Liz Parker
Birthday: Unknown
Age: 16 or 17
Parents: Jeff and Nancy Parker
Siblings: None
Character History: Liz's family has lived in Roswell for four generations. Her parents own the Crashdown Cafe, and she and her family live in apartment above it. Liz is best friends with Maria DeLuca and Alex Whitman and has been since the fifth grade. Liz makes excellent grades and loves biology. She hopes to one day be head of the molecular biology department at Harvard University. Her biology lab partner was Max Evans. She had been dating Kyle Valenti since the end of her freshman year, when they shared their first kiss in the janitor's closet at school.
Liz and Maria both work at the Crashdown Cafe. One day a fight broke out between two customers there, and Liz was shot in the stomach. She woke up with Max Evans kneeling over her. He dumped a bottle of ketchup on her uniform and begged her not to say anything to anyone. She didn't, though she was confused. That afternoon as she looked in the mirror, she saw a silver handprint on her stomach, and a bullet hole in her waitress uniform. Later, Liz confronted Max and asked him what had happened. He told her he was an alien, and told her that his life was now in *her* hands.
She distanced herself from both Maria and Alex, and from her boyfriend Kyle, trying to figure out what to do. Max showed up at her place one night, and told her that he had seen things from her mind when he healed her, because of the connection he'd made between them. He asked her if he could reverse that connection so she could see that he wasn't anyone to be afraid of. Liz agreed, and she saw him and Isabel walking out in the desert after they were first "hatched." She also saw that she was the first person Max saw as he stepped off the bus in third grade, and that through his eyes, she was beautiful. She also felt his loneliness. After that, Liz found herself irresistably drawn to him.
Sheriff Valenti called Liz into his office and questioned her about the shooting. She denied the fact that Max was in the Cafe that day, and said she barely knew him. Valenti showed her a picture of a murder victim from 1959 that had the same handprint on the corpse. Liz immediately went to Max, wanting answers. He admitted that his sister Isabel and their friend Michael Guerin were also aliens. She asked him who else knew, and he told her that no one else knew the truth because it was too dangerous. Then she asked him why he saved her when it put his own life in danger and Max replied, "It was you." She warned him that Sheriff Valenti was asking questions about him, and told him about the picture he'd shown her. Max left abruptly.
Maria told her she knew something was going, and that if Liz didn't tell her what it was, she was going to go to the sheriff and tell him everything she knew. Afraid that Max's secret would be exposed, she reluctantly told Maria the truth. The five of them worked together to throw Sheriff Valenti off track, and it worked for the time being, though he still knew something wasn't right and vowed to find out what it was.
The next day, Liz and Max had a substitute for their geometry class. Her name was Kathleen Topolsky. Her first question to the class was, "Does anyone here actually believe in aliens?" She also took role, and started asking questions about Michael, who had skipped that day. Liz asked Max later if that was weird, the new substitute asking questions about Michael. He assured her everything was fine, but later, the two of them spied on her. As it turned out, she was the new school guidance counselor.
Liz's grandmother Claudia, whom she was very closed to, made a visit to town. Liz admitted to her grandmother that while she enjoyed spending time with Kyle, she thought she might have found her soulmate. She also admitted that it was incredibly complicated, to which her grandmother replied, "If it isn't complicated, he's probably not a soulmate." Later, while Liz was out on her date with Kyle, Liz's grandmother had a bad stroke. Liz went to Max and asked him if he could help her. She found out from Kyle that same night that his friends had beaten Max up, and angry and upset, she broke up with Kyle. Max did eventually try to save Grandma Claudia, but was unable to revive her grandmother. He was however, able to help her say a special goodbye. During that goodbye, Grandma Claudia made Liz promise that she would always follow her heart. She died that same night, and Max and Liz shared a comforting hug.
Liz and Max skipped class one day to go for a ride in his jeep and relax for awhile. A wild horse suddenly ran onto the road and Max swerved to avoid it. They ran off the road and crashed and Max was left unconscious. They were taken to the hospital, where a doctor took Max's blood. When Isabel and Michael arrived, they realized they were going to have to replace the blood with someone else's so Max's secret wasn't revealed. Maria brought Alex Whitman down to the hospital. Liz asked him if he would do her a favor, and he agreed. They used his blood to replace Max's, though Alex was upset and wanted to know what was going on. Liz lied and told him that Max had been doing drugs. She felt bad about lying to him, but couldn't tell him the truth. Later, going on pure faith, Alex hacked into Ms. Topolsky's laptop computer and discovered that she was really an undercover FBI agent. Alex gave Liz an ultimatum: either tell him what was going on with Max and the FBI, or they weren't going to be friends anymore. Though she wanted to, Liz didn't tell him the truth, and she watched as a dejected Alex walked away from her.
