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BLOOD BROTHER |
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The pair are driving along a deserted road when suddenly a song which Liz loves comes on the radio. Max tells her that he also loves it. Have you ever had a moment when you're with the one person in the world you want to be with and the wind is blowing through your hair and the song that just describes your entire soul happens to come on, and then the person that you want to be with happens to love the same song and suddenly you realise you're listening to it together? And that no matter how crazy your life has gotten there's this one moment... this perfect moment... where you could just say that no matter what happens, nothing can take this moment away from me... Suddenly, a horse appears in the middle of the road. And then, something does. Max swerves to avoid the horse and the jeep careers off the road. Liz is okay but Max's head is on the steering wheel and he's not moving. Maria runs into Michael at school and accuses him of avoiding her, which he denies, although he's happy to go along with it if it will shut her up. They are disturbed by Liz phoning Maria's mobile and telling her that she and Max have been in an accident. Michael grabs the phone and demands to know what's happened. Elsewhere in the school, the principal tells Ms. Topolsky that Max and Liz have been taken to Roswell Memorial. She offers to take care of things and then calls an agent telling him that they might have an "opportunity." Isabel and Michael rush to the hospital, where Susan, the nurse, tries to get them to leave. Michael turns on the charm and she allows the pair of them and Liz to stay with Max. After she's gone, Michael tells the others that he'll get the blood sample that Susan has just taken. Agent Moss slips into a room marked "Hospital Personnel Only." Isabel tells Liz that they need to replace Max's blood with some human blood and wants to use hers. Liz tells her that they can't because they would be able to tell that it's female blood. Isabel declares that in this case, they need to find a guy. At school, Alex is extolling the virtues of forming a band when Maria drags him away. At the hospital, Susan leaves the blood samples in a room. When she returns, Agent Moss - now dressed as a medic - is searching through them, but he leaves when she challenges him. Maria and Alex show up and Liz tells Alex that she needs a sample of his blood, promising to tell him everything later. While Alex and Liz hesitate, Isabel takes the needle and starts taking a sample. In the analysis room, Michael gets Susan talking and asks her out on a date, but she tells him he's too young for her. While he's there, he switches the sample with the one Isabel took from Alex. Liz suggests that Alex go home, a point Michael makes more forcefully. Alex goes, followed by Liz, although Maria tells Michael that she's not going to reveal their secret to him. Alex wants an explanation from Liz, believing that Max crashed the car while on drugs and that they couldn't use Michael's blood because he was high as well. Liz tells him this isn't true, so Alex demands to know what the truth really is. Liz agrees that it is drugs. Max recovers and manages to persuade his mom and the doctor to let him go home. Later, as they are leaving, Maria realises that she's left her purse in Max's room and Michael goes back to get it, to find Agents Moss and Baxter looking through the trash. Afterwards he tells Max and Isabel that he saw the agents, and that he also saw Moss looking for the blood sample and that Baxter was the one who followed him to the Crashdown the other night. He tells the others that they're closing in on them and that they need to do something about it. Isabel suggests that the only thing they can do is to run, but Michael believes that they can figure out their enemy before their enemy figures out them. That night, Moss meets Topolsky in an alley and tells her the blood test came back normal, but that they also brought in another kid, who Topolsky realises from his description was Alex. Moss tells her that he thinks the blood samples were switched. Isabel sees Alex joins Kyle for lunch. Kyle thinks Liz has sent him to spy on her and believes that she has really let Alex in on the secret and that he's just fishing for info. Max and Liz appear to be window shopping but are really checking whether Agent Moss is following them. Max tells Liz there's only one way they can tell if he's really tailing them and the pair go inside the UFO Center. Outside, Maria and Michael are joined in Maria's car by Isabel, who tells them that it's safe to follow him, and they tail him to a motel, where they impatiently wait for him to leave his room. Liz runs into Max in a hallway at school and tells him that they have to tell Alex something. Max tells her that Isabel saw him talking to Kyle at lunch. Liz tells him that she told Alex at the hospital that it was drugs and she thinks that he believed her. Leaving Isabel as look-out, Maria and Michael break into Moss's motel room, looking for something that will tell them about him. After failing to find any luggage tags, Maria suggests they try to the garbage, where Michael discovers his name and a phone number. Maria dials it and the other end is answered by Topolsky. Alex is sitting alone when Topolsky asks if she can join him, slipping something into his drink while he's not looking. She tells him that she's heard what he did for Max, who she says she has her concerns about. Liz shows up and tells Topolsky that Max is back at school so there's nothing to be concerned about. Before she leaves, Topolsky suggests that he drops by her