Resident Alien (2021) s01e10 – Heroes of Patience

I’m worried I’m overthinking the season finale. I’m also worried I’m under thinking it. It’s a good season finale, with show creator Chris Sheridan getting the script credit—something he hasn’t had since early in the show’s run—and nice direction from Robert Duncan McNeill. It wraps everything up neatly while getting things in shape for a second season, including some big character development for some of the supporting cast.

It also does a big reveal regarding the mystery, which otherwise gets forgotten—presumably it’ll matter next season because it fundamentally changes some assumptions characters have about one another. But that big reveal also makes one of the other parts of the episode a complete waste of time. Vaguely amusing depending on how much you like when Alan Tudyk treads water—and he’s perfectly good at it—but it’s still just treading water while the currents rage around him.

This episode’s got big arcs for kids Judah Prehn and Gracelyn Awad Rinke, teenager Kaylayla Raine, and then Prehn’s parents, Meredith Garretson and Levi Fiehler. There’s also a lot for Alice Wetterlund, who bounces around the main cast like a pinball; Wetterlund and Raine have the most “human” arcs of the episode. There aren’t any more aliens revealed—well, not exactly—but everyone else’s arc either directly involves alien Tudyk or suspicions of aliens.

Just to mention it before I forget. Couple great seventies songs this episode, plus a wholesome Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds remix. There’s some big special effects sequences for the season finale stuff, but the emotion and humanity they find using the songs is what’s really impressive. Good special effects are just a given in 2021. A good, song-driven action sequence? Not as easy.

Lots of great performances. Sara Tomko gets a couple big scenes, a couple little ones; she’s actually in the episode the least of the regulars (outside maybe sheriff Corey Reynolds and deputy Elizabeth Bowen, who are around but support). Some really good stuff for Tomko, though it definitely seems—even if I’m not overthinking it—next season will give her even more opportunities.

Prehn and Rinke are fantastic as always. Particularly strong work from Fiehler, Wetterlund, Garretson, Raine. Reynolds and Bowen get a bit of good stuff but just a bit. They too have a lot of promise going forward.

Outside the one “wasted” scene and a little bit too distant narrative distance in the third act, it’s a very nice performance from Tudyk, who’s mostly by himself this episode with a momentous character development arc.

“Resident Alien” started the season getting better and better only for a big wipeout. It’s been building itself back up since and the season finale’s a nice, sturdy finish with setup. I’m back to eagerly anticipating season two.

Resident Alien (2021) s01e09 – Welcome Aliens

It’s the penultimate episode of the first season and it’s got a couple big cliffhangers. Not funny ones either, very, very dramatic ones, which might not be easily resolved in a single episode… and they might also greatly affect the second season.

So while “Resident Alien” is out of the the two episodes ago rut—excellent direction from Shannon Kohli this time, plus a good script credited to first-timer on the show Nastaran Dibai—the show’s not assured. The season’s backloaded with a bunch of rush-to-resolve. Who knows, maybe not dealing with these threads made the first half of the season stronger. Though there seems to be an entirely different set of writers.

Anyway.

This episode has Alan Tudyk recovering from last episode’s fall, with Sara Tomko taking care of him, and discovering he needs another part to repair his device. Luckily sort of pal and former nemesis Judah Prehn (I’m not sure if Prehn’s really good or just really well directed; it doesn’t matter here but he’s so effective) tells him where he can get alien materials—a UFO convention. Gracelyn Awad Rinke tags along with Prehn, leading to another great showcase for her.

Hopefully they’ll someday do an episode just with Tudyk hanging out with kids Prehn and Rinke, who until last episode were the only ones to know his secret. They’re really funny together.

Tomko tags along to the UFO convention—Tudyk’s on painkillers and can’t drive himself—where Tudyk offers commentary on all the various alien abductor races and so on. Lots of smiles and some laughs. Special guest star Terry O’Quinn eventually shows up and it turns out he’s able to see through Tudyk’s human disguise.

Meanwhile back in town, Alice Wetterlund’s got an arc about resenting Tudyk and Tomko for shutting her out after last episode’s daredevil rescue, which leads to one of the big subplots. It’s okay, but pairing Wetterlund with one note (character or performance, it’s unclear) Jenna Lamia for most of the subplot (eighty-sixing a far more interesting subplot sidekick in Kaylayla Raine, who’s actually got emotional involvement in it too) is a mistake. So qualified okay. We’ll see.

It doesn’t matter so much because the show is able to fix the Elizabeth Bowen situation. She’s still on the outs with Corey Reynolds, who gets to do a bunch of character development this episode before they get around to the fix. The fix is phenomenal, leveraging Bowen and Reynolds’s ability a lot more than the writing. Some great acting from Reynolds throughout the episode.

