Previously on Roswell: Seriously, y'all, I don't remember any of this shit. Even though the "previously" section is 377 minutes long this week. Seriously, we get it. We're reminded. No need to play the entirety of all human history just because it happens previously to the start of the episode. Max jumps out a window. Max dies. Max gets old. Liz cries. Max looks in a mirror. Farrah Fawcett overacts. Man climbs from primordial ooze. The Crusades are fought. God invents jam. And we're all caught up. Thanks. It all happened previously.
Jesse "Memories of a Gay, Sure" Ramirez all but acts his way out of his festive lavender collar as he tries to look pensive. He stares with longing. Cut to a shot of another man, staring longingly back. All is sufficiently explained. The end. Cut back to Jesse, staring and waiting. Waiting and staring. The producers consider some more previouslys. Wooly mammoth roams the earth. Depeche Mode records their first album. God invents another flavor of jam. Waiting and staring and waiting and waiting and waiting. Yep, this is the same show all right. Finally, after a bit more waiting and not a little staring, the "writers" show up and decide to pick up an old drifting scrap of a Mad Libs that brushed against the wall of the "Writer's" Room, cross out "Bill's Trip to the Circus" across the top, and replace it with "Roswell 315: Who Died and Made You King." And from that high-class pedigree comes our first scripted line from Jesse: "They're looking at me differently." The man to whom Jesse speaks -- a funhouse-mirror doppelganger of Mr. Evans, if anyone remembers who that is -- volleys back, "That's understandable. They're curious to see how you'll react to this new information." Come to think of it, that's a pretty lame Mad Lib. If I were writing this episode, that line would have been, "That's understandable. They're curious to see how you'll react to this new whoopee cushion." But alas, no job offer has as yet been tendered. I guess Jesse is in therapy. When in doubt, therapy. Jesse frets, "I don't think they trust me. I think they think I'm a threat." Think think I threat I think threat threat. Elegant prose, indeed. Melfi lobs back from the safety of his armchair, "Do you think they're worried that you'll tell the truth about them?" Think you they they think you worry? Jesse's not quite sure what to make of the question either, so he hazards a response of any kind, "If they found out that I was talking to you..." Melfi flaunts his TV MD and reassures Jesse that "you can talk freely, as long as you don't tell me anyone's in trouble." So Jesse cops to being "scared," and Melfi doesn't miss a beat before responding, "Your anxiety is completely normal." Thanks again, Dr. Agreesalot. Your shameless pandering is highly constructive. Jesse continues on that "Isabel is a good person." Except that she's not. A person. "I love her. It's just them. She suffered protecting their secrets." Which are her secrets as well, considering her previously established non-person status. The "writers" never should have written in "person" when the Mad Lib asked for a noun. Here's one that would have been better: "Isabel is a good fart." Because someone always chooses "fart."
Dr. LiedTo goes full-tilt Melfi when we find the story he's been fed: "You told me they were in the mob." Dude. That transition was so smooth it almost sliced my head off. But Melfi victimizes by the book, asserting, "You're suffering too, Jesse." Jesse nods. Because he is suffering, too. Melfi wants to fix that suffering and also Jesse's marriage as well. Jesse nods. See that? Being the victim isn't so hard after all.
Jesse leaves the un-crazy-making offices of Weiss, Ohanneson, and D'Arcy (actually, he leaves the office door to those, which leads me to the conclusion that the only reason we got such a lingering shot of those nameplates is because they're the names of people who work for the show or some such look-I'm-a-grip- and-I-got-my- name-on-the- nameplate kind of way) and thinks, "Lavender is manly." He disappears down a hallway and escapes being discovered partaking in this heathen scourge known as "mental health." But after just a moment, Max "On A Steel Horse I Ride And I'm Wanted -- WANTED -- Dead Or Alive" Evans and Michael "Livin' On A Prayer...And Two Dozen Glazed Chocolate Donuts" Guerin appear around a corner, skulking skulkily. Max quietly counsels an already-boiling-over Michael, "If he's in therapy, he's obviously upset." Michael plunges us back into the previouslys with a helpful reminder, "I'm not going to sit back and wait for something to happen...like you always do." Max promises to "take care of it," and then suddenly develops a moral compass that didn't stop him from entering that building in the first place nine seconds ago. He storms off. Michael lingers behind, and after just a moment, an area just above his heart begins flickering. Michael, any excuse to take his shirt off and dance to Patrick Swayze in that hilarious Saturday Night Live sketch now some years hence, unbuttons the top few buttons on his shirt and looks more closely at the skin. Glowing on the flesh in a whitey-purply-bluish shade is the five-dotted triangle of their home solar system. What? This is not explained. I think we require a bit more in the way of previouslys.
