Roswell 2.11: "To Serve and Protect"

Written by Breen Frazier
Directed by Jefery Levy

In which Valenti is caught between his job and his desire to protect the hybrids when Isabel dreams about a young woman in peril, just as an old friend comes around with questions…


Status Report

The middle of the second season was a period of transition, between the relatively self-contained original 13 episodes ordered by the network and the remaining 9 episodes ordered several months later. The decision to give the series a full second season came with enough time to tinker with the four episodes that would have closed the original 13 episodes, especially when “A Roswell Christmas Carol” was added to the schedule, pushing out these four episodes into the February sweeps period.

Collectively, these episodes were branded “The Hybrid Chronicles” by the network, an early example of the WB penchant for re-naming episodes in their promotional spots. It’s the kind of name that sounds really cool, but ultimately doesn’t tell the audience a thing about the intended plot threads. It also leaves the viewer with the impression that the four episodes tell a complete story, which at one point, they might have done. After all the tinkering, most of that was left intact, but some threads were left more indistinct, as the writers began leaving themselves some options for the rest of the season.

Most of that tinkering, as one would expect, took place in the episodes 13 and 14 (in the final episode order), so very few changes were made to the story at this stage of the game. In what amounts to a statement of intent, this episode begins an exploration of the hybrids’ human legacy. Most of the characters have come to relative terms with their alien destiny, or at least have come to the realization that they cannot allow their lives to be defined by the circumstances of their creation. They have rejected that alien destiny, at least for the present…so what does that mean for their human futures?

The question also pertains to those affected by their presence. Unlike the first season, where the human element was mostly an exploration of the direct interaction with the hybrids, these episodes look more closely at the overall impact of the hybrids. If the hybrids are trying to understand who they are, to better understand what they want in life, then they can’t ignore the human world they have undoubtedly changed by the very nature of their arrival.

The teaser places the episode in perspective. Bored with life as a typical teenager, flipping the channels on a slow winter night, Isabel turns to “dream-walking” again. Max is worried that she’s been doing it too often lately, and he may have a good point. This is Isabel’s subconscious way of placing the rest of the world at a distance, symbolizing the gulf that remains between the human and alien parts of her world.

The two dream-walks establish two of the character threads to be explored in the episode: the fact that Liz will never be able to get past Max, no matter who she turns to, and Kyle’s paranoia about the fact that he’s been changed by Max when he was healed. While Liz’s dream is amusing, it also tells the audience that they can relax when it comes to Liz’s upcoming flirtation with Sean; deep down, she’s still in love with Max, and that will always be the case. Kyle’s plot thread, played more for laughs, tells the audience that his banter with Tess is likely to continue.

The crisis of the episode arrives with Isabel’s dream of an abduction, which comes unbidden. Considering that the only such visions came when Tess was abducted by Whitaker in “Surprise”, Isabel has reason to be upset. She shouldn’t be seeing something like that, not unless there’s a connection between her and the young woman being abducted. It’s one of the major questions posed by the episode, establishing the short-term plot thread of the hybrids’ human ancestry.

This leads into the not-so-small matter of Valenti’s precarious position as self-appointed protector of the hybrids. As it turns out, Valenti’s previous knack for playing fast and loose with the rules has not been corrected, and his own people are beginning to notice. While that hasn’t been seen onscreen very much since the beginning of the season, one must assume that the teens’ activities have been whitewashed on several occasions. Now Valenti has to face down an old friend, Dan, played by the always formidable Keith Szarabajka, who starts with the Hubble investigation, harkening back to “The Convention”.

Meanwhile, his son Kyle is trying to work out his inner turmoil over his apparent transformation, the details of which are still unknown. It doesn’t help that he’s equally conflicted about his feelings for Tess, which started out as pure lust and have since slipped into that incredibly uncomfortable pseudo-sibling territory. These scenes are nearly perfect, and one almost wishes that the writers had let these two characters come together. It would have avoided a lot of the confusing and contradictory plot threads later in the season.

A bit too openly, Valenti accepts Isabel’s information, even while he has certain doubts about how easily the situation can be resolved. His inability to lie effectively was established in the first season, and it immediately causes problems in his conversation with Dan. Dan can see that there’s something going on with Max Evans, and what’s worse, Dan makes it clear that he knows a lot more than he’s letting on. Valenti ought to remember that his activities in the first season were very public, and as such, it doesn’t take much for someone to connect the dots, especially when he suddenly doesn’t seem interesting in chasing UFOs anymore.

As her dreams would indicate, Liz is still going crazy when it comes to Max. The past few months have changed nothing, and his actions in the previous episode had to have touched her heart in a major way. But there’s still that enforced distance between them (she still hasn’t figured out the whole “alternate future” thing), and she’s got a lot of emotional energy to expend. Enter Sean, who thanks to Maria’s constant reminders, embodies the soft-spoken bad boy fantasy.

Grant Serenson also re-enters the picture, since Isabel has long since turned away from Alex as a potential love interest. Isabel has figured out that she wants to date people who know nothing about who she really is. That’s a major sign of inner conflict, considering the fact that she knows that lies will come with the territory. More than that, Isabel wants to distract herself from the situation with the young woman in her dream. It doesn’t help, then, when the dream makes an unexpected return just when Grant touches her.

After another hilarious interlude with Kyle and Tess, the focus returns to Valenti, who is being pulled ever deeper into the quagmire of Isabel’s vague dream. It’s bad enough that Valenti reacts to the news by putting official resources to the task, but he takes it too far by assuming that Isabel’s dream pertains to a teen’s lack of communication with her mother. As Dan points out, Valenti’s own people don’t understand the urgency, or where some of the information is coming from. All they know is that Valenti is getting a lot of information from Max and Isabel.

