on DVD.
The season begins with a geologist finding a bone of Pierce (the alien hunter Michael offed with the power of his hand during last season's final) in the desert. Something like three months have passed since the end of last season and Max seems more loosened-up, he's apparently done some bonding with Maria, who I think refers to him as 'girl' at one point and tells him not to keep pursuing Liz after she walked away from him, but he points out she’s left Michael five messages in the last two days. In other developments, there’s a congresswoman talking about something called 'Cadmium X' which is an alien isotope that could be found on bone...or something. Nasedo's kind of funny/snarky, he's continued posing as Pierce, made the FBI a laughing stock by saying it was all a hoax, and sees shed skins being left around the place. Michael also finds a skin in the desert by Pierce’s gravesite, which he picks up (why would you do that?) and it disintegrates. Speaking of Michael, there's a new girl named Courtney working at the café and she seems to have a thing for him. Of course, Michael - being his usual dickish self - yet again wants to break up with Maria, saying it's because he’s meant to be Max’s second-in-command/a soldier and he doesn’t want some ‘chick’ waiting for him. Firstly...what a dick for referring to his g/f in such a way. And secondly, as Maria points out to him, that’s all that happens with soldiers in movies. So, it would appear Michael hasn't really 'grown' as a person/alien and still treats Maria like crap. On the plus side, Maria's hair has improved dramatically since Season 1 - which seems directly proportional with how awful Michael's hair has become since last season (and I thought the just-got-electrocuted-spikiness was bad. Now it appears his hair's decided to to go in the complete opposite direction). Maria's looking pretty great this season, which makes it even more baffling why she stays with Michael when she could have anyone.
Someone else who's hanging out with Michael (and I'm not sure why) is Tess, who has been teaching him to explode rocks with the power of his hand. She also does her 'mind warp' to allow Max to get in and change the bones of dead Pierce (that were fused together when Michael zapped him with his hand) so that all alien-related evidence is erased. Isabel informs Alex that she's not wanting to get into any sort of relationship with anyone, but then immediately makes eyes at geologist dude who walks into the café. Meanwhile, Max spots Liz (who's now working for the congresswoman) and they're all awkward together but still just as boring as ever. Nasedo is attacked by skin-o-vision, he comes to Max at night looking all bloodied, and
Max says "I'm not into that." Max asks who killed him, to which Nasedo answers, "The Skiiiiiinsss” - which is the one part of this episode I actually remembered from when I originally watched it on TV all those years ago. At the start of the second episode, Max to has to (of course) run shirtless with Nasedo's bloody handprint on his chest (and no one thinks maybe this guy just offed someone and they should trip him up/stop him...until an inanimate object does its civic duty, causing him to fall over, but then he's allowed to get right back up again and keep on running instead of having people pile on top of him to keep this potential murderer subdued until the police arrive). At the café, Isabel’s doing her CD trick, playing music (without actually putting a CD into a CD player) and DJing as the girls dance...all except Liz, who won’t dance until Tess sits down. Max busts in all dramatic-like to tell them about Nasedo and they automatically try to use the stones (that they used last season to make sick Michael not-sick again), but they don’t work, he dies rather gruesomely and then becomes dust (which, understandably, upsets Tess. I'm not sure why
everyone else would be, though, since didn't Nasedo murder a bunch of people?).
Missing out on that^ fun was Kyle, who has only just returned on a bus and apparently converted to Buddhism (judging by all the stuff he spouts to his dad) and he also makes his dislike of anything alien-related quite clear. Isabel tells Max at school she’s too young to be dust, they're now aware the Skins are among them, a blonde Pom with Michael Season 1 hair named Brody has taken over the UFO Centre where Max works, Michael’s all shitty because Max is their alien leader/'King' (I do get sick of them calling him 'King' constantly. He's the most dull, ineffective alien king EVER), Max finds parallels between himself and JFK (who one of his classes in school is about), he talks with Tess and walks her home while Liz and Maria are bitching about her, with Maria reassuring Liz that Max isn’t/won’t ever be interested in Tess...and then they see the two of them walking together. Michael tries to get in to see what’s going on with Brody and gets zapped by the device we saw at the end of last season which aliens were receiving calls on (though it would appear that it hadn't 'phoned home' like I thought it had). The aliens are quick to assume that this makes Brody an alien, Isabel’s itching to off him, Michael’s all "better late than never" (because she wouldn’t side with him earlier on when he was arguing with Max), and there's some Max/Maria interaction as she talks about JFK and tramps and him and Tess.
Liz tells the congresswoman that Pierce dumped her arse via phone message, which she says she deleted (this is, of course, just a cover story for why Pierce is no longer around since Nasedo was posing as him and got involved with the congresswoman whilst in that guise) and somehow she still has a job after this. Later, Liz walks in on the congresswoman shredding and drinking, she bitches some more about Tess - who the congresswoman already hates because of her name (sorry, all those viewers whose names are 'Tess'...this show HATES your name!) and then they shred stuff as their way of venting their anger towards those they hate. I feel bad for Tess, since earlier she was telling Max she knows everyone hates her, but to me she hasn't done anything to warrant this automatic hatred from people other than being 'the other woman' in the Liz/Max relationship, and as far as I'm concerned she's got much more personality than Liz, who is just so dull/boring and seems to barely emote. Anyway, Tess is currently home with Kyle and wearing his jersey and looking through his skin mags when she mentions Buddha being between Hustler and Busty Biker Babes - this is why I like her, because she's
fun (unlike Liz). The aliens go to the UFO Centre, Max does a green light/energy shield thing to block the other two who want Brody dead, but instead of killing him Max talks to him and Brody thinks he's been abducted, so the alien trio leaves without having almost committed murder (yay?). Max, Isabel, Tess and Alex spending time together. They're seemingly all getting along in the café until Liz enters. Max says he doesn't want to talk about Tess with her and that he's 'coming for' Liz (which sounds bad in various ways), while Courtney (who’s still into Michael) is a Skin - as evidenced by her peeling her face off and flushing it down the toilet in the bathroom.
The third episode's an Isabel-centric one. She's in a pink dress and has found a bloodied Tess, a door suddenly opens with bright light streaming through, she says "It’s you." (why do people always say this?), then it predictably cuts to two hours earlier, Isabel's getting ready for her birthday (why is she dressing like she's going to the prom? Who wears such a dress for their birthday?) and she's led to the café where a non-surprising surprise birthday party awaits her. Unfortunately, she was going on a date with the geologist (even more baffling - you wear such a dress
on a date??), who shows up and Michael is rude (ie. his default setting), Isabel's mum wants to know the guy's age, and they all make it clear they want him gone. What a GREAT birthday party for Isabel! Nothing says 'happy birthday' like scaring off one's date. Also making her happy day
less happy is the fact that Isabel's experiencing visions of Tess in peril. Out the back, Michael's making a lame cake, Courtney talks with him, and they sort of argue (seems inevitable arguments ensue whenever anyone's talking to Michael), while out the front Alex is doing what basically amounts to a striptease (did he think this was Isabel's bachelorette party?) for Isabel and everyone else in the café who are probably struggling not to regurgitate their cake. Isabel's mum doesn't look too impressed and at least Alex has enough sense to be embarrassed by what he just did (though obviously not enough sense to refuse to do it in the first place). He asks Courtney and Maria (who came to warn Courtney off her man) if they know what it’s like to have G-string stuck up their arse all day and they answer 'yes' in unison. Kyle’s bitching about Tess leaving her underwear everywhere at home (since she's staying with him and his dad), as well as taking over the TV and the computer, but Michael (finally saying something I agree with) points out to Kyle that he shouldn't be complaining about someone like Tess leaving her underwear everywhere (is this part of Kyle's Buddhism thing - the fact that he doesn't get he's got a hot semi-naked girl living in his house?).