Opening credits: shut up, bitch.
Crashdown Café Of Quickly Disassembling Set. In the back room where no one actually seems to make the food anymore, Max follows Liz "New England Proved Too Much For The Girl" Parker around like a mangy puppy dog with really big ears asking, "So, what are you doing tonight?" Liz noncommittally responds, "Working, studying, lights out by eleven." "Lights out," huh? Ninety months of hiatus, and she still can't get those boarding school/summer camp phrases out of her voice. With all that working and studying, when on earth will it ever be time for free swim before lights out?
In a subtle show of we've-reached-a- tenuous-truce-because- we-ran-out-of-things- to-make-them-fight-about, Geoff "Slackjaw" Parker stumbles through the room just then, offering a measured, "Hey, Max." He seems far more excited to see Max than Liz is. Liz damage controls that she'll be "right up," and offers to Max that Slackjaw has been playing the role of "total saint" since her return from Chilton, even though the school "wouldn't give him back his deposit." Note that plot point. It foretells financial ruin. And, for some reason, it's mentioned eleven more times, dropped unsubtly from the sky in the form of giant cloth sacks of cash with dollar signs across them, much like those the little guy in Pitfall would collect after swinging on a vine. Y'know, like that. Max doesn't care either. He changes the subject back to him, because if not him, who? "So, it seems like you're pretty busy tonight." He thought it might be fun if they went out. But Liz vetoes, recognizing, "Things can't go back to the way they were." You mean, "On the television schedule?" No. No, they sure can't. He asks if they can "hang out like friends," and she ignores his reading from the text of Pick-Up Lines And Social Etiquette For The Seventh Grade Dance in lieu of mumbling something about her "orders backing up." Ew. That happens to me when I go a while without dating also, Liz.
Ramirez House Of Lies. In the bathroom (of Lies), Isabel "Beard" Evans stands in front of the mirror while a radio behind her inexplicably broadcasts a commercial for the Roswell Desert Spa. The commercial says something about a haircut, and Isabel waves a hand in front of her plain, straight hair and turns it into a new 'do that is glamorously Liz Taylor-esque (present day). The commercial tells us that the Roswell Desert Spa also specializes in manicures. Isabel waves a hand over the other and gives her stumpy nails the red shine of Color #634: Ketchup Before Being Turned To Mustard. Because we've seen this all before, see. She smiles, a bit self-satisfied, before noticing that Jesse has been staring at her from the hallway. She changes everything back. Straight hair, no polish. Who the hell goes to a spa for a haircut anyway? Wrap me in seaweed, smear me with mud, and leave me alone, or don't even bother sending the brochure. The radio instinctively knows this moment is serious and mystifyingly turns itself off. Morose music begins to play. Isabel notes that Jesse is "home late." He's got his excuse at the ready: "I was at the gym." Yeah. There's a word for guys who stay at the gym that late, lingering around the locker room and what have you. And I would tell you what that word is. But then you'll all want to go to my gym.
Jesse lies in bed, hankering for a dream sequence. And wait! Here's one now! Isabel kisses him on the cheek and whispers a "good night," and the big red lipstick kiss morphs into Color #974: Bad CGI. It becomes a weird, gray, veiny cocoon thing that envelops his body and leaves him screaming for help. Help! My wife's veiny pod is trying to suffocate me! Help! Too true, brother. He wakes with a start. Isabel is concerned that he had a bad dream, but even more so when he gets dressed and tells her, "The McAdams Case is really weighing on me. And I figure, if I can't sleep, I'll get some work done." To the office with him. She asks him if he knows when he'll be home, and he says he does not. He tells her to go back to bed. He's sweating so much I can see her planet in his reflection. Perhaps he needs a facial. I know just the spa.
