Resident Alien: Cat and Mouse

"You know, the police are downstairs. I could just scream."
"Why scream for the police? Why not scream for your new friend, the Alien Tracker?"

Episode description: "Harry goes head-to-head with one of his biggest enemies."

General Wright has a mostly one-sided chat with the Baby Alien she kidnapped; she seems to assume he's a kid who just happens to resemble Bobby Smallwood. We learn, too, that her father killed himself because no one would believe his talk about aliens. Then the alien, in front of her, changes into its real form – rewarding Wright for the pain she has carried or for the trust she has shown? What will she do? We don't know, at least not in this episode.

The most pressing problem for Harry and Asta are the Greys, who are planning – well, I'm not quite sure what – but whatever they are planning for humans is not good. However, Harry is distracted by a more immediate threat: the Alien Tracker.

Peter Bach, the Alien Tracker, has come to Patience on the invitation of Deputy Liv. When he sees the sketch she did for Max, he knows the kid saw a real alien. Then Peter sees Harry himself. This is the main part of the cat and mouse story, with Peter hunting Harry. Harry uses Judy in order to get away, and then both Peter and Harry appeal to Max. Until the episode's end, we're left hanging with respect to what choice Max will make, but despite the fact that they insult each other a lot, Max and Harry have a connection. Harry has threatened Max, but except for, very early in their relationship, a failed attempt on Harry's part to kill Max by sabotaging Max's bike brakes, Harry mostly just insults Max and steals his snacks. Max has protected Harry before, by keeping his secret and by sending Asta and D'arcy to rescue him when Harry went up to the glacier in order to search for his device. Likewise, Harry sacrificed a lot to protect Max, by flying back to Earth when he discovered Max had stowed away on his ship.

But back to General Wright and Deputy Liv. In the last season, in order to keep from being sent away to a school in Georgia, Max told Deputy Liv about the alien – although he later took it back – but she was too quick to discard the original claim. Most grownups don't give credit to kids, but this seems strange for General Wright and Deputy Liv, as they both saw aliens when they were kids and no one believed them. Of course, Max is tempted when the Alien Tracker/Peter Bach approaches him and says he believes him. It's the first time an adult has taken him seriously from the first moment.

The people who don't take Max seriously include his parents. Instead of parenting, Ben and Kate are at odds about the resort. I don't find this storyline particularly interesting, but I do like how they decide they should leave the resort matter out of their house. They're not perfect about it, but at least they try. Sort of.

A relationship which shines in this episode is the friendship between Mayor Ben and Sheriff Mike. Normally these two wouldn't be allies, but given that Patience doesn't have that many people, and that they are both guys, not too far apart in age, and their offices are so close to each other, they end up bonding. I also have to credit the writers doing Sheriff Mike's dialogue for this episode. It was extra funny. Harry's was really good, too.

Another storyline: what with the pressure of the upcoming ski competition and the pain in her knee, D'arcy's drug and alcohol problems have gotten much worse. She can't pry more pain pills out of the clinic, so she turns to Judy – poor Judy, at the bottom, is the person others reach out to when they are at the bottom – but D'arcy tries to hide her problem from nearly everyone else. Oddly, she is much, much nastier to males than to females, and she ends up destroying her relationship with Elliot. At the end of the episode she goes to Asta's and, with a gesture, signals her problem.

Title musings. "Cat and Mouse" is the title of the episode, which implies a predator chasing prey. Usually the cat does the hunting, but many of us have been exposed to Tom and Jerry cartoons, in which the cat is not always all-powerful. So we have this idea (not realistic) that sometimes the mouse is also working to hunt – or at least to thwart – the cat. The hunting refers to our alien Harry and the Alien Tracker, Peter Bach: and although Peter is apparently chasing Harry, we're not sure who will win.

With respect to actual cats and mice, the only Patience cat we have met belongs to Judy (apparently Judy's cat suffers from heartburn), but Resident Alien also treats us to Sheriff Mike's crazy story about massaging cats. Dogs, roosters, pigs and rats also get mentioned. I would like the title more if mice had somehow been worked into the dialogue. Still, the title works.

Bits and pieces

In a comment to my review of the previous episode, I wondered about Asta's father. In this episode Dan mentions that Mary Ellen was already pregnant when he first met her, which implies he can't help Asta find her father.

I've only met a few addicts. I must imagine that the shame and the effort to keep things secret would make a situation much worse. For example, I am addicted to coffee, and although it can be expensive – harvests have been poor recently – it is not illegal (and there's increasing evidence that it's really good for you) – I can't imagine what I'd do if I had to sneak it. Kudos to D'arcy for finally turning to Asta for help.

Was touched by General Wright's memory of how her father took his own life when no one would believe that he had seen aliens.

Quotes

General Wright: They're real, you know. I saw them with my father, when I was about your age.

Harry: (to self) If I was hungry and I saw a pizza on a hook, I might not be able to control myself either.

Dan: My bandmates told me to call CPS, but I called an adoption lawyer instead.

Kate: Look, I know we're on different sides of this resort thing.
Ben: Mm-hmm.
Kate: Maybe it wasn't fair of me to have a meeting like that here.
Ben: Thank you.
Kate: So, we make a pact. The second we walk in that door, we don't talk about the resort.
Ben: Deal.

Sheriff Mike: Um, actually, to me, it's kind of crazy somebody would want to steal something that looks like a peacock had sex with a loose red sock.

Sheriff Mike: I was right on the brink of leaving the perfect message, and then as I'm about to nail my triple axel, you come up behind me with a lead pipe and take out both my knees?

D'arcy: You are like my own little appliances truffle pig.

Sheriff Mike: Anyway, uh, weren't you trying to get in touch with that Alien Tracker guy?
Deputy Liv: Oh, I gave up. I sent 60 emails. He didn't respond to even one. You know, I spent all this time putting him on a pedestal. He's probably just a jerk.
Sheriff Mike: Okay, well, he's also here.
Alien Tracker: It was 62 emails, actually. Would you care to have lunch with a jerk?

Deputy Liv: I knew no one would believe me, except my Aunt Cathy. But her favorite shirt was a straitjacket.
Alien Tracker: Well, that's why so few come forward.

Sheriff Mike: I learned the old-fashioned way. See, I practiced on cats. If you can massage a cat at 3 a.m. without being scratched to death or waking your neighbor, you graduate. You know, the more feral, the better. I remember for my masters, I found this cat in an alleyway. I still can't grow hair on my left forearm, but I graduated.

Harry: No, I will kidnap the humans and rip out their implants and then re-implant them in professional show dogs.
Asta: What?
Harry: The Greys will be so confused.

Harry: (to self) I did not want to murder this man in the middle of town. It is going to be messy for the people who clean up dead bodies. I'll write "sorry" on the wall in his blood.

Judy: Okay, these are for heartburn. These are for my cat's heartburn. Ooh, I don't know what this one is. (swallows and chokes) I think that one was a bead.
D'arcy: Judes, my knee is on fire. I need the pain meds that you took after you fell off the roof.
Judy: Yeah, roofing looks like it'd be so easy, yeah? It's not!

Sheriff Mike: Nothing says successful town like a good rat infestation. See, every healthy town has restaurants that's full of people, and that means they throwing away half their food.

Overall rating

Really funny episode, with off-beat dialogue. Three and a half out of four feral cat massages.

Victoria Grossack loves math, birds, Greek mythology, Jane Austen and great storytelling in many forms.

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