I have already heard an almost uncountable number of insanely dumb things so far this short year, but the comment "Just shut up and play 'No Myth'" is far and away the dumbest among them. ["You mean last night's overheard 'later days, better lays' doesn't top the list?" -- Sars] ["We'll call it a tie." -- Djb]
In the most brilliantly meta TV-within-a-TV moment to hit the airwaves since Max Headroom's final programming hour, we fade up on a shot of a TV flipping channels seemingly all by itself, from a Home Shopping Network-esque hawking of some genuine faux pearl ring (call 555-IVTV for more on this) to a black-and-white Western (How The Pecs Were Won, perhaps?) to a rock band rocking out in what I hope is The Whitss: Behind The Music, which would, at least, finally shed some light on the location of the erstwhile Alex Whitman ("With his father's funds fueling the band's effort and the song "I Wanna Rock Out…Of The Opening Credits" a #1 single in Sweden, it seemed like nothing could stand in their way"). Cut to inside Chez Evans, where Isabel "Rack And Pinion Steering" Evans brandishes the remote and proclaims everything on the screen "crap." She's sitting in a wooden chair with a ramrod straight back, staring across an equally unforgiving table at the smallest TV I have ever seen inside a suburban home. Which is totally always how I prefer watching television as well. Jeez, Roswell director, let the girl recline on the damn couch and unwind every once in a while; she's an alien, not The Elephant Man. Sitting to her on his similarly watching-TV-during-a-Russian-winter furniture set, Max "Pecscalibur" Evans (tm Wing Chun) sits, his hands barely keeping his well-muscled head from snapping right off his dangerously disproportionate pencil neck and slamming right into the table. He comments, "I must have fifty channels." I? Oh, I'm sorry. I must have missed that whole episode where Max became reigning king of the sovereign planet of Teeny-Tiny-TV-ania. Maybe I'll just read the recap for it, which I can find here on…nope, says here that episode never happened. Isabel flips and flips: "Crap. Crap. Boring." Hmmmm. I guess they're rerunning first-season Roswell reruns on her local WB affiliate. Oh, what's that? You say you wanted me to just go for the easy joke back there? Well, there you go, then.
Isabel drops the remote and stands up all defiantly, informing Max, "I'm gonna take a stroll. See what people are dreaming." Ooooh. Dream walking. I had forgotten all about Isabel's magical powers therein. And so had the "writers," until five seconds ago, it seems. Max practically looks directly into the camera when he fills in the gaps and very carefully alerts the audience, "Haven't you been overdoing that lately?" Isabel tells him not to worry, and then eyeballs the lens herself when she fills in the gaps and very carefully alerts the audience, "It's harmless." Hey, thanks, Renee and Georgette Exposition With Their Dog After The War. I now get it. As Isabel retires to her room to prepare for her stop-and-smell-the-cerebral-cortex stroll down Other People's Memory Lane, Max looks after her and begs, "Stay away from Liz, please." Hey, buddy, no problem there. Just as long as she promises to make good on her side of the deal and stay the living hell away from us. Hey, guess what. I just wrote that sentence. And then I disconnected my e-mail. With a rusty hatchet and kindling from my print-outs of nineteen closed threads including keywords of the "stop making fun" or "you're a meanie poopypants, Mr. Poopypants" or "everyone knows you can't spell 'pretty' without 'L-I-Z'" variety. So don't. Even. Bother. Because I'm so not in the mood. Anyway, Isabel leaves and Max resumes flipping, inciting general hilarity in the audience of not ever me, sadly intoning, "Crap. Crap. Crap." A final, micromanaging look at the channels on the Evans' TV (oh, I'm sorry…Max's TV) reveals that, on the day this episode took place, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had an up day, climbing 49.18 points to end the afternoon at a blistering 3497.85. And I know absolutely nothing about the stock market outside of the latest figures for my ever-climbing MBTV stock options, but…3497.85? I'm sorry…did I miss the part of the episode where Isabel decided to forgo the whole Liz Parker brain spying and instead thrillingly chose to dream-walk Lyndon Johnson? Golly, I hope so.
