I think people ignore that dtk spends all of his time with former criminals Liz and Patty and has like zero parental supervision he acts super proper but I know in my heart of hearts they have done everything in their power to be bad influences on him and it worked. “He is polite” is such a blatant misreading of his character. he is actually rude on purpose because his sisters enjoy it and he does whatever they want. Patty taught kid every swear word under the sun within a month of knowing him because she thought it was funny and Liz was like ooohhhhg my god his dad who is literally the grim reaper is going to fucking kill us & then lord death just did not care because he lets kid get away with everything so she gave up on being a responsible older sibling and taught him how to threaten and intimidate people. Anything he does that seems cool is something that liz and patty taught him.

So I’ve wanted to write about Maria for a long time and I finally put some of my thoughts into words related to Maria’s character development in season 1, what I think her day to day life is like, and how I think some of the trauma she’s experienced influenced her decisions in the finale. I am very aware that not everyone is going to agree with my analysis, but I’m gonna post it anyways! So here goes...

*****

When I say my RNM OTP is every character x a good therapist it’s only sort of a joke. All of the characters on this show have been through significant traumas, and I want to explore Maria’s trauma a little bit. Hers is, I think, the easiest to overlook, because it’s quieter in some ways, both due to the nature of what she’s been through and because Maria, by her own admission is more comfortable playing the role of “the fun friend” rather than drawing attention to her hardships. [Please note: I am not interested in playing the Trauma Olympics here. This is a discussion of Maria’s experiences, not an effort  to rate her trauma as greater or less than anyone else’s]. 

The most obvious source of trauma for Maria is of course her mother’s illness. I also think Maria was greatly affected, like most other characters on this show, by Rosa’s death, combined with having Liz and Alex leave Roswell shortly thereafter. On top of that there’s the trauma of the relentless racism she experiences running a bar in a town that she says “rejected everything about her.” 

We get a glimpse of the racism Maria encounters, in Maria’s initial introduction, in which Racist Hank lives up to his name as Maria wraps up his psychic reading. We get the sense that hearing this casual racism is a normal occurrence for her. The conspiratorial way he talks to her, as though they would be in agreement about this point, surely disgusts her, but there’s not much she can do. Putting up with this racist crap is the cost of doing business in Roswell. 

As we later learn, Maria quite literally cannot afford to call this out or offend these racist assholes, because she has to save every penny from the bar and each psychic reading to keep the bar and pay for doctors for her mother. If she kicked every racist in this town out of her bar, she’d have to shut down within the week [In fact in nearly every scene in the bar, we see Wyatt Long or Racist Hank, so this is a constant]. The most she can do is to make reference to it in a somewhat lighthearted way (You’re not distracting me from my money with your thinly veiled racism). But being rational about it, doesn’t mean that this crap doesn’t wear down her soul a little bit more every day. I’d bet it feels pretty dehumanizing for her as she certainly must hear racist shit directed at her on the regular as well, and likely doesn’t have a support system of black friends to confide in or bitch to, given that she expresses that Roswell often has made her feel isolated as a black person (I literally thought we were the only black people in the world).

In fact, we see over the course of the season that Maria’s support system in general seems to be pretty limited. She doesn’t mention any family outside of her mom, or any friends other than Liz and Alex, both of whom have been gone for 10 years. It’s possible of course that Maria has a vibrant social life happening off screen, but given how she describes her work and home life, it seems unlikely she’d have time for one. Liz references her working long hours at the bar and “doing the psychic thing”, which probably doesn’t leave her a lot of time for a social life. She’s likely working most evenings and weekends, and caring for her mom the rest of the time. If she did once have lots of friendships, they’ve likely faded as she probably has to say no to most social engagements because she’s working. We also don’t know much about her love life, other than she engages in some amount of casual sex (she suggests to Liz that ‘random sex, different guy’ may be a good solution for her) and we know that she dated some dude named Chad and it ended badly. It’s possible casual sex is all she really has time for, given all of her other responsibilities. Given her lack of support system. I’d imagine Maria has been pretty lonely, particularly before Liz and Alex came back to town. 

