Of course, "normal" is a relative concept in Roswell, NM, the alien capital of America or at least the Southwest. We flash forward to another busy night at the Crashdown Cafe, where Liz and Maria are excited that Liz's grandmother Claudia Parker is coming to town.
Liz even indulges a visiting convention of orthodontists by modeling her "wonderful" overbite for them.
Max is also hanging around the Crashdown Cafe (alone) to catch a glimpse of Liz.
They begin to have a conversation as the camera shifts over to a group of football players situated at an opposite booth. One of them asks the other if that was "him", to which the other replied, "Yes, that's him". (description contributed by Dorothy)
As Max is walking home from the Crashdown he gets jumped by this gang of West Roswell jocks. Max feigns ignorance about his feelings for Liz Parker, but he gets a fist in the face anyway. Then the group closes in to beat him up.
We next see Michael getting worked up about this as Max bandages his wounds. Michael blames the football team for the incident and notes that Kyle, who seems to control most high school athletes in Roswell, probably sent them to teach Max a lesson. After all, even though Liz and Max do share a strange bond, she's still technically dating Kyle.
Michael insists that this is all evidence that the aliens should do away with the football team completely, but Max would really rather not see things escalate into full-scale clique warfare. He is more concerned with keeping his alien nature secret, and argues that outright defiance will only end up exposing them all.
At school the next day, Liz goes through the motions of planning a date with Kyle for later that evening. In the stairwell, Michael bumps into one of the football players we earlier saw beating Max up. This momentary contact gives the jock a fit of profound itching that drives him mad and fails to impress a nearby adoring cheerleader.
From a secret vantage point, Michael smiles, pleased that his vicarious revenge against humanity is going so smoothly.
Later, at the Crashdown, Liz's father is grooving to a Creedence Clearwater Revival album when his mother Claudia strolls in.
Claudia's character turns out to be radical; she has done a slew of impressive things, and will show her latest book to Liz. She takes a dim view of the music her son "Geoffrey" listens to, but is happy to see Liz.
Naturally, Grandma and Liz has a conversation that steers into her love life, but Liz can only talk about Kyle because the situation with Max is too "complicated." The older woman sees right through her granddaughter's halting description of her relationship with Kyle, but notes that "there's plenty of time to have fun with people before you find your soul mate."
Maria bursts in, freeing Liz from further embarrassment. In between fits of the giggles, Maria accidentally clues Grandma in on the existence of Max.
Liz: No, Max just isn't possible. He's like this whole different.... Maria: Life form?
Liz: ...type.
Max, meanwhile, is working at the UFO Center stuffing rubber guts back into one of the fake alien corpses.
Isabel arrives and starts interrogating him about his "accident" the previous night -- his face is still all cut up and she knows he lied to her about falling down on the basketball court. When told he got beat up, she immediately assumes that Kyle sent the football players because he thinks Max is a threat to his relationship with Liz.
Max won't use his alien powers to get rid of the cuts because they have to heal "normal" in keeping with his obsession with fitting in with normal humans.
Back at the Parker house, Liz and Kyle are walking home from the video store, where Kyle has thoughtfully rented "Massacre at Sunset Village" because, as he puts it, "the serial killer hones in on this retirement community so it's got something for your grandmother."
But there's an ambulance pulled up out front and they're wheeling Grandma out on a gurney. She had a stroke!
At the hospital soon after, Liz gets a soda and frets. She calls Max, but only gets his answering machine message. She tells the machine she's calling him because she feels bad, but tells him not to come because it would be awkward.
Max is actually at home and is only screening his calls.
The Parker family, with Kyle in tow, continue to stress out at the hospital. The tension does not ease when Max arrives, as Liz is at first elated but Kyle becomes suspicious of the two once again. Seeing Kyle there, Max makes up a story about how his cousin was in a car accident and beats a hasty retreat.
However, Kyle is waiting for Max outside at his jeep. He doesn't buy the story and explains his position to Max -- basically, he means well and likes Liz a lot, but doesn't want Max around her.
Max drives off.
Later, at the Valenti house, which is, Kyle is dejectedly watching TV when his sheriff father comes in with ice cream. The two bond over Ben & Jerry's ice cream as Valenti tries to find out what's bugging his son.
Kyle asks whether his mother ever became as distant as Liz is growing. Valenti knows that this is all about Max, who he has known is in collusion with Liz since the first episode, and warns Kyle to stay away from Max Evans.
At school the next day, Michael takes his vengeance on another of the football players by scrambling (switching?) his answers to a math test.