Over in Isabel's room, she flips open The Yearbook Of Perpetual Non-Graduation (I got my yearbook about six seconds before my diploma, thanks) to Liz's photograph. Nice part. Topsy Tail called. They want their product-placement money back. Isabel looks the page over (poor Sabrina Potter, trapped in an endless Homeroom From Hell between Liz and her toothier-than-thou, Windsor-Knot-tied brother, Ed), then places a hand on Liz's photo. Said photo ripples like a certain Djb's stomach when faced with the prospect of an impending Emmy clip with the Lizbot (special effects by Jostens…for class rings and yearbooks, it's one company and one alone. Think Jostens!), and The Smooth Jazz Of Intergalactic Dream Walking kicks up in earnest as Isabel nods off. She's suddenly tableside at the Crashdown, watching Liz "I'll Get You My Pretty, And The Forums Will Too!" Parker in uniform (though barefoot, I feel inclined to add, meaning that girl is about a hairnet and two unwashed employee hands away from getting boarded up permanently by the Roswell Department of Health) wiping the counter. The door bursts open, and the living embodiment of whatever the words American Male Catalog mean to you walks in the door, a beefcakey guy wearing a white t-shirt and some kind of good-God-man-can't-you-see-it's-way-after-Labor-Day light-colored pants. Liz says hello to "Brad," who picks her up and lays her down on the counter. As so-called "Brad" prepares to climb aboard the Lizbot Express (sorry for the clichéd locomotive imagery, but the similarly made-entirely-of-metal construction of the average train and the average Number Five Alive really necessitated it), Liz lies back on the counter and puts her arms over her head, asking Brad, "Would you like fries with that?" Oh, yum. Greasy fast-food imagery smack in the middle of the sex act. Max appears behind the counter, alerting Liz that "Brad doesn't even exist," adding, "Besides, you want someone who can do this." He snaps his fingers and, after a thunderclap, Brad disappears. Max looks around with his patented look of "I made the wrong one disappear again. Well, I guess this wasn't my dream after all. I guess I'll see you there later then…Brad," decides that booty is booty, and thinks damn it all to the taste of manganese he won't be able to wash out of his mouth later (because she's made of metal, people). Smooch Party To Go ensues, during which time Lizbot disengages herself from Max only long enough to unironically sigh, "Oh, my." Indeed. We pan over to Isabel, staring from the table like she just stumbled over the Strom Thurmond In Speedos Network which Max must have left on his TV again, and mutters, "Even her romantic dreams are boring." Damn, she's arch deluxe. Geddit? Fast food? Oh, and "word." Then Isabel becomes so catatonically bored that she falls asleep in her sleep and my brain just exploded.
Isabel wakes up, flips a yearbook page, yawns extravagantly, and observes, "Kyle's gotta be more interesting than that." Shout-out? She flips to the "V" page and lies back again. The Product-Placed Chant Of The Bastardized East kicks up on the soundtrack as the screen fades to red and a faux-Asian voice instructs, "Remember, young blossom, my most important words: To thine own self be true." Kyle, thankfully, does not lie back, put his arms over his head, and ask, "Would you like eggroll with that?" Mellon Collie and the Infinite Fortune Cookie Spirituality rattles on, "With every inhale, find the center of yourself. With every exhale, release the ties that bind your energy." Kyle breathes and breathes, the fact that he's shirtless and breathing quite heavily really undercut by some heavy backlighting and a sudden camera prudence that dictates he be shot only from the neck up. As opposed to five seconds ago, when Liz's uniform dress was suddenly so close to being completely up over her head that I can't believe a horribly crass "filet o' fish" line of some kind was completely left off the fast-food-running-theme menu. Gyp. Would you like some gender stereotype with that?
A beeping sound interrupts Kyle's revelry, and Bland Vanilla Yoga guy picks up a cell phone and answers, "Buddha here." Okay. I see where they're going with this, but c'mon. It's a little strained. Said "Buddha" (I'm no scholar on Eastern religion and I'm pretty sure most of the viewers of this show aren't either, but wouldn't having a character actually playing Jesus or, like, Yahweh or whatever, actually border on the truly offensive?) reacts to the phone call, then reports to Kyle, "Our enemies have arrived, Kyle. We must leave Earth and face the dark region." Kyle snarks that his road to inner peace shouldn't involve "that science-fiction crap," and Buddha tells him that he's an alien now and that he must "accept [his] destiny." Did I mention that he calls Kyle "dude"? Because he does. Kyle reaches out an alien hand and screams, and in a flash Isabel finds herself in an unfamiliar dream. She's in the woods, hears a scream, and sees the face of a girl being dragged across the ground. Isabel wakes up and practically dives into the camera in fear. Crap. [Flip] Crap. [Flip] Crap. [Flip] Sigh. Somebody turn the Whitss back on.
Opening credits: Crap. Flip.
Porno's Office Of Slatted Lewdness. He pushes around the papers on his desk, searching futilely for the "Sixteen Months Of Jason Behr: A 2000-2001 Wall Calendar That's Truly Out Of This World" order form he just knows is around there somewhere. He should have just gone with the "I Want It That Way: Sixteen Months Of Nick Carter" calendar, which I am quite sure brings daily joy to he or she that owns it. Hello, you apple-cheeked vixen, you. What? It was on sale. Stop looking at me like that. Anyway, from outside the office comes much shouting, a kind of Southern-fried voice yelling, "I'm looking for a broken-down old war horse somehow managed to make Sheriff of Roswell, New Mexico." Porno looks momentarily concerned before bellowing into the hallway, "Hanson! Send that sanctimonious paper pusher in here before I have him arrested for vagrancy!" Hoo? Hah? Wha? Someone's been in Princeton Review prep, no? And just as he unleashes the sum total of his fifty-cent word secret archive and I wonder if any English words really have as many letters as the ones he's just let loose so conversationally, a guest star whose last name is spelled "Szarabajka" pops up on the screen, and I search wildly around my TV remote in hopes I can disengage the "Translated In Danish En Sap" feature I've obviously accidentally triggered. Into the office walks a middle-aged man in a brown suit (hey, Regis costuming department, circa 1985), who stops at the door and quips, "Damn, son. You are gettin' old." Porno, Princeton Reviewed razor-sharp brain at the ready, retorts, "Real police work will do that to you, Dan. You should try it sometime." Um. A sarcastic outsider who rolled into town to piss people off and be a party to the unraveling of character morale because he finds Porno to be acting peculiarly both in his police work and around children? And they named him "Dan"? Has a shout-out of greater proportions never been administered? No. No, it has not. This must have been what it was like for Britney to see herself animated on The Simpsons. Anyway, That Me Guy With My Name sits across the table from Porno and delivers some bad news: "The state police board wants to review the Hubble shooting." Um, "writers"? Keep with the continuity that I can't remember what happens on this show from scene to scene, much less in some hoary dead plot line from last season. At least make a stab at consistency, people…I would never say a line like that. Porno helpfully recaps whatever the living hell episode that was, reminding newer viewers of the show (which is like, everyone), "Hubble? Well, that's an open-and-shut case. Crazy old man with a gun in the desert." Oh, like that description hasn't fit the very speaker of that sentence fifteen times this season alone. Porno continues, "That was over a year ago. Why investigate that?" That Me Guy shakes off his first prepared response, "Because Julie Benz isn't available to play the part of mysteriously reborn villain this season," opting instead for the more affiliate-friendly, "Wheels of justice grind slowly." He even shrugs his shoulders as if to add, "I know. It even sounds retarded to me." Porno asks if he'll be needing a lawyer, and That Me Guy kind of laughs and tells Porno not to get his panties all in a knot. I'm paraphrasing here. Porno hops over to the defensive, insisting, "That was a clean shoot, Dan." That Me Guy laughs. I laugh. He doesn't want February to come because he thinks the January picture of Nick is a much, much better one and -- get this -- I totally agree. Damn. This is weird.
