Characters appearing on the Syfy original Black Comedy sci-fi murder mystery series Resident Alien.
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Harry Vanderspiegle
Portrayed By: Alan Tudyk
The titular protagonist. An alien who is using the identity of a human doctor he killed off to pass off as one of the town locals but accidentally made himself a highly valuable and essential citizen in the community by replacing the town's only doctor. He's currently on a mission to wipe out all humans with his home world's technology after his ship crashed due to thunder.The Alien
- Adaptational Dumbass:
- In the comic books, Harry actually is a top-notch expert on medicine and made a tremendous doctor. In the show, he's clueless and makes random wild guesses at everything related to medicine. When it comes to doing actual procedures, he looks them up on the Internet and this is apparently enough to get him by.
- Also in the comic books, Harry knew how to function properly in human society and did not come off as socially awkward or a screwball to actual humans. Though to be fair, the comic book Harry had a few years to learn English and American cultural customs, the TV show Harry had four months. His future counterpart Goliath is shown to be able to talk normally and more akin to comics-wise Harry. But, of course, Goliath is Harry, returned from hundreds of years in the future after the Greys decimated the Earth.
- Adaptational Villainy: In the comic books, Harry was not an oddball nor did he hate humans - let alone he was reluctant about robbing an ATM feeling that it's unethical. This Harry just wants to drive the human race into extinction.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: After a night of whisky shots with his new human pals, Harry actually tries to kill Max, a boy no older than ten, for being able to see through his disguise.
- Aliens Are Bastards: He only came to Earth just to fry the human race but now that he's passed off as one of them and developed a bond with D'arcy and Asta he appears to be Going Native and is coming to actually enjoy his time as an Alien Among Us. Although the show keeps zigzagging between whether he really does have some affection for humans or not since while Harry does sincerely seem to enjoy his moments of spending time with and being made to feel special by the humans, he always reverts back to his default mindset of killing all humans with his device then getting back on his ship and flying off triumphant in achieving human extinction.
- Alien Blood: His blood is blue and it glows.
- Aliens Love Human Food: Especially dairy products like milkshakes and pizza. He keeps gallons of milk in his fridge and is frequently stealing fries from others.
- Aliens Steal Cattle: And horses. And even bison and pigs for their meat. Harry is particularly fond of milk and sneaks into a barn to suck on a cow's teat before he knew milk can be bought from a store or Joe's Diner which he frequents.
- Ancient Astronauts:
- Harry mentions that his people helped the humans build Stonehenge.
Harry: Bunch of idiots sitting around drinking mead, making us do all the work! Lazy Druids!- Later he tells Max and Sahar the Nazca Lines are, in fact, alien graffiti.
- Anti-Hero: He is an alien invader with a mission to Kill All Humans. He flirts with being a downright Villain Protagonist, but ultimately settles into being an antihero.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
- Harry has a lot of things he's searching for: the parts of his ship that fell off before he crashed in a lightning storm including the device that can eradicate all humans, the boy Max who can see through Harry's disguise and ultimately expose him to the authorities, the unknown assailant who poisoned the town doctornote , and a decent pizza place.
- The third episode has Harry ruminating on his priorities in a similar way to that listed above; killing Max, wiping out the human race and getting milk and cereal for breakfast.
- Back-Alley Doctor: He knows nothing about medicine, diseases nor human bodies yet still has to fill in for the town's deceased doctor.
- Becoming the Mask: By the end of the second season, Harry has taken on quite a few human qualities and is continuing to become more human and less alien everyday. As Goliath, re-emerged on Earth from an alternate timeline, he already had more-or-less gone full human in all but biology.
- Berserk Button:
- When Max calls him stupid, he decides to kill Max for personal reasons and not just because Max is trying to expose him as an alien.
- He nearly snaps off Ethan's arm for insulting Law and Order.
- He hates being compared to a Grey.
- Big Brother Instinct: One of the first signs of Harry gaining a little humanity comes when he protects Asta from her violent ex-husband. When he sees him physically abusing her, he smashes the deadbeat through a door and almost strangles him to death.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Let's count the ways. Harry's eyes are pitch black and close sideways, he has fathered hundreds of children without sex organs, has a mouth on his abdomen, four arms (one pair markedly smaller than the other), tentacle legs and can shapeshift.
- Bizarre Alien Sexes: Harry believes E.T. to be extremely attractive, and indeed considers him to be a Brainless Beauty.
- Brutal Honesty: Harry somehow manages to keep making this work for him; one old patient praises him for his honesty in telling him he's unlikely to make it past Christmas (in contrast to the previous doctor's more tactful approach), while his bluntly telling Max's mother she's neglecting him as an excuse to get rid of her actually works when she realises he might be right.
- The Bully: He acted as one towards Max, calling him "Dickhead," "You little shit," "Shit-for-brains," taunting his failure for failing to convince anyone he's an alien, and flipping him off during his drunken attempt to murder Max in his sleep. When Harry got invited over for dinner, Harry promised to keep trying to kill Max when the two were left alone. Their rivalry does end eventually though after Harry is forced to rely on Max for assistance in finding his device and ship.
- …But He Sounds Handsome: Harry reassures Max's mother that he's not an alien...which is a shame, as he's heard they're pretty cool!
- Catchphrase:
- "I am a good doctor"
- This is some bullshit!
- As humans would say...
- Often swapped with "My people..."
- I'm incredibly handsome!
- Child Hater: While Harry isn't fond of any humans, he especially hates Max, the young boy who can see and hear him in his true form both visually and audibly, and in episode 3, Max teams up with a young Muslim girl, Sahar (who takes Max's word about Harry being an alien) to spite and bully Harry some more. This becomes downplayed and eventually averted later on, as Harry and Max become less antagonistic, climaxing at the end of season 1 where Harry protects Max when his ship crashes.
- He's more tolerant of babies, as they are tiny and don't speak.
- Clashing Cousins: With Octopus. They trade barbs about each other's predicaments.
- Cloudcuckoolander: How Harry appears to the residents of Patience, though less because he's odd and more because he's not even human.
- The Comically Serious: All of Harry's interactions with Max come across this way due to Harry's dead-serious way of treating the kid like he's an ultra-dangerous Arch-Nemesis instead of a physically puny brat no-one listens to anyway. Harry eventually caught on that no one listens to Max anyways and stopped worrying until Max stole his house keys, made copies then went to his cabin to burglarize alien technology.
- Dr. Jerk: Due to his lack of social skills, Harry tends to be a little too on-the-nose about his advice to patients, from telling a kid that with her parents' lack of insurance her next accident could see them homeless, to candidly informing one elderly patient he'll be dead before Christmas. And then there's his convincing a baby's parents to let him circumcise the little guy so he doesn't get STDs...
- Enemy Mine: Upon Goliath's advice, in the Season 2 finale he agrees to come out of hiding and reveal himself to the alien-hunting unit of the US military to ally with General McAllister because of how big of a threat The Greys pose to Earth.
- Everyone Has Standards: Harry gets offended over getting called a Grey by Peter Bach, who accuses him of abducting his baby. Harry, who is very contemptuous of other species across the galaxy, has called the Greys insidious assholes, saying at least his people don't abduct, torture or terrorize living beings across the universe like the Greys do.
- Fish out of Water: The entire concept of the show concerning Harry. However he gradually warms up to being a resident of human society especially thanks to Asta helping him assimilate.
- Fantastic Racism:
- He is incredibly contemptuous of human beings in general, even if they have shown compassion to him now and then and he's put himself in situations of having to return that compassion. He calls humans dumber than lizards even justifying these claims that his own people helped contribute to the development of Stonehenge. He also considers his race more technologically advanced than humans.
- He also has a very low opinion of The Greys, referring to them as insidious assholes and accusing them of having an "ass fetish." Though Episode 9 justifies this, as the Greys are actually a sinister species who commit atrocities across the galaxy such as abducting unborn babies right out of mothers (including Earthlings), so Harry's hatred for the Greys is out of reason not racism.
