Oh, good. School. Maria's classroom montage very badly wants us to know the following: "It was just one kiss! A moment of weakness. I doubt it went any further than that." "Hey, Tone Loc?" "Yeah, Djb?" "Hey Tone, ring the Irony Bell, school's back in!" "You got it, Djb! I got time for bell ringing! I was just getting off my shift at Modell's anyway. For the best, most affordable sporting goods around, you gotta go to Mo's!" "Settle down, Tone." "Sorry."
Great Wall of China. Light atop the Luxor. Max Evans's pecs. I'll have "manmade objects visible from space for $500 please, Alex." Poor Tess. One un-I-hate-you-tramp glance from the king, and she goes down faster than a French prizefighter. Anyway, it's sexy nighttime that greets us inside Brigadoon Observatory. Under a high-powered telescope, through which the words "my remaining interest in this series" are barely visible from deep space, the intertwined bodies of Max "I Believe In Miracles, Since You Came Along, You Pecs-y Thing" Evans and Tess "G'day, Soulmate" Harding lie sleeping. The folks down at Music Supervision have decided to commemorate this fated coupling with the strains of Mazzy Star's "Fade Into You," because as aliens and humans alike know, there's no better sexual position than that hot, hot lovin' known the world over as "1995." And though I was in college and, admittedly, using this song for every ounce of its cheesy hook-up potential freshman year, the age we're supposed to believe these kids are would have put them at around twelve when this song hit its middling peak. And I know how I get in the sexy way when I hum along with Songs In The Key Of My Own Awkward Puberty, which is why I'm saying you should avoid the basic area of my apartment whenever those sex-drenched anthems of "Wild, Wild West" and "Walk The Dinosaur" come on, unless you have some serious interest in a little naked time at Chez Djb. Boom, boom, aka-laka-laka boom. If you know what I mean. And I'm thinking you do. Monster hits of the mid-90s rages up even further as Max stirs and looks around Brigadoon Observatory. Feeling the sudden Richter Scale rumbling underneath her as the continental divide of the pecs drifts and the nipples sprout oil, Tess is forced to squirm ever so slightly as well. Hey. Hey. Max takes her head at the nine and three position (oh, man, I hate it when guys…oh, that's not what he's doing. Never mind) and burrows it deep into his gleaming upper body. Tess is all, "Hey, I can see my reflection in there and…glub, glub, help!" Max smiles the creepy smile of 1995 post-coital bliss. Because he loves her eyes and her wild, wild hair. They dance to the beat that they like best. Headin' for the 90s, livin' in the Wild, Wild West. Wild West!
Cut to the Den Of Porno, where Kyle "Buddha For Thought" Valenti sits up on the couch, blanket over his head, and watches the lovebirds enter. Max shoots a weirdly furtive glance over to the couch, because he could smell Kyle on Tess the whole time and that was all he needed to get through this deed alone. That, and the song "What I Am" by Edie Brickell and New Bohemians. Choke me in the shallow water before I get too deep. Oh, baby. Now I'm all in the mood again. Tess whispers, "I guess I'll see you in school." In the fourth grade. Why will this song not cease its reign? Right. Max guesses she will see him in school. Further too-loud nookie ensues. Kyle narrows his eyes, happy that he only has to see this once. Tess asks Max if everything is "okay," I guess because "don't worry, it happens to a lot of guys the first time" isn't the most muster-passing expression in the eyes of the WB censors. Max pauses extravagantly, and unconvincingly responds, "Yeah, yeah, everything is great," I guess because "now that you're the queen, where does that leave me?" isn't the most muster-passing expression in the eyes of the WB censors either. I'm not aware of too many things. But I know what I know, if you know what I mean. D-do ya? A lamp on a side table flips on, and "The" Sheriff "On The Airwaves Talking To The DJs" Jim Valenti delivers his half-a-line, "Where the hell have you…" before noticing Max and noting, "Max." Porno advances with a sigh and tells Tess to go to her room, and when it's just the two of them (well, Kyle is bouncing around down there someplace), Max attempts to strike up a chat, asking, "Sheriff?" But Porno doesn't want to talk about all this just at the moment, telling Max to go home. Max consents with a "fine" that's actually more convincing than his attempt to convince Tess of the same sentiment, and Porno turns from the closed door to spot Kyle, who tiredly offers his dad a "hey." Because Kyle, like so many pundits of the ways of the East, believes that philosophy is the talk on a cereal box. And religion? That's a smile on a dog.
Back in her room, Tess looks in the mirror and holds her stomach, futilely attempting to stem the internal bleeding brought about by the glass-cutting nipples. She moves her hand over her mid-section and mutters a small "Oh, my God." Live it up, live it up. Ronnie's got a new gun.
Opening credits. Colin Hanks? Still in the credits. I'm sure these last episodes will be just "full" "of" "surprises."