Jesse's car. Driving, driving, driving. And then, the car breaking down. How odd. Jesse mutters two detached "damn it"s that both mean "I don't care," and we cut to him barking "yes" and "no" and "my darn car quit on me, see" into a cell phone. But just then, Max appears and Jesse gets all freaked out, asking, "What are you doing here? It's two in the morning!" Max flatlines, "When I can't sleep, I walk." Which is so odd, because when I can't sleep, I watch my screener of The Shipping News. Max and I are just like each other. Max offers to fix the car, reaching for the hood, but Jesse offers that "there's a tow truck coming," finally admitting, "I don't want any part of that alien crap, okay?" Max assures him, "I've taken auto shop, Jesse." No he hasn't. He had an elective and he chose Home Ec. It's fine. Max offers, "I know that all of this probably doesn't seem real right now, but if you need someone to talk to..." Jesse says he's all set, but Max prods on, "A doctor isn't going to help you deal with this. Trust me, Jesse. I've been in therapy before." Why do these people hate therapy so much? Jesse tells Max to stop spying, and Max tells Jesse that if anyone finds out, they're all in trouble again and they all risk exposure again and they will all surely die a cruel, horrific, alien-probe-type death again. He slinks back into the shadows. And then the tow truck guy finally arrives. And this is when things really start getting hot. I think I own this movie somewhere, actually. In my private collection.
More naked Michael. We're in The House That Government Subsidy Built, Michael entering with a wooden (those sake sets are such a cool, practical gift) box and a pursed-lip look of pursed-lip concentration. The box contains several different orbs of several different shapes and sizes, other assorted alien paraphernalia, and the Zapf Dingbats journal. Michael notes the suddenly significant five triangulated planets on the front cover, notes the flashing lights on his chest, and speaks aloud in an almost Shakespearean-aside kind of way: "I knew it. I'm in charge." Thank you, Iago. And now, a sennet of trumpets, followed by the entrance of a stately king of some kind.
And now, having failed at all else, yelling. Isabel, big bouffant on, walks into the living room to find Jesse coaxing on some clothes over his sweaty wifebeater (it's gay porn, people. I'm recapping gay porn. Why, then, do I find it so unpleasant?). So convinced of her marital bliss is Isabel that she walks in to the room with the wifely, "Jesse, would you like me to make you s--" Soup? Spam? Sigmund Freud papier-maché dolls? Perhaps we shall never know. But Jesse doesn't want to make anything but tracks (cheesy segue alert!), apologizing, "I'm sorry, Isabel. I can't stay here and pretend like everything is normal when it's not." But she's got a retort at the ready, and she's not afraid to use it: "But normal is sneaking out of our house while I'm still sleeping?" It is in his culture. The culture of gay porn. Perhaps she should have reconsidered phrasing it in the form of a question. She begs him to talk to her.
Then the script dictates, "They both yells at once," so they both do that junior high school play crowd noise thing, all, "Ruzzah ruzzah ruzzah peas and carrots peas and carrots PEAS AND CARROTS" until he breaks free first with the impassioned, "I'm dealing with this the best that I can, okay? What else do you want from me?" And then, it's One Life to Live and I'm a bored housewife, watching this drama unfold: "I want you to love me! And be the man that I married!" She loves her husband. She loves her emotionally dead, gay husband. Sigh. Search for the Heathers reference. I'm sure you'll find it in there somewhere. Jesse bites back, "Well, that's hilarious, because I want you to be the woman that I married!" A-ha! And he's right. That is hilarious. He grabs his bag and plugs a local merchant, "I'll be at the Travel Inn." And that's not all he'll be plugging because of the gay porn thing and why isn't this scene over yet? Seeing as we've reached the end of the action without progressing the plot even one iota, Jesse throws out a development you can hang at least one more scene of yelling on, "And tell your brother to stop following me." He probably adds, "And tell him to just catch up with me already. Rawr!" after the door shuts behind him.
