Episode 7 of Roswell, New Mexico, I Saw the Sign, shows the fallout from the revelations of episode 6 and from the alien presence in Roswell since 1947. The picture of how every generation of humans has been affected since the spaceship crashed into the New Mexico desert is being revealed, and it’s already clear that very little good has come from the mini alien invasion. The aliens themselves haven’t fared any better than the humans, though there are still many questions left to be answered on both sides of the equation.
This is Maria’s episode, and we find out just which ‘ship she’s willing to go down with, after she raised Dido’s White Flag with Isobel in episode 4. Her mom, Mimi, has mental health issues which have proven undiagnosable, but Maria won’t give up on her. Mimi is obsessed with aliens, like so many in Roswell, but in her case, she’s also a psychic. It’s no coincidence that Maria mentioned White Flag to Isobel in particular. Whoever is scrambling Isobel’s brain is also scrambling Mimi’s, and probably the brains of all of the other lost women of Roswell: Rosa, Mrs Manes, Mrs Ortecho, and more that we don’t yet know about.
We watch two women get sent to the room with The Yellow Wallpaper this week. How many of the women I just listed are already there waiting for them? How many have been put someplace even worse, like the fiery crate Liz was forced into and the fiery car Rosa, Kate and Jasmine were put in?
Recap
This week we are shown an alien autopsy as the cold open. Lieutenant Colonel Harlan Manes, Acting Director of Project Shepherd, introduces us to “Classified Case 9-2278 of an unidentified subject acquired from the crash at Roswell.” The autopsy takes place on July 17, 1947, and is filmed for posterity. The alien, whose face and genitals are covered and is probably female, is dissected, weighed, measured and every bit of data is recorded. We aren’t told if the alien is dead or alive, but I could swear that its belly twitches a moment after the first scalpel cut. Its internal organs don’t match human anatomy. One strange organ is particularly mysterious. It has the alien symbol imprinted on the palm of its hand. When the medical examiner exposes the symbol, it sparkles for a moment.
Twilight doesn’t yet exist in the Roswell universe, so no one makes an alien vampire joke.
I’m going to guess that this alien was a dead ringer for Isobel, and sent her essence into Isobel’s pod. Possibly she was the mother of all three current aliens or helped send the souls of three alien astronauts into the pods using the sparkly symbol.
In the present day, it’s 4:30 in the morning, and Liz is working on the 5 stages of grief, as she has been for the last 10 years. Progress is slow, since she was stuck on denial for most of those 10 years, thanks to Isobel and Michael. Now, thanks to Max, she’s moved on to anger rage and plans to be there for the foreseeable future. Currently, she’s dismantling Rosa’s side of their shared bedroom, now that she knows how much of Rosa’s life and death were lies. The aliens have done a very thorough job of taking her sister away from her for a second time.
When Liz is done with the bedroom, she moves on to working in her lab, musing that rage is like fuel to her in a way that sadness never could be. She’s using it as armor to keep herself strong and moving in the right direction, and to keep herself from being unduly influenced by sad alien eyes.
Those sad alien eyes are already sleeping with someone else (again), because Max Evans is a vile excuse for a humanoid. Cam wakes up in the morning in Max’s bed, having accidentally spent the night. In the midst of her self-loathing, she notices that he has a tattoo of the alien symbol on the back of his right shoulder.
Cam has a good morning text from Jesse Manes: “Cameron, have you considered my offer? On standby for intel.”
Max’s alarm goes off just as she’s slipping out of bed, so they have an awkward morning after conversation about how much they aren’t a real couple.
Max has to go the station to have his mental illness fitness evaluated, given the way he shot Wyatt while he was off-duty, without calling for backup, then left the hospital before he was questioned or treated, and sewed himself up. It’s been a week, and he still hasn’t talked to anyone about it, not even Cam, his partner.
She tells him he’s too macho, but he explains that it’s not that. His cover story for avoiding professional medical care, despite his line of work, is that he’s latrophobic- afraid of doctors.
