Roswell 2.14: "How the Other Half Lives"
Written by Jason Katims, Ronald Moore, Gretchen Berg, Aaron Harberts, and Breen Frazier
Directed by Paul Shapiro
In which Michael and Maria outmaneuver Laurie’s relatives, while the threat of the gandarium comes to a head when Grant makes one last attempt to infect Laurie…
Status Report
Upon watching this episode, several things become apparent. The first is that this was originally meant to be the final episode of the second season, since the writers originally had no expectation that the series would continue past the 13-episode order granted at the end of the first season. There’s a sense of attempting closure on some of the character arcs that hadn’t been fully addressed already.
It’s equally clear that the writers found it much harder to make revisions to this episode once the rest of the second season was greenlit. Earlier episodes of the “Hybrid Chronicles” were changed here and there to alleviate the impression that this was the end of an era. But there’s precious little of that in this episode. The focus is wrapping up everything possible in as little time as possible.
Unlike the previous two episodes, which were the middle act to this mini-arc and therefore could avoid the problem of plot holes more easily, this episode needs to pull all the pieces together and give them relevance. As flawed as they were, the episodes in the first half of the season began with a simple but satisfying philosophical concept: destiny vs. free will. Max, Michael, and Isabel were warring against the demands of their alien heritage while struggling to find their place in the human world.
Coming into the “Hybrid Chronicles”, Max had been forced to deal with Antar politics and his role as deposed king, and he ultimately chose to stay on Earth and fight another day. Isabel also come to the conclusion that she is not Vilandra and is not destined to betray her brother against her will. Somehow, those moments of semi-clarity allowed Max and Isabel to set their internal conflicts aside. And since Max and Liz came to a certain point where they can be friends again, there’s not much movement in that regard, either.
That leaves Michael and Maria. These episodes have been focused on Michael in a major way, which is somewhat odd, since initially he had very little to do with Laurie’s story. But of all the characters, he needed to find a connection to humanity and a reason for staying on Earth. Maria was part of that, but in this episode, Laurie’s genetic connection to him gives him something more tangible.
With a bit of hand-waving and glossing over, the whole gandarium issue is resolved in a rather lame and unsatisfying way. Even this plot thread was obviously never meant to extend beyond this episode, meant more as a plot device for exploring how deeply connected the hybrids are to the humans in their world than a plot element in and of themselves. Indeed, this highlights the main problem with the science fiction elements this season: too often, they were simply a quick and dirty source of conflicts that were never taken far enough to have deep meaning or consequence.
This is ironic, since Jason Katims’ usual weakness is building up consequences and situations that are almost impossible for the characters to survive in a realistic fashion. Several of the first season episodes had disappointing fourth acts because some plot contrivance saved the characters. The difference was that the consequences were more direct to the everyday lives of the hybrids and their relationships, and thus important to the audience. Beyond the excellent exploration of Valenti’s downfall (the details of which don’t mesh with how his evasiveness is treated in this episode) and Liz’s emotional upheaval in “The End of the World”, the consequences have been too broad, and often deferred to another world, safely off-screen. There’s nothing to give the audience a reason to personalize the consequences.
This being the final episode of the “Hybrid Chronicles” mini-arc, it’s time to revisit the many open questions raised in the previous three episodes:
Did Grant really abduct Laurie? (Answered.)
Why was Laurie abducted and placed in the ground? (Effectively answered.)
What is the connection between Isabel and Laurie?
What did Isabel see when she touched Laurie? (Effectively answered.)
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?
Is Agent Duff really there just to investigate Laurie’s disappearance? (Apparently answered.)
Does Laurie really have paranoid schizophrenia?
Why was her file at the psychiatric hospital empty? (Directly contradicted.)
How are Michael and Laurie’s grandfather connected? (Answered.)
How did Laurie know about aliens being involved in her abduction?
What is the crystal, and why does it seem to be alive? (Answered.)
Why was the crystal placed in the same spot that Laurie was buried? (Answered.)
Why wasn’t the crystal at the crime scene when Laurie was found? (Effectively answered.)
Why did Grant abduct Laurie and place her in the ground?
Will Duff get Valenti his job back?
Why didn’t the gandarium attack Max?
Why didn’t the gandarium attack Valenti?
Why are the gandarium dangerous to Earth?
