Actually, it was pretty stupid

S03E18

There's no mind warping us into forgetting the existence of the entire second season this week, but the "writers" sure do give it all they've got with the spontaneous reintroduction of the gone-but-not-forgotten-enough character of "Sulky Introductory Voice-Over Narration." We open on a shot of the Crashdown's exterior, with a banner hanging underneath the neon sign reading "Good Luck to the Class of 2002." Which is a helpful visual reminder for those among us who have somehow forgotten the title of this episode and begun to think that the Roswell series finale was going to focus on some other one-word rite of passage like "Purim" or "Audit." If you thought that, you're wrong. It's still about graduation. Sulky Voice-Over Narration has this thing that it thinks we should know: "I'm not religious, but I've been to church." And she's not an actor, but she's played one on TV. Hi, I'm Liz and I like long walks on the beach, pretending I'm human, and dichotomies. But wait, there's more: "I know right from wrong. And I know it's wrong to benefit in any way from someone else's passing, but I won't deny that Tess's death has freed me." Bitch. "Like a dark shadow passed over the sun before the light came flooding back." Wow. I had to look at that metaphor in the reflection of a shoebox with a hole punched in the middle. Because that's what happens to eclipse metaphors. Even if they're secretly really similes.

She continues rambling like a morphine addict misquoting Ginsberg at a poetry slam, and we cut inside the Crashdown to find Liz "Rest In Pieces" Parker turning the placard over on the front door to tell us that the eatery is now "closed." To drive her point home, a wrecking ball descends just away from the camera's gaze and blows three more sets to bits so that the debris can be recycled into decorative picture frames and spice racks and all sorts of lovely, useful things. Liz picks up a copy of the famed Roswell Tribune, keeps her thumb squarely over the paper's boxed front-page credo, "All the news that's fit to be fake news," and smiles wistfully at that wist-inspiring headline, "USAF Investigates Devastating Explosion at Rogers Base." Ah, mass death. So fantastically helpful to Liz's puppy-dog teen crushes. Below it is a photo of the aforementioned destruction, which I think is in reality an AP file photo of the ruins of the Roman Coliseum. She throws the paper down and thinks aloud so that only we can hear, like Garfield does in that wacky fat cat cartoon, "It's a brand new day. Full of possibilities and hope. I haven't felt like that in a lonk, lonk time." Well, not since October of 1999. If you're me. And you're not. Which is lucky for you. Because I am a tortured, tortured soul.

By Djb

Liz's reverie turns to Max "Anti-Social Security" Evans, as the camera swoops around and we find him sitting at the counter eating fries and Tabasco (because remember how they…with the…oh, never mind). All-In-Her-Head Barbie wants just us to know, "It's different for Max." It's different for all the boys like Max. "He lost more than his son." He also lost his car in the Costco parking lot, as doddering old men just seem to do. "He lost his sense of direction to his life." See what I mean? "His purpose." Oh. Well, Lizcissus, Queen Of Self-Preservation, it really is all about you, isn't it? Liz continues, "He puts up a great front, but…I know." Well, just as long as you're fine. That's all that really matters to, um, you.

Max turns from the counter, sees her, makes the decision to fake smile, and smiles. Liz ambles on over and sits down to him, because the UPN caved and gave them one more extra behind the counter to make it look like somebody actually works there for once. She considers Max gravely for a moment before finally speaking aloud: "What're you still doing here?" Garfield is jealous. He can't do both. Max fails to respond in short enough order, so the versatile Liz speaks to herself, out loud, and then attempts to be Max as well, answering for him, "Hot for some local waitress." Stop the Lizbot! Her Willful Dialogue Enabler has gone completely out of control! Max noncommittally answers back, "That's the rumor." Well, Max, that might be a rumor, but it most certainly is not the rumor. He sidesteps the awkward question as gingerly as possible, sniping back with the passive-aggressive equivalent of "Now when the hell are you getting the hell away from me again?" with the head-scratcher, "Have you heard from Northwestern yet?" Northwestern? Wasn't it her suddenly-manufactured dream to go to Harvard until she fainted during an interview and then got shipped off to private school, only to fail out when her boyfriend fake-died? Or did I miss a few episodes? I can just picture the "writers'" meeting in which they were all haughty and "well, she hasn't gone to school in two years, so there's no way she could believably get into Harvard. Anyone else here go to a really respectable safety school for the Ivys? And Vassar doesn't count, because everybody else uses it." Anyway, Liz responds that she's trying to "handle the whole college acceptance thing with grace and aplomb." Rather than question her on the ridiculous inaccuracy of waiting on a college acceptance letter minutes before high school graduation at the damn end of May, Max pretends he's still in this conversation at all by repeating the final word of her sentence, asking, "Aplomb?" She explains: "It's an SAT word that I just can't get out of my head." Well, then, why don't you let one of us rip it off of you and throw it into the ocean? No? What if we promise to do it with aplomb?