Elsewhere, Liz just helps herself to the congresswoman’s supply of CDs and is listening to one which she got from a file her boss doesn't want her looking in. Again I ask...how has Liz still got a job? She deletes messages meant for her boss (yes, it wasn't real, but that's not the point. It's the principle of the thing), helps herself to her boss's music and just doesn't seem to know the meaning of the word 'boundaries'. Then again, her boss doesn't seem to either since she invites herself to Isabel's birthday party once Liz tells her about it (doesn't it seem weird for adults to invite themselves to a birthday party for a 'teenager' they don't even know?). I guess Liz's invasion of privacy pays off when she finds a CD with a recording of her talking to Maria (thus telling her that the congresswoman has been listening in on their conversations). Once they reach the party, Isabel tells the gang that Tess is in trouble thanks to the visions she's been having of her. Predictably, Liz and Maria are like, "And we care
why??", but thankfully Isabel has been decent towards Tess and
does care, saying they've all treated her shabbily. After some convincing, Maria drives Isabel (has that useless Alienmobile broken down again? Geez, that thing seems to break down a lot) while Liz provides a cover story explaining Isabel's absence when her mum asks where she is. There's an ironic segue after Liz says someone spilled whatever on Isabel's dress and she went home to change, which Isabel's mum seems to buy since she reckons Isabel won't leave the house with a hair out of place and then we cut to Isabel all messy and helping Tess as we're now all caught up to where the episode began. The congresswoman shows up, revealing herself to be one of the Skins, and tells Isabel about her previous life on their home planet, how she betrayed the rest of her people, then gets all Darth Vader-y with her "Join me." spiel, but after having one of the shittiest b-days ever, Isabel has no time for that crap and when the congresswoman is preparing to use a sparking cable to kill Isabel and Tess, Isabel explodes her. It's almost amusing how cavalier these 'teenagers' are about killing (especially someone high-profile like a congresswoman). Can't they just knock anyone out? Anyway, ashes of dead congresswoman float everywhere, Michael basically says to Isabel that now they can bond over having
both murdered someone, Max is all, "Sorry I couldn't rescue you, but I was too busy suspecting your new geologist b/f, then breaking into his place with Valenti.", and Isabel's last scene is in the aliens' chamber where their pods are at, she has a chat with
Jor-El her dead alien mum and then discovers a thing the congresswoman had talked about called 'The Granolith'.
Since the third episode was Isabel-centric, naturally the fourth one has to be a Michael-centric episode (ugh). In typical Michael fashion, he's extra rude to Maria (what a dick!) and Liz (meh), Isabel shows the other aliens the Granolith, Michael (who's hair is slightly better than it was the first three episodes of this season) has to interview an old WWII survivor for a class project, and we flashback to 1947 where all the main actors in the show play the roles of people from the past as the old guy tells his story. I've seen this gimmick used in numerous shows, sometimes it's successful and sometimes it just feels like an excuse for the actors to play dress-up/have fun playing someone other than their own characters. This felt more like the latter and it seemed to give everyone a pass/excuse to overdo their acting this episode, but at least it provides some answers as to what happened during the crash that brought the aliens to Earth. Michael is playing the role of a younger version of the old guy he's interviewing (who gives off a bit of a pyromaniac vibe due to him constantly flicking his cigarette lighter), Max is playing the role of his buddy (and Jason Behr shows more emotion as this guy than he has as Max Evans thus far), Maria's playing the role of a reporter investigating the UFO crash, Liz is playing the role of a witness to the crash, Isabel's playing the role of a woman who's with the guy Michael's playing, but Kyle is playing the role of a guy who she's cheating on him with (it's so weird to see Kyle and Isabel snogging even though it's not actually those characters), Alex is playing the role of a guy who is the boss of the character Valenti’s playing (I think) and who likes to yell a lot, while Tess is playing the role of a perky blonde who works in an office and is super-nice to the character Michael's playing. Basically, the gist of the story is that the guy Michael's playing saw aliens/glowing whiteness, he let them be with the pods (of which there were apparently
eight instead of just four) and I guess he saved them from being discovered or something? I don't know, I wasn't really following it. In the present, Michael thanks the guy, apologises for being rude to Liz and then does the same with Maria but she gets the added bonus of him taking her to the Granolith, where he finally admits what an a-hole he's been to her and all the human allies of the aliens, saying how he and the other aliens owe them, which is nice...but I wonder how long it'll be before he forgets this (an episode or two?) and is back to his usual dickish ways.
The fifth episode is the one I missed when the show originally aired on TV here. I can't remember if it was due to us losing power when it was on or whether they pulled an annoying stunt that they still sometimes do with shows where they'd put on two episodes together without warning...or maybe I just forgot to set the recorder - it could've been any of those reasons were why I missed seeing this episode originally, or it could've been something else. All I know is it was weird watching the next episode that aired after this one and seeing the 'Previously on' showing parts from this episode, as I was left confused as to what had happened. I'd heard this was a really good episode, so it had quite a lot to live up to considering how long I'd been waiting to finally see it. I had to laugh at '2014 A.D.' coming up on the screen, as it was SO 'the future' back then (and now, amusingly, is SO the past). Anyway, neither Future Max nor Future Liz look 14 years older like they should do (then again, the actors who played them never looked 'teenaged' either). I guess a difference in hair is all that's supposed to make them look 'older' - Future Max's hair is longer whilst Future Liz's hair is shorter and I think the grey in Future Max's hair is acknowledged at one point. Anyway, there was a shot of Future Max inside the Granolith where he looked like a GIANT in comparison to Future Liz, which was kind of amusing in its cheesiness. Meanwhile, in the 'present' the three human characters of Liz, Maria and Alex are in a car together, with Liz bitching about where her and Max stand in their relationship (and Tess, as usual), Alex is bitching about getting the 'good friend' speech from Isabel and Maria's the only one who is actually
happy because Michael was
decent to her at the end of the previous episode. Unfortunately, after they pay a trip to a fortune teller, Maria learns that her and Michael's relationship will only last another 48 hours...because Maria just can't have nice things, it would seem.
Liz meeting Future Max was interesting. At least she was smart enough to not just take him at his word that he was who he said he was and it took him predicting things happening to convince her - such as him knowing that Present Max was going to turn up to woo her with a mariachi band (I liked him specifying that he predicted the
approximate time it'd happen, since it wasn't exact) and cheesetastic singing that not only sounded nothing like his voice, but Jason Behr couldn't even manage to mouth the words in time to the singing properly. He then uses his powers in public by changing the colour of the flowers he brought Liz from red to white as he tosses them up to her (and considering his 'singing' could've woken up half the neighbourhood, it was highly possible someone might've seen that. Very risky). I was slightly amused at Liz using the bouquet to cover her mouth/the fact that she was talking to Future Max standing behind her and out of view of Present Max. We then get an info-dump from Future Max informing Liz that in the future aliens took over, they needed all four of their alien quartet to stop them, but because Max got with Liz instead of Tess, she left, and without her they were useless (well...moreso than usual) in stopping the alien invasion (at least that was my understanding of what he was saying). If that's the case, wouldn't it have been easier to just go tell Tess in the 'present' not to leave just because Liz/Max got together, otherwise the Earth would be taken over by evil aliens? Apparently not, as instead the pair devise ways to make Present Max 'fall out of love' with Present Liz which seems more convoluted than things needed to be...but, hey, drama! Also dramatic? The fact that Future Max says if he met Present Max it'd destroy him/them.
Elsewhere, Tess and Kyle look like they might be going to get it on...but then they're interrupted (honestly, I don't know what Tess sees in him considering he won't shut up about Buddha) by Liz knocking on his door. I was amused by his snarkiness towards her and saying basically that she purposely came to ruin his joy. Liz and Tess talk, with the former trying to set the latter up with Present Max...but he catches on thanks to Liz being the opposite of covert, so then a more foolproof way of ensuring Present Max won't ever want to get with Liz is devised in the form of her explaining things to Kyle - weird that he just accepts all of it without proof...then again, since the plan involves the two of them in bed together, nearly-naked, I guess he doesn't really care (still, he could've actually
been with Tess instead of fake-being with Liz...and he chooses the second option?). I'm glad they established that nothing actually occurs between Liz and Kyle, as when the next episode originally aired on TV, I'd watched the 'Previously on' and thought the two of them had actually done the deed - but that's not in fact the case. Anyway, Present Max shows up, sees them in bed together and, naturally, that seems to do the trick. It should also be noted in this scene that the two humans bond over being the only two people to get brought back to life by Max Evans. Liz asks Kyle if he's experienced any visions of Max like she did and he jokes about seeing naked Max (you know, there are quite a few instances of Kyle 'joking' about gay-related things throughout the show and I wonder if the series had been more more brave whether they would've had Kyle turn out to be gay since there are certain points where it seems like he easily could've been).
So, after Present Max has gone to bleach his eyes, he's all mopey (moreso than usual) on a bench somewhere and Tess comes to try to make him less mopey. While this is happening, Future Max dances with Liz on her patio, since she'll never get her wedding dance (apparently they eloped at 19 in Vegas in the original timeline), and then Future Max is just gone, no disappearing effects or anything. The end credits happen over a starry sky - which I thought was an interesting way to end the episode. But the Liz/Max/Future Max dramarama isn't all that happened in the episode. There was also Michael back to being a major dick again, Courtney's being a giant ho with him (and he isn't exactly fighting against it, making him just as big a ho as her), Maria catches him with her in a towel, then delivers a well-deserved slap upside his head. Alex is around to comfort Maria (considering he's often absent from episodes, at least he serves a purpose in this episode), then goes to confront Michael about his dickishiness and hits him, Michael states that he just risked his life by doing that (oh Michael, always with the thinly-veiled threats of killing a human), but says Alex is a good friend to Maria. Apparently Michael didn't learn a thing from this encounter, as he and Courtney snog. Hit him again, Alex! There wasn't really any Isabel this episode (other than Liz seeing her from afar in the café) and no Valenti either, but I did notice this one had some decent dialogue and was actually funny/witty at times (which this series had sorely been lacking). I'm glad I finally got to watch this episode, even if it did raise a lot of questions (like why Future Max ever let his hair get that way) and it was nowhere near as Earth-shatteringly 'amazing' as some liked to make out to be.
