Roswell, New Mexico Review: Creep (Season 1 Episode 12)

Roswell, New Mexico Season 1 Episode 12, “Creep,” pulls an Indiana Jones and rips out our beating hearts. Luckily, Liz and Alex have the antidote as they use their superpower, empathy, to ensure Isobel and Michael make it out of the fire alive. 

Let’s all take a collective breath. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. This episode calls for some serious grounding before processing.

One more deep breath. 

Now, let’s get to it. 

Betrayal Bonds

Isobel takes control of her grief and confronts Noah, even while still longing for the relationship she thought she had. 

It is the most powerful part of the episode. That is saying a lot considering Michael has his own heart-shattering arc. 

Everything about how Isobel’s storyline is handled on “Creep,” works for me. It portrays the reality of betrayal bonds and how people who care for us can support us as we break those bonds. 

Noah has been inside of Isobel’s mind, manipulating her and violating her, since she was a young child. Isobel’s agency over her body was stolen from her and Noah used her to commit murder. As I talked about on Roswell, New Mexico Season 1 Episode 11, “Champagne Supernova,” this is akin to serial sexual assault.

This is a horrifying and sickening realization for viewers. But, Isobel’s reaction isn’t just anger or horror. 

We see Isobel still in love with Noah. Not with the real Noah, but the Noah she shared her life with. 

On top of knowing that her body was violated and used, does she also now have to burn down all of her memories of the happiness and joy that she had in her life? Was any of that real? Can it be real to her, even if it was a lie too? 

These complex and gut-wrenching questions are what we see Isobel processing on the episode and we get to see Liz be a trauma-informed friend who helps Isobel get what she needs.

 

I want to take the conversation that Liz and Isobel have in the desert winds and put it in my pocket so I can watch it whenever I need to face my demons. Liz uses an even, calm, and firm voice to tell Isobel that it doesn’t matter what Max and Micheal want. She then uses a question to allow Isobel to put herself first. 

LIZ: What do you need?

The way Liz says this matters. She isn’t taking Isobel’s side or amping her up to take down Noah. She is making herself neutral and safe so that Isobel can feel free to be true about what she needs. 

She is careful to make clear that she can’t know what Isobel is feeling after the unimaginable pain of decades-long betrayal. But, she can relate. She can empathize. 

This is so important for people who are in abusive relationships. If they feel judged, dismissed, or trapped, they will likely retreat. 

Liz goes even further by changing her position so that she isn’t standing over Isobel, but is seated beside her. This equalizes their power and further ensures that Isobel feels safe and empowered. 

When Liz moves to the bench, she is deliberate and calm with her actions. That too is brilliant. It lets Isobel calm down, regulate her emotions so that she can truly consider what it is she needs at that moment. 

With Liz’s help, Isobel can find clarity and she realizes that what she needs is to be able to confront Noah.

Her fight to take back control is inspiring. 

I truly wish that every person who has been abused and manipulated as a child could face their perpetrator in the way that Isobel gets to. I feel vicariously healed by seeing this incredibly strong woman tell Noah how he hurt her, and demand that he explain himself. 

She gets a voice, and she gets to decide what emotion that voice conveys. She can choose, anger, love, or apathy.

The great victory is that she has the choice back and she has the control back. 

The paradoxical emotions that people have towards people who have harmed them are normal and common, but that doesn’t make them any less terrible. Loving and missing, even longing for, a person who has abused you, is normal and is what happens with a betrayal bond. 

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this very entangled aspect of abusive relationships explored before on a TV show, especially in a way that centers the victim and doesn’t make it sexy. 

This episode has faults that I will discuss in a bit. But, for me, the way “Creep,” shows Isobel experiencing and then beginning to break from her betrayal bond makes this episode a stand out and deeply important hour of television. 

Stay With Me

There is so much packed into the short scenes we see between Michael and his biological and found family on the episode, it’s overwhelming. 

But, what is incredibly clear to me is that Michael and Alex have broken their toxic cycle of pushing and running away.

The cycle is broken and the truth spills out: Malex are safe to share the most intimate pieces of pain and pleasure with each other because they finally belong, they are finally home, with each other.

I have said before that Michael and Alex are the Romeo and Juliette of the series. I don’t think that’s true anymore.

Romeo and Juliette are star-crossed lovers who are destined to die because of their love. Michael and Alex are star-crossed lovers who are destined to live because of their love. 

The performances from both Michael Vlamis and Tyler Blackburn are moving and raw. Michael’s attempt to push Alex away by exclaiming that he doesn’t love him is heart-breaking and also relatable.

He’ll do anything to get him away in order to protect him. That’s what happened after Father Manes busted his hand. He kept away so Alex wouldn’t be hurt. 

