This week on Resident Alien, the real Harry Vanderspeigle’s foot was found by a fisherman, prompting a search from the authorities that threatened to jeopardize Harry’s secret identity. Also, D’Arcy and Asta went on a disastrous girl’s night out, while Max found himself being bullied at school over his wild claims.
“Secrets”
Written by Njeri Brown
Directed by Robert Duncan McNeill
1. Alan Tudyk is a National Treasure
I could go on about everything I found laugh-out-loud funny this week, but that’d be pointless: so instead I just want to say, for the record, Alan Tudyk is a brilliant comic actor, and the main reason I find Harry’s awkward conversation with Kate (Max’s mother, played by Meredith Garretson), or his childish attempts to insult the boy, and him squeaking “I am so – scared!” in front of everyone so excruciatingly funny. He just has this perfect mix of pompousness and cluelessness, like an American Rowan Atkinson, that dials up the hilarity of anything up to an 11, and which makes his murderous character far more endearing than he would be.
2. Circumcision
This week’s wildest joke had to be Harry persuading a couple to circumcise their baby, so he could pass off his tissue sample as that of the foot’s — I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall, just to learn how that absurd situation was conceived. It does strain credulity that this apparently non-Jewish or Muslim couple would be persuaded to do that, especially from such a strange doctor, or that Asta wouldn’t put two and two together, though perhaps she — or someone else at the sheriff’s office — will, and Harry will be in even deeper trouble.
3. Max Made a Friend
Speaking of Muslims, poor Max is becoming increasingly embarrassed by his overbearing mother (whom we learned works at his school), and targeted by bullies, who mock his claims about Harry. Fortunately, he becomes friends with Sahar, a girl who he helps after she’s similarly picked on. She says she believes what he says, presumably to humor him after his act of kindness (otherwise I think she would’ve been as terrified on seeing Harry as Max was), though admittedly, the lines between reality and imagination are rather blurred for a child. In any case, it’s sweet, and always good to have more sympathetic Muslim characters — wearing a hijab, no less — on TV.
4. Asta Has a Daughter
It’s revealed in a brief flashback that Jay is actually Asta’s daughter, whom she gave up after giving birth to her as a teenager: Sam Hodges facilitated the adoption, explaining why he and Asta were so close. It’s a cleverly done twist thanks to the red herrings, including the one in this episode of Jay crashing on the clinic’s sofa. After Jay first met Harry, Asta told him she employed her to keep her off the streets, also implying she didn’t have a home or parents: now we know the real reason she and Hodges hired her.
5. A Funny Flashback Turns Dark
Harry has another flashback to the two weeks he spent hiding in the wilderness, before taking Vanderspeigle’s identity: we learn a rider spotted him, and fled, leaving behind his hat and horse, leading to the amusing sight of Harry wearing the hat and riding the horse, his vestigal arms holding the reins. This is a live-action show though, so it needed to feed into the plot, and at the end we see the rider boasting about his encounter at a bar outside Colorado, to Lisa Casper (Mandell Maughan), and her partner (Alex Barima), who were the agents that discovered the body of the floating hiker last week. Casper kills the rider, much to her partner’s bewilderment, but she responds she has different orders from him — looks like Harry’s going to have to be the one to move to “Scotland” soon!
Bonus Thoughts:
– D’Arcy sure gets around, since she was also part of the avalanche control team that ruins Harry’s attempts to recover his spaceship before the ice melts.
– Deputy Baker giving her whole parents’ backstory as a random aside is a tour-de-force of concealed exposition.
– Goddamn, Thompson pulling the can out of Liv’s ice bucket when it still had the foot inside was gross.
As always, be sure to let us know what you thought of this week’s Resident Alien in the comments, and we’ll discuss the next episode this time, next week.
