This week on Resident Alien, Harry battled depression, and experimented with medication after discovering his spaceship had been taken. When he learned Max could see the green glow emanating from his tech, he recruited the boy to help him pinpoint the rest of his missing equipment.
“The Green Glow”
Written by Elias Benavadez
Directed by Jennifer Phang
1. Isabelle’s A Good Actress
Turns out Isabelle was pretending to have been rendered unconscious by Harry the second time last week, as she wanted to find out where he was sneaking off to. His feeble attempts to explain why he did that understandably caused her to leave; poor woman, she must think her ex has had a mental breakdown. I could see Harry was sad to leave her go, even if he confused love with hunger: after all, he’s been contemplating killing her to protect his secret, but didn’t act on it. Thing is, she’s probably going to tell someone about what he did…
2. Zombie Harry
Harry tries to drown his sorrows with pills and alcohol, which knocks him out cold, and causes a nightmare about Human Harry, whose appearance resembles the corpse locked in the freezer box. The scene was a great insight into Alien Harry’s self-loathing at having become human, and provided a terrific jump scare/laugh when it turned out to be a dream-within-a-dream: it also reminded us how much effort Tudyk is putting into his main performance, as Human Harry’s voice is very different, and much more menacing than our impostor.
On that note, Keith Arbuthnot — who doubles for Tudyk in all the shots with Harry’s alien appearance — had a lot of screentime in this episode, since all his scenes with Max are done from the kid’s perspective. We must appreciate how much his performance syncs with Tudyk’s voiceover, otherwise it would be jarring, and I’m rather curious to hear these scenes with Arbuthnot’s voice now.
3. Munchies
Asta and D’Arcy decide to cheer up Harry by introducing him to pot, and naturally the next scene has them gorging on noodles at a Japanese bar. Then, when Harry breaks into Max’s bedroom again, he’s snacking on some chips from the kitchen, and starts insisting that the boy ask his mom if she can order popcorn. Sometimes, it sinks in you’re basically watching an E.T. reboot where E.T. is high, hungry, and breaking into Elliott’s house because it’s easier to steal food from there than a grocery store — so you absolutely lose it at how absurd it really is.
4. Nathan Fillion
The cold open reveals that octopuses evolved on Earth after a meteor deposited some DNA here 540 million years ago, and while at the bar, Harry strikes a conversation with one of his “cousins” in a fish tank. I howled when I realized the octopus was voiced by none other than Tudyk’s Firefly co-star Nathan Fillion — this is not how I imagined a reunion ever going down. I do wonder what the point of the reveal was though, beyond some cheerful surrealism: maybe if octopuses are related to Harry, we are too? (Perhaps I just have a hard time buying we don’t have a common ancestor.)
5. Liv Calls It Quits
At D’Arcy’s urging, Asta informs Thompson and Baker she suspects her ex Jimmy stole the prescription pads from the clinic. After learning the drugs are being sold to kids, Jimmy rats out the “pharmacist,” the janitor Richard Ferguson, whom Thompson chases through the school. Liv takes the shortcuts through her alma mater, and trips up Ferguson with a brush; it was brilliant seeing Thompson struggling to keep up with this old guy, while Baker nonchalantly walked through the building to relaxing elevator music.
Thompson gets irritated that Baker read Ferguson his Miranda rights, and reprimands her at the cafe. Angered by how ungrateful he is, Liv scrunches up the food he ordered for his dog, and quits. What an exit: can’t say Thompson didn’t have it coming though, having thoroughly proven himself to be an arrogant jerk — buy your own yogurt, and good luck solving Hodges’s murder by yourself if you’re not man enough to apologize.
Continued belowBonus Thoughts:
– Good grief is Lisa Casper trigger happy.
– The jokes about how mustaches mean you’re a pedophile feel uncalled for, but hey, you’re the ones who went for the early 20th century look, not me!
– Harry’s affection for Jerry Orbach will never stop being amazing (if only he was alive to see it now.)
– Ben really pushed his luck with Kate: some people just need to learn to take a win when they can.
So, Harry, Asta and D’Arcy are now stuck in a crevasse after the glacier collapsed; how long do you think it’ll be before they’re rescued next week? ‘Til then, be sure to let us know what you think in the comments.