Crashdown. The Wacky-Banter-O-Meter is cranked to red (though, with these two, I'm not really complaining) as Tess "Nased-who?" Harding douses her strawberries-and-cream plate and her glass of orange juice with Tabasco (the bottles -- like the running theme itself -- must be expired by now) while her lunch companion, Kyle "I've Got Your Lotus Position RIGHT HERE" Valenti watches in kind-of horror. Or not? The two make like Julius and Ethel Exposition, Kyle giving up the silly pretense that the past eleven episodes of this show ever, ever existed and going full-tilt season-one, remembering, "That's a very alien thing, right? The very sweet, very spicy?" It is. Kyle asks if he can try a bite, and Tess warns him, "You won't like it." He responds that he hopes he won't, and we cut to a shot that includes the two characters, the plate of strawberries, and the no-longer-red-or-even-more-then-half-full glass of continuity-impaired orange juice. Kyle takes a bite. Crazy, elastic-face, what-am-I-swallowing look of vague horror that the suits at the WB doubtlessly recognize from when they first heard the incipient concept of this show. Tess thinks Kyle hates the concoction, but…but…but…Mikey likes it, baby. Tess offers him another bite, but he pushes back, all concerned that he's not ready for something called "the change." Uh-oh. Looks like someone's mom forgot to buy the teen in her life a copy of Are You There God, It's Me Margaret, and now poor Kyle doesn't know what he's feeling inside his body. Lucky for me that I had the benefit of an older sister, so I was bound to get my hands on a copy and sit at the foot of my bed, panicked for three straight months and whimpering in the silence of my room to no one in particular, "When is that going to happen to me?" Thanks, Mom. Kyle exposits, "I'm not ready to be a half-human, half-alien freakazoid." Tess proposes an alternate scenario by which Max had just let Kyle die, but Kyle isn't guilted into going all Max Evans apologist (good man), telling her, "If I had died, I would have transcended the mortal plane, and been reincarnated into the stage of my life." Okay, Kyle-san? I love the turn your character has taken and all, but it doesn't need to find its way into every conversation you have, m'kay? Further banter about Kyle being reincarnated and ending up as a gopher (wha? Er, I mean "ha ha ha"), but Kyle gets them back on-topic (maybe he should moderate the forums for a while. Ba-dum, ching! Thanks very much! Good night!), telling her that he needs her help. What kind of help is that, she wants to know. She doesn't know what's going to happen to him, either. "Maybe nothing will happen. Or maybe you'll develop superpowers and start flying over Roswell in a big cape." Oh, hello, spin-off potential. Kyle as the dashing superman who saves children from fires and stuff, and Tess as his sassy Lois Lane. And then when he sings, "Can You Read My Mind," she'll be all, "Yeah, I, like, totally can." I love this show. Well, that show.