- During his time with Asta in the crevasse, Harry admits he also looks down on the reptilians, calling them gross and unhygienic.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Harry's human form, though it's less for the benefit of the humans around him and more to hide himself amongst them.
- Going Native: Harry begins to have a moral dilemma about his mission to destroy humanity as he's dragged into interacting with the residents of the town.
- Healing Factor: His limbs can grow back if cut off.
- Hugh Mann: Harry's strange behavior and mannerisms somehow manage not to raise any suspicion in the people around him.
- Humanity Ensues: He worries this could happen to him if he stays too long in his human form, overlooking the fact he's already well-adapted to many human customs like alcohol, pizza and watching TV like Law & Order. As Goliath, he goes full human, as Goliath is himself who came back from 700 years in the future, then settled down in New York and became an artist, sending messages to himself in that time.
- Humanity Is Infectious: It's implied the alien altering his physiology into that of a human's made it suddenly possible for him to feel emotions like fear, loneliness, and empathy, as he expresses confusion over freaking out about the town finding the real Harry's body, an "emptiness" that he later realizes isn't just hunger, and a desire to comfort Asta in her grief over Sam's death by playing a card game with her. In the finale, the alien's hallucination of the corpse of the human Harry Vanderspeigle even tells him "Yes, but you're not your people anymore. You've been infected with humanity."
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: Another staple of the series' humor. Harry finds everything about humans utterly baffling, at one point noting they're barely a step above lizards.
- Humorless Aliens: Harry again - he's Sarcasm-Blind, and totally misses the point of jokes and funny stories until told otherwise. Even Max's juvenile insults require a few moments for him to catch up.
- Hypocrite:
- He complains humans are stupid and ignorant about health and medicine, when he isn't a superb doctor either and makes terrible mistakes upon his patients having to rely on the Internet and other people to get through many tasks.
- An even bigger example would be that Harry thinks of humans as a hostile species altogether even when the majority of the humans on the show don't even know aliens exist and Harry gives out details about his own people that they're not very sociable either such as laying their babies (in egg form) in a desert where there is a high chance the babies could die, plus they intend to kill all humans (this was his original task).
- I'm a Humanitarian: Harry claimed once he killed Max, he planned on eating Max's corpse just to see what humans taste like.
- Immune to Bullets: Is apparently able to generate a protective shield around himself that deflects bullets. Whether this is a natural ability or is provided by some device is not known. He does get shot in the second season, with Asta needing to remove the bullet so he can heal. So whether it's a natural ability or the result of technology, it does take some action or effort on his part to utilize it, meaning he can be caught off-guard.
- Innocently Insensitive: Due to his lack of understanding of human culture, he refers to breasts as "tits", mistakes birth marks as flies (and even after being corrected still repeats that sentiment).
- He continually insults everyone around him - calling the mayor "Mayor Snowflake", telling Asta his being much smarter than she is is just fact - and has a final examination of the murder victim's body at the funeral. In front of his widow and all the other mourners. It's not because he's kind of a dick, as Asta puts it, but because he's got no idea of how humans interact beyond watching TV shows.
- Played more dramatically when Harry stands up D'arcy on their date so he can go look for his ship's device, leaving her sad and lonely by the end of the episode.
- Jerkass: He can also be deliberately insensitive, such as when he belittles Asta, "I'm smarter than you! Don't feel bad it's just a fact."
- Kick the Dog: Harry's mistreatment of Max trying to kill him but failing has resulted in Max suffering an accident on the road that requires stitches (which Ben forces Harry to apply) after Harry cut his bike brakes. And when that didn't work Harry convinces Max's parents to send the boy away to a mental institute in Georgia - which they are not hesitant to do.
- Kill All Humans: Harry came to Earth to do this, and his first priority target is a young boy named Max who can see through his disguise. By the end of the second season, his mission is entirely reversed to save all humans.
- Kill and Replace: The alien Harry Vanderspeigle attacked the real Dr. Vanderspeigle and killed him, stealing his identity.
- Klingons Love Shakespeare: He binge-watched Law & Order for four months straight which led to him completely forgetting about looking for the broken-off parts of his ship or the corpse of the real Harry Vanderspiegle he killed and dumped in the lake. And he loves pizza, which is a human invention.
- Lack of Empathy: According to Harry, his people do not feel sadness and have no family culture. They lay their offspring in an icewind desert who are left to their own devices to grow into adulthood - provided those babies don't get torn to pieces and die.
- Learnt English from Watching Television: He used Law & Order to learn English, repeating the line "I've got news for you, Cosette" to perfection.
- Manchild: The creators have said that he has the emotional maturity of an eight-year-old; this gives Max Hawthorne, who is 10, a slight edge over him.
- Monochromatic Eyes: His true form has pitch-black eyes.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- "Harry" killing the human Dr. Vanderspeigle and throwing him in the lake comes back to bite him when a fisherman recovers the original's foot, leaving the sheriff convinced there's a serial killer on the loose and demanding the body be identified by DNA testing (which would expose Harry), with Harry scrambling to hide the body once it actually does wash up ashore.
- In the original timeline, Harry kills General McCallister, whose information and resources may have been the only hope to save the Earth from being utterly desolated by the Greys. He travels back in time and sends his past self a warning to not do the same.
- No Biological Sex: Harry reveals in conversation that his species doesn't have genders, but they have mates.
- No Social Skills: As an alien, Harry has little knowledge of social norms or how to behave around humans. This includes actions such as handling a human brain with his hands (and putting it down to shake the hand of the former owner's widow), and interrupting the funeral to examine the doctor's body. The intro sequence seems to lampshade how Harry is at least trying to make some effort learning manners and social skills.
- Not Himself: Isabelle, Harry's wife, is very aware that her husband's acting really strangely. Naturally though she doesn't realize this is because he's dead, and "Harry" is an alien imposter.
- Octopoid Aliens: Harry states his people are descendants of octopuses.
- Outside-Context Problem: To the real Harry Vanderspeigle, he was already covering his tracks after a murder and had to stay in Colorado because he was at risk of being Killed to Uphold the Masquerade by the shady Galavan/Powel Group if he ever returned to New York. Then one day this all becomes meaningless because an alien arrives unexpectedly at his door and kills him. He then goes to New York in Harry's form and continues to get his Sci-Fi chocolate in Galavan/Powel's crime drama peanut butter.
- Parental Favoritism: Harry and his mate had 342 children, and he deeply cared for #62.
- Pet the Dog: Even though he tries hard to convince himself that he doesn't care and to simply drive away, he goes back and nearly strangles Jimmy to death for beating Asta. An early sign that try as he might, he's already developing human empathy.
- Psychic Powers: Harry can implant Fake Memories and telepathically communicate with octopi.
- Sibling Murder: As is customary with his people, Harry was abandoned to the ice-wind desert in a survival of the fittest situation with all of his numerous siblings. He killed them all for food, the sole survivor.
- The Stoic: Zigzagged. He keeps telling himself he is this, but spending so much time with Asta is making him develop emotions that he's never felt before such as empathy for others.
- Stronger Than They Look: The real Harry Vanderspiegle is a man of average build, yet the alien Harry has enough strength to subdue a man twice his size.
- Super-Strength: Has the strength to bust through a wall and easily strangle Jimmy. Also dislocates Ethan's shoulder during an arm wrestling match. He can toss a fully grown man around like a rag doll, and later tells Asta that he has the strength of "six gorillas." Considering that a single gorilla is estimated to be about five times stronger than an average man...
- Taught by Television: After taking his human form, Harry spends several hours replaying the same scene from an episode of Law & Order not only learning the language but how to speak in general.
- Telepathic Spacemen: Harry can communicate telepathically with octopuses, who are a cousin species to his kind but landed on Earth thanks to an asteroid collision that threw octopi ancestors off their destined planet and right into precambrian Earth's waters.