In the sixth episode, Maria has apparently gotten over what Michael did. Though maybe she's only so forgiving because she's teamed up with Michael to break into Courtney's place. She's not exactly the best at breaking and entering, considering she's laughing - causing Michael to tell her to shut up at least twice (such a prince). I was amused at Maria’s impression of Courtney that she did as well as her reaction to learning what the skin she picked up actually was. While that's happening, Max, Liz, Isabel and Tess go to visit the dead congresswoman’s family where the mother is unnaturally friendly, the father is all about giving directions and the creepy teenager seemingly has a thing for Isabel. There's some follow-up on the events of last episode, with Max not believing that Liz would cheat on him with Kyle. Even Tess asks Liz how it was and for a split-second it looks like Liz doesn't want to bother answering her, but then because she HATES Tess (really? I wasn't aware), she decides to rub it in her face and makes out how 'great' Kyle was, which Tess responds to with something like "Good to know". Anyway, they go to Skinsville, the creepy teenager (who has a name, but I'm going to call him 'the Annoying One' since he's about as annoying as the actual
Anointed Annoying One from BtVS) continues being creepy with Isabel (geez, the dynamics between the adults and 'minors' in this show has been messed up right from the start), Max, Liz and Tess just walk right into the dead congresswoman's funeral, Liz pushes on her corpse's hand, breaking it, then covers it with flowers (that's Liz - always causing damage wherever she goes), they get found out (because they suck at undercover...then again, it takes a while for the Skins to gang up on Max, so they don't appear to be the brightest bunch), Max is holding them back with his green energy forcefield thing, but he needs Tess's help to maintain it, while the others discover the Skins' backup bodies (which Courtney calls 'husks') that they have stored in glass cases, the Annoying One turns up to (what else?) be annoying, then I think Courtney helps to destroy the backup bodies (but without one, she'll die, so Michael grabs hers) and they all leave, having just basically sentenced an entire species to death...but since the Skins are incredibly irritating, I don't mind so much, especially if it means the end of the Annoying One who says "This isn't over" or something.
The seventh episode amusingly began with a green rod stuck in a UFO/alien billboard just above the alien’s crotch area. I guess we learn why Kyle and his dad were absent last episode, since they're out fishing, but because Kyle's all about Buddha now, he lets the fish go - much to the annoyance of his dad who was looking forward to that being their dinner (he'd said they were going to eat like Kings!). They find the billboard vandalism and Valenti tries to call it in over his police radio, but no one answers. Kyle then spouts a bunch of Buddhism stuff his dad has no interest in hearing (I can relate), which makes him point out that this is why Kyle can't get a date (but he got to pretend he slept with Liz!). The alien billboard rod
ejaculates shoots a green energy beam out over the town and this results in Max/Isabel's mum disappearing mid-breakfast (which clearly the two of them weren't enjoying, but despite that, Max asked for more food to distract their mum from asking about him and Liz). Elsewhere, Courtney has put on her backup body/'husk' (which Michael kindly saved from being destroyed with all the other Skins' husks last episode) in a bathtub of shitty brown water, which means she'll get to live a little longer. Unfortunately (for both them and us as viewers), the Skins, led by the Annoying One, arrive in town on a bus and wearing shades - looking the exact opposite of any kind of threatening/intimidating despite their best efforts.
Meanwhile, everyone's freaking out about people disappearing all over town (clearly the result of the alien rod). Maria hits a baby carriage whilst driving and freaks out, but it's empty, Alex has disappeared (hey, it's no different to the rest of the time!) and I think at one point Liz mentions the people disappearing such as friends, family and Alex (so he's not considered either?), Courtney's husk starts failing and she's looking rather gross, Isabel shuts the bathroom door/sends Max and Michael out as the girls help Courtney take off her clothes (no pervs allowed, apparently) and stick her in a bath, Maria adds all her tablets to the bath which she needed since she was dating Michael Guerin (it's no wonder she's on so much medication), Tess doesn't trust Courtney and starts letting the water out of the bath to convince her to give them info about what's happening, the Annoying One goes to the café and eats the food/drinks a milkshake left by one of the patrons who've disappeared...then he proceeds to drop the glass on the floor, making a mess and just generally being his annoying self. Tess uses her mind warp trick to hide the gang from the Annoying One - yet at one point Courtney says he can do what the alien quartet can do but a thousand times more/worse, which begs the question as to
why he can't see through Tess's mind warp?
Anyway, Courtney shows the gang that Skins have a literal kill switch - ie. a button on their body which will kill them (what, no 'Press here' instruction to go along with it?), she presses her own kill switch to off herself rather than undergo more torture from the Annoying One when he wants to find the others, Isabel continues having her weird sexual tension thing with him on a bus, Kyle's dad seems to be having a heart attack but then disappears, Kyle wants to get all the remaining human members of the gang out of town, they have to DESTORY THE ROD, Liz disappears as they're driving (if only she'd stayed gone), then Kyle disappears as he fights a Skin that has turned up and it's left to Maria to DESTORY THE ROD - which she somehow achieves by attaching two jumper cables together and hanging them over the rod before disappearing herself. This miraculously causes everyone to return, Kyle's dad is overly affectionate towards Alex (who's probably wondering what happened to his food/drink in the café), I'd remembered the part with Liz/Maria reuniting and jumping up and down in slow-motion with joy, but hadn't remembered that Tess seemingly offed all the Skins with mind warp fire.
I also didn't remember that there were New Yorker punk versions of the aliens - which we meet in the eighth episode...and they're unintentionally hilarious with all their piercings and crazy hairdos - if you thought Future Max's hair was bad, wait 'til you get a load of Not!Max's hair and goatee! Not!Michael's got a mohawk, while Not!Isabel and Not!Tess have shorter hair of various colours. They're also clearly BAD because they STEAL BASKETBALLS! I'm not the only one who thinks they look ridiculous, as Valenti's reaction when he pulls them over is to laugh more than he's ever laughed in the show before. Whilst I saw various comments complaining about the bad New York accents the actors were doing, at least it appeared as though Katherine Heigl was actually having some
fun with this role - as it seemed she was really into playing a bad girl version of her character and the way she interacted with Valenti was quite entertaining. Clearly being friends with the Sheriff means you get special privileges such as only being let off with only a warning and not at all fined for speeding (since he buys their cover story about going to a New York 90's-themed costume party).
Michael's being his usual dickish self to Maria, who wants him to watch her sing, but he says he’s already seen her sing so he doesn’t need to see it again. Understandably, she’s had it with him. Liz, thinking only of herself (as usual), is practically begging Max not to hate her after the whole Kyle thing and it reminded me of Oz in BtVS who had witnessed his g/f cheating on him and when she kept pushing him to talk about it, he pointed out she was just doing that to make
herself feel better and he'd told her he needed space, which she wasn't respecting. It's similar here, where Liz only cares about how Max feels about her and doesn't seem to give two figs how he must be feeling after he witnessed her in bed with Kyle and as far as he's concerned the two of them slept together. Since Mara's sick of Michael, she decides to start being nice to
blonde Pom Brody by bringing him food at the UFO Centre (oh, Maria, out of everyone in the town...surely you could've found someone more worthy of you!), but because Michael doesn't just suck at relationships but also at preparing food to the customer's specifications and something's been left off the sandwich or whatever it is which Brody asked for, this sends Maria into an enraged rant, projecting her anger towards Michael being a crappy b/f and applying it to being a crappy cook. Although Brody is a bit on the nerd side of the spectrum (and still maintains that he's been abducted by aliens), he earns quite a few points by just being nice/attentive to Maria and simply wanting to spend time with her unlike her
actual b/f. Having said that, because I had no real memory of this character from when I originally watched the show, I couldn't recall what his actual deal was, so when he made a comment about it being lunchtime or whatever, I thought it was going to be revealed that he was in fact an alien who eats people - but that wasn't actually the case.
