How Did ‘Resident Alien’ End? Boss Breaks Down Series Finale Twists (Exclusive)

As for sticking the landing, Sheridan was well aware that he had some heavy lifting ahead of him. Not only did he need to tie up four seasons of story complete with goodbyes, he also had to plant a few seeds for a possible fifth season should the show have been picked up.

Hence, the return of Michael Cassidy‘s Dr. Ethan, who was killed and taken over by a new alien from Harry’s planet in the episode’s opening minutes. As Asta (Sara Tomko) finally decided to leave Patience to help hurricane victims in Louisiana, Kate (Meredith Garretson) eyed a return to lawyering, D’Arcy (Alice Wetterlund) connected with a fellow recovering alcoholic with dreams of skiing professionally, and Harry readied for his return home to be with lady-bird love, Heather (Edi Patterson), Sheridan made sure that there was enough story to set up what could come next by having Dr. Ethan share the same kind of humanizing, hip-shaking night at the The 59 that Harry did in the pilot.

“If we could show him dancing, then the audience would know, ‘Oh, this is the path that he’s on. He also is going to be more human than an alien and everything is going to be fine,’” he explains.

Maarten de Boer

After the crying, that is. Without an ounce of forced maudlin, Alien gave us a deeply moving ending that still managed to sneak in the subversive humor and even a surprise twist we are 100% into.

“The first cut came in like 15 minutes long,” Sheridan says. “That’s the challenge with this show because we do have a lot to say…but even in those moments where we have a lot to say about humanity and stuff, I never wanted to feel like you’re standing on a soapbox. You really have to try to cut it when possible so it doesn’t feel like you’re preachy.”

James Dittiger/USA Network

Eventually, he was able to get the final edit down to an episode that was four minutes longer than usual. “I tried to make it as efficient as possible with the goodbyes but I didn’t want to lose a lot of that emotion. And because this was the finale, I don’t think it felt long and we were able to get most of it in. There’s a lot of goodbyes in there. You didn’t really have to see all of them. I didn’t have to see an Asta-Dan goodbye,” he continues. “That was sort of handled in that scene where they sort of say, ‘We don’t say goodbye. We say see you sometime.’ But I knew we had to see an Asta-D’Arcy goodbye.

“I also knew I wanted to do something with Liv [Elizabeth Bowen] and Mike [Corey Reynolds] that was totally well-earned, especially for Mike,” he says of the inspired move to have the verbose sheriff and his sweetly sardonic deputy be recruited by the Men in Black. “Immediately I’m already expecting people are going to be like, ‘Oh, we want to watch that show!’”