Roswell 2.12: "We Are Family"
Written by Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts
Directed by David Grossman
In which Valenti must face the consequences when he continues to defy authority, while Michael discovers something unusual when another search for Laurie leads to an old photograph…
Status Report
This is the continuation of the so-called “Hybrid Chronicles”, as the network collectively called them, but this was really just the second part of a four-episode arc that took place during the sweeps period. Like the episode that came before it, certain elements were retooled after the announcement that the season would be extended to 22 episodes (which ultimately became 21). In particular, the treatment of Alex and his return was very specific, meant to lead into the plot thread that was still being worked out as the assumptive series-ending arc.
The focus of the story, however, is still very much on Valenti and the cost of his haphazard actions on the behalf of the hybrids themselves. More plot elements are dropped concerning Laurie Dupree and the reasons behind her abduction, but this is mostly about Valenti’s rapid decline. It’s also an interesting look at how the teens react to the realization that defeating the threat from the Skins didn’t let them off the hook. If anything, after months of holding on to some concept of predestination, the sudden lack of direction has led to mental errors and bad judgment.
The opening scene demonstrates how far Valenti let things get out of control. Isabel may have been right, but she and Max never considered the impact on Valenti, especially with someone breathing down his neck the entire time. With Laurie found and a ton of questions still to be answered, there’s no time to make sure the stories are consistent. Valenti, unable to think quickly on his feet, makes more than enough mistakes to bury his chances of getting out of the situation cleanly.
Laurie, however, quickly escalates the situation by leaving the hospital. That places the entire area into a new sense of paranoia, since no one’s sure whether or not the original kidnapper has struck again. Because of the way the case was handled (and as seen in the third season, the slow but steady return of the Special Unit’s subversive tactics), Agent Duff of the FBI is sent in to find Laurie. She convinces Valenti to help out on the case, claiming ambition, but it’s probably closer to the truth to assume that she’s there to observe Valenti and see if she can assess his role in terms of the children in town. Just by pursuing that, her reports would be perfect for the reborn Special Unit to study.
Adding to the list of potential suspects, Alex returns from his time away in Sweden. Since the characters never talked about the fact that he left, the details are kept incredibly vague, beyond what Alex tells them upon his return. This plays into the intentions of the writers for the “final” plot thread, since it lets the rest of the characters make assumptions based on Alex’s apparent memories and those slides. But it also represents something of a shift in Alex’s intended role for this arc. After all, when the story was first conceived, episode 14 was the end of the series. So Alex’s return, and his changed behavior, was probably originally intended to play a role similar to Sean Deluca, presenting another possible suspect in Laurie’s kidnapping.
Kyle hasn’t been deeply involved in the affairs of the hybrids since the beginning of the season, beyond his relationship of sorts with Tess and the situation in “Wipeout!”. This is entirely appropriate, especially since he was never very sympathetic with Max and the others, even after his life was saved. He turned to Buddhism more out of a desire to overcome his anxiety about the hybrids than anything else, and by now, he’s realizing that it doesn’t help. At least part of his negative attitude has to be the impression that his welfare is being placed below the welfare of the hybrids, for whom Valenti had become something of a father figure.
Perhaps predictably, Michael doesn’t give a damn what happens to Valenti, even if he is the one who benefits the most from Valenti’s attention. While it serves the purposes of the plot for Michael to be at the crime scene, so he can find the gandarium crystal, it shows a distinct lack of consideration. As Valenti points out, the situation was already bad enough without the FBI getting involved. (It also seems odd that Michael would be able to visit the scene unnoticed, since someone would inevitably be watching to see if the kidnapper returned.)
Meanwhile, that night, Max intentionally dallies at the Crashdown to keep an eye on Liz. The two of them are clearly getting closer together again, perhaps in the wake of “A Roswell Christmas Carol”, and Liz is making an effort to make Max feel welcome. She’s still worried about Future Max and his predictions of doom, even if the Skins have been defeated and there’s little indication of reinforcements on the way. But her decision to deny Sean the joys of Asteroid Pie, saving the last couple of slices for her and Max, speaks volumes.
Alex definitely displays more confidence than ever, especially when it comes to dealing with Isabel. He might still be interested in her, but his life is no longer revolving around her every whim. If anything, that seems to catch her attention. After all, it was easy enough to keep Alex at a distance when he was openly pursuing her. Having a guy act with less desperation must be new for the gorgeous party girl.