A heatwave hit Roswell that December. Liz was the first one to find out that Maria and Michael had been sort-of seeing one another without telling anyone. Afterwards, she realized that if her relationship was going to move forward, she was going to have to initiate it. After a long talk with Max, the two agreed to meet at the rave that Friday. The date was going well, but then the police and fire department showed up, answering a call for an electrical fire at the old soap factory (where the rave was being held). While Max went to find Isabel and Michael, Liz ran up to Alex. Just as she was telling him they needed to leave, a guy shoved some bottles of booze into their hands. Sheriff Valenti picked that moment to show up and he arrested them for illegal possession of alcohol. While in jail, Alex informed Liz that he was going to tell Sheriff Valenti everything about replacing Max's blood at the hospital and about finding out that Topolsky was FBI. Unable to do anything else, she finally told him the truth: that Max, Isabel and Michael were aliens.
Later that night on Liz's roof, Liz and Max shared their first kiss.
Unfortunately, Michael got sick from participating in a Native American ritual called the Sweat Lodge Ceremony soon after. The group went to Riverdog for help, and he gave them each stones from their planet to heal him, saying that the other alien, whom he called Nasedo, had given them to him when he was a boy and that the stones would "restore his balance." He warned the group that it could put them at risk as well, and Liz, fearing for Max's health, hesitated. Michael was healed, but Max later went to Liz's and told her they needed to take a step back because they weren't meant to be together. A broken hearted Liz kissed Max one last time "to remember."
Things were akward between Liz and Max for a long time. She found out that Maria had entered her in a radio contest, in which the prize was a blind date with "the guy of her dreams." Liz reluctantly agreed to go, thinking that it might help her get over Max. The night of her blind date, she found Max and Kyle in her room, going through her things. She was stunned. Max told her that the two of them were really drunk, and she tried to tell Kyle that if Max said anything to him that was weird, it was because he lied when he got drunk. Max pointed out cutely that he had never been drunk before. Liz excused herself from her date, Doug Shellow, and she and Max ran from the media that had been following her and her date.
Max told her that he wanted to run away with her, that nothing mattered except the two of them being together. Liz tried to point out that he was drunk and he didn't mean what he was saying, and tried to save herself from having her heart broken again. Max, however, continued saying sweet things, and finally kissed her. She had visions of every moment she had spent with him in the past year, and when the kiss ended she realized that Max had sobered up. He apologized for ruining her night and ran away, leaving her hurt yet again.
Eventually Max and Liz wound up back together and Liz began getting visions from Max when they kissed. She began seeing "flashes" of outer space and later, of the 1947 crash. She saw a vision of something buried out in the desert, and the two of them went out to see if they could figure out what it was. It turned out to be some kind of orb with an alien symbol on it. Max told her he didn't know what her destiny was, but he knew what part of it he was hoping for.
Topolsky returned out of the blue, and warned them that they were all in danger from an FBI special unit of alien hunters. Alex and Liz both wanted to meet with the former guidance counselor and hear what she had to say, but they were out-voted by the others. This was about the same time Tess Harding showed up in town and befriended Isabel.
Liz overheard Michael make a comment about Tess being Max's new girlfriend. Later, Max assured her that she was the only one he wanted to be with. Minutes after that, Liz watched in horror as Max and Tess shared a kiss out in the rain. She confronted Max about it the next day, and he told her that he'd had a flash when he kissed Tess. Liz recoiled in horror, saying that "I guess I'm not so special after all, huh?" and running to her room. Maria showed up and tried to comfort her. Liz told her that something wasn't right. She told her that, "My eyes tell me that he's cheating but my heart tells me he isn't." With help from the rest of the group (minus Max, who had no idea what was going on), Liz went to Tess's and planted a video camera in an attempt to find out who the new girl really was.
As it turned out, Tess was an alien. They all assumed she was Nasedo disguised in the form of a human girl, trying to insinuate himself into the aliens' lives for some unknown reason. They later found out that she wasn't Nasedo, but in fact was born in the same pod chamber that Max, Isabel and Michael had been born in.
Nasedo shape-shifted into Max and wisked Liz away under the assumption that "they need a weekend away together." She figured out that it wasn't Max, and demanded to know why she'd been kidnapped. He told her he was drawing out the government agents after Max and the others so he can kill them. He also told Liz that Tess was Max's destiny and that she was inconsequential in the equation. She told him that he was wrong, that she and Max loved one another and that "something within her changed" when Max healed her.
Max, Isabel, Michael and Tess race after their trail, Max upset and afraid of what Nasedo might do to Liz. They meet up at a carnival where Liz escapes from Nasedo-Max by running into a funhouse of mirrors. The alien hunters find them there, too. Just as Max and Liz escape, the other Max is taken by the agents. Unfortunately, as it turns out, it was the real Max who got taken.