I also think it’s possible that Maria closed herself off a bit to friendship after Rosa’s death. That must have been an extremely traumatic experience for her. We know Maria was possibly even closer friends with Rosa than she was with Liz. Though she refers to Liz as her “high school BFF”, it’s clear Rosa and Maria had their own bond, separate from Liz (I was hoping you would help me learn some of her secrets. Things she wouldn’t tell me. Things she’d only tell you). She speaks of Rosa with a sense of hero worship (and you can see that on her face in their one flashback scene) and it’s clear that she hasn’t let go of Rosa over the past 10 years. We know she still visits Rosa’s memorial (I saw what you left at Rosa’s memorial) and has left her little hiding place in the Wild Pony untouched (I just didn’t want to invade her privacy). She still considers Rosa her family and mourns her all these years later. 17 is such a formative age, and losing someone close to her at that age likely affected her greatly (I head canon that Maria had a crush on Rosa, but whether she did or not, her grief is just as valid ). 

And then on top of one of her best friends dying tragically, Maria loses two more of her closest friends within a few months. Liz peaces out, likely within days, and it’s implied she doesn’t keep in touch with Maria at all. Though Maria was likely somewhat prepared for Liz leaving on her road trip and then for college, she for sure wasn’t prepared for radio silence. And though we don’t know exactly what Alex’s plans were before he joined the Air Force, I’m guessing him leaving for boot camp was a shock for Maria too. So at 17-18, she loses Rosa, Liz, and Alex in quick succession, while she’s left behind in Roswell. 

We don’t know what Maria’s hopes and dreams were in high school, but we do know that staying in Roswell likely wasn’t her freely made choice. The timeline of Mimi’s illness is unclear, so we don’t know when Mimi needed Maria to run things completely and look after her, but I think it’s likely that even before her mother’s illness, it was determined that Maria needed to stay in Roswell to help with the family business. She didn’t have the option to leave. It must have been hard being in Roswell without her three best friends, and then on top of that, sometime in those ten years, her mother got sick and then EVERYTHING was on Maria’s shoulders with little support. 

This brings us to Mimi’s illness, which is obviously traumatic for Maria. It’s baffling and exhausting and depressing and constant. She’s struggling to figure out what is going on, while being stymied by financial difficulties (we’re doing just about anything for a buck) and a racist medical system (I can’t tell you how many rich, white doctors have not so subtly implied she’s faking). She refuses to give up hope, and she’s grasping at any straw she can to help (like going to the faith healer) but there’s nothing she can do because her mom’s illness doesn’t make any sense (and is likely alien related). And through it all she doesn’t even feel like she’s entitled to anger, because she’s trying to be the kind of person her mom would want her to be. Her mom is slipping away from her day by day, and it feels like she’s losing parts of herself too. She thinks everything she likes about herself comes from her mom, and is terrified about what life will look like if her mother no longer has even bouts of lucidity. It’s enough to make anyone want to scream and break things, or curl up and sob and never get out of bed, but Maria doesn’t have that luxury. She has to get up every day to keep the bar running, to make sure her mom doesn’t wander away again, and to search for any possible answer to her mother’s afflictions, and god it just sounds so difficult and demoralizing. 

And yet, even with everything going on and all the plates Maria has to keep spinning she is still a kind and supportive friend. She gives Liz grief for like two seconds for being gone and out of touch for ten years, before welcoming her back with open arms (literally). Throughout the season, she acts as an ear to listen when Liz needs her. She teases Alex, and gives him free drinks when he stops by the bar. She goes out of her way to make grumpy Max Evans smile, even when she’s having a terrible day herself. I wrote once in a fic that “Maria DeLuca is sunshine” and she really is. She shines so brightly and makes the lives of people around her better. 

But like I wrote once about Kyle, the other caretaker on this show, I do think despite the fact that she manages it sometimes, it is hard for Maria to ask for help. This is not to say that Liz and Alex don’t support her, because they absolutely do. It’s clear that Alex is aware of Mimi’s health issues prior to 1x07 and does what he can to help. Once Alex spurs Liz into motion, she tries to be there for Maria in the ways she knows how (wanting to call a friend about a clinical trial) and then when that’s not what Maria wants, she visits the faith healer with her. But I think Maria doesn’t want to feel like a burden, and maybe she doesn’t even know what she needs, so she shoulders most of it herself. With her psychic intuition, she likely knows that Liz and Alex are going through difficulties as well, and doesn’t feel like adding to that, especially when she doesn’t think there’s anything that can be done to make it better and it all feels helpless. 

