Harry: I wanted chips, and it’s easier to break into your house than a grocery store.
Max: You can’t just sneak in here. I’m gonna install cameras. Why do you smell like that kid at school that wears his jacket inside?
Episode description: “Fearing he's facing failure, Harry enlists an unlikely ally to help find his ship.”
This episode begins where the last episode ("Sexy Beast") ends, with Harry standing at his parking space realizing his spaceship has been towed, just as another car arrives. The car doesn’t contain Wright’s alien trackers, but Isabelle, who has followed Harry, quite reasonably, to demand an explanation for why he has been drugging and ditching her.
Harry realizes they are being watched, and he uses Isabelle’s arrival to make those watching him think he is just a man in a difficult marriage. Fortunately for him, despite his awkward choice of expressions, they do accept the idea that it’s just a marital spat. It also helps that he looks like a human to the humans who are watching him. At last, Isabelle has had enough, and she finally does leave him (although Harry points out she said she was going before and did not).
In this episode, Harry hits rock bottom. His ship has been taken, and he has no idea where to look for it, which means that he’s stuck living as a human. Alas, his human life sucks, too. His wife has left him, so he has no home life. He has been replaced by Dr. Ethan Stone, so he has no career. These are not things he would normally much care about, but they did fill his days. So he medicates with booze and pills and has a doozy of a dream.
Harry’s bluntness is one of the things that makes Resident Alien entertaining. He says things that may hurt but are true. It turns out the dead Harry has the same qualities (which is not surprising, as they come out of our Harry’s dreaming brain). Dead Harry calls alien Harry a complete loser.
As the booze and medication did not work, Harry tries to distract himself with games at the bowling alley. Instead, D’Arcy and Asta and Judy supply him with weed, which apparently does make you feel better (or at least not care). Harry, with D’Arcy and Asta, go to a restaurant to eat, and while there, Harry has a chat with his cousin, an octopus trapped in a tank of water. That conversation leads to an epiphany for Harry, who realizes there is a way out: he can use the kid, Max, to locate the missing device.
Resident Alien always becomes more fun whenever Harry and Max share a scene. Harry – who has the munchies from smoking bowls – breaks into Max's house and noshes on potato chips in the kid’s bed. Max, in exchange for Harry agreeing to make sure Max won’t be sent away to Georgia, agrees to help Harry. Their time at the school to steal the needed equipment – plus some light bulbs for the lamp on Harry’s nightstand – is a lot of fun.
They’re at the school at the same time the police arrive to arrest the janitor, who is “the Pharmacist” selling drugs using the deceased Sam’s stolen prescription pad. I don’t have any emotional investment in this storyline, but I did like how Sheriff Mike uses brawn – running after the janitor – while Deputy Liv uses brains – she knows the short cuts, and she trips the janitor with the strategic placement of his own mop.
Several “couples” finally have it out. Isabelle leaves Harry. We are not sorry to see her go, because she prevented him from interacting as much with the people in Patience. Deputy Liv, sick of the way Sheriff Mike treats her (he seemed to make progress in the last episode but in this one, he regressed) quits. And Ben and Kate Hawthorne have a heart-to-heart that is hard on both of them but gets some necessary things said. Harry finally gets Max out of having to go to the school in Georgia.
After being helped by Max, Harry goes up to the glacier, where he at last locates his device. But the glacier is super dangerous and, after warnings from Max, Asta and D’Arcy go after him to rescue him. They fail. The episode ends with them all falling into a crevasse, with a cliffhanger that is not just metaphorical, but literal, to make us want to watch the next episode.
Title musings. “The Green Glow” is the title of the episode. The episode offers two explicit bits of green glow: Harry’s device in the mountains and what they see at the military base. I tried to see how I could retrofit this title to other parts of the episode, such as green perhaps representing some emotions of despair or envy or jealousy, but these attempts did not work well. I think they would have done better with something representing the depression or the rock bottom that Harry is experiencing. On the other hand, the green glow in the episode is key to the plot. A middling title.
Bits and pieces
The idea that the universe is small is intriguing. I agree with Harry (and many others) that a lot is going on that we humans do not perceive.
Teraphobia is a real word, although my word processor doesn’t like it.
In many episodes, we have heard how dangerous the glacier is and how you can fall down a crevasse. D’Arcy helicoptered Harry off the glacier in the last episode. At last, at the end of the episode, three main characters fall into one. Makes me think of Chekov’s gun.
Quotes
They stole my ship. They know I’m stranded here. They must be searching for me. I would grow a mustache as a disguise, but then I’d have to get a job as a firefighter or a pedophile.
Harry: We should talk.
Isabelle: Yes?
Harry: What are you making for dinner?
Isabelle: Ugh, I’m leaving. I can’t spend another night here with you.
Harry: I like it when you make the mini chickens.
Isabelle: You’re not listening. I’m leaving you.
Harry: You said that once, but you’re still here.
Dead Harry: I heard you screwing my wife from the freezer the other night. Sounded like a monkey killing a dolphin. You’re not very good at sex. Such a loser.
Alien Harry: I am not a loser. I have a handsome face and a nice house.
Dead Harry: That’s my face. This is my house and my wife!
D'Arcy: Babe, is the spray you put in those shoes a little toxic?
Judy: A little bit, yeah.
Harry: No, I already tried booze and pills, but they didn’t make me feel any better.
Asta: Jesus, Harry, you’re a doctor. You can’t use booze and pills to feel better.
D’Arcy: Yeah. Judy, get the pot.
Harry: I’m still depressed. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t care.
D'Arcy: You’re doing depression right. The key is to embrace it. Once you accept that you’ve got nothing, then you’ve got nothing left to lose. The low point, that’s where freedom lives.
Octopus: You are here just in time. Things are getting bad for us.
Harry: There is an expression on Earth. “I have good news and bad news.” The bad news is I crashed, lost my device, and have failed my mission.
Octopus: Well, what’s the good news?
Harry: My friends didn’t order the octopus?
Octopus: I’m in a box of water in the middle of a restaurant. Who am I gonna tell? And break us out! Ah, crap. We should have opened with that.
Harry: I re‐examined Max’s file, and I concluded that he is just an average kid with an overimaginative mind like Dr. Seuss who, as it turns out, isn’t even a real doctor, so shame on him.
Kate: Wait, so you’re saying that we don’t have to send Max away?
Harry: It appears not.
Ben: Wow, well, that’s great news. Isn’t it, honey?
Kate: Do you have any idea what you’ve put us through? We haven’t been able to sleep or eat. You’ve driven a wedge between me and my husband.
Ben: There’s a wedge?
Max: What’s on your face?
Harry: I’m undercover. I am a firefighter named Albert.
Max: Take it off. Mr. Wagner went to prison for looking like that.
Overall rating
Just so much to enjoy in this episode, from start to finish! Three and a half out of four lightbulbs for Harry’s bedside table.
Victoria Grossack loves math, birds, Greek mythology, Jane Austen and great storytelling in many forms.
A very fun episode. I loved the Sheriff and Liv and the chase in the school, and Harry, Asta and D'arcy getting stoned. Isabelle was the least enjoyable part of it. That particular plot line has done very little for me. Maybe they just didn't write it particularly well?
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