This makes me think that, in a subliminal way, Michael being with Maria could be to try and push Alex away, so that he could protect him. 

 My heart soars (and my tears flow) when we see Alex refuse to run away. 

Alex stays!

He calls out Michael’s lie, in a surprisingly sexy way considering the very dire circumstances. Then he tells Michael how he feels, and HE STAYS. 

Then, sob, Michael lets him! He doesn’t keep on rejecting him. 

This is everything I wanted for Malex. And it is what the couple needs in order to be together as boyfriends. 

When Michael finally accepts that Alex is staying, i.e. accepts his love, he turns to his mother. 

They share this beautiful, wordless moment.  Michael finally finds what he has been looking for his whole life, family. 

He transforms into the child version of himself, vulnerable, innocent, and beloved. She transforms into the version of herself before the decades of torture and isolation. 

Michael can have and hold that precious moment for the rest of his life. 

Honestly, that’s enough. 

Of course, it can’t cure all the pain of the past. But, he finally knows that he is loved by his mother. Importantly, he was always loved by someone, all his life. 

Paralleling Isobel’s paradoxical feelings on the episode, Michael learns that for his entire life there was someone out there, loving him, longing to be with him. But at the same time, he learns that he’s too late, she will now die, and that all those years he was being hurt, she was suffering even more. 

It’s hard to even write about because it is so tragic. 

It also sets up a divide between Kyle, whose dad was killed because of contact with an alien, and Michael, whose entire family was tortured and murdered because of humans. 

Alex is stuck in the middle, with his keen understanding of how good people can do terrible things. 

That is not to say that I think Alex is torn in his allegiances.

When Michael disconnects from his mum, and breathlessly locks bodies with Alex, telling him what his mom said, that acts as a transference of love and family.

It is like at a wedding when the father “gives away” the bride. Michael’s mom gives him away to Alex, trusting that he hold him and keep him. 

Okay, now I’m getting carried away planning the Malex wedding. I won’t apologize though. Their ship is epic. 

Bone to Pick

I do have a bone to pick regarding Alex’s disability. 

I rejoice at the representation we get from Alex as a disabled veteran. I want to see Alex with his crutches, using his brain and fighting skills to kick ass. 

On “Creep,” we don’t see Alex’s disability at all. 

A person who has limited mobility is impacted and is more at risk when there is a disaster or evacuation situation. It would make sense for Alex to reference his leg during their Caulfield experience.

It would come up. When Michael and Alex leave the dungeon, they only have one minute to exit and take cover behind the truck before the explosion. Yet, we don’t see him struggle or require any extra help. 

It’s like he has the same use of his legs as Michael and Kyle.

To me, this is erasing his disability. Disabled representation is shockingly low on TV. It is a really important and valuable aspect of Alex’s overall character. I hope in the coming seasons we get to see more of how that impacts and colors Alex’s life.

Creeps

Noah is a total creep. There doesn’t seem to be much redemption coming his way as he continually tries to manipulate and use those around him.

However, I would argue that Max is the titular “creep” on the episode.

He actually scares me.

I do really like how Roswell, New Mexico is developing this part of his character. Especially considering it is Michael that Kyle calls “angry cowboy,” it is clear that Max’s charm and “I’ll protect you” persona has covered up a great deal of red flag behavior. 

Interesting. 

It seems that Max is being developed as an Anakin Skywalker or Jedi character. He has to make a choice about his dark side. 

As much as I love Echo and seeing their love blossom, I am far more intrigued by having a character who makes us look into aliens’ darker natures. 

 

It reminds me of the beautiful conflict at the core of vampire stories. Does Max give in to his alien nature and kill to get stronger? If he does that, is his killer side who he really is, or is his true nature when he has overcome that desire and chosen love? 

That’s the stuff of gothic novels, and it sustains my attention. 

I do want to see Liz notice the red flags and call them out. She is already showcasing excellent boundaries and empathy, which is refreshing. 

On the finale, I’d love to see her take a stand against his anger and help him see how his need to control is an expression of power, not love. 

Kyle’s arc explores similar conflicts on the episode.

He is baffled and more than alarmed when he learns that his father likely died because of being in the room with mysterious alien N-38 (I think this is Max’s dad).

Kyle’s ethics that we’ve heard him explain to Isobel, prohibit the type of experimentation that his father took part in. 

Alex is able to point out to Kyle that it is complicated. Good people do very bad things. Humans are followers and can create extensive rationalizations in order to make sense of a disastrous and seemingly hopeless world. 

It is 2019 and I feel that. 

