S02.E11: Linger

[jewel21]

Quote

Driven by the prospects of her scientific research, Liz opens up to Diego about all the good her findings could do. Meanwhile, Max enlists Kyle's help getting to the bottom of the recent abductions, while Michael does his own investigating into Alex's disappearance. Elsewhere, after learning more about her mother Louise, Isobel pays a visit to Rosa, in hopes that Rosa could help her begin to heal.

Airdate: 06/01/2020

[shapeshifter]

56 minutes ago, jewel21 said:

Quote

Driven by the prospects of her scientific research, Liz opens up to Diego about all the good her findings could do

In other words: Yep. Fans that thought Diego was part of an evil plot are 99% likely to be correct, right?

 

Quote

Elsewhere, after learning more about her mother Louise, Isobel pays a visit to Rosa, in hopes that Rosa could help her begin to heal.

Rosa is going to help Isobel how, exactly? More likely Isobel will be triggering Rosa to backslide from any healing. But, whatevs. 

[Katesgr811]

Not gonna lie, this episode was confusing AF. Liz being shady with her lab work is disheartening. And Diego needs to back the f up.

Edited June 2, 2020 by Katesgr811

[bettername2come]

I was waiting for Kyle to say "Both my parents are cops, remember?" when Max started telling him how to search. Michael Trevino really lets Kyle's kindness shine through. 

God, Alex deserves a better family. He got double kidnapped! Just go stay on the reservation with your nice brother. 

I literally yelled "What the fuck?!" at that ending. I  - I did not foresee Liz's mom and Alex's brother working together, being behind the abductions (knew that was a regular taser though) and demanding Michael build a bomb. Although, I can see how if aliens killed her daughter, Valenti would've told her about them and she'd be out for revenge. 

I feel like the ICE agents seem over the top. 

[KittenPokerCheater]

The Cast is too big. 

[Quickbeam]

I really like the actors more than the plot. It gets really goofy and twisted but I’m like : “ok, see where they take it”. Tonight was more dotted line than plot.

[shapeshifter]

Has anyone rewatched the episode, and did rewatching the episode clarify stuff?

[jewel21]

I'm going to try to re-watch it tomorrow and let you know. 

Man, Michael is just throwing his powers around left and right. 

I'm going to be honest, I wasn't feeling this episode. Just too much going on and none of it was truly satisfying. 

[ellieart]

Seriously?  Flint and Helena?  What?

 

[Cristofle]

Yeah, way too much was going on in this episode and most of it was confusing. I liked the Max/Kyle team but the rest of it was pretty confusing - I don't know how Isobel and Rosa got to where they were (and I still think Isobel more than any of them seems to get a free pass from her part in the cover-up - Rosa has every right not to like Max, but it WAS Isobel's idea to set her on fire, and that never seems to come up). I kind of can't believe Liz is risking: her boyfriend, her best friend, her best friend's mother, and Michael and Isobel to save....Kyle's random girlfriend? When she first started lying to Max to go to the lab, I thought she was trying to work on something to help Maria and Rosa. Also, she would have been within her rights to remind Max of the cover-up, but instead she challenged his valid points about her experiments with...him saving Rosa? Because he was only risking himself there, not her and pretty much everyone she cares about the way she's currently doing to him with her experiments. 

Ultimately the two people I felt the worst for in this episode weren't even in it - Alex because his family literally seems to be fighting over who can abuse him the most, and Maria because Michael very clearly is not over Alex, and I think he's about to build a bomb that could kill her to save Alex. 

I legit do not care about Liz and Diego enough to spend endless amounts of time flashing back to their relationship - that felt like airtime that could have been used on literally anything else in an episode that was already way overloaded with plot.

[backhometome]

At first I thought the Liz/Diego flashback was cute but then it kept happening and I grew bored. 

Alex has the worst family. 

Kyle is the best. Except when he is with Steph. I zone out in their scenes.