A clock smack in the middle of the establishing shot of the Sheriff's Station reads 7:55 (which kind of doesn't make sense for either the A.M. or the P.M.), and we cut to the inside of Porno's office to find Porno, Max, and Isabel making like Alvin, Simon, and Theodore Exposition when Porno clarifies, "Wait, let me get this straight. You can go into people's dreams?" Yes. YES. God. Usually, however, Isabel can control her travel, prompting Porno to ask if perhaps she just stumbled unwittingly into somebody's nightmare. She doesn't know, but "it felt real." Facts Evans steps forward to provide some, well, facts. Oh! I remember what episode he's talking about. It's "Surprise." He says that they need to check into Isabel's hunch, because "when Tess was being tortured, Isabel got flashes from her. And that's how she knew Tess was in danger." Glacial pause. "It's how we saved her life." Ice Age ends, glaciers melt, man walks Earth, Eyes Wide Shut is filmed in Europe, man continues to walk Earth, monsters arrive, monsters destroy human race, monsters consume human flesh and extinguish sun, New Ice Age begins, new glaciers form, glacial pause. "We should check into this." Lay it on a little thicker, Max. I'm only immersed in this sap up to my neck. So far. The door to the office opens, and Porno's Meeting Of The Minors is inte
rrupted by That Me Guy, who shoots a cursory glance over to the kids and asks Porno, "Señor Chow's for lunch?" Oh, come on. More awkward staring. Porno cuts it short: "I'll see you at one, Dan." Ew. You think I'm eating at that rat trap? Once he leaves, Max asks who that man was, and Porno tells them that he's reopening the Hubble case, but that they shouldn't worry because "Dan's an old friend." Awww. Thanks, Porno. I think of you as a friend, too. See that? Everyone's doing fine. Wow. I really think that guy is me. My narcissism has gotten so big it's taken on an independent life form that's lurking in the cobwebs of my room, snarling. And it has horns.Lunch over a hearty meal of chicken and taco-ly at the long-forgotten Señor Chows. Porno is sitting across from That Me Guy in a booth, going over the details of the shooting, which That Me Guy indicates is consistent with Porno's original report. That Me Guy stops mid-sentence to order a refill on "these sweet and sour tortillas," which he tells Porno are "different but good," because they're really quirky and not too self-serious on this show and they want us to know how quirky they can be. Duly noted. That Me Guy turns the topic to "those kids in your office this morning." Porno claims that they were just there about a "stolen bike," but then goes on to provide their actual identities, though he must know that Max's name was bound to come up in the Hubble report. He can choke out "stolen bike," but can't come up with two simple aliases like "oh, that was just Donny and Marie Exposition" or "those two are Guy and Madonna Exposition" or even "them's two is sleepin' together." See? All the choices? But he just can't get the gun off in time. As it were. Maybe if he stopped drinking during work hours. That Me Guy, always ready with the research (or, in my case, not), reaches into his briefcase, telling Porno, "I've got a statement here that says that Hubble was last seen in a car with Max Evans before the shooting." Whose statement? That Me Guy gets all cagey, answering the question with a question, "Was Max Evans there that night?" Porno goes all petulant, responding like his mother (Madame Porno?) just asked L'il Porno if he made a poo poo in his pants, "No." That Me Guy tells him, "That's all I needed to hear." "The Convention"? Is it "The Convention"? Now that episode was crap, y'all.
During an appropriately busy lunchtime rush (how about now? What time is it now?), Liz makes her way in uniform over to a table with an order, informing the patrons, "Galaxy Sub, hold the Max." Because that kind of Freudian slip happens all the time. Maria calls her over and asks if she's okay. Lizbot's babble chip! It filters nothing! Here's an example: "I have Max on my brain twenty-four hours a day. Okay? I dream about him. I think about him. And now, I am saying his freaking name without even realizing it. What am I going to do?" First things first: shut up, Liz. Damn, that felt good. I figure that the "writers" are pulling out all of their first-season material; I ought to just go ahead and do like in Rome, y'know? And so again: shut up, Liz. Aw, yeah. That'll hold me. Maria laughs and tells Liz that she's just "in love" and not to worry about it, and Liz cries, "Not that bad? Really? Why don't you look at this!" That's so the dramatic prelude to her reaching down and pulling his severed head out of a closed, head-sized cardboard box, so I'm predictably disappointed when she produces two wallet-sized photographs of Max in her…dude, where'd she pull those from, anyway? Maria asks what she can do, and Liz begs, "Get me a life." Maria, to her credit, actually laughs in her face in that right-after-I-figure-out-how-to-harness-one-point-twenty-one-jigowatts-and-get-you-back-to-the-future-and-oh-yeah-also-after-I-gain-the-power-of-flight way we know so well. But Maria's imminent plans to get on Liz's suggestion in the only way humanly possible (read: make fun of Liz some more) is at once stymied by the front door of the Crashdown, which opens to reveal one Devon "Brian Krakow" Gummersall, who I think is playing himself and just in town for a convention or something, until he smiles at Maria and she responds, "Oh, you gotta be kidding. When did you get out?" He just, um, "got out." Because of "good behavior." Maria busts out with the plot developing, "You don't think that you're gonna stay with us, do you?" Devon unsubtly responds that "Aunt Amy" already gave it the thumbs up. Okay. You're her cousin. Climb the family tree and place a damn star at the top. We're all proud of you. . Before cousin takes his cropped hair and leather-jacketed self back onto the mean streets of Roswell, he notes Liz standing behind Maria and says hi. She responds, "Hi, Sean." Oooooh, flirty. Upping the ante, My So-Called Sean busts out, "All grown up. I like it." Ew. But better than flirting with her and still wishing she were twelve, I guess. Not that he wouldn't have the law on his side with that way of thinking in this town. He tells Maria he'll see her "at home" and takes off. Krakow then barrels back out onto the street to contemplate the inanity of this dialogue and wonder if he was maybe hoodwinked into signing a contract with "Jason Katimsño," the show creator's former employer's south-of-the-border, cheaper, non-union counterpart. He shakes his head and taps his foot and thinks that that must be the only logical explanation for all this.
