Recap: Harry proves his love for Asta & Mike and Liv are in trouble in 'Resident Alien' Season 2, Ep. 2
When aliens come to destroy the planet, humanity will cease to exist and the zombies will rise. That's the reality Harry Vanderspeigle (Alan Tudyk) has nightmares about in the opening moments of Resident Alien's second Season 2 episode, "The Wire." Asta's (Sara Tomko) gone, but at least Harry has zombie D'Arcy (Alice Wetterlund).
**SPOILER ALERT: This recap contains spoilers for Resident Alien Season 2, Episode 2, "The Wire."**
The next morning, we find Sheriff Mike (Corey Reynolds) and Deputy Liv (Elizabeth Bowen) on a stakeout of Harry's cabin. They're spying on him because they're convinced he's up to something weird — possibly something murderous. Harry's clearing dirt out from his cellar (more on why in a bit), and while he seems to be enjoying the summer, humanity is grating on his nerves.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Jessup, Patience's neighboring town, is grating on Mayor Ben's (Levi Fiehler) nerves. Mayor Mitch is running pro-Jessup and not-so-subtly anti-Patience ads. Ben's gotta figure out a game plan if he's going to keep his sanity and Patience on the map.
Back to the dirt. You'll recall Harry kidnapped his octopus relative (voiced by Nathan Fillion) at the end of the previous episode. No. 49 is now hanging out in Harry's cabin and voicing his concerns about Harry becoming too human, an opinion Harry doesn't take to very kindly. It's at that moment Harry realizes one of the four spheres that make up the remainder of his spaceship is gone. Any guesses who's got it?
Photo: SYFY
That's right, it's Max (Judah Prehn), Harry's frenemy and favorite "little shit-pocket," who he says in a voice-over is going to experience some nasty side effects from stealing his alien tech. We're already seeing the results, too. Last week, Max found a concerning amount of hair growing on his chest. Now, he's got a full-on beard.
Down in Harry's basement, we find that he's dug an enormous hole in which he drops one of the ship-spheres. The ground rumbles, the lights flicker, and Harry descends into the hole to reveal a metallic bunker. "I will fix it up and present it to Asta as her new home," voice-over Harry tells us. "We will live and all the beer-drinking douchebags can fry."
Highlight
Harry’s Plan to Save Asta? A Spaceship Fallout Shelter.
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Asta, none the wiser about Harry's bunker plans, is over at the clinic and dealing with the new doctor, Dr. Smallwood, who's a little more... experienced than Asta would like. She wants Dr. Ethan (Michael Cassidy), but Mayor Ben tells her that Ethan texted him and let him know there's a family emergency he has to deal with. This is a little odd, since last we saw Ethan, he was being kidnapped by government agents because they were convinced he was the alien.
D'Arcy arrives to pick up Asta, and we see D'Arcy and Ben interact for the first time since we saw them kiss in Season 1. They disagree on who was the kisser and who was the kissee, but no matter who's right, something tells us Kate (Meredith Garretson) doesn't know. Just to mess with him more, D'Arcy tells the good mayor about the "new sign," which we see is the old sign with a severed foot spraypainted on it. Ben tells the sheriff and deputy he wants the culprit — who he believes to be Mayor Mitch from Jessup — arrested. And he's taking down the sign for good measure.
At the diner, Harry contemplates his life in the bunker with Asta. Who's going to cook and clean for them? Asta's father Dan (Gary Farmer) seems like a good option at first glance, but Harry soon realizes father and daughter might band together and make him their servant. Dan's got good advice, though, as he explains to Harry that his dreams aren't "evil," they're just nightmares, and nightmares are sometimes the mind's way of working through fear or guilt. Not that Harry has anything to be guilty about... right?
Photo: SYFY
D'Arcy and Asta take a boat out on the lake to soak up the beginning of summer. They chat more about Jay, and D'Arcy voices her regrets about not knowing about Asta's pregnancy. Asta didn't tell her, though, because while she was pregnant, D'Arcy was in Europe training for the Olympics, and Asta didn't want her best friend to drop everything and come running. It'll take a while to heal these wounds, but they seem to be on the right track, even if Asta is holding back another (specifically alien) secret.
Another of our dynamic duos, Max and Sahar (Gracelyn Awad Rinke), are pondering Max's sudden hair growth. Sahar shaves Max's face as she explains that there's something unnatural about this despite Max's insistence he's going through puberty. She thinks it's because he went to space — because Max hasn't told her about the sphere hiding under his bed.
