Resident Alien Season 1, Episode 3: Secrets

This week on Resident Alien (man, I keep wanting to type "Resident Evil"), we get yet another well-written and very busy episode. Harry's faced with the fallout from his human disguise, Asta learns a shocking but predictable secret about her intern Jay, and a new threat looms on the horizon for our favorite extraterrestrial doctor.

As its title suggests, the theme of this week's episode is the various secrets the characters are keeping from one another— and in some cases themselves. It also focuses a bit more on the supporting cast, giving them a chance to shine as it fills in their backgrounds and gives them a bit more depth.

This week's episode focuses more on the supporting cast than Harry, filling in their backgrounds and giving them a bit more depth.

As with last week, this episode was directed by Robert Duncan McNeill, who played Tom Paris on Star Trek: Voyager. McNeill helmed four episodes of Voyager, and apparently liked life in the director's chair. He's become quite a prolific director since, working on dozens of TV series over the years. 

It occurred to me this week that this is a very odd series. The protagonist is basically a murderer, who alternates his time between looking for his doomsday device and actively trying to kill a child. And if that wasn't enough, this week he finds the body of the man he murdered and does his best to hide it from the authorities. 

Yet despite all that, Harry's somehow likeable and even charming. Even more puzzling, the audience is actually pulling for him here, hoping he's not caught and gets away with his crime. Offhand I can't think of another series with such a twisted moral code.

I'm also enjoying the interactions between Max & Harry. Max was initially terrified of the bizarre alien who's invaded his town, but as time goes by he's beginning to realize Harry isn't the threat he thought he was, which gives him the upper hand. It's a fun relationship.

This is also the funniest episode of the series so far. I laughed out loud numerous times while watching, which is something I've not done in a long time. You haven't lived till you've heard a disguised alien talk about his "rear iris," call a ten year old child a dickhead or ask a couple if they want to risk their newborn baby getting an STD.

Lastly, this week introduces us to another new threat to Harry, in the form of two government agents who are tracking him down. I'm assuming this is the start of a "Harry Hides From The Government" plotline.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
A man's fishing on the lake in front of Harry's house. He reels in his line, and sees to his horror he's hooked a severed foot!

That night Harry lies in bed and stares at his alarm clock. As an alien he doesn't need to sleep, but goes through the motions anyway to appear more human. Eventually his mind wanders as he thinks about all the stuff he needs to do: find his doomsday device, find the missing pieces of his ship, exterminate the human race, kill his archenemy Max and find the body of the real Harry Vanderspeigle, who he killed after assuming his form. It's a full schedule. Oh, and he needs to pick up some milk. 

The next morning, Harry searches the mountain and finds another piece of his ship. Nearby, two members of the Snow Patrol set off explosive charges to start a small avalanche (in order to prevent a bigger, more destructive one from hitting the town below). Harry hears the charges, sees the approaching wall of snow and dives for cover just in time. Once it's over, he sees the piece of his ship has been buried again.

Back at his cabin, Harry looks at a map of the mountain and realizes the avalanche has set him back at least a week. Just then Kate Hawthorne (the Mayor's wife) shows up and asks to talk with him. Harry reluctantly lets her in.

Kate's worried about her son Max, who's convinced that Harry's an alien. She says he's obsessed with the idea, and even claims that Harry broke into his bedroom and tried to kill him (which is actually true!). Alarmed, Harry secretly grabs a knife, figuring he'll have to kill Kate.

He raises the knife, but lowers it when he realizes that Kate doesn't believe Max. She asks what's wrong with Max and how to help him. Harry earnestly suggests the Hawthornes move— far away. She assumes he's joking, and Harry awkwardly laughs.

Displaying a rare moment of insight, Harry suggests Max is just looking for attention. Kate's impressed by this, as she's been neglecting him lately. Harry agrees that it's all her fault (!), and literally pushes her out the door.

Later in downtown Patience, Harry waits for Max to pass by on his way to school. He tells Max that no one believes his claim that he's an alien. The two trade insults for a while, as Max has lost his initial fear of Harry.

At the clinic, Asta opens Harry's desk drawer and discovers a prescription pad's missing (which is a big deal). She looks for Harry to tell him about it, and finds him in the lounge, watching Jay The Intern sleeping. When Asta asks what the hell he's doing, he says he can't sleep, so he's watching Jay to learn how. Asta shoos Harry out of the room, then wakes Jay and asks if she knows anything about the missing pad. She says she hasn't seen it (hmm...).

Just then Deputy Liv enters and tells Harry they need him down at the Town Hall. When he asks why, she says there's a dead body in the lake.

Harry & Asta arrive at the Town Hall, where Sheriff Mike announces that a local fisherman found a foot in the lake. Sheriff Mike says this incident, along with Sam Hodges' death, means they're dealing with a serial killer. 

Harry fears it belongs to the real Harry, who he "killed in self defense." The Sheriff wants to send the foot off for a DNA test. Harry realizes he can't let that happen, as they'll discover it belongs to the real Harry, and then everyone will know he's an alien.

Cut to Max walking down a hall at school. He drops his backpack, causing his tinfoil hat (first seen last episode) to spill out— to the amusement of a nearby bully. He then sees the bully knock a book out of the hands of Sahar, a young Muslim girl. Max picks up the book and hands it back to her. Sahar watches in admiration as he walks away.

After the meeting, Harry stares at the severed foot, which is sitting in a bucket of ice. Deputy Liv enters and gives a surprisingly detailed and accurate description of who the foot likely belonged to, including the suspect's age, height and weight. Alarmed, Harry waits for her to leave, then grabs the bucket and steals the foot.