- Trademark Favorite Food:
- He says it's pizza, but because there weren't any pizza bars in Patience, he didn't get to eat one until the first season finale when the pizza shop finally opens and he gets his pizzas. He really does absolutely love it and buys a number of pizzas in the plan having a bunch to subsist off of after he kills everyone. Then, he accidentally leaves them behind when he heads off for his spaceship.
- He also really likes milk and suffered a withdrawal from it when the only supply he knew of it (a cow in a private farm barn) was cut off by a little girl. Milk is just about the only thing in his fridge. Additionally, the show's title card depicts him relaxing on a lawn chair at the beach, a bottle of milk in his hand with a straw in it.
- In the second season, he seems to have taken to the pie at Joe's Diner and the title card now depicts him with a plate of pie.
- The Unpronounceable: His real name. "Harry" is easier for humans to stick with.
- The Un-Smile: His attempts at smiling and laughing are disastrous.
- Villain Protagonist: He starts off as this with his long-term goal of Kill All Humans but then evolves into more of an Anti-Villain.
- What Is This Feeling?: As he hangs around longer, Harry begins to feel the emotions his human body feels in reaction to others around him. In particular, he begins feeling compassion and empathy for Asta's grief over Sam's death, finding it odd how he's comforting her when there's no benefit for him to do so. He also feels an "emptiness" in him that he initially mistakes for simple hunger, only to eventually realize that he's actually feeling loneliness from being stuck on Earth for as long as he has. At first his emotions extend only to Asta and he is shocked when he realizes he is starting to feel emotions for others as well.
- Would Hurt a Child: It was Nothing Personal at first, but now that Max is working diligently to expose Harry and has become his Sitcom Arch-Nemesis This Means War!. He's tried to kill Max before for being able to see through his alien disguise. This backfires as now Max is constantly working to expose him and Harry realizes that had he not tried to kill Max then they wouldn't be enemies in the first place since nobody believes or cares about Max.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: While he's not too happy about having to deal with the townsfolk, Harry delightedly notes investigating a dead body is like Law & Order. He even does the famous "chung chung!" sound effect at dramatic moments, much to the confusion of everyone else.
The Human
- Asshole Victim: He's killed and replaced by the alien. The first season finale reveals that the real Dr. Vanderspiegle was the one who murdered the previous town doctor Sam Hodges by injecting Botulinum toxin into the diabetic doctor's insulin - and likely incriminated Sam's wife Abigail for this. He was also a negligent father with a string of failed marriages, the fact he was such a Jerkass is the main reason very few people who were close to him in life are around long enough to notice his drastic change in personality.
- The Dead Guy Did It: He was the one who killed Sam Hodges.
- Disappeared Dad: Hadn't seen his teenage daughter in the three years before his death and didn't particularly care to spend much time with her when she was around.
- Foot-Dragging Divorcee: Was this to his wife, Isabelle, so naturally she's more than a little thrown off when the alien Harry Vanderspeigle signs the divorce papers the second that she asks.
- Gun Nut: Kept multiple high caliber rifles in his cabin, which are visible in the background of some shots and are finally used in season 2 .
- Posthumous Character: He spends most of the first season as a corpse frozen and hidden by Harry in a locker in the cabin's basement (with the locker filled with meat as to better hide the body). Flashbacks flesh out his character and motivations more.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: It seems that way in the pilot, but the more the series progressed, the more flashbacks there are of the real human Vanderspeigle, and from what we've seen he's not a kind-hearted caring doctor everyone thought him to be.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Nobody in Patience seems to know that he's a rather terrible person when they reach out for a Sam Hodges replacement, so they're eager to have "him" on as their new doctor. Granted, few if any of the residences ever met the original Harry.
Asta Twelvetrees
Portrayed By: Sara Tomko
A Native American (Ute) nurse who is Harry's primary assistant. The series' deuteragonist.
- Ambiguously Absent Parent: Her birth father is never mentioned. Given that her birth mother, Mary-Ellen Taylor, turns out to be a layabout who never wanted children, it's possible she has no idea who the birth father is.
- Best Friend: To D'arcy. They've been friends since school and know each other better than anyone else.
- Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: By Episode 3, she's seemed to have gotten used to Harry's eccentricities. When she nearly catches him comparing his foot to the real Harry's foot, she can only muster a "when you're done being weird..." response. In Episode 8, she finally discovers why he is the way he is.
- Cuddlebug: She gets touchy-feely when she's upset or nervous. D'arcy says it's her tell.
- Daddy's Girl: Asta is very fond of and close to her adopted dad Dan, who's a loving, protective father in turn.
- Domestic Abuse: She was a victim of it for a while. Her abusive ex-husband shows up in the pilot and gets his ass handed to him by Harry.
- Deuteragonist: She's clearly the main character after Harry.
- Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Played with. Harry isn't evil, but his Blue-and-Orange Morality makes him come across as amoral to her, and she frequently expresses frustration with him and his fixation on her upon learning he's an alien. She forcibly makes herself into his Morality Chain hoping his fixation on her will convince him to stop his people from finishing his mission, but is left frustrated at his attempts to only save her and not the planet, causing her to hold herself hostage and sabotage his plans that won't save humanity as a means of forcing Harry to find other ways.
- Happily Adopted: After her mom abandoned her, Dan had raised Asta (we don't learn what became of her birth father). She fully considers Dan to be her father, and they clearly love each other (he's a bit overprotective due to her domestic abuse from Jimmy).
- Hospital Hottie: She's a nurse and very attractive.
- Morality Chain: Becomes this for Harry over the course of the first season. Her friendship keeps Harry from activating his device, and it's only after she learns what happened to the original Harry and tells him their friendship is done that Harry goes back to his original plan. He's fully prepared to go through with this, apparently unconcerned with the consequences for everybody else he's met during his time on Earth, until Asta reminds him that she'll die as well.
- My Secret Pregnancy: Her backstory. Hidden to the point where seventeen years later, her extended family was still in the dark about her ever having had a child.
- The Not-Love Interest: To Harry and D'arcy. She and Harry being mistaken for a couple is a Running Gag and she shares more scenes befitting a love interest with D'arcy than any of her actual love interests.
- Only Friend: To Harry, though she has her own circle of friends beyond him.
- Only Sane Man: Probably the most mature and level-headed member of the main cast, which includes Sheriff Thompson, Deputy Baker, Mayor Hawthorne, Max Hawthorne, Jay, and Harry.
- Parental Abandonment: Her mother abandoned her when she was little, and Dan adopted her after that. We never hear what became of her birth father. Later she gave up her baby as a teenager under pressure from Jimmy, the father, who said they were too young to be parents.
- Teen Pregnancy: Part of her backstory. She had a baby at 16 with her abusive boyfriend and was pressured into giving it up for adoption. That baby is later revealed to be Jay.
- The Tell: Gets excessively huggy when she's lying.
- "Well Done, Dad!" Guy: Longs for her biological daughter's approval, going so far as to enter a hot pepper-eating competition that she is utterly unprepared for.
Sheriff Mike Thompson
Portrayed By: Corey Reynolds
The town's sheriff, a brash transplant from Washington, D.C.
- Abusive Offspring: His father calls him a terrible son who blamed him for everything that went wrong.
- Adaptational Jerkass: The sheriff of the comics was gruff but reasonable even before becoming friends with Harry. Sheriff Thompson, on the other hand, blatantly disrespects the mayor, mocks Harry for being weird and barely listens to his deputy. He even offers to tell the victim's widow of her husband's demise because, as he puts it, "I don't give a shit."