Kyle saying Max smelled like rain was the best. lol

Not sure how I feel about these POC being the villains again. 

Interesting they took Alex to get Michael to make a bomb and not his girlfriend. 

[Grace19]

The most boring and nonsensically episode of the show, and considering how bad some episodes have been, that's saying something. It even had some of the worst acting in the show too.

[tennisgurl]

What the hell is going on with Liz, why is she acting so sketchy? I guess we are supposed to take from this and the flashbacks that she gets extreme tunnel vision when it comes to her work and it drives her to make really bad choices, like ghosting her fiance or putting her alien boyfriend and his family and her best friend and her mom in danger? Is she some kind of mad scientist who doesn't think about the obvious terrible consequences of what she is doing? If Liz wasn't more or less the female lead, I would think that she was secretly working with the bad guys, thats how weird she is acting. 

Damn, Alex really has the worst family ever, outside of his brother on the reservation. He got kidnapped twice! Both times by his family members, who are both competing over who can abuse him worse! God!

Kyle and Max were great together, but I am still pretty meh on his new dying girlfriend. I dont super dislike her or anything and I like the actress, but there is so much else going on, I tend to watch Kyle to get back to the plot. 

I so did not see Liz's mom and Alex's brother being in cahoots! Cahoots! Everyone is getting betrayed and screwed over by family members!

[Cristofle]

Carina is so weird when challenged about this Liz story too. Anyone who thinks Liz's behavior is bonkers is apparently against female ambition or something. But on the screen, her behavior is so off the wall and so potentially catastrophically dangerous that her boyfriend told her to her face that he'd rather her be cheating on him with her ex-fiance than what she's actually doing, and it didn't seem to have any impact on her. I can't wrap my head around her seeming lack of consideration that she could be putting Max AND Rosa in danger (given that Rosa was resurrected by Max and has the alien protein in her DNA now, as well as errant electrical powers)- two of the three people in the world she's ever consistently cared about. 

I'm not sure about the emotional impact of Helena being a Big Bad, because Liz just does not care about her (which I respect, lol). When she thought they may be holding her hostage to get access to alien information, her response was more or less *KanyeShrug*. I feel like there is someone we are not yet seeing (the obvious choice is Diego, because he is staying in this tiny town for one of two reasons: he is secretly obsessed with Liz or he's in on the anti-alien conspiracy, but he's SO obvious I'd rather it be someone else).

[peachmangosteen]

3 hours ago, backhometome said:

Kyle saying Max smelled like rain was the best. lol

I didn't get that. Was it an OG reference?

51 minutes ago, Cristofle said:

... Liz just does not care about [her mom] (which I respect, lol). When she thought they may be holding her hostage to get access to alien information, her response was more or less *KanyeShrug*. 

That was my favorite moment of this episode. She literally said, "That won't work because I don't care about her." I cackled!

I'm glad everyone else was confused because I have no idea what happened in that ep. Like at all lol.

I truly hate Michael at this point. He's just BEC for me now.

Liz is out of her mind. Like, she is so arrogant and power hungry or something. I wouldn't mind except apparently Carina doesn't want us to see her that way which means it isn't leading to any comeuppance. 

Diego is still hot but he is coming off more and more obviously bad in some way. Even if he isn't bad it's like, why are you seemingly obsessed with Liz lol.

I truly did not see it coming that Liz's mom was involved. That was a genuine shock. I'm interested to see how it plays out. 

[Lady Calypso]

Yeah...I think I dozed off for a few minutes in the middle of the episode, that's how uninteresting I found it to be.

Liz/Max drama feels forced because they've been so stable for the last few episodes that they needed to find a way to make them fight. I mean, I guess they set Liz up to be super into her work, but I feel like we missed the step from point A to B, especially since she kept a secret about Kyle's girlfriend, who we barely know. Seriously, who gives a shit about Steph? I simply don't care if the girl lives or dies or if Liz accidentally turns her into an evil half alien. 

