Oh, hello, hot banana.
No time-burning previouslys this week, due in no small part to the direct correlation between the weekly developments on this show and how much God just really, really, really seems to hate me. Instead, we join Maria standing in front of a blackboard, chalk in hand, lecturing directly to the camera: "So there's been some confusion. Okay, a lot of confusion. And, uh, the only person who is gonna get you there is me." Oh, goodie. Way to give the already-neglected continuity editor carte blanche to look up for but a second from his director's chair, grunt in that you-talkin'-to-me-oh-clearly-not-ever way, take a swig off the jug with the three X's on the front always perched precariously on his lap, and return to his grueling daily challenge of trying to crack the Junior Jumble. I'm surprised at this scene's accidental good fortune when we cut back to the blackboard and do not find Maria wearing completely new clothes or replaced by Alex's dad or having the head of Maria but the body of a centaur. Continuity check? Check. And so we review. Maria The Non-Centaur turns to the board and draws a large circle, which she tells us is "their planet, off in the middle of the universe somewhere." She draws another, smaller circle. "This is our planet, Earth." Indicates Planet Arium: "Their planet." Indicates Earth: "Earth." Points to the camera: "You with me so far? Fantastic." Heh. She introduces the current incarnation of the Alien Four, replete with accompanying shots of each of them. We learn that "they landed here in 1947." Shot of "Summer of '47." "They gestated in these really gross pods for forty years." Shot of one of the thousands of shots of slimy pod emergence from season one. Shots of humans who know about the existence of aliens, ending with a picture of Maria from, I think, "Monsters," in which she sports her Crashdown tiara and her Eurythmics hair. She notes, "I hate that picture," and the frame wipes to a shot of a "Hybrid Chronicles"-era Maria, which she notes is "much better." And it is. Through his haze, the continuity editor recognizes the sheer impossibility of human hair growing that inordinate length in, like, three month's time, takes another healthy swig from the jug, and flips over the pink slip he's just been handed, using it as scrap paper as he wraps up the Jumble and moves along to the Wordy Gurdy.
The aliens have special powers. Shot of the statue molecular manipulation in the Pilot. The aliens are difficult to maintain relationships with. "It's like typical bad relationship stuff, but even weirder." Shot of "End of the World." That episode was all of difficult, typical, bad, and weird, in fact. So, good example. Regarding that long-forgotten episode, Maria reminisces, "[Liz] ended up missing out on all this romantic stuff they would have done, like eventually eloping and getting married in Las Vegas." Nearly drowned out by the clamor of an approaching wheelbarrow containing the bricks and mortar intended to reconstruct the tattered remains of television's fourth wall, Maria hastily segues, "Speaking of Las Vegas," taking us out of the classroom for good and bringing this very special, highly instructive episode of Maria in the Middle to a close.
Eerie nighttime dream sequence (I, er, spoiler!) at West Roswell High. Max "Siegfried" Evans and Michael "Roy" Guerin tear down a hallway and hide, Charlie's Angels-style, behind a wall of lockers, Max noting, "I think we lost them." Michael sweats and gasps; Max's patented personal training system of rigorous, daily Pecs-ercise is clearly a regimen he feels serves him best when unshared with friends and loved ones. Even those so very, very much in need. Michael gasps, "What do they want from us?" Max deadpans, "We need a plan. We can't fly by the seat of our pants anymore," and Michael turns to note that Max has suddenly disappeared as a cavalcade of Storm Trooper-ish baddies rounds a corner and comes to face Michael directly. Clad entirely in black, they wield guns with red laser pointers affixed, this helpful attachment an instrument best known for its other heinous purpose of being shone on a movie screen, often right at an actress's cleavage, often during a particularly dramatic turn in a movie you're maybe trying to take seriously, often by the fourteen-year-old boy who seems to receive said red laser pointers directly from God on the day he enters the seventh grade. Stupid kids. Stupid public places. Stupid going outside at all. Anyway, the pointers zero in squarely on Michael, and the Storm Troopers fire at will and Michael slams against a locker and wakes up at once in The House Government Subsidy Built. Still panting, he makes his way to The Refrigerator Government Subsidy Bought And Which Expired Food Stamps Product-Placed, notices that his hands are still shaking, and slams the (now bare, curiously) top of the fridge, clearly blaming it for the many ills of his world. Because on Michael's native planet, refrigerators apparently dispense worldly wisdom and helpful, problem-solving advice in times such as this. Michael then grabs at his left shoulder, aching as it must be from the shooting last week, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense considering that Max healed the wound, an action which has never before left any lingering pain. Odd, that. Michael makes his way over to a crumpled paper bag, pulling out the bribe money from Susan from Seinfeld and Harvey the Gay WonderWASP, and all but stares directly into the camera himself. People, the trend is over. That's the kind of kitschy shot that got Get Real canceled, and if you want to avoid the exact same fate, you could…actually, on second thought, stare away. I'm right here! Hey, you guys! Over heeeeeeeere!!!
