Roswell Season 2 Episode 6 Review: Sex and Candy
The Roswell gang searches for answers, mostly about themselves, in a divisive episode.
This Roswell review contains spoilers.
Roswell Season 2 Episode 6
Roswell really delivered on their promise with this episode, though not all fans will be happy (pour one out for the Malex stans). Well, at least the first part. Do milkshakes count as candy? Anyway, Kyle Valenti is practically the only one in town who didn’t get any, and instead he finally admitted how really feels, if only to himself, so that’s a start. Everyone else tried a bunch of new things – things that were old but felt new, things that they should have probably done a long time ago, and things they might never do ago.
After everything Jane the Virgin put us through with that Michael memory subplot in their final season, I’m so relieved that Max’s memory issues lasted the duration of only one episode. We got a cute first date, a heart-melting story about milkshakes, some rooftop sex, and a very Liz I Love You out of the deal. But for my money, the best thing is seeing our favorite aliens all back together and acting like siblings again in Max’s room.
As great as it was to see Isobel not only go to a gay bar but flirt, dance, and then hook up with a woman there, the Kyle Valenti detour felt like an unnecessary detour purely for the sake of an eventual reveal that Isobel would end up with a woman in the end after all. Roswell, you don’t get extra points for stopping Isobel from ending up with a straight dude at the dang gay bar when you are the ones who put him there and paired them off to begin with. As much as I enjoy seeing Lily Cowles and Kyle Trevino canoodling in glitter, head-faking toward doing a really crappy thing just so you can come in with the last minute wlw save is not cute. While we’re on not cute: straight people hanging out in queer spaces just because. Kyle Valenti and straight women bachelorette parties, I’m talking to you.
It’s definitely time for Isobel to explore this side of herself, and I hope that one day she and the other queer characters will actually have more conversations about this, considering the tendency of LGBTQ folks to find one another and cluster, in small towns and big cities alike. What will Rosa’s journey look like, as someone who’s development was very much put on ice? Guerin seems 100 percent comfortable with his bisexuality if literally nothing else in his entire life, and the one conversation he and Isobel had about it was deftly written with all the sarcasm, love and charm it warranted, but we could use more.
(However, let it be noted that Guerin’s still wearing that bandage on the hand he didn’t want healed from a homophobic beating, even when he’s with only people who know the aliens’ secret, so it’s not like it’s an issue of secrecy. So still some issues to resolve.)
“Sex and Candy” made it clear that Alex Manes needs to explore what it means to be gay and find that pride and self-love that he never could growing up in an abusive home or in the military. This episode posits it will come with another relationship with a man, in this case Forrest. Yes, Forrest is gorgeous, and sure, romantic and sexual relationships are the most obvious expression of queerness. But so is community, and apparently there is something of an LGBTQ scene in Roswell, even beyond the characters we’ve already met. Part of me is more excited for Alex and Forrest to talk about Buffy and what it meant to them growing up than for them to hook up.
So about that threesome. It’s surprising to see a threesome handled as an emotional issue rather than a titillating one, though we all know Roswell is not an average show. If ever there was a chance to see polyamory on network television, this is it. It felt a bit abrupt for the next morning to be treated as a goodbye between Michael and Alex, for which the groundwork had perhaps been laid in previous episodes, but not really this one. While the show clearly isn’t there yet, the three of them stumbling through some sort of poly arrangement, Generation Q-style, would have felt more in keeping with the trajectory of the episode.
While in the overall life of the show, I understand sending Alex and Michael (who are clearly meant to be together in the long run, that chemistry is white-star-level-electric) off in opposite directions. They’ll do some growing on their own, which is especially key on an emotionally aware show like Roswell. But the ~morning after~ read as Michael and Maria recommitting to one another and Alex and Michael saying goodbye, also known as Michael making a choice, which didn’t feel all that rooted in the previous 40 minutes of television.
Though one could make a case for kink-shaming or queer-shaming, I don’t object to cutting away from the sex in this instance, since I think it emphasized the emotional importance of the scene. However, that falls through if what happens afterwards doesn’t line up with the emotional trajectory of what we watched so far, or if something happened during sex to change the trajectory.
Finally, sci-fi television king of versatile villainy himself David Anders (iZombie, Alias, Heroes, Once Upon a Time) graced this episode with his chameleon-esque abilities and snark, at one point literally strumming on a banjo. If there was ever someone who could pull off lampshading love triangles on the CW while also convincing you he might have made those scarecrows out of real people’s corpses, it’s David Anders. Considering the casual mentions of both Roswell’s high rate of twins and (one of) the twins’ involvement in a sketchy government experiment that most certainly was lead by someone with the last name Manes, I hope this won’t be the last we see of David Anders.
Other notes
It’s wild to see Michael and Isobel thinking of Liz’s feelings and wanting to protect her, considering how mad they were at Max when he first told her their secret. Look how far we’ve come!
Those teal cowboy boots are amazing and I want some. Sorry, Priscilla!
“well you ghosted her. And then you literally ghosted her”
How soon can I get Planet 7 swag? But shouldn’t Planet 7 be the MSM bar and the wlw/femme/NB one would be like Venus or something?
We stan a Vampire Diaries reference so dripping with contempt that it would make Damon Salvatore proud. Alex Manes, teen goth, is definitely the best person for all of these shout-outs.
Liz hardcore ghosted her fiancé Diego, so when is THAT DUDE going to show up?
Isobel remains undefeated: “I only eat humans who express enthusiastic consent.”
Written by
Delia Harrington a freelance writer and photographer focusing on social justice and pop culture through a feminist lens. She loves post-apocalyptic sci-fi, historical fiction, and feminist comic…