I think we all pretty much knew at some point in this season of Roswell, New Mexico we’d have a Liz episode. That’s exactly who Roswell, New Mexico 4×09 “Wild, Wild West” was about. It was also an episode where we got to see everyone work together without either the help of Liz or Kyle. They had to do the saving this time.
Let’s discuss Roswell, New Mexico 4×09: “Wild, Wild West.”
After Shivani dropped Liz’s alien mist in Roswell, New Mexico 4×08 “Missing My Baby” and gave them both a mega dose, Liz was faced with some major side-effects. It put her into a deadly fever dream where she was trapped in her own mindscape, and it was wild-literally. Liz’s mindscape was a literal wild, wild west world. We’re not exactly sure why her mindscape was a Tombstone film, but it sure was interesting to say the least.
Inside Liz’s mindscape she’s the Sheriff of her own mind and she works alongside Rosa and her Papa who goes by Deputy Machete. Max has written two novels and is working on his third, Isobel is a gunslinger but, she’s been murdered, and Max has been kidnapped. Oh, and Kyle is a horse. Yup, in Liz’s mindscape, her Doctor buddy is a horse.
The problem with Liz being locked in her own mindscape was that she’s the only one who knows all the science stuff with the exception of Kyle who is away in Mexico. Rosa, Michael, Maria, Isobel, and Max have to figure things out without him. That’s tough because he’s always their second in command if Liz isn’t available. The plan they initially come up with is for Isobel and Max to go into Liz’s head to try and get her out of the mindscape.
That plan is quickly scrapped after Isobel is shot and real Max is kidnapped. Isobel snaps out of the mindscape and realizes that Max is still stuck inside. We learn immediately that the person who took him is Liz’s evil magical twin. And oddly, Clyde is her sidekick. Of course, Isobel and the others don’t know that because they aren’t inside of Liz’s head. Michael who has worked with Liz and Kyle from time to time has to step up to the plate and pull what knowledge he has out in order to save Liz.
Michael is able to get some instructions via phone from Kyle but it’s just enough to buy them a short amount of time to try and rescue Liz before it’s too late for both her and Max. See, because Max is bound to Liz. If she dies, he dies too. Rosa knows that they need more help, so she calls Heath, who is Liz’s former colleague from her time with Genoryx. First off, that was smart thinking on Rosas part. However, we were curious as to how easy it was for her to call him up.
As it turns out, Rosa has been keeping in touch with Heath because he’s been helping her figure out her powers and how to control them. When Michael found out he was pretty upset, and we didn’t expect that. He sort of chewed Rosa out and asked her why she didn’t go to Liz instead. We thought Rosa was doing okay in New York, but we guess we were wrong. She’s still struggling and feeling lost. The reason she didn’t reach out to Liz was because she was tired of feeling like the needy sister all the time.
Once Rosa told him, Michael was more understanding. She helped him out as well by keeping him grounded and focused on their current situation. He was ready to run off to try and save Alex from the alien engineered sinkhole, but Rosa reminded him that he needed to keep it together. There was no way he would be able to save Alex alone. Therefore, they needed to first save Liz and Max.
Back in Liz’s mindscape, she’s trying to figure out how to save Max from her evil twin. Liz knows that with every mindscape there is a puzzle to solve but she’s having a hard time solving her own. She’s gotten a few clues but still doesn’t know what her evil twin self wants from her. Liz attempts to seek advice from her mentor Allie Meyers but she reiterates that Liz has to figure out what she doesn’t want to confront.
Even in the mindscape Liz is so stubborn. Despite the advice she gets, she decided to face down her evil twin and kill her. In Liz’s mind if she killed the evil half of her, she and Max would come out of it. She’s missed the mark entirely. Liz’s problem is she has to control everything. She can’t let people help her and that’s one of the lessons she learns in the mindscape.
When Liz gets her loved ones together, they all attempt to take down evil Liz and Clyde. The mission fails and everyone is killed except Max. Liz’s frustration leads her to her breaking point and she is ready to give up. Then Allie pops up again and once again gives her a pep talk that helps her dig deeper to find out what her twin wants.
Liz confronts her evil twin who still has Max, one last time and they have a battle of the minds. Liz has realized that she’s afraid of herself and failure. Not only that, but she’s also terrified of building a life with Max only to lose him. We had a feeling it was something along those lines. However, evil twin Liz does not seem satisfied with that. She is the darker part of Liz, so she knows there is much more to what Liz really wants.
Evil twin Liz feels the parts of Liz that are bursting to get out. That part of her is the one that feels the mediocrity of her life and what she could be without Max. Early in the episode, Evil Liz let’s Max have it and she just tells him all of Liz’s thoughts. She’s really annoyed with Max and very resentful. Even with all those feelings, he knows she still believes in their relationship.
While there may have been a small part of Evil Liz that did still care for Max, it seemed what she wants for Liz AKA herself matters more. Evil Twin Liz wants Liz to embrace the alien power given to her because with it, they can be smarter and fearless. Liz says she doesn’t want those abilities because it will make them weaker but Evil Twin Liz seems to have all the answers and she tells Liz that even if something were to happen to them, having the powers would make Liz smart enough to fix any issue she might have.
After pleading her case, Liz finally makes her choice and fires a shot. Now, we thought when she fired that shot, she was killing her evil self. Nope, that was not the case at all. Liz actually let her evil twin go so we guess they’re linked now. That also means Liz still has the power from her alien mist. All of this is unbeknownst to everyone around her. Currently, Liz is lying to everyone including Max (again) about her experience inside the mindscape. She’s got everybody thinking that she doesn’t remember what happened and Max thinks she killed the evil part of her because they both woke up from the mindscape.
The deception this time may be too great for even Max to deal with. And if he had any powers right now, he would probably be able to feel that something is off about Liz. There is no going back from the choice she made. We don’t know what she expects to gain from this but we’re sure there are going to be some major repercussions.
