Joseph: So not humans?
Harry: No.
Joseph: And not half-humans?
Harry: Yeah, no.
Asta: Wait, you didn't even know what your own plan was?
Episode description: "Harry and Asta team up with an unlikely ally to try to save the Earth."
The unlikely ally is Joseph the Grey, who turns on the Greys when he realizes that their plan for the Earth will make it impossible for hybrids like him to live on Earth.
This is an exciting episode, a good season finale, where several humans get to go to the Greys' base. D'arcy is in the lead, naturally, after having stolen Harry's bomb. She's brave but rash – perhaps those two qualities usually go together. Her decision to go, however, is reasonable given Harry's recent behavior (or what she perceives as Harry's recent behavior; some of it was Bridget Harry acting out). D'arcy is hoping to do something glorious, such as saving humanity, to justify her existence.
Harry believes that Joseph the Grey stole the bomb (they find out quickly he did not). I love the rapport between Asta and Harry. Perhaps they are not a couple romantically/sexually, but they have become a couple emotionally. Their bickering – for example about Kayla's birthday party or how Harry wants to leave Asta behind because it's too dangerous – shows how much they care about each other.
The most moving bits in this episode belong to Ben and Kate and of course D'arcy. In the last episode, both Ben and Kate got confirmation that they are being regularly abducted by aliens. I liked how they did not try to hide it from each other, but set about having that conversation at the first possible moment (I also appreciate how Resident Alien doesn't give us the actual dialogue, but just their physical actions, demonstrating their emotion, as shown through a window). Ben learns about their daughter, too. They're terrified about Max, but need to come up with a plausible reason to examine him. After several false starts, Kate searches Max for lice – and the ruse is made more plausible (and much more comic) by the fact that Max does, in fact, have lice.
To follow this storyline, they go to get their chips removed, or rather, Kate tricks Ben into doing it. Kate knows Ben has been regularly abducted for 30 years and that must be the source of the fear that is his baseline. Kate, however, wants to go back in order to be with their daughter. On the Grey base, she runs into D'arcy and explains what is going on. Kate can't rescue her baby, but D'arcy can. Watching D'arcy knock on the Hawthorne door with the baby in her arms made my throat tighten with emotion.
We get to see that Harry's species, whatever it is – and I don't think we've ever gotten the word for it in English – is very strong. Both he and Bridget easily overpower the Greys, whereas D'arcy – who is a confessed hair puller (of course, the Greys have no hair) and is certainly feisty and a natural athlete – was taken captive. Asta is also taken captive, which means Harry was right not to want her to come along.
Other important points: Peter Bach recovers his memory, and contacts Deputy Liv. Sheriff Mike and Detective Lena Torres get back together. Both developments are satisfactory ways to end the storylines, at least for season three.
So, even at the end, Sheriff Mike has an encounter with a Grey alien, easily knocking it out. Either Sheriff Mike is strong or the Grey alien was weakened by the crash; presumably it was in the craft chasing Asta, D'arcy and Mantid Harry. That means that Ben, Kate, Asta, Dan, D'arcy, Mike, Liv, Max and Sahar are all in various stages of the know. But will they start talking to each other or not?
We learn that our alien Harry is still with the Greys, having been captured. Instead the current Harry in Patience is mantid Harry. The fact that this is not our Harry explains why he was willing to escape without Asta, D'arcy or even Bridget. It also explains why he didn't like Dan's pie. Max knows that when he looks at him that this is a different Harry, but will Max be able to convince the others? Maybe he can enlist Peter Bach.
Title musings. "Homecoming" is the title of the episode. To me it refers most to the fact that D'arcy has brought back the baby. Also, Peter Bach is conscious again, which is a sort of homecoming (don't want to waste a talented actor such as Terry O'Quinn).
Of course, not everyone has made it home. General McCallister has stepped through a portal to only-the-writers-know where (although maybe that's home for her, as she's been searching her entire life for this). And our alien Harry and alien Bridget are still trapped with the Greys. I'm mixed on this title.
