Review: Resident Alien season 1, episode 2 – “Home Sick”

The second episode of SyFy’s Resident Alien continues to deliver in all the necessary ways, improving upon a strong first episode.

The second episode of SyFy’s new show, Resident Alien, picks right up with the first episode left off, literally. Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle is about to examine the mayor’s young son, Max and threatens to cut off the child’s head. This of course causes Max to dash out the window, only to be chased down by his parents. His conversation about needing coffins with his father and mother, while hiding under the bench is peak comedy gold.

The show continues that excellent clip all episode long. Harry is dealing with human emotions for the first time, not sure what exactly it is. Using a date with the bar-owner D’arcy and a therapy session with the young mayor as a fishing expedition to figure out what it is he’s feeling. That inability to grasp an emotion and understand why it there is oddly human in a way.

Harry wasn’t the only one who had a strong outing, as Asta Twelvetrees is the emotional backbone of the episode, even though it’s kind of in the background of scenes. Clearly having a hard time moving on from the death of the previous town’s doctor, someone she was very close to, she finds herself having a hard time moving on. She tries to lock down his former office, attempts to restrict his widow’s access to his things, and all the while tries to bond with those she’s closest with in an attempt to mask her guilt over his death. It culminates in not just a revelation about her relationship with her father, but also a touching moment where she pays respect to her now-deceased friend and boss.

The episode does have a lot of heavy emotions, unlike the pilot, with both Asta and Harry dealing with different sets of emotions of longing and guilt. That doesn’t mean the show is without humor, as Harry’s bedside manner alone is worth checking out the show. Yet, it’s the conversation with D’Arcy at her bar over whether Harry was a murder and the subsequent date with her at the bowling alley that really hits all the right comedic notes. If you had to pick one scene from this show to perfectly illustrate the humor, it’d be either one of those scenes.

Dark yet relatable.

The biggest hook for the episode, however, has to be Harry’s almost Tom and Jerry like the desire to kill Max and all the nonsense that goes into it. The overinflated sense of ego with Harry and how he thinks he’s so much smarter than everyone because he’s an alien, only to fail in his plan to not only try to kill Max but then subsequently scare him. Judah Prehn, the kid who plays Max, is a talent beyond his age. His timing and ability to hang with Alan Tudyk (Harry) is something to be commended on.

Hopefully, they have more Looney Tunes-like shenanigans with one another.

The only negative for the episode was that there was no real follow-up to the murder in the pilot. Part of the reason may have been to establish what the doctor meant to the town through the eyes of Asta, Mayor Ben, and the patients of the city. It painted a subtle picture of who the doctor was. So there may have been a good reason to not immediately follow up on the “who-done-it” of the show.

That being said, it would’ve been nice to get some real build with it.

Overall, this was a great episode and worth anyone’s time. A lot of the show was left out of the review because we want you to enjoy it as much as we have.

I’ll give this episode, 4.5 out of 5 aliens-attempting-to-murder-childrens.