Max steers the topic in a far more bizarre direction because he hates hearing her say the word "aplomb," not un-hunching his hunched hunchiness (diagnosis: switch to Centrum Silver), putting down his Sanka, and asking, "What if I came with you to Northwestern?" Because things went so well the last time Max went on a national tour to track Liz down at her school. Liz cautions Max that she can't go through some "emotional roller-coaster," and tells him, "I'll be right back." Ouch. That so meant "no," by the way. Liz stands up and walks to a nearby table, where a woman hands her a check with some cash on top of it, and Shiri pockets the money and promises herself she'll pay the woman back out of her back-end deal on Swimfan. But as the cash changes hands, Liz is suddenly rocked by a flash of the woman at the table being assaulted and shot right in the chest by an angry man with a gun. The woman leaves. Liz lacks aplomb. Max walks over and sees a faint Liz sitting on a stool, and Liz looks up and reports, "I think that woman is gonna be murdered." Oh, good. Now she can tell the not-too-distant-future. I hope she can see it tomorrow when she's really working in a diner.

Max and Liz run out onto the street to see the single woman walking alone down a dark alley. Well, Jesus, World's Dumbest Pedestrian, what were the chances you weren't going to be assaulted? Good thing she wasn't wearing her suit made of money, as she so often does when she strolls the subways really late at night. But Max still sympathizes, and he and Liz look in horror as Liz's vision starts to come true. A man leaps out of seeming nowhere and takes the woman down. But it's no matter, because just as he unearths the gun from the first act going off nine seconds later, Max waves a hand, and a car alarm goes off. The man starts to run. Max and Liz run back inside. The woman looks at them go. How dare they save her life? Bitches.

But Liz's addled internal monologue carries on despite our most stern warnings: "The trouble with making plans for the future, even when you can see the future, is that fate has a way of intervening and upsetting the best laid plans of mice and men." Like the book says: we may be done with the past, but the past ain't through with us. Cue Aimee Mann. But Liz has a slightly different literary antecedent: "Robert Burns, 1785." A caption appears in Microsoft Word font MS Alien Bold to tell us that we are now at the smoky remains of "Rogers Air Force Base, New Mexico." A gloved hand in a white biohazard suit picks up a melted videotape labeled "Isabel 5/10/02" and places it into a plastic bag. Make a mental note of how fucked up and unplayable that tape looks. If you cough near a videotape, it's over. This thing has been recycled into a superball. But happy birthday, if that day was your birthday. Not to put too fine a point on it, Liz explains that her Robert Burns knowledge "was on the SAT too." Or maybe she means the SAT II. Either way, constructing an opening monologue crafted around the thrilling concept of a reading comprehension blurb on a standardized test has got AP Shitty written all over it.

Opening credits: Shut up, bitch. I won't say it again.

