Kyle arrives off the bus from football camp, only to have to wait nearly two hours for his father to come pick him up. When he finally arrives, the sheriff apologizes, citing Nasedo's death at the hands of another alien as another reason to be alert.

Kyle mutters some philosophically minded things, then tells his father, "I'm just not looking forward to dealing with all the little green men again."

The elder Valenti reminds his son that Max healed him. Kyle says that Max got them into that mess to begin with.

At school, Michael complains to Isabel that Max's plan will get them killed, but she refuses to get involved.

In history class, the teacher introduces a segment on President John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The teacher asks everyone to imagine how making such decisions would feel.

Max is struck by this, as well the leader of an alien planet should be.

That night, Max meets Brody Davis, who has bought the UFO Center from Milton, its proprietor last season. Since everything at the center is under control -- workers are moving crates in -- Brody sends Max home, warning the teen not to speak of the renovation activity.

Walking home, Max comes upon Tess, who is mourning her mentor.

Meanwhile, Maria and Liz are out driving. Maria pushes her friend to admit that she's still got feelings for Max, but, as Liz points out, she's the one who walked away from the relationship.

The two see Tess and Max walking together, and the sight of them confirms everything for Liz. She is very quiet for a moment.

Tess tells Max that she remembers some of home, mainly feelings and impressions. Nasedo had taught her memory retrieval techniques that she can share with Max.

Sarcastically, she finishes his thought for him, saying such training would be nice as long as she keeps her "hands off" Max. She claims to know how the others feel about her, but the human side of their lives does not concern her.

The sound of glass breaking inside Tess's house interrupts this happy conversation. Max runs into the house, emerging in the yard only to see a gate move. Tess thinks it might have been a cat, but Max finds a piece of skin much like the one Michael found. Once again, this clue turns to dust before their eyes.

Sheriff Valenti sits, in a bathrobe, at his kitchen table. When he hears a noise outside, he draws his gun and approaches the door.

It is Max and Tess, and they need help.

The next morning, a loud alarm wakes Kyle. He promptly starts doing pushups, only to discover the shocking sight of Tess sleeping on the couch downstairs, dressed only in one of his father's shirts.

Kyle calls out to his father.

Tess gives Kyle a groggy "Morning" as he interrogates her. She only comments on his choice of boxers.

At the office, Congresswoman Whittaker is looking for a phone message from FBI Agent Pierce. Liz tells her that he won't be back. It seems that the agent left a message about going on a mission that he'll never come back from. Things are over between them. Liz erased the message for Whittaker's own good.

The congresswoman is stunned, particularly by the point that the message arrived by voice mail.

Max listens as the history teacher drones on about Kennedy's need to act, pressured from all sides and was running out of time.

Having had this moral lesson drilled into him, Max sneaks into the UFO Center. He enters the restricted area in back, using his powers to get past a high-tech lock.

And then Brody walks in.

Brody wants to know what Max is doing there. Max wants to know what all of this equipment is for. Neither gets an answer.

Brody is especially curious about what Max knows about the pentagon. When it is clear that Max will not answer, Brody fires him.

Maria is at Whittaker's office, trying to convince Liz to listen to Max. Liz sees through these actions, realizing Max is working with Maria. Liz confronts Maria, questioning whose friend she really is.

Liz finally sends Maria away.

Inside, Liz hears Whittaker, who is at work drinking and shredding documents from the alien files. Whittaker asks her intern whether she has ever been in love.

Liz explains that she was, only to walk away when another woman became involved. Whittaker pushes for the other woman's name. She gets Liz to admit that she hates this woman.

When Liz leaves, Whittaker -- no longer "drunk" -- repeats the name "Tess."

Kyle walks into his room, only to find Tess lying on his bed dressed in his jersey and reading his copy of Jugs. He asks for privacy, and they spar a bit.

Poking fun of him, Tess calls Kyle a Buddhist. He closes the door and becomes very concerned. He wonders where she learned this.

Underneath the bed is a copy of Buddhism for Beginners, amidst the teen's stash of dirty magazines.

Kyle swears her to secrecy, citing his tough-guy reputation. He found Buddhism in a search for answers after Max healed him. As he puts it, he just needs "a little clarity. I need a little piece of mind."

Breaking this spurt of self-pity, Tess points out that she has no home and that the person who raised her has been murdered. Kyle starts to think.

Max tells Michael and Isabel what he found in the UFO Center. As always, Michael is suspicious. He suspects Brody has killed Milton to get control of the Center.

Max wants to talk to Valenti. Max is sure that there is an explanation to Milton's disappearance.

Michael wants to break in, something Max calls too dangerous. Michael tries to draw Isabel into the argument, but she resists.

That night, Michael disobeys Max and breaks into the UFO Center. He sees Brody holding the pentagon device. It starts to flash, and then it sends out a pulse which knocks Michael down.

He is dazed for a moment, escaping before Brody can find him.

Max is upset. "How many times do we have to have this conversation?" he asks Michael.

Isabel stops him. She waves away Max's concern that one of them might be hurt. She argues that they might have to kill Brody. She says, "We're at war. It's him or us, and I choose us."

In counterpoint, the history teacher brings the JFK story to the shot-down pilot. "What will he do?" the teacher rhetorically asks.

At lunch, Max and Maria talk about JFK. It seems that Max has been listening in class, and he wants to know how to be a good leader. Maria doesn't know.

She offers this analysis: "Now there's something you and Jack have in common: you're both involved with tramps. How is Tess, by the way?"

Maria tells Max that Liz saw him walking with Tess. Maria urges him to tell Liz how he feels. He must follow his heart.

Max sees JFK's photo, and he stops the others by erecting a wall to cut them off, something the others have never seen. Michael asks Max what will happen if Brody kills him. The reply: "Then you can be Fearless Leader."

Max enters the back room and confronts Brody. Max says, "You're one of us, aren't you?" Brody suspected that Max was one, too.

Brody replies that he wants to reestablish contact, maybe even going back. When he mentions the word "abduction," it is clear that he and Max meant two different things.

The new director of the UFO Center gives an impassioned speech: "You can tell people you've seen the Virgin Mary, and they'll light candles outside your bathroom. But tell them you've been abducted by aliens, and they'll write you off as a lunatic."

The abduction happened seven years ago while Brody was driving on the Massachusetts Turnpike. He was in a room, waking up two days later back in his car. . . in West Virginia.

He would have written it off as an acid flashback, except that his terminal bone marrow cancer coincidentally disappeared.

Max asks about the pentagon. Brody bought it from a dealer in so-called alien artifacts. On May 14, it came to life, lights spinning. Brody got a team of scientists to investigate, and they found a "strange high-energy microwave signal" which they traced to Roswell.

Brody is convinced that aliens are trying to make contact. He does not fear alien infiltration. He asks Max for his story, which we do not hear.

The next day, our teens are relaxing at the Crashdown. It seems that Brody earned his millions from an Internet public offering. He was bought out when he revealed his abduction story.

In a quiet moment, Kyle offers his room to Tess. He cites a need to escape from material worries. Tess thanks him.

At the service window, Courtney flirts with Michael with talk of piercings, pain, and stimulation.

Max goes to Liz, who is just walking through to go home upstairs. He professes his love of her and her alone. "I don't care about my destiny, or my planet, or anything else," he tells her. "All I care about is you."

He says that he will continue to pursue her.

Courtney asks Maria to cover for a moment, while she goes to the rest room. There, Courtney scratches her neck. She pulls a large piece of skin off her face, which looks as if nothing has happened. She drops it into the toilet before leaving.