It's sunny skies and eighty degrees outside right now in Roswell, New Mexico. But don't worry. Because they say that in the Southwest it's a dry heat, which…hey, look at that! Humidity, forty-five percent. Winds out of the west at nine miles per hour, and a barometer of 30.01. Rising? Falling? How do these people expect me to accurately capture the events of this show in recap form if the damned weather report on Max's TV doesn't tell me whether the barometer is rising or falling? Jeez. And so we're back at Chez Evans, Grant "Mel Glibson" Sorenson sitting in a hard wooden chair watching Teeny-Tiny-TV and flipping idly. People. Get A&E. At least this way there's always a Law & Order rerun to fall back on. Like, always. Hey, I ordered satellite cable this morning. I'm so excited I literally want to cry. Because you needed to know that. Because it happened in the show. The one I'm in this week. Anyway, Max enters the room and stares at Mel, all "who said you could touch my TV, punk?" Mel is waiting for Isabel. Max leaves to go "check on it." That eleven-second scene was completely integral to this episode. Seriously. I could have used that time to call my mother or something.
And up in Alien Greg and Alien Marcia's room, Isabel is dressing and undressing madly as Max walks in and thinks, "Scooooore." But what he rather pushily (duh) says is, "You really like that guy?" Isabel blows Max off (ew, not like that) for the time being, telling him that her attention has been returning to the girl-in-peril-non-dream-dream from fifty hours ago: "It was like she was dream walking me," but Isabel doesn't believe the girl she saw to be an alien. Max tells her she should cancel the date, tacking on a hilarious jape (which, roughly, would be akin to watching Elizabeth Taylor try to break dance at the Golden Globes after-party, but you've seen his non-funny attempts at funny before, so I don't think I have to explain that) about telling Mel that she's canceling because she's been battling evil aliens for control of the planet and "it's hard to fit him in." Isabel just wants a "normal date" with a "normal guy." Foreshadowing creeps out of the corner and kicks Narcissism's ass right out the door. Horns and all. Isabel tries on a salmon-colored sports jacket kind of thing that makes me wonder if Filene's Basement has a basement. She tells Max to tell Mel that she'll be ready in "five minutes." Max skulks off to check out those Florida pictures of the family vacation. If you know what I mean.
Kyle sits alone in a darkened room inside the Den of Porno (how much fan-fic out there do you want to bet starts that exact same way), holding up a palm toward the TV. Tess slides in unheard behind him, picking up the remote and turning the thing on. Hey! A normal-sized television! Kyle freaks, thinking he turned it on himself, and then demands two other channels of the TV, to which Tess changes it. She's cracking up. It's pretty funny, really. Kyle hazards one more channel change: "Unscrambled porn?" Well, at least we know what the held-up palm was for now. Tess clicks onto a channel she somehow knew would feature a skimpy girl frolicking in a bathing suit. Kyle turns around to note that she is making him look like "an idiot," and she volleys back, "Awww. But a cute one." She throws him the remote. Wash those hands first, son.
Isabel and Mel Glibson sit in the front row of a movie theater, watching a barely audible movie which involves two men repeatedly making use of the phrase "gonna be late." Gonna be late. Gonna be late. Gonna be late. What movie is this, LaGuardia Airport: The Musical? People around them laugh in a way that people never actually laugh in movies, and Isabel kind of smiles and rolls her head and looks generally uncomfortable. Mel Glibson notes this, asking, "You sore?" She is. And so he begins courting a huge breach of good taste if not actual statutory law (by like, five minutes) by massaging her neck. She leans on his shoulder. Suddenly, she flashes back to the woods, watching a girl carrying a bag of groceries and getting accosted by an unseen man before she's able to get into her car. Then said girl is drugged, and then again dragged along the forest floor. Isabel wakes up with a start and screams. Some people look really concerned for Isabel's well-being, while certain other people right to that first group of certain people continue to laugh, as if nothing went on at all. Nice crowd work, Mr. Director. I haven't seen a more realistic set of reactions to someone behaving irregularly in a theatrical setting since the final, climactic moments of the "Voices Carry" video. He said! Shut up! He said! Shut up!
Back in the Den of Porno, Isabel is yelling at Porno that they have "to find her." Max is there for some reason. Get a life, Max. All the shows on your tiny TV are from the seventies anyway. Go out. Porno bitches about not having any "leads," and Isabel responds that she saw the girl's car, but she doesn't know what kind it is, seeing as she's "not good with cars." Oh, ain't that just like a girl? Anyway, it was silver. She apologizes for barging in, but Porno takes an opportunity to put his hands on her shoulders and tell her that everything's fine, fine, fine. Max stays behind and tells Porno he knows this must look real odd, but Porno confirms that he believes Isabel, continuing that he doesn't know how he'll find the lost girl or even who he's looking for. But what's this? Cut to Porno in the Crashdown, picking up some coffee and eliciting some idle chat from a nearby woman at the bar, who tells Porno she used to see him wrestle (ew), adding, "I used to have a crush on you." Was he the only male graduate of Roswell High School that year or what? This as-yet-unnamed woman is suddenly cast in the role of Texas Cheerleading Expositioning Mom, telling Porno that her daughter "Melissa" drove her perky silver (Nudge! Wink!) car to Santa Fe yesterday but just hasn't been heard from since. You know something is wrong because Our Mother Of Exposition pauses elaborately when she tells Porno, "She…always…calls…home." And Jim never has a second cup of Porno at home. Or something.
Back at the suddenly bustling Sheriff's Station, Porno barks orders to a cavalcade of what I can only imagine are recent (like, in the last three scenes) hires, insisting that everyone around him "run those numbers" and the like. That Me Guy shows up just as the girl's mom, "Judith," is giving Porno a picture of her lost daughter. That Me Guy tells Porno he heard about the missing girl, surveying the hubbub and noting, "You're really circling up the wagons, here." Oh, now. Like I would ever, ever say that. Then again, I'm the guy who just tossed the word "hubbub" casually into recap conversation, all for the sake of context. Clearly, I have no bottom rung. That Me Guy sidles up behind Porno as he approaches his closed office door, asking Porno, "What do you got in there?" Porno freezes him with a glare. Pause. That Me Guy slinks away. Oh, burn.
