To Have And To Hold

Props to Liz. No. Not that Liz.

Morning time at The Interplanetary House Of Evanscakes. An exterior shot of the house is accompanied by a subtitle in Microsoft Word Font MS Alien Bold Sans "Sustaining Viewer Interest In This Show When At This Very Moment Just One Channel Away Tom Welling Probably Already Has His Shirt Off" Bold that reads, "3 days, 6 hours, 24 minutes until the wedding." We cut to inside the adobe manse, where a ringing alarm clock reads 5:45. The clock itself is the quirky shape and the shiny metallic design of the not-too-distant future, and its presence is meant to reassure the uneasy six of us that, though Isabel is about to leave singlehood and chastity behind, she's still enough of a hometown girl to have set up her wedding registry at the Crashdown gift shop. That's why I got her gum. Alien gum. But gum nonetheless.

Reaching over and turning the alarm off is Isabel "Where's Samantha! She-a at the church. The church? She get-a maddied. Maddied? Maddied! Jeez!" Evans, who is stirred suddenly wide awake, preventing us from having to stare all fetishistically into this weird Isabel's-armpit close-up for one more second. She sits bolt upright in bed, apparently roused to attention by the music supervisor's painful (and not at all clichd) decision to use "The Wedding March" on the soundtrack to connote, of all things, the approach of a wedding. I guess said music supervisor couldn't procure the rights to the even more blatantly illustrative WE GET IT ditty "Isabel Evans Is Getting Married (Do You Need Me To Draw You A Goddamn Picture)" on account of that song doesn't exist at the moment. Incidentally, I can't wait until the end of this episode, when the self-serious monotone of Jason Behr voices over the closing credits with, "Tonight's episode of Roswell featured music by Fuel, 3 Doors Downand Felix Mendelssohn." And the album cover is a picture of Mendelssohn in a big ol' powdered wig, celebrating his sudden, Tony Bennett-esque career resurgence all, "Look at me! I'm famous on the Roswell show!"

Cut to the Crashdown by light of poorly-lit dawn. Isabel stands outside the closed restaurant, reaching the height of impatience, employing that Stella Adler-esque "I am impatient!" constant shifting of her weight. She falls slightly short of her emotional goal and ends up communicating more of an "oh man oh man I really have to pee oh man" thing. I feel you, Isabel. My bladder always tends to weaken before all of my own sham sweeps-dictated weddings. From inside the Crashdown, Maria "Find Me A Find, Catch Me A Catch" DeLuca turns the "Closed" sign around to signify that the Crashdown is now open for business. She then fiddles a bit with the lock (my God, man, can't you see how badly Isabel needs to pee? Move it along!), opens the door, and wishes Isabel a "good morning." Isabel slams past her with a curt, "Don't you guys open at 6:30? It's 6:42." She barks a breakfast order at Maria, and Liz "Always The Bridesmaid, Never The So Much As Vaguely Believable Actress" Parker hops to attention. Isabel sits at a table and flips open a notebook, dialing her first number and bizzotching into the phone that her invitations company in Dallas (who, considering time zone concerns and the likelihood of a printing company being open before eight o'clock on a weekend morning, must be located in Dallas, England) has failed to overnight her the invitations she'd been expecting. Which, as conventional wisdom dictates for a wedding Nazi such as herself, would have gone out, like, six weeks ago. And not 3 days, 6 hours, 24 minutes, and it-will-still-be-two-weeks-'til-we-say-we're-sorry ago.

