Things that made you want to bang your head against anything

[Coccy]

Poor Liz. I really feel for her this episode

personally, i don't. Not in the way "Liz is a victim"
i think that this scene summarized it all:

//////// Liz: if i had lost a child, I would want you to help me find him. But that's only part of the reason. The other part is that i don't want you to slip away from me. I know what it's like to be with you, and I know what it's like to be apart from you. And I would rather be with you.
Max: I don't know if i could live with myself if anything ever happened to you. ////////

Liz was the one who offered her help and insisted over and over that she wanted to help him no matter how many times Max told her that she didn't have to do it (even right before they entered in the store he gave her the chance to change her mind). Heck she seemed even more involved than him.. to not say excited (especially when they took the diamond). Even when she was in jail she didn't regret it and never blamed Max. Max on the other hand blamed himself (that is his fav sport).

//////// Max: I wish we could trade places.
Liz: No. No, no, no, max. Ok, I don't. You're free. We came here for a reason because your son is in trouble. Now you need to go back and do what we came for. You know, see if your ship works. Come on. I don't want this to all be for nothing.
////////

Liz had her own mind and was perfectly able to make her decisions and that's what she did.
Of course robbing a store (technically they didn't but anyway..) is not the romantic thing here and it isn't supposed to be. That's not the point. But there's nothing wrong about wanting to help the ones you love and try to resolve a problem together.. that's what Max and Liz always did. That's what couples in real life do.
In different circumstances i bet that Max would have done the same thing for her and people would consider it romantic. How many times he sacrificed himself for her? Heck the show started like that. In the third season he even died for her.
IMO people tend to perceive the sacrifices made by the male characters differently by the sacrifices made by the female characters. Personally I blame Disney and Princes Charming
The point is that love is not a rational thing and it doesn't always care about what is convenient or fair for the individual person. Otherwise all the most famous love stories would never be loved so much by people.
Love is about sacrificing too. People perceive those sacrifices as romantic not because people randomly get in danger without a reason but because people get in danger for the ones they love and although it isn't right/happy/convenient/fair for the self-sacrificing person it's considered noble because it proves the real nature of love and how much it's selfless unlike other feelings.
I think that to love someone means loving him/her in both the good and bad times and that's what she did.
so, in my opinion there's nothing weird or really wrong about her wanting to help him that time like the others.
On the contrary it only proved that she's a strong woman and really loved him because for the life of me i can't imagine another woman doing the same thing for her man especially when he needed to save a baby that he had with the killer of her best friend. And it's not that she wasn't still hurt for what had happened because to forgive someone doesn't automatically mean that you forgot too. But she understood him. She really and genuinely wanted to help him and was there for him. And of course she wanted to be with him because they love each other he makes her happy. It's only natural.

That's something that only Season 1/early season 2 Michael would have done. And he sure as hell wouldn't have dragged Maria with him

well technically this is how the M&M relationship started he stole her car and "kidnapped" her effectively dragging her with him when they hardly knew each other.
and even in that example the girl made her own choice too so we can't really blame the boy.


All the characters did many dangerous and inconsiderate things through the series, even more stupid or dangerous than what M&L did in busted. If we really think about it the situations created in the show weren't always so realistic (and they couldn't be for obvious reasons). If we want to rationalize all the things that the characters did it's not roswell anymore.
I feel that the main reason of why what happened in busted is so noticed is because this time they got caught (and only because Kal Langley was stalking them and didn't want Max to find the ship. They got busted only because someone already knew their plan and called the police as soon as they entered in the store. ) and the writers showed that sometimes even these guys could really get in danger and had to face the realistic non alien consequences of their actions.

As for them being OOC .. i don't think that they really were out of character. IMO people tend to take some things about M&L too for granted (like them being always controlled, calm and rational) Max and Liz were always unpredictable both as a couple and as individual characters. I think that it's one of their characteristics especially when it's about letting go of "control". In some ways busted resembles sexual healing and how Liz acted in that episode. But really she always acted like that, since the pilot no matter how many times he would tell her that it wasn't safe and he didn't want her to get involved in his problems she always wanted to help Max no matter what and she did it with or without his "permission".