- Artistic License – Law Enforcement: In the second season episode where Harry is shot and Asta shoots the man who shot Harry, he hears the gunfire and immediately draws his weapon, running through the woods towards where he heard the sound. When he arrives, D'arcy is holding the rifle and tells him she shot at a raccoon. When he points out that he heard gunfire from two weapons of different calibers (he's an extremely experienced cop), Harry pops a party favor and insists that it was just him celebrating. The Sheriff buys the story and doesn't press the matter. The problem is that hearing shots from two different caliber weapons means there is likely an exchange of gunfire going on, i.e. two people shooting at each other. When he arrived on the scene and saw D'arcy holding the rifle, he should have ordered her to immediately put the weapon down (pointing his own gun at her if it was necessary to force compliance), before he started trying to sort the situation out. It doesn't matter that he knows D'arcy or that she wasn't holding the weapon in a threatening manner. When responding to a situation, police procedure is anyone holding a weapon must be forced to disarm
- Berserk Button:
- He took it very personally when Harry called him politically incorrect for automatically assuming the serial killer who murdered the person whose corpse is in the lake is male. To be fair to Mike, most people would not enjoy being called offensive and inappropriate. But then Mike continues to make sexist statements about women anyways saying it's just "facts."
- Pressing him to talk about his Dark and Troubled Past also enrages him.
- Clueless Chick-Magnet: Multiple attractive women seem to find him attractive, but he rarely seems to notice - usually because he's too busy being his jerkass self.
- Control Freak: Forces everyone to respect and obey him no matter how extreme his demands get.
- Dead Partner: His backstory. His childhood best friend/police partner, Jesse, was killed while chasing a suspect. The grief eats at Mike because he was the one who directed Jesse to head up the stairs in pursuit.
- Determinator: The sheriff may be a jerk, but as Harry discovers to his cost, he will not stop dredging the lake for the original Harry's corpse.
- Foil: He is a casual-talking, short-tempered authority figure opposite Harry's stoic, stilted-speaking alien.
- Hypocrite:
- He warns Harry not to be funny when a murder case pops up, but Mike himself is a sarcastic Deadpan Snarker who constantly tries to crack jokes even at the most inappropriate times. And he thinks "Big Black" is a funny nickname everyone should call him.
- He scolds Liv for being mean and disrespectful which is rich considering his own treatment of her (and everyone in general). This actually causes her to quit.
- I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Moved to Patience after causing the death of his best friend.
- Insistent Appellation: Inverted: it's Sheriff Thompson who insists on being called "Big Black", which other characters really don't go for (Harry because he doesn't get the racial overtones, the mayor because it makes him uncomfortable to say).
- Jerkass: He is an arrogant megalomaniac and a short-tempered Control Freak who bullies the mayor into letting him make final decisions. His deputy claims that he's really just a teddy bear... with severe anger and control issues, though the first season does not see much of his teddy bear-ness beyond his love of his dog Cletus. The second season begins to paint his behavior in more of a sympathetic light.
- Minority Police Officer: Sheriff Mike is black, which stands in stark contrast to the predominantly white/native population of Patience.
- Race Lift: The sheriff in the comics was white with a handlebar mustache. His actor, Corey Reynolds, is black.
- Scary Black Man: Harry is quite scared of him, but still carelessly aggravates him nonetheless.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: He overrules the mayor on everything from how much of the town's budget is allocated toward the investigation to what town hall space he can commandeer to fill up with police department boxes.
- Self-Applied Nickname: "Big Black," which nobody else calls him.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: For the two municipal leaders, Mike is the brash manly man to Ben's pushover sensitive guy.
- Smart Cop, Dumb Cop: Not so much stupid, but prone to jump instantly to whatever conclusion best suits his ego or his biases and then to hang stubbornly onto it until it's absolutely impossible to sustain (unlike his deputy Liv, who is a considerably better detective when she can get anyone to listen to her).
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: He's quick-tempered and oftentimes rude, which masks that he's never fully gotten over the death of his best friend/partner in the line of duty.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Buys the Nespresso that Deputy Liv always wanted and gives belated credit to her previously-ignored doorknob theory, following her return to the job. In the second season, he becomes more affable once he finally starts dealing with his long-held grief.
- Too Much Information: He seems to have no filter, much to the detriment of whoever's talking to him. Topics he's expounded too much on include Cletus's couch-humping and the nature of the bowel movement he's about to make.
Deputy Liv Baker
Portrayed By: Elizabeth Bowen
The Sheriff's kindly deputy.
- Abusive Parents: A lot of her issues stem from having an emotionally-abusive grandmother.
- Accidental Truth: She tells Max, the mayor's son, that the only reason he can see the alien is because the alien is using mind control that only he can see through because he's special. As far as she knows, she's just humoring a delusional little kid, but she's completely right.
- Butt-Monkey: Gets routinely belittled and ignored by the sheriff (who openly prefers his dog as his favourite deputy), and Harry finds out in episode 3 she has a terrible backstory in accidentally causing her parents' divorce when she was younger after she discovered her dad cheating. Even the bucket she uses to store her soda ends up carrying the original Harry's severed foot at one point.
- Harry's voiceover describes her as a "pet bunny that you yell at so much it starts losing its hair."
- Conspiracy Theorist: Specifically that aliens exist, that she's seen a UFO, and that aliens have erased part of her memory. Everyone else treats her as this, though her beliefs are actually right.
- The Dog Bites Back: Angered how Sheriff Thompson treats her like a dog and his own dog Cletus like a genuine person, Baker squashes the food Thompson ordered for Cletus (but takes it for herself) and ultimately quits her job as deputy.
- Grew a Spine: In "The Green Glow," Sheriff Thompson actually tries to call her out for being insensitive to him and Cletus. His gall is so astonishing that when a burger is brought over as a take-home treat for Cletus, she pounds it with her fist, shouts him down for his own insensitivity, and then tells them that she's quitting. She then takes the burger for herself, saying that it isn't good to waste food.
- Hidden Depths: She's actually shown to have some remarkable detective skills. With a Sherlock Scan, she figures out that the original Harry's severed foot that was dredged up from the lake belongs to a man, and makes extremely accurate guesses as to his age, height and weight. She also assembled her own secret murder board for the Sam Hodges case with some rather keen insights. She is also a skilled sketch artist.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: The investigating she performs independently is more successful and far superior to Sheriff Thompson's heavy-handed approach to the case.
- Intergenerational Friendship: With Sheriff Mike's father, Lewis.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: As described above, she Rage Quits her job as a deputy after Sheriff Thompson has the nerve to chew her out for supposedly being insensitive. She returns after accepting his apology.
- Sherlock Scan: From the skin tone and the size of the severed foot alone, Liv is able to unknowingly figure out that the victim physically resembles Harry. This freaks him out since this confirms the foot belongs to the original Harry.
- Shipper on Deck: Supports Sheriff Mike Thompson and Detective Lena Torres from Jessup getting together and tries to encourage Mike to ask her out on a date.
- Shrinking Violet: She's so shy and awkward that she can't handle the next-of-kin notification for Sam Hodges's death. This results in Sam's widow showing up at the clinic in the middle of his autopsy, not knowing he was dead.
- Smart Cop, Dumb Cop: She's the smart cop next to her dumb boss.
Ben Hawthorne
Portrayed By: Levi Fiehler
The town's well-meaning doormat of a mayor.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: In the comics Mayor Bert Hawthorne is older, white-haired and overweight. In the show mayor Ben Hawthorne is played by Levi Fiehler, who is very distinctly none of those things
. - Age Lift: Mayor Hawthorne is considerably younger than his white-haired comics counterpart.
- Alien Abduction: He is abducted and experimented on by the Greys. This has been going on since his childhood, resulting in his nightmares and his doormat behavior, as the experiences have wounded his psyche.
- Amicable Exes: With D'arcy. They're still good friends and he looks up to her.
- Butt-Monkey: Ben is a genuinely Nice Guy but also a punching bag of the show. The sheriff routinely mocks him and at one point steals his office to investigate the murders, his wife blames him for Max's ranting about aliens thanks to letting him watch E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Harry keeps spilling his therapy secrets to anyone that wanders into their sessions and he ends up violently ill on the lake while dredging for the original Harry's body after accidentally eating dog treats and getting seasick. In the finale he even admits he admires D'arcy's fearlessness because he's scared of everything.