I also didn't remember that the New York punk versions of the aliens were called 'the Dupes' (which is where the episode's title comes from). Speaking of, they're now down to three - it seems they lost Goatee Max (which is good for me, since I could barely understand what little he'd said in his brief scene at the start. Maybe he went to go rejoin his fellow goats?). These other versions of the characters all have different names to the normal alien quartet (none of which I can be bothered learning), and to make things even more confusing, Isabel had a different name back in her previous life on her home planet - Vilandra - so she's got
three different names. Anyway, Not!Isabel seems the smartest of the bunch, while Not!Tess seems rather meek and Not!Michael is more or less the same as regular Michael (ie. they're both jerks). I was amused when Not!Isabel and Not!Michael broke into Isabel's room, and how Not!Isabel called Liz a 'bitch' a couple of times (see? She hasn't even met her and already she's got Liz's number), while Not!Michael wanted to do her (no accounting for taste, apparently. He kisses her at school at one point, and she just shrugs it off as Michael being really weird. I guess given Michael's normal behaviour, this isn't that out of the ordinary. When Maria later finds out about this, she's mad over it which she
should be since, as she points out, Liz didn’t know it
wasn’t Michael and she was all wrapped up in her own crap to bother telling Maria what'd happened, yet Liz has the nerve to say Maria just needs to get over/past it. What a great friend), and then Max and Isabel's dad comes in and after the expected reaction to seeing the two intruders, he just accepts it's his kids and he has a chat with his not!daughter (who's picked up another ball of some description. What is it with these punks and stealing balls?). Alex is the first to see there are two sets of the aliens at the UFO Centre, then they show themselves to the gang and mention that their version of Max died (maybe he could no longer live with himself for growing such ghastly facial hair?). The two versions of Isabel have a chat and the punk one informs Alex (who attempts to have a conversation with them) that a threesome between them ain't never gonna happen.
Once Alex is denied being the centre of an Isabel sandwich, the two Isabels discuss the fact that in her past life, Isabel betrayed her people - which she still hasn't mentioned to Max or Michael. Maria has a sort-of date with Brody to distract him from everyone being there at the UFO Centre including what appears to be Michael's mohawked twin. The punks want Max to go with them to an alien summit thing because their Max is dead and they need all four of them, but it's then revealed via flashback that Not!Isabel and Not!Michael murdered Not!Max by shoving him in front of oncoming traffic. So, it would appear they too could no longer stand his ghastly facial hair. Not!Tess was pretty upset over it, though. The gang tells Max it’s not a good idea to go with these clearly BAD versions of themselves - they've got PIERCINGS and EVERYTHING! Not!Isabel ends up telling Max about how Isabel betrayed him in their previous life, he gets mad, then later he waits for Isabel around a corner (like a creeper), yelling at her, she gets mad and tells him off for being selfish/self-centred (I was totally on her side during this argument), and this angers him so much that he's now going with the punks to the alien summit. Of course, then it's revealed that Isabel is in fact Not!Isabel in disguise and she and Not!Michael devised this plan to make Max decide to go with them. To celebrate a job well-done, they then snog (ew). Before he leaves with the bad influences, Max pays Liz a visit and says he's officially breaking up with her, returning a pocketknife (I think that's what it is) that she gave him last Christmas. He then goes with Tess to join the punks, but they only need four, not five. Not!Michael gets rough with Not!Tess and Max is going to intervene, but then Not!Tess stays behind and Tess takes her place, so she leaves along with Max and the other two. I saw this episode get a lot of hate, but I actually didn't mind it since it was, at times, quite amusing (though often unintentionally so, at least it was entertaining and the actors looked like they were having fun - Katherine Heigl especially).
It seems no matter what version of Michael we get, he's always a dick - as evidenced by Not!Michael's dickish/condescending attitude towards Tess. Not only does he talk down to her by saying ‘little girl’, he even calls her a 'retard' at one point (congrats, Michael, there's officially a
worse version of yourself in the universe). He then has to walk with her, as Not!Isabel wants to talks to Max in private (that would've certainly made for an awkward moment between Not!Michael and Tess. I wonder if she said something like, "Hey, remember when you called me a 'retard' a minute ago?" and had a few choice words to call
him in return). Meanwhile, Not!Tess is actually nice and becomes more or less friends with Liz - this is after she helps Liz to find Max since she says that because he brought her back from death, they have a 'connection' and that combined with Isabel's dream-walking that she does will be able to track him down. Speaking of Isabel, she's apparently already figured out her punk double impersonated her and Maria is still delivering sandwiches to Brody, who's still so much nicer to her than Michael. At the alien summit, aliens from other worlds have taken over the bodies of the lamest people they could find (seriously, most of them look like folks you'd run into at the supermarket. They couldn't have taken over HOT people's bodies instead?). Brody somehow ends up there as one of the vessel's being used (so him believing he'd been abducted
wasn't so crazy after all). ARGH! The Annoying One is there too (I'd hoped he'd been cremated by Tess along with the rest of the Skins, but it would seem I'm not that lucky). They make a deal that a super-bad alien named Kavar (who wants them dead or whatever) won't come after Max and everyone else if he leaves with them, but he won't leave Michael and Isabel. They give him time to think about it, he calls Isabel and asks her, but she doesn't like being put on the spot and has to think it over since she doesn't particularly want to leave her friends/family, and I can't really remember the rest of what happened other than Max turns down the aliens' offer and they swear revenge or something before leaving their human vessels. The only other thing I recall happening in this episode is that Liz finally tells Maria about Future Max after she got mad at hearing a rumour that Liz boinked Kyle and then learned it was ‘true’. I don't really know what happens to the punks. Tess says they were trying to get inside her head to find the Granolith and she stopped them or something. I had the feeling maybe she offed them like she did the Skins, but it's really unclear what exactly happened. Maybe they just decided to turn over a new leaf once they realised the 90's punk look would be SO outdated eventually?
The tenth episode was the Christmas episode, which I remembered one specific thing from - that Isabel was referred to as 'the Christmas Nazi' due to her OTT behaviour when it came to ensuring Christmas was 'perfect'. I think Katherine Heigl must've at least been having some fun with this just like she had playing Not!Isabel in the two previous episodes. She got to stretch her comedic chops here and it was fun seeing everyone's reactions to her. But before all that, the episode starts with Michael telling Max he's got to get to the hardware store to buy Maria a Christmas present, Max points out that's probably not the place to go for such a thing, then there's an accident involving a vehicle heading towards a kid whose father pushes them out of the way and he winds up getting hit instead. Max wants to heal him, but Michael does what he did in the very first episode - ie. tells Max not to heal the dying/dead person - but unlike with Liz, this time he
succeeds in dissuading Max from saving a life (I guess when you're a middle-aged guy and not a young waitress in a café, it's easier to say "Eh, I'll just let nature take its course.") and they leave. Merry Christmas, kid! Of course, it wouldn't be a Christmas episode without a haunting, and in this case it's Max who's being haunted by the ghost of the guy he let die, who keeps saying stuff to make him feel guilty. At the UFO Centre, Maria's getting closer to Brody but he says he'll be gone a few days. She then is with other carolers singing outside the door of the family who just lost someone (so I highly doubt they wanted to hear cheerful carols), ghost dad makes Max feel even more guilty as he watches on, then the carolers' next victim ends up being Brody whose daughter has cancer. Once she tells Liz about this, it gives her an idea. Meanwhile, Michael is working on a car bumper that he got Maria as her Christmas present (I'd remembered the whole bit with the bumper from when I originally watched the episode when it aired on TV all those years ago - it was something that stuck out). Isabel gave him pointers on what to look for in a gift (ie. it had to be personal, thoughtful and something Maria wouldn't get herself), but this wasn't quite what she meant. He claims it fits all of her criteria, but she insists he get Maria something else.
There's a Christmas performance being put on by kids, and it was weird hearing Isabel mention the fact that she's called 'the Christmas Nazi' by some people (she looks pointedly at Michael as she says this) in front of everyone (I wonder how many kids asked their parents "What's a Nazi?"). Liz tells Max her idea, which is that since he's not able to bring the ghost dad's rotting corpse back to life, he can at least save someone who
isn't dead (yet) - ie. Brody's kid. So, he and Michael go to the hospital disguised as doctors, Max goes to heal Brody's kid (I'm surprised she didn't simply scream her head off at some strange dude looming over her, but I think he convinces her it's just a dream. Still...scary-arse dream for a kid, I'd imagine). Once he's done healing her, he finds he can't just stop at one...he's gotta save 'em all! Like catching Pokémon. Naturally, a nurse cottons onto the fact that Michael's acting suspicious outside the room with all the kids who have cancer and pretty soon she's brought security, but he manages to get Max (who's been weakened by using his healing powers so much) out of there. Originally Michael had been against this whole plan, but he later tells Max he is mad that he wasn't able to heal the kids that Max couldn't. The most important part, though, is him presenting Maria with her car bumper - he clearly is unsure how she's going to take it, but she likes it for all the reasons he told Isabel it would be perfect. However, it seems she thinks he just decided to give this to her but it's not her
actual Christmas present, because then she excitedly asks for it and he's at a loss. She sees a stack of gifts (which Isabel had brought to Michael earlier) and assumes one of them is for her. Michael has no clue what to do, but then finds one that Isabel got 'just in case', having left him a note and written a card to Maria. He gives it to Maria, not knowing what Isabel got her, and it turns out to be pearl earrings -
real ones - which causes Michael to be like, "WHAT?!", since he knows how pricey they would've been, but then he attempts to recompose himself/recover from all the stress he's just been under as Maria wants to thank him personally for such a thoughtful gift. Later, at a concert or whatever it is, Isabel turns around to look at Michael and makes the international hand gesture for "You owe me money" with a grin.
