Roswell, New Mexico | 4.09 "Wild Wild West"

ECHO ➢ RNM 4x09

AMBER MIDTHUNDER as ROSA ORTECHO ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO | 4.09

“The least I can do is jump into a sinkhole to save my soulmate!”

—Michael

M I C H A E L 🔥😮‍💨

Okay, guys. My thoughts on 4x09.

Michael worrying about Alex was pretty cute, and I skipped everything else because I don’t care.

There. That’s it.

I hate that this had to be the episode that Trevino directed, I wish he could’ve gotten an episode that I would’ve genuinely been interested in, but watching Michael sit at the fireside with a beer while Alex is trapped somewhere and everyone obsesses over getting Liz out of a problem she put herself in and seems not to have to face consequences for either is just not the feel I was looking for, you know?

Actually, now that I’m here, I’m just going to say something that the rest of tumblr will find controversial because that’s just how tumblr is. Liz Ortecho drags the show down. The way I don’t care at all about her relationships, her science, her anything. I love Jeanine Mason, I think she’s a goddess, but my gods, Liz is one of the the most boring, selfish, entitled characters I’ve ever seen. Whenever the show focuses on her, it stops being about aliens and more about how awesome she is. I’m sick of being told how kind and selfless she is when so many of her own actions are driven by greed. She has her heroic moments, granted, but they’re always followed with the same mistakes motivated by her own desire for glory or scientific breakthroughs.

I’m sick of hearing that the reason she betrayed Max, Isobel, and Michael was for the science. I don’t care. I’m also sick of how she never, ever faces consequences for her actions. She had Kyle confront her once in season 3, and mamma mia, here we go again. She risked the pod squad, she exposed them, she put all their plans on saving Alex and the others on halt because she got herself in trouble by her own decisions, and no one’s mad at her. It’s insane, it’s unfair, and honestly, I wish the show had been about Rosa instead. She annoyed the hell out of me at the beginning of season 2, but I really warmed up to her at the end of it, and now I love her. Know why? Because she actually has an arc, she grows up, she doesn’t keep making the same dumb, selfish decisions. Maria, Liz--honestly, with these kinds of female representation we have leading the show (because let’s be serious here, Roswell New Mexico has become the Liz and Maria show), no wonder the CW’s losing so much money and doing so badly right now.

 @unbreakablejemmasimmons​ is a little behind on RNM...

Isobel Evans + horrific mindscapes

*sighs* my echo wedding dreams are DEAD

Let's pregame RNM CrashCon on March 25 with some fun polls to get our spaceship engines revving!

Pick your favorite quote from the villains that have rode through our town of Roswell.

Roswell, New Mexico | 4.09 "Wild Wild West"

NATHAN DEAN as MAX EVANS ➠ 4x09. Wild Wild West

so..... I’ve been trying not to say anything bc this fandom rlly seems to hate when ppl criticize the writing but the finale is monday and my expectations are underground. so uh. rnm negativity ig.

so, these past few episodes have made it abundantly clear to me that these writers wish max and liz weren’t the leads of the show. and before anyone tries to argue that it’s always been an ensemble show, that’s blatantly not true. jeanine and nathan have been billed as 1 and 2 since day 1. in season 1, liz is literally the cause of every single plot point, whether thru her directly setting something in motion, or other characters reacting to her. like I’m not exaggerating, literally everything that happens can be traced back to her digging into rosa’s death. she is the center of the show, and as such, given her romance with max is a very important part of her life, max should be the next most important character. at the start, this show claimed that the very heart of the story was their romance. and for season 1, that’s true. but as soon as we hit season 2, it wasn’t.

now, I think it can still be argued that liz and max remain the leads, because excluding the second half of season 2 where liz was practically shoved out of the main story line, liz and max as characters have remained at the center of this story, if only bc of jones’ interest in the two of them as max is his clone and liz is the only scientist who has the knowledge to accomplish what he wants. but their romance has very obviously taken a backseat post season 1. we had 2x06 where they basically spent the whole episode together, but then the writers worked overtime to reduce the amount of screentime they shared for the rest of season 2. like hello there was an episode where max went to the reservation to learn more about his family history and they chose to have liz stay behind in roswell??? they gave liz that horridly executed ICE storyline instead of her being by her boyfriend’s side while he learned more about his heritage???? and then they’re basically in conflict for the remaining time of the season????