- Easily Elected: He is said to have become mayor because only 16% of the town's adult population even bothered to come out to vote. 41 of those who voted for him were fellow Hawthornes, leaving only 8 outside the family who voted for him.
- Extreme Doormat: It's very easy to take advantage of him, as he doesn't have the guts to stand up to anyone.
- Happily Married: With Kate. He rebuffs D'arcy's drunken kiss because he is happily committed to his wife, though the second season brings to light some problems in their marriage. Ultimately subverted in that it's revealed that he isn't really happy, that he feels he can't be himself around Kate, and that the two of them have wild sex to avoid having actually discussions about sensitive issues.
- Henpecked Husband: Kate rules the roost to the point where Ben feels unable to assert himself at all in their home.
- Hidden Depths: He is really enthusiastic about candle-making, though nobody else appears particularly supportive of this hobby. Season 2 shows that he also knows sleight-of-hand magic.
- Manchild: Admits at one point that he misses childhood. When he gets the house to himself, he indulges in cereal and cartoons for both breakfast and dinner.
- Nice Guy: As while the show takes place in a World of Jerkass, Ben is the nicest guy around and doesn't have one mean bone in his body. But nobody respects him for this, and as a result just walk all over him. Harry treats him like a burden for asking him to cover as the town's doctor, Sheriff Mike tries to wrest the power of authority away from Ben, and his wife blames him for Max freaking out about an alien running around town.
- Papa Wolf: Takes matters into his own hands when his son is held hostage by The Men in Black by grabbing household objects and beating them bloody.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Ben is the sensitive guy to Sheriff Mike's manly man.
- Trademark Favorite Food: He loves spaghetti and tacos, and will get upset if he doesn't have them in any given week.
Max Hawthorne
Portrayed By: Judah Prehn
Ben's son and the sole human in Patience who can see through Harry's disguise.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Harry certainly thinks of him as this.
- Butt-Monkey: Like his father, Max himself is a Butt-Monkey who almost got killed by Harry, gets picked on kids in his school for his panicking rampage that lasted at least a week, his own mother and father don't believe his "wild" claims of the alien and even regret giving birth to him for this.
- The Cassandra: He is the only person who can see Harry as an alien but no one believes him. Eventually, he realizes the constant accusations will do nothing so he and Harry call a truce. He ends up in this position again at the end of season 3, because he's the only one able to see that Harry has been replaced by the Mantid.
- Didn't Think This Through: After Harry eventually gets fed up with Max for breaking into his cabin to steal alien tech, he arranges for Max to be sent to Georgia and be locked up in a mental asylum. Max's parents agree to it. Max desperately offers a truce to Harry that he won't break into Harry's cabin anymore in exchange for cancelling the Georgia trip. Though what Max didn't account for was that Harry would still dump him in Georgia anyways even if he agreed to the truce (which Harry did).
- Gender Flip: He is the show's substitute for Honey from the comics - Honey was a little girl who was the only human who could see Harry in his true form albeit Honey wasn't terrified of Harry nor thought of him as a scary monster.
- Little Stowaway: He is ordered by Asta to run and hide when Harry comes to finish off the Area 51 guards in the season 1 finale. Turns out, Max hid in Harry's spaceship. Harry only discovers him when he's already in space and a long way from Earth.
- Mistaken for Insane: It's usually played for humour (albeit of the dark variety), but Max's ranting and raving that the new doctor is an alien only he can see - leading to his self-admitted recruiting a friend to break into Harry's home - definitely gets serious when his parents get so concerned about him they seriously consider sending him away to a school in Georgia where he can get psychiatric help. Remove the fantastic elements of the series and suddenly seeing a young boy have a seeming break from reality is quite sobering.
- Morality Pet: At the end of Season 1, Max believes he can be this to Harry. He reiterates this when Harry gives him a goodbye gift in the second season finale.
- Profanity Police: Not to Sahar's extent, but he still gets mad and retaliatory towards Harry calling him a "little shit," "dickhead," and "shit-for-brains." He grows used to Harry's vulgar outbursts.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Max deduces the person on the phone is not a post office employee when he (Harry) overestimates the price of a stamp at $100 - because everyone knows stamps are actually $30.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Towards Harry for the first half of Season 1. Much like Dib Membrane from Invader Zim, Max seeks to expose Harry to the town locals. This dynamic re-emerges in Season 2, as Max is mad that Harry won't acknowledge having protected him in the aftermath of the spaceship crash. Harry, in turn, is mad at Max for preventing him from getting home, and for stealing one of the alien balls he converted the spaceship into following the crash.
- Tinfoil Hat: Wears one to protect himself against the alien who he fears may have mind control powers.
- Toilet Humor: Still finding "scatalogical humor" funny is what Sahar cites as an example of Max's immaturity.
- Took a Level in Kindness: He does show genuine concern if not even remorse for Harry after Harry enlists his help in finding his ship and device, most likely as gratitude towards Harry for cancelling the Georgia trip altogether. He even refused to give up Harry's address to The Men in Black when they corner him, though there's also the fact they'll eliminate him as soon as he gives them what they want.
D'arcy Bloom
Portrayed By: Alice Wetterlund
The town's bar owner and bartender. Asta's best friend.
- The Alcoholic: Drinks alongside her patrons, gets sloppy drunk at Ben and Kate's house as Harry's plus-one for dinner, and carries a flask.
- Amicable Exes: With Ben. They're still good friends.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Her taste in men, (though she formerly dated Nice Guy Ben and begins dating a new Nice Guy Eliott).
- Best Friend: To Asta. They've been best friends since school.
- Career-Ending Injury: She was once an Olympic skier, but shattered her leg and had to return to Patience.
- Commitment Issues: Doesn't think she's worthy of good things, leading her to never commit beyond one-night stands where she leaves before the guy wakes up. Elliot is the first guy she doesn't ditch, though she very nearly ends up pushing him away too. He ends up leaving her instead.
- Cool Aunt: In the first-season finale, she learns that Jay is Asta's daughter, and, having no other real direction in life, decides to become an aunt figure for Jay, since she's not ready to talk to her biological family or her adopted family about her conflicted feelings.
- Determinator: Climbs thirty feet up a crevasse with a fractured hand, then rope lifts Harry and Asta to safety before driving through a storm on a snow mobile and then in Harry's truck to get them all to the nearest hospital.
- Drinking on Duty: She drinks when her customers do.
- Jerkass: She gleefully brings up the fact that she is Ben's ex-girlfriend in front of his wife, points out that technically, she never actually broke up with Ben, and jokingly calls Kate "sister-wife", which Kate clearly doesn't appreciate.
- Passionate Sports Girl: In addition to Olympic-caliber skiing, D'arcy plays catcher for a local baseball team.
- Really Gets Around: Judy and D'arcy tease each other for their promsicuity.
- Sports Hero Backstory: She used to be an Olympic-level snowboarder before suffering an injury. According to Liv, she was the most famous person ever to come out of Patience.
- Truth in Television: Her depression mirrors what many Olympic athletes go through after their intense athletic careers come to a close.
- Unaffected by Spice: Perennial winner of the Annual Family Day Hot Chili Pepper Eating Contest, other than the one year there was an Ethiopian exchange student.
- Undiscriminating Addict: Normally a drinker, but not a stranger to other drugs. In the second season, she goes through an addiction to painkillers.D'arcy: I had a couple edibles and a pill I found in my couch.
Sahar Karimi
Portrayed By: Gracelyn Awad Rinke
A Muslim classmate of Max's and the only person who believes him.
- Adorably Precocious Child: Sahar is remarkably responsible and serious for her age, helping Max in his bid to expose Harry as being an alien. Though she does act like a kid as well, it's part of her charm.
