Harry (Alan Tudyk) has a lot going on in his life right now. After reluctantly coming into town to help with the murder investigation of the local town’s doctor, Sam Hodges (Jan Bos), he finds himself filling in for him as well for the time being — when all Harry wants to do is find the device that fell off his ship to complete his mission. Oh, and let’s not forget that Max (Judah Prehn) can see him in his alien form, so he must die. It is time to check in with Harry Vanderspeigle and the other Patience, Colorado residents, and see how they are doing in the second episode, “Homesick.”
There will be spoilers beyond this point.
During the monologue, Harry talks about trying to find his ship and the device. Oh, and that almond milk will be the death of us all. A guy who is taking a selfie near the edge of a snowy cliff falls. But he doesn’t hit the ground below. He is held in place by a piece of alien technology left suspended, screaming for help.
Max ends up being the first patient on Harry’s first day and escapes through the window screaming as he runs away after being threatened. I guess Harry needs to work on his bedside manner. His mom (Meredith Garretson) and dad (Levi Fiehler) try to get him to come out from under the park bench where he is hiding. Max tries and fails to convince his parents that the new doctor is an alien that will kill them all, and goes to work with his dad.
When in his dad’s office, he tells Sheriff Thompson (Corey Reynolds) that he knows who killed Sam. It was the alien. The Sheriff gets upset and tells Max that lying to him is a crime and to “watch Oz season one and tell me if you want to go to prison.” When it is just the two of them, Deputy Liv (Elizabeth Bowen) tells Max that if he describes him to her, she can sketch what the alien looks like.
Back on his planet, Harry was a scientist. So he figures with using Google, he can easily learn everything he needs to be a human doctor. As he quickly finds out, his first appointment is not removing a mole, but a pelvic exam. As he awkwardly goes to do the exam, he thinks he found a problem but quickly realizes that the piercing is supposed to be there. So, now what? Well, take your phone out and Google what to do, of course, but make sure to turn your flash off first. When she asks him what he is doing, Harry passes it off as wanting to take a first day at work selfie with Judy (Jenna Lamia).
After meeting Asta’s (Sara Tomko) dad, Dan (Gary Farmer), he sees the poster of his face, his real face, plastered all over town. It causes Harry to panic and thinks about leaving town or changing bodies, but then he remembers how hard it was the first time. We see him learning to walk, sit down, eat, brush his teeth, smile, and more during the flashback. He prank calls Max to tell him that the alien left town, but Max easily figures out that it’s him and hangs up, leaving Harry to say, “That’s it, I’m going to kill him.”
Harry goes back to The 59 bar and talks to D’arcy (Alice Wetterlund) about how he is feeling. She mentions that it sounds like stress, then offers him some more of the whiskey. He turns it down, saying the last time he drank it, he tried to kill someone. “Wasn’t the first, won’t be the last.” She thinks they are flirting, but he is serious. She gives him the idea of making the murder look like an accident and asks him to go bowling.
During the therapy session with Mayor Hawthorne, Harry is smiling while imagining the ways to kill Max, even making a few doodles of it. The session gets interrupted by Abigail (Deborah Finkel), who barges asking Harry if he really thinks her husband was killed. He then follows the yells to her and Asta arguing over packing up Sam’s office. Asta storms down to the Sheriff, demanding to know what they are doing to find who killed Sam. Harry is just there because he likes to watch her when she is angry.
While bowling, D’arcy and Harry run into Sheriff Thompson, and the three try to show each other up. The Sheriff and D’arcy each get a strike; now it is Harry’s turn. As he is figuring out the math for the bowling ball’s direction, it slips off his hand during the backswing, hitting Sheriff Thompson in the groin. I think it is safe to say Harry won this round. Later, while they are eating chili dogs, D’arcy tells Harry of her Olympic dreams and her career-ending accident, causing Harry to leave in a hurry. He just thought of a great way to get rid of Max: cut the brakes on his bike.
Happy at work the next day, Harry tries to hide a laugh as the Mayor tells him there was an accident. But Max is fine. He just needed some stitches on his arm. Harry slips up, and Max knows it was him who cut the brakes on his bike. Harry does the stitches with no numbing to continue to hurt him, but Max can hold his own and shows very little pain.
During some beautiful music by Raye Zaragoza, Dan asks Asta if she has dealt with Sam’s death yet and mentions cutting her hair to honor the deceased. Later that night, she takes out a wooden box going downstairs handing it to him. He takes out the scissors and cuts her hair as tears fall down her face. She wraps the cut hair in a red cloth as her dad asks her if she burned her scrubs from that night to “release Sam’s spirit from this world. Otherwise, he’ll linger.” During the night, Asta burns her scrubs and the cut hair she wrapped up in the red cloth and smudges the air around the fire with sage in a final goodbye to Sam.
Sitting in Sam’s office the next day, Harry walks in, and she confides in him again. He asks Asta if she wants to play cards, not because he wants to, but he can feel that she was sad and wanted to. Another human moment for Harry. She then tells Harry that this is now his office.
Harry goes back to the mine and finds some tellurium and makes more of what was in or was his device to kill us all and go home since he has figured out that the feeling he has is loneliness.
The episode ends with two snowmobilers discovering the floating dead body of the guy who fell off the snowy cliff from the start of the episode.
See you for next week’s episode of Resident Alien on SYFY at 10 p.m. ET.