The writers establish that Laurie was paranoid schizophrenic, which actually makes the overall plot arc complicated at best and impossible to reconcile at worst. While it makes it very easy for Valenti and others to explain away her ravings about aliens, some of her claims are obviously true. The gandarium were using Grant to their own ends, so in a sense, “aliens” were kidnapping her. But how exactly did Laurie know about the aliens, if she was being specific?
But far more bizarre is Valenti’s decision to hide Laurie from Agent Duff and have the hybrids come and keep an eye on her. There’s a specific plot convenience involved in that decision, since Laurie must see Michael to mention the fact that he’s supposedly dead. But if Laurie is screaming about the fact that the “aliens” were the ones who kidnapped her, wouldn’t he realize that it would be bad to put her in the same room with aliens? (Never mind what Duff or others would begin to think if they found out that the same teens working with Valenti were the ones Laurie felt a need to run away from!)
Just hours after Max told Liz that someone is out there kidnapping people, one would think that Liz’s discovery of Sean in her house might give her pause. After all, the guy was trespassing and stealing, even though he has a place to stay and somewhere to get food. Instead, she completely ignores the whole issue, to the point where he hits on her and she’s completely unaware of it. Since Sean was introduced largely to feed on the whole kidnapping fear, this scene is completely wasted.
Meanwhile, at the grocery store (apparently explaining why Tess wasn’t called in to help), Kyle gets to overhear locals talking trash about his father. It’s a good scene for three reasons. First, it continues to show Kyle and Tess growing into a pseudo-sibling relationship, with some residual lust lingering in the air. Second, it gives the whole situation a “real world” angle, reminding the audience that there are consequences for Valenti quite apart from the need to protect the hybrids. And finally, it firmly establishes that Amy is very serious regarding her relationship with Valenti.
Laurie’s ravings certainly sound like schizophrenia, and they are similar enough to the claims of aliens kidnapping her to make it all sound like delusional ranting. But as with the earlier scene, it makes it hard to understand why someone would go through all the trouble to abduct her. And why she was relatively sane at the end of the previous episode, despite not being on medication for days!
Things go from bad and confusing to much, much worse when Laurie sees Michael. This is a fairly obvious plot point, in retrospect, but it’s easy to forget that the hybrids had to have gotten their human DNA from somewhere. But it does serve to openly expose Valenti and make any chance of saving his job completely moot. It’s been a long time coming, going back since the end of the first season, but it’s still tragic to watch his entire world fall apart.
The conversation between Alex and Liz is obviously a late addition to the script. It has a ton of elements that play into the arc at the end of the season, especially in terms of Alex’s dialogue. Alex mentions that he sometimes “doesn’t recognize himself”, and constantly talks about the “old” and “new” Alex Whitman. Considering the fact that he was only supposed to be away for a month, it’s hard to imagine that he would really feel like a new young man in that period of time, especially since he slips right back into his old life. Add to that the curious episode continuity mistake in Liz’s dialogue, and it feels like a late addition to the script.
With everything happening, and the hybrids more or less unaware of the depth of the disaster for the Valenti household, Kyle is understandably confrontational. So it doesn’t help when Max asks him to put himself on the line again, all for some evidence that has worse implications for Max and the others than his father, despite what Max might say. By the time Max talks to Liz, however, the message seems to be sinking in. He hears Liz talk about wanting to see the world, and realizes that he and the others are holding their human allies back from the life they deserve to live. Oddly, it was something that Max had a hard time seeing when Liz was trying to explain it at the beginning of the season.
Kyle does exactly what Max asks him to do, but he can’t disguise his disgust over the situation, even when Tess helps him save his own skin. With his father’s formal dismissal, Kyle has every reason to tell Max to take a flying leap. The writers use the situation to place Tess in a difficult position. Still on the outside looking in when it comes to the other hybrids, the Valenti household has become her one source of stability. But it’s impossible for her not to take Kyle’s words against Max, Michael, and Isabel personally. It would have been easy to miss that aspect of the situation, but the writers make an effort to include that dynamic.
