An excess of high-drama running and panting accompany the thrilling visual cue of total darkness as two silhouetted figures run frantically into the cheesy glow of the Granolith room. A screen caption, written in Microsoft Word font MT Plot Sans Point, informs us that we have found ourselves in "2014 A.D." and that this is "minutes before the fall." The Granolith's planetarium glow shines on Max and Liz in The Future According to the WB's Costuming Department, a most terrifying place indeed for those of us with provincial fashion values who believe that skintight leather sports jackets (Liz) are, like, so Fashion Week 2008 and that sleeveless leather vests worn open (Max, natch) are only appropriate if the wearer is a paid entertainer accessorizing with dollar bills sticking out of a matching leather g-string at a private all-male get-together during a particularly randy weekend on Fire Island. So. Much. Leather. And oh, God, the hair. On both of them. "Frank TJ" Max"y" can't pull off what even Tom Cruise couldn't pull off in Magnolia, and Liz's reedy bob and pancake makeup cement conclusively Andy Warhol's previously unproven theory that "in the future, everyone will be Asian for fifteen minutes." Or something like that.
They stop on the far side of the room and embrace, Future Max hugging Future Liz with only the smallest percent of his strength, lest he cause her to shatter into the millions of electrical components that constitute the Lizbot's central frame. Good thing this whole "saving his species" crusade hasn't in any way inhibited Max's regimented workout routine he's established over the last decade plus, it seems. He tells her, "I don't want to leave you," but Future Liz insists, "No, Max, you have to!" Future Max plot develops, "If I'm successful, if I can do this, we won't exist. Not as we do now." Future Liz counters that if he doesn't engage in the ambiguous "this" I've been hearing so much about, "We're gonna die. Everyone will." Future Max frets that if "this" works, he'll never see her again, and they embrace again as Future Max pours on the drama, "Thank you." For what? "For every kiss, every smile." Awww. Quite the relief to know that the future won't be without the usual amount of shoddily imagined, ineptly delivered dialogue. At least there's no shortage of that. Even when the world is on the brink of caving in on itself. This episode is brought to you by Hallmark, the official greeting card of the apocalypse.
The Dick Wolf Rip-Off Camera Effect of the Fuuuuuture (or maybe it's Dick Wolf himself behind the camera, if his career took a D.C.-esque qualitative turn in the past fourteen years and he ended up working full-time for the WB) shakes the Granolith soundstage, sending the two plunging to the floor. Max extracts a crystal from his pocket as Superman's legal advisors shrug their shoulders and resume work on the intellectual property theft case which had lain mercifully dormant since the scourge of last season's "Destiny." He places said crystal into the base of the Granolith, and the black cone begins to spin around with the intergalactic special effects acumen of the paper spaceship lowering haltingly behind Eugene Levy just before he breaks into a rousing chorus of "Nothing Ever Happens on Mars" in Waiting for Guffman. Haven't seen it? Rent it. Much funnier than this, even. And on purpose, too! Liz is thrown harshly back down to the floor (gratuitous Liz abuse! I knew the future wasn't all leather-clad badness), and she looks up to find Max suspended in the spinning Granolith cone. They put out their hands and their fingers almost touch. E.T. phone…your lawyers. As the cone spins at eighty-eight miles-per-hour or whatever, Max disappears. Lizbot falls to her knees woodenly, displaying that even The Tightest Leather Pants in Show Business somehow manage to have more flexibility than she does. If they wanted to capture the most cliché aspects of the future possible, why not just put them both in silver tin foil suits with the collars turned up and have them speak in really monotone voices and say things like, "We. Are. Robots. From. The. Future." At least they're not doing that. Well, except for the monotone voices part.