In the other storyline going on in this episode, Kyle and his dad have no real Christmas plans besides sitting in front of the TV and drinking/eating rubbish, but since Tess now lives with them, she's hoping for a bit *more* than that (they're not listening, though, as evidenced by them leaning from side to side in an effort to see around her and watch whatever sport is on TV). At the supermarket, they run into Maria's mum, Kyle's dad gets all awkward, and she points out they have a new family member. Once back home, Tess gets fed up with them being so lousy when it comes to celebrating Christmas and points out she lives there now too, then to get them off their arses she mentions that she invited Maria's mum to celebrate Christmas with them. This makes them clean up their act and Kyle is more considerate towards her. While a lot of the series has been rather average, every so often they'd have a really good episode...and this was one of them (though poor Alex, who wasn't in this episode at all).
The eleventh episode begins with Max and Isabel being bored whilst watching their tiny television, with Max flicking between channels and saying "crap, crap, crap, boring, crap" (hey, they look almost as bored as I
feel when watching them watching boring crap!). Isabel decides to make her own entertainment by invading other people's dreams - in this case, Liz's. Unfortunately for Isabel, she's subjected herself to the dreams of the dullest person ever. Liz is preparing to have some rando do her on the counter in the café, but then Max enters and Isabel’s as bored as me when watching the Liz/Max romance crap. Things finally get interesting when she experiences flashes of some girl in peril and takes this to Valenti, but hasn’t anything to go on really (such as proof, a name of even a clear description). Holtz from the BtVS spin-off,
Angel, shows up (or rather the actor who played him whose last name I can't even try to spell, so I'm just going to keep calling him 'Holtz'...though, sadly, he's missing Holtz's voice. That was such a good voice) and is supposedly an old friend of Valenti's, but he acts like anything but a friend when he questions why Valenti's hanging with 'teenagers' and asking about the guy he shot last season (when he saved Max).
The supposedly missing girl eventually turns up and wonders why everyone was looking for her, this makes Valenti look like a fool, but to his credit he doesn't make Isabel feel bad about it and instead reassures her, asking that she inform him of any further flashes she has - which is just as well, since she
does have other flashes and this time they're showing a girl being buried and it looks like the geologist Isabel had a thing for has got something to do with it. She's soon freaking out, Valenti's already on thin ice, his judge friend won't give him a warrant (Valenti's friends suck), but nevertheless he pursues what few clues Isabel gave him to go on, he figures out who the missing girl is and once Isabel's figured out where she's buried, they go to find her. She's stuck in the ground with a plastic box around her head and oxygen tanks hooked up, keeping her alive. As they're freeing her, someone starts shooting and Max uses his green energy shield to block the bullets (clearly influenced by
The Matrix). Eventually, Holtz shows up and wonders again why 'teenagers' are hanging out with the Sheriff in the middle of nowhere at night/how they found the kidnapped girl. Valenti gives unclear answers whilst the girl (Laurie) thanks Isabel for saving her and says she sees inside her...or something. She's apparently gone crazy (being buried alive will do that to you). The thing that stood out the most about this storyline was that the Sheriff was good to Isabel, saying what happened with him getting into trouble wasn't her fault/she did nothing wrong. Meanwhile, Max did nothing but chew her out for her mistake, guilt-tripped her about the prospect of Valenti losing his job and at the end his lame apology came in the form of him saying that she yells at him (funny, since that's what
he was doing to
her), second-guesses him and pisses him off...but she's his sister, blah blah blah. Your apologies SUCK, Max!
The other storyline in this episode involves Kyle worrying that because Max brought him back from the dead, he's slowly changing into/becoming an alien. He, like Max, is a jerk, as he insults the aliens (and in doing so, insults Tess, who's
right there sitting in front of him at the café) by calling them freaks, etc. At first he's resistant, but then he tries Tess's sweet/spicy concoction and doesn't think it's too bad, but she's not willing to share anymore. At home, she catches him making hand gestures at the TV, thinking he's gained alien powers and can change channels with the power of his hand. Since Tess is standing behind him and he's unaware that she's there, she uses the TV remote to change the channels as he says each one. I was particularly amused when he said "unscrambled porn" and her reaction to that as she just picked a random channel which turned out to have something that fit that description. Of course, then he works out what everyone else knows - that he's an idiot - and Tess has a good laugh. She gets so much shit from everyone (the other characters, viewers of the show, etc), but I actually found her pretty fun here. At least she's more entertaining than Liz, who has her usual boring relationship drama with Max.
In the twelfth episode, it soon becomes clear that the Sheriff and the Evanseses didn’t get their stories straight before being interviewed separately, since they tell completely different versions of what happened. The Sheriff gets chewed out and even uses the phrase "sucks big" (which he seems to believe is a thing kids say - though Michael
does say it near the end of the episode, so maybe it is a thing?), he gets suspended, Kyle is pissed at the aliens and goes to find stuff in his dad’s office (I can't remember exactly what. I think it's some alien thing. I remember there's something involving blue crystals this episode), that's when the actress who played Wallace's mum in
Veronica Mars (here she's playing FBI Agent Duff) catches him, he comes up with a cover story about searching for his school report card and grabs a random piece of paper he folds in half, but she asks to look at it. Luckily for Kyle, Tess is outside using her mind warp and making Agent Duff see what Kyle said, but then he's a total jerk to Tess and she rightly points out that she just saved his arse/he should be thanking her.
There was a weird scene with the Sheriff at a hearing that's all darkly-lit and it appears there's no actual people there, we just hear voices (maybe the budget couldn't afford all those extras?). Anyway, he's fired and as a result Kyle's even
more pissed at the aliens, he tells Max to promise he’s done with his family, but he can’t, so Kyle (being very petty, but I can kind of understand it) drops the bag of blue crystalized stuff that he found in his dad's office (I think) on the ground instead of handing it to Max. There's more boring Liz/Max stuff, Alex returns and the excuse the show came up with for his noticeable absence from several episodes was that he went to Sweden (it appears he even got a g/f there, judging by the photo of him with a blonde) and he has a slideshow of his trip which he wants everyone to see. It seems he's 'reinvented' himself to a certain degree, but one person who isn't so fussed on this 'new' Alex is Isabel, as she gets a call and has to go, but Alex just plays it cool like he doesn't really care if she stays or goes. It becomes quite clear that she's miffed at this - how DARE he not pine after her like he used to!
Isabel sucks at keeping Laurie (the girl she helped rescue) safe after the now ex-Sheriff finds her in his closet. She freaks out and runs away when she sees Michael, the cops appear and Agent Duff is mad at the ex-Sheriff. At the supermarket, Kyle and Tess overhear some gossipy bitches gossiping about Kyle's dad and imply it was dodgy that he hung around high school students a lot, but then Maria's mum awesomely tells them off (saying something about how one of them would know all about statuary rape since their hubby was doing their babysitter). Kyle slightly makes up for how he treated Tess earlier by saying that she's the only good thing about all the alien stuff and she's his favourite Martian (hey, Kyle, they're not from Mars! Quit stereotyping/being racist!) when she's all packed up and ready to leave after his "I hate aliens!" speech. She says he's her favourite human and I'd find that hard to believe, but since Liz and Maria haven't been nice to her, I guess the pickings are slim...but what about Kyle's dad? Surely he was less of a dick to her than Kyle or the two girls were? And what about Alex? Eh, I guess he wasn't around enough for her to form an opinion of. The episode ends with Isabel and Michael digging around in stuff and finding an old timey pic of him.
In the next two episodes (which kind of blended together in my memory), it turns out that there's not yet another version of Michael out there (like I'd assumed after seeing that photo), but somehow it's a relation to Laurie (her granddad, I think) who resembles Michael? Or something? I have no clue what the explanation was for the resemblance. They might've explained it, but I can't recall. Anyway, Michael and Maria go on a road trip with Laurie who continues acting crazy and trashes poor Maria's car (she keeps listing each thing Laurie's costing her/all the expenses, as she thrashes around inside it). At a diner, Laurie says she needs to go to the toilet and Michael tells Maria to go with her, like he just assumes it's a given that she would. She doesn't want to, since the diner's toilets are apparently not up to code, but he doesn't want Laurie running off (which she's clearly wanting to do), so then Maria says Laurie can either go to bathroom and come back with an attitude adjustment to eat food with them or she can hoof it to the Mexican border - which she points in the direction of, but once Laurie goes to the toilet, Maria doesn't seem too concerned about her running off since she clarifies to Michael that the border is in the opposite direction to which she pointed. Naturally, Laurie's hoofed it, but the pair catch up with her. Maria says the only way they're going to get through to her is if Michael has a heart-to-heart with her (thus proving that organ actually
exists inside of him). He's awkward and needs pointers from Maria, but then eventually bonds with Laurie somewhat because he resembles her grandad or whatever and he now thinks of her as a sister (?). Once he's gained her trust, they go to visit her family's mansion and her uncle and aunt are snobs, they look shocked at Michael (due to his resemblance to Laurie's granddad) and it soon becomes clear they're behind Laurie acting crazy - which Michael finds proof of. He and Maria eventually kick the snobs out and then they enjoy life as rich snobs whilst not-so-crazy Laurie swims in the pool.
