In light of my recent realization that Roswell will be airing a brand-new episode in its regular Tuesday time slot on New Year's goddamn Day while I'm on a plane watching Legally Blonde and trying to think about anything besides Roswell and crashing, I would like to offer the following gay Christmas tiding to the show, the stars, the "writers," the producers, the network, everyone who lives or works within a five-mile radius of the Paramount lot, the guy who invented the picture tube, the Chamber of Commerce of every over-hyped frontier town from Roswell to Tombstone to Orlando, any actual aliens, and God: I hate you and I've poisoned the fruitcake.
Hee. "Gay." Just like our apparel. Fa la la, la la la, la la la.
Anyway, screw you, Roswell. Happy scabby-ass New Year to you, too. Here. Have some poisoned fruitcake.
Fade up on the no-place-like-this-scabby-ass-town-for-the-holidays town of Roswell, New Mexico, to find Max "See The Flaming Tool Before Us" Evans and Michael "That Shook When He Laughed Like A Bowlful Of Jelly" Guerin walking somberly down a festively decorated street. Max begins the conversation "So" to indicate that we're in the middle of a deep and pre-established chat. Golly. I do hope we can catch up! "So, did you and Maria officially break up?" Michael doesn't know: "She wants space [pun-tastic reference to Michael's interstellar pedigree thankfully ignored], but she still wants me in her life. All I know is that I'm not getting any [pun-free reference to Michael's interstellar libido predictably and extraneously included]." Meanwhile, Track #3 of Gratingly Clichd Christmas Sound Effects For Your Cash-Strapped Network Failure, Vol. 1 rants on, as the dialogue is all but drowned out by the screaming background din of a looped Santa-sounding character bellowing "Ho ho ho" and "Merry Christmas" and what have you. I guess they couldn't get the licensing to use Track #1 (Salvation Army Bell Ringing Excessively Outside Safeway) or Track #2 (Madonna Singing "Santa Baby"), so they had to settle for this old standard. But Max and Michael pay it no mind, Michael keeping to the topic at hand and noting, "Let's grab a burger." Max is a tut-tutter: "That's not exactly giving her space." But someone's stocked Michael's stocking with tart, barbed, Gal Friday-esque retorts, and he detonates one here, shooting back, "I'm not gonna starve because I have a weird girlfriend." Okay, country mouse, for the last time: there are two McDonalds in Roswell, two Burger Kings, a Wendy's, an Arby's, a Denny's, and fifty million other crappy diners. There's no Jack In The Box, but I mean, come on. Those burgers suck and are furry. So everyone buy a yellow pages and give each other a time-out sometimes. Please? Really. Please. Besides, Max remembers, "I'm not allowed in the Crashdown." Yuck. And look at what such malnutrition has done to his weight class. I take back the yellow pages thing. But Michael sends continuity on an extra long holiday break, ending Max's season-long ban from Liz's airspace with the simple missive, "Do it anyways. It'll make her hot." Again with the bawdy quips! Oh, Michael! You one-horse-open-sleigh me.
Samuel Rising
“ Liz agrees that she would like to help out as well, and Isabel informs her new lackeys to meet her 'at the park after work.' What a junior high directive. Me. You. The bridge. Three o'clock. This is so cool. I think Isabel is finally going to kick their asses. ”
Cut to the Crashdown's festooned interior to find the usual crew -- Liz "No Place Like Drone For The Holidays" Parker, Maria "Santa's Little Yelper" DeLuca, Isabel "Grinch, Stealing" Evans and Jesse "When You Pine For The Sunshine Of A Friendly Gays" Ramirez -- sitting at a table a fair distance from the counter. The counter, you say? Why, at the counter sits a young boy staring into a small and ornately decorated tree, as the woman to him communicates a decisively "you-don't-have-to-like-him-if-you-want-you-know-he-also-drove-my-husband-away-and-destroyed-my-marriage-you-know-that-don't-you-don't-you-don't-you" body language before the lips even have a chance to say so. Meanwhile, back at the table, Isabel maniacally outlines a plan for the Christmas dcor in her home, and Michael breezes past her and mumbles, "All hail the Christmas Nazi." And I do hope you all saw last year's Christmas abomination for a deeper understanding of that line. Because I'm not explaining it again. Maybe when I have more time. Maybe on a day when absolutely nothing is going on. New Year's Day, for example? No, no. There's something going on that day, after all. What on earth is it, again? Blah. During all of this, Max sits down across from Liz, and she gazes at him all adoringly and coos, "I love that you just walked in here." Yeah, my man really knows how toenter adineror something. Michael and Maria share an awkward exchange of "Hey" and then "Hey," and Maria begs out of plans with Michael because she needs space. Which is news to you all, I'm sure.