Max and Isabel seem sympathetic to Valenti’s plight, but not enough to actually do something about it. This is interesting, because Valenti got himself in his current plight because he was acting on their behalf, not his own. If Isabel hadn’t gone to Valenti and forced him to take action based on her dream-walking, the current crisis would not have come to pass. Yet for all that, Michael’s dismissive words about honoring the fact that Valenti chose their cause give Max and Isabel all the absolution they need.
It’s interesting that Max doesn’t try to include Liz on the analysis of the blue crystal. She might have been able to tell them more about the meaning of the blue cellular structure. For one thing, such a structure is inherently organic in nature, despite appearances. Also, the type of sample taken and analyzed strongly suggests an organic source. Liz would probably know that, and would be able to tell them something meaningful about what was found at the crime scene.
The rest of the episode is a nice transitional phase, moving from Valenti’s downward spiral towards the second half of the arc. Amy helps Valenti resist the urge to isolate himself from the rest of the world, keeping his spirits up and giving him perspective. Sean actually helps Liz deal with the fact that she wants more out of life than Max can currently give her, something that would continue to stand in their way for a few more episodes. But the best scene might be the one between Tess and Kyle, where Kyle awkwardly displays the depth of his affection for Tess, when she thinks that he wants her out of the house. It’s quite unfortunate that the subsequent episodes would stray away from the romance that was building between them.
The most important revelation, however, comes with the final scene, in which Michael and Isabel find a picture of Laurie’s grandfather from 1932, and it looks exactly like Michael. It creates a connection between Michael’s hybrid DNA and the human source that must have somehow been involved, but it also raises several other questions, that can now be added to the list that began after the previous episode. Those questions were:
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? (Answered!)
What will happen to Kyle?
Will Liz become attracted to Sean, and will she toss him aside for Max, as her dream suggests?
Only one of those questions has been answered in this episode: Valenti did, in fact, lose his job for protecting the hybrids. The new questions are:
Is Agent Duff really there just to investigate Laurie’s disappearance?
Does Laurie really have paranoid schizophrenia?
Why was her file at the psychiatric hospital empty?
How are Michael and Laurie’s grandfather connected?
How did Laurie know about aliens being involved in her abduction?
What is the crystal, and why does it seem to be alive?
Why was the crystal placed in the same spot that Laurie was buried?
Why wasn’t the crystal at the crime scene when Laurie was found?
That’s 16 questions raised by the past two episodes, presumably to be answered by the end of the mini-arc comprised of episodes 11 through 14. As the episodes continue, this will be used as a measure of how the need to revise the mini-arc from a series finale to an ongoing story, to accommodate the network waffling, seriously affected the ability of the writers to do their job correctly.
This is another strong episode for Valenti, and many of the character moments are very well done. But the central plot doesn’t really go anywhere new, since the events that take place are either already in motion when the episode begins (Valenti’s fall) or setting up the events to follow (Michael’s discovery about Laurie). The theme of family is covered by Alex’s return, the dynamic between Kyle and Tess, and of course, the final scene, but it’s a very loose theme that masks the fact that the episode is largely transitional.
None of which is very surprising, since the story started in the previous episode, and the next two episodes are technically a two-part installment. So this is the middle installment of a kind of trilogy, and typically, the second part of a trilogy is the weakest link, since most of the pieces are on the board but the endgame is still several moves away. The result is an episode that takes a relatively obvious consequence and drags it out over the course of an hour. In the long run, most of what happens in this episode could have easily been covered at the beginning of the next. Considering the blistering pace of the first half of the season, that’s not something that one would have expected.
Memorable Quotes
TESS: “Let’s get out of here…this polyester number is not working for me…”
SEAN: “Alice.”
ALEX: “Hey, that’s funny…I haven’t heard that since they put you away!”
LIZ: “We’re friends. You know…we’re friends plus…”
TESS: “Kyle?”
KYLE: “What?”
TESS: “You’re definitely my favorite human.”
KYLE: “Yeah, well…you’re my favorite Martian…”
Final Analysis
Overall, this episode is something of a mess. Being at the center of a four-episode arc, the events are largely transitional. As tragic as Valenti’s slow but steady fall might be, most of what happens in this episode is thematically a repeat of what happened in the previous episode. Alex’s return is quite welcome, as is the relationship between Kyle and Tess, but that’s not enough to overcome the weaknesses.
Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 1/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 5/10
Directed by David Grossman
In which Valenti must face the consequences when he continues to defy authority, while Michael discovers something unusual when another search for Laurie leads to an old photograph…
Status Report
This is the continuation of the so-called “Hybrid Chronicles”, as the network collectively called them, but this was really just the second part of a four-episode arc that took place during the sweeps period. Like the episode that came before it, certain elements were retooled after the announcement that the season would be extended to 22 episodes (which ultimately became 21). In particular, the treatment of Alex and his return was very specific, meant to lead into the plot thread that was still being worked out as the assumptive series-ending arc.
The focus of the story, however, is still very much on Valenti and the cost of his haphazard actions on the behalf of the hybrids themselves. More plot elements are dropped concerning Laurie Dupree and the reasons behind her abduction, but this is mostly about Valenti’s rapid decline. It’s also an interesting look at how the teens react to the realization that defeating the threat from the Skins didn’t let them off the hook. If anything, after months of holding on to some concept of predestination, the sudden lack of direction has led to mental errors and bad judgment.
The opening scene demonstrates how far Valenti let things get out of control. Isabel may have been right, but she and Max never considered the impact on Valenti, especially with someone breathing down his neck the entire time. With Laurie found and a ton of questions still to be answered, there’s no time to make sure the stories are consistent. Valenti, unable to think quickly on his feet, makes more than enough mistakes to bury his chances of getting out of the situation cleanly.
Laurie, however, quickly escalates the situation by leaving the hospital. That places the entire area into a new sense of paranoia, since no one’s sure whether or not the original kidnapper has struck again. Because of the way the case was handled (and as seen in the third season, the slow but steady return of the Special Unit’s subversive tactics), Agent Duff of the FBI is sent in to find Laurie. She convinces Valenti to help out on the case, claiming ambition, but it’s probably closer to the truth to assume that she’s there to observe Valenti and see if she can assess his role in terms of the children in town. Just by pursuing that, her reports would be perfect for the reborn Special Unit to study.
Adding to the list of potential suspects, Alex returns from his time away in Sweden. Since the characters never talked about the fact that he left, the details are kept incredibly vague, beyond what Alex tells them upon his return. This plays into the intentions of the writers for the “final” plot thread, since it lets the rest of the characters make assumptions based on Alex’s apparent memories and those slides. But it also represents something of a shift in Alex’s intended role for this arc. After all, when the story was first conceived, episode 14 was the end of the series. So Alex’s return, and his changed behavior, was probably originally intended to play a role similar to Sean Deluca, presenting another possible suspect in Laurie’s kidnapping.
Kyle hasn’t been deeply involved in the affairs of the hybrids since the beginning of the season, beyond his relationship of sorts with Tess and the situation in “Wipeout!”. This is entirely appropriate, especially since he was never very sympathetic with Max and the others, even after his life was saved. He turned to Buddhism more out of a desire to overcome his anxiety about the hybrids than anything else, and by now, he’s realizing that it doesn’t help. At least part of his negative attitude has to be the impression that his welfare is being placed below the welfare of the hybrids, for whom Valenti had become something of a father figure.
Perhaps predictably, Michael doesn’t give a damn what happens to Valenti, even if he is the one who benefits the most from Valenti’s attention. While it serves the purposes of the plot for Michael to be at the crime scene, so he can find the gandarium crystal, it shows a distinct lack of consideration. As Valenti points out, the situation was already bad enough without the FBI getting involved. (It also seems odd that Michael would be able to visit the scene unnoticed, since someone would inevitably be watching to see if the kidnapper returned.)
Meanwhile, that night, Max intentionally dallies at the Crashdown to keep an eye on Liz. The two of them are clearly getting closer together again, perhaps in the wake of “A Roswell Christmas Carol”, and Liz is making an effort to make Max feel welcome. She’s still worried about Future Max and his predictions of doom, even if the Skins have been defeated and there’s little indication of reinforcements on the way. But her decision to deny Sean the joys of Asteroid Pie, saving the last couple of slices for her and Max, speaks volumes.
Alex definitely displays more confidence than ever, especially when it comes to dealing with Isabel. He might still be interested in her, but his life is no longer revolving around her every whim. If anything, that seems to catch her attention. After all, it was easy enough to keep Alex at a distance when he was openly pursuing her. Having a guy act with less desperation must be new for the gorgeous party girl.