Still free of lights and action, the camera has to work triple overtime in cutting hastily over to Chez Evans, Michael bursting through the upstairs window and telling Max, "I need a road trip, I gotta clear out the cobwebs." Max, still vaguely disoriented from that lofty recurring dream where the power of the pecs finally ends the war on his home planet and the peaceable factions shake hands in front of the waving flag of their new democracy, featuring the hand-woven representation of The Upper Body That Saved The Universe and with the inscription of this new world order, "Don't Tread On Pecs (or you'll accidentally be shredded to ribbons)" sewn across the top, comes to just in time to ask, "What the hell are you talking about?" He might as well be asking me that question, after that last sentence right there. Michael is talking about "getting out of this stupid town for a couple of days and having some fun. Is there something wrong with that?" School? Parents? Other general, world-saving issues of Earth-in-peril proportions? Feh. Michael rants that he's been having nightmares for two weeks, Max decides they need a plan, and they sit down, Max asking, "So, where are we going, anyway?" Michael is still panting, barely choking out, "You're gonna love it. It's a place without rules, without responsibilities, a place where we can forget our troubles. It's the city of dreams." Thailand? Oh, for the love of Tom Jones, Michael's gotten himself caught right in the middle of the shooting script for Brokedown Palace again, hasn't he? No. No, he has not. In fact, it's the script for Swingers. I get my exhausted-movie-clichés-that-were-vaguely-cool-in-college references mixed up all the time. "Vegas. We're going to Vegas, baby." Even 1996 winces in embarrassment. Michael will be offering to thank Max for taking him away by buying him a not-at-all-culturally-over "Royale With Cheese" before they hit the Nevada border.
Opening credits: If you stop and listen reeeally carefully, that Dido impersonator sounds almost exactly like the real…well, you know.
School by day. Max and Michael make their way toward Michael's locker, walking at the same disturbing close-enough-to-kiss range as they were when barely visible in Michael's hot, dark, sweaty dream featuring the two strapping men (oh, and also Michael) at close-enough-to-kiss range. Max is warning Michael against his plan to "blow the whole fifty Gs in one trip," arguing, "We could take ten thousand dollars and still have a great time." Oooooh. "Gs." Michael responds that he doesn't want the cash, "Not one thin dime." Okay, "writers," do me a solid and axe the Vegaspeak before someone refers to the money as "so money" that the scene goes all meta and my head explodes. Max, the sober straight yin to Michael's raging gay yang, warns him to "be reasonable," but Michael seals the money (er, "Gs") in his locker and rebels, "This isn't a reasonable day in my life." He tells Max to formulate a plan for their escape, and then "let's go." But not before they hear from Isabel "Poker? I Hardly Even Know 'Er!" Evans, who approaches just then, thickening the plot considerably by asking, "Go where?" Michael takes off, and Isabel and Max do the hallway walk-and-talk, Isabel asking just where they'll be going. "We're going to Vegas." We? "Michael and I. It's really for him. He needs a break." Isabel unleashes on Max, asking, "Do I really have to give you a list of things that I have had to deal with lately?" She blathers on, as she has a tendency to do only in wacky, stand-alone theme episodes, convincing Max that "whatever plan you come up with will work for three just as well as it will for two, right?" Max assures her that "it will now." She pats him too lovingly on the pecs and pulls away a bloody stump where her hand used to be, making off happily. Looks like someone forgot to read the inscription on the national flag of Maxtopia in its entirety.
Kyle and Michael now share the same Spanish class for the purposes of the following conversation, and they sit to each other for the purposes of the following conversation, and they are now best friends in the world, because that's what makes total, total sense. The teacher, Señora Shortlived, lectures on about Felipe, wanting to know where he is, and the class responds that Felipe is, in fact, at the cocina, I think. Kyle spots Michael reading a book, and he tosses over a crumpled-up memo signed by Jamie Kellner himself with the subject line, "For the love of Bojangles, Fehr, just CUT IT, ALREADY," completely disregarded by this shameless origami-ing. Michael looks up, and Kyle asks what he's reading. By way of response, Michael actually deigns to say "Vegas, baby" again. Michael holds up a book called Ed Potter's Be A Winner With The Casino Gambler, a cheesy-looking guide Michael must have rush-ordered from the Troll Book Club during the one-minute walk from his locker to his Spanish classroom, which looks so painfully outdated I think Michael might come out on the other end of this rigorous study having accidentally learned the rules for "Prussian Roulette" instead of the game's current incarnation. Or he'll only know to call for a blackjack hit if his cards total "XVI" or less. Kyle takes the book and asks when they're going, and Michael tells him, "Aliens only. You understand." Kyle, his shirt just a string-tie and some brown stitching away from his first-season stabbing-westward ensemble from the Manifest Destiny Collection, pulls a twenty from one of his six lapel pockets and hands it to Michael, asking, "Put a quarter on red for me." But just then, Señora Shortlived stops by at his desk, asking the Spanish version of "What's going on" which I would transcribe with my usual level of exhaustiveness (until the second commercial break, anyway) if my Potter-era computer were equipped with the upside-down question mark. Which it's not. She gives Kyle detention. Kyle deadpans in Michael's general direction, "Triple it or die."
