Resident Alien Season 2 Finale Review: Recapping I Believe in Aliens

Resident Alien season 2 finale, explained

"I Believe in Aliens" closed the Resident Alien season 2 run on Syfy on September 28, 2022. It is the 16th episode of the season and the 26th overall, written by series creator Chris Sheridan and directed by Robert Duncan McNeill. It is lighter on jokes than usual, though there are still plenty, and what it adds is a string of reveals about the Grays, the people around Harry and the future he is trying to prevent.

The series, based on the comic by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse, stars Alan Tudyk as Harry Vanderspeigle, an alien who crash-landed near the small Colorado town of Patience and passes as a human doctor. The finale pays off most of what Resident Alien season 2 has been building: the Grays' hybridization plan, the mysterious Joseph, and the baby Harry did not plan to have.

How the season got here

Resident Alien season 2 premiered on January 26, 2022, with "Old Friends," and ran eight episodes before pausing after March 16. The second half began on August 10, which means the finale closed a run that stretched across most of the year. The gap matters for a season built on slow-burning threats, since the Grays, the General and Harry's secret all had to survive a long wait before this hour paid them off.

Testimonials and the opening

The episode peppers in short testimonials from people who swear they have been abducted or have seen an alien craft. A few of them are confusing when they first appear, including one near the start. They make sense in the end, and the episode saves its payoff for Liv, who delivers her own testimonial and admits that she believes in aliens.

Harry, the baby and the Grays

Things start well in Patience. D'Arcy and Asta are getting ready to move in together, Harry is back from his "medical conference," and the coolest thing to happen to Asta is that she gets the baby download from Goliath, the whole thing. From it the show learns that the Grays turn out to be weak and awkward creatures that have mastered hybridization. The show leaves it open whether that means human and alien or alien and alien, but either way Harry and Asta cannot underestimate them. The bad news: Goliath says only one person he accidentally kills in the future can stop the Grays, someone named Eleanor.

Harry does not take the news well. His species has no word for failure in its language, and he is terrified of screwing up. His plan is to pour all his energy into loving his children, his alien baby and Robert, the son of Peter whom he has "adopted." The baby's naming is one of the episode's running gags. Harry tries out Moishe, Brad and Jebediah before settling on Bridgit, and Sahar, when she turns up at the cabin and is greeted by the baby calling her Mama, pushes him toward a better name. Bridgit works because the child is a bridge between two species.

The funniest moments belong to the baby. It drinks toilet water, and later drinks milk from Harry's breastfeeding apron. The jokes sit comfortably next to the stakes, which is the show's best habit.

Joseph, the General and the mole

One of the most exciting scenes is Harry's meeting with Joseph, played by Enver Gjokaj. They had briefly met the week before without trading pleasantries. Joseph is smooth and arrogant, and he walks in on Harry at the diner and freezes every human in the room. He turns out not to be an Alpha Draconian at all but a Gray hybrid, and he tells Harry that his species has conceded the planet to the Grays and that Harry can go home without danger.

Harry spends a surprising amount of time asking how Joseph got his cell phone number, then decides it might be time to quit and head home with the baby and Robert. When time starts up again, he steals Ellen's milkshake for good measure.

Meanwhile the General, played by Linda Hamilton, has to move because her base has been compromised. She looks for the hard drive Peter stole, and discovers that Joseph was the mole.

Family trouble in Patience

Harry tries and fails to be a father to Robert. After the 20-something refuses to go into time out, Harry does something kind: he gives him the alien sphere and says it will keep him safe, letting the human go. It is a gesture that would probably have Peter thrashing in his grave.

Kate wakes up alone in bed, and Ben is sleepwalking and having the same weird dreams. Harry says goodbye to Ben's son Max in the weirdest way possible, with a self-portrait that is only a stick figure of how he looks as a human. Max says Harry will not leave him because he likes him too much, which irritates the awkward alien.

Elsewhere, Mike goofs around, asking the mayor for more deputies, patrol cars and body cams, while Ben tells him the resort is a thing of the past. Liv gets proof of her worst fears when a news blast says Peter died in a car accident. She does not buy it, and finds Peter's van and takes it home to look for evidence against Mike's wishes. To her surprise, and the viewer's, Mike covers for her when cops come asking about the van. He even helps work out that the cops are not really cops, and is finally ready to give her conspiracy theories some credit.

The reveals in I Believe in Aliens

The finale lands several turns in its last minutes:

• Harry changes course. About to head into space with the baby, he realizes Goliath sent the child to change him. That means he is not Goliath yet and can still change the future, so he sends the baby alone into space and returns to confront his destiny.
• D'Arcy learns the truth. She finds evidence in Asta's room from the Hodges murder and confronts Asta and Harry. Asta will not come clean, so Harry reveals his alien form. D'Arcy takes it surprisingly well and calls him a dinosaur, to his hurt feelings.
• Joseph becomes a deputy. He is hired as Mike's newest deputy moments before helicopters assault Harry's cabin.
• The General takes Harry. Soldiers take him captive, and it seems Harry is willing to work with her to help stop the Grays.
• Ben was never sleepwalking. Robert is abducted again while sitting on a park bench, and his roommate turns out to be Mayor Ben.

Verdict on the Resident Alien season 2 finale

For most fans, this is a satisfying finale. It is light on belly laughs, but it is dense with surprises, and a few of its confusing segments pay off at the very end. The best character beats belong to Liv and Mike, who finally find common ground, and to D'Arcy, whose reaction to Harry's true form is the funniest line in the hour.

Belief is the episode's real subject, and the title says so. Liv spent the season being told her suspicions were paranoia, and the finale lets her say out loud that she believes in aliens. D'Arcy has to believe what she sees when Harry shows her his real form. Mike has to believe that the people in uniform may not be police at all. Each of them moves from doubt to acceptance, and the testimonials at the start of the hour turn out to be a chorus for that movement.

Alan Tudyk, as usual, anchors the comedy. His Harry is a creature who has learned to imitate affection and discovers, over the course of a season, that he feels it. The scenes with the baby let him play that learning curve for laughs without making it hollow, and the late scene with Robert, where he hands over the sphere in place of a lecture, is a small moment of real kindness.

The weak point is the sheer volume of plot. Joseph's switch of sides, the General's new base, Ben's abduction of Robert and Harry's return to confront his destiny all arrive within minutes of each other, and the quieter emotional work of the first half is crowded out. It is a finale built to set up the next season, and it does that job well.

That season arrived in February 2024. The questions the finale leaves are clear enough: what Harry will do now that the General has him, whether Eleanor can stop the Grays, and what Ben's role is in all of it.

The main cast of the season includes Alan Tudyk, Sara Tomko, Corey Reynolds, Alice Wetterlund, Elizabeth Bowen, Judah Prehn, Linda Hamilton and Enver Gjokaj, and the finale gives most of them a turn.

Sources

• Resident Alien (TV series), Wikipedia — season 2 episode list, cast and air dates