This week on Resident Alien, some quick thinking from D’Arcy led to the blue avian lawyer, “Heather” (Edi Patterson), being stranded on Earth until her portal could be fixed, stalling Harry’s eviction. Harry’s attraction to her soon developed into a full-blown courtship, much to Asta’s disgust. Elsewhere, things were getting complicated and strange for the Hawthornes, Liv & Mike, and the retired David Logan…
1. The Galaxy’s Greatest Rom-Com
Harry and Heather’s romance was so funny, from Harry’s clinical observations before his conclusion that he felt love for her, and not in a platonic way like Asta (“In my head, and in my heart, but also in my pants!”), to struggling to contain his emotions when she responded she couldn’t date him, and the culmination by moonlight as they performed a mating dance (leading to her smacking into his window, just like a real bird!) Patterson deserves so much applause for being as weird and fearless as Alan Tudyk, she truly feels like his match.
I think what made it even funnier was how, all things considered, it was played pretty damn straight: aside from a couple of moments like Harry composing the poem Bird Boner, the comedy here relied more on the deeply relatable awkwardness and flustering that comes from falling in love, and trying to be careful about it, than them being aliens. I mean, let’s face it, Harry picking up Heather and dancing with her in the moonlight after her little slip-up is a very common rom-com beat, and certainly a very romantic image – it just felt ridiculous because they were in their rubber monster forms.
2. But This is Also Happening?!
Asta and Dan decide to take Jay to the rez when they learn she’s struggling to write her college application. There, we learn some of their family are under the impression Harry is Asta’s “short king,” or partner, while asking where he is. Later, back at Dan’s diner, Asta starts to wonder if her irritation with Harry’s crush on Heather was because she may’ve felt jealous, and that she may indeed have romantic feelings for him. I’d wondered if the show would ever use this storyline from the comic, where Harry and Asta do become an item, because of how different it is from the source material. (Harry is hardly human boyfriend material.) Well, I guess the possibility of it is there now.
3. More Heartache
D’Arcy bumps into her ex, Elliot, and his new girlfriend Natalie (Taylor Kinequon), while heading to the laundromat, an awkward encounter that turns excruciating once she finds herself unable to explain why life has been awesome since dumping him. Classic secret identity dilemma, capped off by the startlingly hilarious audio of her screaming into her laundry bag. After asking Harry about what it’s like to live with his secret (all while a nosy little Skrull lookalike repairs the portal), she realizes her continued feelings of inadequacy are derived from how much she misses Elliot. While it remains to be seen if this thread will continue, it did tie in nicely into Harry’s musings at the end of the episode, about how true love means being willing to let someone go, no matter how much it might hurt.
4. Owls, Alien Abductions, and the NBCU Agenda
Kate’s story got even more messed up this week, as Ben discovered her plan to find an outlet for her emotions through art caused her to create the most horrifying children’s picture book, depicting an owl graphically feeding its young. After learning about this, Max brings up a movie where owls appear in the edited memories of alien abductees, causing Kate to look into the connection, and realize she might’ve had a close encounter of the third kind. To my surprise, both the movie (The Fourth Kind) and the owl/grey connection it’s inspired by weren’t made up for the show. Interestingly, The Fourth Kind was distributed by Universal, which owns Syfy – now that’s what I call a cross-promotion!
5. Closing in on Peter Bach- Oh There He is!
Liv and Mike’s search for Peter Bach led them to Dr. Wendy Beasley (Erin Karpluk), a former military chemist, whose partner died in an alien-related, and rather Independence Day-esque lab accident. She distrusts them though, and even plays gatekeeper when Liv tells her she knew Peter too. A lucky break causes the duo to discover Joseph (who’s still technically a no-show this week) has been interfering with the investigation; unfortunately for Wendy, they’re too late to prevent her from being killed by the assassin, but it still leads them to a secret compartment in Peter’s van, containing his private journal.
Continued belowMeanwhile, McCallister brings David Logan out of retirement (and his yoga therapy class) following complications with her secret project, which we learn is… Peter Bach! He’s alive! I knew something was off about his supposedly fatal injury. But McCallister apparently wants to turn him into an autonomous robot to fight the greys? I’m happy Peter and David are back in the fold, but what a bizarre turn. What else might General Eleanor be keeping a secret from Harry? Is Lisa Casper going to come back as a robot too? I hope not for the characters’ sake, but that would be amazing!
Bonus Thoughts:
– Mike’s bit about Amazon Prime being Optimus Prime’s “wife” (aka Elita-1) was a very good one. This is your reminder, by the way, that Alan Tudyk voices Optimus on Transformers: EarthSpark (where Elita is very much the Wonder Woman to Optimus’s Superman), and he’s a perfectly fine successor to Peter Cullen!
– For a guy given only one week to find a way to overcome the greys’ time-freezing abilities, Harry sure spent a lot of this episode building a model volcano in-between wooing Heather. Well, I guess we all procrastinate in our own ways.
– If I recall correctly, Asta’s cousin Drew (played by story editor Tommy Pico) is now the show’s first gay character.
– Harry’s description of how Asta and D’Arcy’s brainstorm had given way to “mud” was quite poetic actually.
– Asta learns Mike and Liv are keeping Peter’s van on the rez, but it’s left hanging until next week.
See you all next week for “Lovebird.” (The puns, they truly do keep on coming.)