Time lapse, and the Crashdown goes from closed to open to closed once more. It's dark outside now, and Maria and Liz sit at the counter while a beleaguered Isabel continues to maintain some small level of believability with that pretending-you're-on-the-phone-listening-to-someone-else-talk thing, like, "What? What's that you say you'll do? You say you want me to shut up? Well, listen, buster! What? What's that? You say I won't have my flowers in time? But what about? What?" Isabel finishes up another round of general meanness, slamming down her cell phone as much as one can slam down a cell phone, and turning her anger on Liz when The Waitress Bot fails to take into account the emotional needs of her customer and kicks back to her default setting of just offering her some pie. Isabel snaps that, no, she does not want some pie, but she quickly collects herself and apologizes for, as the UPN so allows, "being such a bitch today." Liz tells her not to worry, saying that she can't imagine the stress Isabel is under, plot-developing not at all awkwardly, "Are you nervous at all? Not about the wedding, but about getting married. I mean, it's for the rest of your life." IT IS? Man, everything I ever needed to know I learned from watching Roswell. Isabel claims she's not nervous at all, that she knows he's the right guy and so on, and Liz and Maria crow on about their own romantic interests until Isabel slips right into a coma (I so feel you! I'm over here! Feeling you!) right there at the Crashdown table. She's asleep in the booth. And thenoh, my, what have we here? Isabel slips into a dream state, whereby she is standing alone in a room with dozens of French doors, open to allow wind to gust in from an indeterminate off-screen locale and blow many billowy curtains around. Oh, my God. Isabel has fallen asleep in the Crashdown and dreamwalked Celine Dion right though the storyboarding process of the video for "It's All Coming Back To Me." All she needs now is the giant mirror and the two-thousand-year-old husband. Then a beefcake-y dude walks into the billowy wind room. He doesn't look two thousand at all.

They dance their dance of lies. He kisses her in a smacky fashion until Isabel is suddenly snapped back to attention in the diner. Maria asks a concerned, "Are you okay?" Isabel claims that she's fine. But when he kiss her like this. When he touch her like that. It was so long ago. But it's all coming back to her. Now.

Opening credits. Dido is my anti-drug.

For those of you playing at home, it is now 2 days, 3 hours, 54 minutes until the wedding. Thanks, Wedding Font! Kyle "The Best Man" Valenti wears his mechanic's onesie and works under a large chartered bus while a cool guy in a denim jacket and the same sunglasses as the guy on The Simpsons who announces, "Hello, human fly here" barks behind him, "Well? Well? C'mon, I need an answer here." Kyle snaps that he's "still looking," but an inspired bit of cell phone hijinks learns us that Human Fly isn't talking to Kyle at all. But then he gets off the phone and asks Kyle, "So what's the deal?" But see, we don't know he's off the phone yet, so there's nothing filler-ish about this moment at all. Kyle stands and explains to Human Fly that he has no idea what's wrong with the tour bus, suggesting, "Why don't you and the band go get a cup of coffee and come back in an hour or two?" Human Fly bemoans that he's "stuck for two hours in some rat hole called Roston, New Mexico." Oh, come on with that. Who hasn't at least heard of damn Roswell already? There even used to be a television show named after it. On an actual kind-of network and everything! But no matter; I hear it was cancelled some time since. And a great time of mercy it was. Until it wasn't cancelled anymore.

Isabel saunters up behind Kyle, the radio-play remix of "Don't Want No Short, Short Man" pulsing its censored beats imperceptibly way in the background and highlighting what a little, little man Kyle really is. He's pocket-sized fun, he is. We cut to the two of them over in The Deep Conversation Nook Of Monster Joe's Truck And Tow (and what self-respecting auto body shop doesn't have a Deep Conversation Nook? I can't begin to recount the times I've wept openly about the state of world affairs with my very own tiny mechanic while my tires were being rotated mere feet away), Isabel explaining to Kyle, "It was the strangest dream. It's like it's me but it wasn't me." Yeah. Never heard anyone describe a dream like that before. She continues her galvanizing description of this mystical so-called "dream" state only the more evolved species experience, elucidating, "Like, I was saying and doing things I had no control over, like it wasn't me. But it was me." In her underpants. In front of a classroom. On the first day of school. In a play. Falling. Flying. Being chased by tigers. Thanks a heap for the description, young Fantine, but I too have dreamed a dream before. Kyle unhelpfully spins this scene's wheels (seems like someone of his vocation would know just how bad that is for the tires), tossing out a needless, "You know, they say you should write down your dreams as soon as you wake up." Then he taps his pocket-sized noggin and fails to be taken seriously by girls. Isabel's cell phone rings, and Kyle hates cell phones.