Back at his office, he compares it to his own foot, and determines it did indeed belong to the real Harry Vanderspeigle. Sheriff Mike enters and accuses Harry of stealing the foot. He calms him down by saying he's a pathologist, and was simply trying to get a DNA sample.

Harry enters his exam room, where a young couple's brought their newborn baby in for a checkup. Harry says the child's healthy, then blatantly asks if it's been circumcised. Cut to Harry giving the baby's foreskin to Sheriff Mike, claiming it's a tissue sample from the severed foot (!).

Back at the school, Max is eating lunch by himself. His mom Kate, who's a teacher, picks this moment to give him more attention and sits with him. Horrified, he tells her to get lost before someone sees her— even offering to pay her to leave. She does so, but not before giving him a kiss first— which of course causes the other kids to snicker & laugh.

Sahar comes over and sits with Max. When he asks if she's going to make fun of him too, she tells him she believes his claim that Harry's an alien.

Harry returns home to his cabin, where Sheriff Mike is organizing a large and overly-complicated search for the body in the lake. Deputy Liv and Mayor Hawthorne are there as well. Harry's terrified they'll find out the truth, but is unsure what to do.

He flashes back to four months ago, when he first crash-landed on Earth and somehow wandered into New Mexico. A cowboy named Roy rids by on horseback and sees him in his true alien form. Terrified, Roy jumps off his horse and runs away screaming. Harry picks up the his hat, mounts his horse and rides it back to Colorado.

At the clinic, D'Arcy comes by to see Asta. She says she looks depressed, and knows just the thing to cheer her up. Cut to the two women as they weirdly sit on the beach, watching the Sheriff drag the lake for the dead body (???). They quickly become bored, and D'Arcy says she heard a mutual friend named JT is having a party. The two decide to go.

Meanwhile, Harry frets in front of his cabin. He's horrified when he sees the real Harry's body (minus a foot!) has washed up on shore. Sheriff Mike's dog Cletus sees it as well and starts sniffing around the body. Harry shoos the dog away, and drags the body into his cabin before anyone else spots it.

Cut to the party, as Asta and D'Arcy enter. They're mortified when they realize it's a teen party, thrown by the son of their friend JT— who apparently named his son after himself. A stoner kid approaches Asta, asking if she wants some pills. She looks at the pill bottle and sees the prescription was written by Sam Hodges— after his death— and realizes it was written with the missing pad. She confiscates the pills and tells D'Arcy they're leaving. As they head for the door, Asta spots Jay, passed out in a chair. They wake her and drag her out of the party.

They drive Jay to her house, and Asta watches as she goes inside. This triggers a flashback, as she and Sam Hodges pull up to the exact same house. She tearfully gives Sam her newborn baby, and he takes it to a couple standing on the porch. Back in the present D'Arcy asks Asta if she's OK. She says she wants to go home.

At the lake, Sheriff Mike & Liv knock on Harry's door to tell him they're knocking off for the night. Suddenly Cletus bursts in and makes a beeline for Harry's basement. He heads for the freezer and starts barking at it. Mike opens the freezer, and sees it contains wrapped packages of bison meat. He picks up Cletus and leaves, as we see the body lying just below the meat packets. Whew!

The next morning, Dan fixes breakfast for Asta. She tearfully tells him that her baby was a girl, and she thought it would be better off without her. Dan says the connection between mother & daughter can never be broken, and fate will eventually bring them back together. That's a setup for a future plotline if I ever heard one!

Later in town, Asta runs into Harry at the diner. He shows her he bought a bag full of padlocks, and she says she bought one as well. Harry then sits down to eat. Max & Sahar come in, and he points out Harry to her. Just like Max, she can can somehow see his true alien form. She nonchalantly walks by and "accidentally" knocks his water glass into his lap. He chases the two kids outside, but they get away.

At the clinic, Asta puts a padlock on the drawer containing the prescription pads. We then see Harry lock up his freezer, as well as the door to the basement. Satisfied, he lies down, puts on Roy's cowboy hat, and finally falls asleep for the first time in his life.

In New Mexico, Roy sits in a bar, talking to a man and a woman who claim to be UFO fanatics. He tells them a fictitious tale of how he encountered a horrifying alien and kicked its ass. The woman asks where he saw the alien, and Roy says she can find out in the new book he's writing about his experience.

Later, Roy heads out to his truck. Suddenly the woman jumps out of nowhere, grabs him and breaks his neck. She then takes the notes for his book. Her partner's aghast, saying their orders aren't to kill anyone. She hisses that she has different orders.

Thoughts:

• As is typical for the series, the episode begins with a voiceover by Harry:

"One mistake. Just one mistake made out of necessity for survival. I had no choice but to kill the human known as Harry Vanderspeigle. I was just defending myself. How was I supposed to know when I threw him on top of the ice he would disappear into the lake? I am an alien. I don’t know every little detail about how Earth works."

I love that last line! It makes pefect sense that he's probably never seen ice before and wouldn't understand its properties. That doesn't change the fact that he's a killer though. I guess technically one could argue he's guilty of manslaughter though, rather than full-on murder.

• In the opening shot we see a horrified fisherman pull a severed foot out of the lake. He then turns and looks nervously back toward the shore. 

This scene perfectly mirrors the beginning of the very first episode, in which Harry's fishing on the same lake and turns toward the camera as well.

• That D'Arcy seems to be quite the busy gal. In addition to her bartending job, apparently she's also a member of the Snow Patrol, helping to prevent major avalanches.