The writers establish that Laurie was paranoid schizophrenic, which actually makes the overall plot arc complicated at best and impossible to reconcile at worst. While it makes it very easy for Valenti and others to explain away her ravings about aliens, some of her claims are obviously true. The gandarium were using Grant to their own ends, so in a sense, “aliens” were kidnapping her. But how exactly did Laurie know about the aliens, if she was being specific?
But far more bizarre is Valenti’s decision to hide Laurie from Agent Duff and have the hybrids come and keep an eye on her. There’s a specific plot convenience involved in that decision, since Laurie must see Michael to mention the fact that he’s supposedly dead. But if Laurie is screaming about the fact that the “aliens” were the ones who kidnapped her, wouldn’t he realize that it would be bad to put her in the same room with aliens? (Never mind what Duff or others would begin to think if they found out that the same teens working with Valenti were the ones Laurie felt a need to run away from!)
Just hours after Max told Liz that someone is out there kidnapping people, one would think that Liz’s discovery of Sean in her house might give her pause. After all, the guy was trespassing and stealing, even though he has a place to stay and somewhere to get food. Instead, she completely ignores the whole issue, to the point where he hits on her and she’s completely unaware of it. Since Sean was introduced largely to feed on the whole kidnapping fear, this scene is completely wasted.
Meanwhile, at the grocery store (apparently explaining why Tess wasn’t called in to help), Kyle gets to overhear locals talking trash about his father. It’s a good scene for three reasons. First, it continues to show Kyle and Tess growing into a pseudo-sibling relationship, with some residual lust lingering in the air. Second, it gives the whole situation a “real world” angle, reminding the audience that there are consequences for Valenti quite apart from the need to protect the hybrids. And finally, it firmly establishes that Amy is very serious regarding her relationship with Valenti.
Laurie’s ravings certainly sound like schizophrenia, and they are similar enough to the claims of aliens kidnapping her to make it all sound like delusional ranting. But as with the earlier scene, it makes it hard to understand why someone would go through all the trouble to abduct her. And why she was relatively sane at the end of the previous episode, despite not being on medication for days!
Things go from bad and confusing to much, much worse when Laurie sees Michael. This is a fairly obvious plot point, in retrospect, but it’s easy to forget that the hybrids had to have gotten their human DNA from somewhere. But it does serve to openly expose Valenti and make any chance of saving his job completely moot. It’s been a long time coming, going back since the end of the first season, but it’s still tragic to watch his entire world fall apart.
The conversation between Alex and Liz is obviously a late addition to the script. It has a ton of elements that play into the arc at the end of the season, especially in terms of Alex’s dialogue. Alex mentions that he sometimes “doesn’t recognize himself”, and constantly talks about the “old” and “new” Alex Whitman. Considering the fact that he was only supposed to be away for a month, it’s hard to imagine that he would really feel like a new young man in that period of time, especially since he slips right back into his old life. Add to that the curious episode continuity mistake in Liz’s dialogue, and it feels like a late addition to the script.
With everything happening, and the hybrids more or less unaware of the depth of the disaster for the Valenti household, Kyle is understandably confrontational. So it doesn’t help when Max asks him to put himself on the line again, all for some evidence that has worse implications for Max and the others than his father, despite what Max might say. By the time Max talks to Liz, however, the message seems to be sinking in. He hears Liz talk about wanting to see the world, and realizes that he and the others are holding their human allies back from the life they deserve to live. Oddly, it was something that Max had a hard time seeing when Liz was trying to explain it at the beginning of the season.
Kyle does exactly what Max asks him to do, but he can’t disguise his disgust over the situation, even when Tess helps him save his own skin. With his father’s formal dismissal, Kyle has every reason to tell Max to take a flying leap. The writers use the situation to place Tess in a difficult position. Still on the outside looking in when it comes to the other hybrids, the Valenti household has become her one source of stability. But it’s impossible for her not to take Kyle’s words against Max, Michael, and Isabel personally. It would have been easy to miss that aspect of the situation, but the writers make an effort to include that dynamic.
