Brilliant biomedical researcher Liz Ortecho returns to her sleepy hometown of Roswell, New Mexico, after ten years away. She has nearly made it to town when she gets stopped in a "sobriety checkpoint" that she strongly suspects is really an ICE checkpoint, and she has just unloaded her frustrations at racist policing when she looks up at the deputy who's stopped her: her high school friend Max Evans, now a cop.
Sheriff Michelle Valenti, who's wandered over to Liz's car due to her tirade, also recognizes Liz; she welcomes her back to town and sends her on her way.
Rattled, Liz makes her way to her family's business: the Crashdown Cafe, an alien-themed diner popular with Roswell locals and tourists alike. She reveals the source of her earlier fear—her beloved father Arturo is undocumented and would have been an easy target for the checkpoint. Liz closes up the diner alone at the end of the night, but she's interrupted by an unexpected visit from Deputy Evans. Abashed at her earlier behavior towards him, she offers him a milkshake.
While they are catching up, shots ring out—someone has fired at the diner and hit Liz squarely in the chest, killing her nearly instantly. Max, who had been about to confess something to her, is anguished... then lays a hand on her wound and concentrates. As he shouts in pain and all the lightbulbs explode, Liz starts to move.
Max reassures her that the shooter missed, then runs in pursuit of the gunman, but he is unsteady on his feet and soon collapses. He concentrates again and telepathically reaches his twin sister, Isobel, saying only that he needs her.
Liz seems to accept Max's explanation, though she recalls being hit by a bullet and can't help but notice the bullet hole in her uniform. Frightened by her close call and wondering how much she can trust her memories, she goes to Roswell's hospital and meets another high school friend: Dr. Kyle Valenti, Sheriff Valenti's son and Liz's high school boyfriend. Kyle reassures Liz that the stress and trauma of her near miss could easily account for her mental state.
Max and Sheriff Valenti discuss the shooting outside the cafe the next day. They believe it's racially-motivated retaliation for a decade-old tragedy: Liz's older sister Rosa drove drunk one night and killed herself and two other girls, both white and wealthy. As she turns to leave, Valenti comments that she's left him a present in the sheriff's drunk tank.
It's his estranged brother Michael, who displays telekinetic powers before Max shows up and they start arguing. Isobel storms in and demands an explanation from Max for his behavior the previous night. Michael, delighted at the reversal in their usual roles, also starts needling Max... until Max confesses that he healed Liz's fatal bullet wound and has almost certainly raised questions in Liz's mind that he can't answer. His siblings are horrified and furious, and even more so when he says that he has decided to tell Liz the truth that not even their parents know: the three of them are Human Aliens, survivors of the 1947 Roswell crash.
Later that day, Liz visits the Wild Pony bar, owned by her high school friend Maria DeLuca. She also meets Kyle in the parking lot and they decide on a fling for old times' sake, but both Kyle and Liz are startled to see a glowing handprint on her shoulder. Mood ruined, Liz hurries home... and Kyle, recalling his father's cryptic advice, calls Jesse Manes to report that he has seen a handprint.
Liz confronts Max the next morning and demands answers on both the handprint and the shooting. Max doesn't answer directly, but does offer to drive her out to an old turquoise mine in the desert. There he shows her three glowing pods deep in the cave, and explains that he and his siblings emerged from them twenty years previously.
Tropes
- Back from the Dead: Liz is revived from death by gunshot with Max's healing ability.
- A Bloody Mess: Inverted. Max splashes ketchup over Liz's wound to disguise the blood.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: One of the first major clues that Max and Isobel aren't human (besides the superpowers they've displayed) is that Isobel gives him nail polish remover to drink.
- Bonding Through Shared Earbuds: As seen in Max's memories of his childhood friendship with Liz.
- Everyone Went to School Together: Justified in that Roswell is a small town.
- Foreshadowing: Max's comment that he became a cop to protect people and to help him sleep at night elegantly establishes that he is carrying intense guilt over a failure to protect someone. We'll learn exactly what happened later in the season.
- Healing Hands: Max displays his ability by saving Liz from death.
- Indirect Kiss: One of the first moments of Ship Tease between Liz and Max is her sharing a shake with him. And then the moment is killed by gunshots.
- Suddenly Shouting: Our first view of Max's simmering anger is when he starts yelling at Isobel.
