“ Liz pulls the Zapf symbol out from in between her Aquabra and forks it back over. Somber music ambiguously plays. My fifth-grade math teacher knows her days are numbered. Shut up, Mrs. Verini. The school bell tolls for thee. ”
Previously on Roswell: Isabel wears curtains and marries a gay man in an even gayer lavender boutonniere.
Ack! Pores! We open on a Wayne-and-Garth-esque Extreme Close-Up of the eyes of Max "Ack! Pores!" Evans. A high-drama cut to The Blackboard Of Fatherly Conspiracy cuts quickly to a close-up of the mouth of Liz "Ack! Bores!" Parker, as she asks, "You okay?" A close-up shot of Max's mouth -- framed as it is by his prepubescent bar mitzvah boy facial growth -- responds, "I can't believe this." Cut back to the eyes, and whatever it is Max can't believe goes permanently unanswered as his staggeringly girly eyelashes brush against my television's picture tube and the screen goes blank forever and ever and ever. Oh, just kidding. You all know as well as I do that nothing will kill this show. Instead, the rest of his sentence tells us, "My whole life is up here." And even though the three-by-five cards clearly spell out, "What is Max hiding?" the Lizbot's central mainframe blinks a furious "Annoy! Annoy! Annoy!" and she one-ups the title character of The What Is Max Hiding Show in concurring, "Yeah, so is mine." Cards! Cards! Cards! Max mourns in a dull (duh) monotone (duh super-sized with fries and a coke), "My own father." He looks at a card that reads, "Tess," and tests his reading comprehension by hazarding, "Tess." Pee Wee's secret word of the season having been uttered, we are treated to a best of Tess package of Tess-o-licious clips from last season. Max and Tess naked in the planetarium. Tess engulfed in Ed Wood-ian CGI as the granilith chamber achieves liftoff. The rest of the cast standing on the scoping fjords of Sandy Land and averting their eyes from such profanely Ed Wood-ian CGI. Back in Monopoly Nazi's office, Liz mistakenly believes that there are new viewers of this show who might need to know more: "He's got cards up here for everythink. Los Angeles. Utah." Utah? More "previously" clips. The Alienmobile bursts into flames and goes flying over a cliff. Why did he do that to the Jeep, anyway? Liz fields that one: "You thought you'd never need it again." So be it, but isn't that a little overzealous? I mean, I don't have any further need for long division, but you don't see me setting my fifth-grade math teacher on fire and tossing her into a dark ravine, do you? I mean, DO YOU?
Liz takes Max's hand and pulls him away from The Backstory Board. She suggests, "Maybe you should tell your father." Max looks somber and notes, "These are my parents. I can't put them in this kind of danger." Liz, however, can be put at the business end of a long-range FBI rifle for fortysomething episodes and no one opposes it for a moment, save for those of us jaded enough with her world-constantly-in-peril constitution to ask, "Yeah, well, then why in the world isn't she dead yet?" Max seals the dramatic action of this episode by noting, "They can't ever know the truth." Liz asks what he intends to do, then, and Max knows instinctively. He quietly intones, "The necklace I gave you when I thought I was leaving?" Yeah? What about it? "I need it back." Liz pulls the Zapf symbol out from in between her Aquabra and forks it back over. Somber music ambiguously plays. My fifth-grade math teacher knows her days are numbered. Shut up, Mrs. Verini. The school bell tolls for thee.
“ Liz interjects an ill-timed pause so drearily long that the remaining six of us exchange a brief hopeful glance and one of us even mouths the words, 'Did they just cancel this show in the middle of an episode?' before finally -- FINALLY -- getting around to responding, 'Billy who?' ”
Crashdown. Liz stage-directs some cleanliness onto a milkshake machine. I really hope the regular patrons of that diner like themselves some soap-and-dishrag-flavored shakes, because that's the only thing Liz is ever cleaning when she's allegedly doing any work in there. Maria "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair" DeLuca assures Liz that everything will be "okay," and their vamp is soon interrupted by Michael "I'm Gonna Never Do Anything Remotely Resembling Washing My Hair, Thanks" Guerin, who rings the short-order bell as an introduction to plot-developing, "So when does Billy get here?" Liz interjects an ill-timed pause so drearily long that the remaining six of us exchange a brief hopeful glance and one of us even mouths the words, "Did they just cancel this show in the middle of an episode?" before finally -- FINALLY -- getting around to responding, "Billy who?" Billy Darden is how the closed-captioning spells it, and Liz elucidates that "First-Kiss Billy" is coming to Roswell. From the stool over, a suddenly-appearing Kyle -- fresh from piling enough copies of the New Mexico yellow pages onto his chair so that he could see above the counter and sneak unsuspecting into the frame, notes, "Your ex-boyfriend is coming to visit? That's not legal." Chatter chatter about how he wasn't her boyfriend, that they kissed once when they were thirteen, and we discern that First-Kiss Billy (or, as the deep, artistic philosopher would probably prefer to be called, "FK Billy") will be staying at Maria's house while her mother is out of town. Kyle finds this arrangement unacceptable, climbing down from his stool and walking over to the counter, explaining, "Michael, Michael" Did anyone else tack on a totally dumb and Rocky Horror-esque "Motorcycle!" at this point in Kyle's speech? You're so not alone. Kyle explains, "Here on planet Earth we have this thing called jealousy." Michael responds that he has nothing to be jealous about, and that "they were thirteen-year-old geeks at band camp." Awwww. Making fun of band camp. How quaintly 1999 and pre-war of you "writers." Maria hilariously carries Kyle back to his stool by the collar like a mother cat carries her tiny, tiny young (the cats don't have the unenviable task of completing this activity while their young pretend to be five inches taller in orthopedic shoes, which is probably what renders this gag here so "ih"). And then, there's Billy. And he's totally not a band camp geek anymore, because he carries a guitar case rather than a tuba or lute case, and Maria doesn't even recognize him all these years hence. He looks Maria right in the eyes and announces, "It's me," leaving off the additional, "Wacky cameo actor Jack Black," because the six of us who still watch this show obviously lack any kind of crap filter and we're probably the exact same six who ponied up the cash to see Shallow Hal, now aren't we? I know, it's not really Jack Black. But he's the damn "Land-of-Confusion"-video cloth-and-buttons spitting image, now isn't he? He hugs Maria and Michael looks away, a dozens eggs spontaneously bursting in their carton for as-yet-unknown reasons. Maria suggests to Hal, "Let's go this way." This way is out. They want to be alone. Meanwhile, Kyle Gass sits forlornly in the parking lot, all, "I'm way too Garfunkel to go solo now."
Opening credits: Does this Dido chick remind anybody else of a young Majandra?
Hal really does have quite a bit of scruff for a seventeen-year-old, doesn't he? Outside the Crashdown, Maria is on one of those ex-boyfriend perma-breaks that are part and parcel of federal labor laws (I take those all the time at work), listening as Hal woos her with pick-up lines from The Humbert Humbert Guide To Dating: "Last time I saw you, you were thirteen going on thirty." She retorts accordingly, "And you were, like, ninety-eight pounds going on this." Translation: "You're fat! Perhaps you noticed inside that I have no problem with that. Here. Have another space cruller." Flirty flirty flirty. That Hal. So shallow. Maria turns the topic to how long Hal will be shallowing up her airspace, and he notes that it will be "just a couple of days." On his way to New York. From where, Roswell Heights? I've done the transcontinental thing many more times than I care to think about by plane and train and automobile, and I have never once gone through Roswell, New Mexico on my way there or back. Hal asks if it's "cool" with Maria's mom that he stay at the house, and Maria levels with him that "she's actually gonna be out of town." Hal's eyes widen and other parts of Hal do other things that I prefer never to reflect upon, and the awkwardly hormonal moment is diffused when Hal changes topics again, asking, "Well, I can't wait to hear what you've been working on." Maria is quizzical. Working on? You know, music and so forth. Hal remembers, "I can still remember some of the lyrics you wrote back in band camp." When she was thirteen. And her song "I Like Puppies And Joey Lawrence" left not a dry eye at the band camp talent show. Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like a song I wrote when I was thirteen, doesn't it? Except for the puppies part.
Max skulks skulkily into the Crashdown kitchen, eliciting a "what are you doing in here?" from a preoccupied Michael. Max tells Michael that "something came up" and to cancel his plans with Maria and Hal. Michael steps outside and introduces himself to Hal as "the boyfriend," and then makes up a convoluted excuse filled with "Steves" and "Cheryls" for why he can't come out with them. Hal dispenses his slacker wisdom: "You gotta do what you gotta do." Michael kisses Maria and goes back inside. Hal notes, "He seems nice," and Maria sardonically retorts, "Yeah, he's a peach." They laugh I-don't-get-the-joke-ily.
A new set! Somewhere on this boldly bland 7 1/2 x 11 expanse of soundstage, there's a note reading, "Dear Roswell: Merry Christmas. Ask for this present ever again and you'll be cancelled before you can say 'encore performance of Special Unit 2, this and every Tuesday at 9.' Peace on Earth, your friends at Paramount." Jesse "Attorney at Yawn" Ramirez carries numerous boxes through the door, labeled "linens" and "shower gifts" and what have you, and Isabel bosses him around the place, barking destinations for said boxes. Finally, he lets go of the boxes and drops them to the ground (this whole sequence would have been rendered far less romantic had he been carrying the other assortment of boxes labeled "Ming vases" and "Hitler's brain preserved in a jar of formaldehyde"), picking up his booty of Isabel and twirling her around the place. He tells her, "It's tradition." Breaking all the shower gifts the day you move in is "tradition"? Can I have my blender back? They smooch and smooch until a ringing telephone interrupts them and she picks it up to hear Max ask, "Did you find your healing stone?" Isabel tells Max he's "way overreacting," Max tells her that their father is "on the warpath," Isabel tells Max that their father is "not the enemy," and turns around to find the smiling maw of Philip Evans staring back at her at uncomfortably close range. Run! It's the Monopoly Nazi! And he's on the warpath! And he's got a frond! Monopoly Nazi tells her he just came by to see the new place, which he calls "cozy." Isabel tells Monopoly Nazi that he should have waited until the place was a little more settled, but he's all, "Don't be silly, I can hang an awkward conversational segue on even the barest of walls," continuing on, "You in your new house, Max with his new car." Yeah, and by the way: "I didn't even know Max was getting a new car. Do you even know when he got rid of the Jeep?" Convincing cross-examination, like Clarence Darrow in his prime.