Why I Hate This Show, Part The Two-Hundred Billionth And Four: Max carries a swimmy TV dinner over to the ratty couch in The House That Government Subsidy Built and tosses it on the table. He throws off the plastic cover and waves his magical molecularly manipulating hand over it, turning it instantly from a yucky TV dinner into a delectable and possible eat-worthy...TV DINNER! Why not turn it into a damn pile of cash and buy yourself a meal, Skeletor? Riddle me that. Instead, two hours of a head-on shot of Max Evans eating mashed potatoes. He's all, "What is this so-called 'food' I have heard so much about?" Dude, speed up the cuts here. Shouldn't someone tell these people that they're running out of time? This is so paced and method. He's like the Olivier of guys who eat mashed potatoes. Olivier could do a potato-eating scene that would really make you think. So they say. But Max has other, less potato-eating things on his mind, as he looks down at the table and notices something "concealed" underneath it, shrouded under the cunning shield of air. He reaches for it. It is a wooden box. Could it be...more potatoes? No, alas, it could not. The box is the same box Michael spoke with earlier, filled with glowing orbs and Zapf Dingbats journals and that kind of thing. The plot shifts slightly in its sleep, but ultimately fails to turn.
And then a knock on the door kills any momentum the scene might have been building, and the action goes from potatoes to wooden box to knocking of door in nine thousand seconds flat. Surely the human mind cannot move at such a pace! Isabel enters, ranting on the last line of dialogue spoken, "Please stop spying on Jesse." God, gay porn is so boring in the third person, ain't it? Instead of the proper reply of, "Oh, big boy likes it when I look" that would precede the inevitable, Max goes with the drabber, "He's seeing a therapist. I don't have to tell you how dangerous that is." Isabel informs Max about Jesse's permanent relocation to the feted Travel Inn, and then sits on the couch and mournfully rues (well, she does), "Everyone said this would happen. I'm such an idiot to think that I could make it work. That I could be happy." Max comforts her that Jesse was at least trying to get help, which he translates to mean, "That means he thinks there's something worth saving." Well then, it's a good thing her ass-y brother put a stop to that. Jerk. Isabel can't talk about her own pathetic life anymore, so she turns the topic to Max's pathetic life, asking, "How's Liz?" He deadpans, "Cautious." Dude, that's so not a personality description. She's cautious? Like, she's making sure her eggs are fully cooked and she's not crossing against any lights and she's waiting an hour after she eats before she goes swimming? That kind of thing? Well, good to know she's temperate.
It's serve and volley time in therapy again. Question, answer, question, answer, as the eyes of the viewer move slowly back and forth across the court. They're following me. Who is? My brother-in-law. To what extent? He knows I'm coming here. Are you in danger? Declarative answer. Probing question. Declarative answer. Probing question. Declarative answer. Guh. Shake it up, people. How the eyes tire. Melfi tells Jesse, "You're not helpless," and Jesse finally admits, "I want out." Melfi assures him with the staunch, machismo-drenched conviction of his faggy Mr. Rogers sweater, "Then we're gonna figure out a way to get that." Jesse thanks him before noticing the time and apologizing, "I have to get back to the office." Which marks the first time in both real or televised history that the patient, instead of the doctor, terminates the therapy session. People, it just does not happen.
Jesse leaves and Melfi sits at his desk, answering a suddenly ringing phone. It's his "honey," who he tells he'll be "home in twenty minutes." Which he still will be, I'm sure, but not before he hangs up and has a hand come up behind him and take his head down on the desk. Holy bald spot, Dr. Melfi. Anyway, it's Michael, and as Michael holds him down, he stage-whispers (so Shakespearean, indeed!), "What kind of man listens to another person's secrets for a living?" Those with, um, professional degrees? From whence comes the sudden, healthy dislike for the mental health industry? Is this Mumford? Everyone calm down. Iago counsels Melfi to "drop Jesse Ramirez" and then he disappears back into the night. Melfi, shaken, picks up the phone again and dials the police, demanding all sheepishly, "I need the police. No, uh, make that the FBI." So then, good thing he called the police.