In the streamlined, leatherific future, capitalization will be strictly taboo. This is what I can ascertain from the newest MT Plot Sans Point screen caption, which tells us we are now to be found in "hondo, new mexico" during a novel time we haven't seen on this show in quite a spell, mysteriously known as "the present." Maria pilots the Jetta while Liz sits shotgun looking pensive and Alex sits in the back product-placing Doritos. The Harsh Rain of Lovelorn Pathos pounds against the windshield, as Liz gazes thoughtfully and muses, "I'm so confused." If only she had a diary, a journal of some kind, in which she could write down her deepest thoughts and…oh, never mind. The back seat pipes up with a similar sentiment, "I'm so depressed." Maria deems them both "wimps," as Liz explains, "Max keeps coming to my window and telling me he wants to be with me again. But I know it can never work out." Sadcakes from L'il Hanks about his non-sexual non-relationship with Isabel, and Maria pipes in that, when it comes to Michael, "I have so landed him for once and for all. I think." It's raining too hard to make out the looming foreshadow that commences in throwing itself against the ground in front of the car, but trust me, it's there.
Because I always just hop in the car for really long drives in the pouring rain, it makes perfect segue sense when Liz turns the topic to inquire, "Where are we going, anyway?" Maria responds, "To a place where all of our questions will finally be answered." The Jetta pulls up to a blue and red neon sign showing a glowing palm in the center of it and reading, "Madame Vivian's" and then below, "Know your future." A fortuneteller. Hello, sour grapes about the Alien Three having their fortunes told and having the cover of Teen tell the world all about it. As they get out of the car, Maria continues, "She'll tell us where our future lies with our hybrid freaks," which is actually kind of funny. But she just has to push it, tacking on, "She's a prophet. My mom lives her whole life based on her advice." Well, then, she certainly seems to have done wonders for DeLucawitz, advising her to run screaming from the Roswell lot and the dangerously superfluous character she played last season and to never. Look. Back. And so they enter, to this place where all of their questions "will finally be answered." Like, for instance, why it magically stopped raining the moment the car pulled up in front of the sign. And, while they're asking, perhaps they could clarify how the deluged car has not so much as a drop of water anywhere on it. Oh. Oh! And while we're talking, perhaps they could ask this magical oracle if the person responsible for these gaffes will be returning from his or her extended soundstage exile, or if maybe the SAG scuffle has already commenced with a sympathy strike staged by the Continuity Editors Guild.
Kathy Najimy throws her hands up in frustration and yells, "C'mon, man! What, does my agent think Veronica's Closet is still on?" as we meet the plump and quirky Madame Vivian. She sits across a table from Alex, flipping over tarot cards amidst lit candles and other aesthetic touches of a soothsaying nature. She tells him that he will never have "a carnal relationship" with Isabel. Cut to her meeting, in which she tells Maria that her relationship "will not endure" for more than "forty-eight hours," prompting Maria to pause for a moment and reel in Good Line #2, "Okay, are they a good forty-eight hours?" And finally to Liz, whom Madame Vivian tells, "I've never seen the cards fall like this before." Like Liz is supposed to fashion her entire existence based on the teachings of a non-science found most often on the last page of Vogue or syndicated into horoscope blurbs somewhere in a newspaper on a page marked, "Fun," just below "Beetle Bailey" and further down a bit from the Wordy Gurdy. Why is everyone taking this so seriously? Kathy Not-jimy continues, "This boy is different. He's very important, this boy. A leader." Liz tells the Madame that her boy has a destiny that doesn't involve her, but Kathy responds that "he chooses love. He chooses you." Cut inexplicably to Liz in her room, grabbing a white blanket off of her bed, wrapping it around her head like a veil, and looking in the mirror reciting, "I, Liz Parker, take Max Evans to be my…" But just at this moment, a bright white flash turns the exterior of the house blazing white (lucky her. I wish I had the impeccable timing that allowed me to get struck by lightning during a scene like this), and a black-leather-clad figure (see where this is goink?) figure appears on the balcony. Future Max leans in the window: "Liz." Liz looks concerned. He's going to need a haircut before the wedding.
Opening credits: I'm sorry, but Katherine Hei…who? Haven't seen her around.
