'Resident Alien' boss Chris Sheridan teases what's to come with that wild alien baby

Harry's got a whole lot of trouble brewing and his kind are to blame as Resident Alien is back for the second part of Season 2. In the midseason premiere, "Autopsy," the skittering baby that hatched in Episode 8 escaped to the wilds, no longer confined to Harry's remote cabin. Creator/showrunner Chris Sheridan tells SYFY WIRE that finding that little whippersnapper is going to consume a lot of Harry's time.

"Harry's main focus now is to find that baby, but not because he cares about the baby. He just needs to get the rest of that message," Sheridan says of the ominous message discovered from his people that was cut off before it could entirely play out.

There is another that Sheridan promises will show up in the back half of Season 2, too. "There was a character revealed in Episode 8 played by an amazing actor named Enver Gjokaj, who is a character named Joseph. We've established in Episode 8 that he is not of this world. He is around in the second half of the season."

In what capacity — alien message or in person — Sheridan won't say, but he says Joseph is indicative of the "amping up" of the alien-centric stories coming. "[These episodes] definitely have a lot of stuff going on and have the feeling, in many ways of a new season."

Audiences will get to see the baby alien evolve in surprising ways, but initially, it will show up as a hybrid practical puppet with some augmented CGI that Sheridan is thrilled they've been able to bring to life. "In Episode 8, the baby was all CGI," he explains, "But we are using the baby enough in the second part of the season to make it worthwhile to actually build the baby. Cayley Giene is our special effects master who built several of them; a practical little alien baby that we use. So we're doing partially practical baby and then partially CGI, and that adds a whole other layer to the second half of the season, which is a lot of fun."

Sheridan teases that the slippery critter might end up tugging on Harry's very complicated feelings as he becomes more in tune with his human emotions. "He starts not really caring about this baby. It's just a pain in the ass running around his house," he says with a laugh. "It's the example of the guy with the baby on the doorstep, and he doesn't care about the baby. He just needs to get the baby because it's stolen his car keys — Until the first time the baby looks at him and sort of giggles. You just can't help but sort of be sucked into that. And where that takes us emotionally in the season is really going to be fun to watch for everybody."

New episodes of Resident Alien premiere on Wednesdays on SYFY.