Max and Michael’s standoff over Noah’s fate causes bigger problems for everyone. Meanwhile, Kyle struggles with a new revelation about the manner of his father’s death.

Having racked up so many surprises and genuinely good drama in the latter half of the season, Roswell had a lot to do to stick the landing and deliver a big finish in this final episode, and whereas it’s definitely an enjoyable episode, it’s hard to escape the feeling that it tries to cram in a little too much over its final hour, though hopefully this will all serve as setup for the recently confirmed second season.

The disagreement between Max and Michael which we left at the end of the last episode is exactly where we pick up, and it feels like the way this is going to end is a little predictable (which it is). However, pleasingly the episode doesn’t really hinge on the fate of Noah so much as what that fate means for everyone around him. For Isobel he’s the man she genuinely loved, even if he has visited the ugliest of violations upon her as well as being responsible for years of murders. For Michael, he represents the last living link to home after he was forced to meet and then immediately say goodbye to his real mother last time out. For Max, well, he’s just the person responsible for too much hurt being visited on the people he loves most. And for Liz, he represents a mundanity of truth about the death of her sister, an event which she has obsessed over for her entire adult life. All of them want him dead, but equally none of them are feeling great about the prospect for their own reasons, and the show chooses to focus on those complications rather than on the villain himself.

Elsewhere, Kyle is increasingly troubled by the feeling that he’s being watched and/or followed, but that issue pales next to a discovery of a security video amongst the information he recovered from the prison which sheds definitive light on the exact manner of his father’s death. Though Kyle has honestly been one of the less interesting characters in the show for the most part, he finally gets a bit of a moment in this finale, and it’s not a half bad one either – I look forward to seeing it play out.

That’s a coda that applies to most of what goes on though – as the episode barrels towards the final credits, revelations, twists and new bits of information fly at you thick and fast, and it becomes painfully obvious that a lot of setup is being done for another season. The final revelation in particular is massive, and may quite literally change everything when we revisit this New Mexico town next year.

Verdict: An ambitious, if slightly overstuffed finale to what has been a strong opening season after a shaky start. I’m genuinely pleased that this show got renewed, because it honestly feels like it has earned it. 8/10

Greg D. Smith