Previously: Liz and Kyle have some no-strings-attached fun after the reveal that his dad may have been sleeping with Rosa (things that make you go HMM all around right there), Max saves a hospital from the blackout but may have put himself on Jenna’s alien radar, and Isobel gets into Maria’s mind and gets a punch to the face for her efforts (okay, so it was just a physical exertion nosebleed, but I’d LIKE to think that Maria psychically punched her out of her brain).
THIS WEEK ON ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO
Liz is once again masquerading as Nancy Drew this week. The clues take her to Grant Green, the quack podcaster from the pilot, but perhaps he’s not such a quack after all: He shows her a video he took of three girls floating in the desert on the night Rosa died, and ruh-roh, one of them is Rosa. Somehow racist Wyatt (you know, who shot Isobel in the pilot) gets wind that Grant is showing off the tape to Liz and stages a shootout, then a kidnapping, then a little attempted-murder-by-fire. (Busy night for Wyatt.) Max shows up in time to save Liz and earns a bullet to the shoulder for his trouble. Liz is thankful he helped her, but she also still doesn’t trust him (I mean, WE get it because we know he’s hiding something, but it’s all getting a bit repetitive by now.) He goes on and on about doing terrible things for the ones you love, and Liz slowly realizes she isn’t “the one” he’s talking about…
Isobel wakes up after a night of extreme camping in her nightie, and Max posits that she blacks out like this when she feels trauma—like when she thought he’d abandon her during high school and now when Michael wants to turn himself in for murder. That’s cute, Max, but Isobel doesn’t seem to have those kinds of extreme feels. While she’s recovering, she accidentally lets slip that the real reason she has blackouts is when she overextends herself on her powers, like that first time with Liz. That first time, Max learns, is when Liz left Roswell after Rosa’s death. He’s heartbroken that Michael and Isobel would betray him like that, as he hasn’t had a moment of happiness since she’s been gone. You may want to see a therapist for that, Max. I get unrequited love, but…dude.
Isobel’s husband has spent all day looking for her and finally finds her chillin’ by the fire at Michael’s, still in her nightie (could no one lend her a t-shirt?). He throws a metric ton of nail polish bottles on the ground, incorrectly assuming she’s a drunk who hides her stash in them, and also tosses her a bag of her stuff, saying he needs to sort through some things before they talk again. Isobel laments that she is so consumed with her secrets she has no idea who she is, so why should Noah even love her, but at least the air has been cleared between the three siblings. Right? RIGHT? Nope—the price is wrong, Isobel! Michael decides THIS is the perfect time to tell her that he most certainly did not kill those girls, and, in fact, he and Max have been covering up that this whole time Isobel Evans is actually the number one serial killer of Roswell, NM. Hence Max’s earlier shame rambles.
Kyle and Alex find their own truth bomb when they hang out in their fathers’ hunting cabin and reminisce about how they used to be friends before Kyle became uber-jock and rejected Alex for being gay. Kyle does seem to have grown since his teenage years, but still: gross, Kyle. They find a secret hatch in the floor (and have a total Lost moment as the camera pulls back down into the hole—don’t think I didn’t see that, episode director) complete with a tiny bedroom decorated in murder-den chic. Kyle learns that his dad was actually having an affair with Rosa’s MOM, and that Rosa is actually Valenti’s daughter (AKA Kyle’s half-sister).
YOU’RE FROM WHERE?!
So podcaster Grant Green actually has seen alien activity, but he was so high on peyote he wasn’t even threatening enough to kill at the time. Instead he became a fake conspiracy nut who spouts off alien and 9/11 nonsense to fill the airwaves with “fake alien news”. I was not expecting him get popped off quite so soon.
When we saw that baby photo of Rosa I thought she somehow had Valenti’s secret love child, but the truth is a lot less gross, so thank you, show.
Wyatt being more than a one-story plot device surprised me, but I assume he’s just been a paid toady for the real government baddies and that his time is now officially up.
WE DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THESE CZECHOSLOVAKIANS
It’s starting to seem like Rosa and Valenti were gamemasters thinking up a really extensive escape room with all this perfectly laid evidence and important keys just lying around for the taking. There was even a secret hatch to another room full of clues! Great; now I just want to go to another escape room…
Kyle and Liz don’t seem to understand the idea of private property.
Master Sergeant Manes deserves a Patty Chase award pinned to his fatigues, FER SURE.
I’ve heard goat yoga is quite fun. You’re missing out, Isobel.
ROSWELLIAN OF THE WEEK: Michael
Michael, I can imagine finally admitting you weren’t responsible for three murders is quite a weight off one’s shoulders. He’s also the one who already knew all the secrets, so his day wasn’t nearly as ruined as, oh, everyone else.
SAY WHAT
“I’ve been up all night processing the fact that everything I knew about my dead dad was a lie. My mom gave me this. When he died she went through his stuff and put anything unsavory in this box. So far, I’ve learned that my dad had two stints in rehab for booze in the ‘80s, multiple affairs over his entire marriage, and, oh yeah, a pervasive obsession with aliens.”—Kyle
Liz listening to the 911 calls from the night of Rosa’s murder:
“Roswell Police, go ahead.”—Operator
“My boyfriend thinks he’s a cabbage.”—Female Caller
“Hello, 911? I have regretfully become a cabbage.”—Male Caller
“We were just trying to protect our secret, Max.”—Michael
“You were all smitten and messed up and you wanted to tell Liz…”—Isobel
“I wasn’t smitten; I loved her!”—Max
“Well, how was I supposed to know that?”—Isobel
“I don’t know, Isobel, maybe if you were a damn mind reader!”—Max
WE NEED ANSWERS
How much does a peyote documentarian make?
Why is Isobel hiding empty nail polish remover bottles all over her house? Throw them out! (I realize they’re probably supposed to be full but they definitely did not look it.) Also, surely there’s somewhere online where you can order like a gallon of the stuff and hide it amongst the other chemicals in the garage. Those tiny bottles must get expensive.
What would’ve happened if someone rotated that lampshade at any point in time? Would anyone else’s first thought be “the alien symbol marks the spot!”?
So Alex found one of those rainbow fragments from the alien ship—is he going to be let in on the “aliens exist” secret sooner rather than later (please say sooner)?
So the most obvious and pressing questions are why did Isobel murder Rosa and those unlucky bystanders, how did it all go down, and why doesn’t she remember any of it?
We learned a lot more than I thought we would by episode 5, though I am glad they aren’t dragging the mystery out TOO long. What I’m really missing is the downtime. There’s no chance for anyone to breath with all these secrets needing to be exposed. How are we to really care about these characters and their relationships if they have no fun scenes together?
Next episode: “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” In two weeks my dislike of Isobel will be validated when we learn her reasons for murder, which are surely not that good.