Chung-chung. A knock on the window of 630 East 54th Street (or some other insanely invented L&O locale) reveals "Prosecutink Attorney" Liz Parker showing up outside the room of Maria "Maria DeLuca" DeLuca (tm Sars; it's really just so perfect). Maria indicates that it is rather late, but Liz insists, "I have to talk to you!" The dangling subplot threads wait for no man. Inside on Maria's bed, we're subjected to a retread of basic facts from last week. Liz shows Maria photographs of Alex on a hilltop, Alex standing in front of a windmill, wasted Alex doing a karaoke version of "Mamma Mia" at some Swedish bar spelled with four hundred upside-down letters which, when rendered in English, collectively translate to the word "Bar." And then the photo de grace: Alex and Svetlana standing in front of the torn-down building. Because I so often jet-set off to foreign lands with mysterious blondes to take photo after photo in front of nondescript office buildings. Hey, look! Granite! Sigh. Yawn. Blah. Happy St. Croix's Day! Liz again reminds Maria that "the building was torn down in 1994," and then urges Maria to "think about it." Does this really take that much thought? But Sister Liz insists on explaining it all: "1994. Alex was ten." And thus getting with the down and dirty to Lisa Loeb's "Stay," I have little reason to doubt. And screw all y'all who were ten in 1994. So then, who is Leanna? Liz has some ideas: "She could be some girl that Alex never met put in these photos with him just like the buildinks." Nice syntax on that line. Maria ups the ante of scarily dramatic music in noting that Svetlana could also be "an alien killer." And, most importantly, if Alex never went to Sweden and he wasn't in Roswell, where was he? Liz notes, "That's what we've gotta find out." The perpetually taxiing plot becomes problematically airborne for mere seconds before crashing into a nearby dune in Sandy Land. "I can't do this by myself. I really need your help." And they thought that she was naive. And she thought that she was strong. She thought, hey I can leave, I can leave, oh, but now she knows that she was wronk. Hey, that one actually works surprisingly well.
Chez Evans. Still reeking from the hot alien love he must -- MUST -- get around to showering off immediately (Hi. I can smell his "glowing orb" from here), Max enters the kitchen to find Isabel "Hit The Road, Rack, And Don't You Come Back No More, No More, No More, No More" Evans holding a glass of water and stretching her leg on the table. Max tries to play it cool, casually inquiring, "Going for a run?" No. She's auditioning for the Roswell Community Theater's upcoming production of A Chorus Line and she hopes she gets it, God, she hopes she gets it. How many people do they need? How many boys? How many girls? Isabel ignores him outright as she should, slamming her other leg on the table. Max tries again: "You must be up to five or six miles by now." Poor Isabel, saddled with stage directions like "drinks water haughtily" and "lifts leg, uh, haughtily" and other adverbial activities intended to communicate the complex nature of alien emotion. She's drowning here, and it's not even close to her fault. Sensing that the queen bitchery will (thankfully) not be thawing, Max lays it out in an unbelievably paced sentence which makes quick work of my recapping. Incidentally, that is this acting style's only positive attribute. Anyway, he says this: "I know you're still mad and everything, but I really need to, uh, to talk to someone." Isabel slams down the glass of water (haughtily), storms over to the table (incredulously), grabs a chair (angrily), turns it around (er, slammily), and sits down with the back of the chair facing forward and her legs apart on either side of it (frat-brother-ily). Max launches in: "Well, it's not easy to say, especially to my sister." Dude, no comment. Except to say that you keep your dirty little family business to yourself, or do like Phil Hartman's Frank Sinatra character has taught us: "Sure, there's temptation, but when I start eyeing the kidlings, I take my business to the john, baby." Or some such other hilarious, unheeded-by-Max type advice. He stumbles through the generalism that "something happened" with Tess, and Isabel deadpans it for his benefit and ours: "You slept with her?" Yeah. "Wow. Congratulations, Max, you lost your virginity." She excellently makes with the sarcastic clapping -- speaking of Phil Hartman -- and gets very, very mean: "Gee, I'm sorry, were you looking for some sort of comfort or sympathy before you went off and washed the dried sweat from your body? Or hey, did you guys do it in the shower?" Oh, man. Word. Cleanliness. So important. And he's starry-eyed. Because they did it in the observatory. Max tells her just to "forget it" (my water bill wishes it could, considering the length and temperature of the showers I have been obsessively taking due to this most recent conversation), and Isabel leans forward and snarks, "His Majesty will now retire to his room." Max tells her he's feeling a little weird about the whole thing, and Isabel retorts that her feelings don't seem to matter to him. She storms off. Stay this way, Isabel. Stay this way forever. "Pity me, I just got laid" isn't exactly the most persuasive heart-tugger for me either, dear.
