Resident Alien‘s second season is back! Now, where were we? On the midseason finale, Asta killed the hitman from the Galvan/Powell Group who shot Harry. Harry, Asta and D’Arcy relocate the body, but Ben’s attempts to improve the town’s PR causes him to interfere with the cover-up, after he reports the corpse’s location across county lines. In the meantime, Harry and Asta found themselves shaken by the killing, albeit in different ways.
1. Harry Discovers His Survival Instinct
As Harry explains to Asta at the beginning, his people do not fear death, which makes a lot of sense, seeing as how giving birth is lethal for their kind. However, being shot causes him to start feeling his own mortality, with awkward results: after accepting Ben’s offer to become the town doctor once again, Harry tends to a terminally ill man, whom he constantly reminds will not be sad for much longer “‘cos you will be dead,” which is really more for Harry’s benefit than his. (Harry also tells Asta if he’d died, he would’ve remained in human form, which is an undoubtedly distressing thought.) By the end, Harry seems to regain his lack of fear by picking up a misfired bullet and tossing it into the lake, but I’ve no doubt — as with all trauma — that this issue has not been so easily resolved.
2. A Professional Relationship
As part of his renewed duties, Harry becomes marriage counselor for Ben and Kate, and unsurprisingly proves to be an unconventional listener, although given (as the episode hilariously reminds us, all these months later) that they had sex in his bathroom, Harry can definitely be forgiven. (He even had to throw out his loofah: poor guy.) I must admit though, Harry ordering Kate to tell Ben about her issues instead of him because he doesn’t care was a) accidentally helpful and b) refreshingly honest for a therapist: imagine that. The antagonism between Harry and the Hawthornes (hmm, sounds like a different show) also bore some great fruit when Ben tried to make it up for ruining Harry’s chance to perform the autopsy, by bringing over Brewskis: Harry’s response, “I just saw you today, that is enough,” and Alan Tudyk’s delivery, was so blunt, I couldn’t stop laughing.
3. It’s Judy Time
Judy gets a lot of screentime, as it turns out she’s the clerk at the motel Harry and Asta move the body to: D’Arcy distracts her with deviled eggs from Harry’s birthday party, which gives her a lot of bowel problems that prevent her from discovering the body until the next morning. I thought it was a bit mean they’d dump such a traumatic sight at her workplace, but she seemed to take it in her stride, something demonstrated when she decided to bathe in the hot tub that had had a corpse inside. I feel Judy’s a character who works best in small doses, given how cartoonish she is, even for a resident of Patience, but it’s nice that Jenna Lamia got more screentime this week. Speaking of Lamia, she’s an audiobook narrator, something we learn Judy has aspirations to be, even though she’s terrible at it: the scene where she gives Thompson a recording of Malcolm X’s biography, where she misreads his name as Malcolm Ten? Oh my god, what a concept…
4. Logan’s Alive?!
Hooray! Turns out the sphere David Logan stole from the kids (which, lest we forget, was stolen from Harry) protected him from the alien infiltrator’s shot. He reunites with General McCallister, who takes him to a safehouse, where she drugs him (offscreen) to remind him he can’t trust her, even though they should be working together to find out who tipped the assassin off about their meeting. It’s definitely kooky logic from a woman who’s a few screws loose, and a great chance for Linda Hamilton to show off her dry comedy chops, by explaining all this with a complete stone face. Good to know Logan’s fine, and to see McCallister might be an even weirder partner than the late, dearly decapitated Lisa Casper.
5. Some Poorly Considered Decisions
Asta becomes nauseous with guilt over killing the hitman, and although Harry and D’Arcy both warn her against confessing as it would make her a target of Galvan/Powell as well, she nearly tells Deputy Baker the truth. It’s not until she sees her father, Dan, across the street, that she realizes Galvan/Powell would come for her loved ones too, and backs out, instead telling Liv she really wanted to tell her how much she appreciates her and Mike. Welp, now Liv’s just suspicious as to what’s really going on.
Continued belowAfterwards, Asta becomes overwhelmed performing the official autopsy on the body, and Harry, taking pity on her, erases her memory. Unfortunately, that causes Asta to forget her plans to see Jay at the diner to mark her birthday, leaving her alone, waiting to be fully disappointed on the restaurant’s doorsteps. So basically, neither of our protagonists are handling this situation well, went behind each other’s backs, and have been incredibly naive about the consequences: what a sad note to end this first new episode on! (Sigh.)
Bonus Thoughts:
– Everyone please give a very special welcome to Nicola Correia-Damude as Det. Lina Torres, from Jessup PD! Hopefully I’ll have more to say about her next time.
– Oh yeah, Goliath’s vicious baby/reborn self is still on the loose: good thing it took out the other Galvan/Powell goons though.
– Hmm, saying you want someone “capital punished” might be a popular euphemism someday.
– In case you forgot, the Alien Tracker Liv contacts is Terry O’Quinn’s character from the first season, Peter Bach.
So yay, Resident Alien‘s back! See you all next week for “The Ghost of Bobby Smallwood.” No, no idea why who Bobby is either, but let’s find out!