[RoswellOracle]

I thought the whole episode of Busted was just stupid beginning to end.

Max and Liz are supposedly honor students and the best plan they can come up with to get into the store is to 'rob' it?

What about breaking in when it is closed, or causing a power outtage, or knocking the clerk unconscious? At least wait until dark so they could get away more easily. And how about something as simple as disguising themselves. Max didn't even change their clothes, hair, the car, license plate, etc. And what about getting away from the cops? Couldn't he have stopped their engine, turned off the car, flattened the tires, blackened the windshield so they couldn't see. I mean WTF? Did he forget he had powers?

They were complete idiots the way they did it.

And don't even get me started on Liz, the girl who was shot, learning how to shoot and holding a gun on someone else.

[April]

Liz was the one who offered her help and insisted over and over that she wanted to help him no matter how many times Max told her that she didn't have to do it (even right before they entered in the store he gave her the chance to change her mind). Heck she seemed even more involved than him.. to not say excited (especially when they took the diamond). Even when she was in jail she didn't regret it and never blamed Max. Max on the other hand blamed himself (that is his fav sport).

I can understand that she made her own choices. I guess it's just the reasons for her choices that make me feel for her. The way I interpreted the entire episode was that Liz was trying to work past what had happened between Max and Tess. Because of what happened between them, it seems to me that love for Max wasn't her only motivation for helping him, but that fear of losing him again was also a big part of it.

Liz had her own mind and was perfectly able to make her decisions and that's what she did.
Of course robbing a store (technically they didn't but anyway..) is not the romantic thing here and it isn't supposed to be. That's not the point. But there's nothing wrong about wanting to help the ones you love and try to resolve a problem together.. that's what Max and Liz always did. That's what couples in real life do.

I've been in deep, true love before, but I have my limits. I have no problem trying to resolve a problem together, but I would never do anything that would put my own life/future in danger when there were other options. I wouldn't do this just for love. Maybe that's just me, but the more I think about this, the more I'm believing the love+fear thing.

In different circumstances i bet that Max would have done the same thing for her and people would consider it romantic. How many times he sacrificed himself for her? Heck the show started like that. In the third season he even died for her.
IMO people tend to perceive the sacrifices made by the male characters differently by the sacrifices made by the female characters. Personally I blame Disney and Princes Charming

That's true enough. I guess the whole show did start that way.

so, in my opinion there's nothing weird or really wrong about her wanting to help him that time like the others.
On the contrary it only proved that she's a strong woman and really loved him because for the life of me i can't imagine another woman doing the same thing for her man especially when he needed to save a baby that he had with the killer of her best friend. And it's not that she wasn't still hurt for what had happened because to forgive someone doesn't automatically mean that you forgot too. But she understood him. She really and genuinely wanted to help him and was there for him. And of course she wanted to be with him because they love each other he makes her happy. It's only natural.

I don't know, I actually think this was one of Liz's weakest moments. (This isn't a dig at her; it's just my interpretation.) Liz from Season 1 would have helped him come up with a smarter, safer idea. By the point of Busted, she had gone through so many shitty things that she seemed a little bit desperate, and I felt bad for her.

well technically this is how the M&M relationship started he stole her car and "kidnapped" her effectively dragging her with him when they hardly knew each other.
and even in that example the girl made her own choice too so we can't really blame the boy.

Oh, I know. That's why I said Season 1 Michael would do something so risky as commit a crime, because he did. That's just Michael, and for Maria to end up going along with him . . . well, that's just Maria. They act on their emotions, so they don't always think things through.

As for them being OOC .. i don't think that they really were out of character.