Cut to a restaurant in L.A. which I think is the exact same place where David on Six Feet Under goes on all of his blind dates. No wonder Jesse turns up there, finding Isabel waiting for him at a table. He thanks her for meeting him. She's glad he called. A waiter offers menus. Isabel returns a sweatshirt. It's the small gestures that mean. So. Much. Jesse proposes that the two of them leave Roswell forever, but his wha?-inducing proposal is quickly interrupted by the arrival of whatever Isabel's dad's name is. He happy to see them, but curious and concerned as well. "What are you doing clear across town?" They are a bit far west in L.A., aren't they? They must be on their way to come and visit me. Isabel effortlessly lies that they're there furniture shopping, which Jesse piggy-backs onto (no comment) with his agreement, "Yes, uh. Yes." Pipe down and let the liar girl lie. She knows what she's doing. And then -- again -- Mr. Evans waits until the final line in the scene before delivering the dialogue on which all future scenes will depend. Welcome to the "While You're Up" theory of script-writing format. And here it is now: "Did you hear Liz Parker dropped out of boarding school? She wasn't gone very long. You know anything about it? It must have been a very expensive two weeks for Geoff Parker. Okay, see you later." And he's gone. People. I shit you not. That's exactly how that went. Jesse tells Isabel that he wants to be married to her, "but [he] can't be married to this situation." He adds, "Look, you say you want to make this work. This is the only way I know how." And then the waiter from the first goes off in the third, coming back right in the middle of Jesse's ultimatum and says, "You need more time." Isabel answers them simultaneously: "I do." Wakka. Wakka. Wakka.
Just like folks, it's small talk and here's the mail over at The House That Government Subsidy Built, where Max enters to find Michael engrossed in reading and power-tripping of some kind. Max stands above Michael and dourly (well, duh) lets him know, "Isabel stopped by. I promised her we'd stay out of this whole Jesse thing." Michael offers a "got it" without looking up before telling Max, "I dealt with the therapist while I was there." Max tells him he's "crossed the line," and then kicks the box of dinky alien trash (make sure you've got your Spencer Gifts receipt before you go messing with that stuff, pal) and finally gets around to, "Where'd you get these?" Michael informs Max, "I made an after-hours withdrawal from the safety deposit box." Max tosses back, "My name was the only one on the access card at the bank." Eerie music kicks up. Ladies and gentlemen, the only show in history so boring that the line "my name was the only one on the access card at the bank" can kick up a music cue. Access card. Bank. Scary music. It's a recipe for network success. On a show about CPAs in training. Entitled The...Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Max again demands that Michael "let go of this Jesse thing," and Michael finally loses his temper completely (access cards! Bank! It's all too much!) and tries to take Max down, instead punching a hole in the wall of his cardboard apartment. He pulls his hand out. It's very badly injured. Michael thinks that's Max's fault. Let's find out why! "You. You were dead, Max. And now I'm looking at you, and...who are you? Are you a ghost? And you're in my face all day and you're freaking me out." Dude. Eh? Max leaves. Michael heals his own hand and smiles devilishly. I take to downloading the new Sheryl Crow album and thinking about road trips I might take this summer.
Jesse's car is in serious fucked-ups-ville, and the town's only mechanic, Kyle "Baby You Can Drive My Car, Yes I'm Gonna Be A Star, Baby You Can Drive My Car, And Baby I Love You" Valenti, is the only one who can fix it. Or at least tell Jesse what's wrong. Broken something or other. And that's his professional opinion. Jesse mumbles something about hating not having a car, which is the most elegant segue the "writers" could find for Kyle to shoot back, "How are things going with Isabel?" Jesse simply offers a "fine," and Kyle tells him that if he ever needs someone to talk to, he's there. Awwwwww. Jesse takes it in stride, answering back, "That seems to be a popular sentiment around here." In this annoying little community where people actually try and be your friend. How dare they? What's that? My contract says I don't have to recap any more scenes that have Jesse in them? Kick ass. Except to tell you that two suited men jump out of an unmarked van and pull Jesse in. Kyle pretends to be concerned. The van drives off. I think this is a very important lesson about what happens to people who dare to dabble in the scourge of therapy. It also kills kittens, so they say.