office later. Liz asks Alex if he's told anyone what happened at the hospital when his nose starts bleeding. He cleans himself up in the bathroom but afterwards Topolsky slips in and takes the tissues with his blood on them. At the Crashdown, Maria explains to Liz and Michael to Max and Isabel what happened at the motel room, both glamourising their own part in the proceedings. They wonder how much Topolsky knows and who she heard it from, since she's been talking to Alex. Liz assures Maria and Max assures Michael and Isabel that Alex won't say anything. Alex visits Topolsky in her office. She wants him to write down what's happened and promises to keep it away from the Sheriff and his permanent record. She says that she has friends who can help him, assuring Alex that they're "people you can trust. Like me." Alex leaves and sticks his head in his locker. Max tries to thanks him for saving his life and Alex replies that if he's trying to scare him into silence he's too late since Topolsky already knows about the fake blood sample. He tells Max that she wanted him to sign some sort of confession and Max asks whether he did. Alex replies that now Max knows what it's like to be in the dark. After Alex leaves, Liz slips a note into his locker. Moments. It's amazing how one can just change things so radically. How a wild horse deciding to cross the road at that exact time could be responsible for Max being discovered. I need one more moment now. One more chance to change direction, to stop something bad from turning into something worse. Alex meets Liz in a deserted Crashdown. Liz tells him that she need Alex to believe in her even though she can't tell him what he needs to know. There's a right side and a wrong side and if Alex chooses the wrong side something terrible is going to happen and Liz tells Alex that she's on the right side. Alex visits Topolsky again and says that he's not worried about himself, only Liz and asks what will happen to her. Topolsky tells him that they'll probably want to do some medical tests on her just to make sure and presses him to write down what happened at the hospital. They are disturbed by Liz who tells Topolsky that she has something really important to say. The pair step outside, leaving Alex alone in Topolsky's office. While Liz is outside telling Topolsky that she's concerned that he's paranoid that she's found some new friends this year, Alex logs onto Topolsky's laptop. Topolsky realises that Liz is trying to distract her, but when she returns to her office, Alex turns the laptop round, showing an FBI logo, asking what the FBI is doing at West Roswell. Topolsky closes the laptop and picks up her coffee mug, telling Alex and Liz that she was on their side, adding that she hopes that Max doesn't end up in the wrong hands without her. After she's gone, Alex tells Liz he wants to know what's happening with Max, Topolsky and the FBI, or it's the end of their friendship. "Alex, I can't," she tells him, watching him as he walks away. CAST Eric Jungmann, who plays Alex's would be bandmate Lester, has guest starred on Sabrina, The Teenage Witch and appeared in The Faculty. CONTINUITY NOTES It seems a bit unbelievable that the principal would be so concerned that two students have been involved in an accident when there's no sign whatsoever of the Sheriff. Why doesn't she try the drug that induces Alex's nosebleed out on Max, Isabel or Michael? Isabel claims that the aliens don't get sick, yet in River Dog, Max said that she got sunstroke for a month when they spent the summer in Florida. The Crashdown offers a Blue Moon burger, Saturn Rings and a Mercury milkshake for $3.99. Max tells Liz that it "sounds tempting." COMMENTS There are a lot of good scenes. Max and Liz continue to be great to be watch and the Maria and Michael storyline continues to develop well, both with and without Isabel's frustration at their flirting with one another. Once again, the series deals with the secrets that the characters are forced to keep from one another, with Alex the one excluded this time, although his comment to Max that now he knows what it's like to be kept in the dark might strike home since Max hasn't exactly always been entirely open with Michael and Isabel in previous episodes. Topolsky's suspicions had to be resolved sooner rather than later and sooner is definitely the better option, but there are a lot of plot conveniences. Why doesn't she use the drug on the aliens and just where is Sheriff Valenti? The FBI agents have been far too amateurish, but even so would Moss really have thrown Topolsky's phone number into the trash? And it's pretty helpful that she answers the phone with "Topolsky"... There's also the question of the aliens' biology. In the Pilot, it was Max's unusual cells that Liz noticed, and Isabel implies that they have a different blood structure to humans. But the paramedics in the ambulance don't notice anything unusual with him, and would the doctor really let him go home just because he asks him to? These aside, there are a lot of unanswered questions to be picked up in future episodes - Liz and Alex's friendship, whether Topolsky meant what she said about Max being more likely to end up in the wrong hands now she's gone and the fall-out of the FBI's investigation. |
Teleplay by BARRY PULLMAN Story by BREEN FRAZIER & BARRY PULLMAN Directed by DAVID NUTTER STARRING SHIRI APPLEBY Liz Parker JASON BEHR Max Evans KATHERINE HEIGL Isabel Evans MAJANDRA DELFINO Maria DeLuca BRENDAN FEHR Michael Guerin COLIN HANKS Alex Whitman NICK WESCHLER Kyle Valenti and WILLIAM SADLER Sheriff Jim Valenti GUEST STARRING JULIE BENZ Kathleen Topolsky MARY ELLEN TRAINOR
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