I don't know, I'll probably never be convinced that this wasn't OOC. It just seems to me that, after being really, truly impulsive for, like, the one time in his life with Tess and ending up getting her pregnant, Max would have been even more cautious about everything he did rather than more reckless. Maybe the overwhelming need to help his son caused him to stop thinking rationally. I don't know, maybe Liz was in character considering everything that she had gone through in Season 2. I just think it was bad writing on the writers' part to expect us to believe that Max and Liz, two of the smartest people on the show, wouldn't be able to come up with something more planned out and intelligent than a fake armed robbery. These were the people, after all, who defeated the special unit of the FBI.

IMO people tend to take some things about M&L too for granted (like them being always controlled, calm and rational) Max and Liz were always unpredictable both as a couple and as individual characters.

I don't think it's a question of whether or not Max and Liz could be unpredictable. They could, just like Michael and Maria could be more calm and rational once in a blue moon. I think it's just a question of the recklessness for me. I just think it would have been more in character for them to have a more thought-out and more well-executed plan, but I guess they were both being governed by their emotions at the time.



Thank God for Kyle in Season 3. He just saves it.

[RosDude]

I thought the whole episode of Busted was just stupid beginning to end.

Max and Liz are supposedly honor students and the best plan they can come up with to get into the store is to 'rob' it?

What about breaking in when it is closed, or causing a power outtage, or knocking the clerk unconscious? At least wait until dark so they could get away more easily. And how about something as simple as disguising themselves. Max didn't even change their clothes, hair, the car, license plate, etc. And what about getting away from the cops? Couldn't he have stopped their engine, turned off the car, flattened the tires, blackened the windshield so they couldn't see. I mean WTF? Did he forget he had powers?

They were complete idiots the way they did it.

And don't even get me started on Liz, the girl who was shot, learning how to shoot and holding a gun on someone else.

lol So true.

But if you think about it, Max and Liz never really came up with, brilliant plans. Hell, the entire "Future Max/End of the world" thing was like five stupid plans rolled into one.

[killjoy]

Well it's not like Max and Liz...or anyone else on the show...was going to come up with a good plan! I mean look at the writting staff they had ....I mean they couldn't come up with a good plan either!

[Coccy]

What about breaking in when it is closed,

from what i remember it was a 24 hours store so it didn't close
they surely couldn't enter there and ask owner if they could look in the hidden room and try the spaceship

I'm not saying that it was a good plan. It was not the best plan someone could make (but again when those aliens created great plans? see the first season too. Most of the time they were just lucky enough to not get caught)
don't get me wrong it's not that i like it or find it "great" ..but i don't think that it was so bad like many people make it seems. I find it "overrated" like if it was the only "nonsense" thing that the characters did.
Technically they didn't rob the store it was only a pretext in order to get *some minutes* and see if the ship wasn't too damaged to be used later. Again, they got busted only because Kal Langley knew about their plan and didn't want Max to find the ship (and we know why). Because Kal knew about it even *before* they entered in the store his "friend" could call the police as soon as M&L got there not giving them the time to escape. Basically he was ready to call the police for a crime that they were about to do (kinda like in the movie "Minority Report"). M&L had a plan but Langley had one too and it worked. I don't think that Langley's role in busted is only a "detail".
It's possible that without him stalking Max they wouldn't get busted in the first place. The possibility that at 3 AM of the morning (if I remember well. It was a moment when they knew that the store didn't have customers) someone could see them there, understand what was happening and call the police in a matter of minutes was very little IMO. And even if this possibility would happen they would still get more time in order to escape because the police couldn't get there so soon. They did because they got the call even before the crime was really made.
Also the episode made a point about how in the Utah they were searching for a pretext in order to put someone in jail.
Realistically the court didn't have so many proofs against M&L. The dna couldn't be used (and wasn't used) because M&L went there another time too before that night so it couldn't be, alone, a proof that they were the ones who robbed the store. The fact itself that it was a store and was open all night makes it possible that they were customers.
They didn't rob the store, their faces were covered, their voices couldn't be 100% recognizable and the gun (the only real crime) was never found. The only witnesses they had were the anonymous call (Kal's "friend") and the guy from the store who also talked about "weird lights" (and like Jesse and Philip said he wouldn't be considered a 100% reliable resource of informations).
It's also the reason of why the FBI could easily free Liz in the end.


