Roswell 2.18: "It's Too Late and It's Too Bad"

Written by Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts
Directed by Patrick Norris

In which Liz continues her hunt for answers to Alex’s last days, while the rest of the gang begins fracturing under the pressure and the fallout of their friend’s death…


Status Report

This episode picks up where “Cry Your Name” left off, carrying forward the character-specific reactions to Alex’s death in a logical if extreme manner. Like the previous episode’s final act, the story’s logic devolves somewhat based upon the needs of the plot. But like the previous episode, the episode is also bathed in character development and otherwise consistent storytelling, which goes a long way towards making the difficult events worth watching.

As many fans have noted over the years, the core relationship of the series is the romance between Max and Liz. From a retrospective point of view, this star-crossed love goes through a distinct arc: initial blush of new love, the complications of free will vs. destiny, and then the road towards the culmination of their emotional history. As hard as it is to watch, the second season represents the low point for Max and Liz, because everything seems aligned against them.

The first part of the season, devoted mostly to combating the Skins and then the whole “Hybrid Chronicles” mess, seemed to suggest that the hybrids had faced their past personalities and moved on. If nothing else, Alex’s death reveals that the situation is not nearly so simple as it seems. All four of the hybrids, all very much without their self-awareness, revert to who they were supposed to have been on Antar. As one would expect, this is not very helpful.

It would be bad enough if Max, Michael, Isabel and Tess were the only ones acting in somewhat extreme ways. But Liz and her single-minded pursuit of “the truth” pushes everyone to the limit. As mentioned more than a few times over the course of the episode, Liz and her decisions serve to draw attention to the wrong things, placing everyone in danger. But as Liz rebuts: if one assumes that they are all under attack already, as she does, then the time for caution may well be over.

The source of the conflict has nothing to do with interpretations of Alex’s death. The fact that Max is willing to accept that Alex might have killed himself, and Liz is absolutely sure it was murder, is only the surface of things. The real conflict is one of control. Ever since the beginning of the series, Max has been the one taking control of the situation, especially when the entire group has been threatened by outside forces. When someone sought to take individual action, Max was the one to step in and get them in line.

But in this case, Liz has come to the conclusion that Max cannot be the one to control events. She’s decided, since the threat could be alien in nature, that Max won’t be willing to go far enough to find the truth. That’s the wall that stands between Max and Liz at this point: he’s the leader, by default, but Liz refuses to accept his leadership. And so all her choices are seen, by him, in the worst and most selfish light possible. Even when Liz finds something significant, her entire attitude and approach makes it certain that her conclusions won’t be accepted.

This is one major flaw of the episode. The hybrids, as they fall into familiar patterns, make decisions and take actions that are ill-advised or out of character. All of their selfish choices are presented in a fairly objective manner, and when they make blunders, they face the full consequences of those mistakes. They don’t get the benefit of feeling justified after the fact. Liz, on the other hand, for all her horrible selfishness, turns out to be absolutely right. Liz gets to throw that in everyone’s face when all is said and done.

Had the writers done enough to show Liz unearthing evidence in a logical and progressive manner, so that the audience could agree with her point of view by seeing how she makes the connections that the others refuse to acknowledge, then it might have been less repulsive. But Liz makes her correct conclusions based on little more than a series of leaps and assumptions. It strains credibility for Liz to jump right onto the absolutely right answer every time, despite the fact that she’s clearly losing perspective in every other context.

But if one accepts this major flaw, then the episode is very well done. One can tell that the writers and cast were operating under the impression that the series was drawing to a close, and that this would be their last chance at displaying some range. The writers provide the cast with all the chances in the world, and even if it’s hard to watch at times, everyone seems to be enjoying the opportunity to step into unfamiliar territory. The irony is that many in the audience can’t stand this period in the series’ run, because of where the characters are forced to go, because it seems as though some fans would prefer the cast remain trapped within a narrow range of “acceptable” behavior.

Maria is focusing all of her grief towards creating the “perfect” yearbook tribute for Alex, despite the fact that it’s getting in the way of practicalities (like actually finishing the yearbook in time for graduation). For Maria, it’s more a way to work through her thoughts and emotions than actually creating the tribute itself; it’s the journey, not the destination. And of course, because of that, working with Liz is counter to her needs, because Liz wants to approach Alex and his life in far too clinical a manner.

But even as they get the character development right, the plot takes odd and contrived turns. Liz just happens to stumble on a document or computer program that spits out, in rather unlikely fashion, “Leanna is not Leanna”. It’s not that the message wouldn’t be there, but why would Alex go to the trouble of creating a program that would repeat a message that really, in terms of reminding him of something vital, only needs to be typed in once in big, bold letters? Never mind that the computer nerd is wrong in saying that a binary sequence has no meaning outside of its contextual program; it could, by its own nature, have a numerical value.

Oddly enough, Michael and Maria are the most practical ones in the bunch, which just goes to show how backwards the situation has gotten. Maria tries to get Liz to consider that her evidence might have a perfectly human explanation. At the same time, Michael appeals to the fact that if there were aliens involved, whether he believes it or not, Liz is the last person who should be leading the charge, if only for the sake of her safety. But most importantly, Michael is doing everything possible to help Maria through her grief. In the face of true adversity, Michael becomes the loyal and wise advisor that he was always meant to be.