Hairy Max from the Future, who clearly needed each and every moment of those ensuing fourteen years to grow the first pubescent layer of facial hair he sports here, advances on Liz in her room. She cowers in fear and actually speaks the line, "What do you expect me to believe, that the Granolith is some sort of time machine?" Wow, that was some quick deductive reasoning right there, Mr. Wizard. Hairy Max from the Future begins to explain that that's exactly what it is, and Liz accuses HMF of being "a shape-shifter, you are, like, some other kind of alien with the ability to look like Max with that beard and those gray hairs." Max nearly wacky-hijinks himself back to 2014 with the ill-placed, ill-timed, "Do you really see gray?" Moreover, can you really refer to that pasted on Chia-Face of a thing as "a beard" by its technical definition? I can't. HMF pretty much pins her against the wall insisting, "It's me," and she screams for no disassembling, Stephanie, and also, "Please let go of me." He keeps his grip firm and insists, "If I were a shape-shifter, there is no way I could tell the future." There's not? How do we know that? Isn't that just the thing a shape-shifter would say? And besides, didn't that already happen on this show? Based on that strained piece of logic, he continues: "In approximately ten seconds, I will show up outside your window and begin singing to you, accompanied by a mariachi band." Liz notes that "Max would never do anything that cheesy" as HMF counts down, "Three, two, one." Nothing. Well? "I said approximately." Oh, Hairy Max from the Future. Never, ever be funny again. And just then, the strumming of the preordained guitars swell up outside (hey, way to spoil the surprise, Killjoy2K), and Liz walks out on her balcony to find four men in sombreros strumming guitars. I instinctively avert my eyes from the television, as I have so often done from the real mariachi bands that turn up at my table pandering for pesos the moment I'm poised to take that first bite of my burrito. Which, as it turns out, is a defensive move which may have both saved my life and allowed this recap to continue unfettered, seeing as I didn't have the misfortune of turning to stone the moment Max "While I'm in the southwest, I could go for some Pecs-Mex" Evans removes his own sombrero and smiles ghoulishly. And then, the singing. My closed-captioning offers only that Max is "singing in Spanish," which leaves me without the benefit of plugging the words into the Alta Vista translator and finding out what he could possibly be singing. And so I am forced to imagine. Julie, you can imagine that this is Act II of the forgotten, unfinished musical Extra from so long ago. Thanks:
Oh Lizbot, dear Lizbot, I'll strum and I'll sing
This filler is needed, this time-passing thing
With my puppy-dog stare and my Halloween smile
To Djb's throat there is surging much bile
Ay-yi-yi-yi-yi etc.
I'll be with you always, I'm Hansel to your Gretel
Though it's clear from your acting, that you're made out of metal
With a heart that is full and with trembling lip
I'll seek to set off your "I Love You, Max" chip
Blah blah blah ay-yi-yi-yi-yi-cakes
So Lizbot, dear Lizbot, though it's writ from above
There's no disassemble when it comes to our love
And though I sing at awkward moments, as if on Bette or Kathie Lee
In the future, won't you wear much black leather with me?
In the future, won't you wear much black leather with me?
Gosh, that song is purdy. I can't believe they're letting Jason Behr sing. And smile. And, um, giggle? Shudder.
During this song, HMF walks out on the balcony where he remains unseen to Default Max down below. Default Max throws a bouquet of red roses up toward the balcony, and HMF narrates, "As I threw the flowers up to you, I remembered you preferred white roses." In midair, the roses turn to white. But as Default Max continues singing, HMF brings things down a bit with the reality that "fourteen years from now, we're taken over by our enemies." Who? "Everyone. Earth. I need you to help me keep that from happening. We need to change the future." No one can know he's here, he continues, "especially me." But as Liz tries to coyly request some more information, HMF warns Liz that her father is coming, and John Doe (my glasses were broken during that ER, Wing, but that definitely was him in the premiere) reprises his role of Slackjaw, climbing onto the balcony and asking her what in the name of holy heck is going on out there. He approaches the balcony, "It's eleven o'clock, tomorrow is a school day." But then he spots Max and the Mariachis strolling away from the house and Slackjaw's heart just melts: "Aw, jeez." HFM slides behind them and out the window. I'm going to have that gay song stuck in my head for the rest of my natural-born existence, I am. Ay-yi-yi-yi-yi, indeed.