The aforementioned tree-staring youth at the counter turns from the booth and begins to glare at Max. Max, a glee in his voice so great I fear that he might break into song, asks for confirmation: "Is that kid staring at me?" What kid? That kid. Hey, Max, are those three ships in your pocket, or are you just happy for the attention? Whatever. Don't answer that. Isabel and Michael share a brief spat that reminds us that Isabel is a bitch who micromanages Christmas, but Isabel wins when she reminds people that she found her calling in volunteering, "helping the elderly, children, the less fortunate find joy and happiness during the holidays." Maria thinks that sounds like a great idea (whereas I think kids have snotty noses and also I think old people mostly smell like Lipton's onion soup mix, so that's America for you), one that would get her mind off of "other situations." Liz agrees that she would like to help out as well, and Isabel informs her new lackeys to meet her "at the park after work." What a junior high directive. Me. You. The bridge. Three o'clock. This is so cool. I think Isabel is finally going to kick their asses.
Max makes googly eyes with UPN's PSA ("Kids, if an adult ever looks at you, well, exactly like this, please do yourself a favor and run away like your hair is on fire."), finally standing up and walking toward Max. The beleaguered mother stands up behind him, all, "Samuel? Where're you going?" But it's too late. Samuel is on the run. He walks up to Max, pausing for a moment before uttering the single word, "Daddy." Max leans in too close: "I think you've got the wrong guy." Beleaguered Mom asks if her son has said something to Max. "He called me 'Daddy,'" Max shudders. But Beleaguered Mom doesn't think so. "That's impossible. My son doesn't talk." Well then, what're you going around asking for? Max leans in with piercing eyes. Ew ew ew ew ew. Eyes on your own paper there, Jolly Old Saint Squick.
Samuel Rising
“ Liz doesn't bother looking back at Max when she snips, 'I can't believe they actually let Robin Williams play me. Robin Williams doesn't even look anything like me!' Or maybe that's what she says in the director's commentary. ”
Opening credits: Dido nipping at my nerves.
"He called me 'Daddy,' it was crystal clear," Max opines (what? That's what he does here. He "opines") on the roof of the Lizbot. She attends to a finely decorated Christmas tree (on the tree: tinsel. Under the tree: the DVD director's cut of Bicentennial Man, because someone must love her very, very much). Liz, out of patience with such a garish display of opinery awfully early in this episode, doesn't bother looking back at Max when she snips, "I can't believe they actually let Robin Williams play me. Robin Williams doesn't even look anything like me!" Or maybe that's what she says in the director's commentary. The hour has grown late and I am easily distracted. What I believe she actually says is, "Yeah, I heard." Max wonders if maybe his son is trying to communicate with him, backstorying my last nine recaps (total approximate word count: 54,000) with the so-awkward-you-can-taste-it-and-it-tastes-kind-of-tangy-for-some-reason explanation, "You know my son is trying to send me signals!" Liz corrects him and the story arc, pointing out this show's plot holes with a giant laser pointer on a big chalkboard with Xs and Os written all over it with the too-true, "No, Max, he hasn't sent you a signal for over a month." But Max is resolute, retorting, "Well, maybe he hasn't been able to until now." What with the purchase of a bitchin' Camaro and watching his sister marrying a gay foreigner, ol' Sonny Boy Evans has watched his relevance slip significantly since the final days at the WB. But no more, as Max wonders, "What if there's something about this child -- something about the fact that he's different -- that allows my son to reach out to me through him?" The several lines are forever obscured by the deafening "beep beep beep" of the world's largest Mack truck backing up through the holes in that logic, and we return hours later to find Max and Liz talking aboutexactly the same damn thing. Max outlines the dramatic tension of the episode: "Something made him talk to me. I have to find out what that is." The other day, the homeless guy who sleeps outside of my apartment building told me he was Jesus. Goddamn if this episode isn't making me wonder.