Elsewhere, Max has had the blue crystal stuff Kyle found attach itself to his arm briefly, Brody gets possessed again by the alien who regularly takes over his body, he informs the others that the blue stuff is from their ship and was used to blend human and alien hybrid DNA, so that's what it started to do to Laurie. He says it'll eventually infect everyone, Isabel's geologist b/f also had it happen to him when digging around, he kidnaps Isabel (who was easily chloroformed. Again, these aliens are
so lame), after talking with him in the car, he lets her out on the side of the road in the rain, she calls the ex-Sheriff, he says she can't just hitchhike, but she points out she's the last person who needs to worry about getting into a car with a stranger (oh yeah, Isabel? Well, for someone who can supposedly 'handle herself', you were quite easily defeated by a human using chloroform). Agent Duff is now working with the ex-Sheriff after seeing bizarre things and believing he's not crazy, she ends up shooting the geologist and blue crystals erupt from his corpse's chest, then the crystals become a flying alien jellyfish gizmo and they trap it in the room. Elsewhere, Kyle and Alex were tasked with doing some digging, they found more blue crystals, Kyle's sick of just being used by the aliens, so he wants to go investigate without them, he and Alex wind up trapped and sing 'American Pie' to pass the time until they're found (honestly, it's no wonder Colin Hanks wanted out from this show - like I assume was the case - since
this was the kind of pointless filler crap he was relegated to). The others find them but are useless in getting them out, so it's not until Kyle happens to discover that cutting off the crystal's oxygen kills them that Michael learns of a way to defeat the alien jellyfish - which he does by sucking all the oxygen out of the room it's trapped in. Agent Duff sees this and I guess they're cool now with another human (especially one in the government) learning their secret. There was also some stuff involving Maria's mum basically holding Liz hostage as she wanted to find out where Maria was and when she eventually gets on the phone with her, she then wants to speak to Michael and pretty much threatens to castrate him if he has sex with her daughter. I know some people didn't like this whole Laurie arc, but I actually didn't mind it and thought the actress who played her did a good job. She also brought a different dynamic (and
anything's better than boring Liz/Max).
The fifteenth episode begins with a Maria standing in front of a blackboard, looking straight at the camera and addressing us (the audience) as she proceeds to explain the planets, aliens, and humans involved in the show - because it's apparently become SO complex that some viewers were getting lost. While I admit there was some stuff I didn't quite understand, the things she explains weren't among them - those were the basic parts. Anyway, I remembered this whole bit with her explaining stuff about the show in front of a blackboard from when I originally watched the show on TV since it was such a unique thing to do and I actually liked it. Majandra Delfino is engaging enough that I could've watched a whole episode of just her recapping/explaining the entire show thus far (I'd certainly take that over watching more boring Liz/Max angst). I was amused when pics of the different characters came up onscreen as she mentioned them and for her the first pic used was a Season 1 pic with her old short haircut which she said she hated, then there was a screenwipe to her current hair (I always remembered her saying "betterrrr" after updated pic appears onscreen). As far as 'Previously on's go, this was one of the better/more inventive/fun ones I've seen. Anyway, after that part, the episode begins with Michael and Max running through school halls (I think) and being pursued by guys with guns. Apparently Isabel's already dead (they don't seem that broken up), then Max runs off and leaves Michael to get shot (wow, these dream versions of them
suck - then again, it's Michael's mind). He awakes from this dream and suddenly wants to get out of town to go to Las Vegas. It starts out as just him and Max, but eventually the rest of the gang find out about it and want to join them, which Michael reluctantly agrees to. Once there, he gives them all fake IDs with stupid fake names and tells them to spend the money (which he got from Laurie's relatives, I think) at the casino. Really? Purposely waste it gambling instead of, I don't know, giving it to charity or helping the parentals pay the bills or something? I was amused that Liz and Tess's fake IDs didn't work for them and they think it's because they're short that the guy didn't believe they were of legal age to be gambling (also, once again Liz proves incapable of being a decent liar) and they have to make do with going to the arcade instead (where Liz makes it clear she doesn't enjoy being stuck with Tess who basically says the feeling's mutual).
Meanwhile, Isabel helps some woman who's getting married by using her powers to get rid of the wine stain on the woman's wedding dress and this is apparently enough for the woman to invite a total stranger to join her wedding (where she meets and dances with a guy who has a prominent chin), but later Isabel tells Alex the guy nicked off when she had to step away (I
think that's what happened and not vice versa). Michael's using his powers to cheat at gambling and then won't listen to Max and gets cocky before clocking one of the security guys who wants him to leave. Naturally, this lands him in jail and his first call is to Maria...not because he
cares about her (he proved that earlier when she wanted him to come watch her sing for an audition and he couldn't have cared less because he was too busy gambling, so he blew her off - such a nice b/f), but because he needs her to bail him out (which he
asks tells her to do in the most dickish way possible). She hangs up on him (and rightly so). Unfortunately, her audition turns out to be one for a stripper gig (which she didn't know beforehand, obviously). While she nails the audition (with a little help from Alex, as she enlists him to play the piano), she turns down the stripper gig and was just looking for a little support from her jerk of a b/f (though she should've known better). Liz spends the whole time bitching about Vegas because Future Max and Future Liz got married there and she wants to avoid that, but Max has a vision of him and her as a bride and groom and tells Liz about it, but she's still not letting him in on the fact that she didn't actually screw Kyle despite all the times he asks whether it really happened or not.
Disappointingly, instead of letting her a-hole b/f rot in prison, Maria
does bail him out. I guess it was an attempt to make up for his dickish behaviour by having him present Maria onstage as the next singer (this was after she'd mentioned to Liz how Michael's someone who's all about armpit farts and PlayStation), but even when he's doing something 'nice', he just springs it on her (and because they're using fake names, if anyone actually wanted to give her a musical career, how will they know her when he didn't even use her real name?). She sings, the different couples dance together, Isabel talks about whether she'll ever find love, Alex (who's
right there dancing with her) says she will make someone the happiest guy, then when everyone returns to where they're staying at, they find Kyle's dad waiting for them. He proceeds to yell at them/give them a big speech, tells Kyle to wait in the car, Michael and Tess are happy they're orphans, but then we hear Valenti yelling after Tess and telling her to not make him come back to get her. The episode ends with Max and Michael discussing DVDs, specifically
Braveheart and how many times Michael's seen it as well as the fact that he's keeping count of how many kills there are in that movie. Whilst this episode was pretty much 'filler', at least it was
entertaining filler and a nice break from all the convoluted alien stuff.
The sixteenth episode begins with Maria at the blackboard again, this time talking about prom - which is still more entertaining than anything Liz/Max-related and ARGH! It was the return of the Liz voiceover (that I hadn't missed one bit, as she's bitching via writing in her diary/journal)! Maria's cousin, Sean (who was introduced several episodes ago but was so forgettable I didn't even feel the need to mention him before now) is into Liz but it's mostly one-sided. I recognised the actor who played him as the one who was the 'Pink Guy'/rapist in
Felicity. He's kind of playing a creeper here too (though obviously he's not
supposed to be giving off creepy vibes...at least I don't think he is, anyway). Maria is all about prom, while Michael (naturally) isn't into it and Isabel's desperate for a date...which she hopes Alex will be, but he's done being his old self who was desperate to hook up with her. He now has DIGNITY...well...at least until she begs him to go with her, which he eventually does (too bad she's only just using him, since it's clear she wouldn't have even thought about going with him if her geologist b/f weren't currently worm food). Tess is helping Max remember his previous life/home planet and stuff (which, of course, pisses Liz off), one of Kyle's friends is encouraging him to ask Tess to prom - which he awkwardly does, she agrees, but when that same 'friend' of Kyle's makes lewd remarks about doing Tess, he punches the jerk and calls her his 'sister', which he later talks to her about and she pretends to be disappointed but understanding about it when clearly she didn't really care at all because she only has eyes for Max, who she snogs, and Liz catches them, which means she's even MORE pissed now (like she has any other setting when it comes to Max/Tess). There was some acknowledgement at one point between Maria and Kyle that their parents are now seemingly together (they compare places that they've caught the two of them snogging). After having a fight about prom, Michael turned up to dance with Maria (it was the typical case of g/f thinking b/f is cheating on her, but he's actually just receiving dancing lessons from the one she thought he was cheating on her with - though apparently his teacher claimed he was 'unteachable'). And as if we needed any further proof how crappy a friend Liz is to Maria, earlier when she was upset about her fight with Michael, all Liz could do was talk about herself and Max/Tess. Methinks Maria
really needs to ditch her b/f and 'best friend' and surround herself with better people.