Awww. He said he'd see her in school. And now, here they are! In school! Max approaches his lady love without touching her or looking her directly in the eye, and she tells him that she needs to talk to him. But -- the plot twists like so many coiled miles of small intestine, and carries approximately the same lethal quantity of toxic waste right along with it -- Michael "Hair Mettle" Guerin (thanks again, Julie. My finger just wants to hit that extra "r" so darn badly sometimes) walks up and interrupts the tryst. Hey. Hey. Max smiles bright, and the world turns to stone. Max talks overly loud and yells, "Tess and I were actually just talking." Michael tells him, "Later." Max awkwardly asserts, "Great!" Michael snarks a "fantastic" and skulks off. Tess tells him that they can talk about it later, and adds, "Max, if it's better for you to keep all of this between the two of us right now," which blah closet imagery flee flah gay got it. But he assures her, "No. No, it's not," before taking her hand and making down the hall while Michael, Isabel, and Kyle look on. No one else looks. No one else cares. I do not look. Why? That's right.
Over on the observation deck at Bar Mitzvah Sign-In Board National Park, Isabel grouses alone on the bleachers while staring down the Whitman memorial. A girl who doesn't give a crap about the only two things that are certain in life (death and Sweden) walks past it with barely a glance. Those eyes, man. They stare right at you no matter where you're sitting. Incidentally, a banner hangs behind Isabel, reminding us all, "Don't forget to buy your class ring and yearbook." Well, I won't. Kyle makes his way over, two cups of cream-and-sugared contrivance firmly in hand, and launches right in, "So, how do you feel about this whole Max/Tess development?" A football practice rages on the field behind them, because Kyle became a Nice Guy and ditched the dumb jock composite, so now he doesn't get to be on the team anymore. This is just like the time I bought season tickets for the Mets and then got thrown out of my high school production of Bye Bye Birdie. Well, the same. But different. Isabel doesn't want to talk about Max. Isabel wants to talk about Isabel. And so she does: "God, I hate this place. To think I just have to sit here and rot for the rest of my life." A wider cut to both of them indicates that I was wrong earlier, and that Isabel takes her coffee without milk, sugar, or continuity, as she is now in possession of a cup that was never actually handed to her. Kyle is appropriately wacky in his belief that "you aliens are the most pathetic group of people I have ever met." Isabel bids him a "goodbye, Kyle," but he keeps right on going: "Oh, we gotta keep our secret safe. We gotta be boring and brooding." She kindly begs for him to shut up, but he affirms his position that if he had the kind of powers she had, he would use them for the purposes of having "some fun." She hesitates for a moment, until suddenly she is struck by "The Full House Acoustic Guitar Chord Of Impending Parentally Sanctioned Mayhem" and a "well, I think I have an idea" light bulb bursts above her head.
She asks Kyle what his idea of "fun" is, and we cut to them in his bedroom, Kyle holding a Playboy. Kyle wants Isabel to dreamwalk him. Isabel resists, "A Playmate?" Kyle's right there with the retort, "She's not just some Playmate. She's Playmate of the whole freakin' Year." Sorry, but that line is hilarious. But, in actuality, this scene doesn't make a lick of sense. Because hasn't she formerly only dreamwalked people who are actually, like, dreaming? She's never manufactured this kind of fantasy before, and so it's really creepily dumb when we're transported to an all-white background with three treadmills, Isabel and Kyle in their big boy clothes in the back, Playmate Jodie-Anne up front drinking a bottle of water in her workout garb. Kyle approaches and bids her a hello, and This Jodie-Anne offers, "This is a private gym." But Kyle's got an idea, brought upon mostly by the huge chunk of chocolate cake hanging from a rope just behind Kyle. Eh? Chick-a-wha-wha music that used to portend his father's entrance in the room kicks into action, and things seem to be going awfully well until Isabel remembers that, though she and Kyle are arguably the only interesting characters left on this show (arguable that they're even interesting, not arguable that others trump their level of interestingness), this moment makes absolutely no sense. And so they're back in Kyle's room, him screaming to go back. She tells him that she doesn't need to see any more, and Kyle gamely asks what they can do for her now. She asks, "Did I mention that I hate my brother?" Kyle suggests, "We could blow him up." Ooooh. Sometimes the first idea you think of really is the best. Kyle prattles on some more about the teachings of Buddha which, translated as per Isabel's request, means, "You want to get back at your brother, right? Okay then, bring your powers to the party, I'll drive."