Jesse "Gaylien Sympathizer" Ramirez sits alone in his house, talking on a fake cordless phone while pretending it's a real cordless phone because this is what actors do. "So," he asks, "this is for real?" And though we the viewers cannot hear the response on the other end, I imagine it to be something to the effect of, "It's totally real. And for the low cost of $2.99 per minute, you can talk to totally real guys and listen to their messages, or record one of your own." But just then, through the front door walks Isabel "Straight Woman Trapped In A Gay Man's Marriage" Evans, and Jesse is forced to terminate the call with a terse "well, I'm gonna have to get back to you on that" and pray that the credit card charges really are billed to "H&H Mattress Shop" or something. Isabel looks really concerned about Jesse's news, but he assures her that that the news is neither good nor bad, but instead a liberal mix of every shade of "boring," peppered as it is with a lot of fake names: "My friend Chris Hobson just made partner at Langtree, Watkins & Sullivan. They're one of the top law firms in Boston." It's true. Langtree, Watkins & Sullivan tries all the best fake cases in Boston. My fake friend who is a fake lawyer in New England told me. But just between you and me, he thinks Hobson is kind of a dick.

Isabel is overwhelmingly underwhelmed by the news, but Jesse is soon to pile on, "They need someone to take over their litigation department." Isabel gets it, cutting right to the bacon and the bringing home of it: "So, what does it pay?" And now, for a case of monetary misunderstanding hijinks, when Jesse responds, "Three-fifty to start." Isabel launches into a mini-tirade about the impossibility of "living on three-fifty a week, especially in that city." What is she, retarded? Has she never opened a bill before? Doesn't she know that Watkins alone makes that in an hour? And he's, like, the Steven Stills of the group, my friend said. Jesse clarifies that the salary is "three hundred and fifty thousand a year," and then Isabel is happy, because money makes you happy, particularly if you can share it with someone you love who's making it all for you so you don't have to work. Jesse asks if that means they're going, and Isabel joyfully responds, "Probably!" Oh. They hug again and again so that no one has to talk about the truth.

Maria "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Thin" DeLuca follows Liz around the Crashdown, asking her, "So you're clairvoyant now?" Everyone's working, and as Maria asks, "So do you think you can tell me what's gonna happen between me and Spaceboy?" they approach the grill, where a sweaty Michael "Pee Pee Diddy" Guerin throws down some plates and ignores his two sweet, sweet bitches. They pick up their orders and head in opposite directions, Maria to solo recording artist obscurity, Liz to the counter, where Kyle "The Little Engine That Could" Valenti sits in his big-boy shop-class clothes and sulks. Odd banter ensues about Kyle "flushing septic lines for a 1975 RV," but quickly gives way to some far more white-collar concerns when Geoff "Slackjaw" Parker appears with all manner of gravitas in the dining room, holding a thin envelope and announcing, "It's from Northwestern University." Not to be confused with "Northwestern Amusement Park" or "Northwestern Planned Parenthood Clinic" or something. Kyle baits, "An acceptance letter?" Without looking away from the envelope, Liz clarifies, "Or a ding letter." Wait. A what? Is that really a thing? I've never heard of it. And I went to college once also. To hammer home the reference no one gets if "no one" means "at least me," a bell rings from the grill, and Michael indicates a basket of fries. Wait. I have no idea what's going on right now. Let's get back to Liz and her discovery regarding NotHarvard. She takes the envelope from Slackjaw's hand, and as she touches it, she sees the words "accepted for enrollment" flash in her mind. She celebrates, "I've been accepted," and Slackjaw is all "I have no faith in you" with his reply, "You haven't even opened it yet." She opens it. She got in. Hugs are exchanged with all who don't secretly hate her, while Maria looks on in horror and Kyle murmurs the aside, "I gotta do something with my life." Don't worry, Kyle. Imagine how surprised Northwestern will be to find out that one of their acceptance letters made it to New Mexico about five weeks following the promised notification date of April 15. Maybe she really did get accepted to Northwestern Amusement Park after all.

Over at The Den Of Porno, a gruff John Candy-ish type sits on the living room couch (You know. The brown one that's right to the brown one) eating pizza, as Kyle opens two soft drinks and thanks the guy for "taking this meeting." Gruff mechanic friend -- let's call him Bill Mechanic -- questions, "Meeting? You just said you were springing for lunch." But Kyle has loftier goals for the meal, telling Bill Mechanic, "I've been thinking about my future" and "I think I have a lot to offer," asking if Bill would consider "taking on a partner." Porno peeks through a crack in the door at the ensuing disappointment that is his son, as Bill Mechanic responds, "You're a kid. You're not even my mechanic. You're an assistant." Porno looks upon this, craggy and sad. He remembers his own days of being a brave and resilient failure before just giving up completely.

