Chant Down Babylon

"Run," the director yells. "It's not dramatic unless you run! They won't know you're scared -- not to mention 'on the run' -- unless you run!" They were running when we left off last week, and they're running still when we join them now. And so Isabel "I Married A Gaylien" Evans and Michael "Security Tard" Guerin run -- through hill and dale, talk shows and game shows, through Enterprise, through Smackdown, through reruns of Frasier, weekend movies bought for nineteen cents and four donkeys that feature the acting talents of a young though always versatile Jeremy Piven, through forty consecutive and identical episodes of Blind Date, through an odyssey of sight, sound, and syndication, at the other end of which I still can't tell the difference between The Hughleys, One on One, The Parkers, and Girlfriends. They run. And then they run. And then they stop running. No. My mistake. They were really running the whole time.

Down a hallway and around a corner, we join the action just as we left it, Michael and Isabel finally coming to rest (they couldn't run forever, could they? But if anyone could, they could) at a map hanging on the wall of a random Meta-Chem hallway. It looks like a guide map in the middle of the mall. Michael points to a spot on the map and belts out in a breathy, poor-actorly hurry, "We got a fire in Sector Fifteen Charlie." Isabel rifles through about six variants of "I'm sorry there's a firenow stop calling me Charlie" before catching a glimpse of herself in one of Meta-Chem's sixteen trillion chrome surfaces and musing, "I look a lot like someone named Charlie." So, she's Charlie now. Jesse will be thrilled. Michael takes off through the mall for the aforementioned Sector Fifteen, Charlie following close behind, wishing that she could make a quick stop at Cat Burglars 'R' Us so she could return her Cat Burglar outfit. And she doesn't know why she doesn't like it, either. She just thinks it kind of makes her look a little bitI don't know, cat-burglary? Anyway. They run around another corner, stopping in front of a metal door and holding out their hands. Said door vaporizes, flames bursting from behind it. They shield their eyes -- the blue screen! So blue! -- and Michael bemoans, "I can't put it out!" Oh, for love of all things, already. Here, Powerless Gimpy Alien. Here's a piece of bread. Can you molecularly manipulate it into toast? Can you? Oh, fine. Here's a toaster. Here's ano, actually, you have to press the button down for it tooh, never mind, I'll just do it myself. Sigh.

Out of the licking, violent, blazing, stoned-guy-holding-up-a-lighter-before-the-encore-at-a-Frampton-concert-esque levels of sheer conflagration, Porno comes a-stumbling, still bedecked in his security guard finery. He falls to the ground and commences his choking exercises, so Isabel attempts to occupy his mind with thoughts of happier endings: "Where's Max? Jim, where's my brother?" When did he become "Jim," I wonder? I know she's eighteen and all, but societal mores dictate a certain amount of respect be paid to those overnight minimum-wage rent-a-cops that form the backbone of our fragile culture. But Jim Porno has nothing but the happies to report: "He's dead." Isabel responds "No!" in that incredulous happy way that means "Yes!" He repeats it many times, even once phrasing it in the native hick dialect of the desert Southwest he no doubt hopes she'll understand: "He's dead, I tell ya!" A-yuh. Shoulda known a storm was a-comin'.

They make a break for it, and we cut to the three of them bursting out the front door of the building, an exterior shot displaying how fake fake fire can really be. Once safely a full nine inches from the front of the building (hella good safety precautions there, "Sheriff"), Isabel repeats that Max can't be dead, and Porno confirms for her that, in fact, "I tried to get to him, but he collapsed into dust." But just then, Morgan Fairchild's evil henchmen (aw, man. If "Morgan Fairchild's evil henchmen" weren't already the hidden recap phrase of the week, it sure as hell should have been) run from the front door to a nearby limo, Michael noting, "There they are." Porno tries to warn them: "They're armed! With the obvious silver bullet of sheer predictability!" But no matter. Michael and Isabel make a reflexive bolt toward the car, holding out their hands to enact mad magic powers (here, Michael. Here's a bowl of soup and a can opener. Can you open the soup for me, oroh, never mind. I'll just do it myself). But Isabel can't get out of the way of one oncoming bullet, the gun in the first act goes off in the first, and Isabel is taken down by a stray bullet before Michael's powers make the evil henchmen trip over their car. Oooh, good one. The limo peels off, and Isabel goes down in slo-mo, shot through the heart and giving love a bad name. Viewers? You're to blame. Michael kneels beside her and thinks, "What does this emergency call for? Think, Michael! Think!" before deciding that one gaping wound to the chest deserves another, ripping off his shirt like the stripper at a fat farm and revealing, however briefly, every inch of his sunken upper body. Viewers? That's your fault, too.

