Resident Alien Boss Talks Harry’s Finale Fate, ‘Cannibalistic’ New Foe and ‘Mayhem’ to Come in Season 4

TVLINE | D’arcy’s been struggling to figure out her purpose this season. Why’d she take off on such a dangerous solo mission and why is she so desperate for approval?  
CHRIS SHERIDAN | D’arcy is insecure at her core, and her whole life, she’s been built to try to get praise from outside, probably because her parents were never really there for her like that. So in a path to always wanting this love and respect from them that she never really got, she’s looking to other people. We know inherently that the real truth is we can only find it from within, but she hasn’t quite learned that yet. She looks for it by, “Oh, I can be a famous Olympic skier and people will love me if I do that,” and that doesn’t work out. She’s feeling very down and sees an opportunity to go on this ship. She’s not 100% sure she’ll come out of it, but at the very least she knows her life won’t be a waste and she will die knowing that she’s loved by everybody. She sees Kate and throws that away to actually do something smaller, but a lot more gigantic as far as self-love goes. She chooses to help Kate find her baby which is something that not only people on Earth will never know about, but even Kate says she’ll never remember this. D’arcy does it anyway and realizes the true definition of heroism, which is doing something for someone whether you get credit for it or not.

When she’s standing with that baby outside of their door and she looks out away from their house, she’s thinking about herself in a different way than she has before. She actually is proud of herself and has found some love within because she did something wonderful for someone. She feels great about herself in a way that she never could’ve if she was only getting praise from other people. Alice [Wetterlund] played it incredibly well. And look, she’s not cured. We all take one step forward and two steps back. But this is the next step forward in her enlightenment as a character where she realizes that true happiness will only come if you love yourself. This is a small step for her towards that. 

TVLINE | Kate and Ben finally compared notes on all the things that were happening to them. Now that everything’s on the table and they have their baby back, what will their lives look like as we enter Season 4? Are they entirely out of danger?  
We don’t know yet what’s going to happen with this baby, but I would imagine that the Greys don’t want to just let anything go without a fight. Whatever has been happening to them and whatever the reason is why they’ve been abducted, I feel like, at least for Kate, that would still continue happening. In Season 4 we’ll find out more of why and get into more of what the Greys are doing, and try to be as authentic as possible with the stories that we’ve heard from the thousands of people who’ve had these abduction experiences. I think it plays in two ways. If you don’t believe in alien abductions, I think it’s entertaining and also plays a little bit [into] the metaphor of just being fearful and not feeling safe in your own home. And for people that do believe in the alien abduction experience, there are certain things that people believe are happening and enough people have experienced similar things that we want to stay as authentic as possible to what that true story is.  

The first couple of seasons, Ben and Kate were largely out of the alien [story]. It was more character development. Now going into Season 4, there’s definitely more alien stuff going on. There’s alien stuff with Harry, but then there’s the alien stuff that probably would have been going on even if Harry wasn’t around. The Ben and Kate alien abductions are not really tied to Harry. It’s stuff that happens and we’ll explain a little more in Season 4. It’s not because Patience is special. It’s just because Patience is a town on Earth. This stuff is happening in every town in the world and people can choose to believe it or not, but there’s a lot of people that believe that this is happening everywhere. That’s kind of what I believe and that’s what we’re going to explore more of: where it’s happening, why it’s happening and what the Greys are trying to get out of it. 

TVLINE | Is there a future where Joseph and Harry work together more regularly to protect the Earth? There’s a great buddy comedy vibe brewing between those two.  
One of the great revelations this year for me was how absolutely hysterical Enver Gjokaj is. The chemistry he and Alan [Tudyk] have is fantastic. He’s not only funny with comedic timing on the page, but did a lot of improv, which I encourage the actors to do. When we’re shooting scenes, we try to get what’s in the script, but then I give them room to play a little bit. He was fantastic at that. It was a revelation to me and I would love to have him back. He’s a fun character. There’s nothing funnier to me than an alien who, in many ways, is so far advanced than anyone on Earth, but they’re still idiots, you know? Harry is still an idiot. Enver has all the cockiness of someone who knows that he’s a superior being, but doesn’t know the first thing about being human. They both play it so well and they’re really fun together. 

