Is Resident Alien Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot
Barely, 2 out of 10. It's a comedy about an alien posing as a small-town doctor, with a nightmare or two along the way.
Ruling: It is a comedy built around a murder mystery, so it is safe to watch with the lights off.
Resident Alien has four seasons, and the pilot opens with a spaceship crash-landing in rural Colorado. The alien inside takes over a vacationing physician's identity, and the town promptly asks him to perform an autopsy.
The premise, briefly
An alien sent to wipe out humanity crash-lands in a small Colorado town, takes a vacationing doctor's identity, and ends up covering shifts at the clinic.
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
Harry and his friends talk a newly arrived alien out of destroying humanity, and Harry leaves Earth with Bridget to return to Heather and their children. Asta moves to Louisiana for a nurses' NGO, and Mike and Liv join the government's alien program.
Season 2, episode 6: Murphy, a dog Harry has kidnapped, mortally wounds Harry's octopus, 42, and Harry mournfully cooks and eats it afterward.
No dog dies in Resident Alien. Murphy is kidnapped for a while and then taken back by Sahar, though he does mortally wound an octopus.
It is a comedy about an alien learning to like people, with a mantis monster in the last season and one scene in which a dog fatally wounds an octopus.
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
The real doctor is still in the lake
Lightning brings down an alien spacecraft near Patience, Colorado. The pilot was sent to wipe out humanity, but he is stuck on Earth, so he kills a vacationing physician named Harry Vanderspeigle and takes his name and face. For months he searches the mountains for his device and fishes the lake for the real Harry's body. Sheriff Mike and Deputy Liv ask him to examine the corpse of Sam Hodges, the town doctor, and he ends up running the clinic. Max, the mayor's young son, can see Harry's true form, so Harry goes after his head with a bone saw and then cuts the brakes on Max's bicycle, which earns Max some stitches and nothing more. The real Harry's foot turns up in the lake, and Harry hides the rest of him in a freezer. Harry gets to know Asta Twelvetrees, the bartender D'arcy and his dead namesake's wife Isabelle, while government agents arrive to look for the alien. By the finale Asta works out what he did to the real Harry and ends their friendship, and Harry sets off his device. Then he sees Asta and Max held by government troops, fights to save them, and lets Asta talk him into sparing humanity. He flies off to dump the device in space, and Max has stowed away.
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The octopus episode and a very hungry egg
Harry wakes in a hospital with a head injury and no memory of recent events, though he still remembers being an alien sent to end humanity, which does not help his case with the staff. Back in Patience, severed-foot graffiti shows up on town signs, murder tours begin, and Harry erases the memories of Mike and Liv after they confront him. In episode 5 he kidnaps Murphy, a dog Sahar walks for her neighbors, to force her to return a piece of his survival kit. The scene to brace for is in episode 6: Murphy mortally wounds Harry's octopus, 42, and Harry mournfully cooks and eats it afterward. Sahar takes Murphy back. Later Harry and Asta find a New York mural with the name Goliath written in Harry's language, and Harry smashes a fossilized corpse to find an alien egg. The baby that hatches eats any high-calorie food it finds, humans included, and in the woods it kills a raccoon, with the camera cutting away from the kill. Harry names the baby Bridget, sends her home through a pod, and the season ends with Ben and Robert abducted by the Greys.
Old Faithful goes on the invoice
Harry takes a part-time job in General McAllister's office to learn what the Grey aliens are planning. Joseph, a Grey-human assassin, is in town, so Harry and Asta try to trap him. On a family trip to Yellowstone, Harry finds that the Greys want to cause a huge eruption through the geyser Old Faithful. Heather, a Blue Avian, shows up to collect papers from Harry, and D'arcy damages her portal by throwing a banana into it. Harry falls for her, then falls apart when she ends it. Bridget returns in the form of the real Harry's daughter Liza and tries unsuccessfully to kill him. By the finale D'arcy carries Harry's bomb into the Greys' base and gets captured, and Asta, Joseph, Bridget and Harry follow through a portal. Joseph uses Harry's alien ball to turn the geyser water into sand, which ruins the Greys' plan. The group learns that the Greys' mother ship is Earth's Moon, and a Mantid, a mantis-like shapeshifter, slips out wearing Harry's human form. Harry and Bridget end up captured on the Moon base.
The doctor's evil twin goes hunting
The Mantid has spent a month living Harry's life while the real Harry and Bridget are stuck on the Moon base. After they escape, Harry moves into Asta and D'arcy's house, and the Mantid retreats to the woods to eat local residents, which gets the town thinking it has a serial killer. Harry and D'arcy go back to 1970 to find an alien beacon and run into General McCallister, who got there first. Heather returns with their six hybrid children, and the Greys bring a lawsuit against Harry at the Galactic Housing Council over the Mantid. Harry's father refuses to give back his essence until Harry murders a human, and Harry cannot bring himself to. Mike and Liv suspect the Mantid is planning to attack the mining festival. In the mine, the Mantid takes on one disguise after another to set the humans against each other, and Harry defeats it with their help, though Asta is poisoned. The Mantid has already laid an egg sac, with Liv and Robert kidnapped to feed the hatchlings. Harry and Mike locate the sac before it hatches, and Peter helps them destroy it.
The ending, explained
Dr. Stone, a psychotic doctor on his way to kill Harry, dies when an alien ship comes down on his car. The alien inside takes his identity and says it wants to destroy humanity. Harry considers killing it but takes it out drinking with his friends, who show it some kindness. Asta leaves Patience for a nurses' NGO in Louisiana, Kate goes back to environmental law, D'arcy mentors a young skier, and Mike and Liv get recruited into the government's alien program. Harry and Bridget borrow the new alien's ship to leave Earth and return to Heather and their children.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
Questions people ask at 1am
The whole plot of Resident Alien is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
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