow maintaining his varied acting chops even up against the chemistry of an increasingly unplugged Lizbot 5000. Fun Max puts in a call to the FBI, letting old Pierce know that he's "left him a little clue" near Mile Marker 67. The Lizbot 5000 wrestles with the "disassemble, dead" dichotomy of it all while Max's Steve Guttenberg-esque straight man looks on in horror. Wait, does anyone even remember this movie, or was I the only one who grew up with that built-in mechanism on my television that automatically ordered Short Circuit to play on HBO at the first sign of a rainy Sunday for at least three straight years? Probably. I'll stop. ["Oddly, our built-in mechanism kept ordering the eighties-vintage bent-gender-fest Just One Of The Guys, but I see what you're saying." -- Sars] Anyway, the Lizbot 5000 asks if Fun Max has to look like Max, and he responds with the cadence of every bad-ass Sean Connery has ever played in responding that he will remain as Max because he's "the bait" ("the bait? Losers are always whining about the bait. The winner goes home and fuck the prom queen.") that Pierce is looking for. And Pierce won't kill Liz, Fun Max says, because she can supply answers about what Max did to her at the Crashdown. He informs her that it is "time to leave another clue," pulling into a gas station and planting a silver hand print on the highly flammable tank. Okay, we get it now. He's evil. I'll write it on my hand for convenient reference if faced with the prospect of knowing about it any further. The Pointlessmobile pulls back onto the dusty highway as the gas station explodes. The Lizbot 5000 looks as terrified and overwhelmed as a kidnapped hostage who has just been told that she's going to have to wait a few more minutes for her pedicure to dry.
Back in town, Michael accosts Tesla under the cover of foreboding darkness and tells her that Nasedo has Liz. He garbles off a really long sentence distilling the entire episode thus far while dragging Tesla to the Alienmobile to join the Alien Three.
Back to Porno's office, where Deputy Bad Guy informs Porno that there has been a freak accident at a gas station, a young couple was spotted, and something about "a weird silver hand print." On the gas tank that exploded, you mean? That hand print? The one that's gone except for illogical let's-get-this-climax-on-the-road purposes? He must mean that hand print. Porno takes off, telling Deputy Bad Guy to stick around and wait "for the security pictures to come through." But just before he has a chance to head back inside, the Alienmobile comes racing around the corner. Deputy Bad Guy flags them down and threatens to issue a ticket, but Isabel peeks out from the back seat and employs some horribly-inconsistent-with-her-character "hee hee, I'm just a girl but I guess I can help" flirtiness to get them on their way. So Deputy Bad Guy lets them go, secure that a stern warning and a sinister glare will be enough to capture his long-elusive alien targets at some future juncture, even though they are all in one place RIGHT NOW and there's no one else around watching. So then why . . . oh, never mind. Cut to the fax machine, conveniently providing the so-called "security pictures." Man, even the fax machine in this town is filled with 8x10 glossy photo-finish pages of Jason Behr. The home crowd just loves him. Anyway, the latest pictures from Jason's Teen Magazine shoot come on through, and Deputy Bad Guy stares transfixed with a self-satisfied smirk: "Gotcha! Oops, except that I didn't."
Fade in on the projection of every fear you've ever experienced since your first conscious human memory of getting stuck at the top of a Ferris wheel by yourself or accosted by a carny at the dunking booth who tells you that you'll be calling him "Daddy" from now on. That's right, the carnival, the default locale for all of the collective kid fears you thought were buried deep in your damaged psyche, thus inspiring your lifelong pledge to forgo a box spring and bed frame and just sleep with your mattress directly on the floor so you can be as damned sure as possible that none of the lurking characters out of your cotton-candy-and-fried-dough-and-vomit fever dreams are, at any point ever, to be found lurking underneath it. As further befitting his new moniker, Fun Max has chosen this destination, this incredibly complex set-up with games, rides, and a hall of mirrors boasting a personnel battalion larger than the collective population of entire desert southwest. Perfect place for it. Fun Max and the Lizbot 5000 play a "find the pea" game which Nasedo unleashes the full range of his untold alien powers by actually winning. Ooooooh. Look who put the "super" back in supernatural, eh, Fun Max? The Lizbot 5000 performs a full-scale archival search of her memory chip and comes up with the hopeful sentence, "Don't you think Max is already on his way to find me?" Why would he do that, Fun Max inquires, just as a transitional vehicle for the Lizbot 5000 to accuse Fun Max of not caring about anyone, whereas the real Max cares for her, not to mention puppies and candy and lollipops. At which point Nasedo does display a bit of depth beneath the cardboard veneer of eeeevil, protesting, "All I care about is them." Awwwww. Cue the Olsen Twins making-up-from-their-fight-about-Mary-Kate-stealing-Ashley's-lip-smackers (and giving the whole freaking truckload to Maria, I think) music. Dude, I don't care if he puts my eyes out with a flaming hand print at the end of the carnival, I'd still rather hang out with Fun Max than listen to normal Max, who would probably just make dewy-eyed promises to not kill me, beg for such merciful treatment though I repeatedly might.