Grrrr. The Formerly Interesting Character Known As Not-Liz's-Henchwoman known as Maria hacks into some old emails from Alex. Flood this box, people: "Whitsbassist@yahoo.com." I don't think they know they left off the extra "s" in Whitss. Better double send it, just to make sure it gets there. Maria reads and reads old emails. Around my fiftieth attempt to read one full line of the "All work and no play makes Sweden still too boring to make fun of All work and no play makes Sweden still too boring to make fun of All work and no play makes Sweden still too boring to make fun of All work and no play makes Sweden still too boring to make fun of All work and no play makes Sweden still too boring to make fun of All work and no play makes Sweden still too boring to make fun of All work and no play makes Sweden still too boring to make fun of All work and no play makes Sweden still too boring to make fun of All work and no play makes Sweden still too boring to make fun of All work and no play makes Sweden still too boring to make fun of All work and no play makes Sweden still too boring to make fun of All work and no play makes Sweden still too boring to make fun of All work and no play makes Sweden still too boring to make fun of" filler text, I'm thankful for the sudden cut to Maria turning up at the house of Velour Vinnie, Computer Dork P.I. from last week. Because dorks with supercomputers hidden in the back room like Buffalo Bill's make-up case have to live in modest ranches on the edge of town. How else to afford the latest update of The Sims (now, finally, they will have actual human sex with you!) and vintage Atari 64 shirts at Urban Outfitters? Maria holds up a hard copy (see that, folks? For printable versions, JUST PRESS "PRINT") and begs, "I need you to tell me exactly where this email was sent from." Velour Vinnie responds that "the origination point has been encrypted." Ooooh. Jargon. Go, "writers," with your crack research team and your outdated copies of Games magazine. Maria sighs, "I need you to do your computer-nerd thing and find out where this came from." He frets, "You're asking me to do something…illegal." Maria asks, "And?" Velour Vinnie, near climax, smiles. Who needs Playboy when there's the sexual charge of getting pretty girls to take advantage of you? Money-saving dork tip #152. And it's another "money" saver, to boot. Ew. Alex signed one of his emails "Swedish Meatballs."
Max and Tess sit on a bench outside, seemingly wondering what the hell they're doing there. I can't help but wonder the same thing because, as I've mentioned, "Fade Into You" was total hook-up shorthand for "This was really fun…let's never do it again, okay? Thanks. And thank God." Tess notes that Max "seems quiet." He responds, through the total silence, "I'm not." Hmmm. Tess tells him that "this just isn't the time to feel you pulling away from me." Yeah, that time was last night in Brigadoon Observatory, before he had pulled too close to begin with. He frets that what happened has "implications." Speaking of which, Tess tells him, "Something sort of came up." Eh? "I'm pregnant." Max stares staringly. Well, one way to stave off some of those "implications" you're talking about it to, oh, I don't know…use a condom? Whatever.
Liz now does the bidding of her sleeveless turtleneck knit sweater, and, fearing its wrath, goes wherever it tells her to. She is a victim, fashion and otherwise. She shows up at the Den Of Porno, and Tess answers the door and asks, highly inappropriately, "So, are you here about me and Max?" Heh. Suck it up, Lizbot. There is no "us." There is only "you" and "me." There is no Dana. Only Zuul. You are alone. Liz steps in and tells Tess that she has some questions about her powers, most notably about "mind control." Tess asks what kind of questions, after which they hit that large, blank spot on the script with just big, block letters reading "vamp till, well, forever" as Tess says, "What do you want to know?" and Liz says, "Whatever you can tell me," and Tess says, "What do you want to know?" and Liz says, "Whatever you can tell me," and Max is all chilling in West Hollywood and looks up and is like, "Crap, I missed my cue," and that's what accounts for those ten seconds of dead air right back there. Finally, he busts through the door, gets midway through the line, "Hey, your door's…" Max spots Liz and asks accusingly what she's doing there, and Liz is all "nothing" (good so far), "we were just talkink." Oh, snap. And oh well. Even Tess tries to smooth things over, telling Max to "forget about it," and Max gets really quiet and smarmy and can he also be oily, because if so, he's that too in telling her, "Please don't go on my account." Liz volunteers that she wanted to know a few things about mind control, and Max lays into her (ew, not like that…FOR ONCE), asking, "So Tess killed Alex? Is that your theory?" Liz and Tess react more or less equal parts "you're crazy" and "you're fucking crazy" as Max really yells at Tess, "What were you doing the night that he died? Go ahead, what were you doing?" Kyle sneaks into the room and lets them know, "She was with me. We were watching Gladiator on video." Rent it tonight. Go home happy. Guaranteed to be there. Max whispers, "An alibi. From one of your own." Oh my God, there's a separation between humans and aliens and it’s her fault and we get it. Liz asks if she can leave (no, Liz, you MUST leave), and as Max slams the door to a house that is not his own, Kyle asks Max in a blasé-enough way, "Everything okay?" Tess assures him everything is fine, as Max broods like a man but impregnates like an irresponsible idiot. And there you were, thinking I had broken apart my soapbox to drive the remains, tinder by tinder, through my heart.