Crashdown kitchen. Maria accosts Michael with the insistence that they "talk" about their "relationship." Michael is incredulous. As am I. She tells him what the psychic told her, requesting, "So could you just try not to be a bonehead?" But just then, Courtney enters the kitchen, asking, "Hey, Mikey G., you got my order yet?" She slaps his ass in close-up (that shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly, it did) and calls him a "good boy." Courtney leaves, and Maria asks just what the holy hell is going on with this girl. Michael lobs, "I don't trust her." Maria confirms that she doesn't, either, and Michael continues on, "I mean, there's something going on with her. I mean, another new face in town, arrived this summer after the signal went out, her picture was in Whittaker's office, constantly hanging around me always giving me these looks." I adlib the response that Jake Ryan's friend tosses out in that early scene at the gym in Sixteen Candles when Jake refers to Sam and the lingering looks she's been tossing out and the friend posits: "Maybe she's retarded." And maybe she is. Maybe she is. Why else would New Girl want so badly to get her greasy mitts on the rapidly expanded backside of Puffy Combs over there? Maria furthers Courtney's role in the conspiracy as the producers make a note that each time the abundant Mr. Fehr really adds another "I mean" before one of his written lines, it cuts into the mood-lightening Spanish musical numbers this show has come to rely on as its cornerstone. Maria fills in some of the blanks: "Well, I tell you what I know, Mikey G. The slut wants in your pants." She sticks out a tongue and does a little panting of her own. Michael observes that "that might work" and then turns around to find a food product of some kind on the stove has begun to burn. I guess that mysterious five-month cooking sabbatical has really taken the edge off Mr. Iron Chef, huh?
Back in Liz's room, HMF is fiddling with Liz's private trinkets (ew, not like that) when Liz enters and asks him to stop. She has questions. First: "If you need Max to do something different, why don't you go to Max directly." And I know it's poor conversation etiquette to answer a question with another question, but it seems to me that "If you're so unsure about the answer to that question, shouldn't you just be renting Back to the Future II on your own time, dear?" would really be the only applicable retort here, seeing as the rest of Earth already knows the answer because the rest of Earth has already seen the film. HMF tells us that "if a person encounters himself in another time period, there can be a reaction." And then he tosses out further vagaries such as "it's complicated" and "I don't understand it myself" and "it has something to do with quantum mechanics" all of which mean that the writers didn't really spend any time considering the answers to these questions but needed to get them out there just so they can claim they tried. HMF haltingly starts, "Sarena said…" before stopping dramatically and promising, "She's gonna be a friend of yours one day." Oh, my. One can only hope that this show will be around for the requisite fourteen seasons to see the sparkling "quantum mechanics expert" character be introduced into this already riveting fray. I'll set my VCR. Or rather, my VCR of the Future. Whatever. Either way, HMF tells Lizbot that "the few days are critical to the history of this planet." Over the few days they become inseparable, he continues, and nothing comes between them again until…Liz chimes in, "The end of the world?" The closer they grew, he says, the worse things got with Tess, who left Roswell. But to -- no, really -- save the world, all four of them had to remain together as a unit. HMF needs Liz to get Default Max and Liz as untogether as possible. "I need you to help me fall out of love with you." Eh? Syntax police, arrest that man.