Then there’s another subplot for evil army intelligence people Mandell Maughan and Alex Barima hoodwinking unsuspecting Meredith Garretson and Levi Fiehler. It’s an effective subplot—Maughan’s onto Tudyk through Prehn and therefor parents Garretson and Fiehler—but the show is really overemphasizing Fiehler the dipshit husband. Garretson’s mostly support for him, when it’s been far stronger the other way around.

It’s a good episode and maybe they’ll figure out how to land it next time. But it’s hard to believe they’re not going to shove a bunch off to next season. Some outstanding acting from Tomko too.

Resident Alien (2021) s01e07 – The Green Glow

Something seems off this episode. I tried to ignore it through the opening, which resolves the previous episode’s cliffhanger while also introducing another alien species to the show. The alien species introduction is solid, the cliffhanger resolution is not. In fact, by the time Elias Benavidez’s name shows up as the writer credit… well, it’s good Jennifer Phang’s directing. She can’t save it entirely, but I imagine it could’ve been a lot worse.

The episode manages not to give anyone particularly good material, with some of the cast getting far worse than others. Corey Reynolds, for example, not only doesn’t get to do any great comedic scenes but is additionally so static a character he becomes unlikable for the first time. Willfully cruel. Benavidez’s development on Elizabeth Bowen—deputy to Reynolds’s sheriff—also takes a nose dive. It’s like every plot point the episode needed to hit, it fumbles. Also Benavidez seems dedicated to failing Bechdel, pairing Sara Tomko and Alice Wetterlund for a series of nothing scenes where they talk about one dude or another, until they bring in a third woman to talk more about dudes. It’s a spin-out for Tomko as second lead, but given the episode also whiffs hard on new town doctor Michael Cassidy—he’s useless to have around the show seems to realize—nothing should come as a surprise.

Though the pairing of Judah Prehn and Tudyk—the titular Green Glow is something only Prehn can see emanating from Tudyk’s space ship materials—is delightful. Except it’s not Tudyk, it’s Keith Arbuthnot in the alien mask and presumably Tudyk doing a voice. But Prehn’s great. Even if his character’s a little bit too forgiving when Tudyk (or Arbuthnot) and Benavidez immediately flush some character development from previous episodes just to create three or four minutes of drama here.

The episode does really badly by the other characters who all happen to be women—Levi Fiehler gets to be a man’s man by being shitty to wife Meredith Garretson and the resolution to Elvy’s current arc as Tudyk’s wife should have her telling her agent to negotiate better. It’s rather disappointing.

The cliffhanger sets up what’s got to be the end run to the season (and potentially series) finale in a few episodes. The subplot with Linda Hamilton’s alien-hunting army general gets a lot of rapid, silly expository dump development—even though I don’t remember Hamilton actually having any lines, which would be a heck of a way to keep guest star costs down, nickel-and-diming SAG rules?

Or did something happen behind the scenes to result in such a big opening cop out?

Fingers crossed it’s just a bad script from Benavidez. Because otherwise, if the series is going to stall out so immediately and so badly… well, no second season is better than a garbage second season.

Three cheers for Phang though, especially her direction on the Prehn stuff.

Resident Alien (2021) s01e05 – Love Language

There’s a bunch of great stuff in this episode but the big win is how it’s able to stare down mawkishness for the ending, song-accompanied “what have we learned” montage. Sarah Beckett’s teleplay finds the best sincerity is from the unlikeliest source—in this case Alan Tudyk’s genocidal alien—and even though the sequence starts in the danger zone thanks to the music, it ends up being fantastic.

Because this episode does whole bunch. It introduces a new, previously unknown character–Tudyk’s wife. The human Tudyk’s wife. The dead human Tudyk, killed by alien Tudyk who then assumed his form’s wife.

It opens in a flashback so we can see the meet cute between wife-to-be Elvy and Tudyk. It’s the longest we’ve seen the human Tudyk, who’s in an art gallery after his latest divorce, talking to his society pals about his latest forensic pathology successful; Elvy’s the waitress who catches his eye, though she’s got surprises of her own. They hit it off and five years later… now she’s soon-to-be the latest divorced wife.

Except Tudyk the alien has no idea what she’s talking about and skips out on her to resolve the other cliffhanger from last episode, involving kids Judah Prehn and Gracelyn Awad Rinke sneaking into his house to find evidence he’s an alien. It’s going to take a while, but the episode’s going to settle some of the series’s outstanding plot threads. Not resolve them but get them ready for the next developments. There are seriously like five obvious plot lines running here, maybe six. Beckett’s juggling of them is very impressive; even for the show, which always juggles them well.