Meanwhile, Maria is well aware of the fact that Sean could mean trouble for Liz, especially since Liz is looking for a distraction from Max, even if she doesn’t know it. She tries to ride herd on the boy as soon as possible, but for all her bluster, she’s forgetting one small detail: Liz is her own woman. Pushing Sean away only increases the chances that Liz will wonder what’s being hidden from view. It’s unintentional reverse psychology!

When Isabel comes to the conclusion that Grant is the one responsible for the abduction in her visions, Valenti’s problems get that much worse. Having already crossed the line with Grant once, Valenti ignores a warning from a judge to leave him alone. His confrontation with Grant goes absolutely wrong (even when the writers drop clues for the audience all over the place), and suddenly there’s plain evidence that Valenti is crossing the line and acting on information that he shouldn’t have. Dan knows all the right questions to ask, and it’s even worse when Melissa Foster shows up, taking away his one excuse for continuing the investigation.

The fallout is swift and inexorable. Valenti is caught between his desire to use his position to help people, even with sketchy evidence, and the need to protect the hybrids. As a result, neither goal is particularly well served, and his own position is placed in jeopardy. The implications are profound, since Valenti was largely defined by his position, one way or another, and the hybrids are faced with another example of how their intervention has seriously affected someone they care about.

The situation forces Isabel to consider the possibility that her mind is playing tricks on her. Isabel is probably still feeling guilty about concealing the truth about Vilandra from Max, especially since it came up with Lonnie a few months earlier, and she’s also seen Max saving lives at his own probable expense. Why wouldn’t she want to believe that her powers could be utilized for the same purpose? Of course, she’s doing it without much of a game plan, which is not helping, and it’s hard for her to use the power when she doesn’t know how to control it.

It all comes down to the moment that Isabel realizes where the abducted young woman is, and Valenti must decide whether or not to risk his career on the possibility that she’s right. Valenti makes the only choice he can make, based on who he is, under the mistaken impression that he can take care of the mess after the fact.

The scene where Laurie is discovered and then rescued is very well done, especially when it comes down to the horror of her particular captivity. There’s a natural aversion to the thought of being buried alive, after all, and this episode plays on that fear. Max’s shielding ability is also well done, especially since it provides a strong link into the next episode. (Max’s struggle to maintain the shield might seem strange, but he could still be recovering from the effects of the previous episode.)

The final scene has a couple of minor errors, possibly connected to the previously mentioned revamping. Laurie mentions that she never saw her kidnapper’s face, and yet, Isabel saw Grant quite clearly in her dream-walking. One could speculate that the writers were trying to suggest that Isabel might be adding her own details into the dream’s content, but it feels more like a writing mistake. The writers also miss the mark when it comes to the bullets. Just the act of firing a bullet will cause distortions, and anything that slows down a bullet will cause alterations in shape. Max’s shield wouldn’t have left the bullets in perfect condition, so this is a case where the writers were fudging the facts to make it clear that Dan and Hansen were aware that Valenti was hiding something.

This episode highlights character, focusing largely on the human cast and how their lives are thrown into confusion by their relationships with the hybrids. Valenti is in danger of losing his job because of Isabel’s dream-visions, Liz is caught between obsession for Max and interest in a “normal” young man, and Kyle is obsessed with the aftereffects of his resurrection. On the other side of the equation, Isabel struggles with the desire to live a “normal” life, even as she resorts to her powers to solve her boredom issues.

Considering the fact that this is really the first episode in a short four-episode arc, it doesn’t make sense to explain how all the pieces fit together at this point. Instead, it’s interesting to consider the various plot element introduced, to see how they evolve over the course of the arc and how well the writers handle them from episode to episode.

The most obvious questions are:

Did Grant really abduct Laurie? Why Laurie was abducted and placed in the ground? What is the connection between Isabel and Laurie? What did Isabel see when she touched Laurie? How did Dan know so much about Valenti’s activities? Was Dan there specifically to look into Max’s connection to Valenti? Will Valenti lose his job while trying to protect the hybrids? What will happen to Kyle? Will Liz become attracted to Sean, and will she toss him aside for Max, as her dream suggests?

There are a lot of questions, and those are on top of the ones still left unanswered from the Skins plot thread. By this point, the writers understood that their goal was to bring the series to a relative conclusion by the end of the season, so it’s not wrong to expect all the answers to those questions to be answered by the time the final arc begins. As the next few episodes would demonstrate, the writers would continue to struggle with the constant changes to the scope of the story, and not every question would be answered to the satisfaction of the fans.


Memorable Quotes

MAX: “Crap…crap…crap…”

LIZ: “Hello, Brad…would you like fries with that?”

LIZ: “Not that bad? Really? Why don’t you look at this? See! Obsession, obsession, obsession, obsession!”

ISABEL: “You know how many times I have cancelled in the last month? I have no more excuses.”
MAX: “Well, tell him the truth. You’ve been battling evil aliens for control of the planet, and it’s hard to fit him in…”

KYLE: “I have become…an idiot.”
TESS: “Oh, but a cute one!”

VALENTI: “We need to do a little looking around, Mr. Sorensen.”
GRANT: “For what? My igneous rock collection?”

KYLE: “Tess is openly mocking me now. This morning, I woke up with little antennae coming out of my head…”


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode was a nice shift away from relatively vague alien plot threads to the effect of the alien presence on the human world. In particular, the exploration of Valenti’s relationship to the hybrids and their role in his life is very strong. Ultimately this episode only adds more questions to the many left over from the first half of the season, but with the focus on the human side of the equation, the writers pose questions that can actually be answered.

Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 2/4

Final Rating: 8/10