Liz's room. It's the middle of the day, Maria. Use the damn door. But, alas, no. Instead, she Dukes of Hazzard's her way in the window for a change, telling Liz, "I went to Derek." Who? Oh, yeah. "And he used his nerdness to uncover that the emails were sent from right here in New Mexico." Hey, there's gratitude. What she discovered is that the emails were sent from a dorm room at the University of New Mexico at Las Cruces. Maybe Isabel's college counselor Mr. Max Evans can make her go there, too. Pick up a window sticker for the Alienmobile while you're gone, girls! Cut to Liz and Maria, bags packed, making for the door (the door, eh?) of Maria's house, opening it to discover Michael standing on the other side. Liz puts together the quickest, dumbest lie about taking off for a memorial service in Santa Fe that Alex's grandmother put together. Oh, great. More tears and despair and smorgasbord whitefish salad. I hate death. Oh wait, she's lying. Michael asks Liz if he can speak privately with Maria, and he closes the door (the DOOR) to the house and asks Maria where's she's going. "Santa Fe." Michael's bullshit alarm sounds. "Liz doesn't want us to know because she and Max are at war. So here's the thing: I'm not gonna tell Max. But I need to know, because if wherever you're going turns out to be dangerous, I'm sure as hell gonna be there to protect you. So where are you going?" And, at the sight of Maria's white knight riding valiantly in on his noble steed, Maria folds like the proverbial house of Max's heterosexuality (tricky metaphor there, folks) and outs with the truth. "If Liz finds out that I told you, I will lose her as a friend." Michael seems to very seriously consider this as a means of hacking off some dead fat. In fact, so does Maria. He makes her promise that she'll track him down if trouble threatens. Smacky kiss goodbye. Sure hope she isn't pregnant.
And then, sometimes, suddenly, it's yearbook day. Walking down the hall to a giant table with Proof I Was Thin Once, Max notes that Maria and Liz aren't in school today. He asks Michael if he knows where they are. No. He sure doesn't. And, though not graduating, Max and Michael use their entitled alien fingers to pick up their fresh new copies of the Crapselcior or whatever, each flipping to their own huge picture (even though they're not graduating) and checking themselves out to notice that someone has replaced their photos with small Judy the Time/Life Operator alien photos. Uh-oh. That Lisa Simpson sure can be a wicked prankster. They look around for the culprit and notice Kyle and Isabel cracking up in their general direction. That's the best they could do? Wacky subplot fun times for the first time this whole season, and the two most interesting characters (y'know, arguably) can't generate anything more than a third-generation carbon copy of a series of jokes perfected and discarded at the end of The First Wives Club? Michael asks what else Max has been dealing with…
…and it takes Max the amount of time it takes to get through an entire day at school, change into his after-school play clothes, track down a basketball, drive to Covina, and watch Michael airball it on the court before getting around to responding, "Just stuff, y'know?" He exposits that things with Tess have "advanced," and Michael begins, "You and Tess actually had…" What is with the eventual cutoff of every line of dialogue this week? Is it…? Yes, I think it is. Anyway, Max finishes it off (ew, not like that…FOR ONCE): "Hot alien sex. Yes." He throws the basketball to Michael like this is some Lord of the Flies drama game where now Michael has to utter some painfully awful sentiment that makes me want to just. Throw. Up. Instead, he asks how it was. Max volunteers that he thinks it's like human sex (wrong already…he called the day), "except the point of culmination." Cletus asks, "The wha?" But no kidding, talk like a teenager on the basketball court if you're a teenager on the basketball court. There's a "hot, electric energy" at the end. Michael asks how long it lasts. "About an hour." Like Sting, he's tantric. And he can pick up his completed Lenscrafters right after he's done! Unfortunately, Max continues, as the game is suddenly over, "There's been a complication." Michael asks, "Alien herpes?" No. Performance problems? Only in his acting, baby. Max cops to the pregnancy, and tells us, "Nasedo says alien pregnancies take about a month." Oh, man. Family Ties had less embarrassing child-birthing sweeps stunts. Nice rewriting -- or just plain writing -- of alien history. Michael frets that a baby will screw up all of their lives. You think?
La Cruces Too-Big Dorm Room. Maria and Liz tear the totally empty place apart, from vanity to slatted shades to full kitchen (why oh why didn't I go to college on the WB?), when they are interrupted by a dude (actually, a dude) who would be bordering on collegiate cute if he didn't slightly resembling Grant "Mel Glibson" Sorenson in a number of creepy, flashback-y ways. He asks if he can help them with anything. They tell him that they're looking for their friend who was staying there for a few months. L'il Grant (now that the "l'il" nickname is once again up for grabs) asks, "You mean Ray?" Ray is the name of Pamie's roommate, the maker of fine poisons. Shout-out? They unconvincingly tell him yes, Ray. L'il Grant tells them that Ray "hardly said a word" and that he "rarely left the room" and that the only time he answered the door was "when they delivered his Thai food. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Every day. Food fetish, if you ask me." Consider yourself not asked, Most Attentive RA In Collegiate History. L'il Grant keeps on pretty rudely about their good friend Ray. He saw this Ray walking out of "the Litvack Building" once, and that this Ray ignored L'il Grant completely. Pretty creepy, huh? Liz asks what's in this Litvack Building, and L'il Grant responds, "Computers, I mean, I'm not really into that kind of stuff, but apparently, the college has this incredible supercomputer." Hee. Incredible Supercomputer. Yeah, we're impressed. You're not into computers and you're awesome. Say, L'il Grant, is that the new Dave Matthews playing on the Discman sticking out of the Manhattan Portage bag that also holds your dirty white "Cocks" cap? Or did you leave it in the Range Rover?