Diego is still super suspicious and they've done nothing to prove otherwise. I honestly thought they would have revealed him to be Alex's brother's partner. Though Liz's mom? Urg, not surprised either. They brought her on for a reason and for more than one episode, so no shit she's working with the Manes family. But back to Diego, yeah, I'm still waiting for his big secret to drop. Because no way he's 100% a good guy. Not just because Carina likes making the POCs the Big Bads, but also because Diego's still way too chill about Liz ghosting him. Plus, we get more mentions of his girlfriend which means she either doesn't exist or she's someone we already know. Hey, who wants to bet that Diego/Steph are in cahoots somehow? Maybe they're using Kyle and Liz for their own gain (since, have we seen Steph interact with her so-called Chief Dad?)

I'm just throwing things out there, at this point, because we got plenty of suspicious people.

Oh look, no surprise they're getting back to Alex/Michael TWUE WUV status. Because it's been a few episodes since they had Michael/Alex stuff going on. It's probably been too long for Carina. 

I guess some stuff with Rosa/Isboel happened? Again, I definitely tuned out halfway through their stuff, and now Rosa's out of rehab to find Mommy Dearest for some reason.

Kyle remains my favourite character, along with Maria. Pretty much everyone else can go kick rocks. I feel bad for Alex, but I seem to only like him when he's NOT onscreen. 

[backhometome]

41 minutes ago, peachmangosteen said:

I didn't get that. Was it an OG reference?

No. Both Alex and Liz have mentioned that Max and Michael smell like rain. So Kyle saying it to Max was funny. Since Liz and Alex know the aliens intimately. 

For once I am glad to see Liz and Max have relationship problems. Ones that are about them and not outside forces.

[KittenPokerCheater]

23 minutes ago, backhometome said:

No. Both Alex and Liz have mentioned that Max and Michael smell like rain.

I half suspect that the show runner wants to launch a perfume/cologne called "Alien Rain."

I wonder how long it will take for someone to tell Isobel that she smells like rain.

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Damn, Alex really has the worst family ever, outside of his brother on the reservation. He got kidnapped twice! Both times by his family members, who are both competing over who can abuse him worse! God!

OG Alex got murdered. It seems like Carina is seriously considering having this Alex meet the same fate. 

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, peachmangosteen said:

7 hours ago, backhometome said:

Kyle saying Max smelled like rain was the best. lol

I didn't get that. Was it an OG reference?

3 hours ago, backhometome said:

No. Both Alex and Liz have mentioned that Max and Michael smell like rain.

Ah! I had forgotten the previous remarks about Max smelling like rain, but this one jumped out at me as something that we were supposed to notice.
Is it a reference to actual rain, or to Petrichor, the "scent produced when rain falls on dry soil" with perhaps an emphasis on "the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology"? (wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrichor)
Either way, I suspect it's some alien chemical marker that Liz will identify.

Is the smell of rain striking dry pavement also "petrichor"?

The OED Online includes this definition and first published uses of the term petrichor, none of which answer my rain-on-pavement question:

Quote

A pleasant, distinctive smell frequently accompanying the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather in certain regions. Also: an oily liquid mixture of organic compounds which collects in the ground and is believed to be responsible for this smell.

• 1964   I. J. Bear & R. G. Thomas in Nature 7 Mar. 993/2   The diverse nature of the host materials has led us to propose the name ‘petrichor’ for this apparently unique odour which can be regarded as an ‘ichor’ or ‘tenuous essence’ derived from rock or stone. This name, unlike the general term ‘argillaceous odour’, avoids the unwarranted implication that the phenomenon is restricted to clays or argillaceous materials; it does not imply that petrichor is necessarily a fixed chemical entity but rather it denotes an integral odour.
   
• 1971   Listener 4 Nov. 612/3   No matter what kind of rock or earth was used, the oily essence always possessed the aroma of petrichor—the smell of rain falling on dry ground.
   