As if hearing the shots ring out and thinking, "That must be my sexy but secretive wife getting shot! I do not know where she was or why, but it's just a matter of pure television that I should be happening past a blazing pharmaceutical company just as my wife needs me and, perhaps later, a shady witch-doctor friend with a hint of bad guy and a 5:01 shadow," here comes Jesse "Boy Oh Boy OhBoy" Ramirez, in an advanced state of panic. He asks if they've called an ambulance, and some loud, disconcerting ACTING ensues as Michael insists that they can't call an ambulance, and Jesse is all "You must call an ambulance" and Michael is all "But I can't call an ambulance" and Jesse is all "But you must call an ambulance" until Porno steps in, all gallant, and is like, "I'll call an ambulance." My hero! Curses! Foiled again! Or, what happens is this: Jesse screams that Isabel will die if they don't help her right now, clocking Michael in the face. Heh. Nice. Michael takes Jesse down and climbs on top of him (dum-dee-dum-diddly-umI have nothing to say on the matter), subduing him with the knowledge that they can't call an ambulance. Why? Why can't they? Michael comes clean: "Because your wife isn't human!" Jesse rolls Michael off of him (hey, sometimes they're just not your type, y'know? It happens), and Porno points Jesse's attention to Isabel's right hand, which burns with red static electricity and a buzzing tone as if she's the really dangerous halogen lamp that's poised to change halogen lamp policies at a college near you. Porno counsels from his knees at dying Isabel's side, "I know you don't want to accept it, but it's true. She's not human." Jesse's all, "Eh?" But Michael clarifies it from behind with the vital punch line, "She's alien. We both are." Who is the "we" supposed to modify in that statement? Maybe that's why Jesse looks so freaked. In other news, I'm totally going to use the expression "clarifies it from behind" eleven times in daily speech tomorrow. And perhaps five or times here in this here remaining recap.

Opening credits: Get a temp job, bitch.

The Southern California Vermont Institute Of Conveniently Timed Vacations. Liz "Tiffany Brissette" Parker and Maria "Just Plain 'Tiffany'" DeLuca walk down an outdoor lamp-lined path that has been in at least sixteen different episodes, including "Blind Date" and "The Toy House" and, uh, "Secrets and Lies." Just fucking with you on the last one; I've never actually even seen that episode. I was just trying to name sixteen episodes that that path appeared in. I couldn't even name sixteen episodes, period. I can't even count to sixteen. Is there a four in there somewhere? Anyway, Liz walks a step or two in front of Maria, who barks into a cell phone, "Michael, it's Maria. Please pick up the phone. Liz has this completely wrong idea that something's happened to Max, and I just need someone in Roswell to pick up the phone." Maria hangs up and suggests calling Jesse and Isabel. I say why not try Max himself? Oh, that's right. Because his cell phone must have puffed away in a cloud of dust, right along with his body, clothes, wallet, and spare pocket change. Strong old man death dust, that dust is. But I mean, Liz knows that "Max is dead." Maria rambles about the "connection" Liz and Max share, but says they can't really know anything until they know anything. Liz looks wildly around and notes, "I need some time." Here. Take a month off. And then, after that, forever. Maria calls after her that she's going to "find" Liz when she finds out that everything is okay, and Liz mutters a faraway "yeah." Blah. Please let As If kill in the ratings and stay on forever. If they threaten to cancel it and bring Roswell back, please do your part in the campaign and send small words to the network, to signal your devotion to words like "as" and "if." Send them a "so." Send them a "la," "ti," or "do." Send them a "blip." PLEASE.