Back in the hallway, Kyle tracks down Tess and tells her he knows about the trip, and they pass Maria at her locker who overhears, and then they tell two friends and then they tell two friends and I made that joke last week and so on. When Tess pleads ignorance, Kyle surmises that "it's a surprise," adding, "Max and Michael are organizing the whole thing," and we cut to Maria trailing after Michael onto the WRHS lanai just like the one at all of our high schools, all Ricky-I-wanna-be-in-the-band, begging to be taken along. Michael refuses on the grounds that (first of all, he sucks, and secondly that) "things are gonna happen that the faint of heart shouldn't see." She wants to know just where the money for this trip thinks it's coming from, and he offers up that he'll be using "the DuPree money." She chides, "That's fifty thousand dollars," of which he promises to spend every cent. She sweet-talks him that no one can spend money quite like she can, and he breaks down and invites her along, provided she realizes that "you are coming in a completely professional capacity only. This isn't some kissy-kissy romantic retreat. I got stuff to do." She gives him the old kissy-kissy in a dark area on the back of his neck I don't recommend she attempt to access, inadvertently shooing away an assembling flock of hungry vultures smelling the blood of the animal with the shaggy top and the long, curling tentacles that crawled inconspicuously atop Michael's head several months ago and has continued to expand at a dangerous pace even after its death. What's that animal called, again? Oh yes, that's right: "People From Alabama." Maria makes off, all happy to be loved by her man for the moment, but he stops her again before she makes it inside, warning her, "And don't go telling everybody. Let's keep this low profile." Okay, Guerin. Fifty-seven minutes of inaccessible snark before the three-minute thaw preceding the closing credits. We've seen this show before and we totally, totally get it. One nice word. It might not kill you. Kill the grunge-era brooding and get a goddamn haircut, Smelvis Presley.
Back in a class specializing in whatever "ology" is the study of ad nauseam repetitions in exhausted plot contrivances (Lizbology? More-input-Stephanology? Formal WB-Issued Apology?), Maria has tracked down Liz "It's Not Unusual" Parker, and is trying to convince her to attend the getaway bash, insisting, "I booked a suite at the Bali-Hai Hotel and Casino. Amenities include marble statuary, world-class shopping, and lighted tennis courts." Liz, standing in front of a wooden supply shelf and smiling broadly while adding another graduated cylinder to her metal tray, does this Sweeping Arm Gesture Of The Perpetual Community Theater Emily Webb and responds, totally believably by the way, "Vegas just isn't my idea of fun." What's the matter with it, Lizbot? Not enough manganese? Maria continues with the full-court press, heaping on the good news, "The pool has a water slide. In the shape of a giant flamingo." Now how fun does that sound, people? This opinion brought to you by the recapper currently enjoying his twenty-ounce Diet Coke out of a plastic quarter holder from someplace called the Casino Windsor, which I not only enjoyed enough to spend some precious Vegas time in during my most recent trip, but also maintained the wherewithal to bring my love for the Windsor back East by taking this memento of an evening in my life I will never, ever remember if I should live for another thousand years. ["I vaguely recall you, a deserted pool, and two hookers named Cinnamon and Sugar. Or was that Gustave?" -- Sars] Ah, Vegas. Liz sees no such kitsch value, so Maria is forced to tap into her guilt arsenal, spelling out, "Michael's gonna be off doing some dumb guy thing, and I really need a gal pal." Liz wants nothing to do with it: "Maria, the reason I'm not goink to Vegas is because I was married there." She doesn't want to go to Vegas ever. Maria counters that the marriage between Max and Liz never actually happened, and that it's time for Liz to start creating her own memories, "and that's what we're gonna do in Vegas. With Michael's money." Word. Maria keeps the snark flowing for me. The conversation then takes a turn for the inclusive when Alex "Frank SinNOT!tra" Whitman slides in, Maria posing the question, "If you were given the choice to dissect pig babies…" Liz interrupts, "Embryos!" That was so the point, Liz. Hey! Look over there! Manganese! Liz scampers off and the plot resumes instantaneously, almost as if by magic. Maria continues, "Or take an all-expense paid trip to Vegas." Alex is on board. Liz wants Maria to respect her decision, a request she honors by leaning in real close and tone-deafeningly bellowing, "Viva Las Vegas," the tune of which she must have learned on her way to class from a deaf vocal coach over a phone with an LCD display panel. Learn the song, people. It's network goddamn television. The whole world is watching.