anyway I always ask myself if I (or the other characters) would have done better in their places

I can understand that she made her own choices. I guess it's just the reasons for her choices that make me feel for her. The way I interpreted the entire episode was that Liz was trying to work past what had happened between Max and Tess. Because of what happened between them, it seems to me that love for Max wasn't her only motivation for helping him, but that fear of losing him again was also a big part of it.

this could be true if Max was the one pushing it or "blackmailing" her. Giving her the hint that she needed to do it and it was fundamental for their relationship. But this isn't what happened in the canon. Max never made it seem that she had to "conquer" him or something. He never asked her to do it. It was her own idea. He loved her and wanted to be with her. Her helping him wasn't WHAT made him want to be with her again and she had no reasons to think that and it wasn't showed that she was thinking that. Not a single hint.
Point is he wasn't using her. They were a team. They were in that situation together. Big difference.
Liz, apart from the obvious, had no reason to help him, she wasn't forced to do it and he made it clear until the very last moment before they entered in the store.
Of course part of her motivation was that she wanted to put the past behind them but this is nothing new and nothing "bad". It's what happens all the time in all the relationships, it's only natural otherwise people would simply break up for good everytime they have a problem.

For example in the ending of the series Maria chose to go with Michael/them even if she had no reason because she wasn't in danger like Liz, Max and the others. Still, she chose to go with them even when she and Michael weren't technically a couple in that moment and they still had not talked about their problems and why they had broken up in that season. They didn't talk about her failed music career and what had happened in changes-panacea-chant down babylon. So what? Did Maria follow him only because she didn't want to be alone in roswell and lose him? Of course she didn't want to lose him!
the question is "why she doesn't want to lose him?" ---> Because she loves him (duh!)

Liz always had everything to lose, being with Max was never "convenient" for her. If she had wanted she could have just started a new life, find another boy.. anything but being with Max again. She could. But she didn't because she loved him and because she knew that he loved her too and nothing could chance that.
She knew that he would sacrifice his life for her. She also had her own responsibilities for what had happened to him/them.
Otherwise you can bet that she wouldn't have started a relationship with him again.

Unless you believe that she was a great actress who seemed happy and even excited while she was feeling miserable i think she was everything but a "desperate" victim. She wasn't an insecure girl who was degrading herself for a guy who didn't care about her.
She just wanted to be there for the one she loved when she understood that he had a serious problem to resolve and needed her.
Surely Max wasn't having fun. His son was lost in the space with a killer that wanted to deliver him to their enemy for only God knows what purpose. This thought alone is already bad for a father it figures when he *felt* that his son was in danger and was pleading him for some help.
I don't find it so surprising that Liz understood it too and genuinely wanted to help him.
Not a single time in the episode you see her playing the victim or regretting what she had done. You don't see her blaming Max or having doubts. You don't see her being portrayed as a victim, someone to feel pity for. The writers didn't portray her as someone who was forced to do something or who was doing something that she didn't really want to do. Point is you don't see her being portrayed as someone desperate, the contrary. She was confident. One of the most confident Liz in the whole show if you ask me.

I feel that some people tend to confuse what themselves would feel in her situation with what Liz herself really felt there and showed to feel. This mostly because Liz forgave and understood Max while many fans didn't (or wouldn't) and wanted her to act differently so they didn't understand her motivations because they take for granted that Liz's POV about Max was like theirs.

When in chant down babylon Max's memories were only about her and he sacrificed himself for her basically killing himself i bet that non Liz fans (well to be honest i've read it) feel that it was "wrong" and unfair and he didn't have to do it. They don't understand why he did it because they don't understand his love for her and why he loves *her* like that, they don't think that she deserves that because they don't like her.. if they were Max they wouldn't love her.
Problem is that although our judgment of the scenes can be always influenced by our personal experiences we're not the characters. Characters and their actions should be judged using their POVs not ours especially when we talk about characters that reciprocally love each other. And that's what M&L are.
Reason of why words like victim, delusional, desperate and doormat don't fit with them. Especially when the canon doesn't show it. When Liz didn't like something she always said it without any problem.