Kyle knows that Noah killed Rosa and murdered more than a dozen other people. That is his framework as he enters Caufield and sees the prisoners.

His language separates himself from them. He talks about them as if they were mice in a lab, not people. He isn’t cruel, but he does separate. And that is the first step. 

Kyle is brilliant and mature. But, everyone has blind spots. Kyle’s efforts to get justice after the things he witnesses on “Creep,” is going to shine some light on those blind spots. 

Maria Is Human

It’s interesting that Liz says on Roswell, New Mexico Season 1 Episode 9, “Songs About Texas,” that Maria DeLuca is her own savior.

Liz is in the practice of saving people. That is what she has done on the past two episodes, but it is also what she has devoted her life to— saving people with science. 

Maria needs a savior too. And, if I may, I think this brings up a deeply rooted stereotype about women of color, Black women in particular.

To be clear, I am not a Black woman. Like when Liz says to Isobel that she doesn’t know what it’s like to go through her situation, I don’t know what it is like to be a Black woman.

I do believe I can relate and empathize.

I know how being a strong Latinx woman who quietly bears many burdens puts a target on my back for, “Don’t help me. I got this.”

Maria is a Black woman in a small town where all of the people she cares about are lying to her.

Her best friend was murdered, her love interest is in love with her other best friend, and she is responsible for taking care of her cognitively compromised (as far as she knows) mother.

 

No person can handle this by herself. That is not how humans, or aliens, work.

And Maria shouldn’t be expected to be her own savior. We grow and bond and are human because of the ways we catch each other as we’re falling. It is good to rely on others. 

But, for centuries, Black women in the U.S. have carried the weight of the worst in humanity without being able to have the privilege of relying on others for help (Native women, Asian women, and Latinx women too).

This long-standing reality that is rooted in slavery has led to the stereotype that Black women and dark-skinned women of color are inhumanly strong and can carry unimaginable burdens all by themselves.

 

So, when Liz asserts that Maria is her own savior and then follows up with never checking in on her, including her, informing her, or helping her, I think it dehumanizes Maria.

I am definitely not saying that this is the intention. It seems clear to me that the dialogue and action are intended to indicate that Maria is empowered, confident, and strong. 

But, my perspective leads me to a different conclusion. For me, Maria’s absence on the episode is glaring.

That kind of ascribed invulnerability means that Maria does not have access to healing, support, and empathy. Because Liz assumes that Maria will be okay, she doesn’t get the chance to unpack and understand what is wrong in her life.

Maria is a human who has the same basic human need for connection and interdependence that all humans need. Not one of us can make it alone.

Although she is fierce and perhaps doesn’t need someone to fight her battles for her, Maria needs Liz. 

Liz treats her as if she doesn’t need anyone, ever. 

I do think that part of what makes Michael such an important person for Maria, and why that relationship, although not at its core romantic, is very important, is that he sees her vulnerability.

They both see the way the outside world views them, with their strong fronts, but they see beyond the armor.

Maria can fall apart with Michael, and that’s what she needs from her best friend.

On the episode, we do see Isobel unpack her grief. 

I love this part. It is meaningful and incredibly well done. 

And we get to know about a white woman Isobel’s deepest struggles. We see her face her abuser, we see her find what works for her. 

That victory and meaningful storytelling do not erase the problematic facts that 1) Maria does not get any of that relief, even though she too was brutally used by Noah and 2) Isobel’s abuser is the only other dark-skinned person of color on the show. 

I know that Carina MacKenzie has voiced explicitly that she wants to have more women of color on her writing staff.

I think that is absolutely essential to addressing Maria and how her character has been unintentionally marginalized based on some of the assumptions about what strength looks like for Black women. 

“Creep,” is a stellar episode that has a place amongst the most powerful episodes of television EVER. Not renewing Roswell, New Mexico would be a creep level crime that we simply can’t accept. 

Diner Dish

• I need, NEED, more Cam on the show. I will continue to scream at my TV every time anyone mentions Ohio until she is back.
• I predict Kyle is going to kill Noah.
• Liz’s eyebrows and lashes are on fleek the whole episode. 
• I am very curious why Max, Isobe, and Michael got special pod treatment. Perhaps they are royalty? Perhaps they have special, human compatible, genetics? 
• I love seeing Alex’s brother played by a (very handsome) Native actor. Thank you, more of that representation, please. 
• Michael is the only one who gets to meet his biological mother. That feels so right. There is some justice there. 
• Kyle’s Jedi line and Alex’s eye-roll. These two are the best. The competition for BrOTP of the series is as stiff as Michael’s drinks. 

 

What did you think of this episode of Roswell, New Mexico? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Roswell, New Mexico airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.

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