No spoilers but the episode addresses and soft resolves… Tudyk and Prehn’s adversarial relationship (with some great acting along the way from Meredith Garretson as Prehn’s very worried mom), Sara Tomko hiding daughter Kaylayla Raine’s identity from everyone (including dickhead ex and baby daddy Ben Cotton, back for the first time since the first episode), the toxicology report on the dead town doctor who kicked off the whole show (which involves sheriff Corey Reynolds’s unrevealed backstory, involving dad Alvin Sanders, but also ties in Tudyk and Raine), and then Tudyk’s very pressing issue of Elvy wanting to reconcile the marriage and move into the cabin with him.

Plus Alice Wetterlund gets a character development subplot. So basically the episodes got an A plot, two B plots, and two C plots, while developing some series plots too. Like Tudyk’s concern for Tomko. The show never gives them too much time together, but there’s always this perfect check-in and this episode it’s even more perfect because it involves Tudyk menacing abusive ex Cotton.

But wait, Gary Farmer’s around too.

It’s all so good. There’s a little iffiness about using Sanders being a shitty dad explaining and excusing Reynolds but we’ll see. I assume they’ll make it work. They make the Elvy thing work in a single episode and they’ve done a fine recovery on Wetterlund too so “Resident Alien” can handle it.

Great performances from Tudyk and Tomko, but everyone’s good. Awad Rinke’s got a big part as peacemaker for Prehn and Tudyk and she’s awesome. Excellent directing from Jay Chandrasekhar.

I’m not sure this episode is better than the last one, but it’s close enough; “Resident Alien” is already exceptional and is still on the rise.

It’s also where I’m starting to get really anxious having to worry about a renewal.

Resident Alien (2021) s01e04 – Birds of a Feather

It’s the best episode of the show so far; easily. Both writing—Tazbah Chavez—and directing—Jay Chandrasekhar. Chavez’s script is able to balance out material for the entire cast in a way the show hasn’t juggled before—front-loading the B plot with the C plot and then introducing the A plot a little later, eventually weaving it into the A plot, of course. Along the way, everyone gets something to do, usually something quite good.

It starts with Meredith Garretson and Alice Wetterlund. The episode opens with mayor Levi Fiehler inviting incognito….

Okay, well, it actually opens with the “Cheers” theme over lead Alan Tudyk having his first dream since he’s taken over a human being’s body. It’s a great sequence. It’s just a lot happens this episode and there’s even a big cliffhanger I might not even talk about. Because the stuff Chavez ends up doing with Sara Tomko is so phenomenal.

But back to Fiehler and company. He invites Tudyk to dinner because son Judah Prehn can see through Tudyk’s human form to the genocidal alien beneath and is terrified. Tudyk’s going to bring Wetterlund to keep Fiehler and his wife, Garretson, busy so Tudyk won’t have to talk to them. He’s decided humans are too noisy.

Only it turns out Fiehler and Wetterlund grew up together and dated and Wetterlund gets real drunk and pisses off Garretson. Garretson is super good in this sequence. Wetterlund sells the drunk and drunker too. Maybe the best she’s been, just acting-wise.

Meanwhile, turns out Prehn and his friend Gracelyn Awad Rinke (who gets a name this episode, right away) have got this Goonies-style plan to investigate Tudyk. Awad Rinke gets this fantastic spotlight sequence, including a scene where she runs sheriff Corey Reynolds and deputy Elizabeth Bowen.

Bowen’s going to get some stuff to do this episode and it’s a really good subplot and hopefully she’ll get more to do, but no matter what, it’s still all about Reynolds. He’s incredible. So funny.

And it’s a hard thing to get bigger laughs than Tudyk in “Resident Alien” because Tudyk gets to be outlandishly absurd and turn being outrageous into part of the joke, but Reynolds can’t ever let the tone break. Tudyk also narrates the show, so the whole thing’s structured because he’s funny and to get his laughs. Reynolds doesn’t get any of that support. It’s just him, being able to sell these incredibly goofy, hilarious lines and he always does it.

So good.

The A plot has Tomko going to her grandmother’s house on a medical visit; Grandma (a very funny Edna Manitowabi) lives on the reservation. Gary Farmer drives Tomko; they have to bring Tudyk along because he needs to administer the shot. It’s becomes this exceptionally touching, confined A plot about Tomko’s family drama and how it plays out. Really good work from Tomko, Farmer, and Sarah Podemski as Tomko’s cousin. And Tudyk obviously.

Real good stuff.

Chavez also references Tomko’s back story from the pilot, which the show hadn’t expressly tied to her current character development arc; Chavez takes care of it, making up for its absence even.

“Resident Alien” is real good this episode. The show seems to know what’s working and is leaning heavily into it. And the cliffhanger’s perfect.