Wait. What car is this? Porno drives a Jeep through a gaping hole in automotive continuity, weaving in and out of lanes. Jesse sits shotgun, trying to make a call on his cell phone. But a darned cell phone keeps ringing in the back seat, where a pasty and shot-up Isabel lies make-up-less in Michael's arms. Michael takes the cell phone out of Isabel's, um, brain, I think, and throws it in the back seat. Meanwhile, Jesse barks into his phone, "I got an emergency here, my wife is shot. If I could go to the hospital, I wouldn't be calling you!" The Eric Stoltz character on the other end appears to be uttering the "well then, you go to a hospital, bite the fucking bullet, and call a lawyer" portion of this dialogue rip-off exercise, and Michael asks from the back, "Are you sure about this doctor?" We learn that Jesse's medical professional is no doctor at all, but instead "an old friend from the neighborhood." They improv their lines, which is ill-advised, and Jesse demands, "Just meet me at my apartment!" Porno interrupts, advising instead, "Go to my house. It's closer." Read: Jesse and Isabel's apartment has been ripped down and sold for scrap metal to the production team of As If. Which is a show I love because I've heard it's great. Good golly, people, that word of mouth is really catching on!

The door bursts open at the Den of Porno, Jesse leading the way as Porno and Michael carry in an unconscious Isabel. And I guess there was a food incident on the way in, because Michael's hands are completely covered in Tabasco. Or something else that sure as hell isn't the blood that's reportedly coming out of Isabel at this moment. Kyle "The Buddha Of Suburbia" Valenti enters the living room in confusion, asking, "What's going on?" Porno reports that "she's been shot," sending Kyle to the garage with the directive, "There's a trauma kit in the garage. Get it." His what? His little black medical textbook! It's like a handbook they give to nurses. What's he looking for? I don't know, some book. I ain't never seen any book back there. Back at the couch, Jesse strokes Isabel's hair, pinkies up, asking where the doctor is. Kyle runs in with a big orange backpack (that queer girly thing is the trauma kit? Does it have a Care Bears oxygen tank and an EKG that plays "Quit Playing Games With My Heart" when a patient flatlines?) as Isabel calls for Max and mutters that she doesn't want to die. Knock knock knock. The in Jesse's scruffy gallery of freaky friends enters through the front door with yet another, bigger, queerer orange bag, barking orders about monitors and cords and adrenaline shots in the freezer and Marcellus Wallace's wife. The boys lift Isabel onto the dining room table and put the oxygen mask over her face. He yells that they'll need to do a transfusion, asking what her blood type is. Michael jumps in that "I'm her type," because he's an alien and she's an alien and that's why we're not at the hospital.

Den of Porno. Dr. Scruffy sits on the living room table, his manners and his razor clearly left in the same untraceable location. As Kyle wears yellow rubber gloves and cleans several bloody items off the table, Porno (arm in a cast) and Michael (future career prospects in a tailspin) listen to Dr. Scruffy explain the promising prognosis: "She's far from okay. I removed her spleen and tried to repair the liver, but it's meatball surgery at best." Oh. It wasn't blood. It was meatballs. And "removed her spleen"? Wouldn't that make her into, like, a snake? And we all know how much snakes hate meatballs. Who the hell is this guy? I'm finding this scene extremely confusing. "The real question is whether infection sets in. If that happens" A dramatic pause long enough for the witch doctor to have recited the entire Hippocratic Oath if he had any freaking clue how it went ensues; Michael, finally figuring out that he's pausing solely for dramatic effect and not because he's lost for words, picks up the dropped and rotting cue and asks, "What?" Who is this guy? Dr. Who answers Michael's question and not mine: "To have a fighting chance, she'll need a lot more than I can do in your dining room. She'll need a hospital." Michael proclaims the hospital -- a big building with patients in it, but that's not important right now -- "not an option," and Kyle chimes in, "Neither is letting her die." To Kyle, death is almost as bad as dishpan hands. Porno notes that "no one is dying yet," which must come as real solace to Isabel, all lying sweaty in the room, like, "Oh, good, I'm not dying. Wait'yet'?" Jesse reenters the room and helpfully reports that his dying wife with the punctured internal organs is "still sleeping," and then motions to Michael, vaguely threatening, "You and me. Outside." Ooooh. Fight at the bike racks, three o'clock after school. Michael follows Jesse outside, and Dr. Who asks Porno, "Mind if I smoke?" Porno tells him to go ahead, and Kyle moralizes from the corner, "I can't imagine why you lost your license." Whatever. Doctors smoke. It's worse than dishpan hands, but there it is.