Maria breaks in a new bouncer at the bar, emphasizing that the Wild Pony is a townie bar, so riff raff are very welcome, but tourists, and most especially, alien-obsessed crazies, are not. The alien-obsessed tend to be alt-right conspiracy nutjobs who are one stiff drink away from starting trouble, and Maria only serves stiff drinks.
The new bouncer points to a middle-aged woman who’s just entered, and asks what kind of crazy she is. She’s Mimi DeLuca, Maria’s mother and part of the reason for banning the rest of the alien-obsessed crazies from the premises. Maria goes to give her mother a hug, while Mimi rambles on about an alien invasion.
Cam questions Liz again about the night of the shooting. The two are antagonistic toward each other. Liz doesn’t appreciate being called back in when she’s already made her statement, plus Cam keeps making the wrong assumptions during the questioning. Cam is still angry that Max started treating her badly as soon as Liz came back into town, and takes it out on Liz.
At the same time, Max is undergoing his evaluation and trying to keep his lies straight with an unfriendly evaluator. He tries to intimidate the evaluator into letting him go back to work.
On the way out, Max and Liz pass each other in the station without speaking, surprising Cam.
Max: “This morning when you said, ‘Any port in a storm’? Liz Ortecho is my hurricane.”
Very poetic, but it makes him sound like the victim, when he and his family have instigated everything. He goes to great lengths to make sure that the aliens are in control, sacrificing anyone and anything that gets in their way.
He’s the hurricane, not Liz, and not in a romantic way. Never forget that her life wouldn’t have needed to be saved if her sister hadn’t already been murdered, then slandered, by the aliens.
This is not a romance. It’s a gothic horror story along the lines of a Charlaine Harris book or something from the 19th century.
When Liz gets outside, Isobel is waiting for her with an apology and a bouquet of flowers. Liz doesn’t want her apology, she wants to see Isobel in jail, but she can’t turn Isobel in for the murders of the three young women without risking her father’s status in the US. So she has to leave things as they are rather than clearing Rosa’s name.
Isobel tries to make the situation about her, complaining that she hasn’t slept and feels like she’s going crazy. Liz has no pity. Her concern is that Isobel doesn’t know why she killed the girls and she’s blacking out again, which means she could start killing again. This time, the blood would also be on Liz’s hands, since she kept Isobel’s secret.
Alex, the lousy boyfriend, who’s only beat in that department by Max Evans, stops by Liz’s lab to stage a one man intervention. He informs her that she’s been neglecting Maria and is too focused on herself. Maria needs her, and Liz is ignoring her phone, so Alex has come to drag her away from work, since it’s Saturday anyway.
This scene didn’t need to be a guilt trip. Liz has been away, she’s out of touch with the people she used to know in town, and as we are constantly reminded, Maria was closer to Rosa and Alex. Back in the day, Liz was pretty far down her list of confidantes. And Maria, who is a grown up, didn’t say anything when they were together.
I resent that the writers had a man interfere in the two women’s friendship, in order to instruct Liz on how to behave properly. Especially when that man is a jerk himself. Next episode, let’s have a gay guru come in and instruct Alex on not psychologically abusing the man you’re supposedly in love with, even if you don’t want your relationship to be public. Then let’s discuss his twisted reasons for keeping Michael a secret for more than a decade, even though everyone knows he’s gay.
Alex and Liz find Maria and Mimi at the bar, where Mimi is explaining how Will Smith will save us from the alien invasion. Mama DeLuca is happy to see Liz, but thinks she’s Rosa.
Isobel has taken to Michael’s bed and wrapped herself up in layers of fabric from head to toe, as one does. Michael finds her, and, bemused, says, “What happened to, ‘I can handle the truth, Michael?’ ‘I am the protagonist of my own story, Michael’ ‘What would Beyonce do, Michael?’
He’s the best brother ever. And Isobel normally lives by some excellent rules.
Isobel tells him, “Liz Ortecho happened.” She’s worried that Liz is right, and she’ll go on another killing spree. Michael is convinced that won’t happen, and if it does, he’ll stop her. Isobel knows he’s sincere, but she doesn’t trust herself anymore. She’s terrified that she’ll lose control.