Hey, look at that. I got in anyway. Porno hands Isabel a movie still from the lost made-for-TV movie, Dana Plato's A Very Pippi Longstocking Celebration. Hi. Pigtails. Me. Scissors. Watch out. Actually, it's a photo of the missing girl in the silver car, and the closest Isabel comes to a positive identification is an uncertain shake of the head and a confirmation that "the hair's the right color. I never saw her clearly. But it's her. It has to be." Max doesn't recognize her. Porno notes that she goes to a different high school. Well, that was an essential note. Crap. Flip.
My So-Called Sean sits alone at a Crashdown table. Maria carries a tray over and holds the plate at bay, warning her cousin, "In case I haven't told you this, you dine and dash here, you die." Thanks. I think we all learned via the same very, very special episode of Silver Spoons that that's just…well, it's wrong. So very, very wrong. Banter about MSCS having or not having enough money to afford his meal, and then Maria sits down at the table (which is totally My So-Called Sean's perfect opportunity to give back some snark and brush her away with a line about not sharing his table with the help, but then again, I didn't write this episode, I'm only in this episode) and cuts him out and down all over again. Here's some now: "In our house, there are rules. And as strange and unimaginable and bizarre as it may seem, we live our lives by these very simple rules." Blah toilet seat, blah milk out of the carton, blah reintegrationcakes. He looks at her, very unthreatened, very if-you-think-you're-the-only-person-this-week-who-has-tried-to-make-a-bitch-out-of-me-in-a-big-house-you-are-so-very-very-wrong. Very. Maria continues that the most important rule she has is for My So-Called Sean to "leave Liz alone." Liz clomps out into the dining room and makes some eyes with My So-Called Sean on her way to drop off an order of Max -- I mean, "Coke" -- some Max -- I mean "fries" -- and some Max Max Max Max Max with a special creamy Max sauce on the side -- I mean…actually, that's exactly what I meant that time.
Back upstairs at Chez Evans, Isabel lies in bed and closes her eyes, waking up in Stop Motion Land (the cheesy effect of how these dreams are cut is starting to make me crazy) to find herself once again in trouble. She opens the door to her room and walks into a blinding light, coming out on the other side to once again see poor silver-car chick being dragged along the unforgiving ground by her legs. She puts the lotion in the basket and sees the crazy man himself. It's Grant! I am shocked. I thought he was such a normal guy. This probably has something to do with the six million or so times the script of the past sixty episodes instructed me to believe that Mel Glibson was nothing more than "a normal guy." What could possibly have gone wrong? Foreshadowing agrees to put on some Groucho Marx glasses and a wide-brimmed hat so as to be less immediately recognizable in the future. Max shakes Isabel awake, telling her she was crying in her sleep. He hugs her like a protective big brother should, wishing that even though it was only a nap, Isabel would do her best in the future not to get her clothes all used and wrinkled when she continually falls asleep in them. If you know what I mean. Again.
Cut to Porno's voice approaching a rotund man on a golf course, wearing each and every clichéd golfish affectation that exists. Seriously, the maroon Old Man Sweater covers up the polo shirt that probably has some hilariously ribald Spencer-Gifts-sponsored quip like "Ask me about my putts" on it. You can't see it now. But it's there. And so the man putts and putts away, not even pretending he cares Porno is talking to him. Porno calls the man "Your Honor," and then tells the golfer that he has positive identification that Grant Sorenson (who? Oh) is the one responsible for Melissa Foster's (who? No, really, who?) disappearance. Even Porno's cry that "a girl could be dying here" does nothing to soften Judge Extra, who snarks at Porno, "Get me probable cause. Then you'll get your warrant. Otherwise, you're ruining my handicap." Really? I don't understand how standing in his way stops you from being morbidly obese, so…oh, a golf handicap.
Over on a particularly verdant expanse of forest-y land (seriously, the desert town depicted on this show has more eco-variation than Biosphere II), Porno continues on his Hunt For Dead Plot-tober, coming upon Mel Glibson's automobile and informing one of his many law-enforcing partners, "We're looking for a large vinyl bag. Seven foot by three." Glibson, who looks so strikingly different in this scene that I briefly wonder if he's been replaced by another actor midway through the episode (bigger continuity mistakes have been made, sadly), lumbers after Porno like the big date-raping monster he seems to be becoming, asking what's going on and blah blee I have rights fah FAH! Porno starts in with the familiar string of questions, and Glibson wonders, "What is this, every time someone disappears, I become your number-one suspect?" His alibi is airtight: he was in Carlsbad. Oh. That's nowhere near Santa Fe. Oh again. Porno walks fast -- unencumbered as he is by a search warrant, we're reminded somewhere in the area of four billion times -- reaching a large vinyl bag among Mel's personal belongings. Why don't they just cut to the chase and stencil "Red Herring" across the side of it; there's about as much of a possibility of this being the girl in Isabel's dream as there is of Briscoe and Green being right about their murder suspect at the first commercial break. That is to say, none. Move. It. Along. Glibson tries to keep Porno from opening the bag, but the sheer force of Porno's ACTING practically blows Glibson across state lines when Porno yells a hearty, "Back off!" Porno opens it to reveal "photosensitive equipment," which Glibson snarks that he can "only use at night." He again asks Porno if he has a warrant. Again. Could this plot device be hung on a flimsier hook? It's not impossible to get a warrant if you're the town sheriff and you have probable cause, right? Get a warrant and get along. It's not like Glibson was all, "You can't search my bag without The Rosetta Stone" or "I don't see you with the proper documentation of the lost city of Atlantis" or "You don't think I'm letting you peek inside here without Carrot Top's Oscar for Chairman of the Board, do you?" Why doesn't he just get a damn warrant?