• While searching the mountain for pieces of his ship, Harry's nearly killed by an avalanche. He narrates: "This is bad. I just felt my rear iris pucker and my testicles tighten. My taint remains unchanged."

Oh my god! The term "rear iris" made me laugh uproariously for a good five minutes!

As I said in the intro, my favorite thing on the show right now is Harry's relationship with Max. Even though Harry's presumably an adult— possibly even centuries old— he's brand new at being human. Which means he now has all the emotional maturity of a child. That puts him on a level playing field with Max when they spar. 

I love it when Max taunts him for being stupid, and Harry has no idea how to handle his frustration or respond. His only recourse is to basically say, "Oh yeah?" or "Same to you!"

• Harry & Max's confrontation takes place near this row of colorful buildings in downtown Patience.

As I've pointed out before, Resident Alien's exterior shots are filmed in the small town of Ladysmith, British Columbia. The scene in question was filmed on 1st Avenue, which appears to be the town's main drag.

As you can see here, the smaller orange building is now gray on the show— along with various other changes. That's because these Google Maps street views of the town are from 2014! Jaysis Google, update your images once in a while, why dontcha?

• Now that Max is over his initial fear of Harry, his interactions with him are confident and self-assured. That's why it was surprising to see he's actually a loner at school, and is regularly bullied.

Luckily for him he found an ally this week in Sahar. They're both unpopular and considered outsiders by all the other kids, so they make a perfect team.

• I brought this up in Pilot, but it's worth a repeat— the show can't seen to decide how Harry's human disguise works. In this episode, he holds the real Harry Vanderspeigle's foot up to his own, and says, "It's amazing how my people have developed the ability to mimic other life forms on a cellular level." 

To me that "on a cellular level" line is proof positive that Harry physically transformed his body to resemble a human. There's no other way to interpret it.

But then somehow Max & Sahar both see his true alien form when they look at him, which implies he's using some sort of illusion, like a hologram or perception filter.

Note to the writers— both those scenarios can't be right! They're complete opposites, and you need to pick one and go with it.

• I feel bad for Deputy Liv. In this episode she extrapolates an amazingly accurate portrait of the Lake Victim simply by examining the severed foot! She's clearly far more intelligent and competent than anyone in town realizes. Mike in particular is constantly dismissive of her, despite the fact she's probably more qualified to be the Sheriff than he is!

So why does everyone regularly underestimate her? It could be because she's a woman in a traditionally male occupation, but I think there's more to it than that. I'm betting it's because she's very meek and timid, which makes her seem inexperienced and hesitant. Speak up for yourself, girl!

And yes, I understand that her "Under The Radar Competence" is the joke here— I just thought it was worth noting.

• As Sheriff Mike drags the lake for the missing body, Harry has a flashback to when he first landed on Earth.

I'm confused by his claim about wandering around in New Mexico for two weeks. How the hell did he get there? I thought his ship crashed on a mountaintop in Colorado— the place where he's been searching for his ship for the past four months. So how the hell did he end up in the desert? Did his ship crash so hard in Colorado it threw him several hundred miles into the next state?

Or did he crash in Colorado, wander into neighboring New Mexico for a while, encounter a cowboy & scare him off, then ride his horse back to where he started?

I don't get it. It's almost like this entire interlude was included just to introduce the cowboy character and to give us the admittedly absurd image of an alien riding a horse.

• Naturally the body of the real Harry Vanderspeigle washes up on shore while Sheriff Mike's dragging the lake for it. What are the odds? That's The Force Awakens-level coincidence right there!

• Cletus wears a vest that reads "DEPUTY." That had to be Sheriff Mike's idea.

• Harry panics when he sees the body, so he drags it into his house, and hides in in a freezer in the basement of his cabin. Wait, the what? A basement. In a cabin. That's literally fifty feet away from a huge body of water. 

Is that really a thing? Do lakeside cabins typically have basements? Seems like a bad idea to me. Wouldn't flooding be a constant problem?

• Asta & D'Arcy mistakenly show up at a teen party. As they hurriedly leave, Asta spots a drunken Jay passed out in a chair and takes her home.

Back in my review of the first episode I said: 

Asta infodumps her backstory to Harry, saying she married Jimmy and became pregnant when she was sixteen, and he forced her to give up the baby for adoption. Because of that, she tries to help kids like Jay stay off the streets so they don't make the same mistakes she did.

I wonder... is Jay gonna turn out to be the baby that Asta gave up?

Welp, it turns out I was right! After the party Asta drives Jay to her home, and watches her stagger up to the porch.

She then has a flashback to the night she gave up her baby. We see her friend and mentor, the late Sam Hodges, as he hands the baby over to its adoptive parents— who're standing in front of the exact same house!

That pretty much confirms that Asta is Jay's mom. 

To be fair it's not like I'm some kind of genius for predicting this storyline, as it's just basic writing and a pretty standard plot element. I just didn't expect it to happen this quickly.

Now that Asta knows the truth, I'm betting we'll get an episode in which Jay finds out that Asta's really her mom, will resent her decision to give her up for adoption and won't want anything to do with her.

• Near the end of the episode, Harry has an encounter with Sahar inside Joe's Diner.

Last week I tried to find the location they used for the diner in Ladysmith. I managed to track down the street, but there's no diner in the background (it should be between the utility pole and the large reddish building in the image above).

Google Maps hasn't updated this particular street view since 2012, so I said it's possible the diner was built sometime after that. The only trouble with that theory is I can't find any evidence of a diner anywhere in the town.

I then inexplicably posited that the diner probably doesn't exist and was CGIed into the background (!). Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking either.