• 1975   Sunday Mail (Brisbane) 2 Nov. 32/2   The globules, nicknamed ‘petrichor’ or ‘essence of rock’ by the researchers, contained at least 50 different compounds, not unlike a perfume and were absorbed into the ground from the air.
   
• 1993   Canad. Geographic Sept. 13/1   Petrichor comes from atmospheric haze, which contains the terpenes, creosotes and other volatile compounds that emanate from plants.
   
• 1998   L. Forbes Bombay Ice (1999) 11   First there is petrichor, the dry smell of unbaked clay, from the Greek for ‘stone-essence’.
   

Probably when I heard Liz mention Max smelling like rain I dismissed it as a romantic bit of prose⭐ --which I would always prefer to hear rather than watching writhing bodies on my screen. But Kyle's use of the term was a little WTH? for me, even in this episode. 

____________

⭐I had a couple of lovers in the 70s-80s who said my hair smelled like "water." If they had instead used the more romantic (to me) term "rain," maybe I'd still be married, LOL.

 

 

Edited June 2, 2020 by shapeshifter

[KittenPokerCheater]

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

It seems like Carina is seriously considering having this Alex meet the same fate. 

I don't think she would kill off Alex- she loves her "Malex" (I hate shipper names) too much.  Of course, he might be "mostly dead" and Max will bring him back to life.

[RachelKM]

I saved this episode because I thought I'd need to re-watch.  But I don't think I want to, so... Whatever.  I did not need 10 min of the episode to be taken up with (the admittedly gorgeous) Diego calling Liz Elizabeth as she nerds through a proposal.

Did not enjoy Liz for most of this episode.  I still cannot believe that she stole DNA from Steph and thinks that's totally okay.  But in this episode she was just obstinate and obtuse.  The only two moments she was involved in that I truly enjoyed was 1) Max telling her he wasn't jealous of Diego, he was pissed that she'd gotten secretive and begun lying about her work and 2) her wryly stating that kidnapping Helena was a bad plan because she does not care about her.

Michael got on my damn nerves.  He of the secrecy is important club just dosing objects and people about.  WTF, dude?  Also, while I don't think you should let Alex die or anything, you are not over him and you owe it to Maria to take more time to process.

On a brighter note, for all that I have very little idea what actually happen or even if the plot made any progress, this episode reaffirmed by belief that every scene and every character interaction is better when including Isobel, Kyle, or both.  The two of them have the best scene chemistry with any partner and the best line delivery of the cast.   

With that said, I shudder to think how much I would dislike Steph if she were not in scenes with Kyle.

Edited June 3, 2020 by RachelKM

[peachmangosteen]

2 minutes ago, RachelKM said:

On a brighter note, for all that I have very little idea what actually happen or even if the plot made any progress, this episode reaffirmed by belief that ever scene and every character interaction is better when including Isobel, Kyle, or both.  The two of them have the best scene chemistry with any partner and the best line delivery of the cast. 

Right!

[ellieart]

A show with notoriously questionable writing and some pretty bad episodes somehow just pulled a "hold my beer"

Like what the actual hell was this?!  Not enough people are pointing out that they openly talked about Rosa in front of Diego, and not in the past tense either.  Did the writers forget that Rosa is only alive to a small group of people?  Did the writers also run out of actual plausible villains?  Yeah no one saw that twist coming because it was dumb and makes little sense.  Liz is garbage, Michael is grating, Kyle is getting the Maria treatment this season.  Majority of the characters are unlikable and the ones that are, don't get enough to do.  

 

[peachmangosteen]

6 minutes ago, ellieart said:

Not enough people are pointing out that they openly talked about Rosa in front of Diego, and not in the past tense either.  Did the writers forget that Rosa is only alive to a small group of people? 

I didn't even think about that lol. 

[Cristofle]

LMAOOOOO, I think I literally forgot about who should be talking about Rosa. What a mess.