It's The Oldest Permanent Floating Private School In Vermont. In her dorm room, Liz sits all comatose (or maybe she's acting up a storm; it's difficult to know for sure, really) on her bed, bundled up in all black and a hood. She's trying to join the world in its decade-long crusade to ignore Ashley "Show Me That Smile Never Again" Johnson, as Chrissy Seaver rambles on, "Spending spring break in this place? You'll be the only one here." Liz monotones (yeah, you're welcome for the reminder), "Good. The fewer people around here right now the better." She could use one less Chrissy Seaver, it seems. And she's hardly the only one. The dorm room door opens, and Maria remains bizarrely uncontextual, introducing herself to Chrissy with, "Hi. I'm Maria. I'm the best friend." They shake hands, and Liz goes all tough girl, like, "Dead men don't shake hands, man!" and storms out of the room with a muttered, "I'm outta here." Chrissy asks if "something happened with her ex." Maria volunteers, "Yeah. He's dead." And for just a passing moment I wish Max weren't dead, if only because that would be an awesome trick to play on someone you hate. Stare somberly. Deadpan the words "he's dead." Stand back. Watch the fireworks. Whee!

Why are we in the library? Morgan Fairchild probably wanted to see if the want ads in the new Backstage finally had a guest shot worth talking about. Morgan Fairchild warns ClaytonMax, "You have to take control of this." But Max can't, claiming, "I have to go to her. I have to. She's the love of my life." Okay, if they're going for totally overwrought melodrama, it's almost working. Almost. Morgan Fairchild grabs the lapels of Max's I'm-an-old-man overcoat and leaves no ultimatum unturned: "Listen to me. I have spent the last ten years of my life trying to find a cure for you." A cure? Didn't she explicitly say last week that there was absolutely nothing wrong with him? Feh. ClaytonMax seems similarly disinterested in her story. Morgan Fairchild tries guilty reasoning, spitting, "I didn't come this far to see you throw it all away on some adolescent crush." ClaytonMax explains that "it's more than that. It's Max. He wants to take over. I can feel him, fighting for control. He wants to be with Liz." Morgan Fairchild speaks on it quickly, deciding, "We're gonna get rid of that girl." Trust us, Morgan Fairchild. We've tried everything. It's just not as easy as it looks. We've tried bullets and Vermont. It's pretty hopeless, really. Morgan Fairchild lays it out: "You don't love her. Max does. And as long as she's alive, he has something to hold onto, something to fight for. If she were dead, he would have to give up. Those voices in your head would stop." This is a stand-up acting job, Morgan Fairchild. She's something special, this one. She reminds me of a much older, facially contortioned Morgan Fairchild. I wonder if the casting people noticed that, too. Morgan Fairchild again reminds ClaytonMax, "You have to kill the one you love to be free." Then she says it again. And again. And I don't think anyone has a clue what's going to happen , so it's even more explicative when Morgan Fairchild uses that elegant old saw, "Strap on a pair and take control here." Ew. She goes all bar mitzvah video, and Max reaches a hand into the frame and kills Morgan Fairchild with a simple twist of the neck. He lets go, and she falls to the ground. He grunts "Liz" and leaves the room, having at some point become a monster.

Den of Porno, everyone's healed. In the kitchen, Jesse hands Dr. Who an envelope filled with cash, telling him, "You can count it if you want." Dr. Who responds in kind: "You're the last person I'm worried is gonna stiff me, Jesse." Iuh. Nah. Too easy. There are two lines exchanged on a Greek man in history that my spell check doesn't know, so I think I'm just gonna skip it. Something about wandering around Greece looking for an honest man, which Jesse knows because, he haughtily tells us, "I went to college." Where, in Thrace? When did that become common knowledge? When we return, Dr. Who bemoans his lot in life as back-alley alien doctor, telling Jesse, "Look at me. Unlicensed, unwanted, and unloved. All because I wrote some prescriptions for a few friends." Jesse does plot development catch-up for us all, filling in the holes: "They weren't your friends, Paul. Especially the one that turned out to be a Fed." Wait. Who the fuck is "Paul"? Dr. Who plays the morality card, delivering this not-at-all-convoluted cautionary tale: "Ultimately, I lost my license because I'm not an honest guy. Neither are your friends in there. You're involved in something here. I don't know what it is and I don't want to know. But it's wrapped up in lies within lies and that's not what you're about. You're one of the good guys." Jesse insists that these people are his friends, but Dr. Who has a philosophical line to get to, so he motors on: "You can't trust them. Not when it counts. Not when it comes time to chant down Babylon and destroy the plans of wicked men." And you've got to give some credit to this poor actor. He looks physically pained at having to give voice to the sheer inanity of those lines. It's really sad. But also heroic in a way. He explains that the words are from "Bob Marley," and Jesse confirms, "Yeah, I got the reference." Because he also went to college in Jamaica, I guess.

