Roswell, New Mexico Season 2 | Episode 1 “Stay (I Missed You)” Review

Roswell, New Mexico is FINALLY back for season 2, and I’m so happy! That hiatus was far too long, especially with how season one left off. I hope you’ve all refreshed your memories by binging the first season because too much happened to refresh here. If you haven’t, feel free to go read my previous reviews before reading any further because spoilers are ahead. It’s time to dive into season 2. Thankfully, it picks up right where season one left off before skipping ahead two weeks. Unfortunately, Max is still dead, which leaves Isobel, Liz and Michael going through the grieving process. Rosa’s perfectly healthy, but has some strange connection to Max and Noah, which gives hope that there’s a way to save Max. There’s also a handful of other things going on, but I’ll touch on those later since they’re not central to this week’s episode.

Stages of Grief

We’ve all heard of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining/guilt and depression. Liz went through it when she lost Rosa, and now she, Isobel and Michael are grieving for Max. I only say their names because they’re the ones closest to him who knows. Isobel begged Michael and Liz to give her more time, so his death has been kept a secret to most. So, they put on a show, pretending that Max left town to deal with Liz breaking up with him because she has to leave again for grant money. The story works because Liz does actually plan on leaving town with Rosa because… duh, Rosa can’t just magically show up after being dead for 10 years. In reality, Max’s body is in a pod even though it won’t magically regenerate his heart.

The problem is they’re all at different stages of grief, so that, combined with keeping up with this lie, puts them at odds. Isobel’s in obvious denial as she’s convinced she can somehow save Max by strengthening her own power. Plus, she has to pretend to feel sad about her psycho-murdering husband’s death. Meanwhile, Michael’s drunk and angry. He’s angry about watching his family get blown to pieces. He’s angry about Max healing his hand. He’s angry about Max playing God and getting himself killed. He’s angry and pushing people who care about him away – i.e. Alex and Maria. Then there’s Liz who’s trying so hard to put on her best smile for Rosa so not to make her feel bad about Max dying to revive her. Inside, she’s breaking, and trying to cover it up with showers and car singalongs.

In My Head

Just when we thought Noah was dead and gone, he’s back to haunt Isobel and Rosa’s minds. As Isobel tries to strengthen her power, she’s overcome with memories of her late murderous husband, which seems to make her powers go a bit haywire. As expected, it’s driving her a bit crazy. To paraphrase her own words while talking to Max in the pod, she can’t feel max anymore, but it constantly feels like Noah is crawling under her skin. While voicing these concerns, she has the idea to use the old ultrasound machine that Michael and Liz used on Max (more on that soon). What she sees causes her to quickly gasp and throw the wand down. Could it be that her lingering connection to Noah is because she’s pregnant? Can aliens get pregnant???

Moving on to Rosa, Noah is haunting her nightmares. How could that be though since she’s never met Noah or even seen a photo of him until Liz shows her a photo after one of said nightmares? Liz believes it’s some sort of psychic connection to Max through his handprint that’s still there – two weeks later – from when he revived Rosa. In her nightmares, Noah seems to think Rosa is Max. He goes on and on about the Alighting and how the victors are coming for him or something along those lines. If you remember, talk of the alighting started near the end of season one. I’m still not sure exactly what it all means, but I have feeling it’ll be playing out sometime this season, and will probably have something to do with Max’s inevitable return – because yes, I am holding on strong to the hope that he will return.

Speaking of saving Max, at first, Michael and Liz have no hope of bringing him back to life because they’ve learned that his heart is “completely shredded”. However, once Liz hears of Rosa’s nightmares about Noah, the scientist in her is instantly activated and she suddenly has hope. To be honest, there’s a lot of science talk that I can’t fully grasp (it’s never been my strong suit), so I’m not even going to try to explain that part of it, but I’ll give you the gist of the plan. Liz thought they could replace Max’s shredded heart with Noah’s, but, unfortunately, his is just as weak. Fortunately, we have a regenerative scientist in our midst who is bound and determined to save Max. With the help of Kyle’s doctor brain and, of course, Michael’s genius alien know-how, I believe we have the perfect team to do this.

However, there may be a slight problem. Rosa has another nightmare in which Noah attempts to suck her soul out, but a zombie-like Max saves her. He has one alarming request: don’t let Liz save him. WHY???

Notable Mentions

• Sgt. Maines is in a medically induced coma, and Alex thinks he should stay that way.
• Alex’s brother tries to take Noah’s body, but Rosa purposely wrecks her and Liz to stop him.
• Kyle’s face when Alex throws the morgue doc against the body freezers. Also, the doctor saying, “this isn’t sanitary.” LOL
• Alex tries to give Michael his guitar, but Michael returns it, and says he doesn’t want to do this with him anymore. He’s saying “no” because he thinks they’re bad for each other and he wants to be good for someone. :’(
• Maria tries to look out for Michael even though he keeps pushing her away. Also, why hasn’t she confronted him about noticing his hand?
• Speaking of Maria, she’s also putting on a strong face for a couple reasons. One being Michael. Two, her mom keeps walking out of her care facility and showing up at the bar. At the end of the episode, Maria gets a call saying that she’s left again, and we see as she’s walking down the long dirt road towards the bar, carrying a bracelet. Then she turns to a bright light, and when Maria comes out to look for her, she’s gone, and the bracelet is on the ground.
• The Liz/Rosa sister scenes = GOLD
• “I’m going where you’re going.” – Max; “You smell like rain.” – Liz; “SQUEEEE” – my heart; *Liz laying on a living, breathing Max’s chest in bed, cut to Liz laying on Max’s dead body* “SOBBING” – my heart
• Papa Ortecho being oblivious and proud of his daughter. I love him.
• Isobel’s speech at Noah’s funeral that was really about Max :’(
• Everyone’s acting on this episode was fantastic, as usual, but the ladies SERVED, y’all!

Roswell, New Mexico airs Monday’s at 9/8c on The CW!

Featured Image: IMDb