Why didn’t anyone worry about gandarium “infection” immediately after the crash?
Why is “infection” dangerous to the hybrids?
This episode explains more fully why Grant abducted Laurie and placed her in the ground. As stated rather obliquely in the episode, the same genetic “flaw” that made Laurie’s family ideal as a source of human DNA for the hybrids also made her the perfect catalyst to mutate the gandarium from a safe, crystalline form to a highly lethal infectious form. Grant, “possessed” by the gandarium “queen”, wanted to use Laurie to make this change. This makes a certain amount of sense, though there are some major problems with this concept. (This also explains why Laurie was buried in that particular spot.)
But while this explains the connection between Michael and Laurie, since Laurie’s grandfather had the same genetic flaw and was therefore chosen by Max’s people as a source of human DNA, it doesn’t explain why Isabel felt a connection to Laurie in “To Serve and Protect”. That connection was important, because otherwise, there’s no reason for anyone to know that Laurie is in danger. The episode suggests, very indirectly, that Isabel’s human DNA might come from someone else in Laurie’s family, but it’s not really addressed and that’s a major assumption.
Also dropped from the early part of the mini-arc is the suggestion that Dan knew far more about Valenti’s activities and the situation in Roswell than ultimately revealed. Since Dan is replaced by Agent Duff as the person hounding Valenti in the story, this is completely dropped. One could connect Dan to the information that the revived Special Unit has at the end of the third season, but again, that’s not something explained in the episodes themselves. But given all the questions about Max Evans, Dan’s suspicions and their sudden absence are a plot hole.
In “To Serve and Protect”, Kyle was rather worried about the psychical or mental changes that would come, now that everyone knows the healing thing changes people. In “We are Family”, Kyle came to the realization that Tess is now a part of his world, and he can’t divorce himself from the aliens completely. By the end of this episode, he seems more at peace with the idea of being part of the gang, even if it’s reluctant. But his central issue is left open for the future.
The Liz/Sean thing is revealed as a complete waste of time, since Sean never really gels as a true threat to the relationship between Liz and Max. Of course, in the long run, this is a step in the right direction, since the two of them have been apart for some time but remain friends. This is an unstable situation, and Sean’s presence helped to show how Liz is still in Max’s orbit, even when alternatives exist.
This episode would seem to suggest that Laurie doesn’t have paranoid schizophrenia, since Pinecrest was holding her under orders from Bobby and Meredith, who were raiding her inheritance. If that’s the case, then her apparent memory problems could have been a result of being given anti-psychotic medication when she didn’t really need it, mixed with the unique genetic “flaw” that might have amplified the effects.
This episode does explain why Laurie would be convinced that aliens were involved in her abduction. Beyond the effects of any medication in her system, she was close to her grandfather, and he was convinced that he was being repeatedly abducted by aliens. In fact, it would appear he was, because Max’s people would have been experimenting with the hybridization at some point. This also indirectly addresses an earlier dangling plot thread. After all, some previous connection between Earth and Antar had to exist; this episode suggests that it was a rare genetic flaw that allowed the hybridization to work, and humanity’s gene pool happens to contain that flaw.
The dynamic between Duff and Valenti is hard to understand in this episode. In the past, Valenti’s inability to explain his actions had led to serious repercussions. Valenti is even more vague at times in this episode, and yet Duff trusts him enough to listen to him and follow his lead. Perhaps this is a reaction to the fact that he was right about Grant in the previous episode; if so, it doesn’t quite add up.
The resolution of this plot thread is major evidence that this was originally conceived as the end of the series. Valenti’s future is never addressed, largely because it was never going to be an issue. Duff’s report and her career aren’t an issue, because the threat she represents is essentially removed from the equation, never to be seen again. (Some of what she uncovers eventually gets to the revived Special Unit in the third season.)
While the “genetic flaw” explains why Valenti was safe, and the fact that gandarium is only “programmed” to attack humans explains why the hybrids were safe and Earth was in danger, it’s not at all clear why the gandarium would have been on the ship that crashed and why the infection of Earth is a danger to the hybrids, as Larek said it was. If the gandarium was used to adapt the human cells in a way that would allow them to bind with alien cells, then they would have been needed to create the hybrids; having them on the ship wouldn’t serve a purpose. And even if the gandarium was dangerous to humanity, and the hybrids couldn’t heal those infected, what danger would that pose, beyond leaving the hybrids completely exposed on a barren world?
