Finally this final season of Roswell, New Mexico delivers a decent episode with “Dear Mama.” There have been some enjoyable things in the first three episodes, but the fourth episode is more coherent in its characterizations, and plot details, and all-around more interesting than the episodes proceeding it. “Dear Mama” still has some issues in its prioritizations, however.
The episode does bring back Mimi DeLuca just to kill her off, though. The show has not been consistent with Mimi’s character—her backstory is still largely a mystery, and her loyalties difficult to follow. How much does she really know about aliens, or about her mother Patricia? Even as the show kills her off in this episode, they still leave a mystery surrounding her for Maria to untangle. Despite Maria and Mimi having psychic powers, we didn’t actually get a lot of bonding time between them. Maria never even told Mimi that she no longer has her powers, leaving Mimi’s last words a moot point. With her dying breath, Mimi sends Maria on an investigation into the past. So far, Maria’s only consulting photo albums.
Mimi’s death happens at the top of the episode. Though the characters mourn her throughout the runtime, Liz gets the heavy emotional lift concerning Mimi’s death, not Maria. This seems odd, especially since it’s between Liz (who’s had even less screen time with Mimi than Maria has) and Shivani, a new character we just met. It’s a strange decision to focus so heavily on Liz here—she does talk about her own mother, but we haven’t seen her since Season 2.
Instead, this episode should have focused more on Maria and her emotional fallout regarding her mother’s death. She does get to discuss her feelings with Dallas a bit, but it’s all wrapped up in a new plot line for her, which undermines the effect of Mimi’s death. Like before, Mimi’s used as a plot device, and Maria isn’t allowed proper time to sort through her feelings and grief.
Things with Michael and the alien robbers ramp up big time. Bonnie and Michael get closer (but not too close!) and Clyde remains suspicious of Michael. I really like Bonnie, and it makes sense for her to misread Michael’s intentions as flirty. Her kissing him is totally fine—she doesn’t understand human interaction and Earth’s customs. Michael shuts it down really fast, tells her about Alex, and she takes it in stride. Wonderful.
Didn’t consider that other aliens don’t know about Jones having a kid. Very interesting dynamic once Michael reveals himself to Bonnie and Clyde about Jones being his dad. I love this whole plot line for Michael. Though I still think that early episodes this season rushed some of its emotional moments, the show establishes for Michael that he considers Alex his home works so well here.
Once Clyde reveals the alien rock thing is going to get them home to Oasis, it certainly complicates things for Michael, despite his redefinition of home. This is what he’s always wanted—he searched for years for those alien pieces to build that console. Not feeling like he belonged on Earth, he looked to the stars for answers. Those feelings don’t go away, they just get redefined. Two emotions can exist at the same time. He loves Alex, but the temptation of his childhood dream is there. This push and pull for Michael is going to define his Season 4 arc. I trust that he’ll still end up with Alex, but this is a complicated, interesting, and dynamic character study for him that I’m looking forward to. I wouldn’t worry, either—when he finds out Alex is missing, he’ll be reminded of his priorities.
“Dear Mama” handles a big plot twist expertly. A good plot twist adds layers to what we thought we knew. In this case, it’s clear Tezca has some sort of mind control. She uses Eduardo to steal Jones’ body and the truck driver to access a restricted area. The blue eyes were a great way to track that, which also led to the great switch-up between the different Cameron’s. But the reveal that she can shapeshift and she’s in the pod that Kyle finds in Mexico makes her even more of a threat than we already knew. It also leaves us with more questions, but they’re interesting and necessary questions that don’t feel like they’re just being drawn out to extend some contrived drama.
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Most of this episode is pretty great, but the Isobel and Anatsa stuff is so disappointing. I knew the show wanted Kyle/Isobel but Isobel seems so in love with Anatsa. I was interested in seeing them work through their issues—Isobel shouldn’t have lied, and she definitely should not have mindscaped her. But the moment she’s telling Anatsa that she’s going to come clean about everything could have led to some really fascinating character stuff for both of them. Instead, the show takes the easy way out—Anatsa doesn’t want to hear it, even though Isobel is offering an explanation that Anatsa had asked for. It doesn’t do justice to how these characters felt about each other. I hope they are able to come back together on a level playing field and don’t fall apart for contrived reasons.
This was Season 4’s best episode so far, but the bar has been really low. Still, it’s good to be back on Season 3’s terms, giving us great sci-fi moments and interesting character setups.
Stray Thoughts:
Still hoping for a Jones resurrection!
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Still don’t understand how big Roswell is. Seems like too small a town for Michael to go undercover in. Season 3 also had this issue when Jones just kept walking into all of the same locations our characters walk into.
Love that Michael Trevino gets another chance to speak Spanish in this episode! And it seems like we’re going to learn more about the Valenti family.
Are there additional side effects of being controlled by Tezca besides the blue eyes? How long do they stay blue?
“Follow me around like a bad tweet.”
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“This isn’t my first kidnapping.”
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