Trip Expansion Hijinks (because really, is there any other kind?) keep right on expanding the trip in a hijinksy fashion back in the hallway, where Vitamin C's hair stylist has cruelly accosted Tess sometime during the last two episodes in an attempt to remind us that she is not perfect, and to curry favor with any other female member of the cast in trying to make the viewing audience like that girl more instead. It's so not working, Vitamin C. It's you that makes us hate the hair. Not the other way around. Anyway. Tess stops Michael and begs to get Kyle on board for "our trip," because it would suck without him (and, oh yes, it would) and because he, like saved the world last week and all. She rattles on that when she first showed up in Roswell, she was really depressed with her no friends and her barely any family (even though she possesses too much alien to feel human emotion, but if everyone else can forget about this early tenet of Tess's entire personality, I'll be willing to let it go, too), and Michael made her feel welcome. She thanks him for organizing the trip and having this time away. Plus, "I've always wanted to go to Vegas." Michael responds that he'd be happy to have Kyle come along. "And you, by the way." Tess whoops and gives Michael a hug. Awwww! Say, Vitamin, dear? Her hair ain't great, but you're gonna have to do a whole lot better than that. 'Cause darnit if I don't still love the girl.
Back in Liz's Endless Lab, she sits alone, conducting her experiment and staring at the clock, which rapidly approaches 3 PM. What the hell kind of school wraps up fifth period at ten to three? If memory serves, by that point in my secondary education day, I was already done with homeroom, lunch, and eight periods of classes, and was halfway through that day's grueling rehearsal as Mr. Snow in the Massapequa High School production of Carousel. Er, I meant "football practice." I, um…hey, where's everybody going? As Liz fills an eyedropper with the salt of my tears and drips them into a beaker filled with, I guess, pig's blood (pig embryo's blood, har har har), Liz takes another cursory glance at the clock and begins to sing "Viva Las Vegas," apparently utilizing the same sheet music Maria dialed up on the special phone whose number shows on the close-captioning during the opening theme songs for television shows the Lizbot is obviously, patently unable to hear. Never in history has the "you sing real bad" euphemism of "rusty pipes" been used with a more keen eye toward the literal as it currently is with the Lizbot.
Michael slams his locker door and rounds a corner to find the most usual suspects ever waiting for him behind a uniformed driver who holds a sign reading "Guerin party." Max rounds the corner just then and holds up their plan for the week: "At this very moment, the debate team is leaving for a two-day meet in Santa Fe. According to this piece of paper, we're going with them." The topic for the debate, incidentally, is "Space Travel: Wave of the future or misbegotten dream," which is funny because, well, they're aliens. And so they turn to go, and it seems for once that nothing could possibly go…dang. Liz comes creaking around the corner, running up with all manner of thrill, asking, "You got room for one more?" Only Liz seems happy she's there. Michael offers the lecture, "No lecturing, no moralizing, no whining about spending the money on the homeless. This weekend is about fun and debauchery, got it?" Whoo! This episode could totally be recast as a wacky eighties comedy starring Mark Harmon and Bobcat Goldthwait, and that last line would not have to be changed, not even one bit.
Montage of Vegas from a Travel Channel documentary or a fire sale featuring culled cutting room floor footage saved from incineration at the C.S.I. production offices, all accompanied by the song -- wait for it -- "Viva Las Vegas." I didn't think anyone on this show knew that song. Actually, they kind of all don't.
And back to the L.A. soundstage of Very Bad Things we go, where a concierge shows the opening-credits crowd into their room, and as he closes the suite door behind him, Michael calls everyone over and puts them in a line, informing them, "You are no longer high-school students from Roswell, New Mexico. You are of-age party machines." He runs a hand over each of their driver's licenses, imbuing them each with an alias the name of an alcoholic beverage. Which might have been a better idea if he hadn't envisioned these IDs actually, y'know, working. The only significant name he dolls out is for Liz, who he renames "Shirley Temple." Exactly. He renames himself "Dr. Love," and since that doesn't fit in with the general theme of alcohol-oriented names, I'd like to respectfully submit that he just go ahead and stick with "Slimy Davis Jr." for the duration of the trip. Or he could get a haircut and call himself whatever he damn well pleases. Michael tosses them each three thousand dollars and tells everyone to leave him and Max alone. Chich. A. Wah. Wah. Liz misbehaves and stays around, telling Max she's surprised to see him there. He's only there for Michael, he claims. Liz is only there for Maria. Michael gives it a few grace seconds before approaching Liz and asking her, "Didn't you hear the doctor's orders?" She hedges for a minute; all the while the rest of the crowd frantically jamming buttons on every elevator in sight to shake her loose before the trip even starts (I've lost friends in casinos and never actually found them again). Michael takes her arm and humors her right out the door, "Yup, yup, cool. Bye." She leaves, and Michael confides in Max, "She's exhausting." Max seems like he's about to be a huge loser again, but Michael puts an arm around him (of course he does) and promises him, "Don't worry. Doctor Love will show you the way." Ladies and gentlemen, set your watches on Raging Gay Yang. This is where dreams come true. Well, our dreams, anyway.