I think we're over at The Scoping Fjords Of Sandy Land in the pod room. It's dark and I'm inattentive, so I'm not sure. Max and Tess enter, Max carrying The Big Bag Of First Season Props, which he tells Tess is "everything we have from where we come from." He pulls out the Rough-Hewn Urban Outfitters Zapf Dingbats Journal, and tells Tess that if they could crack the language, it would tell them what to do. Nasedo would never have taught her to speak the native language of their homeland? Max gives Tess the Lifetime-movie speech of the enlightened male, letting her know, "This is your decision. I will respect whatever you decide…" But she cuts him off. What a tremendous surprise. She tells him that she's having the baby, and he promises non-blithely to stand by her. She sulks, "Don’t sound so excited about it," and the sparks fly about him being scared because his whole life is changing and her feeling scared and "flipped out" feh. But the convo stops abruptly when she bends over in some kind of pain and asks, "Max?" What? "The baby." He makes his way over to note that Tess has swallowed the glowing orb, as a tiny red hand emerges, Alien-style, from her abdomen, and Max puts his hand on it. Panting. The hand goes away, and Max celebrates, "I saw the baby. It's a boy!" How did he know that? I guess he's used to identifying parts so tiny, or something like that.
Thank you, KTLA5, the Los Angeles affiliate of the WB, for showing the Friends promo that features Monica and Ross dancing back when the show used to be funny, and for cutting off a bit of Roswell in the process. Someone knows talent when they see it. What had happened was, we're suddenly inside some concert venue, where Maria and Liz are happily dancing to Nelly Furtado singing "I'm Like A Bird." I guess the five seconds I'm missing centered mostly around them solving Alex's murder and buying tickets to a sold-out college gig. I dig Nelly, myself. And I so love the filler aspect of the song. But what the holy hell is she DOING there? Liz looks over to the other side of the venue and notes that Svetlana from the pictures is standing, like, three feet away from here. In plain sight. Svetlana looks back at them and takes off back into the crowd, and the chase is on. Which the affiliates love, because watching Liz run = ad dollars. Naturally, they lose her, just as Michael appears behind them and insists, "I want to know everything." I just used the new search string here on MBTV2 and discovered that that expression was used in twelve -- count 'em, twelve -- of the first season's episodes. MBTV2! Catch it!
Kyle breaks every applicable law of secondary education ever in pulling a fire alarm in the middle of a school day, sending a class mysteriously chock full o' Max and Isabel for the doors in a calm, orderly fashion. Except for the one kid who loudly goes, "Wha?" And except, that is, for Max, whose feet are -- no, wait for it -- stuck to the floor! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Damn, these people are so out of ideas.
More khaki dorkdom. Liz follows around some guy on the Las Cruces campus, because it looks like once he had acne, so obviously he's a big computer fan (um, where did they stay last night?), into this unfortunately-named Litvack Building. She asks, "So what exactly is so special about these computers, anyway?" Oh, does she mean the Incredible Supercomputer? Because I really love that term. It sounds like the poorly-translated anime version of The Matrix. "The Incredible Supercomputer: Super Karate Monkey Death Car!" With a tagline like that, who can resist? No one. That's who. We learn that these computers do their best work in "cryptography," and that the computers will one day be able to "break any code." And speaking of ripping off the lowest end of the bell curve on Matrix technology, Helpful Dork Number Four Trillion stares at a screen of streaming numbers and explains to Liz, "He was definitely trying to decode something. Something major." Liz asks if there's any way to figure out what Alex was doing. Isn't, er, that just what they're doing there? And what did she actually give to him to put in that computer? I have so many questions. I have significantly fewer answers. Helpful Dork Number Four Trillion offers that he can try and crack the code, "but I'm not sure how deep we can penetrate." Ugh. From the cyber-porn thriller, The Incredible Supercomputer…That Is My Penis. Or something. Helpful Dork Number Four Trillion types the words "Requesting source material" into his DOS screen. That's all it takes, huh?
Max crosses off an entry in the real-estate ads under the word "beach" (good call, here in the middle of the desert) and Tess asks what's what, even though she's been sitting right there. He responds, "I've been thinking, if we're gonna have a baby, maybe we should get a place of our own." Yeah, good luck explaining that one to Mom and Dad. In a month. She thinks it's a great idea, but wonders if Roswell is the right place to do it. He asks if she wants to go somewhere else, and she reminds him, "I always thought the ultimate plan was to go home. Our real home." Max tells her it is, "someday." She agrees, and aren't they adorable.