The presence of the gandarium and the complete lack of attention to its spread throughout Earth’s ecosystem is left unexplained, and this once again highlights the problem of writing posed by the shifting support of the network. Had the series ended with this episode, the glaring plot hole might not have been such a big deal; after all, there would be no future exploration of the concept. But with the series continuing and few changes made to the story, this becomes a massive plot hole.
This mini-arc is a perfect example of the writing struggles encountered in the second season. While the writers had found it impossible to maintain a long-term plot outline when network support was minimal at best, they struggled with the dual requirement of adding science fiction elements while leaving the plot threads open to future exploration. Fundamental questions remained unanswered, and ultimately, the audience begins to believe that the writers don’t know where they’re going. This episode in particular wraps up what should have been tight and compelling arc with a disappointing and inconsistent finale.
This episode was also written and re-written by nearly everyone on the writing staff. Writing by committee rarely works for an episode, and it certainly doesn’t work with the final chapter of any story. The complicated revision history of the script tells the story of how network interference kept changing the rules of the game. Once the writers became aware that the season was extended, however, a more consistent approach was implemented. The network would derail those plans again, of course, as would be the case with every apparent finale for the rest of the series’ run.
Memorable Quotes
BOBBY: “Mr. Guerin! You and your accomplice with the…lips…are trespassing!”
KYLE: “See, I guess what I have a problem with is that suddenly I’m a member of this club I never wanted to join.”
ALEX: “Yeah.”
KYLE: “And it turns out this club bears a striking resemblance to a chain gang…”
ALEX: “Think about it…we not only met aliens, but they killed us. How many people can say that?”
KYLE: “You’re getting delirious, is that it?”
Final Analysis
Overall, this episode is a disappointing conclusion to a disappointing story arc. What started as an intriguing exploration of the effect of the aliens on the humans helping them turned into a poorly explained and inconsistent “alien invasion” story. While Michael’s exploration of his human ancestry works well in theory, the execution was not as strong as it might have been in the first season. Like the arc it completes, this episode is a perfect example of the writing struggles of the second season.
Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 1/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 5/10
Directed by Paul Shapiro
In which Michael and Maria outmaneuver Laurie’s relatives, while the threat of the gandarium comes to a head when Grant makes one last attempt to infect Laurie…
Status Report
Upon watching this episode, several things become apparent. The first is that this was originally meant to be the final episode of the second season, since the writers originally had no expectation that the series would continue past the 13-episode order granted at the end of the first season. There’s a sense of attempting closure on some of the character arcs that hadn’t been fully addressed already.
It’s equally clear that the writers found it much harder to make revisions to this episode once the rest of the second season was greenlit. Earlier episodes of the “Hybrid Chronicles” were changed here and there to alleviate the impression that this was the end of an era. But there’s precious little of that in this episode. The focus is wrapping up everything possible in as little time as possible.
Unlike the previous two episodes, which were the middle act to this mini-arc and therefore could avoid the problem of plot holes more easily, this episode needs to pull all the pieces together and give them relevance. As flawed as they were, the episodes in the first half of the season began with a simple but satisfying philosophical concept: destiny vs. free will. Max, Michael, and Isabel were warring against the demands of their alien heritage while struggling to find their place in the human world.
Coming into the “Hybrid Chronicles”, Max had been forced to deal with Antar politics and his role as deposed king, and he ultimately chose to stay on Earth and fight another day. Isabel also come to the conclusion that she is not Vilandra and is not destined to betray her brother against her will. Somehow, those moments of semi-clarity allowed Max and Isabel to set their internal conflicts aside. And since Max and Liz came to a certain point where they can be friends again, there’s not much movement in that regard, either.
That leaves Michael and Maria. These episodes have been focused on Michael in a major way, which is somewhat odd, since initially he had very little to do with Laurie’s story. But of all the characters, he needed to find a connection to humanity and a reason for staying on Earth. Maria was part of that, but in this episode, Laurie’s genetic connection to him gives him something more tangible.