Out on the floor of Generic Casino, the ladies of Roswell stride along in what I really wish were moody slo-mo, Maria disconnecting her cell phone and informing the others, "I just booked a salt scrub at the spa." Oh, the spa. I do believe I know it. Tell Gustave we say hi. He somehow manages to be at every spa in the city simultaneously. Maria takes off, and Isabel looks into the casino area of the hotel, suggesting, "Let's just dive in." She slides right past a threatening security guard and into said "casino area," but the security guard steps in front of Liz and Tess and asks for their IDs. I'm not sure who the designer of this set was taking architectural tips from, exactly, but, in general, the casino and the hotel lobby aren't really separate entities in any Vegas hotel I've ever been in. In most Vegas hotels, you actually have to walk through the casino to get anywhere, as the average casino takes up the entire ground floor of the hotel. Also, many of the hotels are connected, and attempting to walk anywhere on street level is a roughly equivalent experience to Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin in Beetlejuice attempting to brave the sea serpents that dislocate their perception and threaten to flat-out kill them if they should so much as attempt to step off the patterned carpet or even talk to someone who has ever seen the sun. It's not like the beaded curtain separating the wholesome videos from the naughty, naughty ones at your local rental outlet. I'm just saying that this set-up is kind of crap, is all. Anyway, Liz and Tess extract their licenses, but the security guard (I know life hasn't been kind to Richard Moll for the past, like, sixteen years, but this role is kind of demoralizing, no?) sees right through their alien manipulation and points them in the direction of the video arcade. Tess rummages through her bag in a forced attempt to track down "another form of ID in here somewhere," but Liz backs off and busts out with no provocation, "We are seventeen years old." Tess grabs her arm and deadpans, "Good job." Moll backs them off with fifty dollars and time served and the girls take off into the lobby. Because if Vegas has one thing, it's difficulty in accessing gambling's many pleasures.
Kyle shows Alex and Isabel how to lose vast quantities of cash at a blackjack table, Isabel standing up after a lost hand and kvetching, "Kyle, this is math. It's not exactly what I'm looking for on vacation." Kyle retorts that "this is the gambling capital of the world. What exactly are you looking for?" Do the words "around-the-clock Cher impersonators" mean nothing to you people? White tigers? Seventy-two consecutive hours of room service? Semi? Legal? Prostitution? I'm just sayin'. If you're into that kind of thing. Isabel takes off, and Alex notes that gambling is math, or "more precisely, AP Statistics. Which dictates that an all-or-nothing strategy has the best chance of beating the house." He forks his three thousand dollars of chips into the middle of the table and busts in a hurry with a seven, an eight, and a queen. Big doings at the two-dollar table. Potter spins with centrifugal fury in his grave. Where he's been for the last three hundred years. Much to my satisfaction and general dislike of snarking alone, Kyle notes that Alex "took that one in the shorts" as Alex grabs his heart in anguish even though it's not his money. Just then, Maria runs up holding a flyer and squeals, "A booking agent is holding auditions. Alex, I need the hugest favor from you, I need an accompanist." She prattles on that Alex could figure out the chords on the piano even though it's not his primary instrument in a way that would make me want to throttle her even absent of recent financial ruin, and he listens for only so long before letting loose, "Maria! I just lost three thousand dollars! All right?" Oh man, he sounded so much like his father on that one it makes me wonder when he and a suddenly Peter Scolari-clad Kyle will skip back to their room while "My Life" strums in the background. Maria offers to flat-out give him three thousand dollars to help her get the gig. He puts an arm around her and walks off, asking, "The key was E, right?"
Michael and Max stand too close at the craps table, Max still wearing the natty maroon sweater with no layering t-shirt underneath that somehow got Michael Douglas laid in Basic Instinct that he was wearing in school that morning. Michael explains the rules to Max and rolls himself a six to start, which is apparently a good bit of news, judging from the incipient "ooooohs" from the surrounding players who have no white tigers to pet and no semi-legal prostitution to solicit, instead opting for the third most attractive tourist option Vegas has to offer. That of watching two high-school students in clothes pulled from a perforated roll at a department store vending machine throw dice in what is slated to become the biggest, feltest game of Dungeons & Dragons ever to unfold on a public stage. Michael explains that he needs to roll a six to win, adding that a seven will cause them to "lose their shirts." Max looks around nervously and tries to molecularly manipulate the game with an almost imperceptible chant of, "Lose our shirts! Lose our shirts!" But Michael's power is stronger than whatever would force Max and Michael into a precarious, shirt-losing situation that probably isn't even whatever "semi-legal" means in the state of Nevada, and he rolls another six, indeed. Max smiles broadly and the sky turns instantly to a dark, foreboding night. Excellent thing that no one in Vegas was outside to see it, then. Seriously, though, Max, better not to push the luck. Ever, ever again. Michael collects as Maria runs up to tell him about the audition. Michael comments, "I don't see you," as Maria revises history according to the situation at hand, telling him that her lifelong dream is "to start [her] singing career in a smoky Vegas supper club." I'm sorry, did I accidentally flip over to the Steve and Eydie Gorme Behind the Music? No self-respecting entertainer actually wants to begin a legit career in Vegas, people. It's after you spend years on a coast, opening for Peter Allen at the Tick Tock Inn, that you wake up one day and realize that, no matter how many cabaret nights at Don't Tell Mama you earnestly attend, Carol Channing is still getting all the good roles for a woman in your demographic. It's then you hitch up to Henderson because you can live on the cheap and be ignored at a smoky nightclub in Old Town, making vaguely off-color jokes about nailing Ava Gardner that only Dean Martin's thirty-five illegitimate children understand. And oh, have I failed to mention the semi-legal prostitution? Thought so. Michael tells Maria to "beat it," asking if she wants to come and cheer her on. He rolls whatever allows him to keep his shirt snugly around him, and the growing crowd cheers while Max's face creases for the first time in disappointment. So do I, actually. That sweater really is awful.