Meanwhile, Liz is trying to put a brave face on things by asking Max to meet her grandmother when she recovers, but he seems to be drawing away from her. When she pesters him about the change, he snaps at her and says she shouldn't have called in the first place because he knows that his relationship with her is just going to end up revealing his alien heritage to everyone.
In the boys' bathroom, he takes out his frustration on a stall door, knocking it down with superhuman strength and in the process hitting Michael (in the next stall) on the head. As it turns out, Max is so upset because he is pushing Liz, the girl he loves dearly, away.
To cheer his friend up, Michael notes that he has fixed Kyle's locker so it won't open. Outside the bathroom Kyle is futilely trying to open his locker. Max pauses to watch as he leaves the bathroom, but is not as amused by it as Michael is.
Meanwhile, Maria tries to make Liz feel better saying that Liz should not be at school, but instead at home living on junk food. Liz, however, says she's getting a weird feeling from Max -- it's like he's pulling away from her, but this is impossible because they're not even a couple. This upsets Liz very much, but Maria tries to comfort her by saying that maybe she's just overreacting. Maria even offers to cover for Liz at the Crashdown that evening, even though the diner's labor problems have worsened. This noble gesture leaves Maria alone to work the Crashdown with only Agnes, an old and very lazy woman, for backup.
Needless to say, this is a disaster. When a large crowd comes in, Agnes flees the diner completely, to have a cigarette on one of her very frequent breaks. Maria, beside herself with stress, sniffs her cedar oil to calm down when she see Isabel and two friends stroll imperiously by on the way to the movies.
Isabel laughs when Maria asks her to help out at the Crashdown while Liz is indisposed.
Isabel: Let me put this as succinctly as possible. I'm not really a service-oriented person.
Back at the hospital, Geoffrey is telling stories about Grandma and getting them wrong when the old woman's medical condition takes a turn for the worse.
Irrational gestures and awkward pauses While Geoffrey gesticulates with the doctor, Maria appears. Liz is completely irrational at this point and blames Kyle for taking her to the video store when she could have been spending precious time with her grandmother.
At school, the janitor finally gets Kyle's locker open -- the lock was melted from the inside!
We next see Isabel in a Crashdown waitress uniform. Max is shocked by this turn of events, but Isabel says there's no need to explain. She suggests he talk to Liz but he heeds the jocks' warning.
Isabel quickly gets the Crashdown Cafe in order, cooking her own burgers using her alien powers and heating coffee with a minimum of fuss.
Liz drags herself out of the hospital to go to Max's house. They talk outside about why she called him in the first place, even though it was against the rules they had set for each other -- she couldn't help it. She also asks him to use his powers on her grandmother.
He says that he can't just heal people all the time: "I'm not...God." There's an awkward moment then.
At school the next day, Kyle ponders how his locker might have melted. His helpful football pals say it's probably Max getting back at the team for beating him up.
This surprises Kyle, who had no idea of the violence his friends were prepared to commit in his name. He rushes to the hospital and talks to Liz. He calls his teammates degenerates for beating Max up but, unfortunately, she didn't know either, and she attacks Kyle for being friends with people who'd do something like that in the first place.
Even though she still maintains she's not actually involved with Max (which is fair because they haven't even technically gone out yet), she breaks up with Kyle. As she says, her feelings are complicated. He warns her that Max is trouble and the sheriff is watching him.
A very sad mood prevails as Liz gets coffee for her sleeping parents and then kicks them out so they can get some air. She goes into Grandma's room and adjusts her tubes to have a nice chat.
Max shows up and maintains that, while he won't heal the old woman, he can help Liz say goodbye. He gives Grandma a few doses of healing power, but his powers don't appear to be enough to bring her back to consciousness, a nagging reminder of his own limitations that causes him some distress.
A psychic projection of Grandma then appears and says hello to Liz. They hug. Ever observant, Grandma realizes that Max is the mystery boyfriend, and she entreats Liz to trust her heart.
A flatline noise indicates that Grandma is dead. The phantom disappears.
Liz notes that "the tough thing about following your heart is that sometimes your heart takes you places you shouldn't be.... Sometimes your heart takes you places that can never lead to a happy ending."
Max drives Liz home to the Crashdown Cafe and when they say their goodbyes, Liz starts to thank Max for helping her today, but he places his finger over her lips and tells her there's no need to thank him. She nods and walks in as Just as she approaches the door, she turns around and rushes back into Max's arms, crying into his shoulder. (description contributed by Dorothy) A crane shot pulls back from the sight of the two teens trying to hold each other up under the neon rocket lights of the Crashdown Cafe.