In this episode we see the diner is most definitely not CGI, but in fact an actual real-world structure. You can even see that same reddish building behind it! I've scoured the internet for recent pics of the diner, but unfortunately I came up empty. Not surprisingly, there's just not a lot of info out there about a tiny, obscure town like Ladysmith.

If anyone out there lives in or around Ladysmith, BC, take a pic of this diner and send it to me so I can prove it really exists!

• In the first act, Asta discovers someone's stolen one of Sam's prescription pads out of his desk drawer. Later at the teen party, a stoner offers her pills that were written with a prescription from the missing pad.

So who stole the pad? The most likely suspect is Jay, as she works in the clinic and was at the party. She's a little TOO obvious though, and I'll be really disappointed in the writers if it turns out to be her. I can't think of anyone else it could be though.

Anyway, at the end of the episode Asta buys a lock for the desk drawer, to keep the prescription pads safe. Nothing like closing the barn door after the horse is loose and in the next county! 

In reality, there's no way in hell even a small town doctor like Sam would have ever left his prescription pads unlocked, where anyone could get to them. No medical professional would be that stupid.

• In the tag scene, two alleged UFOgists speak with the Cowboy who encountered Harry in his true form. A few seconds later the female kills the Cowboy and steals the info he's gathered on Harry (!). Da-yum!

Obviously this scene's setting up a new storyline, as these two are clearly government agents trying to track down Harry. Looks like he may have to kill again!

• This Week's Best Lines (most of which were spoken by Harry, of course):

(Kate Hawthorne pays Harry a visit, and tells him that her son Max thinks he's an alien.)
Harry: "Well, you don’t have anything to worry about. I’m not an alien. Unfortunately. I hear they’re pretty cool."

Kate: "I just don’t know what to do. Max won’t sleep, he won’t eat, and frankly, he is driving me crazy. You’re a doctor. Is there anything that we can do?"
Harry: "Move."
Kate: "What?"
Harry: "Far away from here. A new school, a new life. If Max knows that he is never setting a foot in Colorado or the Western United States again, I think that he will be a happy kid."
Kate: "Uh, we have jobs. My husband is the mayor."
Harry: "Scotland needs mayors. I read it in a book."

(Harry confronts Max on his way to school.)
Harry: "Good morning, dickhead."
Max: "Can’t call me that. That’s a nasty word."
Harry: "Oh, I’m sorry, Shit‐For‐Brains."
Max: "You’re inappropriate and you stole my flyers!"
Harry: "Do you wanna put them back up? Go ahead. No one believes you, anyway. Not even your parent. Tell people I am an alien. Climb to the highest tower in town and shout it to everyone!"
Max: "We don’t have towers, you dumb alien."
Harry: "No, I... I know that; it was a figure of speech."
Max: "No, it wasn’t. Oh my God, you actually thought we had towers."
Harry: "I did not!"
Max: "You’re so stupid! 'Hi, I’m an alien and I think it’s castle times and there are towers.”
Harry: "I was testing to see if you thought there were towers, and you’re lucky you passed."
Max: "Well, I’m gonna go to school now. Wait. I hope a tower doesn’t fall on me because we live in make‐believe times."
Harry: "You’re the one who thinks there’s towers!"

(He looks around to see if anyone witnessed their exchange.)
Harry: "Dickhead. Ass... asshole."

(Deputy Liv sees Harry staring at the severed foot.)
Liv: "Poor guy. My guess is a boat propeller probably hit the dead body and just chopped the foot right off."
Harry: "Mm."
Liv: "White male. I’m thinking late 40s, 180 pounds, over six feet tall. That’s a size twelve shoe. Heck, if you didn’t have two feet, I’d think this thing was yours!"
Harry: (laughing nervously) "You are a funny, hilarious person!"

(Harry tries to steal the foot, but is caught by Sheriff Mike.)
Sheriff Mike: "Where’s my goddamn foot? You stole my five dead little piggies, not to mention Liv’s favorite bucket. She puts her soda pop in there!"
Harry: "I can help. I am a pathologist. You don’t need to send the whole foot to Denver."
Mike: "Well, then pathologize the damn thing and get me a DNA sample. We got some Ted Bundy shit going on around here, and I need to put a stop to it before he strikes again."
Harry: "Or she. The killer could be a woman. That’s sexist. You’re sexist."
Mike: "Let me tell you something. When I say he, I mean he or she. You know, between you and me, what is this PC bullshit anyway now where you gotta say 'he/she' for 'he' when 'he' already mean 'he/she,' you know what I mean?"
Harry: "I just think it’ll be more respectful if you think of the killer as a woman."
Mike: "Okay. Well, let me tell you what I think would be respectful, is if you got me a skin sample off this foot before I start needing dick pills. Now, I’ma be in the waiting room waiting!"

Harry: (narrating again) "No one knows where great ideas come from. But you always remember where you were when they came. There. And in this case, my great idea came the moment I entered the exam room and realized I was going to cut the foreskin off this baby’s dick and hand it to the sheriff."

(Harry examines a baby and gets a "brilliant" idea.)
Harry: "His chest is clear. Is he circumcised?"
Mrs. Briscoe: "What?
Asta: "What?"
Harry: "Right, how dumb of me to ask. I’m right here. I can just check myself. Let’s see what you’re packin’ down there, champ."
Asta: "Harry... Dr. Vanderspeigle, you don’t need to do that."
Mrs. Briscoe: "He’s not circumcised. Not yet, anyway. We were thinking about it but hadn’t made a decision."
Asta: "And you don’t need to make a decision right now."
Harry: "The sooner the better. Removing the foreskin reduces the risk of urinary tract infection. Also STDs."
Mrs. Briscoe: "STDs?"
Harry: "Do you want your baby getting gonorrhea?"
Mrs. Briscoe: "Is that a real question?"
Asta: "No, it’s not!"
Harry: "You should consider it. It’s a very simple procedure. All I do is surgically remove the skin which covers the tip of your baby’s prick."