When Liz and Maria have a minute alone together, Liz asks why Maria didn’t tell her about Mimi and how overburdened and stressed she was feeling. Liz guesses that it’s because she didn’t ask Maria about herself enough, since that’s what Alex implied.
Maria: “No. It’s not your fault. I wanted to be the fun friend. I love being the fun friend. I just, I thought I could do that a while before the reality show contestant sob story set in.”
Original Maria, plucky, perky and fun til the bitter end, pokes her head up and waves.
Liz asks about Mimi’s diagnosis. Maria says that there isn’t one. Doctors have ruled out everything, and then implied that her mother is faking her symptoms.
Welcome to the US healthcare system. Maria blames rich old white doctors, but I’ve had a rainbow of doctors, born in many decades, do the same thing. Never discount the size of the doctor’s ego in determining bias when it comes to medical decisions. The need to have superior intelligence and knowledge supersedes all else.
Liz: “So this is why you work so hard. Running the bar, doing the psychic thing…”
Maria: “We’re doing just about anything for a buck so we don’t lose the people we love.”
Liz: “Have you thought about putting her in a care facility?”
Maria: “No, that just feels like giving up hope. I’m not down for that yet.”
Who are the “We” Maria refers to who are working hard to keep the people they love? Does she have absent siblings or close relatives? A love interest? Does she mean the general population?
Liz suggests they all spend the day with Mama DeLuca, starting with shakes at the Crashdown, then pulling some strings for a special feature at the drive in.
Max questions Wyatt in his hospital room. It mostly consists of threats, yelling and violating Wyatt’s rights, until Cam tosses him out since he’s off duty anyway. Wyatt swears that he doesn’t remember any part of the incident, and that he’d never shoot at a police officer. Blue Lives Matter, man.
He admits that getting drunk and shooting at a Mexican is in his wheelhouse, but he must have blacked out. Cam hands him a legal pad and a pen, and tells him to write down his statement while he waits for his lawyer. While they’re talking, Wyatt draws the alien symbol on the pad. He’s not even looking at the paper. Cam’s eyes bug out when she sees it.
At the Crashdown, Mimi forgets and calls Liz by her sister’s name again. Maria gets upset and leaves. Liz follows. Mimi looks at Alex and tells him that she can see in his aura that he has a secret. It reminds her of his dad. She remembers the day that Jesse learned too much and he came to school with dark energy surrounding him, energy from someplace else. Alex asks where the energy was from.
Mimi: “Something broke in this town once, long ago. And the pieces shattered. We aren’t meant to touch things from another world, Alex. The other world creeps into us and makes us ugly inside. Don’t let it do to you what it did to your father. What it did to poor, sweet Jimmy Valenti.”
Mimi loses focus before she can tell Alex what the other world did to Jim Valenti.
Alex has definitely been touched by an alien, many times and in many ways, and he already had plenty of reasons to go dark before he took up with his alien boyfriend. Mimi’s prophecy only applies if alien technology counts separately from the aliens themselves, which is silly, but probably where we’re going.
When Max gets home, Michael is there waiting for him. Max tells him to leave without even giving Michael a chance to speak.
Max: “You are not my family. You are not my friend. So get off my property.”
Michael explains that Isobel needs them both right now. Max thinks that his siblings have been fine figuring things out by themselves. Michael defends their decision to force Liz to leave town, since they knew Max was going to confess to her.
Max asks Michael how he would feel if Max had been the one who drove Alex to join the military and leave town. Michael is shocked that Max knows his secret, then agrees that he’d hate Max for making Alex risk his life.
Liz finds Maria up on the Crashdown roof, enjoying the view from the diner billboard. She wonders how Maria is able to stay calm through her mom’s deterioration. Liz knows that she’d constantly be angry. Maria is angry, but she’s trying to use her mom as a role model. Her mom always loved everything about her and taught her to love herself, even when the town rejected Maria and she felt like they were the only black people in the world. (There aren’t many black people in New Mexico.) Now each part of her mom that slips away is a bit of Maria that’s gone, too.