And now, a repeat of the entire first season, with late-addition Jesse Ramirez playing the role of everyone from the first season. We're in a dark underground room of some kind with a metal table and two chairs. Jesse is tied up, yelling to no one, "You have no right to hold me here. Anything you found in there constitutes an illegal search and seizure." And, under his breath, "and that includes my copy of Man Hole. Which, uh, isn't mine anyway." One of the suited men walks threateningly around him, letting him know, "My name is Agent Burns, FBI. Last night a local therapist was threatened. Your therapist. You said your wife's family is involved in organized crime."
Dear FBI: there is no "White-Bred Losers Of Bland Suburbia Crime Family," okay? If you're in Roswell looking for the Mafia, you're about twenty-six states off the mark. I spent the first eighteen years of my life in Massapequa and I know more than you. Ask Gotti. Ask Gambino. Ask Joey and Mary-Jo. Never mind. I'll do it for you. I went to school with all of their kids. Love, Dan.
But Burns doesn't get the hint, and has to have it pointed out explicitly that "it was an analogy." Well, look at the big brain on Brad! An analogy! Isn't that like "honk honk" or "meow" and that sort of thing? Or not. Agent Burns turns the topic to "why you're really here" (thanks for soaking up three full minutes with why we're not really here, then). He produces a file for Jesse which explains Max's alien history, showing him documents of a lot of generic shots of people lying motionless and one of a bland-looking man who I actually thought was this Agent Burns guy but I guess isn't. Burns half-explains where this is half-going: "Careers have been destroyed because of Max Evans. People have died. Good people." Jesse asks why they've never arrested him, then, and Burns responds that they could never pin anything specific on him. What about the trail of dead people? Isn't that grounds for arresting in certain states now, Burnsy? Either way, Jesse is convinced. He leans in, asking conspiratorially, "How can I help?" Burns sneers a smile, because law and America are bad. And he wanted us to know.
And then, to our wild, young, star-crossed, mismatched, danger couple of Max and Liz who, this very season, were knocking over fruit stands across state lines and who are now caught participating in that wild, kinky deviant behavior that is...miniature golf. What a gas. They'd better finish up the back nine or they'll be late for shuffleboard on the main deck. Truth be told, it does look like kind of a nice course. Too bad it's all mucked up with the small talk of Max telling Liz what happened with him and Michael, and Liz responding with a story about her old baby-sitter, free golf, and something about a "snack shack." Whatever. I'm sure it wasn't important. Primarily because it was said on this show. Max pulls another "by the way" before introducing meaty plot-development information (don't be ashamed of letting the plot happen, "writers"), letting Liz know that his father is unusually curious about her sudden return from Vermont. Liz counsels him, "You should just tell him what I told my father. That my drug-addicted roommate wanted me to get into a three-way with my Latin teacher." Well, I missed that episode, didn't I? "I erred on the side of the dramatic." Oh.
