‘Resident Alien’ Season 2 Recap — What to Remember Before Season 3

The Big Picture

• In
  Resident Alien
  Season 2, Harry forms deep bonds with Asta and Max, choosing to protect them over his mission to exterminate humanity.
• Harry discovers a larger conspiracy involving the real Harry Vanderspeigle and a mysterious organization.
• General McCallister and a future version of Harry team up to stop Grey aliens from taking over Earth, while Harry realizes the value of human connections.

Resident Alien is a SyFy series about an extraterrestrial crashing on Earth and hiding in the remote mountain town of Patience, Colorado. After assuming the identity of Harry Vanderspeigle (Alan Tudyk) as the new town doctor, he continues his mission to kill all humans. As he becomes more familiar with the local community and assimilates to life on Earth, he questions his mission. The second season focuses on the now stranded extraterrestrial Harry, who is grappling with giving up his mission to exterminate humanity and save the lives of his friends. Harry builds on the friendships he made with Patience residents Asta (Sara Tomko) and Max (Judah Prehn), the only people he respects and wants to protect.

The first season highlights his development as he becomes more attached to the town’s residents, including Asta, D’arcy (Alice Wetterlund), and Max. Asta became a close friend while Harry was taking on the role of town doctor. They bonded through their work and learned more about each other’s lives. D’arcy becomes a friend to Harry through Asta, who is her best friend. Max was his enemy-turned-friend after Harry realized Max had the ability to see Harry’s true extraterrestrial form. The series expands more on other town residents, such as Sheriff Mike Thompson (Corey Reynolds), Deputy Liv Baker (Elizabeth Bowen), and Max’s parents: Kate (Meredith Garretson) and Mayor Ben Hawthorne (Levi Fiehler). Harry acknowledges his attachments to Earth based on the people he cares about — choosing them over returning to his home world.

Harry’s Growing Attachment to Earth and Humanity

The show follows Harry as he demonstrates more of his attachment to Earth. The first season concludes with Harry abandoning his mission to kill humanity after realizing that Asta will be killed along with them. The second season shows that Harry gave up the opportunity to return home in order to save Max, who sneaks onto his spaceship to escape a government facility and inadvertently causes the ship to crash again on Earth. Asta and Max become Harry’s closest friends by helping him understand more about Earth and by accepting him despite learning he is an extraterrestrial. Asta has helped Harry regain his memories. She also helps him keep up his false identity with the real Harry Vanderspeigle’s daughter as well as others who are not aware of his secret or his attempts to protect most life on Earth. Max’s unique ability to discern Harry’s extraterrestrial form has helped him with matters concerning extraterrestrial technology and finding Harry’s alien/human hybrid spawn.

Assuming that more of his species will take up the mission, Harry tries to contact them and insists on Asta’s cooperation to ensure her safety. He initially tried to contact his home world to delay the extermination of humanity, so Asta could live a long life and die prior to a global extermination of humanity. However, she forced him to find a more permanent solution by destroying the communication device. While the two of them search for ways to save the world, they uncover the mystery behind the human whose identity Harry assumed – the real Harry Vanderspeigle. Prior to being killed, and his identity used as a disguise by the extraterrestrial Harry, the human Harry was the one responsible for murdering the town’s original doctor. Harry and Asta investigate and find that he was covering up a larger conspiracy involving the Gavin/Powell Group. Harry’s current disguise puts some of the people he cares about at risk as he searches for the only other member of his species on Earth – Goliath (David Bianchi).

Season 2 of ‘Resident Alien’ Sees Harry Changing His Tune

After failing to reach the rest of his species, Harry receives a message from Goliath, who resides in New York City. Harry and Asta find Goliath dead with his alien/human hybrid child, who Harry adopts and then realizes Goliath used them as a way to convey a message to Harry. The message is that another extraterrestrial species, the Grey aliens (voiced by George Takei), are planning to take over the Earth through portal technology and that the Grey/human hybrids destroy all human life. General McCallister (Linda Hamilton) is the only one with the resources to stop them. Additionally, a surprise befitting a project working with an actor from Terminator, is that Goliath is revealed to be a future version of Harry who used one of the portals to travel through time in the hopes of saving the people who died in his future, decades before Harry crashed on Earth.

A Grey/human hybrid going by Joseph (Enver Gjokaj) threatens Harry, insisting he leave Earth and offering Harry a safe trip to his home world. However, Harry refuses and sends his alien/human child, whom he eventually names Bridget, to his home world for the child’s safety. Afterward, Harry goes to work with McCallister to help her stop the Grey aliens. Throughout the season, Harry had expressed mixed feelings regarding Bridget since it had useful information he needed to save his friends, and he often did not care about the hundreds of his other children, but his time on Earth helps him realize the value of connecting with others. Some of Harry’s misadventures included assisting Asta with a person’s birth and spending time bonding with human Harry’s daughter. Additionally, D’Arcy becomes one of the few Patience residents who are aware of Harry’s extraterrestrial secret, and is relieved at how it explains some of the recent strange events.

Season 2 of ‘Resident Alien’ Leaves the Show on Multiple Cliffhangers

The season focuses more on the lives of the town’s residents. D’Arcy returns to her skiing career, develops an opiate addiction, and then tries to recover with some help from Asta and her father. Sheriff Thompson and Deputy Sheriff Baker investigate the murder of the original town doctor. They find out that the human, Harry Vanderspeigle, was responsible for his death. The current Harry uses his memory manipulation abilities to make the Sheriff and Deputy forget the events that had transpired that day, so he can continue using the identity of the human Harry without the complication of being detained for the deceased human Harry’s crimes.

This memory manipulation leads the Sheriff to internalize what he really wants in life as he later pursues a romantic relationship with the neighboring town’s sheriff. Deputy Baker reassesses her experiences with UFOs, extraterrestrials, and lost time. Ben and Kate Hawthrone have their unborn child taken by the Grey aliens, believing Kate has had a false pregnancy. Later, when Ben is abducted by the Grey aliens, he sees the fetus of his unborn child suspended in a tube on their spaceship. The Grey/human hybrid who has been working undercover for McCallister and threatened Harry to leave Earth, decides to take on the role of Sheriff Mike’s new deputy. The series leaves audiences with various cliffhangers which will be explored in the upcoming third season as Harry works with General McCallister, and now has D’Arcy in on his extraterrestrial secret.

Resident Alien is available to stream on Peacock in the U.S.

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