With a bit of hand-waving and glossing over, the whole gandarium issue is resolved in a rather lame and unsatisfying way. Even this plot thread was obviously never meant to extend beyond this episode, meant more as a plot device for exploring how deeply connected the hybrids are to the humans in their world than a plot element in and of themselves. Indeed, this highlights the main problem with the science fiction elements this season: too often, they were simply a quick and dirty source of conflicts that were never taken far enough to have deep meaning or consequence.
This is ironic, since Jason Katims’ usual weakness is building up consequences and situations that are almost impossible for the characters to survive in a realistic fashion. Several of the first season episodes had disappointing fourth acts because some plot contrivance saved the characters. The difference was that the consequences were more direct to the everyday lives of the hybrids and their relationships, and thus important to the audience. Beyond the excellent exploration of Valenti’s downfall (the details of which don’t mesh with how his evasiveness is treated in this episode) and Liz’s emotional upheaval in “The End of the World”, the consequences have been too broad, and often deferred to another world, safely off-screen. There’s nothing to give the audience a reason to personalize the consequences.
This being the final episode of the “Hybrid Chronicles” mini-arc, it’s time to revisit the many open questions raised in the previous three episodes:
Did Grant really abduct Laurie? (Answered.)
Why was Laurie abducted and placed in the ground? (Effectively answered.)
What is the connection between Isabel and Laurie?
What did Isabel see when she touched Laurie? (Effectively answered.)
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?
Is Agent Duff really there just to investigate Laurie’s disappearance? (Apparently answered.)
Does Laurie really have paranoid schizophrenia?
Why was her file at the psychiatric hospital empty? (Directly contradicted.)
How are Michael and Laurie’s grandfather connected? (Answered.)
How did Laurie know about aliens being involved in her abduction?
What is the crystal, and why does it seem to be alive? (Answered.)
Why was the crystal placed in the same spot that Laurie was buried? (Answered.)
Why wasn’t the crystal at the crime scene when Laurie was found? (Effectively answered.)
Why did Grant abduct Laurie and place her in the ground?
Will Duff get Valenti his job back?
Why didn’t the gandarium attack Max?
Why didn’t the gandarium attack Valenti?
Why are the gandarium dangerous to Earth?
Why didn’t anyone worry about gandarium “infection” immediately after the crash?
Why is “infection” dangerous to the hybrids?
This episode explains more fully why Grant abducted Laurie and placed her in the ground. As stated rather obliquely in the episode, the same genetic “flaw” that made Laurie’s family ideal as a source of human DNA for the hybrids also made her the perfect catalyst to mutate the gandarium from a safe, crystalline form to a highly lethal infectious form. Grant, “possessed” by the gandarium “queen”, wanted to use Laurie to make this change. This makes a certain amount of sense, though there are some major problems with this concept. (This also explains why Laurie was buried in that particular spot.)
But while this explains the connection between Michael and Laurie, since Laurie’s grandfather had the same genetic flaw and was therefore chosen by Max’s people as a source of human DNA, it doesn’t explain why Isabel felt a connection to Laurie in “To Serve and Protect”. That connection was important, because otherwise, there’s no reason for anyone to know that Laurie is in danger. The episode suggests, very indirectly, that Isabel’s human DNA might come from someone else in Laurie’s family, but it’s not really addressed and that’s a major assumption.
Also dropped from the early part of the mini-arc is the suggestion that Dan knew far more about Valenti’s activities and the situation in Roswell than ultimately revealed. Since Dan is replaced by Agent Duff as the person hounding Valenti in the story, this is completely dropped. One could connect Dan to the information that the revived Special Unit has at the end of the third season, but again, that’s not something explained in the episodes themselves. But given all the questions about Max Evans, Dan’s suspicions and their sudden absence are a plot hole.
In “To Serve and Protect”, Kyle was rather worried about the psychical or mental changes that would come, now that everyone knows the healing thing changes people. In “We are Family”, Kyle came to the realization that Tess is now a part of his world, and he can’t divorce himself from the aliens completely. By the end of this episode, he seems more at peace with the idea of being part of the gang, even if it’s reluctant. But his central issue is left open for the future.
The Liz/Sean thing is revealed as a complete waste of time, since Sean never really gels as a true threat to the relationship between Liz and Max. Of course, in the long run, this is a step in the right direction, since the two of them have been apart for some time but remain friends. This is an unstable situation, and Sean’s presence helped to show how Liz is still in Max’s orbit, even when alternatives exist.