Max argues on the phone with Sheriff Valenti that he’s ready to come back to work, but his attitude probably isn’t helping his case. When he hangs up, Noah is waiting for him. Max tries to get rid of Isobel’s husband, assuming he wants to smooth over the rift between the siblings, because it’s always about Max. Noah, who kicked Isobel out of the house, doesn’t even know Isobel and Max are arguing. Max didn’t know that Noah and Isobel are having problems, because his head is too far up his…
Noah came to talk to Max about his marriage and Isobel’s lies. Max tells him that it’s probably for the best that he and Isobel split up, because Noah is too good for his sister. Noah was looking for a supportive pep talk and some insight into Isobel’s state of mind, not an invitation to divorce court.
Self-destruction isn’t enough for Max. He needs to do as much damage as possible to the people around him, while still calling himself a good guy. He’s used love as a weapon in nearly every conversation he’s had in this episode.
Kids, men like this don’t change, no matter what TV shows and films say. They won’t magically become “good men” if you love them hard enough. Stay far away from someone who uses your emotions to manipulate and deprecate you. It’s not romantic or passionate, it’s abuse. Max is scary, not dreamy.
The Mama Deluca party has moved on to the drive in, where Mimi is reading Alex’s fortune. She sees a girl in Alex’s future with beautiful brown eyes and great legs- his new beagle.
Next she reads Liz, but forgets and thinks she’s Rosa. Rosa was at a crossroads the last time Mimi saw her, so she asks which path Rosa chose. Liz tells Mimi the story she wishes were true for Rosa. She says she’s been clean for ten years, had romantic ups and downs, went to Paris for art school, and stayed close to her family. Mimi tells her that Rosa has a beautiful destiny, and she always did. The moment seems to be healing for everyone.
Rosa is totally still alive and being held hostage in some bunker by Jesse Manes.
Noah calls Max to let him know that Wyatt Long’s family has hired one of the lawyers in his firm and they’re planning to go after Max and the people he cares about, including Arturo. They’ll try to get Arturo deported if Max testifies against Wyatt.
Mimi asks Liz, as Rosa, what ended up happening between her and Isobel Evans. Rosa told Mimi that Isobel was hunting her. Isobel confessed her secrets to Rosa and scared her. Rosa was thinking about telling Arturo. Liz assumes that Isobel killed Rosa to stop her from telling others that she’s an alien, but Isobel had other secrets, like a dead man in the desert.
Cam brings a breakup bag to Max’s house, though they have a brief debate over whether friends with benefits can technically break up, and whether they’re even friends. They decide they can live with the ‘friend’ label, so Cam stays for a beer, but she texts Jesse Manes while Max goes to the fridge.
It’s good to see Max getting the treatment he deserves, but Isobel and Michael don’t deserve to go down with him.
Cam oh so subtly starts a conversation about tattoos. She has a scorpion with a machine gun, among others. And what she says is a bird on her wrist, but it looks more like a spider to me. Her sister, Charlie, has the matching other half. That would be the sister who Jesse Manes offered to help. She was a whistleblower who ended up in jail because Cam didn’t help her out when she could have.
Cam asks about the alien symbol on Max’s shoulder. He claims that it’s meaningless, just something he doodled when he was a kid. He got drunk on his 21st birthday and decided to get a tattoo. Cam gets mad because his story sounds like a lame lie, but this one is probably the truth. Max has done very little exploration into his alien background, and we’ve seen the way the symbol popped out of Wyatt’s subconscious.
Cam shows Max Wyatt’s drawing. Max, predictably, rushes to the hospital to yell at Wyatt.
Liz sits alone during the film at the drive in, contemplating what Mimi told her. Mimi rejoins her, and tells her that everything changed after Isobel shared her secrets with Rosa. Liz asks if Rosa said anything about aliens. Mimi tells Liz that Rosa knew what she knows. Then she goes back into her Independence Day fantasy state. She’s sure that Will Smith is the savior they need.