Ambiguous cheap motel locale, middle of nowhere. Yet another authoritarian-sounding voice says, "One of my men picked this out of the rubble a few nights ago." Can I tell you how tired I am of hearing phrases like "one of my men" and "the special unit" bandied around? Enough already. Anyway, Disembodied Authority Voice puts a perfectly intact videotape with no label into the machine (wow, they're so not even trying at this point, are they?), and we're treated to Centrifugal Isabel And Her Merry Band Of Spinning Stuff one more freakin' time. One military man turns to another and asks, "Is she the thing that destroyed our base?" No one knows. Military Man #1 asks, "Can the Special Unit deal with this?" Military Man #2 responds, "The Special Unit no longer exists." Yeah, since the spring of 2000. Shouldn't a man in this seeming seat of governmental power have been briefed on that development at some point in the past two years? Somebody hand him a history book before he attempts to fix this scourge of extra-terrestrial activity by mobilizing the League of Nations. Military Man #3 conveniently notes that "the members of the unit do remain in contact with each other," I suppose through a renegade series of chat rooms and underpopulated EZ Boards where the once proud members of this elite club regale each other with tales of a time before life dealt them such a harsh and unfair hand.

Aaaand booty call. Liz and Max are entwined in a way I can't describe because I can only look at it once, and Liz asks Max if he's really serious about coming with her to Northwestern. Max "has never been more serious." Oh, great. He needs to be even more grave and thoughtful. Liz asks, "You know how I can tell the future?" How? Oh, that's not what she meant. She continues, "Tonight, your future looks very, very bright." Cut to a gauzy vision of Max, Michael, Isabel, and Liz bleeding and dead. She leaps off Max and deadpans, "We're all gonna be killed." Oh. So she meant that my future looks very bright.

The usual suspects convene at what I think is The House That Government Subsidy Built. Liz paces around and recounts that her vision was as "terrible" as her delivery of the word "terrible," as Porno maintains his current post of standing against a wall looking outmoded and obsolete. It's so sad. Michael says that he dreams about "getting whacked every night," and wants to know why some dumb Liz vision requires some big Lord of the Flies powwow. Shut up, Michael. You can ask your question when it's your turn to hold the conch. But Max explains it all anyway: "Liz has started to have premonitions…by touching people." Or their checks, but why split hairs when the clock is ticking? Hence, Max thinks "we need to take it seriously." Because otherwise they'll set their impending deaths to music and turn it into a lavish stage production with a lot of spontaneous dancing on roofs of cars. But Michael wants facts, and he wants to request said facts with the repeated use of the word "popped," asking, "So, where do we get popped, when do we get popped, and who pops us?" Liz replies that she intends to be as useless as possible, as "the flashes are impressionistic." Oh, la la. Look who's already signed herself up for Art History 105. Porno unhelpfully notes that "we need more information" just so he can cross through the frame and hit his mark on the other side of the room. Hi, Porno. Isabel suggests that they "focus on what we should do ," and Max sees her ambiguous dialogue and raises her one, responding, "We should all stay on guard." Silence and brooding, silence and brooding. Max suggests, "Liz and I will attempt to…" Kyle fills in the blank: "Achieve another flash." It's about sex.