Resident Alien, Season 1, Episode 2: Homesick

This week on Resident Alien, Harry steps up his attempts to "silence" Max for good (!), and is unprepared for the emotional side effects of taking a human form.

This week's episode also ramps up the funny, as it makes full advantage of star Alan Tudyk's comedy chops. His portrayal of an alien here is top notch, as he plays Harry as equal parts pompous, ominous and hopelessly innocent.

Homesick was directed by Robert Duncan McNeill, who played Tom Paris on Star Trek: Voyager. McNeill helmed four episodes of Voyager, and apparently liked life in the director's chair. He's become quite a prolific director since, working on dozens of TV series over the years. 

I honestly don't have much else to say about this episode, so let's get on with the reviewin'!

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
On a mountain near Patience, Colorado, a hiker trudges through the snow. He stops at the edge of a sheer cliff to take a selfie. Right on cue the edge gives way, and he falls over the cliff and plummets helplessly through the air. He's stunned though when he suddenly stops six feet from the ground, suspended by some sort of invisible energy field. Unable to free himself, he begins calling for help.

Picking up where we left off last week, Dr. Harry Vanderspiegel, who's secretly an alien posing as a human, enters his exam room for his first appointment of the day. His patient is Max Hawthorne, the young son of Patience's Mayor Ben Hawthorne. Max can somehow see through Harry's disguise, and screams at the sight of him. Harry, who's desperate to keep his secret, threatens to kill Max (!). Terrified, the kid leaps out the window.

Max runs down the street as his parents chase after him. He hides under a bench, telling them that the alien who tried to kill him in the previous episode is really the doctor. Ben talks him out from under the bench and takes him to work with him for some reason.

Cut to the Mayor's office, which has been taken over by Sheriff Mike Thompson. When Ben complains, the Sheriff says he has real work to do— like finding out who killed Sam Hodges, the town's previous doctor. Max pipes up and says he knows who killed Hodges. The Sheriff's all ears until Max says Harry's an alien and is probably the one who did it. After the others leave, Deputy Liv Baker tells Max she's also the town's police sketch artist, and offers to draw Harry's alien form for him (Plot Point!).

Back at the clinic, Harry thinks to himself how easy it is to be a doctor, as all he has to do is look up any procedure on the internet. Unfortunately it's not that simple. His next patient is Judy, who's there for a pelvic exam. While consulting his phone, Harry accidentally takes a photo of her naughty parts. The rest of his examinations are equally awkward.

Sometime later Harry & Asta (the nurse at the clinic) visit the local diner. Asta introduces Harry to her father Dan, who's the cook. Dan pulls Asta into the kitchen and tells her there's something wrong with Harry, as he senses nothing when he looks at him— as if he's a blank slate.

While Harry waits for Asta, he glances out the window and sees the streets are plastered with wanted posters featuring his true face, drawn by Deputy Baker (told you it was a Plot Point!). Apparently Max took her sketch and whipped up the posters.

We then see Harry back at his cabin, packing his bags as he prepares to move on. Suddenly he stops, saying he still needs to find the missing component from his crashed ship in order to complete his mission. He then thinks back to how it took him weeks to control his new human body, as we get a good old fashioned montage sequence of him learning to walk and eat. He decides against moving away.

Harry then calls Max, pretending to be a friend from school. He says he saw the posters and spotted the alien get on a bus and leave town, so Max no longer has to worry about him. Max sees right through his clumsy ruse and says he knows he's the alien. Max says if Hary kills him his parents will know he did it. Foiled again!

The next day at the clinic, Asta introduces Harry to her cousin Kayla and infant nephew Sage. Harry's both fascinated and repulsed by the baby. Jay the intern appears, and Asta forces her to apologize to Harry for calling him a douche bag last week. Asta asks how Jay's coping with Dr. Hodges' death, and tells her she's there for her if she ever wants to talk. Jay says she's fine and hurriedly leaves.

That night Harry experiences an "emptiness" inside him. Assuming he's hungry, he wanders over to The 59. There he talks with D'Arcy the bartender, She offers him a shot of whiskey, but he declines it, saying last time he drank it he tried to kill someone. Thinking he's kidding, D'Arcy jokes about being a murderer and says if he does kill anyone to make it look like an accident.

Unaware that she's joking, Harry realizes he can get away with killing Max as long as he makes his death look accidental. While he's contemplating that, D'Arcy invites him to take her bowling the next night.

The next day Ben comes to the clinic for a therapy session with Harry. As Ben drones on about his problems, Harry fantasizes about various ways to kill Max. Dr. Hodges' widow Abigail then barges into the office, demanding to know if Harry really thinks her husband was poisoned. Asta hurries in and rushes her out of the office.

Asta goes to the Sheriff and tells him that Abigail was disturbing a crime scene, and may even be the one who killed her husband. The Sheriff says he's already gathered all the evidence he needs from the office, and claims Hodges' wife has a rock solid alibi.

Harry watches as the two argue, fascinated by human emotion. He flashes back to the night he crash landed on Earth four months ago. Needing food, he located a barn, found a cow and began drinking directly from its teat. OK, that was weird and pointless.

