*This article contains spoilers for the Roswell, New Mexico season 2 premiere.
It’s rare that a season premiere comes out and just wows you, but that’s what the season 2 premiere of Roswell, New Mexico did last night. The CW series about aliens in in the town of Roswell, created by Carina Adly Mackenzie, is a remake of the 1999-2002 series. In the age of remakes, reboots, and revivals, there aren’t a lot of them that actually feel warranted, but this one does. Confession, I’ve never seen the original, but this series definitely feels like it’s its own thing, and that thing is phenomenal. Last night’s episode is everything you want a season premiere to be – exciting, emotional, and full of cliffhangers for the new season to explore.
The episode picks up right where last season left off, with Liz Ortecho (Jeanine Mason) crying over Max Evans’s (Nathan Parsons) dead body, and Rosa (Amber Midthunder) newly alive. You got to love a show that plays it fast and loose with character deaths. Of course, that brings up the question of whether Max is really dead, but more on that later. The story then jumps two weeks, and we find out that Liz took the job in Palo Alto (though she hasn’t moved yet), she’s hiding that Rosa’s alive, Noah’s (Karan Oberoi) funeral is happening, and Liz, Michael (Michael Vlamis), and Isobel (Lily Cowles) are hiding that Max is dead from everyone. That’s a lot of threads to pull at, and the show does it expertly.
Liz, the emotional heartbeat of the show, is handling the dichotomy of the bliss of having her sister back, and the grief of losing the love of her life, and Mason plays those emotions perfectly. Everyone’s hurting in one way or another, and handling it in different ways. Michael ghosts Maria (Heather Hemmens), killing any chance at their budding romance, Isobel works on getting better at using her powers, and Rosa has nightmares about Noah. It’s an emotional feast to sink into in all the right ways.
But don’t worry, the show doesn’t spend the entire episode wallowing. It also has plenty of action. There’s the drama, like Isobel yelling at Liz at Noah’s funeral for being the reason her brother is gone, or like Maria being hurt by Michael’s actions since she doesn’t know that he’s grieving, after all. But there’s also Liz deciding to try to do a heart transplant to bring Max back to life. It turns out that Rosa’s nightmares are a connection to Max, and if Max’s brain is still alive, maybe his body can be healed. Using Noah’s heart proves tricky however when the body goes missing. It turns out that Alex’s (Tyler Blackburn) brother took the body – this clash between the military assholes in Alex’s family and those who actually want to the help the aliens will clearly continue this season. A car crash orchestrated by Rosa allows team alien (yes, that’s what I’m calling them) to get the body back. Car crashes, psychic nightmares, and alien organ transplants. Is there anything this show doesn’t have?
The show leaves off with Liz deciding to use the regenerative medicine she’s been studying her entire adult life to make Noah’s heart healthy enough to put into Max, Isobel finding out that she might be pregnant (?!!!) with Noah’s child, and Rosa being able to make a mental connection with Max where he tells that under any circumstances, she has to stop Liz from bringing him back. There’s also something called an alighting coming? So yes, it’s a giant of an episode. I didn’t even mention everything that happens here. This episode gets me excited to dive into season 2, which is exactly what a season premiere is supposed to do! If every episode is as strong as this one, it’s going to be a great season.