Oh, I know. That's why I said Season 1 Michael would do something so risky as commit a crime, because he did. That's just Michael, and for Maria to end up going along with him . . . well, that's just Maria. They act on their emotions, so they don't always think things through.

"They act on their emotions, so they don't always think things through" and it's obvious that they're not the only ones

I don't know, I'll probably never be convinced that this wasn't OOC. It just seems to me that, after being really, truly impulsive for, like, the one time in his life with Tess and ending up getting her pregnant, Max would have been even more cautious about everything he did rather than more reckless. Maybe the overwhelming need to help his son caused him to stop thinking rationally. I don't know, maybe Liz was in character considering everything that she had gone through in Season 2. I just think it was bad writing on the writers' part to expect us to believe that Max and Liz, two of the smartest people on the show, wouldn't be able to come up with something more planned out and intelligent than a fake armed robbery. These were the people, after all, who defeated the special unit of the FBI.

maybe the writers only wanted to show that they're flawed too and they aren't always "perfect"
after all didn't many fans hated them because into a show about teenagers they were too perfect while flaws are more interesting and real?

to be honest i think that it's way easier and convenient to be a flawed/evil character than a "good" one. LOL
It's like that in real life too. Because one way or another people always have big expectations.

[April]

I don't know, I guess it's all in the way you interpret it, but I still interpret it totally differently. I still think Liz is at her most insecure in Busted. I didn't always think that, but as I've gotten older, I've come to interpret things differently.

I don't think it's about whether they got caught or not. It's about the fact that they put themselves in a situation where they could get caught. That showed desperation on both their parts, to me. After thinking it through, I'm a bit more convinced that it wasn't quite as OOC as I thought considering all that they had gone through in Season 2. I have no problem with writers making their characters very flawed (I've kind of built a reputation on that myself), but it bothers me when it feels contrived like it did in Busted.

I think all the humans had to sacrifice a lot for the aliens, and it is kind of sad. Even though I'm obviously happy that Maria went with Michael at the end, it is sad that she had to leave her mom behind, leave her whole life behind. But if she had stayed, she would have been a target. People would have known she was involved with the aliens. Something bad would have happened to her. (I always worry about Valenti staying behind for these same reasons.)

I don't know, as much as this show was about love, it was also about the dark side of love, the dangerous side. And even though Liz acts like she's not scared or resentful in Busted, I think somewhere deep down inside she would be. (I feel like we start to see this come out a bit in Ch-Ch-Changes.) So there you have it: dark side of love.

Anyway, that's all I have to say about that.

[Coccy]

I don't know, I guess it's all in the way you interpret it, but I still interpret it totally differently. I still think Liz is at her most insecure in Busted. I didn't always think that, but as I've gotten older, I've come to interpret things differently.

I understand that you interpret it totally differently and i understand why (maybe)
But in the canon episode she isn't portrayed as someone insecure. The contrary.
This is the only limit that i find in the interpretation for the simple reason that it doesn't find hints in the canon episode we're talking about.

Then we can agree that it wasn't the best episode, that it can be considered contrived and that their plan was flawed and even stupid.

It's about the fact that they put themselves in a situation where they could get caught

.

basically it's what all the characters did from the pilot to graduation

I don't know, as much as this show was about love, it was also about the dark side of love, the dangerous side. And even though Liz acts like she's not scared or resentful in Busted, I think somewhere deep down inside she would be. (I feel like we start to see this come out a bit in Ch-Ch-Changes.) So there you have it: dark side of love.