Back at The Incredible Supercomputer, Michael and Maria knock on the window of the lab and try to look incredibly impatient. Liz excuses herself, and Michael looks stern as Maria shows Liz pictures of this week's Bargain Basement Blonde (hey, it's been a while…I almost thought the streak was over), whose name is "Jennifer Coleman." There's a picture of her running. Michael tells her that the situation isn't safe, and Liz tells him that she's going to stay until she has the information she came for. Just then, Helpful Dork Number Four Trillion tells Liz that he found "Ray's source material," and the Zapf Dingbats symbols start rolling up the screen. As Helpful Dork Number Four Trillion muses that "it looks kind of Native American" (which I'm guessing is what this guy says whenever he, like, eats corn), Michael has a flashback to the Scoping Fjords of Sandy Land and asks Helpful Dork Number Four Trillion, "Where the hell did this come from?" Helpful Dork Number Four Trillion says that Ray was translating it into English and then deleted the entire file as soon as he emailed it to Jcoleman@ulascruses.edu. Flood this mailbox, people.
Tess calls to Max, "Regular or diet?" He wants regular. I want diet. And the, oh, no. Max sits on the floor of whatever room is the site of the frilly, frilly bedspread, and looks down at a newspaper on which is doodled a heart pierced with a Cupid's arrow, in the middle of which is written, "Max." Oh. I guess they are at Porno's house after all. From the kitchen comes a gasp and a crash, and Max runs inside to find her on the floor. What's wrong? I am the one who cares. "The baby. Something's wrong." Max looks within a flash of CGI, and comes out instinctively knowing, "He's sick. This atmosphere. It's poisoning him. Our son is dying." Hey. Where's my soda?
Thank you, KTLA5, the Los Angeles affiliate of the WB, for showing a commercial for Arrowhead brand bottled water and cutting off another bit of Roswell. Someone knows talent when they see it. All of a sudden, we cut in on Liz asking, "All of a sudden?" so she is doubtlessly responding to any number of questions of the "Is a cheap publicity stunt really grounds for sneaking into that concert?" or "Isn't a gerund what goes in my pen?" or even "Who the hell are Malcolm & Eddie and why are we getting their timeslot?" varieties. Some girl with insane red hair and a far more insane pink sweater squirms in the door, telling Maria, Liz, and Michael, "She got a call this morning, her mom's in hospital. So she just packed up and went." Maria deadpans a line I really dig: "That's just terrible, 'cause I know Jen and her mom are pretty close," before moving on to the we're-so-over-sneaking-in-places plot twist of the week (Michael even takes a peek at his watch, which you can SET by this development), asking, "Listen, before she went, did she happen to give you some notes from Physics class she said I could borrow?" Yeah. They're all taking Physics. And I was a Nuclear Chemistry major. And I didn't even pronounce it "nucular" in front of my professors or anything. If there's even such a field of study as "Nuclear Chemistry." Is there? Big Red knows nothing of it, nor has she heard a lick about the Physics notes, so the three bust into action and play their respective roles: Liz flails around looking for relevant information, Maria chats Big Red right out of the room about stories of her own family trials, and Michael actually does the work and picks up a stack of papers and some mail, rams it down his pants (uh…), and they take off. Big Red looks both plussed and nonplussed.
Downstairs in some kind of industrial parking garage leading to an atrium of some kind, they tear open the mail. Michael is quick to discover something from "Open Sky Property Management," which he knows instinctively is "a bill for renting property outside Las Cruces." Maria yells, "I'll drive!" because they firmly have a choice (Michael got to Las Cruces via that dominant southwestern travel mode known as "The Crab Walk," I'm guessing), and we cut to beefy, dramatic horns and a shot of the Jetta steaming into a broken-down shack in the middle of nowhere. Broken windows, open doors, plastic on the walls. Very reminiscent of the opening scene of Memento. And the closing scene. And, well, sorry again, Pamie. Sigh. Liz asks, "Why would anybody rent this?" and Michael, denizen of ramshackle state-owned architectural oddities in his own right, knows: "'Cause they got something to hide." Something like The Incredible Supercomputer, which Liz soon finds behind a plastic sheet. But she only has a moment to ponder this development, for a shouted "Liz!" from Maria inspires Liz to turn around and come face to face with this week's CGI, brought to you in part by the folks over at Industrial Light & Abject Poverty. Michael throws out a hand and tosses it away as it smashes through a window and explodes just outside. And then, right in the middle of the scene, KTLA5, the Los Angeles affiliate of the WB, busts in and shows a random commercial for the local news, cutting off another bit of Roswell. Someone knows talent when they see it. God, I love LA. When we return, Michael says, "You're welcome," and a moment has been shared, and then another glitch in the matrix finds Liz sitting down at The Incredible Supercomputer and exclaiming, "This is it!" English words fill the screen and a printer kicks to life as Michael picks up a box and finds one of those first-season "Destiny" crystals within. The printout translation of his planet's every secret sits before them, all in caps. Vary the punctuation, five triangulated planetary alliance. You're booted, other planet.