Who is this, now? Cut to Michael and Maria at a fortune teller, who I know they've been to before because the "Previouslys" told me they were. Madame Extraneous is asking Maria and Michael, "So what do want out of this relationship? Where do you see yourself, say, five years from now?" Michael responds that he thinks he'll probably be dead, which I have to infer from his use of the expression "Finito Mickelito." I think he was one of the Impressionists as well. Michael attempts to speed things along by asking if Madame Extraneous would get around to taking out her "crystal ball…no offense, but I want to get home in time for WWF." Because he's still a hick, remember, and someone has to plug the rest of the UPN line-up while they're still on payroll and contractually obligated to do so. They bicker some about relationships past in which they have wronged each other that none of us even kind of remembers (what the hell is a "Courtney"?), but Madame Extraneous asks Maria to excuse them for a moment so that she can speak with Michael privately. Maria snarks and leaves the room, and Madame Extraneous turns over a card and tells Michael, "Something bad is about to happen. Very bad. And there's only one way to keep it from happening. You must believe in the love." Michael is all, "Keep your weed-smokin' hippie ways off my body" (I believe he has that on a t-shirt somewhere…I know I do), but Madame Extraneous once again insists that Michael "believe in the love," saying it could save all of their lives. He accuses her of being a fraud. And you kind of have to look at the evidence. He told her, "I'm going to die soon," and then she was all, "Uh…something bad is going to happen." So I can see what he's saying, is all I'm saying. She hands him the tarot card which reads, "The lovers," which features a pastel illustration of sylphs and angels and lush trees that I imagine might be called "The Future According to The Magic Garden." I don't think anyone here would argue against its inherently impressionist themes.

Outside of Madame Extraneous's place, Michael tries to storm past Maria. She chases him down Madame E's front lawn, wailing that she can't believe he won't tell her what went on. His temper reaches this week's version of a boiling point, and he screams back for her to "shut up," at the same time holding out a hand and smashing a garden gnome sitting on the front porch. Ability to destroy earth notwithstanding, I don't think even one member of the defunct Special Unit would be sad to see one fewer of those in the world. But the protectors of the peace and garden gnomes have other concerns, and just as Michael smashes the gnome, the shot becomes a still-life photo (that was a very '80s music video effect. Is this "Girls On Film"?) which, with dozens of other shots, sits on a table under the gaze of Military Men Numbers 1-2. Those photographs? All totally impressionistic.

Max and Liz embark on their inexcusable "Saving The World Through Handjobs" crusade as they make with the nookie once more. That is, until there's a flash of a bald man, who watches the same four shots of the dying Alien Three plus one Liz thrown in for luck and bonus death. Liz comes out of it and runs to her bookshelf, showing Max a book written by a "Bryce McCain," who Max automatically knows will be "the guest of honor at the UFO Convention. We die June 12." Liz: "That's in two weeks!" Max: "We have twelve days." Jesus, people. Put away the sundial. We believe you know what day it is.

Out on The Scoping Fjords Of Sandy Land, no one can come up with a plan. Much morose silence ensues, and Max tells the assemblage, "I won't make this decision for everyone. I'm giving up the throne." For the uninitiated viewer of this show, I can't even imagine how stupid that line sounds. Because for the lifers, I can say with great authority…it sounded pretty dumb. Michael is the only pragmatist in the group, suggesting, "Why don't we get out of Dodge before they land on us? We leave." They know who they are, so he assumes that "it's over." He also speeches that if they go, they have to go separately. Why? "Right now we're safer as individuals than we are as a group. I mean, what are we going to do if we go together, get a van?" Meh. It didn't work on Dead Last. Porno asks if they all have to go, and Michael reminds them of the only four who are in danger, which is clearly ridiculous, because if the government has a camera inside of an exploding garden gnome (which it appeared they did, considering the number of angles from which we saw that thing explode), they know who the aliens are hanging with and could inflict a similar level of, uh, picture-taking on them as well. Maria freaks out that they're just leaving her here, bellowing the most important line in series history, which should have been on the posters at bus stops from Season One: "This is just a perfect way to end this entire stupid thing." She storms off. Max steps back in to glitch up the plan, advising, "If we're gonna go, we shouldn't hesitate. We should start leaving right after graduation." Or maybe, um, now? Meanwhile, Liz chases Maria down and is all "snap out of it, bitch." Maria's falling apart. Liz wants to know if Maria wants in or out. They hug. Porno tells Kyle that he got him a job at the sheriff's office. Isabel tells Jesse they'll go to Boston together. Max and Michael are the only ones left, Michael telling Max, "Well, I'm not graduating, so I guess I'll be the first to leave." Max knows things between them haven't been the best. Perhaps a five-minute hug will clear things up. No? What if we add an aerial view of it? Ah…that's better.