All of this is SO MUCH for a 28 year old to manage, and Maria must be run absolutely ragged. Given all that, I really do understand why she turned to Michael in the season finale. 

Because as @chasingshhadows wrote in this meta, there has been a steady progression to the relationship between Michael and Maria throughout season one. Michael has been likely been a consistent presence in her life for 10 years, and she’s definitely thought about sleeping with him even before the events of the show. (She thinks he’s riffraff sure, but sex in a truck, smells like a river, never introduce him to your mama, slips right off her tongue. She’s thought about it, probably mostly at the end of the night when she’s a little tipsy. Probably the only reason it hasn’t happened yet is that Michael usually ends up in a fight and arrested before the end of the night.) 

Then, in 1x07 and 1x11 he shows up for her. And he does so in a way that really works for her. Michael is just there. In 1x07 he lets her sit in her grief, he doesn’t try to fix it, doesn’t try to make her explain, he just comforts her. And then in 1x09 they hook up, and as antagonistic as she is after, it’s clear she likely expected they would again. It’s clear from the way she says “It can never happen again” in 1x10 and how her face falls afterwards. But once she knows Alex and Michael kissed in high school and that Alex is feeling hopeful (which is the extent of what she knows. Which, I mean that Alex is feeling hopeful after the conversation in 1x09 just reminds me of how accurate this gifset is), she doesn’t feel like she can give in to her feelings for Michael, even though she clearly wants to. 

But then 1x11 happens, and at another time when she’s vulnerable, Michael is there for her. After seeming genuinely hurt by her rejection, showing that he’s interested in more than a hookup, he’s kind and caring. He shows that even though she has rejected him twice, he’s still going to be there for her as a friend. This softens her resolve. Which brings us to 1x13, where after another long night working at the bar until close (on a night where maybe she had to deal with a dead guy in her parking lot? Racist Hank was killed by Noah in the Wild Pony parking lot, right? Or did I make that up?), Michael walks into her bar, looking fucking exhausted, just like she probably feels most days, but a little hopeful too. I understand why, she can’t bear to turn him away. Not when they’ve connected in a way she seemingly hasn’t with anyone else in a while, not when she’s likely been feeling pretty lonely and overwhelmed, and not when she has accepted she has feelings for him. I see why, given all the responsibilities she has to shoulder, she’d reach for something that feels good and will maybe let her put her worries out of her head for just a little while. She knows reality will come barging back in soon enough (that’s why she tells him they need to talk) and she’ll have to deal with the fallout, but in that moment, I get why she would choose to ignore the complications for just a bit, and let herself have what she wants. 

I’ve read (and written) meta about how the things Michael and Alex’s have been through help explain the actions they take that sometimes hurt each other and that ultimately lead to the “love triangle”, and I think Maria’s circumstances influence her decisions too. And just like I’ve written with regards to Michael and Alex, while I believe past trauma can help explain and help others understand behaviors and choices made, the fact that a behavior or a choice is influenced by trauma doesn’t require those hurt by those behaviors or choices to excuse or forgive them. There is no question that Maria’s decision in the finale will hurt Alex, and just because her circumstances and everything she’s been through help explain why she made these choices, that doesn’t mean Alex needs to forgive her. [Just like even though Alex’s past trauma helps explain why Alex pushed Michael away, it doesn’t mean Michael is required to forgive him when he’s been hurt by this, or that Alex is required to forgive Michael for decisions that were influenced by his past trauma that have hurt Alex. I hope everyone does ultimately, but it is not a requirement just because the actions were influenced by trauma] In my opinion, there are no villains here. Just imperfect people, who have all been through a lot, who sometimes, in their efforts to cope, end up hurting each other. 

So all this to say, I have a lot of empathy for Maria and where her story ended in season 1. She, like so many characters on the show has been through the ringer, and has a lot to work through. I hope the girl can catch a break in season two, though I think it’s unlikely. I’m excited to watch her character grow if March would ever get here.