Porno returns to the Office Of Slatted Lewdness to find That Me Guy waiting for him. It's particularly dark and eerie. My money's on "some bad shit goin' down." Dan wants the "cards on the table, Jimbo." Porno responds that he's in the middle of an investigation and that he's been off "following a lead, checking out a suspect." That Me Guy asks if Porno has "a warrant for Sorenson this time." Sigh. That Me Guy is no friend of Jimbo any more, as he tells Porno that people are asking questions about his reputation "chasin' aliens," and Porno surmises, "This isn't about the Hubble case, is it?" Oh, thank God. The two erupt into yet another hopeful bout of ACTING, but the "rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb" screams are interrupted when a knock on the door reveals a teenaged girl who enters the office and does Hollywood proud with the transition to commercial, "Hi. I'm Melissa Foster. I heard you were looking for me." A new blonde extra in town. Porno licks his lips. And wonders if she has any brothers like Max at home.
Porno is hanging with Max and Isabel under one naked bulb in a dark alley somewhere (and people are calling this behavior strange? Well, I never), telling Isabel not to worry about her lapse in clairvoyant judgment. "No kidnappers, no needles, no bags in the desert." And let me guess. No warrant? Isabel turns away from the camera in that turning-away-equals-tears way, but Porno assures her that "it's all right." But Max…well, he cares. He asks Porno, "What about you?" Porno tells them that he'll have some "awkward questions" to field, but he anticipates that it will blow over. Isabel apologizes again because this show is an hour long and the danged script gave out sometime around the opening credits, and he again tells her that she has "gifts" and didn't do anything wrong. He tells her, "I'll be fine," a hilariously ironic juxtaposition to…
…Porno back in his office, That Me Guy pacing behind a man I'm guessing is the golfing judge from that scene back there. His Honor bellows, "What the hell is wrong with you? You conduct an illegal search after I say no!" Wasn't this collective store of dialogue killed forever after the "you'll have to answer to the commissioner" sequence in So I Married An Axe Murderer? Rent it this weekend. Guaranteed to be there. Porno leans in and apologizes for following a "hunch," which doesn't exactly dovetail with his story that there were two witnesses to the crime. Judge Extra wants to know the names of the witnesses, screaming the never-clichéd, "I want names and I want them now!" Porno refuses. Judge Extra would rather be golfing. He leaves on the line, "You'd best find yourself a lawyer." And then he's gone. Before he even gets to "You can't handle the truth" or "You're out of order."
Isabel sits on her bed, mournfully hugging The Laura Ashley Pillow Of Despair as Max circles her, ranting, "I don't understand this. You've never been wrong about this in the past." Blah how could this happen, blee Porno will lose his job. Max: "Your dreams were wrong. You were wrong." Ew. Sanctimonious bastard. Isabel sighs that she just wanted "to do something good for a change." Max sits down on The Bed That Dare Not Speak Its Name and leans in about three inches too close for standard sibling protocol to allow, sighing, "Isabel. You are my sister." Like how could cruel fate deal these lovers such an evil hand? He speeches her that no matter what they've been through, "I still believe in you. I always will." He tells her to "get some sleep," adding, "You look really bad." She looks after him closing the door with a resigned look of well-I'll-try-and-doll-myself-up-for-you-a-little-bit-more-tomorrow-night-Mister-Blood-Relative-Guy as Max optimistically goes to check the family tree for factual errors.
Crashdown after dark. Liz obsessively wipes down the same patch of countertop while listening to Kyle bitch bitch bitch about his domestic situation: "Tess is openly mocking me now. This morning I woke up with little antennae coming out of my head." Heh. Hi, "writers"? There's the scene you should be showing us. My So-Called Sean walks in, bidding his cousin hello and calling her "M," much to Maria's my-name-is-not-Susan disproportionate levels of chagrin. Kyle asks "who's that" of no one in particular, and Michael (whoa, hey stranger…speaking of "who's that") phones it in via satellite from the set of Final Destination 2: This Time It's Scary to appear in one frame to remind us, "Maria's loser cousin, Sean." My So-Called Sean wants some fries with his social-outcast-cakes, but Michael tells him "no," and Maria explains that the kitchen is closed. As Kyle tries to get back on topic, Liz takes a glance at My So-Called Sean and tells him that she could "whip [him] up some fries." Oh, the piercing realism of this layered ensemble work. Thanks for stopping in just in time for a quick rewrite, Mr. Mamet. My So-Called Sean thanks her and leaves, incurring more jibes from Maria when he deigns to call the house to which he's returning his "home." Chill out, Maria. Everyone knows that the current Hollywood climate toward convicts isn't to ridicule their plights, sending them on a downward spiral that will land them in deeper trouble. We don't deride criminals; we give them Golden Globes. I mean, really, Maria. New around here?