TVLINE | We didn’t see Edi Patterson in the finale. Any hopes for Harry and Heather’s romance to rekindle in the future? 
I would be foolish not to try to bring her back. She was not only an absolutely fantastic person and just wonderful to work with, but a comedic genius. Her chemistry with Alan was so great. It’s a great character and I would absolutely love to have her back when the time is right.  

TVLINE | Sheriff Mike finally came face to face with a Grey alien. How will that change his dynamic with Deputy Liv?
It’s a really interesting question. It’s one of those things where he was so against it that even though that thing is sitting in front of him, I almost wonder if he questioned if it was really real. There’s a lot of different ways to go forward with it. I always found it interesting that the aliens were Mike’s last holdout of things that he would believe in. He doesn’t seem to believe in them, but clearly thinks Bigfoot lives in Seattle and he believes in pretty much everything else. So now that there’s some proof of this alien thing, it’s gonna rock his world and I’d like to really press into that in Season 4, if I get the chance.

It’s going to be interesting when he confronts Liv about it or maybe he doesn’t know how to tell her about it. He’s not ever someone to say “I was wrong” easily. I think he’ll struggle with it. I don’t think it’s as easy as him saying to Liv, “You were right all along and here’s this alien.” I think we need to play with it a little bit. I have some thoughts about how to move forward with it, but I don’t quite want to share them yet. But the dynamic now will change. Even before this, he was starting to trust her a little more whether he would admit it or not, and listen to her and follow her instincts. It’s been a journey for him throughout the series about being open and, certainly with a female partner, trusting her to speak for him and follow her guidance over his own. He’s grown a lot as a character and I think this will make him grow even more.

TVLINE | Liv and the Alien Tracker were reunited and the guy is all Terminator’d out! Has McCallister created a monster?
She didn’t create it well! She didn’t think that it was going to get its consciousness back because she wanted a robot, basically. And suddenly what she created was this angry man who wants revenge, who’s now built like a robot. He wants answers. He wants to know what happened to him. He’s not gonna go down without a fight and he certainly has what it takes to fight. There’s a lot of fun stuff with that that I have in mind and Terry O’Quinn is so great. He’s such a great actor, such a great person. It’s a fun extra character to have in this world that you can utilize whenever you want.

TVLINE | In the last few moments, we see that Harry has actually been captured and that a Mantid has taken his place in Patience. Any teases about what these creatures are and what Harry’s next chapter will look like?
We tried to set up this creature as a pretty bad and dangerous foe for Harry, and also a fun one if they were unleashed on earth. This is someone who clearly has cannibalistic tendencies. We cast the great Clancy Brown as the voice and that was such a pleasure working with him on this. He’s such a genius in so many ways. It’s scary to think of what this Mantid is going to do in Harry’s body on earth. And clearly the Mantid can turn into other people and clearly it likes killing things and eating them. It’s gonna be a little bit of mayhem in Patience going into Season 4, but it’s been a while since Sheriff Mike and Deputy Liv have had to solve a murder, so maybe it’s the right timing. 

TVLINE | Lastly, congratulations on the show’s Netflix success! That must feel very rewarding for the whole team. [Resident Alien spent five weeks in the streamer’s Global Top 10.]
We’re just thrilled about getting new viewers. We’ve been lucky to be on Syfy and still are on Syfy (and on Peacock where you can see Season 3). They’ve been fantastic and so supportive, and we wouldn’t be where we are without their support. That being said, the TV landscape, as you know, is changing so rapidly. If you can go from where we were before in a place where not as many people have cable and on one streamer to, frankly, a streamer that has more viewers, it’s only going to help.  

All of us that work on the show have seen an enormous impact immediately. We went on [Netflix] February 13th and immediately we were in the Top 10. Now, I believe we’re in the Top 10 in 20 countries or something like that. So, a lot of people are discovering the show and that’s the bottom line. That’s what we care about. We just want people to see it. We’ve been working on this for years and we have an audience that loves the show, but making that audience bigger is the goal. Getting more eyeballs on it through Netflix has been absolutely fantastic. I’m hearing from the cast, they’re getting recognized more, which is great. I have heard from people I haven’t heard from in a long time who have seen the show, who didn’t even know it was on TV. It’s been great for the show and hopefully all the love we’re getting from all the new viewers will help us get a Season 4.  

Now it’s your turn! What did you think of Resident Alien’s Season 3 finale? Grade it (and the season) below, then light up the comments.