The seventeenth episode begins with a Maria blackboard recap of the prom episode, she reckons that she and Liz are going to get Alex and Isabel together (hahahaha! That's not going to happen. Spoiler alert!), and they're telling (as well as miming at) him to stay strong when he's on the phone to Isabel, who's asking him to "come out and play" (is there really any way for adults to say that without coming off sounding creepy?). He attempts to play it cool, the girls leave, Jason Dohring from
Veronica Mars delivers food to him that's cold and I can totally sympathise with Alex's reaction to that, as it seems like even the simplest things in life have to always go wrong. He starts sounding like me for a while there, as he bemoans life, and then there's a cut to nighttime when Valenti is driving along, sees a bunch of cop cars, casually asks if the person who's been killed is anyone he knows, and then he looks into the car and although we don't see what he's seeing, you can tell from his expression that it's Alex even though the show's intention is for it to come as a surprise when he goes to inform everyone at the café. Before he does that, though, there's an amusing exchange between Max and Michael arguing over
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which I think Michael refers to as 'Crappy Tiger' at one point - FOR SHAME, Michael!) and
The Matrix - clearly Max wants to see the former, while Michael wants to see the latter. This is one instance where I actually
liked Max, because he points out to Michael that you just can't compare Keanu Reeves to Michelle Yeoh (he then adds that he
won't let him). Go Max! Unfortunately, when Maria goes out the back, she can tell from Valenti's expression someone close to them has died and we hear her cry out before running into
Michael's Liz's arms sobbingly. It's no surprise they had Maria be the first one to get informed/react to the news, since Majandra Delfino sells the heck out of Maria's reaction and is clearly one of the strongest actors among the 'younger' castmembers. The others all look various degrees of sad (Tess being upset was the one that caught my attention the most, since I couldn't even recall her and Alex interacting).
Naturally, their first order of business is to try to have Max bring Alex back to life. Valenti distracts the guys from the van that transported Alex's body, the rest of the gang watch on as Max enters the van and unzips the body bag, Isabel's narrating the whole time what she
thinks is happening (ie. he'll heal Alex and everything will be fine), but it doesn't go the way everyone was hoping and once again Maria breaks down (at least Michael's a decent support for her). Isabel leaves, upset, Tess tells Max to go after her, then Liz (in about as bitchy a tone as possible) repeats what Tess just said to Max. Obviously everyone deals with grief in different ways, but Liz does it in the most annoying way possible - getting mad at everyone, yelling at/giving Valenti a hard time because she believes Alex was murdered and didn't off himself like Valenti says all the evidence points to. I guess I'm supposed to cut Liz some slack since she's grieving her friend, but considering how she treated her 'friend' in the past, plus the fact that she pisses me off most of the time, her process for grieving is just another thing about her that annoys me. Meanwhile, Isabel's feeling guilty since she'd called Alex to go out with her, her mum reassures her it wasn't her fault and says she wishes she had special powers to fix things (this is the closest I think Isabel's come to admitting she's an alien to her mum, as she says special powers don't help), Valenti's telling Kyle to not associate the day of Alex's death with his birthday (Kyle's actual birthday is the day
after Alex died, but he's still feeling miserable about it), Michael's actually a DECENT b/f for a change and is helping out Maria and her mum, telling Sean (who calls) about what happened and Maria's mum is now convinced Michael's a decent guy/good for his daughter (I wouldn't go that far), saying he's welcome to stay with them anytime...then clarifies she means
on the couch.
Everyone's mourning Alex at school, Max is talking to Tess about how he couldn't save Alex, then the others join them under the bleaches, Maria's mad at those she reckons didn't even know Alex being upset over his death, Kyle informs Max and Michael (pointing and saying "you and you") are to be pallbearers at the funeral, Isabel decides now is the time to inform everyone she's graduating early and leaving Roswell, this leads to an argument with Max, Isabel's seeing ghost Alex in her dreams, once she realises she's dreaming she's obviously upset in reality, Liz keeps digging into Alex's death, Max is angry along with her that Valenti thinks Alex offed himself, but then he gives Max the file that points to suicide, Maria sings at Alex's funeral (it was a nice surprise to actually hear lyrics from 'Amazing Grace' that we don't usually hear whenever that song is sung/played during funeral scenes in shows/movies, as typically it's always the same old ones), at the wake Liz has a scene with Alex's dad (there is quite the height difference between the two), she asks if she can go to Alex's room, once in there the others join her and there's this big scene between them where they argue over whether Alex was murdered or not. All the humans are siding with Liz, whilst Max has been more or less convinced by the file Valenti gave him that all signs point to Alex offing himself, Tess backs him up, Maria is predictably bitchy towards Tess as is Liz, Michael seems to be neutral, Kyle is of course on Liz's side and then Liz makes herself even more unlikeable than I already found her by essentially blaming the aliens (especially Max) for Alex's death/murder. All the aliens leave (which is kind of sucky for Maria, since Michael was there being supportive for her, but since Liz accused them, he doesn't want to hang anymore). Kyle says "it's us vs them" (ie. humans vs aliens).
In Isabel's next dream with ghost Alex, she's fully aware she's dreaming, she tells him she loves him (HA! You never did when he was
alive, Isabel! Too late now!), he says they both know he loved her, Liz has many photos of Alex spread out over a table, she remembers archive footage of him (including that striptease he did at Isabel's birthday party) and then eventually Jason Dohring shows up and says he remembered something odd (earlier she'd caught him using the rumours of Alex's suicide to gain an audience at school, regaling them with tales of how he could see the suicidal tendencies in Alex's eyes, and she told him to quit that and inform her of anything weird he remembered), showing her the receipt Alex had signed for the food he ordered - it's a bunch of 1's and 0's, which Liz thinks confirms her suspicions Alex was murdered by an alien. When listening to the commentary for this episode (which was written by the dude who'd go on to make the series
Outlander), I learned he got the idea for this episode from something that really happened to him (he lost a friend in a car crash) and the reason for them writing Alex out of the show this way was because Colin Hanks was getting a lot of offers to be in other projects and the makers of
Roswell didn't want to stand in the way of him going onto bigger/better things (at least that's what he
said was the reason. Who knows if that's the actual truth or whether there were backstage shenanigans going on). Also, apparently Shiri Appleby, who plays Liz, got really mad with the guys in charge of the show at some point and the writer of this episode
used that and wrote the scene with her getting mad at Valenti, including stuff she'd said in real life as her dialogue for the scene. Anyway, considering how this show pretty much wasted Colin Hanks, I can't blame him for wanting out. At least it made for a really good episode (one of the stand-out episodes from the series as a whole).
The eighteenth and nineteenth episodes kind of blend together in my mind. I recall Maria once again at the blackboard, this time informing the audience that Liz/Max are at odds, Max and Tess were just snogging but then it became more, they bumped uglies and almost immediately Tess is pregnant (those crazy aliens and their physiology!), Isabel's pissed at Max for some reason that I couldn't even recall, so she teams up with Kyle to become the lamest pair of pranksters ever, getting back at Max by...putting a photo of an alien in place of his yearbook photo and causing his foot to stick to the floor in class when Kyle pulls a fire alarm! When watching this lameness, I thought it was almost as bad as back in Season 1 when Michael caused some jocks to feel super itchy. Seriously, this is amateur stuff. About the only 'good' things to come out of this plotline is Isabel threatening to make one of Kyle's testicles disappear (after he suggested they do that to Max) if he spouts anymore stuff from Buddha/"that fat bald man" (as Isabel calls him) and towards the end when Max is taking his anger/frustrations out on rubbish bins and she switches from being against him to being there for him. The reason he decided to abuse the garbage cans (I wonder who cleans up the mess he made)? After learning Tess is pregnant, they discover their son can't survive on Earth and is dying/they need to return to their home planet if he is to stay alive. When Liz comes over to question Tess about her powers (as part of her investigation into aliens being behind Alex's murder), Max thinks she's come to accuse Tess and I actually enjoyed him being snide towards Liz (so much more interesting than their relationship crap). She eventually comes to the conclusion Alex wasn't actually in Sweden, she and Maria team up to track the girl he's with in the photo from his time away...yet they have time to spare/take time out from their investigation into their friend's murder to
go watch a Nelly Furtado concert (remember her? She sung about being like a bird). There they spot the girl from Alex's photo (convenient!), they think maybe she has something to do with Alex's death, Michael turns up (he was pretty decent earlier when Maria told him Liz wanted her to keep their investigating a secret and he was fine with that but wanted her to call him if they needed him). The investigation eventually leads to them finding a translation of their alien language in printout form which tells them how they can get home.
