Roswell, NM – #104 Where Have All The Cowboys Gone? Review by Leonard
Written by Leonard
We start with a flashback scene from May 17, 2008. Liz is looking in the mirror getting ready for prom, with Rosa helping her. Liz asks what Rosa is doing tonight. Rosa says Usher is hosting SNL and jokes she’s probably going to try and score some crack (for the record, Usher was only the musical guest that night, Steve Carell was the host). She assures Liz that she’s doing better. Rosa continues applying makeup on Liz, she tells her not to put too much. Rosa says not to worry because in that dress she will look every bit like a virgin on prom night. Liz confesses that she’s not as she slept with Kyle while Rosa was in rehab. She says she’s not sure about Kyle, who’s nice to her but a jerk to others. Rosa tells her not to worry about Kyle and love – people are the worst drug. Liz asks if Rosa and Frederico had a fight. She says no, there’s a reason that God put a cage around your heart. Liz asks again who hurt her, Rosa says it doesn’t matter. She tells Liz to take off the dress and pulls out a little red dress from the closet.
Max is loading up his truck with bottles of water as Michael and Isobel arrive. Michael asks if he raged out. Max tells them he feels better now that he has let all his rage out. Max tells them that Liz confronted him the night before and knows that Rosa was killed by an alien. Michael kicks the air causing the jeep to jump as well. Isobel asks what’s the plan. Max says he’ll drop off the supplies and look for Liz. Isobel offers to mindwarp her.
Grant is outside the Crashdown pushing his alien wave detector bracelet as the only means to stay safe in the blackout (just for today only $45). Liz has invited Frederico to the Crashdown to talk about Rosa’s last days. She shows him a ring of his in one of Rosa’s old hiding spot. Liz asks if he and Rosa got back together before she died. Frederico says no. Arturo comes out of the kitchen and spots them. He comes back out with a meat cleaver and threatens Frederico to leave.
Manes is in Sheriff Valenti’s office. He asks if there is a cause for the power being out 18 hours now and shows pictures of transformers with lightning fractals on it. She has him leave. As he’s leaving he passes Cameron, who stands at attention once she sees him. She tells Manes that Valenti isn’t fond of military even though she’s been working there for 2 years now. Manes shows her the pictures of the transformers.
Back at Max’s, he asks Isobel what it’s like when she enters someone’s head. Isobel explains how her mindwarp works. He’s hesitant to have her enter Liz’s head. Cameron pulls up and tells Max she’s been covering for him but he needs to get his stuff. Isobel asks Max what he wants to do about Liz. He gives her the green light to mindwarp Liz.
At the hospital a kid named Victor Franco is in ICU from a car accident. The doctor tells Kyle he needs a pacemaker but can’t operate while the hospital is on the generator, the external one is only good for a few more hours. Michael tells Isobel he thought she wasn’t strong enough to mindwarp Liz yet. Isobel wants to go to the Wild Pony to practice. She didn’t tell Max about what happened at the drive in because it would hurt less if he didn’t know. Liz and her dad go at it over what happened with Frederico. He asks why she was talking to her drug dealer. Liz says that he’s sober now and maybe she wouldn’t have to do this if he trusted her and Rosa more. Arturo says they both used to tell him everything over churro pancakes but then he stopped trusting Rosa when she started keeping secrets, stopped talking to him and then started lying. Suddenly Arturo collapses to the floor having a seizure. At the hospital, Liz tells Kyle she didn’t call 911 as it might put him on ICE’s radar. Kyle tells her not to worry since the computers are down, so there won’t be any paperwork. Kyle suggests that while he rests Liz should go visit the study on angiogenesis and apply for a position. She says she’ll think about it. At the Wild Pony, Maria is tending to the bar as Michael reaches over and grabs a bottle. She tells him that he owes him $84 as he starts a fight to get kicked out before he pays. She’ll wipe his debt if he gets “Regina George” out of the bar and never comes back (Isobel). Hank comes up and orders a Raspberry Cosmopolitan for himself and water for Isobel, obviously practicing her mindwarping. Max and Cameron are at Sanders Auto. They talk about what happened the night before at the drive in. Max apologizes and offers to make it up. Back at Wild Pony, Hank is on the phone donating money. Isobel starts walking towards Michael but is visibly wobbly. Maria and Isobel begin arguing causing Michael to break it up. Isobel tells Michael she will try to mindwarp a more complicated target – Maria. Isobel wants to see if she can find the truth why she doesn’t like her. Isobel is seated at the bar now. She puts $100 on the bar and asks for a hand reading. As she continues to tell Isobel what she can read of her, Isobel begins the mindwarp. She asks Maria why she hates her. She replies because Rosa did and if she hadn’t Rosa might have stayed at the bar the night she died. Isobel asks Maria to show her. We now see Maria’s experience of the night Rosa died. Maria is seated at the bar, Rosa comes and sits next to her talking about Liz, writing “a fraudulent zodiac” on her hand as Isobel walks into the bar, prompting Rosa to leave whilst telling Maria that if Isobel asks she wasn’t there. We’re suddenly back in