The two wise men, Kyle "The Littlest Drummer Boy" Valenti and Jim "Porno" Valenti, hang out in the kitchen of The Den Of Porno. Porno's got his hand right down the middle of a tender and mild turkey ("Needs more myrrh!"), while Kyle walks around unhelpfully and launches into the following prying speech: "All this Christmas stuff is because it's been a rough year." All what Christmas stuff? The house isn't even that decorated? Does he mean the turkey? The whole damn Roswell lot is drowning in crappy Vons garland, but I guess nothing says Christmas to Kyle like watching his father fisting an oven-stuffer roaster on network TV during the family hour. Or I could just let them exposit on their own. Kyle continues, "The whole thing with Tess and you losing your job and everythingI know you wanted to make this a good Christmas for us. For me. And I just wanted to say that I appreciate that." Kyle's wrong. And horribly, horribly unloved. Porno unfists the turkey and turns to his son, trying to pretend he hasn't been standing at the kitchen counter giving that bird the ride of its life. Ew. Nasty. Fowl, indeed. Sorry. Sigh.
And here's what Porno has to say in response: "I, uh, actually invited someone to come over for Christmas breakfast this year. A lady friend." Kyle's instantly on the defensive, all, "Fantastic. So you just, uh, decided to invite her to Christmas breakfast, our Christmas breakfast. Did you even think to ask me?" Kyle simmers and sulks and boils and bastes, so intent on maintaining the dignity of a Valenti tradition that, until the words "Christmas breakfast" were spoken nine TV seconds ago, never existed in this house or on this show. And we're totally supposed to swallow it whole, aren't we? Just like the Christmas breakfast that the "writers" just painted into our memory and hoped we'd invest in. Did we invest? No, indeed, we did not. Kyle leaves in a huff, and Porno whispers in relief, "Now, Butterball. Now you and I can finally be alone." Porno? Rubber gloves where we can see them, man. That's right. Both of them.
Ding-dong! The doorbell rings at the Beleaguered Mom residence, and Beleaguered Mom opens the door to find the composite pencil sketch your kindergarten teacher tells you to avoid standing on the other side. Max stands at the door, licking his chops and telling Beleaguered Mom, "I just keep thinking about what happened this morning." Ugh. The man is literally one dingy bicycle shop with a back room away from just being booked on the spot. Max introduces himself, and in a town this small, Beleaguered Mom never once thinks to ask, "Aren't you the Max Evans who knocked over a liquor store in Utah and spent several days in prison?" As I as a parent might have done before the inevitable step of, "Here are some crayons, my kid's in the back." Beleaguered Mom asks what she can do for him, and Max turns it around: "I was wondering what I could do for your son." Or did he say "do to your son"? Please promise you won't tell me. Beleaguered Mom doesn't understand! She asks, "Why?" Good answer. The very one I'd be asking. Max doesn't know. "It just feels like the right thing to do." A close-up shot of Samuel drawing (almost as good of a name for this episode, if you ask me) cuts back to Beleaguered Mom attempting to discourage any contact between her son and hey-who-the-hell-is-this-guy, explaining, "Max, I know how people can get around the holidays. My son is autistic. If you want to work with children, you might want to start with someone a little less challenging." But Max has failed to explain that this entire "liking kids" ploy is entirely for his own selfish gains, and he finally gets around to making that clear, shooting back, "I don't want to work with children. I want to help your son." Thanks as always for the holier-than-everyone approach that always seems to peak for you during the holidays, Max. I think I just changed my mind again about who on earth Jesus is.