Isabel sleeps fully clothed and with all the lights on for a change (she should talk to a friend or teacher or trusted member of the clergy…she shouldn't have to live in this kind of terror), dreaming her way back into the stop-action set of Silence of the Lambs, watching blonde non-Melissa non-Foster being dragged in the vinyl bag across the forest floor. A. Gain. She screams "You don't have to do this" several dozen times, though I suspect that sentiment has more to do with Max, who has turned up in her room and is grabbing her face and trying to wake her up. She does. She hugs him and is scared. Didn't this entire scene already happen?
That Me Guy reads every true-crime novel ever written, then barges into Porno's office with the news that Pippi's mom is filing a "formal grievance" against the actions of the RPD, editorializing, "Lot of questions here, Jimbo. Time to start thinking of some answers." The contrivance phone rings itself right off the hook, at just this most convenient moment possible, and Porno picks it up to hear Max's breathy tones letting Porno know, "It's not over." Porno does his best "I'm. Going. To. Stalk. Lenny. And. Carl" really bad impression of someone pretending he's not lying, cagily trying to drag some information out of Max while That Me Guy stands above him, ready to bust some shit up and recap the whole thing. Porno listens to Max tell him that the girl is in the woods, and Porno chokes out, "Where are you now, Maxwell Evans -- er, I mean…deputy. Okay. Mmmm-hmmmm. I'll be there. Okay, Max. I mean deputy. Bye, Max. Love you, too. I mean, thank you for your recounting of this extremely dire police business to which I must immediately attend. I don't love you at all…deputy." Really, it's about that believable. Porno arranges to meet the kids in front of the Crashdown, then hangs up the phone and makes off. That Me Guy has an eye for conveniently-invented plot twists, asking Porno, "Your deputies always call you on your private line?" He continues on that Porno's use-as-needed hackneyed backstory (er, I mean "his father") "went down just like this." Blah fool notion about chasing aliens. Porno leaves in a huff. Everyone hates That Me Guy.
Woods! Flashlights! Lotion in the basket! Damn the commissioner, I smell a climax, people. Porno, Max, and Isabel run through the woods, Isabel crying that she knows the girl is around there, and Porno starts muttering something about kidnapping a girl when he stumbles on "a mole hill." Out of which they have made this mountain…of crap, yo. Porno leans down and casually observes, "It's an awfully straight line for a molehill," and even the Jarring Orchestral Horns Of Reductive Endings doesn't get me any closer to knowing what that line means, when Porno started watching C.S.I. and decided it made him a forensics expert, or how the entirety of dramatic tension of this episode hangs off that line like a used suit from Filene's Basement's Basement. Porno leans down and notices a wire-type of thing underneath a pile of leaves, which he follows to a set of oxygen tanks poorly concealed behind a particularly chunky blade of grass. Porno becomes the target of a pistol's aim as the three dig up a plastic box which contains the aforementioned blonde. David Blaine holds off his stunt of, like, riding a woolly mammoth bareback to Jupiter, just to stick around long enough to file suit. Dig dig dig. Gunshot. Oops. The three all get real low upon hearing the shot, and then Max leaps into action, standing up and throwing his green Bill Cosby's Jell-O Puddin' Wall against the path of future bullets. Isabel cracks the glass with her hands trying to free the girl, and Max drops the wall just as soon as Porno has a clear sight line to whoever is shooting at them. Bang. The masked man goes down. Just then, That Me Guy shows up to not save the day, and Porno reports to him, "We found our missing girl." Well, then. I guess I stand corrected, don't I?
Dissolve to Blondie on a hospital stretcher, telling Porno, "I never saw his face." She continues on that she was "on [her] way to visit [her] grandmother in Roswell," which of course explains why she appeared in Isabel's flashback carrying a large bag of groceries. The cornerstone of any self-respecting teenage road trip. The kitty-litter-and-soup run. Talk about someone not that concerned with making good time. Porno tells this "Lori" that she's "safe now." She asks the big question: "How did you know to find me out here?" Porno lies that someone heard her crying out for help. That Me Guy corners Porno and asks -- no, really -- "how'd you find her?" Porno offers nothing. Hanson The Sometimes Sinister Deputy comes over with the bullets, which are "in perfect shape." That Me Guy calls that "impossible," and pockets the evidence. Porno shrugs his shoulders: "I'm as baffled as you are." That Me Guy smirks incredulously and promises to find out whatever Porno is hiding. "You can count on it." I liked this character better when he was named "Pierce." And wasn't named after me. And didn't wear brown. And wasn't, like, thirty years older than I am.
And finally, Lori The New Girl thanks Isabel for saving her life. They clasp hands and stare deeply into each others' eyes (about time girl/girl action came to the WB and actually took place on camera), and Isabel experiences a quick flash of some kind behind Lori The New Girl's eye, something like floating particles against a navy blue screen reminiscent of the mindless pattern that used to float across movie screens before the previews, until Coke slapped their foreheads one afternoon and realized that there was advertising space they'd yet to capitalize on. Lori The New Girl is wheeled off on the stretcher, and Isabel stares after her, telling Max, "There's something about her. It's like I know her." The ambulance pulls away. Greg and Marcia stand too close, watching it depart. Crap. Flip.