This episode would seem to suggest that Laurie doesn’t have paranoid schizophrenia, since Pinecrest was holding her under orders from Bobby and Meredith, who were raiding her inheritance. If that’s the case, then her apparent memory problems could have been a result of being given anti-psychotic medication when she didn’t really need it, mixed with the unique genetic “flaw” that might have amplified the effects.
This episode does explain why Laurie would be convinced that aliens were involved in her abduction. Beyond the effects of any medication in her system, she was close to her grandfather, and he was convinced that he was being repeatedly abducted by aliens. In fact, it would appear he was, because Max’s people would have been experimenting with the hybridization at some point. This also indirectly addresses an earlier dangling plot thread. After all, some previous connection between Earth and Antar had to exist; this episode suggests that it was a rare genetic flaw that allowed the hybridization to work, and humanity’s gene pool happens to contain that flaw.
The dynamic between Duff and Valenti is hard to understand in this episode. In the past, Valenti’s inability to explain his actions had led to serious repercussions. Valenti is even more vague at times in this episode, and yet Duff trusts him enough to listen to him and follow his lead. Perhaps this is a reaction to the fact that he was right about Grant in the previous episode; if so, it doesn’t quite add up.
The resolution of this plot thread is major evidence that this was originally conceived as the end of the series. Valenti’s future is never addressed, largely because it was never going to be an issue. Duff’s report and her career aren’t an issue, because the threat she represents is essentially removed from the equation, never to be seen again. (Some of what she uncovers eventually gets to the revived Special Unit in the third season.)
While the “genetic flaw” explains why Valenti was safe, and the fact that gandarium is only “programmed” to attack humans explains why the hybrids were safe and Earth was in danger, it’s not at all clear why the gandarium would have been on the ship that crashed and why the infection of Earth is a danger to the hybrids, as Larek said it was. If the gandarium was used to adapt the human cells in a way that would allow them to bind with alien cells, then they would have been needed to create the hybrids; having them on the ship wouldn’t serve a purpose. And even if the gandarium was dangerous to humanity, and the hybrids couldn’t heal those infected, what danger would that pose, beyond leaving the hybrids completely exposed on a barren world?
The presence of the gandarium and the complete lack of attention to its spread throughout Earth’s ecosystem is left unexplained, and this once again highlights the problem of writing posed by the shifting support of the network. Had the series ended with this episode, the glaring plot hole might not have been such a big deal; after all, there would be no future exploration of the concept. But with the series continuing and few changes made to the story, this becomes a massive plot hole.
This mini-arc is a perfect example of the writing struggles encountered in the second season. While the writers had found it impossible to maintain a long-term plot outline when network support was minimal at best, they struggled with the dual requirement of adding science fiction elements while leaving the plot threads open to future exploration. Fundamental questions remained unanswered, and ultimately, the audience begins to believe that the writers don’t know where they’re going. This episode in particular wraps up what should have been tight and compelling arc with a disappointing and inconsistent finale.
This episode was also written and re-written by nearly everyone on the writing staff. Writing by committee rarely works for an episode, and it certainly doesn’t work with the final chapter of any story. The complicated revision history of the script tells the story of how network interference kept changing the rules of the game. Once the writers became aware that the season was extended, however, a more consistent approach was implemented. The network would derail those plans again, of course, as would be the case with every apparent finale for the rest of the series’ run.
Memorable Quotes
BOBBY: “Mr. Guerin! You and your accomplice with the…lips…are trespassing!”
KYLE: “See, I guess what I have a problem with is that suddenly I’m a member of this club I never wanted to join.”
ALEX: “Yeah.”
KYLE: “And it turns out this club bears a striking resemblance to a chain gang…”
ALEX: “Think about it…we not only met aliens, but they killed us. How many people can say that?”
KYLE: “You’re getting delirious, is that it?”
Final Analysis
Overall, this episode is a disappointing conclusion to a disappointing story arc. What started as an intriguing exploration of the effect of the aliens on the humans helping them turned into a poorly explained and inconsistent “alien invasion” story. While Michael’s exploration of his human ancestry works well in theory, the execution was not as strong as it might have been in the first season. Like the arc it completes, this episode is a perfect example of the writing struggles of the second season.
Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 1/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 5/10
posted by John Keegan | 16:54
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