The twentieth episode is all about
blonde Pom Brody, who's using a very dated virtual reality thing to find out what happened with him being abducted/taken over by an alien, it short-circuits and he gets zapped, which does something to his mind and now he can't tell whether he's himself or the alien who took over his body. Naturally, his first course of action is to grab a gun and take Max/Tess hostage inside the UFO Centre, wanting answers (he rather easily proved Max was an alien, despite his protestations, by shooting at him which caused Max to use his trusty green energy shield instead of just jumping out of the way or something the
didn't expose him as an alien). Maria's mum is taking Maria and Sean to check out the UFO Centre, and when they walk down the stairs to see Brody with a gun, they immediately turn around to come back later but that trick doesn't work and they're added to Brody's group of hostages. Poor trusting Maria, with her misplaced faith in her 'best friend', attempts to deliver a coded message to Liz who calls her phone, and she mentions something on the menu that is meant to let Liz know something's up, but Liz is too dim to figure out exactly
what and both Michael and Isabel say that they don't listen whenever Maria's talking (jerks!). Not until they hear gunshots do they get a clue, Brody rants about what he believes has happened to him and how Max/Tess are aliens, Maria's mum and Sean don't know what to make of this, Sean wants food, Brody goes along with this and once Valenti establishes contact with him (he's on a roof across the street with Michael, Isabel and eventually Kyle (who turns up to get in on the action/remind everyone he exists and his dad tasks him with breaking into the library to get a map or plans for the building or something).
Anyway, Liz manages to convince the ex-Sheriff to let her go into the UFO Centre under the guise of being just some random waitress bringing Brody the food he ordered (I find it odd that he's never met her, since she's Maria's friend), but once again Liz proves herself a crappy liar, messing up her explanation for how they got the food made after the power went out, so Brody adds her to his ever-growing group of hostages. Thanks a bunch, Liz. Sean's not content with Liz being the only useless one and wants to prove himself just as useless, as he tries to tackle Brody and in doing so gets stabbed - which somehow Liz blames Max for (shut up, Liz). Brody chats with Max/Tess about their previous lives, describing crimson water and other stuff about their home planet. Eventually he is convinced by Max to let him heal his fried brain, he goes back to being himself, Sean and Maria's mum want to tell the cops everything, while Maria's trying to convince them that Brody's not a bad person and has a daughter to take care of, but in the end the only way they manage to be convinced to let all this slide is by Liz agreeing to a date with Sean and Tess mind warping Maria's mum (apparently the mind warp now includes erasing memories? Didn't it just start out as her being able to make people see things that weren't there? Eh, these aliens' powers have never been well-defined). The episode ends with Max sneaking into Tess's room through the window and saying he remembers their life together on their home planet.
The twenty-first episode/Season 2 final starts with Michael butting in on Maria's blackboard recap (shove off, Michael!) and the aliens in the chamber with the Granolith, preparing to return home, they mention 'Leanna' and I hadn't a clue who they were on about for the majority of the episode (I also thought they were saying 'Leanne'), but it turns out it was the blonde from the photo with Alex during his time in Sweden. Anyway, we cut back to before this stuff happened and I don't really remember that much of the episode, but I think it takes some convincing to get both Isabel and Michael on board with returning to their home planet. Isabel doesn't want to leave her mum and Michael has, I guess, grown attached to Maria...not that you'd know it from the way he treats her most of the time, though I will admit this was Brendan Fehr's best acting in the show, as he actually conveyed
emotions when he broke down and admitted to Maria that when they'd snogged back in Season 1 and she hadn't experienced visions like Liz had when she snogged Max, it wasn't because something was wrong with her, but rather he didn't want to let her see visions of him because he knows he's not a good person (gee,
ya think?) and wanted to keep the bad parts of him hidden (she sees them every day, Michael!). However, he finally decides it's time to let her see him (great timing - just as he's about to bugger off back to his home planet) and takes her hands, then she gets visions/sees him emerging from his alien pod as a kid covered in alien snot/goo, his adoptive dad abusing him with a belt, and the part from last season when she comforted him as he broke down, and it finally ends with a really nice/beautiful shot of Maria and space/glowing light in the background. While this doesn't entirely make up for two season's worth of shabby treatment, it was still a nice moment.
Not-so-nice was Liz and Max going off after Leanna halfcocked and almost offing her. Liz sees that she pricks herself whilst sewing (did they
really think any kind of evil murderous alien does
sewing?) and says that it's not right that Max is preparing to off her by starting a fire, but she doesn't bother to stop him or explain her reasoning. Instead, she runs in, gets Leanna out of the room and steals the tissue she used to wipe her bloody finger,
then explains to Max what her plan is, they go examine the blood and, naturally, find that it's human. How many times now have these characters come close to killing innocent civilians? Anyway, Liz has finally done something
useful by working out that Alex's time in Sweden was all an elaborate ruse! She puts two and two together and realises what actually happened was
Tess killed Alex! DUN! Why? Because she'd been mind warping him so many times he started losing it, as she'd needed him to translate the alien language so they could get back home (but that makes very little sense since Tess should've been able to translate it as she knew how to read alien language, I'm fairly certain. Was this just the alien equivalent of not wanting to do one's homework and bullying the nerd in class to do it for you?), and after Tess did a song and dance number, singing "
Let's. do. the mind. warp. agaaaaain!", she inadvertently offed him (okay, so maybe I made that last bit up, but it's clear her mind warping messed up his brain which couldn't handle it anymore). I hadn't actually remembered that Tess offed Alex, so that was a surprise. The
real surprising part, though, was that she also mind warped Kyle into helping her dispose of Alex's body, using the car crash as a cover. She also set Leanna up too, I think.
It's a shame that the show caved to all the haters' beliefs that Tess was rotten from the start. They could've made her a complex character and instead of turning her into a villain, especially considering all the growth she'd had this season and the family dynamics she'd formed with Kyle and his dad. Damn you, writers! What was the point of her heartfelt goodbyes to the Valenti men who took her in and came to think of her as family if you were just going to flush it all down the toilet?
Very disappointing. Anyway, the aliens are preparing to depart, the humans can't get into the cave where the Granolith's at, but luckily for them Michael has changed his mind and doesn't want to leave (aw, he's not so terrible a b/f after all! He wants to stay with Maria! But Isabel's still going to go to go with the other two back to their home planet because she and Max had a scene earlier where he said she was his home, and now she's returning that sentiment) and when Michael emerges from the cave, the humans explain that Tess killed Alex, he accepts this without question and they go to tell Max. He's obviously pissed and tells everyone to leave, looking ready to kill Tess (who explains the reason she did what she did was because that super-bad Kavar guy wanted her to bring the aliens home...and she would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those pesky kids!), but she points out that if he does so, he'll also being killing his son. I'm sure the Tess haters were screaming at their TV's for him to off her, but he just leaves while she winds up inside the Granolith and then the ship blasts off into space. I imagine most were hoping she'd pull a Poochie from
The Simpsons and Maria would appear onscreen to inform us that Tess died on the way back to her home planet. Instead, the others just watch, Liz is probably doing cartwheels inside her head that her rival's gone, Max admits he was wrong and he wants to save his son (I'm not sure
how, though, since he'll be on another planet now). Meanwhile, I'm just mourning the loss of the Alienmobile (WHY did they have to kill it? What danger did it pose? I mean, I could understand destroying it because it seemed to be so unreliable and in constant need of fixing, but that wasn't why they did what they did...which was possibly the saddest moment in the episode
).
Thoughts on this season as a whole:I'd read comments saying that after Season 1, the show became crap. I didn't really have too much of a problem with this season. I didn't feel it was 'worse' than Season 1. There seemed to be 'mini-arcs' this season. You'd get a storyline that spanned a couple/few episodes, then another one would start (with some standalone episodes wedged in between). While it didn't seem like the writers knew where they were going, and they just threw everything they had at the wall to see what stuck, I think I was less bored this season than I was last season (though there was still boring stuff - mostly Liz/Max, in case I hadn't made that clear. I'm annoyed they dropped the development of Max and Maria supposedly becoming friends from the beginning of the season. I would've liked to explore that dynamic more, since she was able to make scenes with him less boring). I for one
welcomed the addition of Tess and thought she made things more interesting. Some of the different things the writers tried worked...and others really didn't, but I didn't feel there was some big 'step down' in quality between last season and this one (like some believe). Naturally, Maria was again my favourite this season. I SO wish that we could ditch Liz and have her be the lead, but this show (as well as some of its viewers) seem to think they're the most important part to the story - whereas I think of all the scenes as a good time to go to the toilet. I really have little memory of what happens in the third/final season (except for the end), so I imagine that's going to have some surprises when watching it - though I can't say I'm in any great rush to. I'll get to it eventually, but this show isn't something that I find particularly exciting/engaging. It's fine, and even really good in some instances, but I don't find it 'must watch' TV.
And with ringing endorsements such as that^, how can you NOT want to check out this show?
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