Back inside the house, it's Love Story crossed with that episode of NewsRadio where Jimmy has a heart attack and he's set up on life support in the break room. Kyle keeps a vigil at Isabel's bedside, holding her hand and speaking quietly for two: "I was thinking. See, you're supposed to say, 'There's a first time for everything.'" A close-up on Isabel's motionless face sends along a clear message from beyond the coma that says she'd rather be dead than have comebacks like that one. Kyle gets back to his own material, continuing, "Anyway, I was thinking: since Liz got some alien powers when Max saved her life that, y'know, maybe I've got some alien juice, too. Maybe I've got the power to heal." Jesse comes to the door and watches Kyle put a hand on Isabel's stomach. She is not miraculously healed. Kyle starts to cry. Jesse slinks out. Kyle says the sentence, "I'll try anything once." Jesse thinks about slinking back in.

The Rat, of course. Maria enters to find Liz sitting at an open window holding a bottle of nearly empty Absolut Tool. Weird. I've never seen that flavor before. Liz finds it in her to ask after Isabel, and we learn that her fever has since risen to a hundred and fifteen. Golly. That's high. Liz agrees, looking at the window and mumbling like some kind of crazy old bitch with a shopping cart and a dirty hat, "That's really high. That's really high. And a really, really long way down." Maria asks her noncommittally not to be near the window, and Liz, much to the relief of the common populace, tells us, "I'm not going to jump." Well, thank goodness. Because then I'd be wasting all this money on a blowtorch to put to her hair while she slept. Maria indicates The Circle Of CGI, asking, "Now what happened over here?" Liz volunteers that her powers are back, taking another swig of the devil's poison before picking a fight. Maria takes the bottle away from her and barks, "Look, I understand what you're going though, I really do, but getting drunk is not going to help anything." Liz fails to look up the knotty distinction between "sympathy" and "empathy," railing back, "Is Michael dead? Well, Max is. And you know all of those things I have been dreaming about for the past three years? Well, they are now gone. So why don't you explain to me how you know what I'm going through." God. Way to let a friend in. Maria backs off that she's not going to talk to Liz when she's "like this," and Liz storms out, bellowing that she has to "get some air." Outside on the quad, she becomes a far less angry drunk, walking across snowy grass and falling ass-backwards until the lawn. Dude. She cracks herself up. Until, at least, the towering face of Max Evans comes looming over her. She closes her eyes. She opens her eyes. Her eyes widen. She is any one of bored, nervous, nauseated, tenuous, happy, or afraid. Or high on mescaline.