This week on Resident Alien, Harry and Asta accompanied D’Arcy to her skiing contest after she gave into her bad habits and scared off Elliot. During their trip, Asta revealed she had discovered a letter for her mom, and asked Harry if he wanted to tag along to find out if she still lived at the address. Also: George Takei guest starred!
1. A Rough Reunion
Asta and Harry discover her birth mother, Mary-Ellen Taylor (Karina Logue), still lives at the address, and that she’s thoroughly disinterested in meeting her daughter, or learning she has a granddaughter — it’s so telling we’re not shown Asta telling her who she is, since her reaction would’ve been a complete anticlimax. Even though parents in Harry’s society do not care about their offspring, making them fend and kill each other for survival, he can tell Asta is disappointed, and tries to cheer her up by coming up with childish insults for Mary-Ellen (although none are as awesome as him telling her to “smoke more.”)
Of course, Asta’s angry because she’s upset, and it’s up to D’Arcy and Dan to comfort her at the end of the episode (no wonder Dan decided not to contact Mary-Ellen in the past.) For Harry, this was an educational insight into how blood doesn’t define family, and how (as he puts it) being a parent is not just about a relationship between them and a child, but about being a caring parent to one another. One wonders whether this’ll mean Harry realizes he is truly the Baby’s father (since he’s looking for him) next time or not.
2. I Have Concerns
D’Arcy tells Elliot to stop parenting her when he expresses concerns about her knee, causing him to walk out on her (boy, her parents really did a number on her.) She gets Harry to come along because she needs someone to inject her with cortisone, and supply painkillers, something he expresses concern over until she promises to buy him churros. (Tch.) D’Arcy’s skiing performance goes well, Elliot reveals he was there cheering her all along with the rest of her friends, and she introduces him to them; happy ending right? Right? Well, for now certainly: I expect the worst when the side effects start to occur, or Harry inevitably spills what he’s prescribing her with.
3. How the Tables Have Turned
Kate tells Ben she’s opposed to building the resort, and to her utter astonishment he tells her “OK,” and that they should agree to disagree. This was so funny: she’s spent the whole season wishing Ben would develop a backbone and admit when he has disagreements with her, and he’s done it now at the worst possible time — be careful what you wish for indeed. Kayla tells Kate they’re planning to file an injunction against the resort’s planning permission, and that she should use her legal background to help; Kate v. Ben in court? Blimey, why not just file for divorce at this rate?
4. False Alarm
Torres leaves a parting gift for Mike’s dad Lewis, much to the sheriff’s surprise. Liv mentions Mike said he wants to move back to D.C., something Lewis objects to, telling his son he doesn’t want to return there, even though he complains about Patience all the time: he loves it here, he just loves complaining too. Lewis then tells Mike he’s afraid of being happy, which is true: earlier in the episode he confesses he suppressed his own love of Ren faires to look like a more acceptable cop. I’ll say one thing: if Torres is this sweet toward the older Thompson, she’s probably waiting on the younger one to ask her out.
5. Oh My
Harry deduced the presence of a time travel portal in his future either meant the Greys were plotting to take over Earth, or the shapeshifting Alpha Draconians. Since (as he claims) the former are only interesting in probing people, he decided it was the Draconians, and while stopping to take a leak en route to the tournament, he creates a crop circle basically telling them to piss off (no pun intended, unless…) I’m surprised it took this long to incorporate crop circles into the show, but the line, “The complex symbol on the right stands for my middle finger,” made it well worth it.
Continued belowSo on the way back, a saucer appears and freezes Asta and D’Arcy in time, forcing Harry to step out of the car and negotiate. A Grey, voiced by none other than George Takei, appears and informs him he was wrong (oops). He orders him to stop drawing the Draconians’ attention, and to not interfere with their invasion. Golly, gosh, “oh my;” why are the Greys taking over Earth? Also, they really milked Takei’s ability to say “oh my,” not that I’m complaining: the repetition left me howling.
Bonus Thoughts:
– The episode begins with a man discovering his wife is having an affair, and chasing her lover out of the house with an axe. I completely forgot about that until the end, when said man with no pants bumps past D’Arcy’s car, and didn’t realize it was foreshadowing the stopping of time. It therefore came across as an elaborate joke, making fun of their own mysterious cold opens, although I did find that amusing too.
– I can’t believe Harry tried to see if Asta was an Alpha Draconian: I also don’t think an actual Draconian would enjoy him picking their nose, since it was hardly consensual.
– Fun fact: Karina Logue is Donal Logue’s sister (and, as far as we know What We Do in the Shadows fans, not a vampire.)
– Harry eating Oreos: a Martian Manhunter reference perhaps?
See you all next week for “Cat and Mouse.”