After the lake, Asta heads to Dan's, where he explains to her that she is the only thing standing between humanity and Harry. Asta says she can't help that she's Harry's only friend, but the conversation leaves her determined to set Harry up with some new friends. Luckily for her, Liv and Mike are spying on Harry at the diner. Mike orders the same thing Harry got — plain oatmeal with extra, extra, extra milk and apple pie (the meal of a psychopathic serial killer, if Mike is to be believed) — to get into his head, and they watch as Max and Sahar show up to question Harry about Max's hairy little problem. Harry refuses to tell the kids that Max's side effects are due to him stealing Harry's tech, and just as they leave, Asta arrives.
She enacts her plan by getting Mike to invite Harry to his weekly poker game despite Harry's protest that everyone else in town is an "annoying flesh monkey." That doesn't stop him from stealing Mike's pie and oatmeal, though.
Photo: James Dittiger/SYFY
That night, Harry joins Mike, D'Arcy, Ben, Nurse Ellen (Diana Bang), and a couple of other locals for poker after learning the game from 15 minutes of YouTube videos. He sees it as a good opportunity to audition more people to be his and Asta's bunker butler. Spoiler alert: None of them make the cut. Mike also sees an opportunity here; we catch him wearing a camera and mic with Liv waiting outside and recording Harry to gather intel.
Ellen's in the know, though, about the real Dr. Vanderspeigle's past. Six years ago, the real doctor tried to sell his cabin after losing all his money, but then he suddenly changed his mind. How did he save his fortune? Mike tasks the deputy with looking into it. Part of that looking into it involves the sheriff and deputy going undercover to probe the real estate agent who was selling the Vanderspeigle cabin. After Liv flips the script on Mike, she takes the wheel. They find out that one week after he initially put his cabin on the market, the real doctor came back with $500,000 in cash and paid off his debt. Suspicious.
Next, we finally get an interaction between Asta and Jay. The latter actually seems open to talking to Asta, but Jay's birth mother steps in to tell Asta she thinks it's inappropriate that Asta forced a relationship on Jay without Jay knowing the truth. Asta acknowledges she crossed a line, but it's a start.
Over on a bench, Max is far more enthusiastic about Patience's murderous fame than his dad. The mayor is working on a commercial that shows just how safe the town is, only to realize that Judy Cooper (Jenna Lamia) has set up a "murder tour" to show off their lurid history. Ben is, naturally, distressed.
Photo: SYFY
The sheriff and deputy are hot on the original Dr. Vanderspeigle's trail, too. Liv tells Mike she's discovered that Harry was "disciplined" for being found in an authorized area that contained the very drug that killed the original town doctor, Dr. Sam Hodges (Jan Bos). Mike realizes he likely put the wrong person, Hodges' wife Abigal (Deborah Finkel), behind bars, and the pair head off to see Harry — but not before Liv drops off her drycleaning.
D'Arcy requests Asta's favorite song on the radio (because if you can't romance your best friend, who can you romance?) and Asta listens on her way to Harry's with pizza in hand. Harry has a surprise for her: the bunker (before the toilet or the cow have been installed). Asta's horrified to find out that Harry's built it so they'll be safe when his people come to kill everyone else on Earth. It's a tiny little detail he forgot to mention 'til now. No. 49 thinks it'll only be a matter of weeks before they arrive.
Only Harry is surprised to learn that Asta's not super down with this plan. She demands Harry contact his people and tell them not to come because she'd rather die than have all her family and friends murdered. Harry's resistant at first, even admitting via voice over that he could theoretically contact his people but wants the "bags of douches" dead. However, after Asta threatens to kill herself by dropping a toaster in the bathtub, he acquiesces. He agrees to build a radio and contact his people (but misses it when Asta reactivates the outlet the toaster was plugged into).
Highlight
Asta Forces Harry to Save Humanity with a Toaster
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Just then, Mike and Liv arrive at the cabin and Asta answers the door. Mike finds a cooler filled with the drug used to kill Dr. Hodges, and demands to know where Harry is. Then, another Asta appears, only for the first Asta to transform and reveal herself as Harry, who's used one of the spaceship spheres to help him do so.
How much trouble are Mike and Liv in? How are Harry and Asta going to get out of this one? Will Harry really contact his people? And how long before Max's beard grows back? Find out next week when a new episode of Resident Alien premieres on SYFY next Wed., Jan. 9 at 9/8c.