and season 3 was such a joke for echo like, yeah, I got some of my favorite echo scenes, but how the hell were we at 3x09 before they had any real movement? how the hell do the two lead characters only share scenes in 6 of 13 episodes (8 if you want to be generous and count their 30 seconds at the end of 3x02 and the dream sequence in 3x04)???? I haven’t gone back and looked at the screentime, so maybe I’m wrong but I’m willing to bet liz spent just as much time, if not more, with jones than she did with max. liz and max literally shared like 10 minutes prior to 3x09 and half of that was just max in a panic bc liz was dying as an effect of that handprint dumping his heart failure onto her. if you genuinely think what echo got in season 3 was more than scraps, idk what to tell you.

and now we’re here at season 4, which just feels like the biggest fucking slap in the face. the writers on some level know that liz and max’s relationship is supposed to be the focus of the show because the goddamn season 4 promo was literally all about them. we started the season with max attempting to propose THREE times and liz asking him to wait but promising she’ll say yes the next time he does. how the fuck do you start a season like this and not have a thru line of liz conquering the fears that made her hesitate and accepting the proposal (or better yet, being the one to propose) by the end of the season??? like that’s literally just writing 101. especially when the writers have relentlessly had the two of them discuss this engagement. like how do you have max trying to propose repeatedly in 4x01, have their future engagement or a wedding be brought up almost every episode from 4x02-4x08, and then have liz spend the entirety of 4x09 in her dreamscape where she had to confront why she was hesitant to accept the proposal and they are still not engaged by 4x12????? and honestly I don’t think it’s likely that echo’s getting engaged in the finale. I hope I’m wrong, but given how the writers have been dangling this in front our faces all fucking season and how they were oh so confident about a damn season 5 order, I don’t think it’s happening. it’s just insanity, bc from a writing standpoint it makes no fucking sense. unless you don’t care that much about the couple and you think toying with fans is fun.

and worse than the writers toying with us re this proposal is the fact that they introduced a conflict that was just a retread of echo’s horrid season 2b storyline that I don’t think a single viewer liked???? like point for point it was the same fucking plot, except this time with no resolution???? bc liz refusing to respect max’s bodily autonomy has been completely swept under the rug by the writers in favor of blaming the mist for making liz be cruel... as if their conflict didn’t start in 4x07 and liz’s addiction to the mist didn’t start until 4x10.

and like regardless of whether you ship malex or not, you should see how fucked up it is that they get an engagement so easily, when echo still hasn’t managed to reach that step when they are the lead characters????? when michael and alex had never previously discussed the idea of marriage????? when we started season 4 with michael being scared to move in with alex??????? versus liz and max having been living together for six months??????? regardless of whether you ship kybel or not, you should see how fucked up it is that liz is crying and telling max that she’s terrified she’ll never see him again if he and isobel go through the portal, and that moment basically only happens to be a springboard for making kybel official??? bc this scene that should be an emotional goodbye for echo derails into liz reacting to the two of them instead??? when, again, max and liz are the leads????

and this is before I’ve even discussed the disrespect to liz and max as characters! post season 1, they’ve reduced liz to her being a scientist and she spends at least half of her screentime in a lab, either alone or with some side character who only matters for the current season. and these writers keep insisting on her shoddy ethics! like clearly her apology last season meant nothing since these writers decided to pull the same shit again! and this characterization of her prioritizing the science over everything else, of her pursuing science due to her desire for approval/validation is completely at odds with her reasoning in season 1, which was that she wanted to prevent anyone from experiencing the pain she felt when she lost rosa. like the writers completely erased that reasoning and switched it to being all about her ego and chasing accolades.

and max? he spends 5 episodes in the pod in season 2 and then he’s given absolutely nothing to do but reacting to exposition dumps the rest of the season. season 3 he thinks he’s dying and trying to help everyone else make peace with that, then he’s back in the pod for 3.5 episodes, then he’s fucking sidelined for the jones fight, as if that makes any goddamn sense bc the set up of the season was that max was the only one who could possibly fight jones. and then season 4 they just start to scratch the surface with max manifesting these new powers after jones’ death to immediately take his powers away for half the season.

like these writers have proven time and time again that they care more about their shitty, nonsensical, and (frankly) boring plot than they do actually digging into these characters. which is not how one should approach writing a tv show! how the fuck is anyone supposed to care about these characters and invest in the show when you only shallowly explore them??? how are you gonna repeatedly state that liz is the lead and then torpedo her character like this in service of focusing on other characters who are not the lead?????????? how are you gonna end season 1 giving the audience the info that max is “the savior” just to twist it into a title jones gave himself, so it’s not about max at all???? like genuinely there is no explanation for this derailment other than the writers are more interested in literally anything else. and it’s just sad how much potential was wasted.

“Liz, she’s got her boyfriend. You’ve got your boyfriend. Imma go get my boyfriend.”

—Michael to Rosa

4x09 “Wild Wild West” Promo Pics