#205 The End Of The World
Written by Jason Katims
Directed by Bill Norton
Fourteen years into the future we discover Max and Liz are together, but saying goodbye. A future Max then uses the Granilith to go back in time. He appears to Liz in present day and tells her that fourteen years from now they are taken over by their enemies. He goes on to say that because the two of them had gotten together, Tess, who ended up being critical to their survival, had left town. Future Max begs Liz to help present day Max fall out of love with her so they can change the events of the future. Once Liz realizes how many lives are at stake, she agrees to help.
Liz first goes to Tess and tries to help her become someone Max would want to be with, but Max sees through their plan. He confesses his love to her and kisses her, causing flashes of their time together. Future Max then tells Liz she must think of something better. Liz seems frustrated until she realizes how Maria’s jealously over Courtney ruined her relationship with Michael.
Liz then decides to enlist the help of Kyle. Together, Liz and Kyle set it up so Max gets the impression they slept together. Max leaves and goes to the park, where Tess tries to comfort him. Tess is surprised when Max doesn’t push her away. Realizing their plan has worked, Liz and future Max share a final moment together – their wedding dance. When future Max disappears, Liz realizes all of their futures are now undetermined.
Meanwhile, suspicious of Courtney, Michael and Maria each decide to investigate on their own. Michael goes to Courtney’s home, and creates a diversion to get her out of the room so he can snoop through her things. As he discovers a cupboard full of skin lotion, he hears a knock on the door. It’s Maria. Maria is curious why Michael is there, when Courtney suddenly comes out from the bathroom in a towel. Betrayed, Maria slaps Michael and leaves. Alex then finds an upset Maria at the Crashdown, and she tells him what happened. Alex goes to Michael and punches him out for hurting Maria, as Courtney shows up at Michael’s door. As they begin to get physical, Michael discovers Courtney is actually a skin.
Jason Katims Commentary with Jason Behr
“There’s a certain melancholy to say goodbye…”
(The commentary was released in two parts on The WB website. Both clips were added to the video.)
Transcribed by MyrnaLynne
Jason Katims: I think it plays into the fantasy that we have of wanting to know what your future would have been if you had made a different choice. And we all want to know that.
Jason Behr: Absolutely. I think also that just the idea of choices that we make and what those consequences are from those choices. And I mean, those ideas have been done in other formats but never I think to this degree where we can take two characters that we have got to know over an entire season and to jump forward 14 years and think how wonderful their life became with one exception, that ultimately it was the demise of everything.
Jason Katims: (Laughs) It’s one little problem..
Jason Behr: Small little problem (laughs)
Jason Katims: But it was good up until that point. Worked out for them.
Jason Behr: Yeh, well you know, that one little detail. But when you take this character who was, I think was like 30 years old, to come back and watch this girl that he fell in love with, to see all the little small things she did that made him fall in love with her – there is a certain melancholy about it to have to say goodbye to that.
Jason Katims: Future Max, one way or the other he’s screwed. Whether he is able get Liz to make Max fall out of love or not, Future Max still has nowhere to go to, so it’s very poignant from that side of it.
And then from Liz’s side of it, she’s looking at the future that she’ll never have this future that’s her fantasy and dream, to be with Max, her one true love – and she’s forced to realize that she can never have that future, but she’s able to glimpse it and to hear about it from the source.
And then for present-day Max to watch that moment when he finds Liz and Kyle together even though we know it’s all been set up to happen the moment when he sees them, it’s just heartbreaking to watch it happen to him.
Jason Behr: To me, I love it because it kind of works on all these different levels.
Jason Katims: I remember this moment of watching it in the editing room and I was at the end of the episode when you sort of are going back between Future Max with Liz on the rooftop and Max with Tess on the bench, and I realized that I had bought into the idea that there were two Maxes. I thought it was so amazing that I had been caught up in the illusion of it, since obviously I had written the episode and was literally in the trailer with Jason Behr when we were coming up with what he was going to look like.. what the Future version of Max was going to look like.
(Jason Behr: grins, remembering)
Jason Katims: I think that I had forgotten that it was one person playing both roles shows what a great job that Jason did.
Jason Behr: I think Jason is being a bit modest when he says stuff like that.
(Jason Katims makes a NO face)
Jason Behr: Because all my favorite episodes have been the ones he writes. I think mostly because when I read them they are the easiest for me to decipher. And it makes my job easier. Not so much that he is thinking this would lead to this and this would lead to that. I think that he leads with his heart and he writes with his heart about feelings and about emotions. And an episode like EOTW, when I read that, I FELT everything as I was reading it, I knew exactly how I wanted to do things. When I read that particular scene, when he’s talking to Liz about how they had this life together and how they went off and lived like this American Dream, and that moment of realizing that this is the journey they were going to take and when he was talking about the dance – there wasn’t any other way I could deliver that. The very first time I read that, I knew that was how it had to be done. Just.. it felt right.
Roswell Commentary with Nick Wechsler
This video wasn’t a part of the primer on the original website, but it’s a comment he made about this episode.
Transcribed by You?