Okay, gross. A motorcycle carrying two helmeted folk pulls up in front of a house we've never seen before. The passenger steps off and they both remove their helmets revealing Michael and Courtney, who…wait, he's got a motorcycle now? Does he keep it in the garage of The House Government Subsidy Built, or does he have his gloved servant fetch it from the underground lot every morning with his cappuccino and his Wall Street Journal? Courtney thanks him for the ride, complimenting, "You handle your machine really well." Cloaked sexual allusion? I'm just guessing. And then, more: "I guess it's time for another night curled up in my sheets, fondling my remote control. Unless you want to be my remote control." Cloaked, my ass. Michael tries to beg off, but Courtney says goodbye with an if-you-like-this-you'll-just-love-the-coitus-part, and Michael offers a "what the hell" and follows her inside. Say, what's the opposite of "subtle?"
Porno Palace. Kyle enters his room to find Tess appropriating the hell out of his personal space, tearing down a poster of a generic-looking football player against an orange background that looks like a life-size addition to the "Best of Wheaties Boxes" poster collection I've been hearing so much about. In its place she hand-spray-paints the letter "Z" in pink for a reason I'm still trying to ascertain. Kyle pulls off a good one with the cross-referencing, "I thought I told you I didn't want you doing that Bewitched crap in the house." She tries to throw him out of her room (Kyle: "It's MY room."), and is soon mid-bitching, "I'm sick of this place." Okay. "And I'm sick of Max Evans." Okaaaay? She rants that she can't just sit around and wait for him to come to terms with his destiny, and when she sits sulkily on the bed, Kyle suddenly gives this line a try: "You look really great when you're pissed." And it works, because this is either a cheesy small-town pick-up bar or a television show, the only two places lines like that kill, just kill. He continues that he feels "all this energy" coming from her, and then bends over to conquer with some material I might actually give a try someday, provided I ever leave my house again: "In order to trim the lamp of wisdom, we must attend to our bodily needs." Bingo. She stands and goes nose to nose with him, sexing the place to levels unseen since Porno himself came home with the Jason Behr cover of Tiger Beat tucked securely in his holster: "Let me tell you something, Buddha Boy. I've got a lamp that needs some serious trimming." Leaning in for the…ding-dong. Doorbell. It's Liz. Kyle opens the door and nails down his victory for Best Line of the Week (to say nothing of the intense competition brought about by the likes of "Max, what should I do" and even "What should I do, Max?" with the snarktastic, "You here for a reason, or did you just rush right over because you sensed I might be experiencing some actual joy." Heh. Liz has come to talk to Tess. Some non-singing sexual tension (mercifully) and another smirking lamp-trimming reference later, Kyle is gone and Liz effortlessly sucks the energy out of a developing scene: "I want to help you with Max." Tess is skeptical: "You hate me. You all do." Hey, sister, look directly into the camera when you say that, would you? But Liz counters that she's not doing this for her, "I'm doing this for Max." Tess snipes that she doesn't care what Max does, adding, "If Max doesn't come around, he can go to Hell for all I care." She sits, dejected. Because she doesn't feel human emotions, as she's repeatedly said. Except for now. Liz tells her "how hard it was to come here," adding, "I know that it's hard for you to admit that you need help. But you do. It's up to you." Hey, that kind of rhymes. Uh-oh. Was that a song cue? Run!
Courtney seems to be doing pretty well for herself as well, living in The House that Urban Outfitters Built, also alone, and also apparently still in high school. She and Michael must have the same unreal estate agent. We pan over to them sitting on two small cushions in the middle of the living room, Courtney massaging the area of Michael's lower back in a way that totally says, "Couldn't they genetically encode the love handles gene as recessive time?" You can rub those as hard as you want to, dear. They're not going to go away. He takes to grilling her about her past in Roswell, telling him she's lived there for "a few months. I've always been into the whole alien thing, I guess. But I have to admit, the sightseeing has exceeded my expectations." This is sightseeing? No "Mushroom Headed Puffy Boy" museum in any of the other picturesque towns you've encountered along the way, Courtney? She comes around front and onto the floor, kisses him, and asks, "What now?" He suggests, "shower." She digs that idea, thinking that this activity will take place together, but he tells her to partake of it alone because "a clean girl is a sexy girl." She assents, adding hopefully, "Watersports." Since this is a family site, I'm going to skip my list of reasons that showering doesn't qualify as a watersport and just move on. More: "I like it. I'll play any game you want me to, Mikey G." Is Planet Skins a leper colony, or what? Because there is no rational reason on this planet I can think of for him being the icon of attractiveness to anyone ever. I'm just sayin'. She strips to her bra and shuts the bathroom door.