Max bemoans that Michael doesn't want Max around, and Liz posits, "It's a hard enough thing to deal with somebody dying, Max. It's even weirder to have them come back to life." A-yuh. Something dead is betta. Thus spoke the great Fred Gwynne. And then, some years later, the slightly inferior but ever more Frankensteinian Liz Parker. Max asks, "Am I a ghost?" Looking for any excuse to inflict some kind of physical harm, she hits him on his back with the mini-golf club. Jeez. Two minutes for high-sticking, bruiser. I guess that was the "ghost test." Max moans on, "Are you afraid of me?" Afraid isn't the word, really. What is the word? Oh, yes. The word is bored. She's not afraid of him, but, while we're at it, she was "wonderink...what was it like when you were dead?" Oh, she was just wonderink, was she? That was the most casual foray into bringing up the afterlife I've ever, ever heard. But Max doesn't want to talk about it, because that would require bringing a certain specificity to the subject matter, when it's really better just to leave it vague and lazy. So that's what they do. But if Max has learned one thing, it's that he's "not interested in carrying around these responsibilities anymore." He doesn't want to fight with Michael. He doesn't want to "keep on this impossible quest to find [his] son." Was that something he was still doing? I had totally forgotten about that. Instead, he wants to "live in the now" and appreciate things he's been taking for granted, "like going to school. Or smearing you in putt-putt." Ew. What the hell does that mean? Smear? Putt? Putt? That's the dirtiest description of a game I've ever heard. I don't want to see anyone on this show smearing anything on anyone else, particularly a putt or a putt. I might throw up. Max's cell phone rings, and it's God calling to tell Max that miniature golf is about to be permanently uninvented because even God was really ooked out by the expression "smearing you at putt-putt."
Actually, it was one of the twenty-seven people now assembled in The House That Government Subsidy Built. Kyle is recounting to the usual suspects that Jesse was pushed into a van and taken by the FBI. Max barks directions of where everyone is to go, but Michael challenges his direction to go to Isabel's apartment on the basis that he's "not gonna sit on [his] ass and wait for something to happen." That sounds like something I wrote about this show in 1999. Max and Michael square off with words, and Isabel wails for everyone to fall in line because her husband's life is at stake and blee blee foo fah.
Michael storms out, and suddenly we're in a car -- is it the Jetta? -- where Michael is driving recklessly, indeed. Maria notes that they're not heading in the right direction to get to Isabel's apartment, and Michael moodily notes, "We're not going to Isabel's apartment. We're doing things my way now." Maria half-counters, "Max said..." but Michael cuts her off with, "Max should have stayed dead." Because sometimes dead is betta. A-yuh. A mini-fight ensues about how Jesse needs to be stopped and that "Nasedo had it right. When someone finds out, they should be eliminated." Nase-who? Maria chuckles, "Well then, that should apply to me too, huh?" Michael: "You said it, I didn't." Oh, touché. Maria tries to excuse Michael by poorly delivering the undeliverable, "This is you!" Moody, self-righteous, and portraying his character with one note so long and so loud that all of the neighborhood dogs start barking when they hear it? Yeah, we're steady on with Michael still being Michael. Everything looks status quo from here. He rants on that Maria never listened to him, and that he stayed on the planet for her and then she goes ahead and dumps his sorry ass. She's flustered. He's angry. She's incredulous. He's...glowing? Maria notes the five triangulated light bulbs on Michael's chest. Michael freaks out and pulls over to the side of the road, spilling Maria out onto the street with the line, "You never shut up now get out!" and peeling off in a damn hurry. I can't find any of the new Sheryl Crow songs on-line, people. And I also hear that the new Elvis Costello album is pretty darn good.
Knock knock knock. Monopoly Nazi Evans taps on the locked door of the Crashdown, and Slackjaw shows up to answer the door. He apologizes that "the grill's cold," but Monopoly Nazi isn't there "to eat." He's there to dance dance dance! Actually, he's not there to do that either. Instead, he is there to bore. So it's important for him to get started right away. "It's Liz," he says. "I was wondering what brought her back from Vermont so soon." Slackjaw plainly explains in one sentence that this is not Monopoly Nazi's problem, but he sits down at the table and plugs on: "You gotta think it's a little strange. A smart girl like her passing up an educational opportunity like that." Slackjaw assures him that Max had nothing to do with it, and Monopoly Nazi offers to try and get Slackjaw's deposit back. I think we're supposed to intuit that Slackjaw is having some financial difficulties. What a fertile area for further plot development. Oh, wait. It's over. There is no "further."