Max and Isabel seem sympathetic to Valenti’s plight, but not enough to actually do something about it. This is interesting, because Valenti got himself in his current plight because he was acting on their behalf, not his own. If Isabel hadn’t gone to Valenti and forced him to take action based on her dream-walking, the current crisis would not have come to pass. Yet for all that, Michael’s dismissive words about honoring the fact that Valenti chose their cause give Max and Isabel all the absolution they need.
It’s interesting that Max doesn’t try to include Liz on the analysis of the blue crystal. She might have been able to tell them more about the meaning of the blue cellular structure. For one thing, such a structure is inherently organic in nature, despite appearances. Also, the type of sample taken and analyzed strongly suggests an organic source. Liz would probably know that, and would be able to tell them something meaningful about what was found at the crime scene.
The rest of the episode is a nice transitional phase, moving from Valenti’s downward spiral towards the second half of the arc. Amy helps Valenti resist the urge to isolate himself from the rest of the world, keeping his spirits up and giving him perspective. Sean actually helps Liz deal with the fact that she wants more out of life than Max can currently give her, something that would continue to stand in their way for a few more episodes. But the best scene might be the one between Tess and Kyle, where Kyle awkwardly displays the depth of his affection for Tess, when she thinks that he wants her out of the house. It’s quite unfortunate that the subsequent episodes would stray away from the romance that was building between them.
The most important revelation, however, comes with the final scene, in which Michael and Isabel find a picture of Laurie’s grandfather from 1932, and it looks exactly like Michael. It creates a connection between Michael’s hybrid DNA and the human source that must have somehow been involved, but it also raises several other questions, that can now be added to the list that began after the previous episode. Those questions were:
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? (Answered!)
What will happen to Kyle?
Will Liz become attracted to Sean, and will she toss him aside for Max, as her dream suggests?
Only one of those questions has been answered in this episode: Valenti did, in fact, lose his job for protecting the hybrids. The new questions are:
Is Agent Duff really there just to investigate Laurie’s disappearance?
Does Laurie really have paranoid schizophrenia?
Why was her file at the psychiatric hospital empty?
How are Michael and Laurie’s grandfather connected?
How did Laurie know about aliens being involved in her abduction?
What is the crystal, and why does it seem to be alive?
Why was the crystal placed in the same spot that Laurie was buried?
Why wasn’t the crystal at the crime scene when Laurie was found?
That’s 16 questions raised by the past two episodes, presumably to be answered by the end of the mini-arc comprised of episodes 11 through 14. As the episodes continue, this will be used as a measure of how the need to revise the mini-arc from a series finale to an ongoing story, to accommodate the network waffling, seriously affected the ability of the writers to do their job correctly.
This is another strong episode for Valenti, and many of the character moments are very well done. But the central plot doesn’t really go anywhere new, since the events that take place are either already in motion when the episode begins (Valenti’s fall) or setting up the events to follow (Michael’s discovery about Laurie). The theme of family is covered by Alex’s return, the dynamic between Kyle and Tess, and of course, the final scene, but it’s a very loose theme that masks the fact that the episode is largely transitional.
None of which is very surprising, since the story started in the previous episode, and the next two episodes are technically a two-part installment. So this is the middle installment of a kind of trilogy, and typically, the second part of a trilogy is the weakest link, since most of the pieces are on the board but the endgame is still several moves away. The result is an episode that takes a relatively obvious consequence and drags it out over the course of an hour. In the long run, most of what happens in this episode could have easily been covered at the beginning of the next. Considering the blistering pace of the first half of the season, that’s not something that one would have expected.
Memorable Quotes
TESS: “Let’s get out of here…this polyester number is not working for me…”
SEAN: “Alice.”
ALEX: “Hey, that’s funny…I haven’t heard that since they put you away!”
LIZ: “We’re friends. You know…we’re friends plus…”
TESS: “Kyle?”
KYLE: “What?”
TESS: “You’re definitely my favorite human.”
KYLE: “Yeah, well…you’re my favorite Martian…”
Final Analysis
Overall, this episode is something of a mess. Being at the center of a four-episode arc, the events are largely transitional. As tragic as Valenti’s slow but steady fall might be, most of what happens in this episode is thematically a repeat of what happened in the previous episode. Alex’s return is quite welcome, as is the relationship between Kyle and Tess, but that’s not enough to overcome the weaknesses.
Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 1/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 5/10
posted by John Keegan | 16:30
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