Isabel sits alone at a slot machine, mindlessly plugging in quarter after quarter after quarter (word…finally, the real Vegas experience in action) when she looks up to notice that many the fresh-faced couple around her are making nookie on every corner of the casino floor. The Strumming Acoustic Guitar Of Subverting Sin City's Inherent Evils Such As Semi-Legal Prostitution (it's, um, a very specific tune for a limited range of situations, as you may well have guessed) rings out on the soundtrack, to be quickly interrupted by the shrill voice of a woman who has clearly wandered off the set of Arnold's Revenge: A Very Green Acres Reunion Movie and right into the casino set door. Said woman, wearing a wedding dress stained with a giant red splotch and the female equivalent of exactly everything wrong with Michael's hair, whines, "No, no, no, please hurry!" Alabama Bride sits down on the stool to Isabel and brays, "Wedding's in a half-hour, my maid of honor gets food poisoning from the breakfast buffet, and now some dumb Canadian slams into me with a glass of Merlot." Nice try, "writers." I may spend a bit of time over the border, but I'm definitely not Canadian. A waitress carries over a glass of what I'm guessing is seltzer, and Isabel leans down to the stain and waves it away with her hand. She assures Alabama Bride, "I think we got it out," as the bride-to-be thanks her much and introduces herself as "Tracy." Isabel keeps with the nickname, going with "Brandy." A third-generation Dawson photocopy in a tuxedo and an unbelievably square jaw line ["it's got to be a Hasselhoff of some sort -- he looks EXACTLY like David" -- Sars] leads over another guy in a tux and a blindfold, who Alabama Bride introduces as her groom to be. She asks after the maid of honor, and Dawson responds that she was "wishing she never tried the crab omelet." Yup. Don't eat shellfish in Vegas. Honk if you saw Go.
**Honk**
The honking! So loud! Thought so. Got it. Moving on. Dawson suggests that Brandy replace Alabama Bride's actual, heaven forbid, "friend" as maid of honor. The bride asks Isabel, and Isabel accepts. Beware the shotgun blasts at this one, Isabel. They're coming fast right after the words "I do."
Audition time in a small office, featuring Alex laboring on an upright piano and Maria belting in all of her alto splendor for an impressed-looking bald man sitting behind a desk. We're heard Maria sing on this show twice before, so we'll move onto the part where she finishes and the man tells her she's got "some set of pipes," demanding, "Now, take off your clothes." She's auditioning to be a stripper, as it turns out. It's funny and tragic. Vegas. Is funny. And tragic.
And back at the non-shirtless craps table, Michael has gathered quite the crowd indeed, screaming, "Doctor Love says give it up the hard way!" Ew? Is that dice-rolling jargon? Lordy, I hope so. He rolls. Extras scream with excitement. As some local strain of "dice expert" holds up the two cubes at the far end of the table and examines them closely, Max accuses Michael of cheating, speeching, "It's not right to use your powers like this." Dice Inspector waves another man over, and Max frets, "He knows." Michael wonders, "What's he gonna say, that I'm using my mysterious alien powers?" Another toss of the dice, and Dice Inspector announces, "This table is closed." Michael goes nose to nose with him and asks just what the holy hell is going on. Dice Inspector suggests that Michael take his winnings "and move on down the Strip." Michael refuses to budge, and at the provocation of Dice Inspector calling him a "punk," Michael throws a punch in the security guard's direction and a melee erupts. Tragic. So tragic. Okay, and a little bit funny.
Oh, this is just so very sad. A close-up on a pinball game -- The Dorkland Adventure, 'haps -- finds Liz hard at work in the arcade while Tess makes a fast getaway plan. She complains, "You know what it is. It's because we're small." So she suggests mind-warping the security guard to think that they are taller and waltzing into The Only Casino In Town together. Which would have been a smarter idea than hedging their bets against using licenses with names like "Amaretto Sour" and "Bud Light" or whatever in the first place. But Liz has bonded considerably with the like-propertied games machine, and has to stick around long enough to wait for enough people to clear out of the arcade so she can liberate it from it's electrical shackles, shouting, "Lizbot unplug! Run free, Games Machine 3000! Run freeee!" so they can live together from now on as a proper couple. Tess rolls her eyes and speaks the words of a generation, "Great. Stuck in the party capital of the world with Liz Parker." Liz retorts in about seven hundred more words than necessary that she knew this trip would be the most miserable of all, but she cuts herself off for once (my fast-forward button is all, "You no need me anymore?") when she looks behind her and notices that she's right to a sign reading, "A Elvis Chapel: For a fabulous wedding hosted by the King." A Elvis Chapel? Ack! Definite article police, arrest that neon! Or did Elvis have a first initial of "A?" Or did he accidentally spread the necessary "N" on a sandwich with peanut butter and bananas and bacon? And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the sum total of facts I know about Elvis Presley in the whole, entire world. Oh! "Torso." Is that something? Guess what song is playing on the soundtrack right now. By the way. No, really. Just guess.