Resident Alien (2021) s01e03 – Secrets

I would feel a whole lot better about where this episode of “Resident Alien” seems to be sending Sara Tomko if it had passed Bechdel for longer than three lines. Three lines with a female writer (Njeri Brown). We get a lot of backstory into Tomko—with zero mention of the long-term abusive boyfriend from the pilot—including a big, out-of-nowhere reveal (this episode is where having read all the comics is no longer relevant) and some good character development for Tomko and dad Gary Farmer.

But it would be much better if Tomko and Alice Wetterlund had something to talk about except boys in general and Alan Tudyk in specific. Wetterlund is still hung up on Tudyk, even though he walked out on her during their date and is completely disinterested whenever she throws herself at him. There’s even, like, relevant boys stuff they could talk about but it might screw up the surprise so they don’t… also Wetterlund doesn’t really do anything. I mean, she starts the episode causing an avalanche (with dynamite) for a laugh, but later on when it’s time to party with Tomko they go drink beers, watching the cops drag the lake for Tudyk’s source human’s body, and talk about dudes.

It’s very underwhelming and seems like a waste of time for the Tomko subplot. She again gets her own.

Also getting his own subplot this episode is kid who see’s Tudyk’s alien form, Judah Prehn. He’s getting bullied at school for thinking there’s an alien in town and soon becomes friends with fellow bullied child Gracelyn Awad Rinke. Rinke doesn’t get a name yet. She’s just the Muslim girl. She’s good too, potentially even more likable than Prehn. Though Prehn and Tudyk argue on the street and it’s glorious. It’s also a little weird as a main recurring subplot.

The A plot this episode is about sheriff Corey Reynolds trying to find a body in Tudyk’s lake (the aforementioned corpse of Tudyk’s human source). Tudyk’s got insomnia over it, which is basically his main subplot. Initially they just find a foot, but since it turns into the body hunt… it’s just an escalation of the A plot. Some great moments for Reynolds again.

We also get a little bit more with deputy Elizabeth Bowen, who always gets something to do, but this episode it’s opposite Tudyk so more relevant.

There’s another alien flashback, this time involving a cowboy hat—and possibly retconning the pilot some more—and it figures into the somewhat predictable soft cliffhanger.

Also there’s again a lot of music. A lot of music. It’s a little more relevant at times and diegetic but it feels like they’re trying too hard .

So some asterisks and consternation, but the show’s still really funny, well-acted, and well-produced. I think it almost completely having thrown off the comic’s yoke might have me worried.

Though I wanted it to pass Bechdel a whole lot better than it does, just because.

Resident Alien (2021) s01e02 – Homesick

There’s a lot going on this episode. “Resident Alien” will go for (single camera) sitcom type laughs but still manage to run as a full hour long (forty-four minute) show. I was wondering if they’d be able to keep up the energy from the first episode when not doing a pilot and they succeed. Outside maybe way too much accompanying sad songs on the soundtrack in the last ten minutes, they excel.

The episode—written by show creator Chris Sheridan—does some “season order” corrections to the pilot, like introducing Gary Farmer as Sara Tomko’s father and everyone seeming to forget her previously established abusive boyfriend backstory. Tomko gets a bunch to do this episode—Alan Tudyk’s got like four things going on, Tomko sharing in one of them, then she’s got her own one with Farmer as her sidekick. Then there’s a sixth one, tied to the prologue, which seems like it’s one of Tudyk’s but is actually separate….

Very full episode.

It starts (after a mysterious prologue) with Tudyk’s first day as the town doctor, which is where the previous episode ended. Here we get the resolution to cliffhanger—young Judah Prehn being able to see Tudyk’s true alien form (one in a bazillion chance), screaming, running out. It’s going to set up a whole plot with Tudyk plotting against Prehn and then bickering with him, which is going to have threads for mayor Levi Fiehler and sheriff Corey Reynolds, who continues to be hilarious.

Then Tudyk’s got his subplot with bartender Alice Wetterlund, who’s not hiding her being interested in him; though Tudyk’s entirely oblivious. They go bowling. It’s funny.

So far the show seems to be leveraging Tudyk’s comedic abilities—his performance is a fine mix of Jeff Bridges Starman and John Lithgow “3rd Rock” as he tries to grapple with his new human emotions—and Tomko’s dramatic sympathies. Farmer helps.

High points include the first day of doctoring montage, Reynolds as a trash talking bowler, Tudyk fantasizing about killing a little kid, and the flashbacks to Tudyk as an alien where the gross but not like violent gross shines.

There’s less developing Tudyk and Tomko’s relationship than expected—especially since she’s his sidekick at the clinic—but the parallel character development works out just fine.

Besides the too many songs, “Resident Alien” is doing just fine. The adjustments from the pilot may even be for the better long-term… we shall see.