Liz is strangely dead. She's back in her dorm room, waking up to find a decidedly-less-monstery-than-Max Maria hovering over her, making her drink an elixir of some kind. Liz lies back, and a cut to Max walking around the campus leads to Liz suddenly snapping awake and remembering, "Max, he's here. I saw him today. I fell down or something and he was standing above me and he kissed me, I think." Maria pats her hair and tells her she was just dreaming and blah. Liz retires to take a shower, first telling Maria, "You are, like, the most special person in the world to me." Please. Never give me that compliment. It's like saying "maybe we should just be friends" to someone who is already just your friend. Y'know? Liz hits the showers, and Maria puts on the aforementioned Marley song that gives this episode its title. Why? She begins swaying. Because she's wearing kind of a Rasta hat, is why. Max walks in behind her and grabs her by the neck. Liz then bursts back into the room and Max hurls Maria onto the bed. The music rages on, until Liz takes off (leaving Maria to die at his hands, if he so chooses) and runs down the hall. ClaytonMax gives chase. This is why the chase music plays. Through hallways. Down steps. Into the Rat. He corners her, finally, and begins choking the life out of her. She reaches out and puts a magic green hand on him, and Max falls to the floor, opening his eyes and asking, "Liz?" And now. He's fine. Or not. He tells Liz, "You have to kill this body. You have to stop Clayton. He'll kill you if you don't." Pause. "Do it." Pause. "DO IT!" Liz raises a golf club that wouldn't kill a golf ball, but it's too late, and more choking ensues. Running. Choking. Cashmere. It's a bacchanal of fancy violence. Liz grabs for a conveniently nearby metal pole and brings it down over his head, and Max picks her up and goes flying with her out the window. The life of the show flashes before their eyes on the way down, a veritable montage of every tertiary character who couldn't get much better work elsewhere. Max. Liz. Alex. The Mom Who Does Laundry. Remember when Maria looked kind of like a boy and kind of like a duck? This montage will bring it all back, baby. They fall in slo-mo, Max snapping out of his exceedingly measured fall just in time to put out a green Jell-O shield and save Liz from slamming through a thatched roof of some kind. Liz lands safely on the green Jell-O in the sky. Max falls through the roof and straight to the ground. Which is kind of okay. The slo-mo broke his fall.

Jesse and Isabel, finally alone in The Den of Porno. Isabel, exhausted, asks Jesse, "Are we okay?" He's got his speech at the ready, sans song quotes but not free of the paranoid messages encoded therein: "I don't know. I mean, I look at you and I know that I love you." Isabel covers her ass that she always knew he was going to figure it out anyway. What really concerns him isn't that she lied; it's that she was really, really good at lying. But she didn't lie. She never explicitly told him, "Hi. I am so not an alien who crawled out a gauzy, eggy pod chamber whereas people like you crawled out of a mommy." But Jesse feels he doesn't even know her anymore: "I married Isabel Evans. There is no Isabel Evans. Isabel is this person that you hide behind." Isabel tells him he's right about everything, but that she's "telling the truth when I say I love you." Jesse is not overly impressed. Isabel asks, "Where do we go from here?" Jesse ponders and volleys, "I have no idea."

I guess Liz fashioned a lime Jell-O ladder and climbed down to where Max fell, because all of a sudden she's to him on the ground, kneeling over him. She turns him over and feels for a pulse, but he's an alien so maybe he has a normal 107 temperature and his heart is in his toes or something. But then Max goes all old-y face for two seconds and becomes Max (two full years younger!) again. He looks up at Liz: "You brought me back." She's keeping score: "I guess that makes us even." He's so sweaty that she practically slides right off him when they hug. Maria walks up then and asks, "What happened?" Liz looks up and has all the answers: "Let's go home." The three walk off, closing-credits-of-Three's Company-style, and I'm waiting for Max to grab Maria's arm when she starts to stray from the path. Fade. Credits. Circularity. Dude. This would have made the best last episode ever, ever.