Alabama Bride throws her bouquet at Isabel and runs out of the hotel suite with her newly unblindfolded husband. Maria and Alex pass them on their way out, and Maria asks just who exactly Dawson is. His name is Dave. ["See?!" -- Sars] Maria hacks herself off a piece of conveniently-appearing wedding cake and takes a bite. The room phone rings, and she picks it up to find Michael on the other end, calling from the bowels of Casino Prison and telling Maria, "What you need to do is shut your trap, get down here, and bail us out." She surmises that this is Michael's only phone call, and when Michael confirms that it is, Maria slams the cordless back on the cradle and walks away. I'm gonna have to write the rest of this recap standing up because of how much she's been kicking my ass this whole episode.
Damn. She wants to help him anyway. Back inside of Generic Casino, Alex has returned to Kyle (Wait. Maria cut the cake, took a bite, answered the phone, and hung up in a span of ten seconds. By continuity's logic, Alex wouldn't have had time to get past one of five hundred ancient-Egypt-themed gift shops the town has to offer, much less make it all the way back down to the casino, much less find Kyle twice in the span of one lifetime in this city without a strong force of will and a NASA-approved tracking computer. And where's Isabel? Isn't she worried about her alien brethren? And did I just say "continuity's logic"? That was wrong of me. Carry on), Alex asking, "Doesn't Buddhism disapprove of gambling?" Kyle responds that "actually, it was Buddha himself who first coined the phrase, 'Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run.'" I'm not exactly steeped in religious conviction myself, but I'm going to go ahead and conclude that pretty much every religion practiced by any member of the human species holds as its most commandment-breaking, highest form of treason any comparison between your deity and Kenny Rogers. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not covet your neighbor's wife. The Lord shalt not remind you of he who sings the warbling country and makes the chicken. I know I haven't been to Hebrew School in a while, but I'm just sayin', that sounds familiar. Anyway, Maria busts in and tells the two of them to "cash out," seeing as she has to bail Max and Michael out of jail. Kyle cracks up the crowd of me again, recapping the scene as it appears to us all: "My winnings. My money. Go away." Maria appeals to the dealer and tells him that Kyle is in Gambler's Anonymous, and the dealer shuts him down.
Poor Isabel. She's alone in the suite, dancing to Dido with Dawson. Oh, hello, kitschy alliteration. Dastardly delivery for Djb, Dido. Anyway. Dawson and Isabel dance and talk about dancing. He leans in and kisses her rather smackily. Ack! Roswell nookie! He suggests "a change of venue," telling her he has a hotel room "up the Strip." There are other hotels in Vegas? This episode could have fooled me. She responds, "This is a hotel room," and he volleys back that he was thinking of something "a little more private." Further nookie fun times ensue, and she agrees to join him. That was the hottest Monday night WB love scene since the CamRents had God-sanctioned, propagating-missionary lovemaking under the watchful eye of God to produce their fifteen precious children. Off-camera.
Oh, but things are so much hotter on the chain gang. Cut to the inside of a jail cell, where Max has stripped down to a t-shirt (I guess he was wearing one under the maroon sweater, or perhaps he just ripped through it, Incredible Hulk style, when the stress of this assault and arrest called the pecs to rally). Max sulkily asks, "Are we having fun yet?" Michael tells him that if they were having fun it would be no thanks to Max, and Max backs away from the bars and bitches at Michael, "Hey, this isn't my fault. If you hadn't been showing off…" Michael bemoans the possibility of "another lecture," and raises his voice to announce to all of Attica, "Hey, everyone, gather 'round your cell doors, because Max is going to give another lecture!" A disembodied voice from off-camera really angrily warns Michael to "shut up!" Word, disembodied voice from off-camera. Word. Max tells Michael that he only came on this trip for Michael's benefit, and Michael gives him this week's installment of the Sarcastic Clapping Alien Family in thanking Max for being such a stand-up guy. Major trouble in paradise. Separate vacations year?