Hey, honk if you've seen this too-convenient plot development before.
*Honk*
Yeah, I thought so. Me too, as it turns out. Michael waits until he is alone before rustling through unlocked drawers and cabinets revealing helpful information about the case he has this week endeavored to figure out. He opens up a bureau in the middle of the living room to discover hundreds of bottles of a body lotion called "UltraSilk," adopts a look of "Body cream is pretty kinky, but it ain't a watersport, either" and holds for a moment until the dropped "knock on door" cue finally rears its tardy head. Michael rises. It's Maria. What are you doing here? No, what are you doing here? Maria tells him quickly that she found a picture of the Alien Three in Courtney's locker (?), and that Michael's face was circled. Maria warns him not to lay a hand on her, and as he promises that no one is laying a hand on anyone, Courtney calls out from the bathroom, "By the way, you are an amazing kisser." The whispering lasts only so long, as Courtney walks into the room clad in only a towel (I guess her shower uses the same water that dried Maria's car) to investigate the voices. Maria has arrived equipped with a cover story, carrying a hair clip of Courtney's and throwing it toward the ground informing, "You left that at work." The Magic Hair Clip that Could lands securely in Courtney's hand all the way across the room, and Maria leaves in a huff after telling Michael, "Remember how I said we had forty-eight hours? That was way too optimistic. We're done." Maria leaves. Michael waits exactly no seconds before grousing, "I'm gonna go." Maria and Michael stand briefly on the side of the soundstage labeled "Maria/Michael/Courtney/Porno/ House" until the director yells "Cut," never considering that they would be thisclose to each other on the street if this scene had occurred in real life.
At the mysterious al fresco dining section of the Crashdown that only appears when the script calls for someone to be spied on from a conveniently appearing building across the street (sometimes the UFO Center, tonight the Congressgal's office), Tess sits and reads. Behind venetian blinds, HMF and Liz stare out the window, as HMF observes, "Good, you got her to wear that top." Cleavagecakes, and then Default Max sits down at the table and the two begin to talk. Back at Dead Whittaker's office, HMF sighs that his memories of Liz have all come flooding back now that he's seeing her again at seventeen. Before leather roamed the Earth. When vibrant colors besides "black" and "orb glow" still abounded. Liz asks if they ever got married, and after somberly telling her that he can't give her any information, HMF provides the following vast amounts of information: they eloped and got married in Vegas (chocolate-covered, creamy nougat-filled shout-out) at nineteen (Liz shouts, "That is so younk! That is too younk!" as is her wont), that Maria, Michael, Isabel, and Alex met them in Phoenix and that they danced the night away all together. Awwww. But ha ha, that day won't exist if this wacky caper should come to pass, and HMF will cease to exist as well. Outside, spied-on Default Max apologizes to Tess for the way he's treated her, but adds, "I don't think things will change" regarding he and Liz. Tess alludes to the fact that she's talked to Liz about it, and just at this moment, Max looks toward Dead Whittaker's office and spies the two figures spying on him. He runs into the office and accuses Liz of being behind the set-up. She replies, "You must hate me right now," but on this cue Max kisses her something hardcore and the familiar flash of this show's first episode images that I'll just refer to as "The Pilot Light" flashes once more in their minds. Liz tells him, "We have to stop this," but Max tries to convince her to go to a concert with him that weekend. She refuses. He leaves. HMF stands in the shadows, musing that he thought he was built back then. Ah, the sweet ignorance of youth.