Liz gets called into the lab to check on her experiments, but promises she’ll be back soon. Maria asks her to meet them at Sunset Mesa Assisted Living. She’s ready to get some help with her mom.
Meanwhile, in Wyatt’s hospital room, Max, shockingly, overreacts and assumes everything is about him. He chokes Wyatt, while also asking him a question: “Are you going after Liz to threaten me? You have no idea the lengths I will go to bring you to justice, no matter what fiery hell that might be.”
Dude, break ups are rough, but you need to get over yourself. How about you throw yourself into investigative work instead of murdering the evidence related to your true identity?
Liz discovers Max and stops him. They go to her lab, where he accuses her of defending Wyatt.
Liz: “I am questioning your character. As a cop, as a man, as a human be… What do you stand for? You were just talking about justice, but you’re a hypocrite. You want Wyatt to suffer, but you let Rosa’s killer walk around planning brunches for ten years? Are some murders just more murdery than others to you?”
Max: “Wyatt came after you for reason. I am trying to keep you safe.”
Liz: “You failed.”
Max goes to leave the lab, but stops when he sees his blood samples near the door. He becomes aggressive with her, and asks what she’s doing with them. Liz isn’t intimidated by him, and tells him that she’s trying to create a weapon. She’s working on a serum that will weaken the aliens’ powers, Isobel’s in particular, so they can’t hurt people. She sees it as a way to protect people from Isobel.
Max immediately flips that around calls it a poison that would hurt Isobel and make her suffer. Let’s note, Liz didn’t say anything like that, until he brought it up. When pushed, she says that she’d like for Isobel to suffer as punishment for the lives she took.
But, she reminds him, people aren’t just jailed as punishment. They’re jailed to stop them from committing more crimes. Liz knows that Isobel is having blackouts. That makes her dangerous, and something has to be done to prevent another murder spree.
Max storms out. He and Michael haven’t wanted to face this reality. They want to believe that they can control Isobel at all times, but that isn’t practical long-term.
Max goes to Michael’s place, where Michael is sitting outside by the fire. The only time that Michael is regularly indoors is when he’s at the Wild Pony.
Max apologizes for throwing Alex in Michael’s face earlier. Michael tells him, “It’s just him, you know? Screws me up.” Max says, “None of that matters to me. I’m here to talk about Isobel.”
He’s panicking because of Liz’s serum, so he wants the three of them to leave town together and start fresh somewhere else. He’s scared because they don’t have any answers about why the murders happened and why Isobel has blackouts.
Michael asks how leaving town and taking Isobel away from her life and her husband is going to improve her blackouts or answer their questions. Max has decided that they don’t get to have lives or be with the people they want. They only have each other.
Michael reminds him that he said they weren’t family earlier that day. Max says things have changed now that Liz is out to get them. Liz doesn’t feel safe with Isobel nearby, and she’ll use her poison if she feels threatened.
Isobel, who’s been inside the trailer the whole time and heard everything, pops her head out the door and says that Liz isn’t wrong. In fact, she agrees with Liz. Her blackouts make her dangerous, and she can’t run away from that. She needs to make sure she can’t hurt anyone else.
Max starts to tell her she can’t use the serum. Isobel stops him, and tells both of her brothers that she’s going to make her own decisions about her life from now on. They’ve screwed things up enough.
Isobel checks herself into the psych ward at the hospital on a temporary psych hold, marked as a danger to herself and others. She’s locked in, with bars on the windows, so she can’t escape if she has another episode. They don’t mention what her treatment plan is, or how they’ll avoid having blood work done. Max gets her settled in and tells her he loves her.
Maria sits alone in the Wild Pony and drinks. When Michael comes in, she tells him they’re closed, but he says that he really needs her to be open. After a moment, she relents and tells him, “One drink, no talking.” He sits next to her at the bar so they can share the bottle she’s working on. He thanks her for letting him stay, but she tells him to stop talking. Then she bursts into tears. He puts his arms around her and holds her while she cries.