the present, Isobel collapses to the floor. Michael runs over and picks up her head. Isobel is bleeding from the nose. Max drops a case of water at the hospital and sees Kyle tending to young Victor. Max apologizes for confronting him the night before and asks if that’s Victor. Kyle says he’s known him his whole life as his father delivered him. He asks Max why he became a cop. Max says to help people. Kyle says that’s why he became a doctor and moments when he’s helpless are the worst. Max says they are just men and can’t play God. Frederico returns to the Crashdown. Liz apologizes for earlier. Frederico says he came to perform step 9 and make amends. He gives Liz Rosa’s backpack from one of her hiding spots in the turquoise mines. It has the lyrics “can see a million miles tonight but you can’t get very far” from Mrs. Potters Lullaby written on it. He’s had it since about a week before she died. He took all the money and pills but everything else is as he found it, including a bus ticket to Los Alamos dated for the day after she died. Attached to the ticket is a note saying “Rosa, the first step is the hardest. I’ll always be by your side.” At the hospital Kyle tells Arturo as he wakes up that he’s pre-diabetic and he’ll get him safe treatment. Just then the generator goes out. Kyle rushes to Victor’s room where the electronic pacemaker has now failed. Kyle looks at Max who’s been watching and asks if he’s just going to stand there. Max passes Cameron as he tries to leave the hospital and complains of only doing the bare minimum. Cameron says those are their orders. Max storms off to the basement where he finds the transformer. He puts his hand on it until it finally turns on, shocking and throwing him back several feet. With the power now on, the doctor says they can now operate on Victor. Liz is in her room going through the contents of Rosa’s backpack. She compares the handwriting of the note first to dedications in Rosa’s yearbook, and then to hers. Cameron searches the basement and finds Max laid out. Max asks if the power is back to which Cameron says it is but only at the hospital. Max tells her that he was messing with the transformer and must have gotten shocked. Max gets up and slowly walks away. As they are going Cameron notices the lightning fractals on the transformer just like in the pictures Manes showed her. In Liz’s room, Kyle tells her that he brought her dad home. Liz explains what she found today – the handwriting in the note matched Kyle’s dad. She accuses Kyle’s dad the Sheriff of having an affair with her teenage drug addict sister. Kyle defends his father and manages to get Liz to back off the accusation of Jim. Kyle tells Liz that his dad knew about aliens, not all the aliens died in the crash and that’s how he got Rosa’s real autopsy. Liz tells Kyle that he’s one of the best people she knows and they hook up. Over at Max’s, Michael is tending to Isobel. Isobel questions why Rosa hated her. Michael tells her that she can’t get inside the mind of a dead girl and that they made a deal that never would talk about that night. Liz and Kyle have finished, Liz tells Kyle that she intends to stay in Roswell for her dad and Rosa and he makes her feel safe. As Kyle is leaving the Crashdown, Max is approaching it. Kyle thanks Max for what he did today. He says he became a doctor for the glory but that isn’t why he became a cop. Max says it’s not. Liz is preparing the churro pancakes as Max walks in. He asks if Liz told Kyle about him. She confirms she did but she did not tell him about Michael and Isobel. Liz tells Max that she hates that Max is hurting and tells him about the cage around her heart. She wants to believe he didn’t hurt Rosa but she still has a feeling that he’s lying. Max asks Liz how she truly feels about him. Liz feels a lot of things but mostly terrified. Max asks if she believes that he loves her. Liz does. Max hopes she takes that with her wherever she goes and says goodbye. Cameron is drinking when Manes shows up. He proposes something to help her friend “Charlie” if she helps him with access to the Roswell Sheriff’s Department. Arturo comes downstairs. Liz apologizes for being distant. She places the now disgusting now sugarless churro pancakes in front of him so they can have a talk. Over at Max’s, Michael tells Isobel he used to look at the sky and hope that something up there would save him. Isobel used to look at the people of Roswell for the same thing. Max says they have each other. Max tells them that Kyle knows he’s an alien and that their secret is going to spread. Isobel doubts that she’s strong enough to mindwarp Liz. Max says they’ll figure it out. Michael says Kyle, Liz and Grant all want an alien they can put in a cage. Max offers to tell Liz it was him. Michael says he doesn’t want Max to martyr himself because he has a good life and Isobel has a life with Noah. Michael proclaims he will confess to killing Rosa and the others. At then at that moment the power begins to come back on throughout Roswell.
This for me is the best episode so far. The complex web of the “what really happened to Rosa” mystery has expanded to involve Michael and the late Jim somehow. Kyle’s character grew a lot in this episode as we see that he always wants to do the right thing. Whether that holds remains to be seen. We also finally start to see a little bit of what’s behind Maria and Cameron. It is strange that Maria seems more of Rosa’s friend than Liz’s. The limits of the aliens’ powers are something that still needs to be clearly defined.