Cut to Liz's house, where HMF (so what did they talk about on the way back to the house, I wonder? Who won the World Series for the last fourteen years?) complains, "You're only making me love you more." Liz whines that she said no to the concert, and HMF tells her that she said no the last time, too. And that, on that night, "I came to your room. That's the night that things between us were cemented." Turns out, that was the night they had the loving. Liz doesn't believe him. "Making love to you is the farthest thing from my mind. I don't even have protection." Max did. Liz stutters "I I I I I" so many times I think she's lapsing back into the Salsa sing-along of Max's halcyon days of this episode's first segment, telling him that she's not "making love" with anyone until she's good and ready. HMF tells her that she's not letting herself change and that she has to "do something" before "it's too late." Pathoscakes, and we're out.
Back in the kitchen of the Crashdown, Maria tearfully tears up photos of Michael. L'il Hanks interrupts and won't leave until she tells him why she's upset. She does. Courtney was in a towel. Alex offers the requisite good guy hug and gently strokes her hair. See? That's why Alex is denied the good, good Isabel lovin' evermore. Way too nice. Oh, that, and also because I don't think there is anyone on this show who goes by that name anymore.
Ack! Bolt down your valuables! The force, she is too great! Max does a little topless dance I like to call me the Nipple Ripple on a pull-up bar that has magically appeared in his room. A knock on the window reveals Liz, who asks him to put on a shirt (shout-out) and launches into a prepared speech, demanding of Max three times, "just don't say anythink." As is her wont. Hee hee. "Wont." Anyway, the launching part. Here it is: "I just reread Romeo and Juliet, and the first thing that I realized is that isn't even the title. It's called The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. They die. She's this young girl. She's younger than me and she dies." First of all, why is Liz poaching a reading list from a seventh-grade English classroom? She should at least be on The Tempest by now or at worst Hamlet, but Romeo and Juliet? Good thing (um, "good think") she didn't pick up Huck Finn (er, I mean The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, since she's beink all Nitpicky McGillicuddy) before she prepared this oratory, or we'd be hearing a tale about the dangers of clamming off the back of a riverboat in the boglands of Louisiana. Or some such thing. I haven't read that book in a really long time. Anyway, she thinks they should break up because "when your life -- and when other people's lives -- are at risk, there's nothing romantic about it." She doesn't want to be in love with him anymore. She wants to see her twenty-first birthday. "I may love you, but I don't want to die for you." Brrrr. Good thing he put that shirt on after all. 'Cause it sure did just get cold in here.
Default Max sits at the counter of the empty Crashdown, whining to Maria, "I want to hear what you have to say." Maria tells him to "give Liz up. Leave her alone. All of this is leading nowhere. None of us belong with any of you." Ouch. Max puts on a fleece-lined parka. He doesn't. But he should. Because it's only getting colder
Back on Liz's roof, Liz fake cries and fake cries. HMF attempts to reach for a tissue, but his hand slides right through the box and he observes, "This must be it." Well, at least now they're ripping off the good Back to the Future movie, for cryin' out loud. But then, it's also ripping off Ghost, and no one can be too proud of that. HMF observes, "What you did must have worked. I'm leaving." She asks if he's going back to where he came from, but if she'd been paying any attention to one moment of this episode, she'd know that "there's nowhere to go back to." Back at the Crashdown, Max tells Maria, "I love her," and Maria proclaims him "hopeless." And so on the roof, the hand hits the tissue box and stays there, and HMF gets all dreary again: "It didn't work. We have to try something else." Kill her. KILL HER! Liz weeps that he has to come up with another plan. "Go to someone else." HMF responds that Michael and Isabel are dead in the future, and that she has to do something else because "all of our lives depend on it."