A disembodied voice informs a woman whom I think we've seen before, "The sooner you help us, Mrs. Mills, the sooner you can return home." This so-called Mrs. Mills is the woman from the opening sequence (remember way back then? Yeah, me neither) who was not killed by a man with a gun. She stares down at the Roswell press kit, glossy 8x10s of the cast trying to do the stage direction "curiously suspicious, though not so much so that they won't be marketable for Neutrogena commercials in the very, very near future" the appropriate justice. She pauses for a moment before mumbling, "They helped me. They saved my life." But no matter. Monotone men in suits hate foiled muggings. Or so we seem to be learning. Another man threatens Mrs. Mills: "I'm sure your two children would be very happy to see you. It's getting late." Mrs. Mills cracks just then under the pressure of being not-that-threatened and trapped in a totally well-lit room for at least eleven whole minutes of hell! She hasn't even removed the little purple coat of her little purple sweater set. She eyes the press kit. She considers them all. She points to a photo of Max and a photo of Liz. God, I hope Mrs. Mills isn't a casting agent. She asks if she can leave, and is told, "You were never here. You never saw us." Because we've seen how keeping things on the ol' hush-hush ranks so highly as one of Mrs. Mills's strong points. She's gone, out a door with a small sign reading "Glorified Extras Parking This Way," into the night of permanent non-memorability. The two remaining Military Men start moving the photos around into fun shapes and patterns, like those long nights in the foxhole together have forced them to make up a card game based on their Doomed Alien Trading Cards. One moves four photos of Max, Michael, Isabel, and Liz all to each other, and keeps himself from yelling "Uno!" out of only the sheerest force of will. Military Man #1 indicates them and speaks his brilliant plan to the world: "These four. This is everyone. Now we can move. Someplace where they're all together indoors. A facility we can lock down. Someplace they won't expect it to happen." If only the episode title would come and clear up this maddening mystery. Somewhere…but where? Incidentally, I love that they've figured out who the aliens are, and just decided to tack Liz on the list of the doomed because they can. It feels very much like an idea they might have taken from us.

I think we're at the front of Maria's house. Maria has a house? She walks across the front lawn to find Michael Michael sitting atop his motorcycle motorcycle. Gee, she thought he'd be gone by now. He bares his soul: "I wanted to say that this whole thing has been screwed up since the beginning. The whole stupid story." Once again, another character nails just what kind of story this has been all along. But Maria takes it personally, even though it isn't entirely her fault. But Michael isn't done, telling her, "I wouldn't trade it for anything. From day one, the moment that I kidnapped you and stole your car." Yes. I wouldn't trade it for anything either. Except for maybe being able to watch The West Wing during its first season, or Smallville this year. Or Undeclared ever. Or maintain a sense of integrity in the whole television-watching process, which I used to feel until one dark hour in October of 1999 came along and changed my sensibilities forever. Okay. I guess I'd trade it for something. I'd trade it for a small stack of pennies. But Michael wouldn't. And he's still talking! "Wherever I'm going, whatever I'm doing, I'll always love you." He rides off into the distant sunset, hopefully out of the jurisdiction of the government branch with a thirst for alien blood. I'd also trade it for cheese.

By Djb

McCain is just there to plug himself, speeching, "Much of my work is about the possibility of alien life. Of course, that's fiction. But the truth is we're all aliens in our own way. Especially in high school." At which point he should be pulling down a chart with the word "allegory" stamped across it in bold fucking letters as the entire assumed subtext of this entire stupid series crawls into a dark corner where no one can hear it die. But the speech is soon to be drowned out by an authoritative military voice (I know, I know. I'm just as surprised as you are) demanding, "This is Viceroy. All shooters report in, please." Three bull-eyes zero in on each of Max, Isabel, and Liz, and Viceroy demands, "Do not fire until the rest of the unit has arrived." That Viceroy. Always the cooler head prevailing. That's how he's earned such ambiguous military success and the ability to say things like "I lost some good men" or "This is Viceroy" without ever really having to do any actual work. The targets are all in the clear. Pull the trigger. Give the order, Viceroy. Do it. DO IT! Cut to a long line of cars riding through the Roswell night (does anyone graduate from public high school at night? I really am curious), on their way to be Viceroy's back-up. That's a call you don't turn down, people. The cars drive right past Michael on his hog. He takes that "The Lovers" tarot card out of his pocket -- oh my God, I can't believe that was the same episode -- and steams back toward Roswell. The card drops faux-artily behind him onto the dirt. Now the fortuneteller has no "Lovers" card.