but we're talking about busted not ch-ch-changes that happened many episodes after it, an episode where she believed that she was dying too, for the matter. If we're talking about busted we can't say that Liz felt in that episode the way she felt in changes unless she's portrayed in the same way in busted too but she isn't. Those "Lizs" are opposite to each other and there's a reason. That's the point.
then if we want to talk about how Liz was feeling in the whole season it's another question (although i don't find her insecure or desperate for the reasons i've already stated. It's not a description that can fit with a couple where you have reciprocal love).
Like i previously said just because she "forgave" him, understood him and wanted to help him it doesn't mean that she totally forgot about what had happened. It doesn't mean that she wasn't still hurt. You forgive with your mind and logic but you don't forget.. that need time. Still, she never believed that he didn't love her or she needed to "buy" his love if this is what you're saying. That was never the question. Otherwise she wouldn't be with him, in the first place. I don't see Liz as someone who could be with a guy whom she believes that doesn't care about her or is bad with her mainly because everytime she disagreed with him about something she always said it without any problem and i think that it's one of the reasons of why he always went to her for advices because he knows that she would always tell him what she really thinks.
Her real problem was more complex, them loving each other only made it more complex.

anyway, even in "control" or "samuel rising" when she was not happy about something she showed it and said it. So I don't think that she was "acting" in busted because in the rest of the series she's always transparent about her feelings even when she doesn't talk or she's in denial it's always made obvious when she's happy, angry, resentful etc etc.. Not that it's not possible to "act" in the fiction too but then the writers would give you a clue about it.

"I think somewhere deep down inside she would be" --> but then they would have showed it one way or another instead of making her so confident. We don't have the power to see deep down inside a character and like everything in fiction only what is showed or clearly hinted can be considered real, the rest is assumptions but even those should be based on something concrete otherwise we could assume what we want. When they wanted to show her feeling differently compared busted or other episodes they did it. So it's not that when they wanted it the writers were incapable of showing her feelings.

[nibbles2]

Still, she never believed that he didn't love her or she needed to "buy" his love if this is what you're saying.

If Liz wasn't acting out of desperation then her actions in busted were even stupider than they appear at first.

Although I guess there's a chance that she was acting out of guilt. It was her actions, deliberately designed to drive Max into Tess's arms, that led to Tess getting pregnant and leaving the planet.

Personally, I think Busted was the stupidest piece of writing in the whole three seasons and that's including the dupes. The episode destroyed the characters and set the scene for a terrible season full of character destruction. It turned Michael into dumb idiot, turned Isabel into a thrity-five year old Bridget Jones type and turned Max and Liz into brainless criminals.

[Coccy]

If Liz wasn't acting out of desperation then her actions in busted were even stupider than they appear at first.

actions can be "stupid", it's possible. But I have the feeling that maybe Liz is confused with Maria in "sexual healing" here.
I really don't understand why it's so weird that she wanted to help the one she loved and they were a team.
I swear if Liz wouldn't have helped him people would have called her selfish or someone who wants to be with him only when things are nice and easy. She helped him and then she's called desperate because you know it's not possible that she simply wanted to help him like she ALWAYS did she's a masochist and an actress *put sarcasm here* It seems to me that one way or another she (like Max) can do no right for the fans.

Personally, I think Busted was the stupidest piece of writing in the whole three seasons and that's including the dupes. The episode destroyed the characters and set the scene for a terrible season full of character destruction. It turned Michael into dumb idiot, turned Isabel into a thrity-five year old Bridget Jones type and turned Max and Liz into brainless criminals.

personally i think that the worst episode in the third season was "who died and made you a king" especially with Michael being resentful toward Max because he wasn't dead (and in the previous episode the only people that cared about Max were basically Liz, Maria and Isabel. The rest didn't give a damn about his death and later i don't remember a scene when someone, apart from Liz - granted- , asked him how he was feeling. It was like if it never happened) not to mention the scene when he told Jesse that Isabel was his first and would be again after his death. Totally random like all his scenes in the episode. And if we wanted to justify his behavior using the seal as something that was influencing him... in "crash" they made him say that no he was totally himself. If that wasn't bad writing i don't know what it's.
I wouldn't say that the writers turned Michael into a dumb idiot but it's true that he seemed either black or white in that season.