Cut to the blaring lights of Porno's truck pulling up to the previously examined Mile Marker 67. Suited men, protective of their "finders-keepers" approach to dead-guy-caretaking, tell Porno to step off. Cut to the Alienmobile to find The Alien Three listening to Tesla's destiny-filled proclamation that the fan-fic she brought to town and passed off as a cosmic decree just has to come true. Max snipes that this isn't about them, and that they have to think about Liz now. Telsa doesn't so much like to think about Liz. Back to Mile Marker 67 we go, as they Alienmobile fast approaches "a special unit" who she's "been running from all [her] life." Who? Who cares! Damn the nonsensical lack of narrative exposition! Full speed ahead to destination end of episode!
Back to the carnival, Fun Max tells Liz that Boring Max and Tesla are supposed to be together. Cut to the result of what I can only imagine are several missing minutes of footage on my videotape, as the final unlikely progression advances into action by a large touristy woman sporting the warning label "Property of Boca Raton, Florida. Do not feed anything but the Early Bird Special" loudly vocalizes, "I don't believe in that hokey -- there's no such thing as aliens." I'm sorry, Fun Max, is this some friend of yours? He stares directly at her and announces, "Time for the final clue," before throwing her into some kind of exploding terror as the Zapf Bat Signal rises against the desert sky. The Lizbot 5000 uses this moment to skulk away from Fun Max and hightail it right out of there. Porno looks up to see the Zapf from Mile Marker 67, as do the folks in the Alienmobile. Tesla informs the rest of the Alienmobile that Nasedo is leading Pierce right to him. Cut back to the carnival, where History's Most Egregious Waste of Television Air Space sees the Lizbot 5000 escaping from the evil claws of Fun Max by riding in large concentric circles on the carousel at speeds exceeding three whole miles per hour. He'll never find you. Oh, wait, he found you. And he found the time to purchase a ticket for said carousel, climb on, mount the entire horse, and lean forward with a "this was amusing, and now I just pity you" kind of way. She leaps off, running into the Hall of Mirrors as Porno arrives on the scene to spot Fun Max following the Lizbot 5000 into the maze. Boring Max follows. Faux Orson Welles "complexity of the human condition" mirror reflections ensue, sans the assumed metaphor and groundbreaking cinematography that made this a potentially Welles-like moment to begin with. Apologies for the "college film class approach to pretending I know anything." I owe everyone a quarter. Calamity ensues as Max finds the Lizbot 5000 and they take off. Porno watches in horror as FBI Henchmen capture one Max as the other grabs Liz and escapes the Hall of Mirrors. They run into yet another abandoned set, and Liz simulates a "relieved" type of emotion until she kisses him and reveals the Bruckheimer vision once more. The Lizbot 5000 has learned a thing or two, stepping away and accusing Max, "You're not Max," at which point Fun Max transforms, without the use of cosmic tic tacs, or a breath-freshening, shape-shifting confection of any kind, into a decidedly unfun clown intended to terrify into forgetting all of the non-sequiturs needed to arrive here in the first place and succeeding, might I say, quite marvelously. As I have mentioned, carnivals are not fun.
The Lizbot 5000 runs back outside, panting and palpitating, and directly into Michael and Isabel. She informs them, "They have Max," and then begins to cry. Michael swarthily scoops her into his arms in a gesture of comfort probably to make her stop crying before she shorts something out in her mechanized software, causing her head to explode from the ensuing electrical mayhem. Let her cry, Michael. LET. HER. CRY. Damn you. Damn you all.
Back on the set of Bizarre Camera Angles For Dummies: The Movie, Max is in a plain white room and finally under the custody of an organized militia of alien hunters and gatherers that would probably have gone by the name "The Initiative" if it hadn't been trademarked by the Tuesday night WB folk six months ago. A voice behind the wall states, "They want to know when you would like to start the tests," and a reclothed Deputy Bad Guy responds, "Tomorrow morning," unless of course the folks from the Legal Department of The Matrix show up and sue us again for our repeated infraction of "Impersonal Black Suit Infringement." Deputy Bad Guy bids the other man to "let him get some sleep," to which the other man responds, "Yes sir, Agent Pierce." No way! That was Pierce? Because I totally didn't hear that coming from Sacramento, where special-cameo-character "Shocking Twist Ending" rented a car, turned the key, gunned the engine loudly enough for the Northern Hemisphere to hear, and drove, with a broken muffler, on gravel roads, with the radio blasting, at an excessively slow speed toward Roswell over the course of the last painstaking hour.