“Nothing is an accident.”
First and foremost, this episode was about secrets. Particularly, how hard it is to keep them secret. With the exception of Maria, who was noticeably absent this week, each of our main characters either deliberately kept or was forced to disclose a secret from a friend or loved one.
We’ll start with Kyle and work our way up. Kyle begged Liz for a timeout on sleuthing after discovering his father’s more unsavory secrets and she agreed. Yet he went off to his Dad’s and Chief Master Sergeant Manes’ hunting cabin in search of the lock to match the key he found in his Dad’s box of shame.
Along with the lock, he found Alex and some hard truths. One only needs to take a tiny step to come to the conclusion the reason Liz had second thoughts about Kyle in high school was because of how he treated Alex. Fear of being tarnished as gay led Kyle to turn on Alex and become the resident bully. At least he has the decency to be ashamed of his behavior now.
Whether their heart to heart leads to a renewed friendship remains to be seen. Especially since Alex chose to keep the symbol on the lampshade to himself. In the grand scheme of things it was the smallest of the secrets kept this week. But since it led to the discovery of an alien artifact and has set yet another intrepid sleuth on the hunt for answers, narratively speaking it may be far larger than any discovery Kyle made this week. The only question is what Alex will do with his knowledge.
Speaking of Kyle’s discoveries, it appears my nickname from last week was more fitting than I realized. It turns out that Papa Valenti wasn’t having an affair with Rosa. He was Rosa’s father. This explains why Rosa started keeping secrets from Arturo and the personality changes Liz mentioned. What it doesn’t explain is how all the pieces of information we’ve learned fit together.
Did Valenti really keep his daughter in a locked basement to dry out? On the surface that seems odd because Arturo and Liz would wonder where she’d gone. It also seems like a pretty big risk to hide her in a cabin he shared with a man like Manes. Especially since the other purpose of the room was to hide alien artifacts. Did Manes know about the basement? I think not. And if that’s true then was the alien artifact hidden to keep it from Manes? If not, then who? If so, to what end?
Liz’s inability to respect Kyle’s privacy sends her rummaging through Papa Valenti’s box of dirty laundry and leads her to Alien Theorist Extraordinaire, Grant Green. Who could have guessed that Green’s “aliens are among us” shtick was a cover for an actual alien encounter? Or that the “People who talk” speech would be true. Poor Grant was killed for having proof of the supernatural if not of aliens themselves. And the possibility that Liz might know about aliens lands her in a flaming box.
At the hands of Wyatt Long?!? I never took him for someone burdened by an overabundance of schooling so the idea that he’s the mastermind keeping the knowledge of aliens under wraps seems far-fetched. And what would be his motivation considering his sister was killed by one?
Then there’s Isobel. She’s been keeping secrets from the two most important men in her life. The first being that she and Michael made the executive decision to send Liz away after Rosa’s death. A decision that changed the course of Max’s life. And not for the better in his eyes.
The second is keeping her alien nature a secret from Noah which ostensibly means her marriage is built on a lie. While the secrets she’s been keeping from Noah have technically not come out, Noah is aware that they exist. He attributes her secrecy to a drinking problem. This is something she may want to cop to if she has any intention of saving her marriage. I don’t think he’s going to welcome her back into their home without some kind of explanation.
Then we come to the mother lode. As pissed as Max is at the secret Isobel and Michael kept from him, it does not compare to the secret Max and Michael have kept from her. Isobel is responsible for the deaths of Rosa and the other girls. There is zero chance that she did so deliberately. But the idea that she killed them during one of her blackouts is far more plausible than Michael's confession.
Now we await the repercussions from all the recent disclosures. Learning definitively that Max wasn’t Rosa’s killer may bring Liz and Max together or finally tear them apart. Kyle not only idolized his father, but he also modeled his life after the man. Will learning that Papa Valenti was an adulterous alcoholic cause him to self-destruct? Or, will the realization that his father could be those things and a good father and, by all accounts, a good sheriff allow him to forgive himself for his failings and move on? Will Alex realize that aliens are among us? And what will Isobel do now that she knows what she’s done?
For my money, this week’s episode was everything the last week’s was not. We had action, character development, and a murder confession I actually believed even if it didn’t come from the murderer herself.
4 out of 5 hidden basements
Parting Thoughts:
This week’s title is named after No Doubt’s 1996 hit.
In case you were wondering, goat yoga is a real thing.
I was impressed that it didn't occur to Liz to run until after Wyatt tried to set her on fire. Up till then all of her choices were in service of fighting back.
What is causing Isobel’s blackouts? Is it the same thing that caused her to kill Rosa a decade ago? Is it related to Max’s rages?
Quotes:
Max: “If you go down. We all go down.”
Noah: “She didn’t come home last night. And when she doesn’t come home, she’s with you guys. Always.”
Liz: “What?”
Kyle: “Nothing. You’re just… Wow.”
Liz: “No offense, but you do not look so ‘Wow.’”
Kyle: “So far I’ve learned that my dad had two stints of rehab for booze in the ‘80s, multiple affairs over his entire marriage, and, oh yeah, a pervasive obsession with aliens.”
Liz: “Look, this kind of science, healing what others believe to be irreparable, is important to me. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do." (Does anybody think she’s talking about more than just this job interview?)
Alex: “You could try knocking. It’s less of a felony but it’s also less dramatic, so it depends on what you're going for."
Alex: “Okay, so this is the point in the horror movie where the audience starts screaming, ‘No, don’t do that.’”
Liz: “I thought you’d be impressed with my passion for uncovering the truth. I’m ‘intrepid.’”
Max: “You made Liz leave. After Rosa, after high school. She didn’t abandon me, you sent her away."
Liz: “You had this the whole time? Why didn’t you tell anyone about it?”
Green: “Because I’m not stupid.”
Green: “People who talk end up dead.”
Liz: “You literally talk more than anybody has ever talked ever, in history.”
Green: “Not about anything real.”
Max: “I wasn’t smitten. I loved her.”
Isobel: “How was I supposed to know that?”
Max: “I don’t know, Isobel, maybe if you were a damn mind reader!”
Alex: "My father was my war.”
Max: “Why are you here?”
Liz: “You showed up when I needed you.”
Max: “The heart isn’t logical, Liz. Love makes you do crazy things. It makes you do beautiful things. And terrible things. Things you’d never do.”
Michael: “Maybe it’s time… we all tell the truth to the people we love. Or the secrets are just going to tear us all apart.”
Shari loves sci-fi, fantasy, supernatural, and anything with a cape.
An excellent review, Shari.
ReplyDeleteI'm still watching, although I'm still not completely connecting with this show yet. Although I was suitably shocked. It's Isobel? How could it possibly be Isobel?
While I like Nathan Parsons as Max, it's also bothering me that there is too much Kyle. I never liked him on VD and TO and now here we are again. Julie Plec must love the guy.
I think it's that but I also think that Julie Plec and Company are really trying to have viable competition in this love triangle. However, if that's what they wanted, they needed a strong actor rather than just a pretty one.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I think What makes me love this show is the fact that no one, not even Kyle is one dimensional. They don't exist just to serve one story purpose. That is unusual for most CW shows and wasn't always true of the previous version of the show.