Asta: Nah, D'Arcy rescued me from the clinic, took me to the lake.
Dan: Yeah? I hope you wore a life jacket, maybe two.
Asta: What, why?
Dan: You're the only one keeping that alien from taking us out. Anything happens to you, everybody on Earth is dead.
Episode description: “Harry has a plan to save Asta and himself but first he must attend the Sheriff's poker game.”
This episode, the second in the second season, struggles to get the plot moving.
It's summer in Patience, which feels kind of relaxed, and Resident Alien feels relaxed, too. D'Arcy takes Asta out on a boat and they enjoy themselves and waste the viewers' time talking about people from high school. Mayor Ben is still trying to find a permanent doctor (they aren't worrying nearly enough about the prior doctor) and the hair growing on Max's face and chest may be weird but it's not life-threatening.
Yet there is stuff to worry about, even if we don't feel the urgency.
Harry, in his human form, can’t bear the idea that Asta will die, which he expects will happen because his people will send others to wipe out the gluttonous human race. So he sets about building a bunker to protect her – and himself, too, as he’s not immune, as Octopus reminds him. Octopus is just so much fun, and it gives Harry the chance to speak to someone who really knows him.
The one person who does sense the urgency of the situation is the insightful Dan. Dan correctly diagnoses the reason for Harry’s nightmares. He reminds Asta that she is the only person keeping Harry from killing everyone on the planet and she needs to do more about it.
Asta takes her dad’s concerns to heart. She tries to get Harry to bond with other humans in Patience by making him go to a poker game. Harry, however, does not seem to get attached to any of them (given how they act, I don’t blame him). Later she discovers that he expects others in his species are coming to wipe out humanity and that he is working on a bunker so the two of them will survive. She tells him, that’s not enough. He has to phone home and stop the extinction event.
Other plot threads: Mayor Ben is feeling the competition with Jessup which is mocking Patience as the local murder capital. Tries to deny it but then Judy shows up leading a group of tourists (a role in which Judy is more intelligent and articulate than usual). It’s hard to get very interested in this storyline. Judy may be taking the right approach by embracing the murders instead of downplaying them. Of course, Mayor Ben doesn’t want any more murders in his town; he wants people to feel safe, and he feels responsible for their safety.
The opposite of responsibility is D’Arcy. I’m struggling with this character. She kissed Ben in a previous episode. He did not kiss her, and he left as soon as she did that and went home to his family. Yet she's out there telling people he kissed her. She shows remarkably poor judgment in so many areas and I find myself cringing and wanting to skip the scenes when she appears. Yes, she loves Asta. I like Asta, too. Why do I like Asta and loathe D'Arcy?
I always enjoy Max and Sahar. Sheriff Mike and Deputy Liv are a lot of fun too. The cops are investigating Harry Vanderspeigle and are discovering some peculiar things about him. Loved the scene when they went to talk to the realtor, and how Liv turned the tables on Mike with respect to their roles as they entered, making him the stay-at-home parent. Anyway, this storyline shows promise. How did dead Harry suddenly get so much money? And what was he doing with Botulinum toxin? These are great questions.
Of course, the weird stuff they’re learning applies to the human, now dead Harry as opposed to the current alien Harry (who killed the dead Harry). Maybe the foot of dead Harry will come in handy at some point, as it is all that remains of dead Harry’s corpse.
At the end of the episode, when they’re searching for Harry, our Harry pretends to be Asta. We need to remember he can turn into any other human. But how did he exactly replicate her clothes? Maybe it’s better not to look too closely at plot points.
Title musings. “The Wire” is the title of the episode. There’s a wire when Harry is playing poker with the sheriff and with Liv listening in (although actually this is done in a wireless manner these days – and for many days, many years, although I guess there are sometimes wires in the bugs). The title could also refer to the wire from the toaster to the outlet when Asta is threatening to kill herself, or even to the metaphorical wire attaching Harry to Asta (and Asta to many others). The Wire, of course, is also the name of a popular tv show. I never watched it, but from looking at its subject, I can’t see the relevance to the episode. The title does not speak to me, but a better title has not come to mind.
Bits and pieces
In the previous episode, Judy showed up with her hair colored the exact same way that D’Arcy was coloring hers, which was apparently the impetus for D’Arcy changing her hair color to that unnatural red. It’s in keeping with her character, but I don’t think it’s attractive.
Harry’s cabin is very close to the edge of a lake, which makes me wonder about the water table below and how it might be difficult to create a basement without danger of flooding. Of course, there was already a cellar, and perhaps alien technology can deal with all that.