What a natural, organic, non-contrived occurrence! Max pats Tess on the forehead and asks her if she feels okay, barely waiting for the answer before informing her regarding the Zapf Dingbats Journal, "I have no idea how to read it. That's the truth. I wish I did, but I don't. I feel like I'm letting you down." Tess, all the loving Victorian bride wilting from consumption in the drawing room, goes downright Hardy novel with her male-affirming, "You're the one person I know I can count on in this world. I have faith in you, Max. I always have." He kisses her forehead because he's domineering and she's five, continuing on, "When that happened before. When you fell. I guess I suddenly realized that I could lose you." He looks stricken. "I've been taking you for granted." Word on that. He apologizes. I still say dump the bastard. He'll never be good to you. Of this I am sure. I dispense helpful relationship advice to two-dimensional television characters who can't hear me because they aren't real. I am the fucked-up Dr. Phil of recappers.
I adore them, you guys. I promise, I really do. But this whole subplot is so strained and unlike anything their characters would actually do. Isabel sits alone at a table at the Crashdown, and Kyle busts in suddenly, sits at her table, and jovially informs her, "I'm a guy. I know what freaks guys out. He wakes up tomorrow morning…one testicle!" That would freak me out, too. To wake up with one more than I had gone to bed with the night before, I mean. Ha. Cough. Sigh. Isabel tells Kyle that she's over screwing with Max, and Kyle tries, like, real hard to make with the Buddha chat, but she cuts him off in an angry hurry: "Kyle, if you quote that fat bald man to me one more time, you're gonna wake up one of these mornings and zap." She points downward and leaves. Kyle stares slowly and anxiously down, almost saving the over subplot. That look was his idea. I just know it.
Refuse alert! Max takes out the trash, and the bag breaks open as it does to me every freaking night without me having a girly hissyfit about it, so he kicks the crap out of the bags and the dumpster beyond, giving me a slight giggle at it all and forcing me to stifle anywhere in the area of ten billion "I thought all of the characters on this show were impervious to reeking trash" and deciding all of them were too easy, except for the one I came up with just back there. As he lies on the ground and hugs himself in the mental anguish of it all, Isabel walks up and sees the display. Max cries about the dying baby and the hostile atmosphere blah, and he snots through a weepy speech about feeling "irresponsible and stupid." He almost rationalizes himself out of blame, adding, "I know this was supposed to happen because this is our destiny," but me and my friend Trojan Man think maybe destiny could be avoided until they were at least somewhere into their twenties. Isabel takes control, grabbing his hand and insisting, "Come with me." Max wipes his nose with his other hand and goes halfway up his arm, and Isabel is all, "Note to self. Stay on left." They walk into a town square of some kind, Isabel asking, "Remember Bigfoot?" Quoi? His guinea pig? Yes. Max invents character backstory that a neighbor's dog got a hold of him (how about a damn cage in the garage, then? What's the problem with Max and keeping his small pets in their proper places these days?), and Isabel asks, "Do you remember what happened the day?" He doesn't. So Isabel holds a hand up to the sky and the dandruffy asbestos that blanketed the townspeople, killing them all instantly in "A Roswell Christmas Carol," starts to fall. Max remembers: "It snowed." Quick on the uptake, Willard. Now tell us about some old chick in Delaware's 104th birthday, superimposed on the back of a Smuckers jar, and we'll get back to morning features with Matt and Katie. Isabel reminds us all that it was the first time they'd ever seen snow: "It snowed for two days. Biggest storm to hit Roswell in a century. It was a disaster for everyone but us." Oh, why? Here's why:
Max: We built snowmen.
Isabel: We made angels.
Max: And pelted Michael with snowballs.
Isabel: It was magic.
Max: Just like this.
Wow. This is so the recitative from "Snow Reason For Us To Fight," the lavish but taboo brother/sister love song from the upcoming production of Roswell! The Musical. Isabel apologizes to Max (boo!), telling him that her problems are "nothing." Max, now that he's been told just how right he is about everything, can recant some of his bitterness, responding that her life is important, too. Isabel promises that they'll "figure something out," and then asks if the baby is a boy or a girl. It's a boy. And the child bride is lying in agony, unattended and unsupervised, across town while Siegfried and Roy run around making the weather all quirky and dancing the Roswell! two-step. Go home, Max. They hug on a footbridge as a motorcycle carrying Michael pulls up (er…) and he asks, "A little public, isn't it?" Isabel doesn't care. No one seems to. Michael pulls out the translated book. "You know, the book." It's all binder clipped and shit, too. I need Michael as a temp. Isabel asks what's in the book and Max stares it down: "It's the way home. We can go home." Isabel looks skyward. Just GO, people. Where was trusty old KTLA5, the Los Angeles affiliate of the WB, when I needed them most?