Back in the hotel room, Michael leads, followed by Max and Maria, Max picking up the phone and asking the hotel dial tone, "Yeah, when's the flight to Roswell? Nothing sooner than that?" I guess Sober Yin Air, the one conduit between Las Vegas and the military helicopter airstrip that services Roswell's commercial jetliner needs, must be all jammed up with Vegas-hating fuddies who will alter the course of time and fate by saving three people's lives but is a real stickler for cheating that vulnerable mom-and-pop establishment called "The Las Vegas Casino Mafia" out of a couple of pennies. Stand-up guy, indeed. Michael slums it on the couch, watching football and ignoring Maria begging Max to stay. Maria even tells Max, "I'm blowing the rest of Michael's cash on a beautiful, expensive dinner. I've even taken care of what everyone's wearing." And she took care of this personal styling in between the salt spa and the nudie audition and the bailing her two feuding alien lovebirds out of jail? Yes. Yes, I suppose she did. Michael calls out from the couch that Max "is not invited anymore," and Max tells Maria he thinks it's best if he just goes home. Max leaves, and Maria turns to stare reproachfully at Michael, who celebrates, "Finally, my vacation can begin." Or, um, END!
Max finds Liz downstairs goink gangbusters on The Dorkland Adventure ("Discover new element of Inert Group: Bonus 150,000 points!" "Map human genome: Free Game!"), skulking up behind her as he has a tendency to do, and almost patronizing, "Not bad." Liz retorts, "Well, yeah, after six hours and a thousand quarters, you sort of get a rhythm goink." Oh, hee ha blarg ha, Liz. Sheesh. Speaking of the Inert Group. And she has. And she does. And she will. Max tells Liz that he's leavink for home, and she asks if everything is okay. "Yeah," he tells her, "It's just…Vegas. It kind of makes my skin crawl." Oh, yeah. Alienate (whatever) your friends and family and species with your misguided self-righteous bullshit and hold the city responsible. But Liz agrees, as the demure woman in this right-wing family-values fantasy must, and she refers to the sign behind her and fails to qualify for the Sequitur Bonus with the non sequitur, "I mean, who would ever want to get married in an Elvis Chapel." Oh, I'm sorry. Did someone mean to say "A Elvis Chapel"? I'm afraid I just don't follow. Max regards the sign and almost smiles (Put. Those. Away. Boy.), responding, "Not me. Not in this lifetime." As opposed to the other lifetime, the one unlived because of "End Of The World"? Get it? Who's with me? Who gets it? LISTEN UP! Thank you.
Max makes for a yellow cab (which I don't remember there being in Vegas, but at this point, whatever), and he watches as a couple in just-married attire steps out first. The groom picks up the bride, and as they twirl around in plain sight, Max watches as the girl becomes Max and the bride becomes Liz. They kiss. Now, does that count as Roswell nookie?
Fancy dinner. Smoky nightclub. Seeing anything coming? The rest of the crowd sits at a table at a red velvet palace of some kind, Maria noting of Michael's now criminally-barbarian hair, "You clean up nice, Spaceboy." Maria's sorry Max isn't there and Michael totally isn't, and Michael is soon to make off under the wacky ruse of running across the street for some fast food. He leaves. Maria, looking very forties Rita Hayworth and knowing every second how fab she really is, tells Liz, "I plan on being a worldly woman. And how can I be when Michael is trapped in the world of armpit farts and Playstation? He's just so…" But wait! Her tirade is soon cut off by the Mulleteen Rabbit hopping up to the mic on stage with a jazz band and announcing, "Ladies and gentlemen, tonight you're in for a rare treat. A dream coming true." He introduces Maria by her stage name (fine, it's "Margarita Salt." Now I've recapped everything, so there) and she takes the mic without question. The whole place goes silent as she bursts into song. Non-naked song. Michael stands off in the wings, all the entitled Tyne Daly to Maria's impressionable…I don't know, that girl who sings "Little Lamb." Tess grabs Kyle and goes to dance. Isabel makes her triumphant return, telling Alex that she ditched her Dawson and she doesn't even know why. Alex stares straight ahead and tells her that she'll find the man of her dreams eventually, and they too take off for dancing fun. Liz sits alone. All is right with the…oh, dang, there he is again. Redemption in Vegas. Max takes Liz's hand and leads her to the dance floor, telling her about the vision he had when he was getting into the cab. So real. Sooooo very real. A few more "o"s, please, I still don't get it.
And one last trip to the hotel suite, where Porno (yay!) sits in a chair inside the hotel, fuming. The happy folk stand still and become, well, not so happy. Porno goes nuts on the kids, offering the one to grow on that they couldn't have taken off without telling him, unless for the purpose of "saving a planet. Yours, mine, any other. It is not acceptable if it is done in the age of underage gambling. Is that clear?" Porno grabs Kyle and makes off, Michael celebrating the fact that he's an orphan and Tess agreeing for as long as it takes for Porno to scream in from the hallway, "Tess, don't make me come in there!"
And, finally, Michael drops a few pennies in a Save This Show charity cup at a coffee shop on an outdoor street corner still in Vegas (oh, not), Max apologizing for acting like "a machine" and telling Michael that "you needed a friend and you got a chaperone. I'm sorry." He continues on that he just feels so darn responsible for everyone, but that without them, "I'd be lost, Michael." Awwwww. Michael agrees that "whoever sent us down here was smart. Because they sent us together, and as long as we're together, we're gonna make it." Tell that to the folks in contract negotiation, Guerin. Anyone who can't have a good time in Vegas doesn't stand a good goddamn chance in this world.