- Against My Religion: Sahar doesn't look at Max's bare back, saying as a Muslim it's forbidden since he's not her husband (it's somewhat amusing as they're both kids, but Sahar's perfectly serious in saying this). Later she tells Harry that divorce is against her religion unless it's initiated by the husband and therefore she's never getting married.
- Ambiguously Brown: Sahar is olive-skinned, though her ethnicity hasn't yet been revealed.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear if she sincerely believes Max or if she just befriends him because he was nice to her. (Though even if she isn't quite sure of his story at first, the floating apple in "Birds of a Feather" is proof enough of his story.) Some of her comments in the second season imply that a large part of why she's helping Max is because of the fact that she has an interest in space travel. She eventually discovers Harry's alien baby and tries to raise it as her own, making it clear that she now fully believes, if she didn't before.
- Artistic License – Religion: Sahar declares she'll never get married, as only men can initiate divorce in Islam (which as a young feminist she dislikes). However, there's at least three methods where a woman is able to. Sahar might just not know, making it an In-Universe example.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Max helps her pick up her things after a bully knocks them down. She then becomes the only person to sit with him at lunch.
- Breath-Holding Brat: Her effective negotiation tactic.
- The Comically Serious: Sahar is a very serious girl who rarely smiles and doesn't joke (though she's very sarcastic), which leads to funny moments such as her looking away from Max's naked back since they aren't married (saying it's forbidden as she's a Muslim), when they're both kids.
- Consummate Liar: She easily spins convincing lies to cover up any alien business that she and Max get into.
- Crazy-Prepared: Keeps an air horn handy and isn't afraid to use it.
- Hyper-Awareness: She manages to pick up on the fact the boy "Bobby Smallwood" is the alien baby having disguised himself as a human just from his odd behavior despite not having Max's ability to see through an alien disguise.
- Little Miss Con Artist: Uses a Staged Pedestrian Accident when switching places with Max as Lisa and David are tailing him. She then successfully demands $100 under threat of calling the police about the "collision." (She also manages to tape Kate's phone to the RV during this.)
- Little Miss Snarker: She delivers many witty retorts.Sahar: But they don't always wear black, and they're not only men.Harry: Then why do they call them "Men in Black"?Sahar: Because it's cooler than calling them "People in Clothes." It's pretty obvious.
- Not So Stoic: In "The Alien Within," she breaks down crying after the government agents manage to get the alien baby, telling Harry she just wanted one more day together. Harry thinks to himself that he's never seen her cry before and is even prompted to "say something humans say to make each other feel better."
- Only Sane Woman: While Sahar does have a couple of Cloud Cuckoolander and Entertainingly Wrong moments of her own, she's generally more sensible than Max. Whereas Max's attempts to expose Harry repeatedly fail because he's too impatient, Sahar is willing to make plans and strategize, which enables her and Max to break into Harry's house and find actual, tangible proof that he's an extraterrestrial.
- Profanity Police: She gets irritated whenever someone cusses or uses profanity around her.
- Put on a Bus: At the start of Season 3, she gets accepted into a prestigious Californian school for gifted students and has to move away from Patience. The bus later comes back in the penultimate episode of the season, in which she admits that the program wasn't working out for her because she was only average among the students in it. Showrunner Chris Sheridan had previously stated that she would be back later in the season and they just had to write her off for a while because of a scheduling conflict.
- Soapbox Sadie: Though it's downplayed, Sahar is a young feminist judging by her saying things such as "strong women will not go away" and quite bold in standing up for what she believes overall.
- Token Religious Teammate: A practicing Muslimah. She wears hijab, occasionally apologizes to Allah, and abstains from haram practices such as looking at her friend Max's bare back.
- Twofer Token Minority: She's a Muslim girl of color and wears the hijab (the only other hijabi shown being her mother, which isn't surprising in a small town).
- Wrong Genre Savvy: She makes a lot of assumptions about what Harry wants to do after learning he's an alien, most of the time though she's way off the mark. She thought he was using a device to radio his home planet to signal an invasion when he was trying to tell them not to destroy the Earth, and thinks the alien baby she and Max found was something Harry was breeding for "evil", when it was actually something another alien entrusted him with (or, at least, an alternate version of himself), and the only way he'd be able to breed one would be if he died.
- Young Entrepreneur: Runs a dog-walking business.
General McCallister
Portrayed By: Linda Hamilton
A US Air Force general stationed in Roswell, New Mexico who is hunting for Harry. McCallister is the main antagonist of Resident Alien. Born Eleanor Wright.
- …And That Little Girl Was Me: Episode 6 opened with a little girl and her father living in a lighthouse near the beach in the early 1970s experiencing a power outage before they realized an alien ship above them was the cause of their power disturbance. The little girl kept taking pictures of the UFO - and at the end of episode 6 we see an old, hardened ruthless female military commander holding pictures of a UFO to compare against Harry's ship.
- Area 51: She is the commanding officer of Area 51, a top-secret government facility in New Mexico that preserves evidence of alien life.
- Armies Are Evil: She is an antagonistic military commander who will kill US citizens to acquire evidence of alien life such as alien ships if not even a real live alien.
- Bad Boss: She tears apart Air Force private David Logan's relationship with his own girlfriend through a forged text message and classifies Lisa Casper as his legal wife.
- Big Bad: She is the main antagonist of Resident Alien, conducting an investigation through her ruthless agent Lisa Casper (who murders people who have witnessed proof of alien life) to capture the alien (Harry) responsible for piloting the spaceship they have locked up in Area 51. She's mostly been hidden for the first 5 episodes of the show but makes her grand entry in the sixth. By the second season finale, she has seemingly ceded her Big Bad role to the Greys and will likely be allying with Harry to try to save the Earth.
- Freudian Excuse: Her father was Driven to Suicide after being considered crazy following their alien encounter. The pain of her loss turned her into a hardened alien hunter.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: She used to be a sweet kid, but her encounter with a UFO (possibly The Greys) that knocked out the power of her and her father's home and lighthouse turned her into a psychopathic alien hunter. And it was more than just this: when nobody believed her father, he committed suicide, but this only fueled her to dig deeper.
- The Men in Black: She claims she is not this, but they are her superiors.
Lisa Casper
Portrayed By: Mandell Maughan
A Woman In Black working for General McAllister to find signs of alien life, especially a live alien itself. Casper is the secondary antagonist of Resident Alien.
- Character Death: Harry decapitates her.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Casper is this to McAllister. She's probably even more ruthless than McAllister herself (though mostly because we haven't seen much of McAllister in the series so far), since she has no qualms killing innocent people for simply witnessing alien life forms.
- The Heavy: To McAllister.
- The Men in Black: A woman in black.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: Her first impulse to solve any situation is to murder people. At one point she even wants to have Harry shot despite thinking at the time that he was a random civilian.
- Oh, Crap!: She has just enough time to realize Harry is an alien right before the train relieves her of her head.
- The Sociopath: She shows absolutely no remorse for murdering innocent civilians whose only "crime" is getting even remotely close to alien activity. She even casually makes jokes about her murders, which further alienates her from her partner, David.
- The Stoic: She displays little to no emotion, is very machine-like in personality, not even Harry's ship glowing green startles her much, and will kill anyone without hesitation or reason.
- Strong Girl, Smart Guy: With David. He deduces the presence of aliens without being told of their existence and uses his knowledge of ancient civilizations to correctly identify that Harry had come to kill. Lisa, on the other hand, has no qualms about killing anyone who gets too close to their mission.
- Would Hurt a Child: Draws her gun on Max when interrogating him about Harry's whereabouts.
David Logan
Portrayed By: Alex Barima
A military lieutenant who discovers signs of alien life and is partnered with Lisa Casper by General McAllister to follow the lead.
- Agent Mulder: He believed in aliens before McAllister confirmed they were real and had performed extensive research into them. He was even trying to convince his superiors of their exsistence when he detected Harry's ship.
- Black and Nerdy: His technical skills and historical knowledge consistently bring McAllister closer to discovering Harry.
- Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Reluctantly starts to try taking up this role for Lisa. However, it's very clear he has little to no control over her and the best he can do is minimize civilian casualties.
- The Men in Black: Becomes one at the very start of the series. Whilst he accepts the position, McAllister makes it clear he really didn't have a choice in the matter.
- Minion with an F in Evil: He's not evil or malicious in any way, and vocally opposes much of Lisa Casper's sociopathic ways. A big chunk of his dialogue are variations of You're Insane! towards Casper.
- Naïve Newcomer: To General McAllister's Men In Black, with his inexperience and aversion to collateral damage making him a Foil to Lisa Casper.
- Only Mostly Dead: He's shot by an alien sniper, but the alien ball in his possession saves him.
- The Smart Guy: Serves this role in General McAllister's alien-hunting operation.
- Strong Girl, Smart Guy: With Lisa. He deduces the presence of aliens without being told of their existence and uses his knowledge of ancient civilizations to correctly identify that Harry had come to Kill All Humans. Lisa, on the other hand, has no qualms about killing anyone who gets too close to their mission.
Other Characters
Jay
Portrayed By: Kaylayla Raine
A teenage intern at the clinic. She is also Asta's biological daughter, though she doesn't know it initially.
- Apathetic Clerk: She's an intern who works at the clinic for school credit (later a diner waitress) and pretty blasé about everything.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: She calls Asta "Ms. Twelvetrees" because she doesn't know who her biological parents are at first.
- Drives Like Crazy: In the short time she's had a license, she's already managed to rack up six tickets.
- Happily Adopted: Jay has an overall happy relationship with her adoptive mom (aside from the ordinary spats).
- Hates Their Parent: Knew her father was abusive to her mother before she knew they were her biological parents. Threatens him with bodily harm and destroys his car in their first encounter as father and daughter.
- Twofer Token Minority: She is Native American and also queer; in season 3, it's revealed that she has a girlfriend.
Kate Hawthorne
Portrayed By: Meredith Garretson
Ben's wife and Max's mother. She is also a teacher at Max's school.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: When D'arcy and Ben reminisce about their grade school years and former relationship, Kate becomes this.
- Embarrassing Relative Teacher: She tries to hang out with her son during lunch in front of all his classmates. Max is not happy about that.
- Family Versus Career: Works as a small-town school teacher despite being a lawyer, having given up her career prospects and dream of living in New York City by marrying Ben and having Max.
- Friendless Background: Despite having lived in Patience for awhile, she hasn't made any friends.
- Happily Married: With Ben. (Cracks start to show in the second season.)
- Hidden Depths: Has a JD/PhD in Environmental Law from CU Boulder, making her a lawyer with a doctorate.
- In Love with Your Carnage: Beating on the government agents holding Max with her husband rekindles their relationship and while recounting the incident to Deputy Baker, she keeps gushing about how hot Ben was while swinging a floor lamp.
- Mama Bear: Busts out of the closet she's locked in and joins her husband in beating up The Men in Black holding their son hostage.
- Passionate Sports Girl: She was a champion runner in college. She and D'arcy bond over their athletic histories.
- Powerful People Are Subs: She generally dominates Ben in their social interactions, but after their sex life hots up, we see from one of Ben’s smartphone pictures that she’s the one who enjoys getting tied up, blindfolded and ball-gagged.
- Surprise Pregnancy: Discovers she's pregnant in the second season, much to her dismay. Later learns, however, that it was a false positive. It is then revealed later on that it was not, in fact, a false positive, but rather that her child was abducted by the Greys.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She gets clingy to the first female "willing" to befriend her (Lisa Casper), and agrees to let Lisa babysit Max. What Kate doesn't know is that Lisa is a psychopathic serial killing alien hunter who only wants Max for his knowledge of Harry and will kill the boy after getting what she wants.
- Urine Trouble: Accidentally pees on D'arcy's hand during a pregnancy test. When D'arcy jokingly tells her that it's okay, she's been peed on before, Kate admits that she has too and that she "kinda likes it." After a slightly disturbed D'arcy says she was talking about a frog doing it that she picked up as a kid, Kate tries to walk it back and claims she meant frogs too.
Dan Twelvetrees
Portrayed By: Gary Farmer
Asta's father and the owner of Joe's Diner.
- Antagonistic Offspring: He and Asta are on good terms with each other, but it's implied it wasn't always this way. He didn't even know Asta's child was a girl until the child was almost an adult.
- Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: According to Asta, he never likes any man she's close with (as her apparent first was an abusive prick, it might be at least somewhat justified).
- Magical Native American: Maybe. He has a "bad feeling" about men around Asta, though that might just be him being overprotective. He's disturbed when he gets no "feelings" from Harry at all.
- Mellow Fellow: Even the idea of aliens coming to wipe out humanity does not shake him.
- Survivor Guilt: Dan's friend Joe was killed when they were ambushed in Vietnam and despite doctors telling him there was nothing he could have done, he couldn't shake the guilt for a long time.
- Token Religious Teammate: He's the only adult who really expresses religious beliefs, telling Asta she should perform mourning rituals in Sam's honor as he believes Sam's spirit will linger otherwise.
Kayla
Portrayed By: Sarah Podemski
Asta's cousin and mother of Sage. She lives outside Patience and works as a lawyer.
- Foil: To Asta. Kayla is married and raising her young son, while Asta is a divorcee who secretly had and gave up a child for adoption.
Jimmy Foster
Portrayed By: Ben Cotton
Asta's abusive ex-husband and the father of Jay.
- Didn't Think This Through: Sold Sam's prescription pads to someone who worked at the school.
- Domestic Abuse: He was physically abusive to Asta and his other girlfriends.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: He's still a bad-tempered loudmouth jerkass, but he's learned his lesson not to antagonize and threaten Asta anymore after a painful choke-and-hold from Harry almost got him killed.
- I Have No Daughter!: Acts as though Jay never exists, and pressures Asta to do the same.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Whenever he wrongs someone, they pay him back with very large interest.
- Harry nearly chokes him to death for his abrasive treatment of Asta, and bodyguards her as a constant reminder he's more than eager to do so again.
- Jay gets back at him for being a terrible father by crashing his truck down a hill leaving him without a vehicle and most likely liable for collision damages.
- Pants-Positive Safety: He carries a gun like this, which he uses to threaten Harry. Which only makes Harry angry and launch a surprise strangulation attack.
- Teen Pregnancy: He got Asta pregnant when they were teenagers, then pressured her into giving up the baby.
Sam Hodges
Portrayed By: Jan Bos
The previous doctor in Patience, Colorado.
- Never Suicide: His death initially appears to be suicide in Harry's judgment, although those close with dispute that he had any reason for that. On further examination, though, he was poisoned.
- Parental Substitute: He was this to Asta due to her falling out with her own father over her teen pregnancy. Harry recognizing it's one of the reasons she's taking his death so hard is one of the first major glimmers of humanity he shows. Dan before was also this for her, as he isn't her birth father but raised Asta as her mother abandoned her when she was little (we don't hear what became of her birth father).
- Plot-Triggering Death: His death kicks off the plot because it forces the town to seek out the doctor vacationing in a cabin nearby to take over Sam's duties (and conduct the autopsy).
- Posthumous Character: He's dead by the time Harry arrives in Patience, but his presence is empathized and relegated to flashbacks Asta has about how much he's helped her. In second season flashbacks, his background is fleshed out in potentially less-savory directions.
- Small Role, Big Impact: He died before the events of the first episode but his murder is a long-running storyline. He was also a surrogate father to Asta and even arranged the adoption of her daughter, Jay.
- Super Doc: Sam was the only town doctor and apparently worked as both a medical doctor and a psychotherapist. Harry takes up both duties after the first episode.
Abigail Hodges
Sam's wife who runs a salon in town.
- Convicted by Public Opinion: Her neighbors ostracize her despite nothing having been proven in the court of law.
