'Roswell, New Mexico' Season 2 Episode 7: Helena's return and [spoiler's] vision reveal Caulfield's dirty work
Spoilers for 'Roswell, New Mexico' Season 2 Episode 7 'Como La Flor'
The return of Helena Ortecho (Bertila Damas) results in Liz Ortecho (Jeanine Mason) having to comfort her spiraling sister, Rosa Ortecho (Amber Midthunder).
As this is happening in one part of Roswell, Maria DeLuca (Heather Hemmens) has visions that force her to visit Kyle Valenti (Michael Trevino) and we find out that maybe her "illness" may not just be an injustice but a superpower as well.
This episode was a heavy one, while the last one felt like a little bit of a filler — we see the consequences of drug abuse, lack of maternal instincts and how the government used human subjects to further their alien capturing agenda at Caulfield.
Since being brought back to life by Max Evans (Nathan Parsons), Rosa has been unable to ground her emotions and seems to short circuit everything around her. Her addiction to substance abuse is quickly highlighted when she admits to Max that she started drinking again to shut him up in her head.
If you remember before Max was brought back to life, he would haunt Rosa telling her to make sure Liz doesn't bring him back to life because he is dangerous. That was already a lot to deal with and then we have their ghost of mother's horrible past, Helena, walk into the Ortecho diner.
Arturo Ortecho (Carlos Compean) had asked Helena to transfer her half of the diner to Liz so Liz can sponsor his green card. Instead, Helena showed up seven years later because she wanted something more — Arturo's mother's ring.
With a lot of emotional gaslighting, Helena almost got Liz to believe she had changed, then Liz noticed that her mother stole the ring. Liz finally confronts the one kryptonite in her life — her mother.
Helena knew that as a teenager Rosa was consuming her pills but didn't save her daughter because she didn't want Arturo to find out his wife was on drugs. Even worse, Rosa is the love child of Helena and Jim Valenti — an affair that Helena can never leave behind.
As the drama unfolded inside the diner, Rosa who is very much alive unknown to her mother decides to break into Helena's car to steal drugs and put lighter fluid all over it. In the end, her mind ends up blowing up the car, not her hate for her mother.
After Helena signs the diner papers and walks out with the ring, she is approached by Max who threatens to let her new boyfriend Dirk know about her past life in Roswell. Just like that, she hands over the ring.
While we're sure that is NOT the last time we see Helena in Roswell, we wonder how she would be revengeful? Our guess, she'd have to catch Rosa alive.
This episode really brought to the forefront the struggles that Rosa faces with substance abuse. Even after Liz told her that if their toxic mother was able to be 10 years sober, Rosa could do it too, Rosa is unable to control her emotions.
She takes the drug anyway, and her mindless expression shows how easily she is comforted by the drugs — a comfort she is unable to get from anyone around her.
Dealing with a mother who doesn't want to stay, even after having her car burnt, and a mother that enforced her drug problem, she is unable to understand why she's always been broken.
This was a reality check that the show always seems to put into the narrative. The ability to bring about real-world issues even if there are aliens involved is what makes this show great relatable fiction. Rosa believes she is broken because of the mental illness she inherited from her mother — who can take away that pain?
On a more political front, Maria is struck by visions of the future she is unable to understand. After finding out from Kyle that she isn't an alien, it is revealed that Maria's grandmother, Patricia Harris, was experimented on by the American government using alien DNA to create super soldiers.
Maria, who always feared that she had inherited a brain degenerative disease from her mother and grandmother, now finds out the inherent racism that came from experimenting with people of color.
She said, "We are not the first black people to be experimented on." These experiments took place at Caulfield, that although shut down in the 1970s has continued to be a prison for captured survivors of the 1947 UFO Crash along with being a research facility for 'Project Shepherd.'
The power struggle that comes with the American government to always pursue a solution to aliens first resulted in injustice so severe that it has caused generation pain — this is not far from any of the truth if history books are taken into consideration.
After a vision she has saved Kyle's life, Maria wonders if her visions are not injustice but a superpower that can save lives? What is Maria, if not an alien?
Maria fears that she too will go insane just like her mother and grandmother. And yet, that is only one facet of the story. Her grandmother suffered because people had these grand power ambitions. Her family is still dealing with those consequences. Only now may it present as something miraculous.
Maria saves Kyle's life. She is there to push him out of the way when he is about to be hit by a car. He survives with only a minor injury. This episode took a real hit for sure with enough references to real-life animosities and injustices that have happened — like we said, a good dose of relatable fiction.
'Roswell, New Mexico' Season 2 airs on Monday nights on The CW at 9/8c.