Bits and pieces
When I first watched this episode, I realized I had been spelling D'arcy's name wrong all the time (Billie Doux, who owns and runs this site, was able to correct the spelling in the other reviews). However, it's not my fault: IMDb was spelling it with a capital A as were the closed captions.
Ben and Kate go to Dr. Smallwood to get their chips removed. She seems to have a clinic. I thought she had retired?
Sheriff Mike must watch a lot of nature documentaries.
Mantid Harry is, according to my count, the fourth Harry for Alan Tudyk to play. Besides our alien Harry, there were also human Harry and Bridget Harry.
I can understand why removing a chip would make it harder for the Greys to abduct a person, but it doesn't seem like a foolproof method. After all, the Greys managed to implant the chips originally; couldn't they just do it again? Although I guess that if one chip is removed, others could be as well.
D'arcy is able to rescue one human baby. What about the rest?
Judah Prehn, who plays Max, is very good at screaming. The poor kid has had to do that a lot in these last three years.
Kind of surprises me how blithely the humans just walk through portals, although I guess each case can be justified.
Quotes
General McCallister: It's too late. It's really over.
Harry: No, it is not. I just need to get my bomb back and blow up the Greys' spaceship.
Ben: Fine. Aliens are abducting us? So what? You know, maybe this is good.
Kate: Good? They've been kidnapping you for 30 years.
Ben: It's better to know, you know? We can make a plan, get our daughter back. We don't need to go crazy. You know, we can be smart about it. First things first.
Kate: What are you doing?
Ben: Covering the house in tinfoil.
D'arcy: Okay, I made it this far. Only thing left to do is wait for the portal to open and then, I guess, step onto a spaceship. Very normal thing to say. Also, I might be insane. So this will be my last video. The most important thing is that I, D'arcy Bloom, can single-handedly save the world. And I can't stress this enough. It is a small A after the D, not a capital one.
Sheriff Mike: Redwoods. Now, see, that's a tree. Do you know there's no limit to how tall they can get? Hell, if I live long enough, I could climb one of them right into outer space. Plus, trees, they put out oxygen. So I got that whole "what to breathe in space" problem solved right there.
Deputy Liv: Space sounds good right now because no one can hear you scream.
Harry: All right, you are not going. [warbles] Thank you, Bridget. It is too dangerous.
Asta: Screw that. I want to find D'arcy.
Harry: No. Six, I will find her. Seven, you stay here and order some pizza. Eight, don't put your hands on your hips and look at me like that. And number nine, do not follow us.
Asta: Okay, you're right. You can follow me.
Deputy Liv: We're tracking an alien, possibly a human-alien hybrid.
Detective Lena: You're joking.
Deputy Liv: I never joke about aliens.
Detective Lena: There's no such thing as aliens. It's just disinformation spread by the government to cover up their gene-splicing program.
Sheriff Mike: Finally, somebody gets it. See, if I didn't think you were perfect before, I sure as hell do now.
General McCallister: I should just kill you right here for infiltrating my base and murdering my team. You're quite the dangerous man. But, then, you're not actually a man, are you?
Joseph the Grey: I just destroyed the Greys' Yellowstone plan. They're gonna kill me anyway, so go ahead and do it first.
General McCallister: Can't. You have something I want.
Joseph the Grey: What?
General McCallister: A portal.
Overall rating
Very satisfying episode. Three and a half out of four boxes of tinfoil.
Victoria Grossack loves math, birds, Greek mythology, Jane Austen and great storytelling in many forms.
Victoria, congratulations on finishing season three! Such a good season, too.
ReplyDeleteI also thought it was a terrific finale, for everyone but Harry. I was so pleased that Joseph turned his coat because I'm so fond of the actor, mostly from his role on Dollhouse and I'm hoping he returns. I liked how brave D'arcy was, rescuing Kate and Ben's baby. (I was also going, oh, no, what about all of those other babies?)