Okay, this speech sucks. Max looks back at Liz one more time, and finally stands up and makes his way down his aisle. He marches right up to the podium and whispers to McBain (or whatever), "You need to leave the building right now. It's for your own safety." Ruzzah ruzzah rhubarb peas and carrots from the audience. McBain resists at first, until Max runs a hand over the author's speech, changing the words from "boring boring boring rant rant blee" to the declarative "LEAVE NOW FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY" in Times New Roman 72. Dude, even the PA who made that sign didn't change from the default. Maybe because they were carting all of his computer equipment away as he was trying to print out something a bit more foreboding. Like adding a clip-art bald guy with an axe in his head or something. But McBain is convinced, and he slinks off the podium like he just peed himself. Max is alone. Murmur ruzzah Ruzzah ruzzah carrots! Max has the floor: "My name is Max Evans. I though I'd take this opportunity to say a few things on behalf of myself and the graduating class." The lights shut off all at once. Gasp! Ruzzah ruzzah is that that freak who's never at school ruzzah my mom said he was a student when she was in high school here too ruzzah ruzzah ruzzah. All targets have lost contact with their targets. A single light illuminates Max as the aliens and the accomplices escape into the darkness. Isabel has a quick goodbye with her parents and her husband and sneaks off. Max tells us that it's been "a long, hard road," but he's just filibustering action we can only see in the dark anyway, so we have nothing aural or visual to grab onto as the adroit production values that have kept this show on top keep us limping toward the ever-clearer finish line.

Max keeps vamping: "I'm a member of that group." What group? "Outsiders. I always knew I was different. And for a long, long time all I wanted was to be a face in the crowd. But in the end, it wasn't possible. I guess it never was. So from now on I'll just concentrate on being who I really am. Some of you might not like that. Some of you might even find that frightening. But that's not my problem anymore. I have to be who I really am. And let fate take care of the rest. So thank you, Roswell. Thank you for letting me live among you. Thank you for giving me a family. Thank you for giving me a home." Gay.

The exceedingly bland governmental storm troopers come slamming in, and Max hears the brass-heavy music and knows his time has come. That is, until Prince Cliché rides in on his white horse. White lights blaze up, and there's Michael on his Harley. Max hops onto the back, and he and Michael ride off into the sunset. Down the halls of the school. Nothing broken. Everything fine. The government must be with the horse-and-buggy brigade, and they all decide not to follow, even through they have two thousand cars as back-up that we learned about nine seconds ago. End. END!!!

Max, Michael, Isabel, Liz, Maria, and Kyle stand out in the middle of the desert. Kyle's the first to assert that he isn't going back to Roswell, and Maria agrees that her future is with them. "We're doing it together." A really old blue van pulls up to this clearly easy-to-find spot in the desert, and Isabel holds up a hand to blow it apart because she's Doc Brown and she owes these Libyans some plutonium! Oh, wait. It's just Jesse. They hug. He's coming with them. Isabel says he can't, but Jesse presses on that he loves her, and that's all that matters and awwwww. Isabel tells him that the only way to make it right for Jesse is by letting him go. He's not going without her. And then he does. Take them from the skies, government! Remember when you had the Air Force involved? Sigh. Fuck it. Tuesdays are for drinking again.