Maria's house. Cooking ephemera sits all around the kitchen, Maria and Hal chopping and stirring and simmering because cooking = sex. Maria returns to the safe plot at hand, telling Hal, "I can't believe you're doing it. Moving to New York." He even specifies an area: "Greenwich Village." For a production team that spent a considerable amount of time butchering the topology of New York for much of last season, I'm impressed that Hal didn't go for the straight phonetic pronunciation of "Greenwich." Let's just hope he doesn't say that he's going to be living on "Houston Street," lest this show's Gotham credibility be threatened anew. Maria offers the Fodor's blurb of the Village, telling us that that's where the "seedy bars and coffee shops" are. Oh, that Village. The one that exists entirely on TV. In 1991. In Seattle. Maria asks what he plans to do about money, and he tells her, "As long as I make enough to get by, I'm fine, you know?" And now, the New York perspective: No. I don't know. And the first time you're standing on Bleecker paying nine bucks for a slice of pizza, neither will you and your Bohemian self. Because another starving artist is just exactly what New York needs right now. Go. Strum. Take the economy right on down with you. Bum. But Maria finds the whole idea "romantic," and Hal tells her that "even back then, you were pretty dead serious about music. I mean, you were the one who gave me the bug." Ew. Maria claims that music turned out to be just "a passing thing" with her, and Hal tells her he has trouble believing that. Then he helps her cook, which is suave and rude.
Jesse stands in front of the mirror in his bathroom, Isabel sitting on the edge of the shower, Jesse vamping, "Your father introduced me to some clients as his son-in-law. You think I should start calling him 'Dad'?" Isabel doesn't hear a word, as she looks down at the floor and notes, "This floor is way too hard." Eh? "We could use a blanket." She runs out of the room and grabs a blanket. Why? "So we can have sex!" Oh. Why? "It's tradition that when a couple moves into their new place, they make love in every room of the house." Jesse snorts a small sigh that says, "Well then, that's only twice and then I can get back to flossing and admiring my own pecs, no?" They sit down on the blanket, and Jesse turns the conversation further from sex (well, from sex with Isabel, anyway), telling her that Isabel's dad keeps asking Jesse what he thinks happened on Max's little crime spree through Utah. Jesse apparently told Monopoly Nazi, "I think Max is hiding something. Damned if I know what it is." Isabel gets mad about their continued interruptus of her new life with Jesse, and slams the door with her on the other side. Jesse gets to his knees (never mind) and screams at the closed door, "What did I just do?" Well, of all the things in that bathroom, wanting nothing inside you so much as the floss is probably the first problem, but I can make a list for you later if you'd like.
The candles are burning low. The sex dinner has been consumed. The highly comedic canoe ride where Hal's oar doesn't reach the water and he just doesn't understand why because he's seeing her inner beauty, dammit has been taken. And now Maria and Hal sit at the kitchen table, Hal breaking out a photo album and humiliating Maria with photographs of the two of them back in their band camp days. Hal announces, "There she is! Right there!" Cut to screencaps of Maria in the pilot, with Hal's scrawny frame Photoshopped in, standing behind her playing a guitar. She demands, "Look at my hair!" I have. And shall again, when the first episode of this series is rerun week. All of which is to say, thirteen my ass. A dizzying close-up on the hair ensues as Hal tells us to "see what I see. Dreams. This girl has beautiful dreams. And she makes beautiful music." Awwww. Maybe Hal isn't so shallow after all. Hal asks, "So what happened to her?" Maria tells him, "Nothing. She just grew up." Almost patronizingly, Hal is all, "Right." Yeah, um, could you buy a razor and a clue with some pennies from that trust fund, pal? Some of us have jobs here. I take it back, Hal. You are shallow. And I hate you.
Michael is digging a hole. He asks Max, who is in the trunk of his non-Jeep, if it's deep enough. It is deep enough. What's going on? Michael lets us know: "Maxwell, we've been up all night collecting every conceivable alien artifact that ever crashed on this godforsaken planet, including all of Tess's stuff. I'm tired." Tension stirs as Michael's healing stone fails to materialize, but a ringing phone once more substitutes for the rational development of a scene, and Isabel whines at Max, "Jesse is asking all kinds of questions about you, Max. You're right, Dad is out of control, we have to do something." Michael barks in Max's other ear that he has to do something. And then someone is taking pictures of them from afar.