It’s nice to show summer in Patience. We had winter throughout the entire first season.
I feel guilty about my general antipathy toward D’Arcy. I do like how she sometimes uses a Russian accent. I also liked her in Harry’s nightmare.
I take it back. I don't feel guilty about D'Arcy. Imagine how we would feel if some man sexually groped a woman, and then went telling people that she came on to him? Many of us would be trying to put him in prison or at least get him fired from his position. Well, the same standards should apply when the genders are reversed.
Asta gets rightfully reprimanded by Jay's adoptive mother. And she apologizes, because she has done wrong.
Deputy Liv talks about how much her grandmother dislikes her. I hope we meet this grandmother at some point, although perhaps she would be too difficult to make real.
We’ve also heard more than once about Dickie Hawthorne, Ben’s more-than-once ancestor. Maybe there’ll be some sort of flashback involving him.
Sheriff Mike, when he’s coming up with names for the kids he and Deputy Liv have when they are going undercover, calls them Alvin, Simon and Theodore. Those are the names of the chipmunks in Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Quotes
Octopus: You didn't complete your mission. They'll just send someone else to kill everyone for you.
Harry: Everyone, including Asta?
Octopus: She's a human, so yes.
Harry: This cannot happen.
Mayor of Jessup: (in an ad) When people disappear in Jessup, it's in our world-famous corn maze, so if you're out of patience, and you just want to have some fun, come visit us. 'Cause here in Jessup, the only murder you'll see is onstage at our summer Shakespeare festival.
Harry: Soon all of this will be over. Their unending consumption and gluttony will be done, and Asta and I will be safe in the bunker. But if everyone is gone, who will keep the bunker clean? I hate cleaning, and from the look of Asta's car, she's a real piglet.
Sahar: My mom said if you offered me any junk food, I should say no because it will slowly kill me. (she’s right)
Deputy Liv: (reading Harry’s lips) "What kind of toilet would Asta like to poop in in a bunker?"
Deputy Liv: That can't be right.
Sheriff Mike: Come on, Deputy. I thought you took a lipreading workshop.
Asta: Sheriff, Harry would like to join your weekly poker game.
Sheriff Mike: Oh, really? Huh.
Harry: Asta said I do, so I do.
Deputy Liv: Justine Preacher. How do you do? I'm a big-time sports broadcaster. This is my cute, little husband Mr. Preacher. He stays at home with our five kids. And that's why he looks so tired.
Jay's adoptive mom: I always wondered if I would ever meet Jay's birth mother. I wanted to someday, but reuniting a child with her birth parent is up to the child. You know that, right?
Asta: I'm sorry. What I did was wrong. It's just there she was, you know, like, at the clinic asking for work-study, and, well, I crossed a line. I just really wanted to help her.
Jay's adoptive mom: I will never stop Jay from wanting to be in your life, but she has to be the one to cross the street, not you.
Judy: (leading a tour group) Look, everyone. It's our town mayor, Ben Hawthorne. Great-great-grandson of Dickie Hawthorne, who died the day the mine collapsed, but not with his fellow miners. No, Dickie called in sick that day. His wife found him in the whorehouse and shot him in the face.
Harry: You are bluffing, like in poker.
Asta: No, I'm not! I would rather stand under your stupid planet's death ray and explode into a million pieces than spend one second in that hole with you.
Harry: (to self) She is good at bluffing. I could possibly contact them, but I want to kill all the bags of douches. It is my turn to bluff.
Harry: It's impossible. I cannot contact them.
Asta: Now you're bluffing.
Harry: (to self) I am bad at bluffing.
Harry: Be careful getting out of the tub. Don't slip.
Asta: Coming from you, that's a very sweet thing to say.
Harry: I'm going to go eat pizza now.
Overall rating
This feels like a transition episode, going from one set of problems to another. The Sheriff Mike and Deputy Liv stuff was great. The Dan and Asta stuff was good too. The D’Arcy material makes me want to gag and seriously knocks down my enjoyment of the episode. Two and a half out of four life jackets.
Victoria Grossack loves math, birds, Greek mythology, Jane Austen and great storytelling in many forms.
Harry complaining that humans are gluttonous is fantastically funny. Most episodes show him eating everything in sight, stealing from other people's plates, and even taking candy from babies.
ReplyDeleteA wire is cop slang for any hidden microphone, as in "he's wearing a wire".