Meanwhile, Isabel is fully in Vilandra mode, placing her own interests and desires to escape her current life by looking for something new and exciting elsewhere. On the one hand, Isabel is definitely getting the short end of the stick, because she’s not nearly as content as Max or Michael when it comes to staying in Roswell. For one thing, she doesn’t have someone to love anymore, and unlike the others, she started late and her choices seldom meet approval. Isabel feels trapped by her life, and it doesn’t help that King Max is not at all supportive of her decision to leave.

Tess, on the other hand, has purposefully returned to her original plan of leading Max towards his destiny. She’s already laid the groundwork; at least some of her purpose in restoring Max’s “memories” of Antar is all about twisting his perceptions and bringing out the Xan in him. The difference is that Max is no longer quite so focused on Liz and his feelings for her; at this point, that ship has long since sailed, and there’s now the sense of division and resentment. In other words, things are exactly as Tess (and for that matter, Nasedo) would have wanted from the beginning.

If there is one thing about this episode that speaks to the unfortunate side of making Liz “right”, as previously mentioned, it’s how her self-interested choices are thereby justified. She treats Sean and his interest in her with such casual disregard that it’s as if she’s been taken over by an alien herself. So much of this episode is about Liz and her inability to see her obsession clearly; it’s as if anyone questioning her thought process is somehow branded her enemy or an obstacle.

The scenes between Max and Michael really bring the characters to a place they’ve needed to be for a long time, and they give insight into who they once were on Antar. Max is becoming more of the pig-headed ruler that even Larek couldn’t seem to stand at times, and Michael is becoming an advisor in the best sense of the term. His offer to intercede with Isabel seems like the very thing he might have done with Vilandra. Similarly, Isabel’s reaction to Michael is exactly what one might have expected of the spoiled princess, due in some small part to Michael’s claim to authority.

Amazingly, even with that strength of character development, the writers keep returning to the same flaw. Max, despite having to be the unpopular leader and king, tries to be reasonable with Liz and bridge the differences between them. Liz outright refuses to yield even an inch, which by the middle of the episode, is supposed to be indicative of her obsession. Instead, because she’s right, it makes it seem like Max is the one denying reality. Max expresses reasonable concerns about security, and yet he’s the bad guy, because he gets angry with Liz in the process.

This picture of an obsessed Liz continues when she ignores Maria’s obvious need for a friend, surrounded by what looks like a serial killer’s bedroom set. One has to wonder, watching that scene, where the Parkers are and why they’re ignoring Liz and her issues. The fact that she’s right, again, makes it all seem all right, even when she keeps Sean turning around in confusion between letdowns and kisses.

It’s this constant level of unreasonable reaction and lack of compromise that make Michael and Maria look relatively sane. Liz starts demanding information that she should know better than to ask for, and she starts booking flights for foreign countries with little or no sense of where the hell she’s going. Max tries to work with Isabel, but she has no intention of playing the dutiful and cooperative sister; she’s only concerned with getting to make a decision that doesn’t fit into everyone else’s plans. Max is finally left to the kind of tactics that, in retrospect, probably led to the movement against him on Antar.

Michael, on the other hand, uses his recent insight into the human condition and a conversation with Amy to regain Maria’s confidence. In essence, Michael is doing what none of the other characters seem to be capable of. Counterpoint to the seeming destruction of the relationship between Max and Liz, this places the character shifts of the second season in a far more meaningful context than the “Hybrid Chronicles” ever could have hoped.

It all comes down to Tess and her successful seduction of Max, which many fans hated. Frankly, this is one of those developments that could only have happened under the current circumstances. Any other means of getting Max and Tess together would have come across as contrived. Max had to believe, more than anything, that Liz had become a stranger, someone ready to toss their friendship aside. He had to feel as though everyone had turned their back on him (Michael notwithstanding). Only then could he see Tess as a viable option.

The brilliant character work is, as already mentioned several times, undermined by the fact that one of the characters is right about what happened to Alex, and it’s the one that’s been treating everyone around her like less than dirt. It’s also a very strong episode in all other respects, which just happens to be about the fracturing of friendships and relationships at the heart of the series. Between the oddity of Liz and the conflict surrounding her characterization and the unpopularity of the subject matter, this is an episode that rarely makes it on the Top Ten lists.


Memorable Quotes

MAX: “Lately, I’ve been thinking that you might have been right all along.”
MICHAEL: “Lately, I’ve been thinking that I might have been wrong all along.”

ISABEL: “I’ll change dollar bills into hundreds!”
MICHAEL: “You can do that?”

MAX: “Isabel…Isabel, if I have to, I will do everything in my power to keep you here. I will tell our parents you have a drug problem. I will notify your teachers that you have cheated on every test for the last three years. If you ever leave Roswell without my consent, I will physically drag you back. For the last time…the answer is no. Period.”
ISABEL: “You’re killing me!”
MAX: “You let it get this far.”


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode has some strong character development and some interesting, unusual changes to key relationships, but there is also the fatal flaw of Liz and her portrayal. Where Liz should look as damaged as everyone else, the writers justify her obsession by having it be founded in truth. Against that, even resurrecting the free will vs. destiny concepts isn’t enough to allow this episode to rise above average.

Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 2/4

Final Rating: 7/10