Season one Viewers first see Max watching Liz work as a waitress while eating at the Crashdown Café, which belongs to Liz's parents. Fellow waitress
Maria De Luca is the one who points out Max's infatuation to Liz. Liz then witnesses an argument between two customers and is accidentally shot. Max rushes to her side and heals the wound simply by placing his hand over it, bringing her back to life. Liz later discovers a silver hand print on her stomach, a mystery she becomes determined to solve. During a biology class experiment, Liz sneaks a sample of Max's saliva and examines it under a microscope, discovering that Max's cells look nothing like human cells. She confronts Max, who then admits that he, his sister Isabel and their friend Michael are aliens from the planet Antar, whose spaceship crashed at Roswell in 1947. By telling her, Max breaks the ultimate taboo that he, Isabel, and Michael have kept their whole lives. Liz becomes the first human to know the secret of the "Pod Squad". Overwhelmed by the secret, she asks Max why he'd risked everything to heal her. Max replies, "Because it was you." This sets the tone for the series: Max will break any rule (including his own) for Liz. In order to gain her trust, Max creates a connection with her so she can see into his soul. Liz experiences all his inner feelings, especially the love Max has for her. After seeing Max's true character, Liz makes the decision to protect Max and his friends. Liz also begins to feel very drawn to Max in return, despite her current relationship with the sheriff's son
Kyle Valenti. Liz confides in Maria about Max and the others, a transgression Max forgives. The hybrids' search for answers about their own existence is a recurring theme of the show. Max comes to the conclusion that there is a fourth alien on Earth after he gets a job at the local
UFO center. There he discovers that the silver hand print that Max had left on Liz had been spotted on a number of murder victims in the 1950s. During a
Roswell crash convention, Max is nearly killed by an alien hunter named Hubble. Hubble is intent on revenge because an alien killed his wife and unborn child.
Sheriff Jim Valenti saves Max's life. The three hybrids and their romantic partners are portrayed as
chaste throughout the first season. However, sexual themes are explored. In the episode "Sexual Healing", repressed passion explodes between Max and Liz. Liz finds that when they kiss, she gets flashbacks of Max's past. They later find an orb from his planet thanks to these visions. Tess Harding arrives mid-season. At first, they suspect she is a shape-shifting murderous alien named
Nasedo. After Max has hallucinations about her, he confronts Tess. It is revealed that she is an alien-human hybrid like them. Nasedo is actually Tess' father figure. Nasedo is both a murderer and their protector, a conundrum that leaves the Pod Squad undecided about what to do. Nasedo then kidnaps Liz by shifting into the image of Max, leaving the true Max with a clear mandate to save Liz and terminate Nasedo. In the effort, Max is abducted by a special branch of the
FBI headed by the elusive Special Agent Pierce. Max is tortured for information but rescued by Nasedo and Michael before he reveals anything significant. In turn, they manage to kidnap Pierce. In the subsequent confusion, gunfire erupts and the sheriff inadvertently shoots his son, Kyle. Michael kills Pierce while Max saves Kyle using the same method that he had used on Liz at the start of the season. Thankful, Sheriff Valenti gives Max his word that he will protect him, Isabel and Michael. It is the ship hidden in the caves that eventually is the key to the hybrids' history. An image of Max and Isabel's mother comes up and tells them that they are the clones of the Royal Four of their home world Antar. Tess and Max were married, Isabel was his sister and a promised spouse of Michael, who was Max's second in command. Upon hearing this Liz runs away as she realizes that his destiny and responsibility are far bigger than her. He loves her and is reluctant to let her go but she says that there is too much in their way and leaves.
Season two in the episode "Ask Not". The second season of the series finds Max as "reluctant king". The others now awkwardly defer to him, except for Michael who still acts out and does things his own way. At the beginning of season two, Max's relationship with Liz is awkward. He still loves her and declares to her that he will keep fighting for her and will never give up on them. His role as the leader also proves to be an obstacle as he finds out about power he never knew he had and the responsibility that comes with that power. But he is rocked when Nasedo is murdered and before dying, he proclaims that one of their worst enemies has arrived in Roswell: the skins. However, for most of season two, Max and Tess are only friends. He tries to be friends with Liz, though he never stops loving her even though he does not know the truth about Kyle. Things change, however when their friend Alex dies and his friendship with Liz is compromised by her research for Alex's alien killer that Max cannot accept. He then has his first personal crisis about who he really is and loses his balance. When Tess starts helping him to remember his past, Max is confused about himself. He starts acting out of character, causing his friends dislike him, especially Liz and Isabel. Due to Tess' influence, he starts to think that maybe he is too blind to accept the truth. A truth that his life is not real and Tess is correct. When he realizes that he has really lost everything, especially Liz, he sleeps with Tess. She is the only one with him and seems to know answers that he is unable to find. Though the two of them are essentially strangers to each other, he does, however try and feel something for her, in line with his destiny. At the end of the season, Tess mindwarps him into believing that the baby is sick and he cannot survive in the Earth's atmosphere so they are forced to "return" to Antar in order to save him. Thanks to the alien destiny book that Alex translated before his death, Max and his friends find the way to return home using the Granlith.