Harry meets D'Arcy at the bowling alley for their date. They run into Judy (the pelvic exam), who hands them their shoes. Sheriff Mike's bowling with his league, and is eager to see Harry's bowling skills. Harry grabs a ball, stares at the lane and realizes the game is a simple matter of mathematics. As he swings the ball backwards, he accidentally lets go and it hits Sheriff Mike square in the crotch!

Later over dinner, Harry asks D'Arcy when the snow will melt on the mountain (where he's been searching for his missing ship component). She says it could happen in as little as a week, which alarms Harry. She then goes on about how she used to be a skier, and severely injured herself when she couldn't stop. Her story makes him realize that "not stopping" is how he can kill Max. He abruptly gets up and leaves.

Harry sneaks into the Hawthornes' yard and cuts the brake lines on Max's bike.

At the clinic the next day, Harry's shocked when Ben brings Max in to get stitches. Seems cutting his brakes didn't kill him after all, but only banged him up a little. Max is a bit less terrified of Harry this time, now that he knows he has the upper hand and can report the alien to the authorities any time he wants.

Harry tells Max he'll numb his arm if he's a "good boy," but Max tells him to do his worst. Harry then stiches up Max's arm without a local anesthesia. Max grimaces in pain, but refuses to give in to Harry. As Max leaves, he tells Harry his shoe's untied, and the alien falls for the well-worn gag.

That night, Asta eats dinner with Dan. He suggests she cut off some of her hair in honor of Dr. Hodges (I assume it's a Native American thing?). She agrees, and he cuts off a length of her ponytail.

The next morning, Asta tells Harry that the last time she saw Hodges alive, he asked her to play cards with him. She declined, wanting to hurry home. Now she wishes she'd played after all. She also tells Harry that Dan isn't her real father, but a man who took her in and raised her after her mom left. Unsure what else to do, Harry asks if she wants to play cards. He wonders how he's able to "feel an emotion that's inside someone else."

Sometime later, Harry's searching the mountain again. He says he realizes now that the "empty felling" inside him isn't hunger, but loneliness. His detector leads him back to the Patience Coal Mine, where he finds a sample of tellurium, whatever that is. He takes the sample home, melts it down and creates a small anti-gravity disk. He says once he completes his mission and fries every living human on Earth, he can use the tellurium to fly back home. All he has to do is find his missing device.

Cut to two snowmobilers on the mountain. The come across Selfie Guy, whose frozen, desiccated body is still hovering in mid-air (along with a couple of eagles). This time though, we see the snow's melted, and Harry's full-sized anti-grav disk is lying below the suspended man.

Thoughts:

• This episode is bookended by Selfie Guy, a hapless hiker who becomes hopelessly trapped by forces not of this Earth. Several things here:

At the beginning of the episode, Selfie Guy accidentally falls off a cliff. Instead of splattering to the ground far below, he becomes suspended ten feet off the ground, caught in some sort of anti-grav field.

At the end of the episode, a couple of snowmobilers  the long-dead body of Selfie Guy, who's been floating in place for four months. It's a gruesome discovery, as his body's all withered and decayed.

I dunno... I get that the producers wanted to show he'd been stuck there for a long time, but would his body really deteriorate that much in a frigid environment like this? Wouldn't it be perfectly preserved, like it'd been kept in a freezer?

Also, this episode also gives us another flashback of Harry's ship crash landing in the mountains. If you look closely, you can see a lightning strike knock one of the glowing rings off the side of the ship and send it flying.

In the final shot of the episode, we see the snow on the mountain's melted a bit, revealing that Selfie Guy (along with two hawks or eagles) are suspended above a large metallic disk.

Is this disk the same one we saw get blasted off the spaceship? It would make sense. This disk obviously has anti-gravity properties— something that would come in handy on an interplanetary craft. 

It's pretty obvious this is the component Harry's looking for, that will help him repair his ship, complete his mission and return home.

• As regular readers of my reviews  (both of you!) know, I like to try and figure out where various series film their location shots. Most of the Arrowverse shows are filmed in Vancouver, so it's fairly easy to find the buildings and streets they regularly use.

Despite the fact that Resident Alien takes place in the fictional town of Patience, Colorado, it's filmed in Vancouver as well. The interiors are all filmed on a soundstage there, while the exteriors are shot in the tiny town of Ladysmith. It's located on in British Columbia on Vancouver Island, which is about twenty miles from the city of Vancouver.

Since Ladysmith's such a small town, it's pretty simple to scope out the locations they use.

Near the beginning of the episode, we see Max run screaming out of the clinic— where he's just encountered Harry again— and race down the street in terror.

Here's the real life location of the clinic. You can identify it by the three distinctive protrusions above the windows in front, as well as the large sign on the side. In reality the building's a mundane old credit union a block or so from Ladysmith's business district!

Oddly enough, the clinic seen in Pilot is a completely different building from the one in this episode! I can think of two reasons for this: A: the producers changed their minds and went with a location that looked less like a grocery store, or B: the owners of the first building decided a filming crew was causing too much of a disturbance and told 'em to get lost.

Max runs down the street from Harry and hides under a bench, as his embarrassed parents attempt to coax him out.

This area's located on 1st Avenue, which is Ladysmith's main street. Note that it looks like the producers added Max's hidin' bench in front of the building with the striped awnings.

Next up is what I guess you'd call City Hall, which houses the Mayor's office as well as the Sheriff's station. It's the tall brown building near the center of frame.

This building's also located on 1st Avenue (as most businesses in Ladysmith are!). 

