'Resident Alien' boss Chris Sheridan says Harry is changing everyone in Patience this season

The Resident Alien midseason premiere, "Autopsy," picked up right where the action left off in "Alien Dinner Party" and then complicated things even more with a certain dead bodies origin plaguing Harry (Alan Tudyk), Asta (Sara Tomko), Sheriff Mike (Corey Reynolds) and Deputy Liv (Liz Bowen). Plus, that pesky newborn alien skittering into the woods around Harry's cabin. 

Dealing with a myriad of messes, literally and figuratively, is what Resident Alien creator, Chris Sheridan, tells SYFY WIRE is going to be weighing down the citizens of Patience, Colorado, for the next seven episodes. And per usual, Harry's the instigator of most of it.

"Asta kills this guy and she's got to deal with that," Sheridan says of Asta shooting the stranger about to kill Harry in the midseason finale. "Early on in developing that episode, my first thought was that Harry kills this guy. But then it also dawned on us that there's a lot more weight and a lot more at stake if Asta does it, just from a human morality standpoint. On top of that, not only does she do it, but D'Arcy (Alice Wetterlund) clearly knows something. We don't know quite yet what she knows and what she heard and what she didn't hear. We'll find that out in Episode 9."

And the long laundry list of personal issues circling the townsfolk also has the imprint of Harry to it as well, considering he's been such a potent motivator for so many in his circle. "All of these characters have obstacles in their life that they can't get past, as we all do," Sheridan explains. "The goal of any series is to watch a character grow and learn how to face these obstacles in their life, and then be the better, more whole version of themselves at the end. The slight difference in this show is that journey, if not for Harry, would not be fulfilled."

Resident Alien Season 2, Episode 9: "Autopsy." Photo: Eike Shroter/SYFY

Sheridan cites the tentative relationship between Asta and Jay (Kaylayla Raine) as a great example. Harry, he says, is the "wrench" in their life. "He's the one in Season 1 who blurted out that Jay is Asta's daughter and totally destroyed her life for 10 minutes. But that's sometimes what we need," he says. "If he didn't do that, they probably would still be going on the way that it was. As hard as these things are, which is what Asta learns in the beginning of the second half of the season, you need them to become a better person. And Asta is starting to realize that."

And the unexpected outcome is that Harry is now present to help Asta be the kind of parent she didn't think she had in her before. "Due to circumstances where she was too young and made a decision to give up her child, Asta has lost this opportunity to gain insight into herself and to grow by the things you go through when you're a parent," Sheridan explains. "She hasn't been able to parent Jay. And in a way, Harry has become the sort of surrogate child where she now has to learn patience as she's teaching this 45-year-old adult man how to be human in the same way that you would teach a child. Harry has, in ways that I don't think she even realizes yet, inserted himself into her life and into her growth pattern in such a tremendous way, that when things don't go, in the second half of the season as she had hoped with Jay, the fact that Harry's in her life allows her to get to a place where she can make it better. That's the goal with all the characters."

Look for Harry's alien background to also spur growth in Deputy Liv, who had a UFO sighting as a kid and a more recent one that she hasn't felt comfortable to tell anyone about. "Liv's not feeling good enough about herself at this point to be able to just come out and say what she believes in,' Sheridan says about Liv's personal arc to come. "So incrementally, she's taking steps here to be able to speak her truth and be able to admit that she believes what she believes. She takes little steps because she admitted to Asta in Episode 8 the second UFO, which was a big step for her. But we'll see more of that and more of that journey in the second half of this season, while she and Mike are trying to solve the Sam Hodges riddle and what happened with that. But they will finally put that to bed and find out who killed Sam Hodges."

New episodes of Resident Alien air Wednesdays on SYFY.