Noah meets Max at the hospital and thanks him for calling about Isobel. He asks if she’s checked herself in for alcoholism rehab. Max says they don’t know, but at least she’s getting the help she needs now. Noah feels guilty for leaving Isobel when she needed him. He vows not to give up on his wife again, no thanks to Max’s poor advice.
Max revisits Liz in the lab to tell her that they locked Isobel up so that she doesn’t have to poison her. Liz says that she’s going to stop her experiments, because she became a scientist to help people. She doesn’t want the aliens to drag her into their darkness.
Max tells her he wants her to keep working on it, because maybe she can find a way to make them normal. They’re all dangerous. “My sense of fairness and justice does not apply to my family. I thought I was more principled than that, but the three of us are all alone together. And I can’t give up on them, ever. But if something happens, and I can’t protect you and Isobel at the same time, you should have a way to protect yourself.”
He hands her the serum.
Cam reviews her photos of lightning fractals and Wyatt’s drawing. Reluctantly, she tells Jesse to investigate Max
.
Commentary
This episode was directed by Paul Wesley, who played Stefan on The Vampire Diaries. It was one of the best episodes yet, as far as pacing and construction. He did a great job. Shiri Appleby, the original Liz, directed episode 9. Can’t wait to see her work.
Guesses on how long it will take Jesse to get his hands on the serum?
The alien autopsy added to the horror movie atmosphere of the episode. I have a feeling that atmosphere is going to grow for a while, with the alien investigation stepping up and two alien subjects suddenly becoming more available for observation.
There’s an alien scrambling brains, but not necessarily controlling them, since the showrunner says that Isobel isn’t being mind controlled. But it seems clear that mind control is sometimes happening, other than Isobel’s ability to influence behavior. Multiple people, including Isobel and Wyatt, have blacked out and acted out of character during the periods they don’t remember.
I’m still not 100% convinced that Wyatt isn’t an alien himself, but it seems unlikely that he would draw the alien symbol for Cam if he was. That scene was reminiscent of the way people who’d been mind-warped by Tess in the original series developed certain specific unconscious tics. If Max weren’t the worst investigator on any planet, the aliens might have already made some progress toward discovering a 4th alien. Instead, Cam and Jesse will learn all about the aliens before Max realizes anyone else is using the symbol.
Max also apparently has no concept of how science works, and thinks Liz was going to stalk Isobel and inject her with each experimental iteration of the serum, instead of testing it on his blood cells, then using it on Isobel and Max only when necessary. And a suppressant isn’t a poison or a deadly weapon, so let’s stop acting like that’s what she was creating.
When Max Found Out About Malex
I assume we all figured out that Max noticed when Michael rescued Alex from the bullies on prom night, and understood what it meant? Michael stood extra close to Alex, and looked right into his eyes to make sure he was okay.
What Michael Tried to Say About Alex
Carina is the showrunner, so her word is the word of Goddess, but I’m not clear about what would trigger Michael’s defensiveness in that moment. It doesn’t fit with anything else I thought we’d seen up until now. Before this, it seemed like Michael was fine with their relationship, once he got over his initial jitters, but Alex has jerked him around from the beginning and still does. Michael wanted to tell Isobel about their relationship, while Alex still wouldn’t tell Maria, for example. Plus, Alex seems to be the one who keeps the relationship casual.
I really thought that Michael was saying that the depth of his feelings for Alex screws him up because their relationship is complicated and he’s unsure of Alex, while Max was saying either he wasn’t bothered by them both being guys or he didn’t want to talk about it right now, because Isobel’s issues are more pressing.
No matter what the writers intended, the way it came out had viewers confused about what Michael was saying and assuming Max was shutting Michael down.
Character Notes
This episode, Max’s unreasonableness grew to new heights. He was practically foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog. Maybe he needs to cut the power to the whole town again to discharge his white boy rage. No one ever remembers that he indirectly murdered people with that stunt because of the accidents he caused and the medical equipment he shorted out.