Season three Desperate to bring his son to Earth, Max digs through Tess's belongings and discovers evidence leading him to a secret government facility in possession of the reconstructed ship that brought him and the others to Roswell. The ship is located underneath a convenience store in Utah. Having rekindled his relationship with Liz, the two of them devise a robbery, Liz holding up the store with a gun, while Max goes underneath the store to locate the ship. When there, he runs out of time trying to figure out how to work it, before they are captured by the police. Although the charges against Max and Liz are dismissed due to deft legal work by his father, the latter demands to know his reasons for robbing the store, and Max, not wanting to get his father mixed up in the alien affairs, leaves the house to stay with Michael. Subsequently, Liz's parents forbid her to see Max again, and the two of them are forced to carry on their relationship in secret. Max continues the search for his son. He discovers that there was a second alien protector sent in the ship with them who abandoned his responsibilities for a life as a Hollywood producer and currently goes by the name Cal Langley. With the failure of his plan, Max gives up hope of finding his son until the episode "Samuel Rising", in which an autistic child named Samuel, seemingly mute, calls him "Daddy". Max starts to believe that maybe his son is using Samuel for the purpose of contacting him. Max then visits Samuel, in an effort to befriend him and using what happened to help Samuel as well. However, Max soon realizes that Samuel is not his son and the reason why he talked with him and "liked" him at first sight is attributed to qualities Max possesses, including being special and "different", just like Samuel. He thought that maybe Max could assist him to communicate with his parents and tell them he loved them, even if he could not tell it like other children. Later, Max, with Isabel's help create a shared dream with Samuel and his parents, giving Samuel what he wanted. The encounter with Samuel makes Max realize that Liz is his family and even if he really finds his son, nothing will not change. He then tells her at the end of the episode when they go at the ice skating together, fulfilling his promise to Liz at the beginning. Later in the season, Liz begins developing alien powers of her own, evidently as a side effect of Max healing her over two years ago. She's sick and it seems that she could die. Max tries to find a solution and he's willing to contact even the FBI if it's necessary, but nothing seems to help her and it gets worse. When trying to heal her with the healing stones she explodes crying, telling him that he always hurts her like when he slept with Tess. Max realizes that even if she's stressed by what is happening to her, she really feels this way. When he tries to talk with her about it Liz decides to take a break from Roswell in order to understand who she is and what she wants. Max tells her that he loves her trying to make her understand that he will be there when she wants and he isn't angry with her for what she said. But, ultimately, Liz goes to a boarding school in Vermont after sending him a letter when she tells him that she does love him too but she has to go. Back in Roswell, someone kills Michael's friend, Monk, at the Meta-Chem Corporation where they worked together. Later Michael finds that someone at Meta-Chem is tracking him and most likely they discovered that he's an alien and they killed Monk for this reason. With Valenti's help, Michael tries to discover the truth but someone kidnaps Valenti. Max, Michael and Isabel go to Meta-Chem in order to free him. Max is the one who finds him and he discovers that someone at Meta-Chem, led by their leader Meris, was tracking Michael because they thought that he was the healer alien. Meris wants Max to heal her elderly husband. When Max tries to explain to her that he can't heal people who're dying for natural reasons, Meris blackmails him using Valenti's life, and Max is forced to try the heal. However, something goes wrong in the healing process and instead of healing Meris' husband Max gives his life to the old man. Max becomes the old one, and when the healing process ends a circle of fire emits from Max's body. The fire comes back to him and the room catches on fire. Valenti tries to help Max but it's too late; when he reaches out to touch him Max turns into dust. At the same time in Vermont, Liz suddenly awakes feeling Max's death deep inside of her and knows that he's dead without a doubt. Later, when a ship seems to crash in Roswell, Max and Michael help a girl and her father who were trapped by the government. Shortly afterward they discover that the crashed ship was Tess coming back to Earth, carrying Max's son with her. Calling him Zan, after his father, she says that Kivar betrayed her and their deal, and he rejected him as the heir of Antar because he is fully human, so she had to escape from the planet and return to Earth in order to save her son. However, Max discovers that Tess, in order to force him to leave earth, mindwarped him about the baby, later on the end of season 2 when he thought that he was dying. Tess' arrival, however, has sparked government action because in order to protect her son she killed a whole military base. So, in the end of the episode, to ward them away from her son, she sacrifices herself, blowing up the military base and dying in the process and she asks Liz for help. Before dying she confesses to Liz that Max always loved only her and every time they were together she always got flashes of her from him. However, this turn of events serves to resurrect the Special Unit to hunt for the aliens, and realizing someone will always be after him, Max gives Zan up for adoption, for his own safety. Shortly after that, Liz starts to receive visions of the future while she's touching people. When she and Max are making out she gets one of her visions and she sees how the Special Unit will kill them at their own high school graduation. Not able to harm the Special Unit again, the group agrees to flee Roswell separately. Max gives up his throne because they're a group and their lives are in danger, he can't make all the decisions anymore and after all, he never really considered himself as the king nor the leader and they all have the right to choose what they want to do with their life. Later, Max proposes to Liz and she accepts because they can't leave Roswell without each other, even if it means they'll be killed. However, at the high school graduation ceremony Max tries to sacrifice himself by taking FBI attention only on him in order to free the others but Michael saves him at last minute. After what happened, the group makes the decision to leave Roswell all together, instead of separately like they established before. Max, Liz, Michael, Maria, Isabel and Kyle then depart from Roswell into a van and Max makes the decision to use his powers in order to help people. One of the last scenes of the series shows Liz's father reading his daughter's journal where she wrote him a letter and told him about her wedding with Max and who he really was. At the end of the series, Max and Liz get married in a small chapel in the desert and get back in the van, continuing their trek throughout the country with their friends. ==Jason Behr about his character==