- Miscarriage of Justice: She gets arrested by Sheriff Mike because he suspected that she was the one who poisoned her husband Sam with the Botulinum toxin on the grounds she kept calling another man named Thomas and was likely to be having an affair with him. However, the Season 1 finale reveals the actual human Dr. Harry Vanderspiegle was the one who did so, and that Abigail is sitting in jail for nothing.
- No Sympathy: After her husband Sam dies, all she seems to care about is the money she'll get from his insurance policy. Subverted in season 2, where she's shown grieving over Sam while selling some of his possessions.
Isabelle
- Portrayed By: Elvy Yost
Harry's estranged wife who married him back in New York City after bonding over art and music.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: In "Love Language," she tries to divorce Harry, and the Alien posing as Harry immediately signs the divorce papers without hesitation. This leaves her confused and a bit disappointed she didn't get much of a dejected reaction from him and is curious as to why alien Harry isn't demanding she take the blame for their marriage falling apart like the real Harry did, so she tries warming up to Harry instead. When Harry tells her to leave anyways after their first reunion dinner ("Scrubs the pans before you leave"), Isabelle begs him for another chance by singing Nat King Cole's Nature Boy - the song that dominated their honeymoon.
- The Load: In "Sexy Beast," she keeps slowing down Harry's progress in getting his device (to fry all humans) and ship back and operational, which makes Harry decide to knock her out with sedative pills which he keeps spiking her coffee with and demanding that she drink. When Harry outright calls her this trope in "Green Glow" (not out of sincerity but just to put up a fake story for the government agents and their armed snipers spying on them), Isabelle packs her bags and goes.
- Put on a Bus: She leaves for New York after being fed up with Harry constantly drugging her and then lastly calling her a burden on his private space.
- Stay in the Kitchen: Harry (the alien) really only wanted her around as his cook to make dinner each night.
- Wine Is Classy: Is a sophisticated artist who orders wine at The 59. Unfortunately for her, Patience is a whiskey kind of town.
Judy Cooper
Portrayed By: Jenna Lamia
A ditzy clerk at the local bowling alley (among many jobs).
- The Ditz: Thinks she's psychic for a cat being the first thing she sees after dreaming of a cat, despite sleeping with her cat. Also writes her phone number on her own hand rather than on a guy's. Her ditziness is attributed at least in part to the toxic chemicals she uses to clean the shoes at the bowling alley.
- Dumb Blonde: Has bright blonde hair and not a lot of sense.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: To the audience, she seems adorable, but D'arcy and the rest of the women at GN59 reject her because she's clingy, ditzy, and one-sidedly considers herself D'arcy's best friend. Rejection doesn't seem to bother her.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Gets sloppy drunk when alcohol's involved.D'arcy: Okay, uh, Judy's clothes are coming off.
- Naked Freak-Out: Averted. She has to be stripped naked waist down for a pelvic exam from Harry, who while bungling around on his phone to google answers, accidentally takes a snapshot of her vagina. She asks about this in a rather flirtatious way but Harry lies to her it was just a selfie of himself.
- New Job as the Plot Demands: She's a bowling alley clerk when scenes take place there, an exploitative tour guide when Ben tries to fix Patience's "murder town" reputation, and a No-Tell Motel clerk when Harry, Asta, and D'arcy need to dispose of a body in the motel pool.
- Really Gets Around: D'arcy jokingly calls her a slut or "Miss Chlamydia."
Ellen Cho
Portrayed By: Diana Bang
A sarcastic nurse who works at the Patience clinic.
- Bavarian Fire Drill: Recommends wearing nurse scrubs and running while grabbing items off a shelf as an effective theft method, as people will think it's for an emergency rather than the actual Five-Finger Discount that it is.
- Deadpan Snarker: Most of her appearances involve sarcastic interactions.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Implied as happening offscreen, as Dr. Ethan's arrival means she has "something nice to look at for once." She shamelessly rates the attractiveness of the doctors she works under.
- Unaffected by Spice: She effortlessly wins the chili pepper-eating contest on Family Day without even breaking a sweat and, true to character, walks offstage flipping the audience the bird.
Dr. Ethan Stone
Portrayed By: Michael Cassidy
The doctor hired to permanently take over as Patience's town doctor.
- The Ace: Beyond his capability as a physician, he is a former Olympian, volunteered with Médecins Sans Frontières, speaks French, and makes elaborate breakfasts from scratch.
- Accidental Kidnapping: Is kidnapped because Max said the town doctor is an alien. The previous one was.
- Always Someone Better: In contrast to Harry, Dr. Ethan is friendly, attractive, and a knowledgeable physician.
- Hospital Hottie: The first thing described about him is his looks.
- Nice Guy: His good-naturedness makes everyone (other than Harry) like him easily.
No. 42/Octopus
Voiced By: Nathan Fillion
The octopus in a fishtank at an Asian restaurant in Patience.
- Clashing Cousins: With Harry. They trade barbs about each other's predicaments.
- Healing Hands: Can use his tentacles to heal memory loss.
- Killed Off for Real: Considering he was mauled by a dog and that after failed resuscitation attempts, Harry ate him...
- Snarky Non Human Side Kick: Snarks frequently at Harry and Asta.
- Talking Animal: Octopuses can talk to humans; they just don't like to.
- Telepathy: Speaks telepathically and reads minds.
- You Are Number 6: Harry calls him No. 42, as that's the octopus dish on the restaurant menu.
Elliott
Portrayed By: Justin Rain
An archaeologist from Jessup who becomes romantically involved with D'arcy.
- Nice Guy: D'arcy is caught off-guard by his genuine kindness and willingness to give her a second chance after she stood him up on their first date.
SPOILER Characters
The Greys
The Greys. A hostile alien species with technology more advanced than even that of Harry's kind, to the point that they serve as a malicious threat to ALL forms of life across the universe.
- Aliens Are Bastards: Harry notes they do horrible things like abducting unborn children, performing painful to even lethal autopsies on subjects and just for the fun of it do anal probing.
- Anal Probing: Harry notes they have an ass fetish and are obsessed with putting things up people's butts.
- The Dreaded: Even Harry and his people fear the Greys for their technological superiority. While Harry says that there are various unfriendly species out there in the universe, he believes the Greys really take the cake.
- The Ghost: They did not appear on-screen other than through art made by humans. They finally appear on-screen in the second season in "Harry, a Parent," with a Grey voiced by George Takei.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Greys are the overarching antagonists of Resident Alien. Not only have they been kidnapping humans (and fetuses) for experimentation, it is revealed in the second season that they are planning to completely desolate the Earth and already have once before in an alternate timeline.
- Telepathic Spacemen: They can seemingly communicate with anyone telepathically, whether it be their own kind, humans, or members of Harry's species.
- Tracking Chip: The Greys input a metallic microchip inside people they either abducted or were present in the abduction scene as part of a tracking device.
Joseph Rainier
Portrayed By: Enver Gjokaj
A mole for the Greys employed under McAllister's command.
- Child of Two Worlds: As a half-human, half-Grey hybrid. He seems to be firmly on the side of the Greys, but Harry deduces they're keeping Joseph Locked Out of the Loop about the full extent of their plans.
- Cold Sniper: His first appearance is sniping David Logan during a clandestine meet with McAllister. After all, his allegiance is to the Greys, so humans are just obstacles.
- Foil: To Harry, as both are aliens living amongst humans. Joseph is a suave and cold soldier, whereas Harry is an awkward and emotional doctor.
- Heel–Face Turn: He unexepectedly joins Harry and Asta's team in the season 3 finale, after learning that the Greys' plan will make Earth unihabitable to him.
- The Mole: He is a guard in McAllister's black-ops alien facility. Unbeknownst to her, he's a Grey. He later assumes the same role working as a Patience sheriff's office deputy.
- Shame If Something Happened: While on a date with Asta, he figures out she already knows what he is. He then begins subtly threatening the safety of her father unless she gives him information about Harry.
