In the Evans kitchen, Max and his mother discuss school while she tosses diced garlic onto a sizzling frying pan. Diane knocks over an open bottle of oil, which spreads toward the burner as they talk. Suddenly, the stovetop ignites, quickly spreading to the pan in Diane’s hand. Max runs in and puts his hand in the frying pan flames, using his alien powers to put them out. He then does the same thing to the stovetop. In an effort to cover this display of his ability to manipulate molecular structure, Max grabs a nearby pot of water and tosses it on the burner and the frying pan… as if that is what stopped the fire. Diane looks stunned; Max looks guilty.

Twenty minutes later, Sheriff Valenti enters the Evans home as firefighters are leaving. Diane tells him that there was a small grease fire that Max put out with a pot of water. Valenti inspects the damages and surmises that the grease fire was not a small one. Diane admits that the flames were five feet high, but her son did a miraculous job in putting them out.

That evening, Max recounts the incident to Isabel, who asks, hopefully, if this means they must tell their mother the truth. He tells her that he believes everything happened too fast for her to see anything.

The next day at the high school basketball game, Liz and Maria sit with Max and Michael, having gotten their tickets before their respective break ups. Kyle is having a good game, with Liz rooting him on, to Max’s annoyance. Isabel arrives and tells Max that their mother was watching videos from their childhood as though looking for something in particular. Just then, Liz screams out encouragement to Kyle, distracting him and creating a collision that leaves him clutching his foot in agony.

The following day, Liz brings a pie to Kyle, whom she has heard suffered a broken ankle. Kyle is in a sullen mood and takes the pie while barely acknowledging Liz. At the Evans home, the sheriff brings Diane a gift of a different sort. He gives her a pamphlet on household emergencies, with a highlighted section on grease fires and how water does not put them out—it makes them spread.

In the high school’s wood shop, Maria receives unwanted advice from Michael on her final project. She goes off on him for not being grateful that his friends saved his life when he was dying on the reservation. He finally thanks her, but she is having none of it. That evening at the Evans house, Diane confronts Max with the pamphlet that Valenti gave her. Listening from a doorway, Isabel senses the tension and saves Max, for the moment, by starting a different conversation.

Later that night, Max and Isabel go for a drive to discuss the problem. Isabel is yearning to let their mother in on their secret, but Max feels that it would break the family apart and destroy their mother. Max unilaterally decides to tell their mother nothing, ignoring Isabel’s dissenting opinion.

The next morning, Diane enters her daughter’s room and asks her what she remembers of the orphanage where she lived before the accident that left she and Max wandering in the desert. Isabel claims to remember little, saying that her life began when her mother and father came for them.

At the Crashdown, Kyle stops in to see Liz and tell her that his ankle will only cause him to miss two weeks of basketball. He goes on to apologize for not being able to let go when she broke up with him. Liz sees a new side of Kyle and accepts his offer to work on being friends.

Diane goes to see Valenti, who tells her that two tourists identified Max as being at the Crashdown when Liz was shot. They claim that someone knelt over Liz, put his hand over the wound and healed her. They were not sure whether or not it was Max.

That evening, Diane shows Max a family video in which a young Max holds a wounded pigeon in his hand. The bird flies away, healed. Diane asks her son what happened. He accuses her of investigating him and walks off.

Max, Isabel and Michael meet in the desert to discuss their next move. Michael’s first impulse is to get the videotape and destroy it. Max also thinks that they are alone here and cannot forget it. That evening, Max stops by the Crashdown to tell Liz that it is all right if she gets back together with Kyle. Saying that she does not need his permission, she accuses him of being controlling. He thinks this over.