Carina has outright said she will never kill off Alex, that she won't do the "bury your gays" trope. She's said it a lot, and very explicitly. So I'm not sure how she'd ever walk it back. 

[ellieart]

4 minutes ago, Cristofle said:

Carina has outright said she will never kill off Alex, that she won't do the "bury your gays" trope. She's said it a lot, and very explicitly. So I'm not sure how she'd ever walk it back. 

Which is also a pretty bold statement to make since she can't force an actor to stay on a show if they chose to leave.  Obviously I'm not saying Tyler is leaving or has plans to leave, but it's always a possibility that any actor on an ensemble show might want to walk at some point.  Not to say the character can't be written off some other way, but we know how much Carina loves pain and trauma, there's no way in hell she wouldn't utilize that to her advantage.  I don't know, I think it's just not the best thing for a showrunner to say since it could absolutely come back to haunt her.

[Chick2Chic]

4 hours ago, ellieart said:

I think it's just not the best thing for a showrunner to say since it could absolutely come back to haunt her.

It wouldn't be her first error with how she talks about this show. Glad Maria wasn't in this crap episode. 

Also, I posted an interesting twitter thread by Carina in the media thread on here about the state of writing the show and other things currently about RNM. 

[Cristofle]

9 hours ago, ellieart said:

Which is also a pretty bold statement to make since she can't force an actor to stay on a show if they chose to leave.  Obviously I'm not saying Tyler is leaving or has plans to leave, but it's always a possibility that any actor on an ensemble show might want to walk at some point.  Not to say the character can't be written off some other way, but we know how much Carina loves pain and trauma, there's no way in hell she wouldn't utilize that to her advantage.  I don't know, I think it's just not the best thing for a showrunner to say since it could absolutely come back to haunt her.

Even if Tyler leaves, Alex can always leave town instead of dying. I tend to err on too many show runners relying on using death of a major character as a cheap shock trick these days, so I'm not bothered if Alex never dies regardless of Tyler's decisions, but yes, she definitely put herself in a particular corner with this one. 

[Cristofle]

I don't think Carina can ever really address what's gone wrong with Maria if she can't come out and say that she chose to racebend this character BUT to give her canonical importance to Alex and a lesser extent Rosa without an immediate plan for how she WAS going to be important to this particular canvas (she may have always thought she was going to make Maria an alien hybrid but she took her sweet time getting there and in the meantime Maria was window dressing). Not to mention, when she did introduce Maria to Michael's orbit, it was as the fairly obviously losing side of a triangle where she set Maria up to be attacked by the most vocal part of the fandom. It's obviously not down to Carina that fandoms are often harshest on black female characters, since that's racism that goes way deeper than her, but she still painted a target on Maria's back. She didn't have to make it even worse. 

She also needs to answer why she has given such little attention to Liz and Maria's friendship. She's occasionally telling us they're friends instead of consistently SHOWING us they're friends. 

[Kymmi]

While I didn't see Helena being a factor in Alex's kidnapping, it was so over the top. She was practically twirling her mustache in the previews for the next episode. I really dislike when characters are all good or all bad; it's just not interesting nor is it realistic. Villains need shades of grey to help understand their motives.

[steelyis]

Oh my God. Alex's family suuucks!

I do like Rosa and Isobel's burgeoning friendship. It works in a weird sort of way. However! The show needs to remember Maria is Rosa's friend, too. They should be interacting on screen way more often.

Diego is rather attractive and seemingly likable, but I don't really care much about the character. I have zero interest in love triangles, or watching him pine over Liz. The cast is big enough, adding more is unnecessary.

Kyle is rapidly becoming the character I look forward to seeing. It used to be Micheal, but Kyle's decency and humor continually surprises and delights me. I still don't like Steph, but their scene together was good. The acting was solid, but their chemistry is weak compared to the chemistry Trevino has with other members of the cast, platonic or romantically.