A police car drives up and finds the Libyans trying to get out of town. It's Porno, restored to Porno outfit! He's a deputy, for some reason. Porno won't ask Kyle where he's going, so he can be innocent. Porno says he gave them a tip that they're heading to Mexico because he phoned in a tip, and it reminds me of all of the reasons that he lost his hold on the law enforcement thing in the first place. They hug meaningfully. Kyle gets back in the van. Liz gets the final word: "I can't tell you much more than that, because it wouldn't be safe, for you or for us. I can tell you that we're far away and that we're all trying to avoid the law and do good in the world. Oh, and I guess I should tell you, Dad. Max and I did eventually tie the knot." Shot of small white church, the small wedding party celebrating Max and Liz's happy, happy day. Swoop down on Geoff Parker, alone in the Crashdown, reading a FedExed copy of Liz's diary, crying rather hysterically. She continues on: "Give my love to Mom. Let her read this journal too. Then give it to Maria's mom. After that, take it and burn it out in the desert, by the ruins of the pod chamber where my husband was born." Three seasons in the making, and that might be the best line yet. No wonder Slackjaw always hated his daughter's creepy boyfriend. The six renegades hop in the van, as Liz finishes, "So that's the end. Our life in Roswell. What a long, strange trip it's been." Does she even know who she's quoting anymore? "Will we ever go back? I don't know. Even I can't see everything in the future. All I know is that I'm Liz Parker. And I'm happy." The camera catches the van from behind, pulls back, pulls further back, and shows the rest of the world, a world which will be Roswell-free for the rest of our blissful, blissful days.

By Djb

Liz's balcony. She lights candles for the purpose of meaningful coitus, but Max is preoccupied. He speaks of Mrs. Mills without knowing her name, admitting to Liz, "We saved that woman's life. I have a weird feeling about it. I've just been feeling like I have no path." How does that have anything to do with the nice twin set-clad Mrs. Mills with the two kids and an implied minivan? He muses, "Maybe that's why I've been put here. To help people." She clarifies it with a reference that will make the whole demographic go, "Oh, like that," when she says, "Like Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath." Right. Was that on the SAT too? He says he can only be a superhero if she's his Lois Lane, and she doesn't miss a beat (with the exception of the nine hours of paced musing): "I would do anything if it means being with you." Max opens an outdoor grill that I guess has just been sitting there for three years (please just light it and let me stick my head in already), taking out a piece of charcoal and saying, "It's a trick I learned from Superman. Let's see if it really works." He holds it real tight for a moment, and when he opens his hand, it's a diamond ring. He gets on one knee and begs, "Liz, they're taking our home from us. They want to kill us. But when I look in your eyes, I don't feel angry or deprived. I feel like the luckiest half-human on the planet." Or more like the character of "me" in Ayn Rand's Audience Shrugged. Right. SAT. Max wants to be with her forever, even if forever "is only twelve days. We'll live twelve lifetimes." Actually, the correct mathematical conversion is one lifetime = one episode. Looks like someone wasn't boning up quite as much for the math section as for the English. Max asks Liz to marry him. Liz says yes. Max sets the date: "After graduation." If that doesn't translate to "I'll marry you over my dead body," people, I don't know what does.

By Djb

Ah, graduation. What a time it was. My favorite part was not having to marry Max. That, and cake. The graduates are decked in red robes and hats. Everyone is there. It's a veritable bacchanal of graduational fun, sans the requisite beach balls and stoned seniors. The guy at the front (principal? PTA president? Disguised alien hunter? If you don't wear a nametag, I'm at a loss at this point) congratulates the graduates ninety times, and continues on, "Now it's my pleasure to introduce our special guest for this evening. A three-time Hugo Award winner for excellence in science fiction and an international best-selling author…Bryce McCain!" International best-selling author? Shouldn't he be charging $10,000 for a speaking engagement? I don't know which international best-selling author spoke at your graduation, but at mine it was…well, no one. And out comes Mr. McCain, with his black-rimmed glasses and I-am-your-death-knell smile. He shakes the principal's hand. The press kit exchanges concerned glances from all around the auditorium. Run! Or he'll beat you to death with one of his Hugo Awards!

By Djb

Thanks, all. I'll miss you terribly. Don't forget to write sometime.