Both Animal Kingdom and Roswell, New Mexico are in the back half of their respective seasons, so we definitely got some forward momentum this week. Let’s dig in!
This week on Animal Kingdom, we continue to see the downward Craig spiral. He’s still on his bender after Renn took off with Nick. Stupidly, Craig shows up at Renn’s mother’s house, but this just solidifies to her that neither him or Renn should be raising Nick. Can’t say I disagree. Also, stupidly, Craig ends back up at Frankie’s looking for another hook-up to a job, but this time the Codys are for sure going to screw her over. Seems like maybe she’s got a short lifeline ahead of her. In all of Craig’s fails this week, we also learn he’s been squatting at Deran’s abandoned Adrian shrine…I mean, condo. So yeah, Deran can be pissed about it, but not completely. Elsewhere in the episode, J and Pope seem to be bonding more, although I still think J is a snake in the grass. He’s probably letting Pope in to turn on him in the end. Regardless, J helps him dismantle a car since Pete and his posse won’t help them anymore.
The biggest surprise of the episode comes at the end though. Throughout the episode, there’s been some serious tension with the DEA agent that’s been harassing Deran, and this time he gets the bar’s liquor license revoked. Not cool! Deran is heated and contacts their new cop friend, who’s name I can finally remember is Chadwick, to handle it. Well, his idea of handling it is bringing the agent to the bar where all of the Codys are gathered. I suppose that was just to make sure they were all listening though, because Chadwick proceeds to shoot the agent point blank. He wants a raise and they have to clean up his mess. Who’s in charge of who here? Chadwick seems insane, and I think the Codys are going to regret working with him in the end. Finally in the flashbacks, we see Smurf is with Billy now and it appears that he’ll probably help her take down her “boss.”
Next over on Roswell, New Mexico, so much went down! It’s a violent standoff between Maria and Jones in her mind, but she manages to escape for a little bit and bid her time. Luckily, that’s just enough time for Isobel and Rosa to hop in and help her out while Liz tries to tweak her serum to separate Maria and Jones’ connection. It’s here that we learn that Rosa’s newfound supersonic hearing is more useful than we were all led to believe. She’s able to track down Jones, but not before we’re taken back to the memory that Jones has been trying to access. The three of them want to see for themselves what exactly he’s looking for. That means we’re taken back to Caufield, where Maria essentially inhabits Patricia’s body. At first it seems like she’s complicit with the torturing at the facility, but it turns out she’s helping the other aliens and Nora especially, to build a machine.
That machine you ask? Yes, it’s the Lockhart that Alex has been futzing with all this time! We also learn in this memory that Jones has only been surviving because clones of him exist everywhere. It also turns out that Nora helped destroy all of the other ones except for Max, so he needs to Lockhart machine to create more in order to survive. Even though Jones catches up to them, Liz and Rosa are able to help break Maria out of her coma and screw Jones over for just a little while longer. Also screwing Jones over? Michael and Alex! Alex reveals a lot about what he’s learned at Deep Sky and admits that he’s doing it for Michael (awwww!), but the two team up to go get the pod with Max in it that Jones took. They barely manage escape, but Alex hits him with Michael’s truck, so they’ve bought the gang some more time, as well. Speaking of the gang, they all finally end up together (sans Kyle still) at the Wild Pony to regroup and celebrate Maria’s survival. From here, all that’s really important is that Milex lives!!! Long overdue in my opinion.
Anyways, that’s it for this week. I’ve finally decided that Roswell continues to deliver while Animal Kingdom is turning out to be a boring disappointment. Even despite that unexpected ending. I just don’t think there’s enough episodes left for something meaningful to take place, but I’m sure I’ll be wrong. Until next week!