Crashdown. Maria runs into Liz in the kitchen, and Liz expresses sympathy about Michael and Courtney. Maria helps us reach the end of this episode all the more quickly: "When I caught them together, that look of guilt on his face. I've never felt so awful, Liz. I mean, I guess it's a good thing, you know, 'cause when I saw that, I realized there was nothing he could do to make up for it. I know it's over." Cut to Liz at Kyle's front door, telling him she needs a favor. The final shot of this episode slips into my consciousness before it's even aired for the first time. Because when a plan this contrived is set in motion so late in the going, you don't need to travel through time to foretell the predictable future. I'm just sayin'.
Kyle and Liz shout pleasantries to each other from Liz's bedroom to the bathroom, where each is disrobing. HMF doesn't think the plan will work, and as Liz removes her shirt and dons a towel, Kyle asks from the room, "Am I taking my boxers off?" Heh. Liz enters the room in his towel, and Kyle takes this spiritual opportunity to let her know that he meditated on this situation, and that he's "at peace with it." More Liz stuttercakes, and Kyle confirms that he understands the rules: no intercourse, no tongue. Sounds like most of my dates in high school as well, sans the wacky caper. So I'm totally on the same page as this plot line. Sans the wacky caper, of course.
The House that Government Subsidy Built. Michael product-places a bowl of Rice Chex that actually make me want to run to the corner and buy me a box of Rice Chex. Go, WB's advertising dollar! Michael shovels the cereal down something hardcore. Hope that's skim milk, Tubs McGraw. Knock on the door. Michael stands up from the football game he's watching and opens the front door without checking who's there, because scary FBI hunters and other unknown sources of evil don't scare Michael too badly when the script specifies it's going to be L'il Hanks at the door. Michael opens the door. It's L'il Hanks. Just like the script says. Speak, small man! "Do you have any idea what you've done to Maria?" Michael tries to claim that this is all a big misunderstanding, but Alex sputters on, "I don't care that you've got thirty pounds on me or that you can kill me with some twisted alien power, I will not let you treat her like that." Dude, thirty? If by "thirty" you mean "fifty." And they ain't fifty fightin' pounds, either. Michael again tries to reassert the whole "misunderstanding" thing, but just at the moment Courtney walks through the door and Alex clocks Michael right in the face. Michael looks up from the floor and asks, "You realize you just risked your life?" Alex does. "You're a really good friend, man." L'il Hanks leaves, and when the adults are alone, they embrace passionately and in a big hurry, Michael grabbing at Courtney's shirt and pushing it skywards. He grabs her back and pulls off a chunk. "You're a Skin?" Yup. And not a very careful one either, I reckon. She bolts for the door and he holds out a hand. The television explodes. She gets away. I guess he'll just have to go out and get the big-screen model now.
Back in the Bed of Chastity, Kyle observes, "We have something in common. We're the only two people I know of who have died and were brought back by an alien." Liz asks Kyle if he saw "things, flashes, images" when Max healed him, and Kyle says that he has not, but, "since he healed me, I keep getting these flashes of Max Evans naked." Liz laughs. Kyle observes, "it feels good to make you laugh again," which is something no teenager has ever said, at any point, ever. HMF watches as Default Max approaches Liz's window and spots them. Eye contact. Drama. Max walks away.
Cut to Max, sitting alone on the park bench that was the site of so much mama bonding at the end of "The Toy House." Tess approaches and sits down, as we cut back to HMF and Liz on the roof once more, HMF telling her "it's for the best" and "maybe it would be better for you to be with a human." Liz confirms that there will never be another him, though clearly there is right now. Back to the bench, Max tells Tess that he doesn't want to talk about it, but also that he doesn't want her to leave. HMF tells Liz that "it's a different world" now, that "we create our own destiny." She asks HMF if he'll dance with her. "I want to have my wedding dance." And so he takes her hand, and I want to know how there's some serious dénouement in progress here when HMF isn't disappearing and obviously nothing has as-of-yet changed at all. Tess puts a hand of Max's shoulder. HMF spins Liz around and disappears. Oh.