Max spent the episode treating everyone terribly, driving most of them away, and insisting that the three aliens only have each other. By the end, his self-fulfilling prophecy came true, and Cam betrayed him, after Liz had already turned away from him and sought a method for reducing the aliens’ power. He was reconciled with Isobel and Michael, but only just barely, and he’d betrayed both of them during the episode.
Meanwhile, Michael and Isobel aren’t alone. Michael may or may not be able to trust Alex in the long run, but they’ve already shared a secret for ten years. And he and Maria have something brewing. Just like Michael said he never really stops watching Alex, Michael and Maria also keep an eye on each other. I think they rely on each other more than either has realized.
Isobel has Noah, who’s proven that he’s in it for the long haul. And she and Michael have each other, while Max tends to shut them both out.
Maria was dressed in an oddly business-like outfit this week, which looked terrible and too confining on her. I hope it was meant to reflect this week’s mood, rather than a change in her style. I love her normal style. She can be the free thinking psychic, the dutiful daughter, the close friend and the tough bar owner all at once. She doesn’t need a love interest or a struggle between good and evil to make her a complex character.
But I wouldn’t be opposed to a love interest, if his name was Michael Guerin. They both need someone who will be their rock. They are both able to do that for the people they care about, but they get overlooked and considered unreliable by traditional Roswell society. I think Michael needs to be needed by someone other than Max and Isobel in order to settle down again and be happy, and Alex won’t even go out on a date with him.
Like Michael, Maria doesn’t have much family, just her mother. She had Rosa and Alex, but Rosa died and Alex left town, then came back haunted. She’s someone who’s always surrounded by people, but is very alone in the world. Maybe she and Liz will grow closer now, but I’ve gotten the sense all along that Liz was the kid sister who tagged along. The fact that Mimi can’t remember her name half the time confirms it.
Liz starts the episode enraged over her sister’s murder and the lack of consequences for Isobel, but by the end of the episode she’s spent time with friends and remembered who she really is. She moves out of the anger/rage stage of grief and into bargaining, looking for meaning, community and truth to take the place of the justice she doesn’t think she’ll ever get.
Max pushes Liz back into an enforcer role that she doesn’t want, but if the serum had existed the night Isobel snapped and killed the three girls, Rosa might still be alive. Liz needs to improve the serum so that it suppresses powers and includes a sedative, then set it up in a dart gun for safe delivery into the aliens.
Gothic Roswell
With all of the fiery crashes, violently drunken men and crazy women, I should have realized sooner that this is a Southwestern Gothic, and not really a romance. I didn’t see it until they brought Crazy Mama DeLuca down from the attic, but then locked her and Isobel both away in modern asylums, making it clear that Max is not Mr Darcy, he’s Jane Eyre’s Mr Rochester.
Jane Austen doesn’t put her elderly relatives in the attic, the way Edgar Allen Poe and the Brontë sisters do. Like Jane Eyre and Sookie Stackhouse, Liz won’t be a pushover, but she’ll give Max endless chances to earn her forgiveness so that they can be together in the end, no matter how horrible he’s been in the past. Too bad Max is more of a Bill than an Erik.
Isobel has gotten more fun and interesting as her carefully curated persona has slipped to show the approval-seeking crazy underneath. But is she becoming obsessed with Liz the same way she was obsessed with Rosa? That bouquet of flowers and her willingness to give in to Liz’s opinion without much question aren’t necessarily good signs.
The way Isobel followed Liz to the police station smacked of early stalking behavior. And her sudden, intense need for absolution from Liz for something that happened ten years ago, that she doesn’t remember, feels odd. Isobel has always walked all over people, including and especially Liz, without a moment of remorse. For 10 years, she felt no remorse for covering up three murders and violating the bodies. Now, she cares deeply about Liz’s feelings? It doesn’t make sense, even with the slim possibility that Liz would go to the police.
Something more is brewing inside of Isobel. There will be a moment of truth, involving a showdown between the aliens’ powers and Liz’s serum, and everyone who knows about the aliens will have to pick a side.
And then Project Shepherd will arrive.
Michael & Maria 4Evah
The show can do whatever it wants. I’m keeping them.
Images courtesy of The CW.
Metawitches 
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