Note that this location causes a bit of a continuity error. As seen above, when Max ran out of the clinic, he hid under a bench in front of a building with striped awnings. This location is clearly just a hundred feet or so down the street from the City Hall. The clinic's nowhere in sight!

I suppose it's possible that Max was so terrified he ran several blocks before stopping and hiding under the bench. More likely though, the producers just filmed his scene while the crew was already set up on the street and hoped the audience wouldn't notice. But we did notice, guys. We noticed.

Harry exits the diner and walks up an inclined street, where he spots dozens of wanted posters featuring his alien face.

It took a while, but I managed to track down the street in question. You can see the angled road, the distinctive white railing and even the utility pole that Max plastered with posters. There's just one thing missing— the diner in the background!

As you can see, Google Maps hasn't updated this particular street view since 2012, so it's entirely possible the diner was built sometime after that . On the other hand, I can't find any evidence of a Joe's Diner anywhere in Ladysmith, BC.

I'm betting there isn't a diner there, and the one we see in this episode has been CGIed into the background behind Harry.

Just in case you doubt my claim that Resident Alien is filmed in Ladysmith, BC, I offer this scene as proof. At one point Asta peddles her bike past the LADYSMITH TRADING CO. LTD.! How's that for evidence?

Once again, like pretty much every business in town, the Trading Co.'s located on 1st Street.

Lastly there's Harry's lakeside cabin. According to the producers it's not an actual house, but a façade built just for the show, located in Howe Sound at Britannia Beach in British Columbia. 

• OK, this is some hardcore nitpicking, but whatever. At the clinic, Harry enters and Asta introduces him to Judy, who's there for a routine pelvic exam. Asta then excuses herself and leaves the room.

Yeah, I don't think so. There's no way in hell a nurse would ever leave a female patient in a vulnerable position like that alone with a male doctor. Not in our current highly litigious society. That's a sexual harassment lawsuit just waiting to happen.

• Hands down the best and funniest part of this episode was the scene in which Harry attempts to improve his bedside manor and reassure a worried woman who's come into the clinic:

Asta: "She just found a lump in her breast. Why don’t you try to be a little more calming this time?"
Harry: (annoyed at her condescension) "I know what I’m doing."
(Harry enters the exam room and speaks with the patient.)
Harry: "I see you found a lump in your breast."
Worried Woman: "Yes."
Harry: "I’m glad that you came in and that you’ve been so diligent with your health. As you know, self‐examination along with appropriate screenings can greatly increase your odds of early detection, so I don’t want you to worry. Many women find lumps in their breasts all the time, and most of them are nothing, okay?"
Worried Woman: "Okay."
Harry: "Good. Now let’s get a look at that tit."

HAW! I laughed so hard at that last line I actually got choked.

• Nice Attention To Detail: When Max accuses Harry of being an alien, Deputy Baker uses her police sketch artist skills to draw his otherworldly form. Later in the episode, Harry finds dozens of wanted posters— featuring his alien mug— plastered all over town by Max.

Note that Max's writing skills haven't quite matured, as his poster reads, "havE U seen this alein?" He also advises people to call him before 7pm on weeknights, which is no doubt when he probably goes to bed. Well done, Resident Alien Props Department!

• Setup & Payoff Alert: When Harry calls Max at home, we see he's reading a conspiracy theory website detailing how tin foil hats protect against alien mind control.

At the end of the episode, we see Max took the advice to heart, as he's indeed sleeping in a tin foil hat!

• Harry calls Max and tries to convince him that the alien he's looking for has left town. When Max asks if he's sure it was THE alien, Harry says, "Yes, he was very handsome, like a young Jerry Orbach." Naturally a youngster like Max has no idea who that is. Ha!

Last week in Pilot we saw that Harry learned to speak English by watching endless reruns of Law & Order, so it makes perfect sense that he'd imprint on Orbach.

• After Harry's phone call ruse fails to work, he begins fantasizing about various ways of killing Max. Note the running joke in each of his scenarios, as Max's sneaker always falls to the ground a second after he's killed.

I'm betting the two of them will continue their Coyote vs. Roadrunner adversarial relationship all season, as Harry keeps trying to murder Max in order to shut him up and keep his secret. Having an adult alien constantly being outsmarted by a kid is comedy gold, and Alan Tudyk and young Judah Prehn are great together.

By the way, I read the first three volumes of the Resident Alien comic, and Max isn't in any of them— he's a completely new character made up just for the series.

• D'Arcy makes a date with Harry and insists he take her bowling. Strangely enough, he's never heard of the game and has no idea what she's talking about.

This is odd, as earlier in the episode we see Harry's quite adept at using the internet. He even fakes being a doctor by easily looking up numerous medical procedures on his phone. So why doesn't he just google "bowling?"

Later on we find out the thought apparently never occurred to him, as he's still ignorant of the game and how it's played when he shows up at the alley.

To make it even stranger, at the end of the episode he senses that Asta's feeling sad and offers to play cards with her. So he understands the concept of games and other recreational activities. And he doesn't seem confused by the cards when she deals them out to him, implying he's familiar with whatever game they're playing.

Apparently the producers needed to fill this episode with some more "Stranger In A Strange Land" humor, and came up with Harry's bowling confusion, despite the fact that it makes no sense.

• At one point Asta tries to get sullen teen intern Jay to open up to her and express her feelings about the death of Dr. Hodges. Of course Jay's horrified by Asta's amateurish attempts at psychotherapy and hurries off.

I'm still standing by my theory that Jay will turn out to be the baby that Asta was forced to put up for adoption when she was sixteen. Why else would they have included her character?