The leader of this group of alien hunters was Agent Pierce. He had an orb just like the one that Max and Liz had found in the desert that night (the one that Topolsky originally had before she died), and commanded Max to show him how it worked. When Max didn't (because he couldn't), Pierce and the other agents tortured Max for hours. Using Isabel's dreamwalking abilities, Tess's mind manipulation, Michael and Nasedo eventually rescued Max, though Nasedo was shot several times and for awhile assumed dead. Sheriff Valenti also had a great part in helping Max escape, and he later learned that the teens were aliens.
Liz and Max hid out in an old junkyard, trying to keep away from the agents that were still after Max. She was devastated to hear that what Nasedo had told her about Tess being Max's destiny was the truth. He assured her that he didn't care about that, that his *real* destiny was with her, and that he loved her. Liz admitted that she loved him, too.
As the entire gang hid out and with the help of Sheriff Valenti, they formulated a plan to stop Agent Pierce and rescue Nasedo, whom Tess claimed "can't die." Pierce nearly killed Sheriff Valenti, but Michael used his powers and accidently killed Pierce in the process of saving Valenti. Unfortunately, Sheriff Valenti's son Kyle was shot during the blowout, and the sheriff begged Max to save his life as he had done with Liz. Max did so.
Michael broke up with Maria, afraid that being around her would put her in danger and he "loved her too much" to let that happen. Isabel hugged Alex, who wished her good luck, as she, Max, Michael, Liz and Tess went off to find Nasedo's body. Once they did so, they took him to the pod chamber (the cave where their pods had been hidden until 1989), and healed him with the stones from their planet. Nasedo took the form of Agent Pierce so no one would suspect what had really happened to him, and so he could keep tabs on the other alien hunters of the government group.
Max decided it was to find out what the orbs they had did, and using their collective powers, the four aliens concentrated as Liz watched and the orb projected an image of Max and Isabel's real mother. She informed the group that their planet was under war, and that the four of them had been killed in that war. She told them that their D.N.A. had been mixed with human D.N.A. and they were sent back to earth--the royal four: Max, the leader, with his bride, Tess, Max's sister, Isabel, and Max's first-in-command and Isabel's betroved husband, Michael. Together the four of them were to find their enemies on earth, and help end the war, in hopes that one day they would return to their planet and rescue their people.
Liz, whom had been in silent shock during the entire incident, started to leave, but Max stopped her. She told him, however, that he had a destiny and that it was not with her. With one final kiss, Liz walked away from him without looking back though tears were running down her cheeks.
Picture: The heart that Max drew on Liz's roof using his powers the night of Liz's blind date in the episode, "Blind Date."
Some of My Favorite Liz Quotes:
"I could feel everything he was feeling. I could feel his loneliness. For the first time I was really seeing Max Evans. I saw me as he saw me. And the amazing thing was...in his eyes, I was beautiful." -Liz, "Pilot."
"It's September 24. I'm Liz Parker and five days ago I died. But then the really amazing thing happened. I came to life." -Liz, "Pilot."
"Sniff some cedar oil, Maria." -Liz to Maria, "The Morning After."
"The tough thing about following your heart is what people forget to mention. That sometimes your heart takes you to places you shouldn't be, places that are as scary as they are exciting and as dangerous as they are alluring, and sometimes your heart takes you to places that can never lead to a happy ending...and that's not even the difficult part. The difficult part is when you follow your heart, you leave normal; you go into the unknown. And once you do, you can never go back." -Liz, "Leaving Normal."
"Isabel...I'm...I'm not trying to take him away from you. I mean...I could never even do that...but what if you guys find something in Marathon? Would you take him away from me?" -Liz to Isabel, "285 South."
"It's the only real thing I've ever felt." -Liz to Max, "The Balance."
"Max, how is it possible that I could be...I could be the happiest I've ever been in my entire life...you know, and now the saddest all at...all at one time?" -Liz to Max, "The Balance."
"I just wanted...to remember." -Liz to Max, "The Balance."
"Alex, Alex, Alex, um, your paranoid schizophrenia...it's kicking in." -Liz to Alex, "Into the Woods."
"Max, I know that you think that we shouldn't be together, and maybe you're right. But *you* made me a part of this." -Liz to Max, "Into the Woods."
"No, Michael, it's not three and three anymore, it's the six of us now..." -Liz to Michael, "Crazy."
"You do have a destiny, Max. You just heard it. I can't stand in the way of it." -Liz to Max, "Destiny."
The Character of Liz Parker is played by the extremely talented Shiri Appleby.