Back in town (for Monster Joe's Truck And Tow can only be on the outskirts), Isabel is marching down the street, barking into her cell phone, and running out of wedding-oriented organizations to be mad at on the phone ("And if that wedding band doesn't play 'The Chicken Dance' correctly, I'm going to melt all of their brains!"). She vamps herself into a corner, bellowing into a cell phone prop with no batteries or written dialogue, "How do you run a business this way?" But she's stopped in her tracks when, right in front of a makeshift Main Street store brilliantly named "Jewelers" (do they sell "Jewel" CDs and merchandise, 'haps?), she runs into Bangs and Dad. Awkward pleasantries are barely exchanged, but just as Isabel begins to walk away, Bangs keeps her around with this speech: "I know that you're hurt and you're angry, and we understand, but" Monopoly Nazi cuts his wife off because he does everything better than anyone who has ever done anything, continuing on that they love her and all, but "we can't support this." Isabel ignores them, storming off and screaming into the phone, "You listen to me. This is my wedding and no one will screw it up. No one!" See. But it's like she's really talking to her parents. The levels of meaning! The Evans parents stand there for a moment, disconsolate, before collecting themselves and buying some jewels at "Jewelers" before stopping in for a bite to eat at "Eat" and then getting gas at "Gas" to prepare for the long ride home. Such is life on the Sesame Street E-Z reader set. Set guy? Get some real sets.

Isabel sits alone at a picnic table, her first moment of cell-phone-free time since the advent of the cellular chip. She is soon to be interrupted by the arrival of Max "Here Comes TheZzzzzzzz" Evans. Isabel doesn't bother looking up, asking, "How was Los Angeles?" Woo hoo! Shout-out! Max retorts, "Not quite what I expected." Woo hoo! Shout out part deux! Just kidding. I actually dig L.A. Not that you asked. Which you could have, y'know. Max asks how Isabel is, and she offers that she's "under a lot of pressure. Two days and counting, you know." Whatever, sister. Tell it to the Font. Isabel tells Max that she doesn't need to hear it from him, too, and that she knows that he doesn't want her to marry Jesse. Max responds that everyone is just "concerned. It's not that we don't like Jesse." Isabel tirades that she's tired of hearing that "it's that you don't know Jesse, it's how sudden this is, it's that you don't want me to make a mistake I'll regret for the rest of my life. I know. I've heard it all." Max moves to her on the bench and parks himself well inside the radius of appropriate sisterly contact, asking her if maybe she's been hearing the same speech from so many people because the speech ain't so bullshitty after all. "Or maybe," Isabel responds all somberly, "you could trust me." She bemoans the fact that her parents aren't coming, and gets little weepy that she can say it but can't quite make herself believe it. Awwwww. But she rallies: "All that matters is that I know Jesse is the one." Cue Jesse. And there he is, bedecked in a finely-tailored suit, approaching through the healthy verdant park like the ambiguous sixth member of a United Colors of Benetton ad. Max questions, "What's this?" Isabel ambiguously responds, "This is a set-up," and even though I think I know what that means in this context, I'm not entirely sure what that means in this context. Jesse pecks Isabel hello, but seems a lot more intent on focusing a bit of attention on Max (a turn of events, I suspect, which is really just fine with Max). Touching music is touching. Jesse: "I know we don't know each other too well yet, but since we're going to be family, I thought that -- actually, Isabel and I thought that -- we could start things off on the right foot by asking you if you'd consider being my best man." Before you respond, Max, just remember that it doesn't mean what you probably think it means. Despite that disappointment, Max accepts. Isabel is happy. Jesse isAN ALIEN! Just kidding. Or am I? Anyone here? Is this thing on?