• Ben has a therapy session with Harry, who he believes has clinical psychology training. Harry couldn't care less about Ben's blatherings though, as he spends their time doodling various idea for killing Max.

I'm intrigued by Harry's drawings, as they look exactly like something a human would sketch. One would think an alien mind would render concepts that are completely incomprehensible to Earthlings. Did taking on human form affect the way Harry draws?

• I gotta say, the last thing I expected to see on this show was an adult alien physically torturing a child in order to assert his dominance over him! You're weird, Siffy Channel!

• Near the end of the episode we see a montage of the various townspeople relaxing after hours. Deputy Baker spends her evening in front of the tube, and has clearly developed a crush on TV celebrity Giorgio A. Tsoukalos.

In addition to being the subject of a popular meme, Tsoukalos is a ufo-logist, who subscribes to the theory that aliens interacted with ancient man and helped us build monuments like the pyramids and Stonehenge (something that's actually touched on earlier in this episode).

I think I see where this is going. Due to her infatuation with Tsoukalos, Deputy Baker will end up being the first adult to believe Harry's an alien.

• Harry finds a deposit of tellurium in the local mine, and uses it to cobble together a small anti-grav disk.

Oddly enough, tellurium is a real substance! It's a rare, silver-white metal that's related to selenium and sulfur. It's sometimes used as in semiconductors, which makes its use here all the more plausible.

Gosh, if only Harry would share his formula with us, we could have anti-gravity technology right now!

• This Week's Best Lines:
Harry: (voiceover) "All beings of the universe are different. For instance, my people are brilliant. Humans, on the other hand, are so dumb that they think the leading cause of death is heart disease. It’s not. It’s almond milk. Even the Grey aliens won’t touch the stuff."

Max: "Sheriff, I’d like to file a murder complaint. I know who killed Sam Hodges."
Ben: "What are you talking about?"
Sheriff: "Is that so? All right."
Ben: "Sure, have a seat."
Sheriff: "Go ahead and lay it on me, little deputy."
Max: "It’s the new doctor. He’s an alien."
Ben: "Okay, on that note, I’m gonna need everyone out. Kid’s a little delusional with a fever. Maybe no talking for a day."
Sheriff: "Wait, wait, wait, wait. An alien? What you mean? Like, he ain’t got a green card or something?"
Max: "No, like, alien alien from outer space."
Sheriff: "Outer sp..."
Ben: "And shoot me."
Sheriff: "What the hell are you teaching this kid, huh? You know I could lock you up for lying to an officer of the law? That is a crime. You’re committing crime."
Ben: "Got a sick kid, okay? Gonna need everyone out. Got a sick kid. Just..."
Sheriff: "Yeah, he’s sick all right. (to Max) Let me ask you something. You got HBO in your house? Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to watch Oz Season One, and then come back and tell me if you want to go to prison!"

(Harry nervously gives his first ever pelvic exam to Judy.)
Harry: :Okay, I see your problem. You sat on an earring."
(He tries to pull if out.)
Judy: "No! That…"
Harry: "Sorry."
Judy: "That’s supposed to be there."

Harry: (thinking about Max) "This kid is a menace. He just won't give up. Where was that effort from the humans when we were helping them build Stonehenge? A bunch of idiots just sitting around drinking mead, making us do all the work. Lazy druids."

(Harry tries to fool Max into thinking he's gone, by pretending to be a friend from school.)
Harry: (in a high-pitched voice) "Hi, is Max there?"
Kate: "Who’s this?"
Harry: "I’m a friend of his from school. My name is…Elvis."
Kate: "Yeah, okay. (handing the phone to Max) "Max, friend from school."
Max: "Hello?"
Harry: "Hi. I saw your poster on the street."
Max: "Yeah?"
Harry: "And I saw that alien on a bus leaving town, so you don’t have to worry about him anymore."
Max: "Are you sure it was him?"
Harry: "Yes, he was very handsome, like a young Jerry Orbach."
Max: "Who? Wait a minute, I don’t know you from school."
Harry: "You’re right. I’m a post office man. I’m good with my eyes, and I saw that alien, and he’s gone."
Max: "If you’re a man, why do you have a kid’s voice?"
Harry: "Tricycle accident."
Max: "Uh‐huh. If you work at the post office, how much does a stamp cost?"
Harry: "One hundred dollars."
Max: "I knew it! You’re him!"
Harry: "One thousand dollars!"
Max: "I know it’s you, and guess what, alien, you can’t kill me. My parents know you’re after me, and if I die, they’ll know you did it, and you’re dumb. Stamps are like thirty bucks each, stupid."
Harry: "Don’t call me stupid… you little shit."
Max: (gasps) "S‐H‐I‐T is a bad word, stupid."
(Max hangs up.)
Harry: "That’s it. I’m going to kill him."

(Harry stares at Asta, Sheriff Mike and Deputy Baker as they argue.)
Harry: "I can read the emotions on their faces. (looking at Asta) Sadness masking as anger. (Looking at Sheriff Mike) Weakness masking as superiority. (Looking at Deputy Baker) This one’s like a pet rabbit that you yell at so much its hair starts to fall out."

(Harry goes bowling with D'Arcy, and runs into Judy.)
Judy: "So we meet again."
Harry: "Do I know you?"
Judy: "Yeah, you had your hand inside me the other day."
D'Arcy: "Uh, narrow it down, Judy."

(Harry runs into Sheriff Mike, who's there with his league at the bowling alley.)
Sheriff: "Well, well, well, look who came into my house."
Harry: "You live here?"