Max's convertible pulls up where Maria in standing in the cold, dark night. He and Liz get out of the car, and Maria starts ranting, "Okay, Michael is a freak show. He's a desert-wandering Anne Heche times a thousand, babbling about how Max should have stayed dead because he would have been a better king or something." First of all, leave the Anne Heche bashing to the professionals. And they're out there. Maria continues, "He had this weird thing on his chest. This, like, weird 'V' thing." In the dust on his car, Max draws a 'V' (that artist's rendering is really quite precise, considering Maria's directive to "draw a 'V'") with five dots and Maria nods. And then half of New York City comes along and writes "Wash me asshole" on the remaining dust, so much so that they inadvertently remove all of the dust and leave it sparklingly clean. Max somehow keeps a straight face when he notes, "That's the royal seal of Antar." Ooooooh. It's a sign that Max has "in him" (I have no idea what that means) to signify that he is the king. But when he died, it got passed along and Michael became the king. Ooooooh. That makes sense. Max tries out his powers and discovers they don't work, and Max says he needs to "figure out a way to take the seal back." Liz kind of suggests killing him, and Max kind of agrees, "I'm not gonna kill him. I'm just gonna hurt him real, real bad." He doesn't actually say that. He only kind of does.
Can't. Do. This. Any. More. Must. Recap. In. Real. Time. Starting. Now. Michael is in Isabel's apartment, where Jesse has deigned to return. Michael freaks out and holds out a hand, peeling Jesse against the wall and seething, "I told Isabel not to bring another human into the secret. But she was so in love, so Max said yes." I'm sorry, but "into the secret"? What does that even mean? Michael glances down at Jesse's briefcase and finds what appears to be a bugging device, which Jesse, in agony, tries to argue, "isn't [his]." Michael snarls, "Goodbye, Jesse." Isabel and Max run in just then and I think Maria and Liz and perhaps Kyle, and Max conjures power enough to throw Michael off of Jesse and throw everybody out. Isabel and Jesse run around the side of the house, Isabel finally agreeing that Jesse was right and that they have to get away from all of this bedlam. Anywhere? Anywhere. There's a plaaaaaaaaace for us. Somewhere a plaaaaaaaace for us. Jesse dials a number on his cell phone, and Agent Burns picks up. Jesse tells him, "I'm coming in."
Michael, climbing up from the corner, can't believe that Max let Jesse go. Max once again tries reasoning with him, but Michael flashes his freaking chesty 'V' and is all, "It's time for you to get in line." And then, fight! And rolling around on the floor. Right. Punching. Kicking. And so it goes. Finally, Max shatters a window behind him, causing the glass to fly into Michael's eyes (but not his, for some reason) and temporarily blind him. Now Max is on top. Which is where I imagine he likes it better anyway. Michael is all bloody. Max takes his hand and puts it over the triangulated "V," taking it back into his body and miraculously regaining his position as king. Well, that wasn't very hard, was it?
Jesse and Isabel run into the underground FBI lair, and Jesse demands of Isabel, "You have two minutes. Destroy everything." Jesse then runs to find Burns in the room, and fumes, "I told you I'd help you and you put that mic on me." That Jesse hadn't noticed? It was the size of a small pony. Doesn't the FBI have something a bit more micro than that? Jesse says he's going to file a complaint "with the central prosecutor's office, and then you're finished, Burns." I always love it when people act out scenes involving various branches of law enforcement by spewing old threats they saw on syndicated reruns of Kojak. Burns says he has enough information to finally bring them all in on, um, alien charges. A shot rings out. Jesse has shot Burns? The fuck? Isabel runs in to find the agent dead. Jesse notes, "We have to go." Now why isn't that room bugged? And why, if Burns was so close to bringing this whole thing down, aren't other people involved at this late stage?
Michael lays beached on the couch at The House That Government Subsidy Built, shirt completely open, eyes completely healed. Max tries to apologize, but Michael lets him know, "You're the king. You did what you had to do." Then he sleeps. And all is wrapped up tidily as that.
Industrial factory somewhere. Burns, dead, is in the trunk of a car, and Isabel burns him to a crisp to ensure that he won't be identified. They then watch as the car is picked up by a giant crane and crushed. Are they at the funny car races? What is this place? What's going on? The car is destroyed. Which car is it? Jesus. And then, back at home, Jesse disconsolately notes, "I killed a man." Then he watches Isabel cooking. Because he's too much of a man to cry.