House That Government Subsidy Built. Max paces and devises a strategy of the latest devious ruse afoot: "First, we need a sample of his blood. Make sure he's not an alien." Oh, dude, Max, you so don't get to be my best man. It's at this point in the planning process that you're supposed to be pacing and muttering, "Strippers? Or hookers? And what really is the difference between them, anyway? And that giant cake they jump out ofis it actually MADE OF CAKE, or what?" He's talking to Michael "Here Comes The Snide" Guerin, who is sitting on The Couch That Government Subsidy Upholstered, responding, "Max, you're not into this." I think he means the wedding. Max knows that, but now that he's "stupidly agreed to be best man," he can't let Isabel know how little they really trust Jesse and his maybe-an-alien ways. At least "not until we have something solid on Jesse." Ew. You keep your "something solid" as far away from your sister's fianc as all time and space will allow, m'kay? Once again, Max -- I don't think "best man" means what you think it means.

Who's working at the damn diner, then? Cut to Isabel's room a bit later, Liz and Maria sitting on her floor sifting through the mess of wedding crap Isabel dropped when she ran. Maria proposes, "Here's what I'm thinking: we should just jump into this with both feet and take control of the situation." Either that or, as Liz posits, "sit back and watch it all fall apart." There's a wacky visual joke about the bridesmaids' dresses, but I think you'll concur that nobody got it.

Oooh. New set. Let's call it Monster Joe's Tux And Tow. We're at a suit-type men's shop, Jesse standing to Max and telling the proprietor of the store that he would like to "try the double-breasted." Which I think is another subtle hint to his so-called "best" so-called "man." The hint being, "Step off it, Max. I'm a double-breasted man only." Max looks like he's in a coma. Michael enters and shakes Jesse's hand, telling him that he's getting "a great girl." Ugh. I hate that dowry-talk shit. Michael kicks off with some light small talk: "So, twenty-five hours and counting." Hey, look who just got back from the craft services table after a long lunchtime talk with Font! Michael and Font are best, best friends. But wait! I smell a wacky ruse afoot. Michael and Max make some eye contact, and Michael launches in, "So, you're a local boy?" Born and raised. "And then you went to Harvard?" Grad school. But undergrad was at Cornell. Max: "That's in upstate New York, right?" Shout-out! I went to college in upstate New York. But not near the damn frozen tundra wasteland of Ithaca. Much more to the south. By twelve or so whole miles. Not that you asked. But really, it would have been nice if you had. They grill Jesse on why he would have wanted to get out of Roswell, and they all commiserate on a restless feeling that makes you want to get out of Roswell. Word. But they keep pulling you back in. Cut to later, the three sitting around a table in the suit store, Jesse explaining, "Anyway, I didn't make the law review, so I knew I wouldn't be clerking for anyone on the Supreme Court." But then Max takes it a step too far with the questioning, and Jesse asks not-at-all-ironically, "What are you guys, interrogating me or something?" And then, this episode's fatal error repeats itself, allowing the characters to improv, all, "Of course not! No! Don't be silly! No!" Michael stands up and takes Jesse's suit jacket, sticking a pin in the sleeve and telling Jesse to try it on. Ow! He's bleeding. Max dabs the blood and they're off with it in a hurry. Jesse is dubious. Time lapse again. Endless quantities of time were indicated to have passed during that scene. Alien Bold Font pops up on the screen and is all, "The wedding was three weeks ago!" Pipe down, Font.

Makeshift Science Lab That Government Subsidy Made In A Makeshift Fashion. Michael inspects the blood cells under a microscope and reports to Max over the phone, "We got bad news, Maxwell. Jesse Ramirez is, ta-da, human." And he says the "ta-da" with such casual venom that you can actually hear him hating this show through his dialogue. Man. This season really is going well. A frenzied knock on Michael's door gets him off the phone with Max, and he opens said door to find Isabel in a bit of a breathy panic, telling him, "Michael, I'm in trouble. We may all be in trouble. There's an alien out there and he's after me." It's not Jesse, though. He's a human. Ta. Da.